The following is a snippet from an upcoming book on the 13 Resolutions.  Engaging the mind, heart, and will is essential for long-term success.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

But if success were as simple as writing out a few resolutions and studying them daily, wouldn’t more people apply this method to become successful? Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains why few achieve lasting success, teaching, “Man is a wonderful creature, he is mind, he is heart, and he is will. Those are the three main constituents of man. God has given him a mind, He has given him a heart, He has given him a will whereby he can act.” Transforming a life then, requires the whole person to be involved – his mind, his heart, and his will must be engaged in the process. In other words, true change isn’t just a mental (mind) assent, it isn’t just an emotional (heart) experience, and it’s more than just routinized (will) learning.  Many will read the resolutions, make a mental nod of approval but won’t involve the heart or will.  Even though they claim a knowledge of how to succeed in life, they never seem to achieve anything.  To know and not to do is not to really know, since if one knew how good holistic success would be, one would not delay in striving for it. The resolutions must engage the mind, but must go beyond it, tapping into the heart and will to produce real change.  There’s another group, very common today, who will attend motivational seminars, having their hearts touched by a message, but not comprehending mentally (mind) or following through (will) on what it takes to succeed.  These people seem to jump from one achievement fad to another, gaining emotional (heart) releases, but accomplishing little of real substance.  Life has been hard on them, so they attend another fad seminar, seeking, not real change, but a cathartic release of tension.

A third group will review the resolutions, attempting to transform themselves through sheer will-power, but it won’t last without the mind and heart engaged.  They are those who decide to take up the resolutions, rather than being taken up by them.  The will, by itself, can go through the motions, but without the heart and mind, the passion and understanding involved, the process lacks zeal.  It’s like the old saying, “A man or woman convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”  A methodical, passionless, robotic like study of the resolutions will not get the job done.  It’s only with a mind that understands, a heart that generates passion, and a disciplined will to follow them, that creates real change inside of a person, making world changing achievement possible.  Sadly, all of the partial groupings (these three plus any two of three) will end in disappointment, having made the common mistake of compartmentalizing the mind, heart and will.  But, the good news is that anyone can develop the ability to work on the mind, heart, and will simultaneously.  The process is simple, but certainly not easy, requiring immense discipline to marry the mind, heart, and will together in the pursuit of excellence in any area that a person has resolved to change. By thinking seriously about which areas to focus upon, writing them down clearly, and then resolving to read, ingest, and apply them on a consistent basis, these three men (George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Jonathan Edwards) transformed themselves.  By changing themselves, they ultimately, transformed the world around them.

