The BigQ – leading for competitive advantage in the One Planet World

The BigQ – Leading for Competitive Advantage in the One Planet World

 

The One Planet World

   It is clear that the pressure we are putting the Earth under is leading to resource shortages, both in absolute terms and relative distribution. For many of us, our experiment in living a multiple planet existence on the only planet we have is coming to a close.

   This has far reaching consequences for how we will ‘manage for a One Planet World’ and the leadership skills it will need.

It is often said that the past is another country, when the ‘customer was king’ and the drive was ‘quality’, ‘integrated teams’ and the work of Deming, Crosby and the other quality gurus.

   Today we live in seemingly more complex world where the customer is no longer king, only the most important ‘stakeholder’ in a confusing mix of social, environmental and economic drivers.

The Little and the ‘Big Q’

   Up until now we have thought of Quality as the ‘Little Q’, as fitness for purpose rather than the ‘emergent property’ it is; the property a collection or complex system has, but which the individual members do not have – the ‘BigQ’

In the One Planet World we can no longer say that because a product or service satisfies, nay delights the customer, that it possesses ‘quality’ –  if it leads to a ‘loss to society’ overall, as Taguchi would say; through economic, social and environmental failures.

Ask Nature

This isn’t the way nature does things. Nature seeks to maximize the value added to society that results from its creation, use and disposal of eco-system products and services, without loss. This is the BigQ definition of quality we must aspire to. Quality is that which

‘Maximizes the value added to society that results from the creation, use and disposal of products and services at continually reducing loss.

This is a journey of integrated continual improvement, not a destination.

A Mind Model

Using the One Planet Equation Mind Model (OPE) 1 = P x C x RI, we are inevitably drawn to its consequence; the First Law of Sustainability ‘In a resource constrained environment, goods and services can only grow at the rate at which their resource intensity can be reduced beyond balancing the One Planet Equation’.

From this vantage point we can look dispassionately at the One Planet World and say what this means for us as suppliers and customers of its products and services.

Resource Intensity

At our starting point on our journey towards the One Planet World we have

1 = P x C x RI or 1 = 1 x 1 x 1

And as we move forward from this point, the 1 planet remains the same so the right hand product always has to equal one. The only way this can happen in a resource constrained environ-ment is if the Resource Intensity, (RI) is never more than 1/PC.

This is the key to future strategic leadership and competitive advantage. We must

◦       Seek to eliminate the cannots

◦       Base our business models on the musts.

◦       Work to continually reduce the Resource Intensity of the products and services we create, use and dispose of.

Don’ts and Do’s

From this we can say that in the One Planet World

◦       Energy, water and other resources will be constrained

◦       Human resources will be plentiful

And from these come the ‘we cannots’

◦       Create growth faster than we can reduce Resource Intensity (RI)

◦       Waste or ineffectively invest resources

◦       Freely transport resources or goods

◦       Use a linear system of creation, use and disposal

◦       Keep creating products and services that allow unlimited forms of self-actualization

◦       Invest in inflexible technology, infrastructure and buildings

◦       Design for obsolescence

◦       Use Energy and water   ineffectively

And the ‘we must

◦       Evolve our democratic processes to enable process learning and continual improvement

◦       Leave behind the reductionist, compliance approach to organizational management

◦       Think local

◦       Educate for RI minimization

◦       Continually reduce the RI of non-essential processes to zero (eliminate them)

◦       Replace energy with people (Ingenuity and creativity) in processes. These are your customers!

◦       Replace products with services

◦       Design for maintainability

◦       Design for reliability

◦       Complete the cradle to cradle loop as far as possible

◦       Mimic natural processes

◦       Group symbiotic processes together

◦       Work to continually reduce the losses in the essential processes remaining (improve quality).

Only in this way can we perceive

how we are to lead for competitive advantage in the One Planet World and how we are to manage and maintain that advantage.

The Double Headed Coin

In the Big Q One Planet World we have to see environmental and social failures as much a part of the costs of poor quality as economic ones. That quality and sustainability are the two sides of the same coin, toss it and you can only win.

