Courtesy of Kaiser Permanente, 'Gaining Buy-In from Lean Leaders and Driving for a Performance-Based Culture' Geoffrey Gamble has written an article introducing his workshop/presentation.
Using W. Edwards Deming’s notion that, “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets,” as the background for team performance in the workplace, I’ve approached my PI consulting work in the hospital and medical offices of Kaiser Permanente in California’s Central Valley (Stockton, Manteca, Tracy, and Modesto) addressing what I believe is a fundamental “faulty wiring” of the most influential factor of all: the human system.
I’ve applied my 30-year background in the human transformational studies of ontology, phenomenonology, and somatics to develop experiential learnings and training opportunities that I’ve delivered to leaders and staff to address key humanistic flaws regarding listening, time, energy, meaning, reasons, and performance. Combining the basic Lean methodologies against the fundamental premise that, in a performance culture, you either have the result you want, or you have the reasons, excuses, and justifications for why you don’t, I deliver PI approach that has people distinguishing themselves as their Word, and taking all necessary actions to deliver on what they promise, without falling back on the excuses that we, as leaders, have been all too willing to accept.
As a proving ground, for the last six years, I have applied this approach to my annual batch of 20-25 high school interns in the KP LAUNCH summer intern program that I lead. I assign each intern to a department or team that is developing a unit-based performance improvement initiative, and using their fresh view and perspective on the subject, with the concepts and contexts I deliver in weekly training sessions to them and their KP-employee counterparts, we have consistently delivered breakthrough results in the teams’ PI work, camaraderie, and culture. I encourage each participant to engage their experience with a “personal” (non-work related) goal in addition to the team’s SMART goal/project work, so they can more readily see the tools and inquiries we use in action in their everyday lives.
Participants in my BTOES workshop were given an overview of this approach, its background, and application, and attendees used one of their own personal issues to apply these experiential learning techniques in real time.
Addressing and embracing the natural drawbacks to how human beings are “miswired” to perform is rooted in ontology, the study of the nature of being for human beings. Key conversations that redefine “ontological integrity” as a matter of an object, system, or person being “whole and complete,” rather than merely a nice and worthy virtue to have, allow for people to approach problems to address “what’s missing,” rather than the usual approach as “what’s wrong,” which always is rooted in the ineffective paradigm of right/wrong, good/bad, or who’s to blame.
Worthy concepts from business and leadership development works such as “The Oz Principle,” “Change the Culture, Change the Game,” “The Three Laws of Performance,” and “How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation,” among others, come together to form a unique, transformational approach to human integrated design and Lean thinking. An extensive bibliography for the foundation of my work, with more than 50 sources, was handed out during the presentation in New Orleans.
Successes with this method have been spread to more than 125 unit-based teams in the Central Valley Service area where I practice as the lead team PI Consultant. I’ve delivered various forms of a typical 12-week course, where the team designs, launches, and completes a “rapid improvement model” performance improvement project, as 8, 10, and 26-week programs, customized to address the needs and nature of both the team and the problem to be resolved. By adding the “personal project” component to all iteration
About Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is an American integrated managed care consortium that provides quality healthcare. It has had considerable benefits with operational excellence since they embarked on this journey several years ago, but how have they sustained this in the organization? Download this slide deck to see Geoffrey Gamble discuss their journey, and
, which achieved significant benefits for their organization.
About the Author
Geoffrey Gamble, Senior Consultant for Performance Improvement, Unit-Based Team Development, Employee Engagement & Culture Change of Kaiser Permanente, has nearly 30 years of experience in performance improvement and personal transformational technologies. Mr Gamble supports the work of transforming healthcare in the United States at Kaiser Permanente, initially as an Employee/Labor Relations Consultant in 2008, then Senior HR Consultant in 2010.
Since 2013, he has developed and lead Kaiser Permanente’s summer youth internship program in California’s Central Valley, training high-school-aged students and their company counterparts to implement innovative performance improvement projects that transform leadership engagement and care delivery though younger eyes and a fresh, new perspective in making a difference.
In his work, Geoffrey has consulted and engaged with several the leaders of US labor unions, including Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Office & Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), and the California Nurses Association (CNA).
These slides were first presented at the Business Transformation and Operational Excellence World Summit (BTOES). To learn more, please visit btoes.com.
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