I recently finished a fantastic book on Steve Jobs by Jay Elliot called, The Steve Jobs Way.  If you are looking for a book that will open up the mind, passion, and character of Jobs, then look no further.  Elliot worked with Jobs during his early years of Apple and witnessed first hand many of Jobs critical lessons on his way to leadership greatness.  Here is a snippet of a chapter on purpose using some of the lessons that I learned from this book and Jim Collin’s HedgeHog Concept in Good to Great.  Anyone can move from good to great if they can discover their purpose by intersecting their passions, potentials, and profits. Elliot’s book reveals how Jobs did this. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Steve Jobs, Founder and CEO of Apple, portrays the genius of the HedgeHog Concept  in both his personal and professional life.  Jobs may have the firmest grasp of consumer preferences of any current CEO, intuitively understanding the customers love of simplicity, elegance of design, and the “cool” factor. Moreover, his obsession, according Elliot, “is a passion for the product . . . a passion for product perfection.”  With his passion aligning beautifully with his potential, Jobs’ aforementioned intuitive understanding of customer desires, the last piece of the puzzle for him was to determine how to make money by following his passion and potential.  Apple, although not the top seller of computers, is the most profitable, offering a unique product in a marketplace of Window’s software clones, not too mention innovative product offerings like the Ipod, Ipad, and Iphone, all of which are revolutionizing the high tech field. Chris Brady, best selling co-author of Launching a Leadership Revolution and Apple connoisseur, defined Apple’s Hedgehog Concepts in this way, “To deliver incredibly creative and “cool” technology that is intuitively useful and reliable for any class of user – particularly the user who doesn’t care to know about the intricacies of a hammer in order to make productive use of one.  (In other words, to make the technology invisible and the usability and dependability dominant).”  Jobs wanted, not only an intuitive product, but also one that created such an experience of satisfaction, the customer would feel emotionally attached to the product, sharing his experience with others.
Not surprisingly, Job’s individual Hedgehog Purpose and Apple’s Hedgehog Concept, closely resemble on another, since both emerge out of the intersection of Job’s passion, potential, and profits, with Apple exemplifying Emerson’s shadow of a great man.  Although many talented people work with Jobs, it’s his purpose, his vision, and his principles that move the Apple ship forward.  Mac engineer Trip Hawkins concurs, describing Jobs as having, “a power of vision that is almost frightening. When Steve believes in something, the power of that vision can literally sweep aside any objections, problems or whatever. They just cease to exist.”  Elliot concurred, writing, “The Mac and every product since then are more than ‘just products.‘  They are a representation of Steve Jobs’ intense commitment. Visionaries are able to create great art or great products because their work isn’t nine-to-five. What Steve was doing represented him; it was intuitive but inspired.”  Purposeful people like Jobs infect their entire community with purpose, bringing a communities passion, potential, and profits to the forefront.  Needless to say, purpose, in an organization’s culture, positively affects the company’s culture, thus its bottom line. Elliot elaborates, “When you believe in your product and people as totally as Steve does, your people stick with you. Apple had one of the highest retention rates in Silicon Valley,” mainly because Job’s purpose, vision, and principles united the Apple community into highly effective culture.  Jobs, speaking at the Stanford commencement ceremonies, described his belief in a life’s purpose, “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Leaders address issues head on, but refuse to complain about them, seeking to resolve, not inflate the matter. Has complaining about something ever produced real change?  Any change that is browbeaten out of another isn’t a true heart change. One can watch husbands and wives complain to, and about, each other endlessly, but it won’t elicit the desired changes.  A character based response, is to address the issue with the person responsible, asking how one can help with the challenge.  But no matter what happens, a leader won’t complain to others. Good company avoids critical spirits.  Life will deal bad cards to all of us, instead of complaining, play the cards and learn the lessons needed.  Bitter or better, that is the two choices that people have in life. Complaining leads to bitterness and resentment, two characteristics that are lethal to a positive attitudes, creating a cultural cesspool that destroys organizations.   Everyone plays a part that in resolving challenges, even if it’s just encouraging others rather than complaining at or about them. Because seeds are scattered everyday, it takes a disciplined thought process to maintain a positive attitude, refusing to wallow in negativity. Left to itself, a mind will quickly fill with weeds, just as a garden will.  Until the weeds are eradicated,  positive reading and association will not prosper, because most of the success seeds are blocked out by the weeds.  Kill the weeds first, then replace with positive books, audios, and associations. Henry Ford II, said, “Never complain, never explain,” emphasizing the worthlessness of complaining about the circumstances or explaining it away through excuses.   

Mentally complaining may release people feeling responsible, but by passing the buck, one has also passed on leadership, since leaders, by definition, accept responsibility.  People, filled with weeds, instead of accepting responsibility for fixing their problems, attempt to escape responsibility by blaming others.  This would be laughable, if it wasn’t so prevalent. When a limiting belief (weed) is adopted, people will fight to defend that weed.  In fact, many times people will argue with others, denying that they have what it takes to win, becoming upset at them for daring to suggest that they could win. Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull concurs, writing, “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they are yours.” People, fearing the pain of change, or more specifically, the pain of pulling their own weeds, run to self deception instead, in an effort to defend their fragile egos, because they know that if they admit they have what it takes to win, the weed is exposed as lie wrapped in an excuse. The author recently read an anonymous story about a 92 year old lady, exemplifying attitude is a choice, “She is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coifed, and her makeup perfectly applied, in spite of the fact she is legally blind. Today she has moved to a nursing home. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making this move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, where I am employed, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet curtains that had been hung on her window. “I love it,” she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year old having just been presented with a new puppy. “Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room….just wait,” I said. Then she spoke these words that I will never forget: “That does not have anything to do with it,” she gently replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like the room or not, does not depend on how the furniture is arranged. It is how I arrange my mind. I have already decided to love it. It is a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice. I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or I can get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do work. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I will focus on the new day and all of the happy memories I have stored away….just for this time in my life.” God Bless, Orrin Woodward

John Wooden father, Joshua Wooden, taught his son a second set of three principles that pertain to attitudes:

