Being different or thinking different in the Apple Commercial provided in this week assignment is refreshing to watch as a student and a challenger of innovation of change in the workplace. This week blog is to review leaders who attempted system wide change effectively, and those who were not so successful within my experiences. Additionally key elements from my perspective of what is required for a leader to be successful.

In my blog I will reference the same system wide change in my company that had both negative and positive success. When the company I worked for lost its recertification from the Department of Defense (DoD) due to the companies cost and performance system did not meet industry standard it created a massive system wide change. The macro change is a reporting system that was universal for all aircraft production and sustainment covering six major aircraft programs within four corporate sites, within three different time zones.

Inefficiencies

In the initial process to design a team to take the charge of this system wide change included all the vice presidents of production, engineering, supply chain, modernization, reliability, information technology, and business management. The company elected to select a single leader that would oversee the entire progress within these teams. These leaders created a Microsoft Project (MSP) to create a baseline on what they thought would be the perfect corrective action to fix the issue and made an assumption this would easily be done within a one year calendar period of time.

The one year corrective plan was accepted by the customer, and as soon as it was blessed problems started to arise. The first issue is when the VPs were asked to bring their key directors, senior managers, managers, and subject matters experts to a working meeting to discuss their tool, process, and integration issues, it quickly became the finger pointing scenario which covered processes are all different on each program, tools are used at a convenience of programs, and no one wanted to take ownership of any of the problems discovered by the higher level executives. As a subject matter expert in Control Account Management (CAM), it was humorous to me. The largest inefficiency occurred when I observed a VP totally rip up a new hire in front of everyone because he wasn’t moving fast enough on the computer. The behavior of the leaders in charge were not professional as problems were people bouncing and their subordinates where watching them behave like children. All those at my level knew not to say a word.

I feel the inefficiency in this approach is the wrong people were in charge of the corrective action. I think the corrective action was too broad, and needed to be broken up by program and even more to functions within the program. I think this should have been down first prior to giving a corrective action given to the customer for approval. I say this as the corrective action did not have viable supportive information to hold it accurate or credible.  The end result of this approach left the company asking for an extension to developing that corrective action plan. The company was given a two-year plan to identify their root cause, plan for change, and challenges that would require additional time.

Efficiencies

The two year plan was accepted. The main change in the new plan is a key leader was identified to represent each major program within the aeronautics business unit of the company. Each of those key leaders would create their plan that would be used to measure against the macro corrective actions. Additionally, the company invested in a third-party group to intervene with each of the programs, and would report back common issues, or opportunities that were working well. The third-party group were independent and not a part of the corporation, and remained on contract throughout the two year corrective action development. This third-party group became the spokesperson to the VP’s of the company. This restructure removed the finger pointing and allowed the key program leaders to focus on their people, tools, processes, and most importantly provide a single line of communication that was real-time which was relevant and respected.

At the micro level on the teams, I was selected to mentor and help other CAMs on various team how to conduct root cause analysis, anomaly corrections, and learn to be self-sufficient in their role which would improve the upper level changes. Anytime there was a new idea that was generated, I would get the action to go test the concept and provide feedback. This effort allowed me to build on my own leadership skills. People still call me today for help, even though I am no longer on the aircraft program.

Successful Leaders

From my perspective, successful leaders need one major skill and that is to listen. In the same effort the inefficiency was centered on a bunch of leaders who would not listen to what each other was saying, they gained power by talking over one another, and did not lead by example by accepting any responsibility.  When you are in aerospace industry that can build the best fifth generation war fighter, but cannot build solid processes and tools to do the job, and loses its performance certification from the customer is pretty embarrassing. There was always the joke that we are smart enough to design and build an aircraft, but cannot write a process. I think leaders can be taught all their skills of leading, communicating and executing, but they cannot effectively do any of this if they don’t stop and listen and apply accountability within themselves. I learned when I went to army basic training over 25 years ago they embedded the four factors of leadership which is the leader, the led, the situation and the communication. Every leadership opportunity has those four factors and listening helps each of them to be successful.

System wide changes can be successfully done and be an epic failure depending on the scenario. You can have too many leaders or even not enough. I feel it depends if its behavior, structure, technological or all the above. In the company scenario provided I believe it had to have interventions in all three areas before it was successful. I think if they had this week’s course to break it down into the three interventions I may have helped with the organization of the change efforts.