Business in the 3^rd Millennium

It is increasingly being recognised that we are coasting to the top of many resource curves, and are at or near the reality of the OPE deciding our futures

In managing for the future, businesses will have to cope with this reality. Fortunately humans are creative and enterprising and some organisations will survive and many more will be created.

Our past has been characterised as reductionist, but our future depends on our being able to shift paradigms to ‘systems thinking’, of not managing local time and costs but creating value and managing its flow through the system.

We have to work to continually reduce the combined ‘resource intensity’ of the essential processes that contribute to the flow of value through the system

This is best viewed as integrated, continual quality improvement – of reducing the loss in those processes – the BigQ.

Future Shock

We are suffering from what Alvin Toffler called ‘Future Shock’.

This being a state of confusion that arises when the past offers little guidance to dealing with the present and the future and we are in such a time, where the past offers few signposts to the future – when increasing demand for goods and services meets declining resources to create them.

Tomorrow’s businesses depend on their abilities to continually transform what they do and how they do it, and to achieve this they need a regeneration of the mindset that led them to this point in time.

They must have the ability to think beyond the boundaries of the organisation to the wider system and seek to attain their organizational outcomes at continually reducing resource intensity.

Creativity and Ingenuity

Deming created his circle of improvement, Plan, Do, Check, Act and it has stood the test of time but it doesn’t explicitly show the need for the creativity and ingenuity required to drive continual improvement, towards system sustainability.

Including these vital ingredients creates a Virtuous Circle that, using ‘in process control’ and a synergy of an entire organization’s stake-holders and their combined knowledge and skills, enables process learning, which after sensing and absorbing external signals will liberate the creativity and  ingenuity within to drive the process design in the direction of sustainability.

As the process becomes more sustainable, the losses are by definition minimised, reducing the need for appraisal costs and eliminating the costs and risks of internal and most importantly, external failures.

RI of Failure Demand

“Failure demand’ is caused by a failure to do something, or do something right for the customer and ‘value demand’ – is what the system exists to provide”, – John Seddon.

It is evident that such failure demand within systems will increase their Resource Intensity and in a resource constrained, One Planet World, these will increasingly be social and environmental failures.

Approaching their elimination from our current reductionist paradigm can only lead to the weakening of the links of Eliyahu Goldratt’s ‘Critical Chain’; which can only be strengthened by seeing these failures as part of a

an organization’s costs of poor quality; of its failure to live up to the Big Q.

Product or Service?

Tomorrow’s organisations must think how they can transform what they provide from a product to a service. They must think in terms of resource ‘stewardship’ and completing the ‘life cycle loop’.

All stakeholders must be ‘in the loop’ to maximize the ‘value added to society’ as the value flows around it; creating a synergy of knowledge and skills that will drive the Virtuous Circle.

As was ever the case we must be in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing, right. The anticipation of competitor and customer actions makes the difference between success and failure. Peter Drucker said “what the customer sees, thinks, believes and wants at any time determines if value is being created”

Instantaneous Adaptability

Leading in the One Planet World requires us to be almost instantaneously adaptable as individuals, with the vision and skills to create the same adaptability within the organizations we serve.

The resources available to us will be reducing over time and we must marshal them to continually increase the supply of goods and services that meet the essential emotional and spiritual needs of our customers.

It is unlikely that there will be many businesses supplying gratuitous wants in the One Planet World.

Tomorrow’s leaders must have the skills and ability to liberate the creativity and ingenuity in their people and other stakeholders that will enable and drive change.

Zero-based thinking

Zero-based thinking, as written about by Brian Tracy, is usually asking the question:

“Knowing what I know now, would I get into this business, job, or situation again?”

If the answer is yes, continue and improve; If the answer is no, get out of the situation as soon as possible and start from scratch.

As we coast over the top of the oil and other curves, this is the critical question we must all answer continuously, both professionally and personally to live the BigQ.

