Systemizing your approach to management

Business901 Podcast Transcription

Implementing Lean Marketing Systems

Systemizing your Approach to Management

Copyright Business901

H WILLIAM Bill DETTMER Senior Partner Goal Systems International Bill is one of the most recognized experts in the Theory of Constraints

field and more specifically the Logical Thinking Process He has 8 years graduate level teaching of systems management systems analysis human factors management control systems organizational behavior and development Theory

of Constraints Total Quality Management and management of research development testing and evaluation More importantly he brings a level of experience to these subjects that few in the world are able too Bill has available on his website a series of 12 brief papers called the Systems Thinking Series

Each is 2-5 pages long and addresses a discrete aspect of systems thinking

He has 23 years experience in military operations logistics strategic planning operational planning training large-scale systems deployment project management and contracting Delivered 20 facilities construction projects on time and under budget for foreign government and has successfully completed multi-national logistic support project 30 percent ahead of schedule and 25 percent under budget Bill also directed a

medical services program treating 110000 people in remote third-world locations in less than 14 months Bill has authored or co-authored the following books

Systemizing your Approach to Management Guest was Bill Dettmer a Systems Thinker

Related Podcast Systemizing your approach to management





Joe Dager It is my pleasure today to have Bill Dettmer the senior partner of Goal Systems International and author of The

Logical Thinking Process Bill is a long time Theory of Constraint expert and TOC consultant I am quite honored to have him as part of my podcast today Bill could you give me an introduction of your organization and yourself

Bill Dettmer Well thank you Joe first of all for the opportunity to be with you here today In answer to your question I would say that my company is more of a consortium than it is a company I work together with a number of people who are themselves experts in specific areas and in most cases they are experts in either functional areas or geographic areas that I cant reach

When I have an opportunity to work on a project of some sort that is either beyond my skill or knowledge base I have other experts that I can draw on to bring in for those purposes Its worked out very nicely because each of my associates is a consultant in his own right They do the same thing So Ive got a nice little network going here And thats basically how my organization functions

Joe When I think of Bill Dettmer I think of the logical thinking

process You have probably taught me more about the logical thinking process than anybody else Your first book on that process was probably in the 90s wasnt it

Bill Yes that was Goldratts Theory of Constraints I wrote that in 1996 That was when I was relatively new to the thinking





process Id only had about three years exposure to it At that time I think it was only about four years old as an organized methodology I wrote that basically in self-defense because at the time I was teaching masters courses at the University of Southern California in systems management I was incorporating TOC principles specifically on the thinking process in my course work

Unfortunately teaching in a formal university environment there isnt the time for the give and take of shall we call the Socratic approach or the brute force approach in learning Youve got a limited amount of face time in the classroom You have to provide materials for the students to read ahead of time so that they have at least some basis for discussion and taking advantage of that limited class time

There was nothing absolutely nothing at that time - this is from 1993 to 96 - in that area So I basically wrote what I considered what the university referred to as a course reader I

basically data dumped everything that I had in the notes that I took when I went through the Goldratt Institutes Jonah program

I just wrote it all out in note form I said all right if I had to translate this to somebody how would I do it I basically converted it into a book that was published actually by a print shop at the university in a soft cover It was intended just as a course reader to support individual professors courses

The students not only liked it but one day I got a telephone call from the universitys print shop and said we just got a call from

outside the university that wants 30 copies of your course reader It wasnt even connected with the course And I said Where did it come from They said Boeing in Seattle That was a complete surprise to me





I said Well OK what are we going to do about that Well we can ship it to them Well OK So they did and then low and behold over the course of the next six months we sold more than about 400 of those that way

I came to the realization - this is in 1994 95 I think I better look for a publisher here its about time So I wrote the manuscript I found a publisher That publisher happened to be

the American Society for Quality their quality press division and theyve basically been my primary publisher ever since that time

One of the things that I learned as a professor at USC is that you have to really be on top of your game depth wise if youre going to stand on the other side of the lectern from the students because youve got to be deeper than one question in the subject matter in order to be able to teach it effectively

Joe You have really developed the logical thinking process into using it as a tool for strategy

Bill Yeah thats true The interesting thing I think that most people dont realize is that problem solving which is what the thinking process was originally conceived for and strategy development are basically opposite sides of the same coin All that strategy development is complex system problem solving raised to a medal level Youre now looking at it from a whole system business perspective on how this business functions within its competitive environment Or even if its not in a competitive environment in whatever environment it does function in

So rather than trying to find out using the thinking process why we cant get more widgets out the door which would naturally lead you into a process analyses and the lengths of the chain and all of the usual Theory of Constraints concepts all youre doing is turning the same tool outward and saying all right how does this





business fit into the world or the environment in which its functioning Same process same procedures just a different target

