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the beacon

art of work

  october 2019 · issue 2

person in focus

hendrik lourens

senior consultant

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I think of myself as always curious and learning. I get satisfaction from making a major improvement in the lives of employees or performance of companies.

I started my career in physics and chemistry and then migrated through roles in applied research, development, marketing/technical sales, quality and operations. For a number of years I was the director of a 400 strong manufacturing company.

I then started consulting in Theory of Constraints to miners and manufacturers and, on moving to Australia, got involved in safety differently with Art of Work (through Collective Improvements). It has been a great fit and lots of fun. When work is difficult productivity is low. Fix productivity and you address safety.
 

How does your background in chemistry assist your current work?

In chemistry, the goal is to create new molecular structures or to identify structures which may benefit society. Discovering the rate at which the desired structures form and the equilibrium state that will be reached are crucial to success. To do these, scientific principles (physics) are harnessed in logical cause and effect thinking.
However, chemistry also looks beyond the ordered world. Nobel chemist Ilya Prigogine showed in the late 1960s that complexity is part of chemistry and showed that chemical systems are balanced between order and chaos. 
Our modern organisations are no different, there is the ordered part where managers can control and manage with rules and procedures, but this world cannot be separated from the complex side where standard rules and strategies impede results. The two sides exist in equilibrium and for best results, we have to switch from the ordered to the complex for short periods.

 
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interactive  website

art of work data pick
If Australia were just 100 people, what would it look like? Check out trends in the Australian population illustrated from the 2016 census data.

what goes to make up effective safety leadership

marc mclaren

chief enabler

This question is often asked as organisations and leaders wrestle with how to improve safety at the individual, team and organisational wide levels. While the question may shed some useful insights it is potentially too narrow a starting question, limiting inquiry and reinforcing existing biases. Maybe we need to start with the broader question of how is safety understood and defined in the organisation? The answer to this question will help in thinking through what makes for effective safety leadership? 
Safety has historically been defined as the absence of unwanted events, where the metric of success has been seen primarily as the reduction in the number of incidents and injuries. This has led to leaders to see the main objective of safety as placing more barriers, constraints and rules to prevent unwanted events. The focus is primarily about ‘unsafe’, how do we stop things from going wrong? While this makes sense when trying to limit serious injuries and fatalities but when applied more broadly it creates a considerable performance drag and drives a range of unintended behaviours from meaningless compliance to disengagement for those doing the work. Through this lens safety leadership becomes an exercise of directing and telling people the what and the how of what to do. Leaders are seen as the experts with the remit of challenging people’s attitudes and behaviours and increasing their commitment to safety. 

There is an alternate view of safety. What if safety was viewed as building greater capacity rather the absence of unwanted events? 
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enabling wellbeing master class series update
by pete jensen

director of wellbeing

The Enabling Wellbeing Masterclass series has blazed a trail through Melbourne, Brisbane and  London and continues in Auckland and Sydney this September.
Highlights have included the exchange of ideas and knowledge between participants as we continue to build a community of practice. A recent success story comes from a participant reporting back that their organization has now committed to a Wellbeing Strategy which includes some learnings from the masterclass.
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learning teams case study

art of work insight




Investigations conducted by many organisations have become burdened with pre-conception and hindsight bias that constrains useful and insightful learning. In most people's experience, the underlying purpose of an investigation is to find error, and identify who is responsible for that error, which is often followed by corrective action that is retributive. Current investigations are insufficiently curious about work.

A  learning team is a structured appreciative inquiry method, designed to engage curiosity to facilitate team-based enquiry. Learning Teams can be small and localised and can have application only at an individual site or have very broad and widespread application across the business unit, or the whole enterprise. Learning Team groups have been small to quite large in the number of participants (up to 16 people) - however, 8-12 people seem to work best, with a mix of frontline and supervisory personnel and a mix of disciplines. 

The process is typically conducted over one and a half days, with the first half day involving the Discovery process - where we look at the activity in the field i.e. work as it is done.  After a "soak" period overnight, the second day involves a facilitated process which is very interactive and where personnel analyse what we have seen in the field to determine what helps and hinders the work.  Finally, through group exercises and facilitated discussion, groups develop improvement ideas to address any identified issues. Factors influencing success are also highlighted for discussion and potential application at other sites or more broadly across a business unit or the entire enterprise.

Art of Work conducted learning teams for Aurizon across their three business units of Bulk, Coal and Network and across 8 depots located in Queensland, NSW and WA, with topics ranging from "Train Driving in Adverse Conditions”, “Shunting in Yards” to "Communications with Network Control". Some of the learning teams included personnel from multiple depots and one included a competitor with whom Aurizon shared rail facilities.

Art of Work also trained 20 of Aurizon's own employees to take over the facilitation of the learning team process, thereby ensuring the company is self-sufficient to continue to conduct learning teams across the business, as and when needed.

Sigrid Groenhout, Project Manager Seamless Safety at Aurizon, gives us some insight into the project and her experience.


What was your understanding of learning teams before this project?

Learning teams are a fantastic opportunity to engage with our frontline to understand the practicality of how we plan work. We hadn’t used learning teams in Aurizon prior to engaging Art of Work, but have found them a great tool.
 

How would you compare learning teams with the investigative methods traditionally used at Aurizon?

At Aurizon we tend to solve problems in an office or with a small group of leaders. We do not instinctively engage our frontline in the problem-solving process and as a consequence, even with the best intentions, the improvements we believe we are making to the business don’t always realise their full potential.
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learning teams master class

art of work UK events


Art of Work will be hosting a one-day master class on Learning Teams - a systematic approach that takes organisations to the heart of how work is done.
Through a combination of lectures, workshops, and case studies, attendees will build an investigative tool to uncover details about work that other formal observations and auditing methods do not capture.

The day will cover the following questions:

  • What do you look for to understand and improve work if it isn’t deviations or unwanted behaviours?
  • How can understanding work performance improve deviation management
  • How do you carry out an Appreciative Investigation in practice?
  • How can the gathered information help to improve work?
London 7 November

art of work master class relationships, learning and performance

art of work USA events

 

The art of work master class is an immersive introduction to the art and science of restoring and empowering your people through the power of relationships.

Through newly established research and relevant case studies, we will demonstrate why and how the quality of relationships in your company determines the level of excellence in organisational performance.

The program will be delivered through interactive exercises, real world examples showcasing what high-performance organisations have learned from catastrophic failure events, video, paired conversations and role-playing. It also includes the best practices to establish these relationships.
Houston 11 November
San Francisco 13 November
Los Angles 14 November

for your video bank

art of work video recommendation
This clip shows an innovative use of marketing techniques to convince guerilla soldiers they would be welcomed by their communities if they returned home.
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