Start of Chapter 7: Lead People

More excerpts from my upcoming book, Fundamentals of Complex System Sustainment.

This is the start of the chapter on the first of three enabling elements: people, tech, and process.

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The farther you are from a person, the more they appear to be evil, stupid, or both.

Chapter 7: Lead People

This chapter discusses the most intensely complex part of any complex system, people.

Your team, whether you are the manager or team member, will have brilliant, captivating, and far-thinking folks. It will also consist of the most aggravating, foolish, and stubborn individuals. Many times, these will be the same people. Most will have frustrating characteristics that pop up consistently or at random. Most will think the same of you, if they think of you at all.

Unproductive arguments pop up by surprise and monopolize entire meetings. Anxious managers make clumsy attempts to motivate teams. Rumors break out and destroy relationships. Sadly, you can’t really cure it all.

But some steps can be taken. People, after all, are also the most critical part of any strategy to sustain your complex system. So effort here pays off a hundred-fold.

This chapter discusses in 7 sections the most important 7 techniques that help all of us to stay on a useful path.

1.     Everyone benefits when everyone is a leader

2.     Leaders remind people their purpose is worthy, useful, and valued

3.     Coach as needed, but keep corrections private and focused on behavior

4.     Don’t pretend you can accurately peer into the other person’s inner world

5.     Notice those losing heart and encourage them

6.     If you have the power, organize people to achieve their purpose, not yours

7.     Don’t descend into stereotypes, get to know the person

Everyone benefits when everyone is a leader. You, yes you, are a leader. It does not matter how you see yourself in your mind or on the organizational chart. Practice leadership techniques and you, and those around you, will be better off.

Leaders remind people their purpose is worthy, useful, and valued. One of the most loving things that great leaders do is they remind people, one at a time or in groups, that they, and you, are pursuing something important, perhaps even critical. At the core of every human being is a desire to be needed and valued. This is especially amplified at work where even the less astute realize that unneeded people could be “let go”.

Coach as needed, but keep corrections private and focused on behavior. Praise in public. Criticize in private. It just works better for everyone that way. Sincere praise should be plentiful, but it takes practice. Criticism of another, done well and away from audiences, often results in you finding out things about you – things that you, personally, could have done better. Good coaches know that they can improve as well.

Don’t pretend you can accurately peer into the other person’s inner world. The Bible’s command of “Judge not!” combined with other commands to “correct your brother” means that people have always had a hard time separating a person’s actions from their motivations. It is better to say: “Marcia, we can’t charge toys to our business travel credit cards. It really has to stop. Can we agree that you will do that?” If you start with: “Marcia, I know you love your kids and you feel bad you can’t provide them all they need and you want to use your company credit card in places you know you shouldn’t…” you will soon find yourself in a self-made quagmire.

Notice those losing heart and encourage them. It may seem that nothing is sadder than a person who has quit in place. But that person can be “patient zero” who starts to rot the organization’s morale and make everyone feel hopeless. THAT is much sadder. Help them before they are excised and discarded like surgery to remove an infection. Lend an ear. Try to help. But don’t get infected yourself.

If you have the power, organize people to achieve their purpose, not yours. There are good organizations that make the work flow easier and there are bad ones that seem designed to stop all progress. The perfect organization for sustainment is described in this chapter under the “organizing people” section. These organizational constructs come with helpful rules to be applied in sustainment organizations.   

Don’t descend into stereotypes, get to know the person. There are more prejudices deeply buried in your psyche than the obvious racial, religious, or political ones. In a Department of Defense multi-faceted team, for instance, it is easy to think every contractor is looking only for company profit, every civil servant is there to homestead inside a comfortable bureaucracy, and every uniformed military member focuses their thinking on how to attain their next rank. Your team will have similar prejudices. Don’t fall for them. Everyone is an individual.

In the final sum, it all starts with you, not the other guy. And it starts with you seeing yourself as a leader. However, leadership is a life-long pursuit. Seek out other books, forums, classes, experiences, and people who will help you become a better leader.