Joe When you think of Theory of Constraints you think of it so much internally This is an external method of use of it

Bill Yes You could actually you could say that But one of the things you know its interesting that and Im glad you brought this up because one of the things that Ive discovered in using this for a strategic tool is that there was a crucial question that had been completely overlooked in the use of the thinking process for its first seven or eight years Youve been through all of the materials on TOC and you know that the three key questions originally were what to change what to change to and how to cause the change to happen

I realized very soon when I started looking at the application of the thinking process to strategy that the key question the very

first question that ought to be asked is why change Why change to begin with

This forced me to say OK I need to find some sort of a standard benchmark for what should be happening in a systems or an organizations world before I can determine what to change In other words what to change implies somethings wrong Well against what standard do you judge that You judge that against a standard of what should be happening

If you wanted to look at it this way there are really four questions The first question is what should be happening what to change and what to change to and how to make the change happen

This kind of drove me in 2002 to start considering the addition of another tool to the thinking process panoply specifically the IO





map or intermediate objectives map which helps to define a systems goal and the limited set of critical success factors that enable that goal to happen Then a hierarchy of supporting necessary conditions below that in order to make those critical success factors happen

Joe When I look at the trees and the logical thinking process one of things that I always struggle with is it seems very

cumbersome to learn Granted if I would take a class it might help It seems like its not that its not intuitive or its not something that You know in todays world were so used to opening up the piece of software sticking a CD in and using it Maybe thats the whole purpose because I got to think through it

Bill Yeah yeah I would say that there is a certain element to that and its not easy to learn even if you have access to a book thats as comprehensive as The Logical Thinking Process book that I wrote Its still its a tough row to hoe I guess all I can say is when youre doing something as important as tinkering with

the organization do you really expect it to be as easy as just plug in a piece of software and enter some data into some blocks and let the computer do your thinking for you I think most people for that the answer would be no Although enough people have bought SAP that you would think that theres probably some counter opinions out there as well

Joe I just happened to ask the other day to a group of people is anybody using decision making software out there besides the people that are selling it

Bill Thats a very good question What was the response

Joe I didnt get a lot of response back

Bill I can understand that Well the short answer is that the basics behind the Logical Thinking Process are really what they





called the category what Goldratt referred to as the Categories of Legitimate Reservation These are the eight rules that govern logical relationships in any system Those are very simple when you start looking at them But its when you try to say all right now how do I convert those into something usable in a specific situation thats both coherent and complete Then you start getting into something thats a little bit more difficult The tool that most The thinking process that most people have had

historically the most difficulty with has been the current reality tree

I was one of those people at the very beginning I struggled It took me three days in my Jonah Program to build my first current reality tree And I said theres got to be a much easier more effective streamlined way to be able to do this without sacrificing any of the quality of the output It took me years to figure out how to do that by a brute force approach I finally got it now to where somebody who really understands the process and has the benefit of the using an IO map to start with can complete a current reality tree even the first time in about four or five hours

Maybe the quality of the first effort may not be so good but you know practice makes perfect You do it enough times and it comes out very quickly Now theres no reason why any of these tools should take longer than a couple of hours to put together an analysis on the system

Joe How do you get someone introduced to that process Because I think that step into it is a big step

Bill Yeah thats an interesting question you ask and I cannot say that its a real easy solution Theres an old saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear One of those kinds of things is what I think really applies in this area People have to be ready or searching for something This is not the kind of thing that you can force feed This is not a technology-based marketing





approach In other words you have to identify a need and say Well take a look at this because this may be exactly what you need

I find that I dont do much active marketing My book my website and so forth basically does the marketing for me primarily because if somebodys not really interested in logical thinking going out and giving them a sales pitch or spam email

or whatever overwhelming sales approach you might try thats not going to get them interested

Joe I look at the thinking process tools and I see the evaporating cloud and I see like five blocks up there and it seems really easy Then the next thing I know is that I feel like my mind is saying scribbling on a wall here with the whole thing and really breaking down the process

Bill Yes it is its actually a two way process Theres an inductive and a deductive component to it But the deductive

component is the part that has to begin first You have to start from the general and work your way down to the specific then you can extrapolate back up to the general again This is one reason why I like to try to start with a statement of the goal and the critical success factors of a system Whether that system is an individual in his or her own life or whether its a multinational corporation start with that and now start deconstructing it down to determine where things are going wrong

Or get down into its component parts analyze the interactions between the two and then patch it all back together again and go

inductively to a solution It can get to be very complex at times But the good part of it is that this methodology its not an individual thing In other words it doesnt require one person to sit down and do it all themselves





