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The Seven Attributes of
Excellent Management “During Projects”
Based on the Book:
www.geronimostone.com
Geronimo Stone, His Music, His Love, and the
Mobile of Excellent Management,
By Craig A. Stevens and Michael Moore.
2nd Annual Symposium
“Racing Towards Project Management Excellence”
April 28, 2006 -1:00
Willis Conference Center in Nashville, Tennessee
Craig A. Stevens
University of Phoenix Nashville and Trevecca Nazarene University
Dave Ott and Michael Moore
Westbrook Stevens, LLC
Figure 1. The Mobile of Excellent Management
Abstract:
Craig A. Stevens, the author of the Geronimo Stone Series of
books and the developer of The Linked Management Models to
excellence in organizational change, presents this fast moving
presentation. During this presentation, Craig will introduce you
to Phase 1 of the Linked Management Models -- The Seven
Attributes of The Mobile of Excellent Management. You will learn
the appropriate order to building excellent project managers.
1. Excellent Leadership
2. Excellent Project and Organizational Culture
3. Excellent Customer Service
4. Excellent Teams
5. Excellent Skills and Problem Solving Tools
6. Excellent Change Management
7. Excellent Performance Measures
Consider the following scenario:
The word’s out… Your company has been around for just about
30 years. During this time, the company has grown and prospered
under the watchful eye of a heavy-handed business genius,
affectionately known as the “Old Man.” He has created not just a
company, but also a family. Starting with nothing, he dragged
the company through many competitive and strategic battles to
grow a strong business. Business is booming, but…it’s time for
him to step down. He has to retire, but who will take his place?
When asked in the past, he often reasoned that he never needed
to develop leaders, as they would have just gotten in the way of
his decisions. Today there are fewer and fewer good leaders and
managers, and time is running out.
This is the foundational plot of the Geronimo Stone books.
The truth is… it is already too late. One cannot expect to
find the perfect person to take over and replace a legend. In
the book Built to Last, James C. Collins, and Jerry I. Porras
explained that those companies that have had a lasting impact
have had certain things in common. One of their points is that
companies “built-to-last” continue to prosper even as leaders
changed (not based on “time tellers” but rather “clock
builders”). These organizations are not reliant on great leaders
who have all of the answers (like the time tellers who could
miraculously tell time 100 percent of the time, just by looking
at the sky). Rather, they possess entire organizational
structures that could lead the company to success (more like
clocks that show time long after the time teller is gone).
History of the Seven Attributes of The Mobile of Excellent
Management:
Excellent Management has certain common attributes that apply
to project managers. We know this for, several years ago, after
researching many linear feet of writings on quality, Dr. Jerry
Westbrook formed a theory about the popular quality management
trends found in total quality management (TQM).
He described this often hard to understand program using six
attributes that made it easy to implement. His attributes are
culture, customer focus, team building, problem solving,
continuous improvement, and performance measures. His theory was
that one could use these six attributes to describe TQM in a way
that would satisfy all of the existing definitions. Furthermore,
these six attributes would give practitioners a framework on
which to build a program and a way to communicate these ideas to
others. He also found a link between culture and success or
failure of implementing projects and program.
It all boils down to people. The number one problem companies
had/have in implementing projects and programs, directly relates
to the failure to prepare properly the organization’s culture to
accept a change. Fix this problem and many others go away.
Craig Stevens developed the graphics related to the Westbrook
attributes, for a presentation on “Quality Management in
Government,” for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge operations
office (1993). Craig added a seventh attribute when Bruce
Brevard, a colleague and U.S. Naval officer, challenged him to
consider leadership as a missing attribute instead of including
it in the culture attribute. Mr. Stevens verified the model with
a massive search of material while he worked on his
dissertation. He created a database to store and retrieve the
data compiled from this broader literature search and then used
a design of experiments (DOE) statistical approach using a meta
analysis to look at the relationships between the attributes.
Mr. Stevens discovered that each of the attributes seemed to
reflect the body of the information collected. Leadership was a
natural and logical addition, and there were no additional
surprises within the literature reviewed, nor were new
attributes needed. These seven attributes, when applied to the
quality of management in general (or excellent management)
describe a set of easy to understand attributes for excellent
management.
Figure 2. The Mobile of Excellent Management
The first Step is Excellent Leadership:
To define excellent management we must start with excellent
leadership. Define leadership broadly. It is more than just a
few people at the top and more than just natural charismatic
people in charge. Leadership is a part of every employee’s job.
In the words of Victor Dingus, a one time quality manager at
Tennessee Eastman,
“We used to have 14,000 people and only about 400 were paid
to think. Our goal is to have 14,000 people paid to think.”
