For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. – Matthew 12:34

It’s amazing how much one can learn from a person just by listening.  People who believe that they have a positive attitude, give away their negativity when they speak. I like to begin mentoring sessions with, “Tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The good we will celebrate, the bad we will make adjustments, and the ugly we will pray about.”  This is sure to get people talking, helping me to identify, not just what happened, but how they are thinking about what happened.  Which, in the end, is more important than the event; since the event happens only once, but how they think about the event repeats over and over in their minds and hearts.  Painful experiences happen to both achievers and non-achievers.  The difference is in the responses, achievers learning from the bad cards, choose to draw more; while non-achievers complaining about the cards of life being stacked against them, choose to quit the game.  But what’s actually stacked against them is their own thinking. Winners received the same stimulus, but chose to respond differently than the non-winners.

When something bad happens to a winner, he immediately focuses on minimizing its effects, learning anything he can from the situation.  No pity parties, no woe is me attitudes, just resolution and teachable moments.  The extent a person wins in life, is many times, related to how quickly he can go from problem identified to problem solved, learning through the pain of the process.  When people stay down for weeks, months, sometimes even years at a time, can they honestly expect a positive outcome?  There is only so much mental energy, when it’s spent dwelling on negative thoughts, allowing them to enter the heart, eventually pouring out of the mouth, why is anyone shocked that so little is accomplished in life?  The key is pulling the weeds (negative thoughts) upon entering the mind, not allowing them to move into the heart and out the mouth.  Weeds are much easier to pull when immediately seized when they enter the mind, but much tougher when allowed to root in the heart, eventually flowing out of the mouth.  Don’t provide fertile soil in the mind for weeds; don’t allow weeds to seed into the heart; and whatever you do, don’t allow negative seeds to spread out of your mouth, infecting other people. The former leader literally becoming a carrier of negativity.

Leaders are gardeners of their own minds, identifying and pulling weeds quickly.  True leaders are never down period, choosing to pull weeds promptly.  But if they ever were down, they certainly wouldn’t spread the disease to their communities, since they know that pulling weeds is an inside job.  If a weed is extra difficult, then leaders have the discipline to seek out their mentors for help, refusing to contaminate others with their weed seeds.  One of the first, and most important, assignments of any would-be leader is consistent and prompt pulling of his own weeds.  It’s not an option if he plans on inspiring others, since no one is inspired by a bitter attitude and sour faced person.  Pull your weeds, guard your mind, protect your heart, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  Leadership occurs when people having confidence in the leader, if a person’s attitude is unpredictable, he disqualifies himself for leadership, until he learns to pull his own weeds. Leaders are dealers in hope, change, and growth, beginning inside of them.  Perhaps it’s time that we launched a leadership revolution, let’s start the revolution by tending to our own gardens.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Systems make up a big part of living. Think of the different types of systems in life, and the careers available for those who study them.  Scientists study the systems available in nature, learning how the world works, developing similar systems to enhance life. Doctors study the systems in the human body, while veterinarians study animal’s body systems.  Engineers study product and process systems, even creating new systems when creating new products.  But, unless one is specifically in these fields, why take the time to learn about systems?  Mainly, because there is another type of system, one that all human beings are apart of from birth, it’s called the cultural system.  Every human being joins the culture of humanity when born, it’s not optional, and every culture – humanity, business organizations, faith organizations, charities, clubs, etc, have a cultural system that guides the behavior of its members.  The McKinsey organization teaches that culture is “how we do things around here”.  Culture matters, and the more one understands the culture of an organization, the better one can improve the culture, thus improving results.  Without an understanding of systems, it will be hard to study, let alone to change, the culture of organizations.  Just as scientist, doctors, veterinarians, and engineers study and create systems, leaders must study, change, and create cultures. In fact, majoring on culture is one of a leaders most important assignments.

Think of culture in an organization, as a riverbed, directing the flow of the river.  The riverbed set the boundaries of acceptable behaviors, controlling the flow of the water, helping new people move within the cultural river.  Riverbed cultures are fantastic systems to guide behaviors when the riverbed aligns with the behaviors needed within a culture, but imagine if the riverbed is guiding behavior in a direction opposed to the behaviors desired and professed by the organization.  This creates a riverbed cultural issue, where the culture is directing behavior that is opposed to the professed norms and values of the community, creating a misalignment between purpose and actions.  For example, suppose an organization desires to be the best company for service and support in the local market.  Advertisements trumpeting this message are shared throughout the marketplace, slogans are placed in the office, and sales meetings share the importance of follow up on existing customers, ensuring that customers are satisfied, focusing on long term business relationships.  This all sounds great, communicating clearly how important serving existing customers are in the company’s culture, but unless the reward system, for the salesforce, lines up with the culture, it will not change behaviors.  In other words, if rewards only pay for new sales, but not existing sales, then why would the salesmen take apply efforts to service an existing customer, when his pay is increased only when he makes a new sale to a new customer.  Can you see where the riverbed is guiding the behavior in one direction, even though the words and slogan are attempting to guide behaviors in another course?   No amount of slogans, meetings, or advertisements are going to change culture, until the leaders change the riverbed which lead to the actions.