You can throw man power at the situation and in point effect I think this process lends itself very well to coordinated groups in other words groups of problem solvers For example one of the Im about to start a thinking process course that will include a guy coming from Siemens Energy Division They build big power generators that go into electric power plants here in the US

They have some major complex problems with their organization

A guy thats coming into this course has been trying to get into this course for the last three or four years Finally hes gotten through to somebody there that theyve got complex problems that they cant solve basically any other way than with a systems approach to the whole thing So they finally said OK you better go get this training

Hes going to come and learn about this and hes already got a team of engineers there that are frothing at the mouth to get busy and start building They built a wonderful IO map on their own just from reading the book Its in some respects maybe a

little more complex than it needs to be but you know thats what they put together They like it Theyre happy with it They say this reflects the situation

Now theyve kind of got the fever You sort of have to get involved in it in order to do that Hes going to be going back with this knowledge and hell be basically the internal facilitator for this because hell know how to do the system and how to facilitate it

Joe When I look at Logical Thinking Process it seems like that

itrsquos a step above the Five Why process Im a lean guy so Im very familiar with the Five Why How can you sit there and tell senior management were going to solve the companys problems with Five Whys





Bill Yeah you really cant And senior management is really a special case The people who are in the middle of the organizations are the ones who really appreciate these tools more than the folks at the senior level Folks at the senior level are usually too involved with the big picture to get involved with the details There are exceptions in this but in most cases thats the case Their attention spans I like to say that a CEO has an attention span of a five year old child If you cant get the

message across in 15 minutes forget it Hes on his way to the next meeting or the next issue on his plate

Ive actually been in meetings where after the 15 minute point Ive seen the CEO sitting there jotting notes down and its not jotting notes about whats being said its notes about whats going on in the next problem that hes trying to solve In other words theyve lost him already

The short answer is you cannot get them involved in the details of the process All you can do is get them involved with the

recognition that there is a problem there is a process and there are results that can come out of this process

One of the things that I discovered in the course of the seven or eight years after I wrote my first book is that CEOs will not sit still while you go through a 70 or 80 element current reality tree to identify the problem They just will not You have to have a way of getting your message across quickly

I basically figured out a way to distill the most complex trees which are current reality and future reality into what I refer to as

executive summary trees Its the same general content the same conclusions same general root causes or injections without all the detail It looks more like a flow chart than it does a true logic tree





It is suitable for presentation to an executive audience and you can get the same essential message across in much less time Then if they have detailed questions on well how did you make this leap from here to here then youre prepared to show them detail but only if they ask for it

That was not something that had ever been given to me in my original training I dont think anybody even kind of realized that

that was necessary at the time In many cases they still dont Executives just wont sit still for this set of stuff So youve got to be able to get in get the message across and get out

In the literary world its common knowledge that it takes a lot more energy and effort to write a short story than it does to write a novel The reason is because in the novel theres not limit to the size You can basically write as much as you want in as much detail as you want But in a short story youve got to get it all compressed and without losing any of the essence much more difficult to do

That is essentially the same the big challenge using the thinking process On the one hand you cant get away from doing the detailed analysis If you fail to do that you may end up solving the wrong problem or coming up with the wrong solution

But when it comes to the presentation or the coordination of the results you better be able to distill it down to something that can be dealt with in a short period of time because if you cant youre going to lose them youll lose your credibility the solution will be ignored

Churchill once said man occasionally stumbles over the truth but usually he just picks himself up and continues on Thats the risk that you run if you dont know how to present what youve done in a detailed analysis





Joe So really its an executive summary of the logical thinking process that you go through in the trees

Bill Precisely And the other thing that Ive learned that you dont do is you dont give it to him all in one bite I remember when I was in the Air Force commanders always would say Dont bring me problems bring me solutions So what we would have to do is we would have to come to the presentation

with a complete soup to nuts summary of well this is the problem were up against and this is what weve decided to do step by step and this is why we think its going to work and now we need your approval to implement it And the boss would say Right go and get it go do it or no dont do it that way do it this way but go get

Well the problem is in most businesses they dont want to deal especially with the big important issues in one 15 minute session They recognize that theres a risk associated with making changes They want to contemplate it a little

So generally when I teach my students to use the thinking process in the organization I will have them go through each of the tools individually in a separate session It may take a month before they ever get to the future reality tree It may take two months