Excellent leadership is not a trait only for the top of the
organization, but a skill to develop in everyone throughout the
organization. If any one person cannot lead the project tasks
for which they are responsible, who needs them? Janitors even
have to lead janitorial tasks.
Someone once said, "The more you need your Boss, Supervisor,
or Customer the less they need you."
This is only half of the story. The other half is this, you
can always tell an ineffective leader by how hard that person
works in relation to his or her team. Effective leaders have
effective hard working teams. Effective Project Managers have
effective project teams. This requires direction. If people are
confused, the outcome is no work at all.
Symbolically in the mobile, leadership becomes a hand, holding
the mobile’s string of culture. As with the mobile, if the hand
is absent the mobile is, at best, stationary. However,
symbolically with the hand, the mobile can change position,
moving about the room. Likewise, without leadership in an
organization, the best that happens is to stay competitively in
one spot while losing competitive advantages. With good
leadership, the vision, the mission, and direction is clear and
the organization has competitive mobility.
When developing or incubating managers and leaders, one must
think in terms of a step-by-step layering approach. Managers
must understand people, an understanding that can only develop
over time with perseverance fueled by a commitment. I cannot
bring someone off the street, take him or her to Vanderbilt, and
force him or her to become educated. Likewise, you cannot force
someone to become a leader and “empower” them. Accordingly, the
first step of building leaders is commitment to achieve that
desire or goal. The commitment must be from both the company and
the people, as in Figure 3 (Pepper and Stevens 1993).
Figure 3, Incubating Leaders
After the leader/manager is ready to deal with people from
figure 3, then comes results in figure 4. To see results by
getting get people to do what is needed, requires another
step-by-step process. Leadership becomes the foundation, with
the following layers leading to better results:
1st. Communication of Information/Goals/Expectations -- (When
a true leader speaks people listen…Why? They give valuable
information when they talk.);
2nd. This leads to trust and confidence (Only truthful
information leads to trust);
3rd. After one is ready to trust, one is also ready to invest
time in education and training;
4th. After one is trained, then empowerment is possible and
ownership and cooperation in the decision making process should
be expected;
5th. Evaluation should only occur after empowerment; and
6th. Recognition should follow only after good “efforts”
achieve good “results.”
Figure 4, Key’s to Achieving Results
Step Two, Excellent Project and Organizational Culture:
The organization’s “Culture” is the next attribute in the
Westbrook Stevens Mobile of Excellent Management. On the mobile,
culture is the string on which the mobile hangs and without
which the mobile falls apart. The hand is no more important than
the cable; it just comes before the string. Leadership is no
more important than culture; it just has to improve before
culture can improve. Likewise, without a good working culture,
an organization will never greatly benefit from programs like,
continuous improvement, Six Sigma, quality management or any
system or process. When a good working culture does not exist,
it is equivalent to cutting the string holding the mobile. Cut
the cultural string and the project or program will fall apart.
Many programs have failed because no one ever considered the
difficulty of creating a competitive and accepting culture.
One of Dr. Westbrook’s studies showed that of all the
original six attributes, culture is the limiting force. It will
restrict the implementation and improvement of each of the other
attributes.
It is much more difficult to have a good project culture if
you do not fix the organization’s culture first. However, an
excellent organizational culture will not ensure an excellent
project culture. To an employee, the culture of any organization
or project directly relates to the personality of his or her
direct supervisor.
In the literary searches, authors use certain words and
concepts when talking about an organization’s culture. One may
read words and phrases such as “employee’s internal
environment,” “values, and ethics,” “supporting partnerships and
communication.” You may read about the focus of the company. For
example, the company may focus on quality or safety, or
something else entirely. They may refer to having a “quality
mind-set” or “quality orientation.” You may read about companies
embracing change or valuing employee satisfaction. You may hear
about celebrating successes or supporting training and
education. Culture could be defined as having high standards and
expectations or supporting empowerment and employee
participation.
Figure 4. The Cable of Culture
The string of culture has many parts. From the first Geronimo
Stone book, the traditional elements describing a culture make
up the threads of the string. Maybe the most important one is
“values.” An economy will never work correctly unless people
follow the rules. Moreover, the rules have to be based on the
highest moral and ethical values. In systems engineering, one
might say, “The systems only works, when people follow the
rules.” Do not expect successful results if the rules are not
enforced.
The “worldview” is also important to culture. If you have a
religious worldview, you may act in accordance with that
religion. In different parts of the world, people fear demons
and give offerings to gods. Some believe in no god, their
religion is faith in no god. A worldview could also include
political beliefs, republicanism, a democracy, communism,
totalitarianism, and so on. Some peoples’ worldviews comes from
positions of poverty and helplessness. The worldview is
important in organizational structure; it can bring people
together or keep them apart.