1. Never Whine
2. Never Complain
3. Never Make Excuses

Never Whine

The first, never whine, ensures negativity is handled in the mind and heart before coming out of the mouth.  Bad things are going to happen to good people.  It’s simply a law of life, but responding in a “woe is me spirit” is lacking in character.  Whining is complaining repeatedly about a situation, looking for sympathy rather than resolution.  Sometimes solutions aren’t available, but even this situation is no reason to whine, only to strap on the helmet tighter and work harder. When milk is spilled on the ground, whining about who spilled it isn’t going to help, but cleaning it up will.  Remember this quote, when times get tough, “When the going get tough, the tough become winners, the rest become whiners.”  Leaders are gardeners of their own minds, identifying and pulling weeds quickly.  What are the weeds? Weeds are false beliefs, attaching themselves to a person’s brain, blocking the good ideas (seeds) from taking root. Since weeds create the ‘stinking thinking,’ that produce negative attitudes and selfish behaviors, they prohibit the growth of fruit in a person’s life. False beliefs come in many shapes and sizes.  A good example of a false belief that limit growth is someone believing that success is only for a talented few.  Since he doesn’t have extraordinary talent, he concludes that he isn’t part of that elite group of achievers, thus he doesn’t even enter the game, let alone produce top level results. This attitude effectively eliminates his opportunity to make a difference, by declining to enter the contest. True leaders refuse to stay down, pulling weeds promptly instead of nurturing them.  But if they do get knocked down, they certainly don’t spread the disease to their communities, since they know that pulling weeds is an inside job.  If a weed is extra difficult, then true leaders seek out mentors who can help them, refusing to have a pity party that contaminates others with their lethal weed seeds. Leadership is the ability to create confidence and trust in the people following the leader.  Therefore, if a person’s attitude is unpredictable, he disqualifies himself for leadership, until he learns to pull the weeds from his mental garden.  It’s not an option if he plans on leading others, since no one is inspired by a bitter attitude and sour disposition. Remember, it’s not what happens to people in life that matters as much as how they respond to what happens to them.  No one can plant weeds in a garden without the owner’s permission, but sadly, most people are not tending the garden; therefore, weeds grows as a matter of course through their family and friends. The typical person, before learning of his mental gardening responsibilities, allows seeds to be scattered around at will.  From the radio, television, friends, co-workers, and family, one is bombarded with seeds constantly, many of them destructive, without understanding the damaging effects that negative ideas have on positive attitudes.  Most people allow life to plant any seeds in their garden, producing whatever results the seeds create.  Sadly, this surrenders the results of life to ones surroundings, rather than to ones choices.  Attitudes in life determines the altitudes of life.  When one decides to move on, one must assume the responsibility to tend his garden, pulling weeds daily, while nurturing the proper fruit producing ideas.  Why is it easier to have ‘stinking thinking’ than it is to have positive thinking?  It’s a similar answer to why it’s easier to have weeds growing in a garden, than it is to have fruit.  Winners don’t make the rules in the game of life, but they must learn to apply the rules in their favor in order to win. Choose to respond like a winner, focusing on solving the challenge, not whining about the problem, since problems are a given, but solutions are a leadership choice.   Winners don’t whine and whiners don’t win. Pull your weeds, guard your mind, protect your heart, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

I resolve to focus on character more than reputation, knowing that character is who I am and reputation is only what others say that I am.

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” – Abraham Lincoln

Character is that special quality, that makes men and women, who have it, appear larger than life.  Character is more than just what a person says or does, rather, it’s what a person is.  Words like honorable, honest, trustworthy, dutiful, and fidelity, describe the person with integrity, in any field of endeavor.  But character moves beyond integrity, since integrity is ‘not doing wrong,’ while character is moves beyond that into ‘doing right’.  For example, if someone is picking on little Billy at school, but a person didn’t participate, then he displayed integrity by not doing wrong.  But to display character, a person must move beyond integrity, having the courage to defend young Billy against his oppressors, risking his personal peace and affluence for the sake of justice.  In other words, integrity refuses to do wrong, but character is more demanding, expecting people to have the courage to do right.  By helping Billy, a person moves from integrity to character through his display of courage. John Wooden, one of the all-time great basketball coaches, and life coaches, said, ““Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”  Character then, if displayed as a mathematical formula would be: Character = Integrity * Courage.  If one doesn’t have integrity, then displaying courage doesn’t give him character.  For example, many bank robbers had courage, but not integrity, thus not character.  But, one can also have integrity, but no courage, thus lack character through not standing up for principle when required by justice.  Character, in other words, requires massive courage to ‘do right,’ especially in the current pragmatic culture that expects timidity, even when gross injustices are routinely performed.  Most people will mind their own business, leaving the oppressors a free hand to abuse the victims, but people of character will have none of this.  As Reverend Martin Niemoeller, a Nazi prison camp survivor, said, “First they arrested the Communists – but I was not a Communist, so I did nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats – but was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then they arrested the trade unionists – and I did nothing because I was not one. And then they came for the Jews and then the Catholics, but I was neither a Jew nor a Catholic and I did nothing. At last they came and arrested me – and there was no one left to do anything about it.”  Character is essential for all true success, for without it, nations, corporations, charities, and families are destroyed.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

