Reaching your organization's full potential
When your organization needs more problem solvers, what do you do – develop them or hire them?
The fixed mindset calls this a “talent gap”. As Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck suggests, the fixed mindset sees talent as something inherent and unchangeable – you are born with it. Fixed-mindset managers, then, focus on “buying the missing resources” by hiring or replacing people. The growth mindset, on the other hand, sees talent as capabilities that people can develop. Therefore, leaders with this mindset close the gap by “making”, that is, by teaching and coaching people.
The approach of lean leaders derives, in part, from Fujio Cho's famous quote: “First, we build people; then, we build cars”. This aligns perfectly with the growth mindset. For non-lean leaders, the growth mindset is aligned with resource constraints (many are unable to hire more people) and with values (many are committed to their current team members).
The main challenge, then, is how can you, as a leader, develop the capabilities of everyone in your organization? First, let's understand why so many leaders choose to hire rather than develop. There is a standardized process for hiring people; that is why it seems to be a more straightforward process. What these leaders may not realize, however, is that there is also an established standardized approach to developing talent.
It is the A3 process – a way for leaders and managers to help their people develop problem-solving capabilities. This process offers leaders at all levels a structured way to guide team members through taking ownership of meaningful problems, gathering and communicating critical facts, fostering change collaboratively, and being open – or even eager – to receive coaching.
A virtual trip to the gemba
I was able to see the potential and power of this approach at a recent meeting I had with dozens of leaders from Turner Construction's New York business unit. Turner Construction, in my opinion, is a growth-mindset company (and a shared learning partner of LEI). The company invests heavily in its people, including its subcontractors. I have already written an article (in English) about the company's initiative to “create the right environment” so that its people can succeed and grow. In this “right environment”, Turner is using the A3 process to develop its people's problem-solving capability. The meeting I was invited to is just one of the mechanisms they have developed for this purpose.
At the meeting, which takes place on a rotating basis, individuals present their A3s focused on important problems to a group of senior leaders (vice presidents, for example). After the presentation, the executives give feedback to the author of the A3, who is also known as the problem solver. The meeting is a way to (a) disseminate information and get input from top leaders, (b) recognize and give feedback to people who are trying to make things better, and (c) implicitly signal the importance of A3 thinking and, by extension, of lean thinking and practice. The A3s are also displayed in the business unit's obeya.
Before the meeting I attended, the A3 that would be presented was sent out for pre-reading. So I took the time to print it, read it, and make notes in the margins. The problem-solving effort had been initiated, the A3 explained, after a failed bid on a highly coveted project. When the virtual meeting began, the author of the A3 immediately started the presentation. When he finished, the meeting facilitator asked: “Questions? Comments?”. A few hands went up, and after a few questions and answers, the meeting ended.
After witnessing one component of Turner's expanding management system – a system built, in part, to facilitate capability development –, I thought about how they had started working with the A3 process.
Building lean leadership
A few years ago, the business unit's leaders organized a series of learning cohorts to receive training and coaching on the A3 process. They accepted the premise that the A3 process would foster problem-solving skills and facilitate a new coaching-based approach to management. Each cohort went through two learning cycles: first as problem solvers and then as coaches to other problem solvers. The first cohort included about a dozen leaders. Subsequent cohorts were made up of their direct reports. In this way, the overall learning process was “leader-led”.
To begin, the learners took ownership of real problems to be solved. One example was a hospital project that fell behind schedule due to problems with the installation of the exterior wall, also known as the curtain wall. They learned how to frame these problems as measurable gaps to be closed. In this example, a gap was defined between the required and actual installation rates.
Next, the learners were challenged to understand and analyze the facts of the current situation. In the A3 mentioned above, the problem solver reviewed the overall project schedule, visited the job site to directly observe the installation process (he also visited the factory where the panels are manufactured), talked with the installers to get their perspective, and analyzed the facts to identify the root causes and/or obstacles. He organized his findings and his thinking on the left side of an A3-size sheet of paper, which he then used to engage the key stakeholders.
Once the problem, its processes and its causes/obstacles were understood, the learners were encouraged to collaboratively brainstorm and experiment with potential countermeasures. In the case of the curtain wall problem, this included new ways to fabricate, deliver and install. To monitor progress in closing the installation rate gap, the leader set up a rudimentary management system.
Once the first “on-the-job” learning cycle was completed, the same leaders made the transition from problem solvers to coaches. Because Turner had started the series of cohorts with the business unit's top leaders, they became problem-solving coaches for their direct reports. As a result, coaching problem solvers in a structured way was becoming a primary expression and practice of their leadership.
Leveraging lean leadership
Turner Construction's New York business unit has gone beyond the programmatic approach of developing lean leaders through learning cohorts. Today, people who have been through the cohorts are leading teams on job sites and in the office. Based on what I witnessed at the virtual meeting, they lead these teams differently than they did a few years ago.
Rather than simply hoping for a better result on the next bid, an emerging leader was assigned to improve the process by reflecting on what went wrong. To carry out the assignment, he was expected to follow the A3 process, an expectation that is reinforced in the weekly meetings.
For example, after the A3 presentation was finished, a senior leader asked the author of the A3 how he had come to understand the bidding process. In response, the author acknowledged that he still needed to “go to the gemba”. I was very happy with this exchange! Why?
To begin with, the senior leader who asked the question is very experienced. He has participated in and led the bidding process for decades. No doubt he had many ideas about how to improve the process and solve its problems. But given his experience with the A3 process, instead of focusing on the proposed solutions, he asked how the problem solver was learning about the problem. In other words, the senior leader was focused on coaching the problem solver in the A3 process. The problem solver, in turn, responded by acknowledging the relatively new (for the business unit) problem-solving standard: always go to the gemba.
Last week, I drove to New York City to visit several leaders of this business unit. With considerable pride, they showed me some impressive business results, specifically regarding safety. They also updated me on several important initiatives. At the center of it all is the A3 process. They told me that it is delivering good results, but it is also developing problem-solving capabilities. In this sense, it has become a practical expression of the company's long-standing growth mindset. That is a very good thing.
My question for you, then, is how does your company close its talent gaps? Do you simply “buy” new talent? Or do you try to grow it through training and coaching? If it is the former, I encourage you to consider using the A3 process, following the example of growth-mindset companies like Turner Construction.