Other cultural issues revolve around the “language” the
employees and management use. Sometimes technological terms,
business codes, or acronyms segregate people.
People tend to divide themselves into subcultures. Some (but not
all) people from any group or race may fall into the subculture
trap. You may see it manifest in different ways. Blacks may go
to lunch with other Blacks; Whites and Hispanics may talk bad
about each other, and so on. Other subcultures exist based on
education, religion, political leanings, even function—such as
accountants vs. engineers vs. labor. Each subculture may work
against the company’s interests.
“Patterns of behavior” are a part of culture. It may be
associated with the time people come to work, the way people
work, or the way they solve problems.
“Basic underlying assumptions” are how one feels about certain
subjects. People assume things about whole groups of people.
Someone once said, “We judge others not who they are, but by who
we are.”
Artifacts and symbols are things like parking places with
names on them, and executive dining areas.
Step Three, Excellent Customer Focus:
Customers can never be number one! (WHAT DID HE SAY?) First,
leaders have to say and act as if the customers are important.
Second, the organization’s culture has to accept that customers
are important. “Customer Focus” is the third step.
Since the customer is the only reason you have a job, if you
are not willing to satisfy the customer…then you might as well
go home; you are not needed. So label the bar of the mobile on
which the other elements hang, “Customer Focus.” With the
mobile, the bar is important, without it, there is nothing on
which to hang the other elements. Likewise, in an organization
without customer focus there is no clear goal on which to hang
the organization’s work. The customer is the reason for and the
driving force behind an organization’s and the project’s
mission. Accordingly, the customer is where an organization
should focus its work.
Many people make all kinds of arguments on the difference
between internal and external customers, stakeholders and
customers, customers and clients, and on and on and on. Labels
aside, the point simply is, who are the people you are trying to
attract, satisfy, serve, communicate with, or to which you hand
your product/service/work? Who is next in line to receive your
efforts? Do your job to make this group happy or find a job you
can do! Build Excellent Customer Service even in the project
team!
Step Four, Build Excellent Teams
We all have to work together, but it will never be easy. The
first Geronimo Stone book explains that teams are the power
behind the company and the engine of the project. A great
example of teams is from an old Career Track tape series with
Mark Sanborn. He presented a list of the differences between a
team and a working group. A working group he defined as just a
group of people working together. One of the attributes of a
team, he said, was that teams were holographic in nature.
Remember the holograph scene in the first Star Wars movie? At
one point in the movie, the Swiss Army Knife of robots, R2D2,
had a little video attachment that projected holographic movies.
Remember how that little robot found its way to Obi-Wan Kenobi?
When R2D2 was alone with him and Luke Skywalker, it projected
the holographic image of Princess Leia asking for help. In
holographic form, a small Princess Leia bent over, adjusted a
control on R2D2, and then stood up and said something like, “Oh,
Obi-Wan Kenobi, come quickly. We need you. We need you.” Mark
Sanborn said that one could cut a holograph into many pieces,
and each piece would not be a part of the holograph, but a
complete copy of the whole picture. Therefore, if we cut up the
Princess Leia holograph, we do not get an ear, an arm, and so
on—not a bunch of parts of Princess Leia, but complete copies.
Ten cuts would give us ten little Princess Leias, all doing the
same thing at the same time.
And here is the punch line. Teams are the same way. If you
divide the team, each of the members should be a copy of the
team – not complete copies in looks, attitudes, skills, and
personalities. Nevertheless, teams are complete copies when it
comes to representing the team mission, team goals, and team
agenda. Every member of the team should be a complete picture of
the whole. Everyone should have the same personal mission,
goals, and agenda. If they do not, you do not have a team. You
just have a group of people working together.
Step Five, Excellent Skills and Problem Solving Tools
“Problem Solving” is a powerful attribute. Think of problem
solving in the broader sense of the skills and core competencies
to do a good job, such as problem solving tools and skills. One
tool Craig Stevens developed to explain organizational problem
solving to technically oriented people, is the Organizational
Problem Solving Lever in figure 5.
Exhibit 5, Problem-Solving Lever
If we could view an organization’s problem or barrier as a
large weight that has to be moved, then a set problem solving
tools could be viewed as the lever and fulcrum used to move the
weight. Relating this to projects, one could view the fulcrum
and lever as the specific Project Management International’s (PMI’s),
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) related techniques.