But theyll start with getting agreement that this is what the organizations goal and critical success factors are Once everybodys kind of in agreement on that then they go on and analyze the problem come back a little later with a current

reality tree that says well remember we all agreed this is what the goal and the critical success factors are OK here are the areas that were not meeting those A B and C D E and F are just fine but A B and C weve got problems And here are the reasons why The current reality tree gives those reasons why Then you have the discussion as to do you agree with our





analysis Well when you get the agreement with the analysis now you have the charter to go ahead and say all right solve those problems

Then you go away and you start working on the solution to the problems You come back and you present the problems and say remember this is what we said the problems were Well heres what weve come up with in the way of solutions

You dont tell them anything that they dont need to know to make a decision Make it slender and let them ask the questions on things that they want and then provide the information

Thats the biggest problem that I had as a consultant was trying to tell them too much and losing the audience that way I think many consultants are that way You want we want to impress people with our knowledge rather than solve their problems

Joe We take all these ldquoconsultanizerdquo things and all the different methods it seems we still go back to Socratic questioning Its

really one of the better ways to learn

Bill Yes thats true It really is You just mentioned something that I think is critical to understand here and that is that neither the thinking process nor TOC in general are the be all and end all in the world of business or organizations The big value I believe of both TOC in general and the thinking process in particular are that they absolutely excel as targeting mechanisms I used to use the analogy of a gun laying radar in the military environment TOC is a really good gun laying radar It identifies the target It zeros in and tracks it And at that point then the executive can decide what kind of weapon to put on that target Is it going to be a missile Is it going to be artillery Is it going to be air to air

Well the same type of thing TOC and the thinking process can identify the problem and then the system manager or the





consultant can decide well the appropriate thing to use for this particular problem is going to be Lean or Six Sigma or something along those lines

Lets say design of experiments We need to do some experiments on this particular situation to determine In other words you will pick out it will identify problems in such a way that its almost intuitive that well this is the perfect tool It

comes from a completely different discipline but this is the tool that we need for this particular problem

Yet TOC allows you to maintain that systems approach to make sure that youre not fiddling while Rome burns

Joe You talk about your military experience and things and I really see the influence in your discussion of bringing Boyds OODA loop into the process Boyd was brilliant and never got really full credit I think for

Bill Yeah youre absolutely right about that

Joe I see Boyds OODA loop being used more and more people in referencing of it but I didnt realize you referenced it as much as you did and as early as you did in your processes

Bill Yeah thats true I came by that in kind of a back door way I have a friend dating back to the 70s who retired as an Air Force major general back in the early part of this last decade And he went to work for a consultant a defense consultant in the Washington DC area We exchange emails on a weekly basis He sent me an email one day and said hey you ought to check this

book out This is really cool It was a book by Robert Coram called Boyd The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War I said OK it looks kind of interesting

So I picked it up That was the first Id ever heard of Boyd It was really a biography It wasnt a technical book It was a





biography But I became fascinated by it because they had to explain some of what he was talking about in his concepts in order to really give depth to biography And I said dang this OODA loop is not only is it great but it fits in beautifully to the kind of system thinking that I tend to groove on

So I started learning more and more about it I got in touch with Chet Richards which was one of Boyds accolades back in the

days when they were both working at the Pentagon and read Chets book on it

I immersed myself in it and I said Man this is great this fits in so nicely with systems thinking and gee I can just see how this folds seamlessly in with the thinking process because the thinking process is not a one time shot thing its an iterative process just like OODA loop is you observe you orient you decide and you act

Well thats exactly what happens with thinking process Youre

observing what goes on around you In the orientation process youre building your trees and part of that is also the decision on what to do and then you go act

Well but it doesnt stop there It feeds you back to the beginning again Once youve made a change to the system you go back and you look at the results of the system and how is the system performing now Wow we need to do another reality tree because though most of it is the same there are some changes Its not performing in quite the way it was before Hopefully its better sometimes its not If not why not Well thats the second

issue iteration of orientation

So I really became very much interested in that And I have to say that the definitive volume on Boyds philosophy and the OODA loop is a book called Science Strategy and War by Frans Osinga And its a little deep reading but if youd read some of





the like Chet Richards book Certain to Win its a natural follow on It really is And it dovetails as I said with TOC Its almost like they were separated at birth

Joe In reading the chapter that you put in the TOC handbook I noted that even though we talk about iterative reaction and we talk about feedback its really proactive rather than reacting because were doing it so quickly Is that a fair take on it

Bill It really is a fair take And this is the thing that I think is so wonderful about the OODA loop And as an organization or a person goes through the UDE process it can take varying lengths of time Boyd would do it in a 40 second aerial engagement and go through it multiple times in that 40 second period Organization takes a little bit longer but it need not take that much longer They do it whether theyre conscious of it or not But the fact that they are conscious of it makes it easier shall we say to direct that effort and force faster cycles of the OODA process