Managing for the Future

Tomorrow’s businesses must

◦       Satisfy emotional and spiritual need rather than gratuitous wants

◦       Satisfy essential needs in the lower orders of Maslow’s Pyramid

◦       Employ people rather than energy

◦       Create or use renewable energy and other resources

◦       Minimise water use or create the technologies that do

◦       Create and deploy climate stabilising and mitigation technologies

◦       Be increasingly local

◦       Provide a service rather than a product

◦       Practice lifecycle stewardship of their resources

◦       Manage value rather than cost

◦       Be able to operate at continually reducing resource intensity

Leading and managing for the future means understanding that the One Planet Equation and the world it is creating will arrive whether we choose to ignore it or not; that the BigQ is an opportunity and a challenging adventure.

Learning and Teaching

In the One Planet World we must learn what our customers are uniquely able to teach us if we are make maximum use of the resources available to us in the creation use and disposal of our goods and services.

This learning must be instantaneously part of our ‘Virtuous Circle’ of improvement to ensure continual process learning and Resource Intensity reduction.

Education for system RI reduction, the BigQ, will be an integral part of the organizational learning of those businesses, and the new ones created, that will successfully transition to the One Planet World

Leaders for ‘Future Advantage’ will

◦       Remember Deming’s adage that ‘Survival is not Compulsory’ for a business, or the human race.

◦       Understand that time is not on our side.

◦       See the future as a challenging adventure and not an impossible challenge.

Conclusion – Future Advantage

This article is predicated on four tenets

◦       That we are addicted to the hugely ineffective use of energy and other resources

◦       That most current discourse is centred on the ’symptoms’ our addiction causes – climate change, environmental, social and economic failures

◦       That human beings are, and have been, creative, ingenious and enterprising since the dawn of our species.

◦       That ’our’ future is ‘our’ problem – that the Earth will most probably manage very well without us.

Most other sources are concentrating on the problems our addiction is causing from a ’symptoms’ perspective, which appeals to many, as it gives the appearance of concern, whilst putting off action until tomorrow.

Many have a genuine desire to see immediate change but through a natural and emotional wish to deal with the symptoms are having their efforts dissipated.

The OPE makes clear the effect our addiction is having and makes explicit the action needed to create the One Planet World – to continually reduce the resource intensity of all the products and services we consume.

This is the real challenge we face if we are to create an economic future that is more equitable, whilst eliminating the risks of environmental and social failures in its creation.

We want as organizations, communities and societies to continually improve the ‘quality of our lives’ and this can only be achieved, logically, by continually improving the ‘quality’ of the products and services we create and consume over their life-cycle.

We must ‘Do the Right Thing’ – be effective in our use of resources and ‘Do it Right Every Time’ – be efficient in our use of those resources. This is a Journey, not a destination and has at its core the need for an effort of ‘quality improvement’ driven by human creativity that the world has not yet experienced – the BigQ

We face many challenges to achieving this, not least, the economic failure we are now experiencing and the natural response to ‘fight the last war with obsolete weapon’s’ but we have no option but to enter the future and we must envision what this future will be.

Human ingenuity and enterprise will ensure that some societies and organizations will exist and thrive as we attempt to ‘keep ahead of the oil curve.’

All future ingenuity, research, education, legislation and incentives must be directed to this end.

 ©Derek Deighton and Jackie Ansbro

Trailblazer Business Futures 2009

 

Climate change & COP 15 – the leadership crisis

Friday, December 11, 2009

Climate change & COP 15 – Part 2: Leadership crisis

This crisis in trust is closely linked to a crisis in leadership.

A McKinsey survey of global executives found that while three quarters (74%) say the CEO/chair should take the lead on socio-political issues (such as climate change), only half (56%) say the CEO/chair is taking such a lead. What’s more, less than 1 in 10 (8%) think that companies are championing environmental and social causes out of genuine concern.