The following is an un-edited snippet from a chapter of a soon to be released book.  Enjoy. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Dr. Maltz writes on the power of imagination in goal achievement, “The goals that Creative Mechanism seeks to achieve are MENTAL IMAGES or mental pictures, which we create by the use of IMAGINATION.”  Success, then is pictured first in the mind, then through the use of the mind’s Creative Mechanism, it’s formulated in the real world.  Every achiever has learned to run what amounts to a success advertisement in his mind.  The more the ad is visualized and achieved in the imagination, the more real it becomes, as the mind experiences it as real through the imagination.  What makes human beings different than the animals is the ability to set goals.  By contrast, animals do not create their own goals, but have only pre-set goals called instincts.  Dr. Maltz elaborates on this special quality inherent in man, “Man, on the other hand, has something animals haven’t – Creative Imagination. Thus man of all creatures is more than a creature, he is also a creator. With his imagination he can formulate a variety of goals. Man alone can direct his Success Mechanism by the use of imagination, or imaging ability.”  When the ant mind dreams, the elephant mind imagines the corresponding images, but if the ant mind worries, the elephant mind will subsequently create the images to match. Imagination is neutral on success or failure depending upon the programmer, but it is the food for the elephant.  In fact, Napoleon emphasized this by stating, “Imagination rules the world.”  The difference between success and failure is what is consistently being fed to the elephant.  Remember, one cannot set himself on fire with his dream when he is busy wetting on himself with his dread. The highest achievers are not innately better than anyone else, but they have learned the importance of feeding the elephant faith, not fears.  Dr. Maltz sums it up best, “We act, or fail to act, not because of the ‘will’, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination. A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment.”

For example, Peter Vidmar, the Olympian gymnast, ran the success ad daily in his head at the end of practice.  After a grueling workout, Peter would sit down and vividly imagine going through step by step of his routine on the ( Paralell ) bars.  From the announcer’s introduction, including the crowd’s response,  Peter visualized a perfect performance in his mind.  During the 1984 Olympics, with the Gold Medal on the line, Peter turned his dream into reality, by performing flawlessly on the very event visualized at the end of every practice. Running your success dream daily, adding details through the power of your elephant mind, is critical for success.  But what if one feeds the elephant mind fears on a consistent basis?  There is a new term for this malady, called the Wallenda factor, named after Karl Wallenda, a world renowned aerial acrobat, who plunged to his death, in a 1978 accident while attempting to traverse a 75-foot high wire in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Helen, Karl’s widow, recalled the tragic period, “All Karl thought about for three straight months prior to it was falling. It was the first time he’d ever thought about that, and it seemed to me that he put all his energies into not falling rather than walking the tightrope.”  Karl, was the best at his craft, but when fear was fed to his elephant, instead of faith, the elephant overcame the ant. Mrs. Wallenda shared that her husband, contrary to his norm, personally supervised the installation of the tightrope and guide wires. Wallenda, in other words, poured the wrong food into his elephant.  Instead of feeding it a vision of walking safely across the wire, he fed his elephant a fear of falling, initiating his Failure Mechanism, fulfilling his sad fear based destiny.

The elephant will feed on something, as it must eat. If you will not feed your elephant mind, then someone else gladly will.  Sadly, most people’s subconsciouses are deluged daily by the images fed to them from their television sets.  The latest research shares that the average American is watching over five hours of TV everyday.  Calonius writes on the impact of repeated exposures on the mind, “The researchers found that the subjects like the pictures they had already seen. Researchers call this the  ‘mere exposure effect.’ That’s why advertisers pound ads repeatedly down our throats. It’s why chain restaurants (you get the same meal coast to coast) thrive.”  It’s interesting to note that advertisers skip right past the ant mind, displaying their ads as food to the elephant brain.  Every single advertisement feeds your elephant with an image and vision for the product offered. One will not see an advertiser spend the 30 seconds or the minute sharing copious details on the functions, features and benefits.  Instead, they share an image intended to create a feeling inside of each TV viewer, creating a hunger to satisfy that feeling by buying the companies products.  Why is it that advertisements feed the elephant and not the ant mind?  Simply stated, because giving a list of functions, features and benefits to your ant doesn’t produce results, but the ads that feed the elephant an image of success produce the feelings, instead of the facts, that lead to purchases.  Advertising agents have learned to speak right past the ant mind; instead, feeding the starving elephant, creating perceived needs in the consumer’s elephant through repetition of the images.  People end up buying things on emotion that they don’t really need, not truly understanding rationally why they did it. Psychologist Timothy Wilson, author of Strangers to Ourselves, writes, “The adaptive unconscious plays a major executive role in our mental lives. It gathers information, interprets and evaluates it, and sets goals in motion, quickly and efficiently.” Remember, people make decisions emotionally (elephant) and then will explain it rationally (ant) to themselves and others.  Advertisers, in other words, replace the person’s imagination with images of their own making, literally programming the mind for people unwilling to program their own.