So what is that except continuous improvement I mean youre deep in that area because of your exposure to Lean and Six Sigma continuous improvement is an iterative process The OODA loop is comparable to Demings PDCA cycle

Joe Well I like to argue with most of these things Master one of them because the five focusing steps the OODA loop the PDCA cycle Deming theyre all very much the same We have a little different tools that we use to get it and you have to master the tool set because if you go back to what I think about the

Boyd thing and in a combat aerial thing is that mastering the thinking process you do it intuitively and you do it well If you master Deming or if you master PDCA you do it intuitively and you do it well and guess what you run your business well





Bill Yes Theres an issue here that relates to the iteration the repeated iterations or the repetitions the doing it over and over and over again the continual refinement The idea is that when you go through OODA loop every time you go through that loop you know a little more about the system than you knew before and it keeps getting tighter and tighter and tighter and the cycles through the loop get faster and faster and faster

Well one of the books that I really love and I happened on to it only as a result of reading more about Boyds work is a book called The Book of Five Rings and its written by Miyamoto Musashi who died in 1645 He was the quintessential he was the paragon of what a samurai warrior is all about The guy was the best swordsman that ever lived He wrote this book to summarize exactly how to be an expert swordsman One of the things he said in there is that he said practice is the only way that you will ever get to learn what the way of the warrior is about Words can only bring you to the foot of the path You must practice until intention becomes no intention and the sword becomes no sword

What that is basically saying is just what you said about intuition or intuitive application Hes saying I dont need to see whats happening and consciously think about it As soon as I observe it I immediately intuitively do the right thing to act and the sword is not a tool in my hand its an extension of my arm So thats what no intention and no sword means

Well what does this do except it allows you to skip over the decide step in OODA loop and Boyd was very much in favor of it

He said if you are fast enough to observe and orient yourself you can go directly to acts without having to decide what to do

That shortens your cycle and it puts you inside your opponents decision cycle So its a real interesting gestalt It all fits together here and I think that the thinking process can be a real key part of that





Joe I think it is But one of the things that - and this is going to be my Six Sigma side coming out Dont you have to support all this with data Dont you have to be formulating the data to do that because the data leads you down a path that allows you to You cant be intuitive about everything because sometimes just the outward appearance of something lies to you if you dont have the supporting data

Bill Yes youre absolutely right Where does the data become most important The data is most important in the identification of the problem Its not in the creation of the solution because thats a projection of what should happen in the future Its not in the establishment of the goal and the necessary conditions because those are value judgments But when you start to analyze what the problem is in other words when youre building the current reality tree thats where data become really important One of the key lessons I try to convey in my thinking process courses is the most critical of all of the categories of legitimate reservation is entity existence

Why is that the case Because youre building a tree that reads If this then that through multiple layers maybe 10 or 15 from a root cause all the way up to an undesired effect You can have absolutely perfect lock-tight logic in every one of those connections But if one of the statements in there is erroneous or faulty or just flat wrong then the entire thing falls apart

I use the example of the buffalo herd Have you heard that one Its been around on the Internet a little bit Its supposed to be a

conversation exchange between two guys from Cheers The two guys that sat at the end of the bar Norm and Cliff The mailman and the salesman right Cliff is explaining about the buffalo theory and he says The human brain is like a herd of buffalo It can only go as fast as the slowest buffalo When buffalos are hunted and the ones that are the weakest that fall back in the





pack are the ones that are killed off first This natural culling is good for the herd It allows the herd to move at a faster rate

He says In the same way the human brain can only move as fast as the slowest brain cells So he says If we kill off the slower or weaker brain cells then the brain becomes a faster more deadly machine He says So as we know drinking beer kills off brain cells so thats why the more beer you drink the

smarter you feel

I used that example in the thinking process because I built a little tree out of it and the logical connections are absolutely dead tight But there are two statements in that tree that dont have entity existence One is that the human brain is like a herd of buffalo

The other one is that alcohol kills only the slowest brain cells You take those two and because you render them to be erroneous the entire beautiful logical construction is worthless So what I

tell all the people who go through my course is You better be able to look at every block in that current reality tree and either find expert testimony or data to support the accuracy of that statement So thats where your data fits in Joe

Joe I think youre right on I think thats a great message especially for my audience when we talk about customer value and customer identification I look at the logical thinking process is even a great way for if you would master it for a sales person for a marketing organization to take a customer through a buying process