Leaders must study the systematic riverbeds of their respective organizations, determining if the stated beliefs, values, and norms line up with the direction taken by the riverbed.  Leaders can get upset at a communities behavior, punish them, even fire them, but if the riverbed doesn’t align with desired behaviors, the fault isn’t with the people, but with the leadership team responsible for creating the culture and reward systems.  Let’s examine further the organizational cultures.  The reader might be thinking, but I don’t work at a big company, so this doesn’t apply to me.  But remember, cultural systems apply to every organization, everywhere.  Families, churches, clubs, workplaces, businesses, etc, all have cultures.  The sooner one becomes aware of the culture, learning the flow of the water through the riverbed, the quicker one can see if riverbed and behaviors are aligned or if changes are necessary.  Everyone in the community is responsible to help the leaders develop a proper riverbed, because everyone is affected when the riverbed is off course.  One of the best descriptions of the factors that make up the culture (riverbed) of an organization comes from Gerry Johnson, and is called Cultural Webs.  In his article, titled, “Rethinking Incrementalism”, in the 1988 Strategic Management Journal, Johnson defines the paradigm and six elements of the Cultural Web that create the culture of an organization.  One of the goals of a leader is to study the six factors independently and interdependently, learning how each factor can be improved individually, and how they can be improved where they interact with one another.  The leaders objective is to develop the culture by improving how each element ties into the overall message, forming a riverbed that aligns with the deepest beliefs, values, and norms of the organization.

The Paradigm defines what the organization is about, meaning what it does; what’s its mission; what it values. The Cultural Webs are the six factors or elements that combine to fulfill the paradigm.  Here are the six elements with a brief description:

1. Stories – The historical events and people that are talked about inside and outside of the company, creating part of the myths surrounding the company, telling a great deal about what the company’s beliefs, values, and norms are.
2. Rituals and Routines – The daily behaviors that signal actions within the riverbed and those outside of the riverbed.  This creates expectations upon each member of community to behave and act in certain acceptable ways valued by leaders.
3. Symbols – This includes company logos, the layout of offices, power positions at offices and meeting rooms, and formal or informal dress codes.
4. Organizational Structure – This involves the formally defined structures, like organizational charts, and the informally and unwritten power and influence, this is how most leaders get things done, even when structures are broken.
5. Control Systems – This is how the organization is controlled or influenced, including financial systems, quality systems, and rewards.  Rewards communicate what is valued in the company, and are extremely important to align with riverbed.
6. Power Structures – This is where the real power lies in a company, the law of E. F. Hutton – when they speak, people listen. Whether it is one or two key executives, a managing group of executives, or a department, the point is that these leaders have the greatest influence to change operations, strategies, and cultures.

Let’s simplify the idea of culture even further.  Before diving into how to improve each of the factors forming the culture, let’s develop a mental model to simplify how culture is viewed.  Do you remember the game that kids play in the pool, where everyone runs in the same direction, forming a current in the pool, so that the kids can lift their legs and float around the pool, carried by the current they created?  This is an excellent analogy for culture, since the current in the pool performs the same function as the culture does in an organization.  Culture, like the current, is created when people are aligned in beliefs, values, and norms, forming a current that carries people in the proper direction to success.  When people are aligned in a culture, they create a current that helps the new people adopt the cultural norms quickly, flowing with the current in the water.  But, when people aren’t aligned, there is little, if any, current created, forcing people to develop their own beliefs, values, and norms, leaving disunity if not chaos in the pool.  Since there isn’t current (culture) to align the community, the culture becomes a free for all, people showing up, not because they buy into the culture, but only because they buy into paying their bills.  Imagine each organization as a pool when studying the culture.  By studying the stated paradigm for its existence and the six elements that help form the cultural paradigm, one can determine whether the culture current is aligned with the paradigm and elements.  Are the elements creating the proper flow in the pool, or are they confusing, sending mixed messages, hindering the ability of the organization to achieve its stated paradigm?  A leader’s role is to align the elements with the operating paradigm, forming a cultural current that will lead people and the organization to success.