The following is a portion of an article that will be posted in full on the TEAM site.  Ray Kroc was a visionary leader who made an impact through his unyielding determination to finish what he started. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Early in 1954, a 52 year old salesman, whose business had plummeted from 9,000 mixers per year sold in the late 1940‘s units to under 2,000, contemplated his future plans.  Having laid off his two fellow salesman, cutting back on all extraneous expenses, his business barely produced enough for him to support his country club lifestyle.  Later that year, after receiving yet another order for his Multi-mixers, making it an unprecedented ten total for the San Bernandino based fast food establishment called McDonald’s, the intrigued Ray Kroc payed his customer a visit.  What happened on Ray Kroc’s California boondoggle changed the course of franchising history.  Kroc had seen the future and wanted in on the action, in his autobiography, Grinding It Out, he wrote, “This had to be the most amazing merchandising operation I had ever seen!”   His thirty years of preparation for his moment of destiny was not in vain, having perfected the skills needed to take the single McDonald’s store into the largest restaurant chain in the world.  Kroc formulated a plan, hoping to sell thousand of multi-mixers to the burgeoning restaurant chain, recalling his conversation with the McDonald’s brothers at their restaurant, “I’ve seen kitchens of a lot of restaurants and drive-ins selling Multi-mixers around the country and I have never seen anything to equal the potential of this place of yours. Why don’t you open a series of units like this? It would be a gold mine for you and for me, too, because everyone would boosts my Multi-mixer sales. What d’you say?”  After a long silent stare from the taciturn New England brothers, Maurice answered, “See that big white house with the wide front porch? That’s our home and we love it. We sit on the porch in the evenings and watch the sunset and look down on our place here. It’s peaceful. We don’t need anymore problems. We are in a position to enjoy life now, and that’s just what we intend to do.”  The McDonald’s brothers lives confirm that the biggest enemy of great is the belief that one is doing good, losing the hunger to improve further.  Kroc, flew back to Chicago, but couldn’t get McDonald’s out of his mind, eventually calling the brothers back a week later.  In John Love’s fascinating book, Behind the Golden Arches, he writes, “He called Dick McDonald. ‘Have you found a franchising agent yet?’ he inquired. ‘No, Ray, not yet,’ was McDonald’s response. ‘Well then,’ asked Kroc, ‘what about me?’”  Ray realized that he could sell McDonald’s franchises, saying, “This will go anyplace. Anyplace!” Neal Baker, a fast food competitor in California said, “Ray Kroc was always traveling, and when he thought of McDonald’s, he thought big. He had seen cities all over the country, and he could just picture a McDonald’s in every one of them.”

The McDonald brothers were system gurus. In the late 1940’s, Dick and Maurice McDonald were searching for away to improve profitability while reducing complexity at their drive-in restaurant in San Bernandino, California.  They pulled the sales receipts for the last three years of business. In studying the data, the McDonald’s brothers realized that 80% of their business was hamburgers, not barbecue, leading to a revolutionary conclusion. They drew out an assembly line for hamburger production, just as Henry Ford would have for automobiles, requisitioning   their tennis court to draw the chalk lines of the optimized system. In a tribute to Frederick Taylor, the management guru or the early 20th century, the McDonald’s brothers placed the equipment most efficiently by studying the motions of the crew members in the process of assembling the various foods.  They eliminated the car-hop, replacing it with a self-service counter.   Eliminating the barbecue pit completely, they reduced their 25 item menu down to 11 items: hamburgers, cheeseburger, french fries, three soft drink flavors, milkshakes, milk, coffee, potato chips, and pie.  With a fully re-engineered stainless steel kitchen, capitalizing on the advantages of speed and quality in the mass production process, the McDonald’s brothers slashed the price of their hamburger from a competitive 30 cents to an unbelievable price of just 15 cents.  They hadn’t just improved their old restaurant, but had created the future of fast food, taking a healthy $200,000 revenue business and increasing it to $350,000 with the reduced menu and improved performance. Love writes on the strategy, “The brothers refused to let even the choice of condiments impede their fast food format. All hamburgers were prepared with ketchup, mustard, onions and two pickles. Any order deviating from that was penalized by a delay in service. That not only allowed the McDonald’s to streamline their production techniques, it opened the way for preparing food in advance of the order. That was a major break from conventional food service practices, but the brothers believed it was vital to their concept of volume through speed. ‘If we gave people a choice,’ explains McDonald, ‘there would be chaos.’”   The McDonald’s brothers, with a twelve man crew, crowded into a twelve-by-sixteen foot kitchen, created assembly line techniques for food production, that, with the help of Kroc’s vision, revolutionized the fast food industry.