In the US, almost a third (27%) of executives claim not to be playing any leadership role on public issues like climate change, and only 14% claim to be playing a direct, active role. And yet, almost half (44%) of US executives feel their peers should be taking a leadership role public issues, with only one-seventh believe they are actually doing so.

So much for the numbers; what are the implications for leadership? The same McKinsey survey may give us a clue: Of those who claim not to be playing any role in leadership on public issues, 71% cite ‘business reasons’, while of those who say they are playing a role, 64% cite ‘personal reasons’. This suggests that – in order to have transformational leadership on climate change – we need to look at both the business ‘rules of the game’ and the role of individual leaders.

Interestingly, this conclusion dovetails nicely with the leadership research coming out of academia, which emphasises importance of both the context for leadership and the individual traits of leaders.

from http://csrinternational.blogspot.com/2009/12/climate-change-cop-15-part-2-leadership.html

 

The ‘quality’ of universities and the ‘Resource Intensity of Learning’

It is impossible for us to ascertain the ‘quality’ of Universities unless we clearly understand the ’One Planet World’ we are now entering and consequently ’what they are here for’.

In this ‘One Planet World’. where resources are constrained and human resources are plentiful, Universities can only exist to ‘liberate the creativity required to enable their stakeholders to continually reduce the resource intensity of society at continually reducing resource intensity of learning’

The formation of students throughout the world is for a paradigm that no longer exists – the one of creating wealth through continuously using more resources – the paradigm universities have to educate for is one where wealth is created using fewer and fewer non-renewable resources. The one that is governed by the One Planet Equation and 1st Law of Sustainability, which states

‘In a resource constrained environment, goods and services can only grow at the rate at which they can be reduced beyond that required to balance the One Planet Equation’

note – we also have to recognise that many ‘renewable resources’ are not renewable at exponential rates of use. 

dd

http://oneplanetequation.wordpress.com/one-planet-equation/

http://oneplanetequation.wordpress.com/about/

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html 

Review to judge ‘quality’ of universities

 

By David Turner, Education Correspondent

Published: December 7 2009 13:39 | Last updated: December 7 2009 13:39

Lord Browne’s review of student funding has broadened into a wide-ranging inquiry into the standard of England’s universities and how well they are serving the economy.

The government-appointed panel on Monday asked for evidence on the overall quality of higher education, seeking to answer the question: “Does the higher education system provide the quality and academic standards that students, employers and national economic needs require?”

The review’s decision to take a broader view of the university sector, rather than concentrate narrowly on student funding, could result in a politically explosive document when it reports after the next general election. Debate over the quality of degrees at English universities has intensified in recent months, particularly after a parliamentary committee raised questions about standards in August.

The Browne review’s focus on the economic payback of degrees will also raise hackles among academics and student leaders. Many argue that ministers have become excessively fixated with universities’ role in the economy, rather than their broader benefits to civilisation.

Full article at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d1b5a4b6-e331-11de-b965-00144feab49a.html

 

Resource Intensity reduction and the ‘Critical Chain’

Critical Chain Project Management

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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“Critical Chain” redirects here. For the novel, see Critical Chain (novel).

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) is a method of planning and managing projects that puts the main emphasis on the resources required to execute project tasks. It was developed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. This is in contrast to the more traditional Critical Path and PERT methods, which emphasize task order and rigid scheduling.

A Critical Chain project network will tend to keep the resources levelly loaded, but will require them to be flexible in their start times and to quickly switch between tasks and task chains to keep the whole project on schedule.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Chain_Project_Management

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Critical-Chain-Eliyahu-M-Goldratt/dp/0566080389/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258901584&sr=8-1

 

Has the SD Commission ever ‘got it’?

Sir Jonathon Porritt stands down as Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission today and he blasts government, with a small ‘g’ as  having not ‘got it’.

The reality, however, is the SD movement has never ‘got it’. That our ‘Quality of Life’ is a quality issue. That sustainability is a journey of continual improvement and not a destination.

Of doing the right thing, right by enabling process learning, something that our democratic institutions have failed to evolve to do and we have failed to educate ourselves to understand.