Bill Yes it could very well be Goldratt kind of did that back in 1994 with the beginnings of what he called the Mafia Offer Basically the concept was to build a current reality tree that showed that the solution to the customers problem was the resolution of an undesirable effect that came from a certain point





in the sales process If the sales person shows how logically they are what it is theyre selling is the solution to the customers problem The place where most people go wrong though is Well consider the approach of most high tech companies We sell solutions Eli Schrangenheim said to this ldquoI hate that How can they possibly say we sell solutions when they dont even know what my problem isrdquo

Thats a very key point there How can you say the only way you can say we sell solutions is if you try to put everybodys problem in the same box and it all looks like this Well thats not the case Even if it is the case every organization likes to think but were different Let me start with the basis that youre different whether you are or not well start with what you perceive to be your situation and well work our way down to what your problem is

Then if you have the solution for that problem then it makes your sales job a lot easier because now you can prove that by reversing the polarity on this unfavorable current reality tree with

your solution all good things are going to come to pass

It could be very powerful But again you cant overwhelm them with detail When it comes in the analysis youve got to have that detail in order to be sure that youre right But when it comes to the presentation theres a whole different a whole different scheme is needed

Thats one reason why my companys slogan is constructing and communicating common sense There are two completely different animals there The construction requires the detail and

the comprehensive aspect of it but the communication youve got to now boil that down to something that resonates quickly

Joe So we go back to providing an executive summary

Bill Yes basically





Joe Then if you dig deeper in the subject or even break it off and go to some of the other decision makers within the organization who wants more detail then you take them through that process

Bill Right And you know what the toughest thing for a consultant to do using the thinking process is you go through this wonderful logical analysis you come down to a root cause and

all of a sudden you realize oh my God their root cause is an area Ive got no solution for them It is so difficult to say I can help you to identify what your problem is but I cant help you solve it because I dont have the expertise to do it That takes a really big man or a woman to say I dont have your solution but here is your problem its well identified

Now this is another reason why I like to maintain a big network of professional consultants because that improves the chances that I can say I cant solve your problem but I have somebody that can He is an expert in this area right here It isnt me but

this is it What have I done I have not solved their problem directly but I have solved their problem because I have connected them with the right person

Joe I think thats a great way to look at it because one of the best books that I have read on the sales process is by Mahan Khalsa with Lets Get Real or Lets not Play It is a Stephen Covey book and its really never have been given the credit that I thought it should have What he does is he goes through a decision process and then he steps out and says lets get real

about it we are either there we have the solution or we tell them we dont Move on

Bill This is one of the things that I think is really valuable about the thinking process I may even have an intuitive idea of what their situation is Because if you see enough organizations of similar types you can pretty well say that there is a high





probability that they are suffering from the same kinds of problems But if you want to be a true neutral arbiter of the situation you can go in I could promise them that I may not be able to come up with a solution to your problem But I can guarantee you that we will identify what that problem is Even if I dont have the solution for it together we can find out who does and put you in touch with them

And boy as soon as they realize that you are not out to try to sell widgets or software or something in other words the whole effort is now focused on solving their problem not selling your product and you are willing to recognize that maybe you dont have the solution they become much more trusting of what you tell them

Joe I think everybody tries to do that as a salesperson to get on that side of the table with them It is not about sitting across the table get on the other side with him We have all been taught that But it is pretty hard to let go after you have invested the time because who is paying for the time

Bill Yes That is absolutely true And unfortunately you have to I feel that if I am going to be able to live with myself I have to be able to say I have reached the limits to what I can provide this customer Ethically I have to tell them they need to go someplace else I will not try to tell them that I have all the answers I think that there are a lot of consultants out there that say we will partition your problem to fit into our little box here Thats what I call the Procrustean solution Are you familiar with the mythology of Procrustes from Greek mythology

Joe No I am not

Bill Well in the old days the pilgrims used to make their up to Mount Olympus to worship the gods in Greece And it was a long trek and they were on foot They couldnt do it in one day Invariably at the end of the day they got to the hut of Proclus





who was sort of like the gatekeeper for Mount Olympus They would spend the night at Proclus place and Proclus had one bed that would fit all people If you were too short he would stretch you out like on a rack to fit the bed If you are too big hed cut off your feet till you fit the bed

That became the sort of like the catch word for the idea of partitioning the problem to fit a preconceived solution and

consultants do that an awful lot Now we are going ignore these aspects of your problem here because I really cant deal with them

We are just going to work on this part of it Or we are going to pretend that this doesnt exist or we are going to redefine it in a way that my tool will work Thats huge Thats a big huge mistake and is a disservice to the customer And a consultant that gets a bad reputation from that deserves everything he gets

Joe The other thing I want to touch base on is you use word the

system thinking a lot Much as you use TOC and system thinking sometimes is such a big umbrella such a big term to people What does that really mean to you