Kroc, was a top notch salesman and leader, not a systems genius, but he had thirty years experience in the food service industry, and knew a winner when he saw one.  The McDonald’s system was a winner, a franchising system that Kroc was convinced he could sell all over the world.  In order to do so, Kroc intuitively understood that the business was more than just hamburgers, but a complete franchising system sold to entrepreneurs, promising results if they followed the turn key McDonald’s system.  According to Michael Gerber in The EMyth, “But Ray Kroc created much more than just a fantastically successful business. He created the model upon which an entire generation of entrepreneurs have since built their fortunes: the franchise phenomenon. . . But the genius of McDonald’s isn’t franchising itself. The franchise has been around for more than a hundred years. . . The true genius of Ray Kroc’s McDonald’s is the Business Format Franchise.”  The Business Format Franchise provides the franchisee with a turn key system for doing business that works for anyone who will work it.  The original franchises sold their name and product offerings, expecting the franchisees to develop a business system to sell the merchandise.  But Kroc, and his franchising system was different, Kroc understood that his first customer, the one he needed to sell, was the franchisee. In fact, if the franchisee didn’t believe in the McDonald’s system for producing results, no one would purchase the franchise, thus no hamburgers would be sold.  Kroc, became a salesman, not of hamburgers, but of the McDonald’s business itself.  His success or failure would depend upon creating a business system that worked, and his ability to sell the business format to hungry entrepreneurs.  Gerber elaborates, “At that point, Ray Kroc began to look at his business as the product, and at the franchisee as his first, last, and most important customer. For the franchisee wasn’t interested in hamburgers or french fries or milkshakes; he was interested in the business. Driven by the desire to buy a business, the franchisee only wanted to know one thing: “Does it work?”  Kroc believe the McDonald’s brothers had cracked the code for high speed and low cost fast food service, and that he would complete the package by providing vision, salesmanship, and leadership, to make the dream a reality.  He knew his business system had to produce results for the franchise owner, becoming the best choice for hungry and driven entrepreneurs in the competitive marketplace. Gerber writes, “If McDonald’s was to fulfill the dream he (Kroc) had for it, the franchisee would have to be willing to buy it. . . He wasn’t competing with other hamburger businesses. He was competing with every other business opportunity.”

Systems Thinking has been defined as an approach to problem solving, by viewing “problems” as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific parts, outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences.  In other words, systems thinking focuses on cyclical processes rather than linear “cause and effect” events.  Peter Senge, the insightful author of the Fifth Discipline, wrote, “Structures of which we are unaware hold us prisoner. Conversely, learning to see the structures within which we operate begins a process of freeing ourselves from previously unseen forces and ultimately mastering the ability to work with them and change them.”  Detailed knowledge in specialized fields has helped man improve his quality of life by dividing the workload into manageable sized tasks, but it also has had a downside.  The fractionalization of knowledge, caused by specialization, has taught many to be experts on one tree, while remaining clueless on the forest that it lives in.  Senge wrote, “In many ways, the greatest promise of the systems perspective is the unification of knowledge across all fields – for these same archetypes (systematic structures) recur in biology, psychology, and family therapy; in economics, political science, and ecology; as well as management.”  Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits or practices within a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. The fable of the blind men and elephant captures the essence of the systematic mindset, revealing how snapshots of individual truths are connected together systematically, discovering the underlying system archetype that connects the seemingly isolated data points.

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 were guided to the elephant. 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.  How many issues in life, where people argue from their specific experiences, insisting upon their version of truth, when actually, in many cases, the truth cannot be understood without a systematic mindset?  Only when the individuals realize that they are all part of the system, will they seek out alternative perspectives, in a search for the invisible, but active systems archetype.   Henry Hazlitt, one of the best systems thinkers in economics, discussed the biggest problem in economics is a lack of systematic thinking on the effects of government actions, writing in his classic Economics in One Lesson, “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups. Nine-tenths of the economic fallacies that are working such dreadful harm in the world today are the result of ignoring this lesson. Those fallacies all stem from one of two central fallacies, or both: that of looking only at the immediate consequences of an act or proposal, and that of looking at the consequences only for a particular group to the neglect of other groups.”  Minimum wage laws are an excellent example of the unintended consequences of government intervention.  In a goal of increasing wages for people, the government mandated a minimum wage, but, if the wage is above the going market rate, business owners, who have employees, will adjust the total downward, leaving some unemployed, in order to still run a profitable business. The government can mandate a higher wage, but not the business owners response in a free society.  Thus, when it raises the minimum wage, the system responds by reducing employment, leaving chronic unemployment as the only lasting legacy of government’s interventions. System thinking, in other words, requires a long term view, not studying just the short term effects, but also the secondary effects of every action upon the system archetype.  The key to mastering systems thinking is to see the trees as part of a forest, searching for patterns in the data where others see only events. One must see through the apparent complexity to discover the simple structures that produce predictable outcomes systematically.

