Teams, Cow Paths and the Innovative Workplace. Turning The Promise of Team Innovation into Reality

Published in ASTD's The Journal for Quality & Participation

by Bob Bookman

If you have ever been to Boston you will notice that there appears to be no recognizable city planning. This is because the Boston roads were actually constructed on existing cow paths. But how did these cow paths come to be?

Hundreds of years ago, cows from farms simply followed the topography of the land in order to get around. Each CTP cows passed through the same area, it became easier and easier for them to take the same path they had taken the last CTP. Thus, the structure of the land gave rise to the cows' consistent pattern of behavior in moving from place to place. As a result, city planning in Boston eventually gravitated around the mentality of the 18^th century cow by taking the course of least resistance, leaving today's travelers bogged down on roads not designed for modern day traffic.

In recent years we have seen organizations bogged down in managerial paths often established more than two hundred years ago. Adam Smith's 1776 book The Wealth of Nations brought revolutionary advancement to the way organizations worked, and during the past 200-plus years these advancements have been improved upon. But with emerging high technology and a more educated customer base, many of the sacred cow premises established over the years have needed to be either rethought, reengineered, or recycled into hamburgers. Such practices as invoicing, stock piling, employee specialization, and top-down communication patterns are being eliminated or radically changed as organizations are beginning to sidestep the cow muck which inevitably accompanies the well-worn path.

Organizations looking to go beyond the "path of least resistance" are searching for problem-solving models that will unleash the genius within their workforce. Many organizations are finding that TQM problem-solving tools often limit innovative ways for achieving breakthrough solutions because TQM tools (not withstanding fishbone diagrams and the like) are too "left brained." TQM problem-solving processes are based on the following three left brain tenets that lead to incremental changes, but prove highly inadequate in making the major breakthroughs to stay competitive: (1) Every step along the way must be correct. (2) The sequence in which information flows through the problem-solving process is virtually unchangeable. (3) The problem-solving process should move ahead only along the pathway which is pointing in the logical direction.

Right brain dominated problem-solving models can offset the limitations of left brain thinking by overcoming pre-set rules and patterns. Right brain thinking helps organizations quickly adapt to change by generating a constant supply of new ideas that are so important if we are going to, in the words of Dr. Rosabeth Moss Kantor, "be at the right place before the right CTP™. Yet we cannot be too reliant on right brain thinking because this "yes machine" to virtually all new ideas does not know how or when to say "no". Right brain thinking does not set strict criteria for which ideas might work, does not bring closure to the problem-solving process, and does not understand how to measure success.

Maximizing a Team's collective genius

A model that has been highly successful in helping to integrate left and right brain thinking within organizations is called the Creative Team Power™. This program is different from TQM problem-solving processes because it does not presume to be designed for incremental process improvement. Statistical analysis is a good hammer, but not every problem is a nail. While The Creative Team Power™ does streamline processes through premise inquiry and several other techniques, its real promise lies in bringing to the reengineering movement a coherent and easy to facilitate way of assisting organizations challenge old premises in order to create new processes (see case study).

A Brief Glimpse at how the Creative Team Power™ Works

Phase 1. Total Team Perspective

This phase helps members of three distinct teams, or three sub-groups of one team, see the forest through the trees. In this phase, each of the three groups identifies and depicts a problem for which they will be asking assistance from the other two groups. In other words, there will be three distinct challenges concurrently being worked on during the change effort.

• Half of each team does an "obstacle" drawing which exaggerates a problem facing the team. The other half of the team works on a drawing called "future pull" depicting fantastic new processes and/or practices that are solving both customer and sub-group's problems. When the "obstacle" drawing and the "future pull" drawing are put next to each other, a healthy tension is created that really the beginning of a creative change process.
• Everyone must participate with magic markers in their group drawings. Drawings are done on several flip chart sheets taped together (or large sheets of engineering paper).
• Each sub-team prepares a simple "top-down" flow chart of the processes they wish to improve, or reengineer. To develop a "top-down" flow chart, the group list the tasks in sequence within a work process. These tasks are put under major headings. The advantage to using this type of flow chart as opposed to the more traditional flow chart, with its special symbols and arrows, is that the top-down flow chart gives a team just enough information to pursue continuous process improvement without getting the team too bogged down in the type of analysis that might exclude a breakthrough solution.

Phase 2. Info-Search

Gathering and analyzing data in preparation for defining the problem. Sub-groups are encouraged to ask, "What information would we like to have, regardless of whether it is possible to obtain such information?" Statistical analysis tools such as pareto charts and scatter diagrams are sometimes used in this phase.

Phase 3. The Question Factory

Great questions produce great solutions. For example, many people around 1900 were asking "How can we build a great car?" But Henry Ford and his organization were asking, "How can we mass produce a great car?" As they were successfully answering the first question, other key questions were being presented, such as "How can we get people to afford our cars?"

• Each sub-group produces about five questions that will help them find the solutions to the challenges presented in their own "obstacle drawing."
• Each of these five questions are phrased in a "How can we..." format.