Bill OK that is a really good question I dont know that we have the time to go into it in great detail But lets just say that most thinking is analytical and has been ever since the renaissance the idea that systems are whole systems and are complex things We have a hard time holding it in our head and envisioning all of the interactions and so forth What has typically happened over the last several centuries is that people tend to

partition the system or break it down into its component parts

Something that is a little easier to deal with in other words they try to bind the problem by this decomposition into parts This is the process of what they call analysis It is a breaking down of the system into simpler parts that they can deal with The





problem there is that it is based on an erroneous assumption especially where systems particularly human systems are concerned

That is that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts That is apparently not true And all you have to do is look at lets say the example of the New York Yankees from the last seven or eight years before this last World Series George Steinbrenner went

and put together the greatest collection of people that he could with the money that he had The top guys Robinson Cano and Rodriguez and Jeter and all of these guys and pitchers His intent was to try to put together the best team from the best individual parts well ignoring the fact that their success or failure is dependent on how these parts worked together

Thats the synergy in a system And thats what makes the sum of the parts assumption erroneous But thats what happens as we break down systems into individual parts and just assume that if we polish all of those parts up and put them back together

again they will function as the best possible system It doesnt work that way So the system is not equal to the sum of the parts is actually somewhat less than that

Joe The connotation I use real quickly since we are on TOC thing is the Herby thing or the Buffalo thing The role players are so important Not everybody can be a star

Bill It is the interconnections not the components themselves that are places where most systems break down And when you can discover where those are then you can tune the systems to

capitalize on the interconnections For anybody thats interested in getting more of a feeling for what systems are all about or systems thinking is all about there is a source that I would send them to and it is not the one everybody thinks of which is Peter Senge





It is Gerald Weinberg Gerald Weinberg wrote a book on systems thinking and it just came out in its 25th anniversary a silver anniversary How many books that you know of that had been in print for 25 years and are still selling like hot cakes Weinbergs book is

And he as a professor at the State University in New York I believe - want to say Binghamton but I am not sure it might be

Buffalo its one of the State Universities in New York He has been teaching there for years And he teaches systems thinking and systems management

Truth be told I came to Constraint Theory and I gravitated to it because of my prior exposure to systems management I was teaching at the University of Southern California in their systems management program and finding that what they were doing was basically violating their own systemic principles

They were looking to patch together a whole bunch of individual

discrete tools to try to cover different parts of the system instead of there were no real tools out there or concepts that were true system synthesis tools

I happened on Theory of Constraints and I said ldquoThis is greatrdquo This just fits in so nicely with what I am teaching my students in my classes because it really amounts to a systems thinking set of tools Thats really how I got into TOC was because of my prior involvement in systems management and systems thinking and the fact that there was nothing of a synthesis nature in what we were teaching

Joe Thats a great description because I see how that applies Thats really my theory of marketing It is not one thing works anymore It is a collection And whats important is not the single event the single ad the single white paper It is the strength of the connections between components





Bill Exactly right Here is something you said just triggered this in my mind There is a saying I have heard that its wonderful to find a little bit of logic to support the intuitive emotional decision you want to make And the fact of the matter is that that is a kind of a microcosm for why the thinking process very frequently fails in organizations It is because the truly logical message that it comes out with is in such diametric opposition to the emotion of the moment of the decision maker that there is just no way they

are going to escape it or accept it I should say

And as a result they do what Churchill says they stumble over the trees But usually they pick themselves up and continue on Thats one of the areas I have been working and most heavily over the last say three years I am trying to come up with a rational explanation and a solution for why it is that even when perfectly good rational logical solutions such as the ones offered by TOC are presented to executives that one of two outcomes most often predominates First off is it is either rejected out of hand or if it is reluctantly accepted eventually it dies out and is not continued

My research in that area has been taking me into the areas believe it or not of neuroscience to figure out how the human brain works and how mental models become embedded in neural networks in the human brain to the point that if it violates your mental model it doesnt matter how much logic is there you are going to do the wrong thing

There is another wonderful book and I have to recommend it very

heavily by a guy named Laurence Gonzales It is called Deep Survival Who Lives Who Dies and Why It is a very sobering look at people that are into extreme survival situations shipwrecked at sea lost in the wilderness Some people manage to work their way through it very successfully and other people just curl up and die or work themselves into deeper trouble It all





gets down to what they have convinced themselves in their brains and whether they are able to set these things aside I strongly recommend that book because it gets into some of the same issues and it is what got me into the question of neuroscience It led me to another author who happens to be a professor at USC that I didnt know about Antonio Damasio is his name And he wrote a book a classic landmark book in 1994 called Descartes Error He goes into the detail for why logic is not the basis on

which we make decisions but emotion is Both of those books are really really important reading I think