Organizational theorist Charles Kiefer describes the systemic mindset, “When this switch is thrown subconsciously, you become a systems thinker ever thereafter. Reality is automatically seen systematically as well a linearly . . . . ‘Systemic’ becomes a way of thinking (almost a way of being) and not just a problem solving methodology.”  That switch is like viewing an autostereogram, a single-image stereogram (SIS), designed to create the visual illusion of a three-dimensional (3D) scene from a two-dimensional image in the human brain. The brain must be trained to see the (3D) view within the (2D) picture, overcoming the normally automatic coordination between focusing and vergence.  Magic Eye produces books filled with random dot autostereograms that one can study for hours at a time.  When first attempting to see the (3D) picture, it can be a frustrating experience, but with enough practice, one can develop the skills to routinely see past the (2D) surface into the (3D) reality.  In a similar way, one’s mind can be trained to recognize the systematic (3D) order hidden beneath the apparent (2D) chaos of the surface data. Naturally, the mind defaults to simplistic “cause and effect” linear (2D) thinking, but when the world of process loops (3D) is discovered, one will never view it the same again. In other words, systems are all around us, but the cyclical (3D) process loops are hidden in the autostereograms of linear (2D) “cause and effect” explanations.  For example, when watching a team of mountain climbers scale a cliff, one can recognize the interdependence of the climbers by the ropes attaching each to the other.  Imagine five climbers, all connected by ropes and pulleys to ensure their safety, scaling a cliff thousands of feet up.  The five climbers are a system, each action by one of them affects the actions of the rest.  No climber could climb to the top if the others chose to rest. In fact, even if one of the climbers chose to rest, it would be doubtful whether the other four could scale the cliff without his help. The role of the leader, in this case, is to orchestrate all of the climbers, moving in a system up the cliff side.  If one is tired, then they must all rest, as their efforts will be in vain, leading only to fatigue and frustration, not the results intended.  Conversely, a leader who moves to fast, leaving the other climbers in the dust, will only exhausts himself upon the systematic constraints applied by the rope.  The leader, in this system, confronts a balancing act. If he allows one or more to slack, expecting the other climbers to make up the difference, he hurts the team’s performance and morale.  Each climber in the system has a personal responsibilities and a responsibilities to the team to ensure the team achieves its objectives.  In the same way, all organizations require personal and team responsibilities in order to achieve their goals. The ropes are the visual representation of the interconnectedness of each climber, magnifying the need for teamwork within the system for everyone to scale to the top, but even without the physical ropes, in most human systems, the connections are just as binding.  Each person in a community needs to understand the systematic mindset as their actions will affect the others in the interdependent communities.  Every leader, like the cliff climbing leader, must learn to think systematically in order to lead to his full potential, 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 mainly upon the system interactions orchestrated by the leader.

Stephen Covey, one of the best system thinkers, provides another classic example of systems. He tells a story 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 quickly jumps in and saves the young boy.  The boy is disheveled, but otherwise fine. The fishermen starts fishing again, 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 wonders what the odds are, that two children would need help on the same day, on the same river.  Fifteen minutes later, when a third child needs to be rescued, he is certain that there must be more to the picture (system), than the isolated events that he is experiencing.  At this point, he starts asking questions, no longer believing that the children who needed rescuing, are isolated “cause and effect” events.  He believes there is more to this system than is meeting his eyes. The fishermen, in an effort to solve the cause at its roots, not just continue to trim at the leaves, walks the trail upstream, finding a children’s camp on the riverside.  The fishermen soon discovers the cause of the distressed kids. A bully, doing what bullies do, is tossing kids in the river every fifteen minutes, until he ensures that everyone surrenders their lunch money.  The fishermen, a true problem solver, took the bully by the ear, walked him into the camp’s office, solving the root cause of the problem (the bully), and enjoying the remaining fishing time in peace.  Although a simplistic systems loop, how many times are issues solved by pulling “distressed kids” out of the river, not truly addressing the underlying systemic issues? Most people, run from emergency to emergency in life, never stopping to think if the emergencies have an underlying systematic cause.  The simple cyclical 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 the root cause level.  In the same way, one can stay busy for an entire life, but unless problems are solved at the root cause level, nothing of long-term consequence is accomplished. Think about how many people’s lives would be improved, if they stopped diving into rivers, saving “distressed kids,” and learned the underlying systems thinking to end the madness once and for all.  One can stay busy, but the goal should be to stay productive. Covey’s example teaches, that one can trim the leaves for a lifetime, but if the desire is to eliminate the bad fruit, one must remove the tree. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is a portion of an article on Systematic Thinking, a key tool in a leader’s arsenal.  The full article is available on the TEAM site. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