Convergent cultural currents, help explain why two successful cultures, from two successful companies, can combine to create an unsuccessful culture in a struggling company.  Two companies, both successful in their own right, when combined, typically struggle, because the cultural currents fight against one another, creating cognitive dissonance, paralyzing actions and results.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the mental model of the pool current. Combining separate cultures is one of the toughest leadership assignments, and shouldn’t be attempted, without a clear understanding of the cultures involved and the steps involved in aligning the cultures into one fast moving current.  There are many good cultures that do things differently, because there isn’t a clear cut right way to build a culture, but, just as in the pool example, everyone must be running in the same direction to create the cultural flow.  If half the people are running in one direction, the other half in another direction, the company is experiencing a cultural civil war, creating disunity, severely damaging the results produced by the organization.  It takes a leader, with tact, systems thinking, and patience to bring the diverse cultures together, uniting them in a common vision, forming common beliefs, values, and norms, which allows the company to thrive again. The leader creates the culture (riverbed), directing the behaviors, and the culture creates the long term results of the organization. Are you working on the culture in your organizations? God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Have you ever watched a team of mountain climbers scale a cliff?  I have watched with awe as the mountain climbers work together, as a team, to pull of this feat.  Imagine five climbers, all connected together by ropes and pulleys, ensuring the safety of all, scaling a cliff thousands of feet up.  The five climbers are a system, each action by one of the climbers affects the actions of the rest.  No climber could choose to scale the cliff if the others, were resting.  In fact, no four of the climbers could scale the cliff if just one chose to stop.  The ropes magnify the interdependence between the individuals, but with or without the ropes, people in communities are part of a system, being interdependent upon one another.  Each person in a community needs to understand systematic thinking as their actions will affect all others in the community.  Every leader must learn to think systematically in order to lead to his full potential.  Systems thinking is the process of understanding how individual parts influence one another within the entity as a whole. Both nature and organizations are filled with systems.  Nature is filled with ecosystems involving air, water, plants, animals and more in systems to sustain life, while organizational systems consist of people, structures, and processes that interact to produce results.  Whether the results are good or bad depends upon the system interactions orchestrated by the leader.

Remember the story of the elephant and the blind men?  This is an excellent example displaying systems thinking. Read it again, thinking through how portions of truth must be combined (like a system) to gain the entire truth.

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, “Hey, there is an elephant in the village today.” They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, “Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway.” All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

“Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man who touched his leg.

“Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.

“Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant. 

“It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant. 

“It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant. 

“It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant. 

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated, each blind man wondering how the others could be so stupid. Each believing they had the truth, since he felt it with his own hands. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?” They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right and all of you are wrong. The reason each of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched a different part of the elephant. Each of you has a partial truth.  The elephant has all the features that each of you described, but isn’t fully what you described unless you combine all of your answers.”

Each of the blind men has touched upon a truth of the elephant, but individually, none of them had the whole truth.  If they had spent their time arguing, insisting upon the truth of what they had felt with their own hands, the community would have broken down, forming individual perceptions and not gaining a system perspective of the truth.  Only when each individual learns that they are part of a system, touching upon truth at some point, but probably not touching upon the total systematic truth, will each teammate seek out alternative perspectives.  Many times, disagreements are not really disagreements at all, but just individuals seeing or feeling a different aspect of the system, revealing a portion of the truth, that only when combined yields the whole truth.  System thinking is essential for leaders to help everyone work as a team, gathering all of the facts to accurately model the system they are working on to improve. Without a systems perspective, the leader quickly takes sides with one of his personal favorites, forcing others to comply with his partial interpretation of the truth, killing his credibility, alienating many of his teammates, destroying the motivation to share alternative perspectives in the future.

I love the blind men analogy. If leaders will remember the lesson of the blind men, their ability to solve problems will greatly increase, no longer satisfied with portions of the truth, they will seek out all perspectives to gain a larger view of reality.  Let’s discuss another example of systems thinking.  I believe I heard a version of this story first from Stephen Covey.  Covey uses the example of a fishermen going to a river to enjoy a day of fishing, but just minutes after getting there, he sees a young boy flailing his arms in the middle of the river, screaming for help. The fishermen jumps in and save him.  The boy is healthy, so the fishermen starts fishing, but fifteen minutes later, a young girl is flailing her arms, yelling for help, in the middle of the river.  The fishermen saves her also.  At this point, he ponders what the odds are, that two people would need saving on the same day.  Fifteen minutes later, when a third child needs to be rescued, he is certain that there must be more to the picture (system), than he is touching upon.  At this point, he starts asking questions, no longer believing that the children who needed rescuing, are isolated events.  He believes there is more to this system than is meeting his eyes. The fishermen, deciding to solve the cause at its roots, not just continue to trim at the leaves, walks upstream, discovering a children’s camp.  The fishermen finds that the local bully, doing what bullies do, was throwing kids in the river every fifteen minutes, and would continue to do so, until everyone surrendered their money.  The fishermen, a true problem solver, took the bully by the ear, walked him into the camp office, solved the root cause of the problem (the bully), and enjoyed the remaining fishing time in peace.

