Topic(s)
- Management systems
This content will not be available on-demand.
Overview
In every sector and for all types of work, comparable organizations perform at comparable levels — in safety, quality, agility, reliability, productivity, etc. There’s a way to break free of that competitive pack. In every field, there are those few exemplars who generate and deliver so much more value to society than others manage, outperforming on every metric with rich rewards for all stakeholders.
Their secret? They’ve figured out how to engage the vast intellect distributed throughout their enterprise, so they’re outsmarting their rivals with every twist and turn. The best do this by deliberately designing, operating and improving the “social circuitry” overlay of the process and procedures by which individual effort is integrated toward a common purpose. This way, people can give the fullest expression of their innate creativity. Whereas others are worried about applying what they know, the best are constantly pushing to discover more. Problems are seen and solved with such variety, volume, speed and certainty that the leaders are always pace-setting at finding new opportunities and advancing their practical understanding of what to do and how to get it done.
The leaders — Toyota, NASA at its peak, Apple, Amazon and Google — accomplish this by using “slowification” to make problem-solving easier to do, “simplification” to make problems easier to solve and “amplification” to make it more obvious that problems need attention. These mechanisms are proven across situations: manufacturing, heavy industry, healthcare delivery, research and development, military operations, engineering situations, education, and social services.
Key learning objectives
- Appreciate the huge delta in performance between the best and everyone else across sectors
- Gain introduction to key concepts and frameworks that explain such enormous and sustained differences
- Have an illustration of those ideas in practical use and have a chance to translate into ideas they can bring into action in their own situations
Interactive components
Known both for the content of his work and also for his engaging style, Steve Spear will briefly introduce ideas with examples, giving attendees a chance to internalize what they’re hearing with a series of video cases and case discussions, an exercise/simulation and active “table top experiment” discussions to imagine how ideas can be brought into practice.
Company
See to Solve was created by Dr. Steven Spear of MIT Sloan School of Management, who noticed that small sparks persistently turned into big fires, damaged productivity and even dethroned once-dominant companies. This is why Dr. Spear and his team created See to Solve: so responders know right away where their help is needed, problems don’t fester, and managers have rich, real-time data to see where and why their attention should be directed.
See to Solve enables companies to solve problems at their root cause because it is here that amplification provides an opportunity for immediate improvement, where defects are strengthened and resolved. It empowers teams to create value progressively under a culture of continuous improvement. See to Solve helps teams build into the future, and the company is just getting started. https://seetosolve.com/
Presenters
Maria Mentzer is the Chief Marketing Officer of See to Solve LLC, helping customers implement and sustain a high velocity learning culture based on See to Solve founder Steve Spears's research and methods. Maria is a strategic leader with over 20 years of business, continuous improvement, and leadership experience spanning manufacturing, operations, supply chain, sales, engineering, marketing, business development, embedded IT, organizational development, DE&I, coaching, and mentoring. As a continuous improvement culture champion, Maria has helped numerous organizations adopt and sustain a high velocity learning culture. Maria holds an MBA and a S.M. in Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both degrees as a fellow of MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations Program (formerly Leaders for Manufacturing). She also holds a M.S. in Material Science and Engineering from North Carolina State University and a B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of South Florida. 
Dr. Steve Spear, DBA, M.S., is a senior lecturer at MIT, a senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and founder of the business process software firm See to Solve. Spear is known for his contributions to lean thinking and management theory with articles such as “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System” and “Learning to Lead at Toyota” and books like “The High Velocity Edge” and the newly released “Wiring the Winning Organization.”
Spear’s ideas have been put into action as the foundation for the Alcoa Business System, the DTE Energy operating system, the Perfecting Patient Care approach in Pittsburgh and transformations with other corporations, public sector entities and military organizations. He’s been advisor to several senior corporate leaders, Secretary of the Treasury, an Undersecretary for Health Affairs at the VA, a Chief of Naval Operations, and other flag officers. 