Utah's Internet of Things Un-Conference

On 24 June 2016 I drove down to Provo, Utah from Ogden to participate in the first Utah Internet of Things (IoT) Un-Conference. 

In an un-conference, interested parties first arrive, and then plan the sessions. In the end, notes from each session are published. However, the conversations throughout the day are likely far more important than the proceedings. 

I was very gratified and happy to see that my session on sustainment was well-attended and participation was brisk. 

The main graphic used during our discussion is reprinted at the end of this post. I encourage the reader to browse previous posts for more information on this sustainment model. 

For un-conference participants reading this and hoping for the charts where I broadly described ICBM operations and sustainment, they are quickly accessed via a google image search. You can also look here for a brief summary of my introduction.

I introduced the topic by discussing the aspects of ICBMs that challenged the ICBM sustainment team to create possibly the best sustainment management model ever devised. 

1. Complex System
2. Distributed Remote Sites
3. Warfighters Counting on Expected Capabilities
4. Long Lead Times Requiring Predictions of the Future
5. Funding Decision-Makers Far Removed from Day to Day ICBM Events

In turn, the Utah IoT experts and newcomers discussed how they saw their systems fitting this model. They also discussed the need to spend more effort considering potentially long lives of their systems. Some insights:

1. Sometimes our "warfighter" and "decision-makers" are the same group, we call them "customers".
2. Early ICBMs tech progressed rapidly (Thor-Atlas-Titan-MM1-MM2) until it didn't and then Minuteman III remained in use almost half a century. Same is likely happening in IoT today. 
3. IoT certainly needs to be available and reliable, but the other readiness factors depend on the system's mission. 
4. IoT can create massive amounts of data that we might use to assess, do we restrict the creation of data at the source or after we collect it? Can we afford the bandwidth?
5. Many IoT system today are not sufficient complex to need this model. But many are and more every day. 

If you were there and I failed to capture your comment (I find it hard to talk and write notes at the same time) please leave it here as a comment. It is greatly appreciated. 

For that matter, if you were not there, your comments are appreciated as well. 

Chapter 1 Introduction to the Model

Latest version of the chapter that introduces the sustainment management model.

It was our goal to change things, hopefully for the better.

Chapter 1: Your System, Its Mission, “O–I–F”, and Enablers

In this chapter, the sustainment management model is covered from a big picture view. Following chapters provide additional details.

Everything Starts and Ends with Risk Identification

The “I” in O-I-F” is “identify risks”. Everything in the sustainment management model, as described in this book, is tightly connected to the sustainment risk identification process. It is the very heart of effective weapon system sustainment. Chapter 4 explains the sustainment risk identification process.

As the block diagram above implies, risk identification is the link between observations of system degradation and plans (fixes) designed to reverse the degradations. To identify risks, the system must be observed. Once risks are identified, planning begins to try to mitigate them.

The right side of the diagram above shows that the risk identification process directly feeds the process to create long-range plans and obtain funds, priority, and authority to execute. Once execution starts, if the fixes you are trying to implement are not working out, another trip to the risk board is in order.

System assessment (observing readiness) is certainly important and must stand alone as a program that continuously watches your system. However, the entire reason for the existence of an assessment program is to feed the risk identification process. As risks are identified in one area, priorities for assessment in other areas can increase. For instance, if electronic degradation in a flight control subsystem is found and a risk is written, increased scrutiny will most certainly be directed to electronics assemblies throughout the system. And if your ability to observe is lacking, you can write a risk to address it.

This diagram also identifies a group of people key to weapon system assessment, the warfighters. Warfighters have a mission that is achieved by use of their weapon system. To apply this to the civilian world, a “warfighter” and “mission” must be identified that your system satisfies.

Risk identification is also where the warfighter finds their strongest voice as risks are considered in light of the mission. The meta-model diagram above (see also chapter 2) shows reliability and availability as mission readiness factors, but other readiness factors will also exist in your system. Risk identification generates important arguments concerning what is part of and what is not part of your system.   