My past letters in Green futures illustrate this

dd

Letter published in Green Futures May/June 2001

I noted with interest your reporting of the EU Environmental Awards and the comment by Environmental Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom that “sustainable development and greater competitiveness go hand in hand” [GF 27, p10]. These awards were appropriately made to companies that have or manage significant environmental impacts.

Most small or medium-sized companies, however, do relatively little to address their environmental impact, despite the effort of projects like SIGMA [see GF 23, p 21]. We need to do more to engage such companies. I am convinced the best way to do so is by integrating sustainability management into quality management – since most businesses have at least some system for the latter, however informal.

But it’s becoming increasingly evident that the traditional, customer-focused definition of quality as ‘fitness for purpose’ is inadequate. We need a new definition. Here are two possible ones that I advance for debate:

1. Quality minimises the ‘loss to society’ resulting from the creation, use and disposal of products, processes and services.

2. Quality maximises the life cycle efficiency of products, processes and services.

Viewed in this way, less than perfect quality creates unsustainable systems, which are the basis of the problems being addressed by the SIGMA Project and other initiatives.

An additional benefit of this redefinition of quality will be to re-examine the ways in which the quality and environmental ‘industries’ have become so ’standards-based’. My definition of quality implies a ’synergy’ between the supplier and customer rather than compliance. My hope is that the SIGMA Project will become a means to do precisely that.

Derek Deighton

 

Letter published in Green Futures 2004

Reading with interest Jonathon Porritt’s article in the current edition of Green Futures brings to mind my letter you were kind enough to publish in edition 28.

  The view I expressed then and I feel is evident from this article is that Sustainable development is seen as an unaffordable luxury and not a central business imperative.

  The environmental community has admirably driven SD but will only gain credence in business if it is expressed in terms of Quality based financial metrics; a concept that has a resonance within all businesses, large and small.

 Reprising my previous letter, SD advocates must work to redefine Quality a

“Minimising the loss to society resulting from the creation, use, and disposal of products, processes and services.

 If losses are minimised, sustainability is brought nearer. Quality and sustainability are the two sides of the same coin, toss it and you can only win.

 

Derek Deighton

 

A Transition take on the UK ‘Low Carbon Transition Plan’

Conclusion

…………….Overall, I think this is as bold and brave a plan as could be expected given the circumstances under which it was no doubt written.  Here is a government approaching an election, having been in charge during a spectacular economic unravelling, with Milliband having to fit within and keep on board a Cabinet obsessed with economic growth (the Mandelson/Brown effect).  The brief set for it was to create a low carbon economy in the context of economic growth, in complete contradiction to all the indications to the contrary.  I think Milliband is a dynamic young politician who wanted to do something very far-reaching here, but he has had to do so in a very difficult context.  Within the context of what he can actually do, I think it is very good.  In terms of being a plan that will enable and underpin this country’s inevitable energy descent and relocalisation, it is inadequate.

Praise where it’s due; on the positive side, the Plan takes many decisive steps forward and puts mechanisms in place to ensure that the various Government departments actually carry them through.  It is nothing if not ambitious, although its starting assumptions are such that it is designing for a world that will almost certainly not be possible.  However, it is, of course, the victim of a degree of inevitable compromises (especially in the farming area) which hamper the effectiveness of such a wide ranging proposal.  I do think that as a plan produced by government it is as good as we are likely to get, indeed some parts of it are much better than one might have expected.

From my perspective, it throws the challenge back to Transition groups and others.  The Government has set out an unprecedented dedication to the low carbon agenda, and thrown considerable weight behind it.  The role of communities is seen as being vital, and encouraged, but the ball is in our court. We often say communities can’t do this on their own, they need Government working to support the low carbon agenda.  Now they have gone some way towards that.  What is missing from this Plan is the local detail, the stuff that central Government can’t do;  the locally owned energy companies, the local food networks, the groundswell of desire for change, what Jeremy Leggett calls the ’scaleable microcosms of hope’.  This is what Transition can do, and I feel, having read this report, and having heard Milliband’s endorsements of the Transition Network, that the door to real and deep change feels significantly more open than it did last week.