Joe It is some great insight Is there something that I left out of this conversation that youd like to add

Bill I cant think of anything right off hand except to say this I love the thinking process and I decided to focus on that thinking process primarily because I saw it as being the most broadly applicable and flexible tool that Constraint Theory provides I like that tool because of its flexibility and its scaleable Thats the

thing that is so cool An individual can use the thinking process to decide what they are going to do with the rest of their life A middle manager can use the tool to decide how to solve the problems with which they are faced And a senior executive can use the tools to develop the strategy their long term strategy for the corporation Ive decided obviously since I wrote the book on Strategic Navigation Thats the area that I really like to focus on is helping companies to decide where am I going and how do I get there

Joe I just ask one simple question before we leave here Which is the favorite book you wrote

Bill I would have to say that Strategic Navigation is probably the favorite book that I have written because I takes the reader into the realm that I am most fascinated with the whole concept of strategy development and deployment Thats the one that I





like the best Now on the other hand I have a great affection for logical thinking process which is it started out as a second edition of Goldratts Theory of Constraints that I wrote in 1996 At least when my publisher contacted me and asked me you want to do a second edition I said sure I realized very quickly that the methodology had evolved so drastically in the ten years since I had written it that what I was writing was really a completely new book

When I taught the thinking process in the late 1990s as I got further and further away from the publication date of Goldratts Theory of Constraints I was having to supplement it more and more with handouts and additional materials I ended up teaching the Thinking Process course in 2003 2004 with a supplementary binder that was as thick as the original book that I had written

I said all of the stuff really needs to go into the book My supplementary handouts are about 15 pages of exercises and

things because it is all in that book I really like the Strategic Navigation because thats the topic that is nearest and dearest to my heart But I probably am more gratified with logical thinking process at this point

Joe I would like to thank you very much This podcast will be available in Business901 blog and also the Business901 iTunes store So again thank you very much

Bill Well thank you Joe I appreciate it very much You take care And lets keep in touch





Joseph T Dager

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt

Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022

Email jtdagerbusiness901com

WebBlog httpwwwbusiness901com

Twitter business901

What others say In the past 20 years Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues Joes

ability to combine his expertise with out of the box thinking is unsurpassed He has always

delivered quickly cost effectively and with

ingenuity A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with James R

Joe Dager is President of Business901 a progressive company providing direction in areas such as Lean Marketing Product Marketing Product

Launches and Re-Launches As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Business901 provides and implements marketing project and performance

planning methodologies in small businesses The simplicity of a single

flexible model will create clarity for your staff and as a result better execution My goal is to allow you spend your time on the need versus the

plan

An example of how we may work Business901 could start with a consulting style utilizing an individual from your organization or a virtual

assistance that is well versed in our principles We have capabilities to plug virtually any marketing function into your process immediately As

proficiencies develop Business901 moves into a coachrsquos role supporting the process as needed The goal of implementing a system is that the processes

will become a habit and not an event

Business901 Podcast Opportunity Expert Status





Joe Dager It is my pleasure today to have Bill Dettmer the senior partner of Goal Systems International and author of The

Logical Thinking Process Bill is a long time Theory of Constraint expert and TOC consultant I am quite honored to have him as part of my podcast today Bill could you give me an introduction of your organization and yourself

Bill Dettmer Well thank you Joe first of all for the opportunity to be with you here today In answer to your question I would say that my company is more of a consortium than it is a company I work together with a number of people who are themselves experts in specific areas and in most cases they are experts in either functional areas or geographic areas that I cant reach

When I have an opportunity to work on a project of some sort that is either beyond my skill or knowledge base I have other experts that I can draw on to bring in for those purposes Its worked out very nicely because each of my associates is a consultant in his own right They do the same thing So Ive got a nice little network going here And thats basically how my organization functions

Joe When I think of Bill Dettmer I think of the logical thinking

process You have probably taught me more about the logical thinking process than anybody else Your first book on that process was probably in the 90s wasnt it

Bill Yes that was Goldratts Theory of Constraints I wrote that in 1996 That was when I was relatively new to the thinking






























































































































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan



































































































































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan
























































































































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan













































































































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan

































































































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan




















































































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan










































































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan






























































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan


















































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan






































































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan



























































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan
















































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan




































































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan






















































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan









































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan































smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan





















smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan












smarter you feel


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan


















Bill Yes basically





















Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan


























Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan














Joe No I am not










































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan














































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan

































































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan





















































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan









































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan































Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan




















Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan










Joseph T Dager


Ph 260-438-0411 Fax 260-818-2022



Twitter business901









plan






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