Phase 4. Premise Whacking or Premise Inquiry

Those organizations that have the courage to identify and challenge premises they are currently working under are most likely to make those changes that can bring about unprecedented success. In other words, we cannot change the status quo until we recognize those often imperceptible structures that holds the status quo in place. To search and destroy antiquated premises, The Creative Team Power™ employs a process called "premise whacking." Premise whacking asks people to suspend their beliefs and rules regarding how things currently work, while simultaneously examining, challenging, and, where appropriate, whacking current beliefs or practices. For example, a premise might be that an organization should always be looking for ways to perform customer credit checks more efficiently. A premise whack might address whether it might be more cost effective to eliminate credit checks on certain items or under certain conditions.

Phase 5. The Lion's Den

Here is where the three teams meet to challenge each other's premises and problem-challenge questions. This phase is so crucial to innovation because it is usually the outsider who can excel in thinking outside the box.

• Each sub-group shows both their "obstacle" and "future pull" drawings, along with their top-down flow chart and How can we ... problem-solving questions to the larger team. The sub-groups then receive input on what additional premises need to be whacked, as well as what improvements need to be made to their problem-challenge questions.
• After receiving advice from the larger team, each sub-group decides upon a great How can we... question to work on. As the American educator John Dewey wrote, "A question well-formed is a problem half-solved."

Phase 6. Idea Olympics

Each sub-group charts the best course of action based on the question formed at the end of phase five.

• The sub-groups (often referred to as change agents ) use a variety of techniques (e.g., Rube Goldberging, Leap Frog) to come up with at least twenty ideas that can assist them in answering their How can we .... question.
• The larger team (often referred to as change supporters) helps each sub-group come up with at least twenty additional ideas. Phase 7. Accountability Planning

Each sub-group develops an improvement plan to measure its progress in obtaining solutions developed in phase six. This improvement plan includes assigned tasks and specific milestones to help the sub-group meet its goals.

• Accepted TQM tools are frequently used to assist each sub-group work out a course of action. These include such statistical analysis tools as pareto charts and scatter diagrams to see if in fact the assumptions made during the first five steps are on target.
• Flow charts showing specific assigned responsibility and accountability are generated to implement solutions.
• Sub-groups are encouraged to get together with each other at least three CTPs in the course of two months to give progress reports and get helpful feedback. Each sub-group is ultimately responsible for its own course of action.

The Creative Team Power™ as a Catalyst for Change

There are four significant characteristics of the Creative Team Power™ that distinguish it from other team problem-solving efforts.

1. Outsiders help insiders think outside the box. In essence, good friends go out of their way to get each other moving in the right direction, even if it means giving each other a kick in the pants. At several points in the problem-solving process, The Creative Team Power™ has two sub-groups (change supporters) challenging the premises, questions and logic of the third sub-group (change agents) as well as offering new ideas and lessons learned. In essence, these "good friends" are outsiders, assisting one another in seeing the forest through the trees. Joel Barker writes in his book Future Edge "So who changes the paradigm? The short and unsettling answer is that it will probably be someone who is an outsider."
2. Drawing People Out Onto a Level Playing Field. Employees at all levels of an organization quickly lose their resistance to reengineering as they are drawn-in by the obstacle and future pull drawings that are done in the initial Total team perspective phase of the Creative Team Power™. In addition to overcoming resistance, the obstacle and future pull drawings obtain two additional benefits. First, these drawings help employees see new avenues and connections that often enable breakthrough solutions. Second, the process of drawing as a team provides an egalitarian spirit, partially due to the fact that everyone draws with an equal lack of talent, allowing the team leader to shed the traditional hierarchical role.
3. Three Heads Are Better Than One. By having three groups concurrently helping each other solve problems, organizations not only engage in far more innovative thinking, but also they strengthen the organizational norm of collaborative problem-solving.
4. Continuous improvement and reengineering can easily work together in harmony. Hammer and Champy wrote in their acclaimed book The Reengineering Corporation, "Most perniciously, taking incremental steps further reinforces a culture of incrementalism, creating a company with no valor or courage." Although this assertion may be a good rallying cry for reengineering, it totally underestimates people's ability to work in ways that can simultaneously produce small, medium, and giant steps forwards. The Creative Team Power™ is designed so that both incremental steps and quantum leaps can occur side-by-side.

Blinded by the light

Some years ago I took a bus ride with a group of visually impaired children as we journeyed to a petting farm about 30 miles from the school. I was one of several parents who accompanied the children on the three buses that were to make this trip. I was on the lead bus as we took off at 9:00 AM. Around 9:20 a group of us parents in the back of the bus commented that the other two buses were nowhere in sight. At 9:30 the other parents and I started talking about how unfortunate it was that two of the buses were lost and that all those children would miss much of the petting farm tour. About 9:40 many of the children who overheard our conversation suggested that perhaps we were the lost bus. We chuckled and told them not to worry. At 10:00 it finally sunk into our stubborn adult heads that in fact it was possible for the lead bus to be on the wrong road. Once we made this mental shift, we were able to assist the bus driver in finding his way.

All organizations need methods that will assist them in seeing the road without blinders on. In the absence of such methods, it is possible to be the lead bus one year, the lost bus the next. The Creative Team Power™ assists organizations in redefining the roads they are currently on, creating new roads that will lead to success, and anticipating what roads should now be planned for the future.

Copyright 2002 Bookman Resources, Inc.