Full article at http://transitionculture.org/2009/07/17/a-transition-take-on-the-uk-low-carbon-transition-plan/

 

The CO2 Intensity of Society

 The question arises for a society like the UK, as to what a reduction in CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050 actually means for the society and its citizens.

We delude ourselves and ignore the fact that the one planet equation is immutable, but we are failing ourselves and future generations.

The calculation is quite straight forward and is as below. We will be forced to follow the curve the equation creates over time, but ignoring it means inaction now will lead to chaos later.

dd

         If we take the one planet(society) equation 1 = P x C x I then assume by 2050 CO2 must reduce by 80%, then 1 becomes 0.2 in respect of CO2, if population is then 70m  P = 1.16 and if we could get growth at 2% then C = 2.2

So 0.2 = 1.16 x 2.2 x I or I = 0.08 or a factor of 1/0.08 = 13

This means we have to reduce the CO2 intensity of every UK citizen by 13 times by 2050 with the projected population and economic growth at 2%

Even with no growth we are faced with a factor of around 7

 Talking in terms of building wind turbines and installing smart meters is a nonsense, change on this magnitude means a reordering of society, how we organize ourselves to reduce the CO2 intensity in all we do.

Agreeing and eliminating the products and services that do not add CO2 value to society.

It will mean very few new ‘green’ jobs but the recreation of many old skills as we replace fossil fuel energy in processes by people.

As we reinsert, creativity and ingenuity back into processes.

Pecha Kucha presentation The CO2 Intensity of Society PK

dd

 

The One Planet Equation is immutable, and rules all our futures

 The One Planet Equation is immutable, and rules all our futures, whether we choose to ignore it or not!!!

dd

 

Youth leadership and the resource intensity of society

 The scheme below is another example of failure to understand the need to continually reduce the resource intensity of society and the way to achieve this.

There are at the present time many organisations in the community giving young people the opportunity to be creative, and develop leadership skills, Scouts, Service Cadet organisations, churchs etc.

What is sadly and fatally lacking in our society is the opportunity to exercise those skills. Some form of national service or ’service for the nation’.

Not necessarily military service, but within all sectors, education, health, police etc.

The key criteria are that it should have some element of compulsion and a considerable element that is not local to the individual’s home. These elements will

• show individuals that they have a duty to support and maintain the society they are part of
• break down failure of aspiration within communities as members are faced with other realities and opportunities.

My 2002 comment on the UK Northwest Framework for Employability and Skills Action, FRESA can be downloaded here Comment on the North West Region FRESA290802

dd 

Youth leadership scheme launches £1m third sector fund

By Charlotte Goddard
Children & Young People Now
3 July 2009

A consortium of youth organisations has launched a £1m fund to boost youth leadership opportunities as it unveiled details of leadership body The Youth of Today.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown attended the body’s launch in Wolverhampton today.

The £1m Leadership Fund will be managed by the Young Foundation, part of the consortium which is led by the National Youth Agency. The fund will invest in third sector organisations delivering leadership programmes for 13- to 19-year-olds across England over a two-year period.

Full article at http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/ByDiscipline/Childcare-and-Early-Years/917997/Youth-leadership-scheme-launches-1m-third-sector-fund/

 

Quality and the One Planet Equation

An article for comment by Derek Deighton 03 July 2009

Introduction

All around us we are bombarded with messages telling us that we need to change, that the Earth is warming, that oil is peaking or we are in an power crisis. The messages are insistent and shrill but diverse and incoherent and all about our symptoms rather than the addiction we suffer, the hugely ineffective use of the resources and sinks that our only planet, the Earth, provides for us.

As a result we are either paralysed into inaction or taking action that is neither systemic nor joined-up, to use a much hackneyed political expression.

A Mind Model

Continued….

Article can be downloaded here for comment

Quality and the One Planet Equation