The lever itself is only as strong as the choice of problem
solving tools applied. No one tool does all things. The closer
the fulcrum is to the weight, the more leverage one has in
moving the weight. The fulcrum gets closer as the teams’ skills
in using the tool increases. The force applied to the lever is a
function of teamwork and communication. To have optimal effect
on the organizational problem (or leverage), the force should be
applied as far away from the problem as possible. In the case of
projects the more time you have, the more likely you will be
successful. This distance is a factor of when the team is
empowered to actually solve the problem (or complete the
project). In many instances, someone has seen a problem coming
for years. However, fear, politics, or some other cultural issue
keeps anyone from trying to solve it, until it is too late to be
effective. Then, we apply our force at the point where the tool
will not properly work.
Step Six, Excellent Change Management and Continuous
Improvement,
You can not have excellent management with out mastering
change. Project management is all about implementing a change.
All changes bring a natural dip in productivity, morale,
quality, or some other negative effect, as seen in Figure 6..
Call this cocoon/chrysalis stage or the Valley of Despair. The
Seven Attributes are the tool to use to help your organization
minimize the cocoon phase of the change. The point is this, you
can do things to minimize the negative effects of change and
maximize the positive aspects of continuous improvement.
Figure 6, The Change Process
Step Seven, Excellent Performance Measures
You cannot manage what you cannot measure. This Westbrook
Stevens Seven-Step Performance Measure process is a
consolidation of the work of over sixty different
papers/documents/books on the subject.
Step 1: Understand the science behind performance measures.
There are many rules related to good metrics. Understand the
rules before you start the process of developing a set for an
organization. Related to projects, PMI has simplified this for
us by giving us a list of appropriate project management tools
and metrics.
Step 2: Understand the goals of the organization. One should
never develop performance measures that will not track back to
specific organizational goals.
Step 3: Create a set of criteria (e.g., lower cost, better
quality, faster service) that reflect the goals you are trying
to achieve.
Step 4: Create the performance indicators (hours worked,
number of complaints about a specific subject) related to the
criteria that will give a picture of company performance.
Step 5: Collect the data related to the indicators.
Step 6: Analyze the data to determine the performance.
Step 7: Use the data to make a difference.
Miss any step and there is no reason to measure. If you do
not know the rules, chances are you will break them and make
things worse. If you measure something not related to a goal,
then you are wasting time and money. If you are never going to
use the information, you again are wasting time, money and
causing cultural problems.
Bottom Line:
Here is how it all fits together. Leaders have to lead.
Without “Leadership,” nothing else happens. “Leadership” is more
than a couple of people at the top. It is everyone’s job.
Everyone has to help make things happen. You have to empower
everyone to make decisions, at the lowest possible levels to
make everything happen faster. However, someone at the top has
to paint the vision.
Next is “Culture.” Organizational culture is the string or
cable that holds it all together. Unless the company’s culture
buys into what you are trying to accomplish, your vision will
not happen. It simply will never happen. If you do not work on
the culture, you may as well cut the string on the mobile. Like
the mobile, your organization will fall apart. Systems are
important, but culture can cause the perfect system to fail. The
organizational culture has to support our paradigm of employee
empowerment. Everyone has to buy in. To an employee, his or her
direct supervisor represents the company’s entire culture.” The
company should be a great place to work for those who buy into
the culture…but for those who do not, it will be better to let
them go.
After “Culture,” comes the bar of “Customer focus.” The
customers must be delighted, both internally and externally. Do
not get suckered into the debate of who pays and who does not.
The paying customers are the reason we all have jobs; everyone
had better have them in mind when they do their jobs. Everyone
should also think about the next person in the process chain
when performing his or her duties, for eventually that chain
ends with the paying customer.
At the bottom of the mobile hangs the other four attributes
to balance, “Excellent Teams,” “Problem Solving,” “Continuous
Improvement,” and “Performance Measurement.” Can you imagine
trying to build teams without skills in problem solving or
without leadership? How about starting a continuous improvement
programs without performance measures? It would never work.
So next on the mobile is the dangling object that represents
“Teamwork.” We have long passed the day when one person can
perform all the duties required for success. It takes a number
of people with different focuses to make even the simplest
product a success. Build teams that focus on the customer.
“Teams” require skills to be successful. That is—skills in
doing their jobs, skills in working together, and skills to make
decisions, and solve problems. “Problem Solving” is one of the
three objects hanging below the bar of “Customer Focus,”
balancing “Teamwork,” on the mobile of Excellent Management.
Next, “Change and Continuous improvement,” the issues related
to competitive longevity. The teams must continuously work to
make your company the best and become better at project
management. You can never be the best, unless, you continue to
improve the processes and systems required to serve the
customer. The organization’s culture must understand how
important this is. Everyone must lead and the senior leaders
must paint the vision and demonstrate its importance.