The system is the tool used by the employees to provide the desired customer results without having to go through mental gymnastic every time, similar to how the subconscious mind can perform the task of driving without having to engage the full mental capacity of a trained driver.  The plan is simple – develop the patterns and systems to satisfy the customer, teach the patterns and systems to the employees, and reap the harvest of satisfied customers through a duplicatable business system.  Gerber teaches, “the system becomes a tool your people use to increase their productivity to get the job done. It’s your job to develop that tool and to teach your people how to use it. It’s their job to use the tool you’ve developed and to recommend improvements based on their experience with it.”   In today’s competitive world, one cannot just hire hands and feet, but must engage the entire person in order to compete.  A great idea to improve the system can come from anyone, and, many times, it can come from the person who is responsible for that step in the process, since they spend the most time with that particular step.  Ray Stata, former CEO of Analog Devices, says, “In the traditional hierarchical organization, the top thinks and the local acts. In a learning organization, you have to merge thinking and acting in every individual.” The Japanese became famous for their system of Kaizen, recognizing and rewarding good ideas from anyone in the company who could help to improve their systems.  Theodore Levitt says, “Discretion is the enemy of order, standardization, and quality.”  Put in simpler terms, discretion is the enemy of duplication.  Find out what works and teach it, while searching for ways to make it even better.  Leaders work on the system and the team works in the system while continuously suggesting improvements to the leaders.  Gerber explains the concept of orchestration, “Orchestration is based on the absolutely quantifiable certainty that people will do only one thing predictably – be unpredictable. For your business to be predictable your people must be. But if people aren’t predictable, then what? The system must provide the predictability. To do what? To give your customer what he want every single time. Why? Because unless your customer gets everything he wants every single time he’ll go someplace else to get it!”

One can quickly see that vision, purpose and work ethic, although excellent tools, are not complete without a holistic view of systems.  Senge describes the dismal consequences associated with visionary leadership without a systemic mindset, “Such ‘visionary crisis managers’ often become tragic figures. Their tragedy stems from the depth and genuineness of their vision. They often are truly committed to noble aspirations. But noble aspirations are not enough to overcome systemic forces contrary to the vision. As the ecologists say, ‘Nature bats last.’ Systemic forces will win out over the most noble vision if we do not learn how to recognize, work with, and gently mold those forces.”  Revealing again, the importance of a leader to be a continual learner, placing all thirteen resolutions outlined in this book into his arsenal of leadership tools. He must learn each individually, but through his systemic mindset, he realizes that the true magnifying power occurs only when viewed as a total system. Leaders learn; leaders do; leaders teach – an unbeatable cycle when adopted by all leaders within an organization. If, at any time, a leader is unwilling to confront the systemic facts, then the leader has stepped off solid ground onto the slippery slope of self delusion.  Leaders can be destroyed by their vision when they refuse to learn from the facts.  Senge describes the slide, “This happens, almost always, because the leaders lose their capacity to see current reality. The collude in their and their organization’s desire to assuage uneasiness and avoid uncertainty by pretending everything is going fine. The become speech makers rather than leaders.”  If a leader won’t confront the brutal reality, who in the community will?  In today’s hyper-competitive environment, constant innovation isn’t a nice add on, but an essential must for survival.  Moreover, companies that protect their “sacred cows,” systems and culture’s that no longer serve the customer, but are held in reverence, will soon find competitors, who were more concerned with the customer’s satisfaction than a company’s “sacred cows,” eating their lunch.  In fact, it could be argued that the most important system for every company is it’s innovation system, a system to discuss, dialogue and debate, ensuring that “sacred cows” are slaughtered on the altar of customer satisfaction, rather than customer satisfaction slaughtered on the altar of the “sacred cows”.  Gary Hamel, in his thought provoking book, The Future of Management, wrote, “When it comes to innovation, a company’s legacy beliefs (sacred cows) are a much bigger liability than its legacy costs. Yet in my experience, few companies have a systematic process for challenging deeply held strategic assumptions. Few have taken bold steps to open up their strategy process to contrarian points of view. Few explicitly encourage disruptive innovation. Worse, it’s usually senior executives, with doctrinaire views, who get to decide which ideas go forward and which get spiked. This must change.” It’s only when the leader, by confronting brutal reality, admits the gap between where the company is and where it desires to be, that he will inspire his team to improve the systems, patterns and processes in order to win. Senge describes the leader’s most valuable role, “His relentless commitment to the truth and to inquiry into the forces underlying current reality continually highlighting the gaps between reality and the vision. Leaders generate and manage this creative tension – not just in themselves but in an entire organization. This is how they energize an organization. That is their basic job. That is why they exist.”  Leaders communicate the vision while identifying the systematic causes hindering the fulfillment of it. Therefore, if a potential leader cannot think in a systematic fashion, he literally is unqualified for top leadership positions in today’s interconnected world.