Faux-LeMay Syndrome and a Few "People" Rules

....another excerpt from my upcoming book that I am particularly proud of:

A word should be said here about the “faux-LeMay” syndrome which has occurred within the ICBM community and elsewhere. General Curtis LeMay was a genius and a “tough but fair” commander whose rants are legendary. He left a trail of fired subordinates in his wake. Many leaders within the ICBM community copied the “tough” part of the LeMay leadership approach to the dismay of their subordinates. In general, most of these top-flight sustainers were able to adapt to any leader’s approach as long as it included the “fair” part and everyone seemed on-board with the mission. But tough does not mean “praise in private and criticize in public”. Ranting and raving in public meetings, or other behaviors that send the message that the subordinate is a mindless minion should not happen. The person picked on will live up to (or down to) expectations. Sustainment of complex weapon systems requires everyone to be in the game 100%.

Nowadays, the faux-LeMay syndrome has been almost completely replaced with a cooperative leadership style that can still be “tough but fair”. It leans heavily on motivation, cooperation, and mutual respect. Leaders are told they should adopt the “servant leadership” model which focuses on helping the individuals in the organization with training, tools, and coaching.

A few “people” rules were taught to Minuteman sustainers:

1. Despite all the complex rocket science and convoluted government regulations, simple communication is the hardest skill to master. When talking, always allow the team member their say remembering to listen respectfully and asking probing questions. They might turn out to be wrong, but you will always learn something. This helps the mission.
2. Never speak ill behind someone’s back. It is morally wrong, but it also carries its own punishment. Even if not caught, they will sense it. Karma will be satisfied and then the mission will suffer.
3. There are many secrets that cannot be shared among contractors and government people. Don’t create any more than is absolutely necessary. For the sake of the mission, share as much information as you can.
4. The further you are separated from another person, the more they look either evil, stupid, or both. This pertains to especially to physical distance. Make the effort to share the mission and understand their approach to it.
5. Deal with issues in private. Give credit where credit is due. Sincere praise and thanks, especially across different groups, boosts cooperation and supports the mission.

About This Book

After writing 27,000 words of my book, "Fundamentals of Weapon System Sustainment", I am finally confident that I have hit upon the unifying theme and full contents. I have also changed the title to: "Fundamentals of Complex System Sustainment" and written the following "About this Book".

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There is a right way and a wrong way to attempt to sustain a complex system. This book, written by retired USAF colonel and retired defense contractor engineer, Charlie Vono, describes the best ways that Air Force uniformed military, civil servants, and contractors use when sustaining the most complex weapon system ever employed, the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The various key skills required within a sustainment team such as program management, supply, testing, et al are tied together with this overall vision.

Whether you are a strong advocate of deterrence via nuclear weapons on alert, or a strong opponent, the lessons learned keeping this highly complex system viable for half a century will be of use to you, if you have a complex system to sustain.

“Sustainment: the continuous support of a complex system with a goal of ensuring the mission of that system is met.” “Weapon system: everything required for the warfighter to employ the combat hardware and embedded software to achieve the mission.”

Starting with these all-encompassing definitions, Charlie Vono explains how focus on the warfighters’ mission enables you to identify risks to your weapon system readiness. Once these risks are identified, comprehensive plans can be put in place to mitigate the risks in a logical, integrated manner. Although no guarantees are ever possible, a great plan increases the chances funding from your decision makers will be forthcoming. All of this is predicated on a great assessment program that allows you to fully observe and precisely estimate your system’s readiness to support its mission.  

Vono provides numerous examples to illustrate key principles of sustainment. As a bonus, he provides detail on 3 key enablers to this approach, effectively leading your people, exploiting your information, and establishing discipline via processes.

With this management model on mind, a sustainer will never lose hear, feel lost, or despair of a path ahead. Many of the methods explained are hard and some you will find impossible when first attempted. But this paradigm will keep you and your team focused on the ultimate goal: ensuring the mission of your system is met.