A company cannot know whether they are getting better or
worse unless they measure how well they are doing (i.e.,
“Performance Measures”).
All these attributes must remain in balance; they are all
important. You cannot remove any one of them without shortening
the life of the company or the effectiveness of the projects.
Just like on the mobile, remove any one piece, and it is longer
a piece of art. In a company or project, remove any one and you
no longer have Excellent Management. Remove Excellent
Management, and you cannot remain competitive. Stop being
competitive, and one day, you will no longer be a company.
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Stevens, Craig A., and Michael Moore. Geronimo Stone:
His Music, His Love, and the Mobile of Excellent Management.
Coral Springs: Lumina Press, 2006.
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Jerry D. Westbrook, “Taking a Multivariate Approach to
Total Quality Management,” Industrial Management,
March/April, 1993February 24, 1994.
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Stevens, Craig; Steven Gambrell, Presentation “Work
Force 2000, and the Seven Attributes of Quality Management,”
American Society of Quality Control, November 9, 1995,
Nashville, Tennessee.
http://www.westbrookstevens.com/step_1.htm.
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Calvin Pepper and Craig Stevens “Project Management –
Maintaining Quality by Communicating,” Third International
Waste Management Conference, ASQC, Las Vegas, Nevada, 92
http://www.westbrookstevens.com/culture.htm -
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Craig A. Stevens, "Managing Work Force 2000," 36th
Annual Tennessee Quality Conference, Sponsored by the
University of Tennessee, American Society of Quality
Control, The Tennessee Quality Award, and The Tri-Cities
Institute of Industrial Engineers, at The University of
Tennessee Conference Center, Knoxville, Tennessee, March 11,
1995.
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Stevens, C.A. and Steven Gambrell, “Diversity, Creating
a Single Company Culture in a Multi-Cultural Society,”
National Management Association, August 15, 1995,
Portsmouth, Ohio. -
http://www.westbrookstevens.com/culture.htm.
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Mark Sanborn – Team building Career Track Tape Set
http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/marksanborn.html.
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Words of Dr. Jerry Westbrook, director of the
Engineering Management, Industrial, and Systems Engineering
Program at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, during
his classes on Quality Management 1995.
OTHER MATERIAL USED
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Collins, James C. and Jerry I. Porras. Built-to-Last,
Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, HarperCollins
Publishers, 1997.
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Gambrell, Steven and Craig A. Stevens, "Moving Through
the Three Phases of Organizational Change," Industrial
Management Magazine, Institute of Industrial Engineers,
July/August 1992.
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Gambrell, Steven and Craig A. Stevens, Presentation, "TQM:
The What and Why Important to Technical Communications,"
East Tennessee Chapter of the Society for Technical
Communications (STC), Knoxville, Tennessee, January 25,
1994.
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Stevens, C.A. and Steven Gambrell, Presentation, Full
Day Session on "Managing Work Force 2000." "Part 1,
Forecasting Work Force 2000" and "Part 2, Managing Work
Force 2000," WATTec '94, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Knoxville,
Tennessee, February 24, 1994.
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Stevens, C.A. and Steven Gambrell, Presentation,
"Managing Change - Creating a Vision and Moving to that
Vision," sponsored by the National Presidents Program of
WATTec, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)
and Innovative Resources and Systems (IRaS) at WATTec, Hyatt
Regency Hotel, Knoxville, Tennessee, February 1993.
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Stevens, Craig; Steven Gambrell, Presentation “Work
Force 2000, and the Six Attributes of Quality Management,”
American Society of Quality Control, November 9, 1995,
Nashville, Tennessee.
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Stevens, Craig A, Presentation "Performance Measurements
for Quality Improvement," Sponsored by The US Department of
Energy, Oak Ridge Operations, Federal Building, October 26,
1994.
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Westbrook, Jerry, Craig A. Stevens, Donna Riggs, Grover
Smithwick, Presentation, “Quality Management in Government,"
sponsored by The Department of Energy, DOE Federal Building,
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, November 4, 1994.
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Westbrook, Jerry D., Craig A. Stevens, Donna Riggs,
“Quality Management In Government,” National Quality Month
Presentation, US DOE, Oak Ridge Operations, Oak Ridge
Tennessee, November 4, 1993. Gambrell, Steven and Craig A.
Stevens, Presentation, "TQM: The What and Why Important to
Technical Communications," East Tennessee Chapter of the
Society for Technical Communications (STC), Knoxville,
Tennessee, January 25, 1994.
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