I know the example is simplistic, but it does capture the main points in systematic thinking.  Many times in life, people run from emergency to emergency, never stopping to think if the emergencies are related systematically.  The simple system described above included the boys and girls, the bully, the river, and the fishermen downstream.  The fishermen would have had a busy day, if he hadn’t solved the problem at its root.  You can stay busy your entire life, but unless you are solving problems at the root, nothing of long-term consequence is being solved.  Busy is not the goal, but productivity is.  As Covey teaches, one can trim the leaves for life, but if you wish to eliminate a tree, one must attack the roots.  Toyota has a problem solving system that helps discover the root causes, called the Five Whys.  It teaches that most root causes are at least five questions removed from the issue that is being addressed at the moment.  The root cause is usually not the first why, but, if one will keep asking questions, the root cause will typically be revealed.

For example, if someone slips and falls on a slippery factory floor, breaking their arm in the process, the quick solution is to order a cleaning crew to work more hours, cleaning the floors daily to ensure a non-slippery surface.  A non-slippery floor is the right answer, but before hiring extra people, spending money and time on the problem, the Five Why’s would attempt to discover the root cause (like the bully in example above).  Leaders aren’t happy with just trimming the leaves, while the root cause remains unaddressed and will use the Five Why’s to help determine the root issues.  The Five Whys in this example would go something like this:

Q: Why did the man slip and fall?
A: Because the ground was slippery.
Q: Why was the ground slippery?
A: Because there was oil on the floor.
Q: Why was there oil on the floor?
A: Because one of the machines was leaking oil.
Q: Why was the machine leaking oil?
A: Because an oil pan bolt was loose.
Why was the oil pan bolt loose?
A: Because the machine vibrated the bolt loose.
Q: Why did the machine vibrate the bolt loose?
A:  Because the shaft bearing is worn out in the machine.
Q: Why is the shaft bearing worn out in the machine?
A: Because maintenance hasn’t changed it and it is past it’s useable life.
Q: Why haven’t they changed out the old bearing?
A: Because we cut all preventative maintenance in a cost cutting measure.

The Five Why’s has revealed the systematic issue in the factory system, not just the obvious answer of cleaning up the oil.  When the preventative maintenance program was eliminated, in an effort to save money, it brought upon other effects, not clearly understood at the time.  If another department has to hire more cleaning crews, or paying overtime to existing ones, then we have not really saved any money, but still have a maintenance issue.  This only compounds the factories problems further, having not understood the systematic effects of the choices made.  Trimming the leaves by cutting preventative maintenance, but causing a bigger root problem, by machines failing over time. Without the proper machine maintenance, further degradation is inevitable, leading to more trimming leaves behavior, while the root cause, the improper maintenance, ruins the productivity and safety of the entire factory.  Only when the leader thinks systematically, will the root cause be revealed.  Preventative maintenance will be reinstated; machines run with quality bearings; the bolts will stay tight; the oil remains in the pan; and people can walk the floor without endangering their safety.  The factory is a system, every action performed by one department will have effects on numerous others departments.  It’s only when the leader thinks of the entire system (elephant above), that the entire truth will be revealed, leading to decisions made upon the total systems, not just the partial truths that each department feels. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is the final audio from Art Jonak, Orjan Saele, and me discussing the mentoring process.  I hope you enjoyed this series. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is video #5 in the mentoring series with Art Jonak and Orjan Saele.  It’s the scoreboard that reveals the truth of your personal performance.  Don’t run from the data, but learn from it.  In God we trust, all others must have data. Enjoy, Orrin Woodward

Here is the fourth video of the mentoring series with my friends Art Jonak and Orjan Saele.  Enjoy. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is the third installment of the mentoring series by Art Jonak, Orjan Saele, myself recorded while in Norway.  Enjoy. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is an audio recorded in Oslo, Norway.  Orjan Saele and I were interviewed by Art Jonak on mentoring.  This is the 2nd of a multiple part interview series, where we share some key nuggets to help you move on, in the success journey.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward