A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

Orchestrating the Organization as a organization philosophy and approach was used intuitively by the author in one from or another for over twenty five years. It began with his experiences described in the topic, "Band Company - the first real experience in organizational theory," until it was captured as an actual approach to organization design and organizational dynamics. In this regard, its origins, as that of any creation, lie in the life experiences of the its creator. What is provided here is a discussion of the key life experiences that in one way or another influenced the development, creation and/or unfoldment of Orchestrating the Organization.

The occasion for creating Orchestrating the Organization

The life event which became the occasion to begin to look seriously at organizations and system failures was the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident which destroyed parts of the Russian Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine. It was not that the author was personally affected by the accident. Rather, he was asked to take a new job because of the accident.

As a result of his diverse and unique nuclear background and his ability bring about change within organizations he was asked by the Deputy Assistance Secretary for Safety of the US Department of Energy to take a position in which he would oversee certain noncommercial nuclear operations in the United States to improve safety to reduce the potential for any nuclear accidents. After the Chernobyl accident a independent advisory body was created to review the Department of Energy’s nuclear facilities in light of the Chernobyl accident. This review identified these nuclear facilities and their government oversight had some deep rooted safety related problems and issues that should be fixed if the United States didn’t want to have a serious nuclear accident at one of these facilities. At the time, the Department of Energy Complex consisted of about a hundred thousand workers in about two dozen sites across the country of government own, government operated facilities or government owned, contractor operated facilities. The government workforce was about ten thousand and the reminder were contractors.

Although there were many material issues at many of the nuclear facilities, the focus of the author’s effort was initially directed at identifying and bringing to the attention of government and contractor facility managers where the material and operational deficiencies existed with the expectation that the facility managers would fix the problems in a timely fashion. In time, it become obvious that there needed to be a change in the operating philosophy and culture of these facilities for only with a change in philosophy and culture would the proper material conditions be establish. In response to this realization, the author’s effort then shifted to focus on retraining the large number of highly educated technical personal in a new operating philosophy and culture to reduce the probably of a significant accident.

In attempting to change the philosophy and culture, the effort encountered resistance in quite unexpected ways. The resistance was not so much about being told how to do things differently because the "rules of operation" so to speak had changed. That kind of resistance was to be expected. Rather the resistance was much deeper and more ingrained than simply teaching and learning a new philosophy of operation and way of doing business. The resistance did not lead itself to the simply straight forward approaches discussed in most management, organizational and/or training books. Although this resistance caused the author to eventually look at: exploring creativity in the workplace, exploring the underlying assumptions about organizational structures that were being made, and exploring alternative training techniques for the training, something else was bringing missed. Investigating the unexpected resistance as to what laid at itsroots ultimately identified the need to orchestrate the organization as opposed to tying to manage or direct it. There were too many problems to manage as such. A more responsive approach at lower levels was needed and that called for a different type and kind of management approach.

In any case, the variety of experiences at the Department of Energy in trying to change the organizational culture ultimately lead to formalizing the concept of Orchestrating the Organization and many of the experiences discussed below are from this time period. However, the concept of, and origins of, the orchestrating the organization approach did not have its roots in the observation and investigation at the Department of Energy. The Department of Energy experience only crystalized the author’s thinking as to how to go about dealing with what was lacking in existing organizational approaches. As was said above, the initial experience was with the Band Company and that experience biased his organizational view throughout his career.

The experiences which synthesized into Orchestrating the Organization

The key experiences which synthesized to give rise the understanding the need to orchestrate an organization and it people are provided here. Some of the discussion are discussed whole or in part in other topics and simply referenced and hyperlinked. Others are discussed here usually with a different emphasis to provide a more complete picture as to how orchestrating the organization arose.

The early experience into organizational philosophy: The topic, "Band Company - the first real experience in organizational theory" addresses the first real experience with organizational theory and organizational dynamics. The Band Company experience was key to seeing when individuals were asked to perform individually or collectively outside their range of developed performance much the way a musician tries to play a part that they don’t have the particular ability to perform and/or the orchestra does not have the necessary instrumentation to do the job The Band Company experience created the seed condition which eventually grew and unfolded in Orchestrating the Organization.

Early emergence of the influence of individual performance: Although most of authors’ professional career involved positions in organizational management in one way or another, he never was interested in organizational theory as such and was never involved in laying out reorganizations. Rather he was an implementer. He took my orders and carried them out. Foolish as he may have been, he assume there was wisdom and understanding in what he was asked to do and he would figure out how to make things work within the given constraints.

Although he considered organizations may try and operate outside the range of capabilities as a result of the Band Company experience, he never gave it a second thought that those in charge may be operating outside their range of capabilities. Yet, he was almost always draw to positions that were in change and they needed some one "to lead the charge" of change He gravitated to either start up programs or programs that needed to be reorganized or re-engineered. In this regard, he never formally studied any management or organization approach. Rather his understanding of organizations and his organizational experience come in response to "damage control" and fixing organizations that were not working in one way or another for one reason or another and needed to change. What did evolve in time was that he could begin to predict how even seemingly smooth running organizations were going to fail. This ability became a very useful talent when he functioned in an inspection and enforcement role. He knew where to begin to look for the issues that would cause operational problems and/or failures.

In fact, at one point in his career with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, he had two extremely well run nuclear stations with classic opposite management philosophies which he oversaw for compliance with federal safety regulations The author was truly impressed with both facilities in how they managed for different reasons. However, in looking at each of their organizational systems he could see weakness and it seemed rather obvious how the plants would organizationally fail.

One organization was ran with the minimum staff and only use exceptionally qualified people that they felt would not make operational mistakes intentionally or unintentionally. Although disciplined, they operated with less formality than many other nuclear stations of the day. They did not believe in people checking people with independent or redundant inspections as many organization did. The other organization, although using similar trained and qualified personnel, had a strong formality of operation. The second organization was more than happy to happy to add layer upon layer of redundance to ensure mistakes would not be made.

In the end, each had major problems and it was their over emphasis that caused their problem. In the first organization an individual got distracted and failed to adequately perform as required. In the second case, there was so much redundance that individuals got careless and assumed somebody else would take care of what needed to get done. In the end, both systems failed to deliver because the individual in one way or another fail to perform as expected..

Fortunately neither of these organizational failures caused significant problems because of a defense in depth philosophy incorporated into nuclear operations. But the question is "Why do individuals fail to perform and how are you going to get around the seemingly inescapable problem that people make mistakes?" Here were two well run organization with opposite approaches to ensure the job got done. Yet each suffered because an individual failed in some way.

One solution that seems to be reasonably effective is to design people out of the problem. Many industries are effectively doing this and increasing the productivity of those individuals who remain. Yet people are still needed to run and maintain the systems and individuals still have lapses in performance.

Although these two facilities when taken together provided illuminating realization how people still lie at the root of our operations, the real impact of the individual on organization operations still had yet to reveal itself. The author had not yet had the personal experience where the facilities in which he was somehow involved went beyond the defense in depth philosophy discussed below that he had grow accustomed to using. The real impact of individual performance inadequacies had yet to reveal themselves for what they were.

Defense in depth: There is a philosophy in the nuclear industry call defense in depth. It has been interpreted a variety of ways and any give interpretation is usually based on the perspective of the one talking. In general it is a philosophical approach such that there are multiple systems of protection. Since a catastrophic nuclear accident has the potential for such huge consequences, it has always been recognized there is the need to ensure safety. To ensure safety one will need to ensure there are no failures in the designed systems and that one is capable of maintaining that design. Then, in the event there should be such failures for whatever reason, preparation are in place to deal with the failures through an effective emergency plan and emergency program.

Some individuals will talk about defense in depth and point to redundant equipment, independent electrical sources, backup power sources, multiple containment boundaries and the like. Other will point to all of that and say that approach only provides a reliable system. In any case, one then has to maintain those systems as designed over the life of the plant and ensure nothing is degraded from the design for it is imperative the plant is maintained as designed. Ensuring the plant is maintained as designed is where we get into the management and organization systems that ensure integrity of the system and design. But when we start talking about management and organizations we then have the issue of qualified people. We need people who know and understand what they are working with and they work to ensure the maintenance of the systems. Then, if the unexpected does happen, we need to have emergency plans and an effective emergency response in place. Here again, an emergency response with trained and qualified personal. This technical approach was well known and effective.

In response to the National Academy of Sciences report, to ensure certain noncommercial nuclear operations in the US Department of Energy would not have any nuclear accidents the decision was made to change the operations of the noncommercial nuclear operation to a new operating philosophy incorporating the defense in depth approach. Utilizing the defense in depth philosophy, coupled with the application of safety principles that were develop from lessons learned in years of review of operational accidents involving individuals, equipment, facilities and environment accidents as a way of doing business and living life day to day in these facilities became know as adopting a "safety" culture. That is, the culture of the organization was inherently safety orientated and that safety would always be a prime consideration in how work was done within the organization. Hence the job of ensuring the noncommercial nuclear operations did not have any nuclear accidents become the job of changing the culture of the noncommercial nuclear facilities.

The task seemed straight forward. Identify the requirement for the given operation, train the personnel on the requirement and implement the requirements. Initial effort focused on identifying activities in the facilities where safety considerations did not rank as high as production or other considerations. The task focused on getting the facility personnel to adopt the lessons learnedfrom numerous accident investigation and the experience of other for similar processes incorporated into their facility operations. There was the old proverb that an individual learns from their experiences, the wise person learns from the experiences of others and a fool never learns. So the feeling was that it only made sense that individuals would desire to become wise and not make the mistakes made by other.

What was most interesting was the individuals who operated and worked in these facilities were competent, knowledgeable, and well trained individuals. Some were premier in their respective fields and had received the highest recognition from their commercial counterparts. It was assumed that it would be a simply task of getting these individuals to adjust how they did work by overlaying safety consideration to what they already did and strengthen their overall programs.

However, the initial effort however had marginal success. What become evident over time was that the root of the problem was truly a cultural problem and it went beyond task in the workplace to the deeps habits and beliefs about how one should live their life. But even when it was identified one was trying to change deeply ingrain work habits and beliefs in how work should be performed, there were still yet deeper issues that were governing how the individuals were choosing to make decisions. It took several years to reveal and understand what really was going on. Simply said, many of the individuals and the organizations themselves were being asked to perform outside their level of capabilities. They literally could not perform within the new requirements. Some individual could be retrained but many simply could not. Not because they were not capable of performing differently but they simply didn’t feel it was worth the effort. Their opinion was something to the equivalent of "We have done it this way for years without implementing any of the safety consideration you say we need and haven’t had any problems?" But what was key here was, they had no problems based on how they perceived the world should be, and what they perceive a safety problem to be.

The issue here is probably best reflected in a conversation the author had with a safety manager at a prestigious laboratory during a presentation he gave on safety. The question was asked, "How many broken legs do you expect here at this site of about ten thousand workers this year." The answer the safety manager gave was three. The reply back from the author was, "The expectation should be zero, not three. If three are expected, then let us ask for three volunteers right now. We will break their legs all at once, send them to hospital and prevent disruption of the work force through out the year as we break legs because there our expectation for the year will now be zero because we had are three broken legs." The discussion that ensued was quite interesting.

The point was if three broken legs are expected it means one is not looking at the root cause of how humans break legs. If we understand how humans break legs precautions and compensatory measures will be put in place for any activity that raises the possibility of breaking a leg. To simply expect certain types of injury means people are not looking to prevent injury but accepting injury. Hence the need to change the culture. What is interesting is about this discussion is three years later the author received a phone call from this manager after having several different assignments. The manager simply said, "I now understand what you were trying to communicate to me." The bottom line is, quite simply, it is often hard to change how and what we think and believe.

Confusion over expectations - The need for a consistent philosophy of operation: In the process of trying to get the Department of Energy’s noncommercial nuclear facilities to embrace what become known as a stronger "safety" culture it was only natural that a relatively important facility was encountered that had a significant enough safety issue that operation were shut down to fix the problems rather than continuing to operate during the fixes. Here again, the assumption was that once the safety issue was identified and understood, it would be fixed and the facility would be up and running relatively quickly. What transpired was totally unexpected.

Since the facility which was shut down had an significant number of maintenance issues, the question was were did the lack of understanding about maintenance lie. Learning from the Band Company experience, it was decided to see if the building manager was operating beyond his capabilities to manage the building or he was being asked to perform outside his capabilities. The building manager was asked to produce a list of all the things that he felt needed to be fixed in his building to have it run safely. It of course was a test. Did he and his people know what needed to be done. If he and his people identify what needed to be done and the list was properly prioritized addressing all the significant issue, the list could then be taken to site manager to see if he could do what needed to be done to get the resources to fix the building. If we fixed what the building manager said needed to be fixed and the building did not run safely obviously the building manager and his staff was operating outside of his capability.

However it did not happen the way as planned. Rather it was as thought the entire management structure was actually a hollow shell. Once the way day to day business was challenged, it was totally incapable of performing in any other way. The site manager could not get the site to give the building manager what was needed. The issue was not because of money but become of how the site did business. The site itself was being asked to perform outside its capabilities. However, this fact did not reveal itself immediately. It only came in time. The problems in the building were not the building manager’s fault. Rather it lied in the way the site was being asked to operate.

After several months the organization still struggled to make the types and kinds of fixes that were necessary but continued to flounder and simply could not do what needed to be done. It was after one of the myriad of meetings that the author was told a story that the facility personal were telling about the management of the site. Over the past 12 years of so, a variety of management techniques were used to try and improve production that give rise to the story.

The story goes that initially, because of the type and kind of work that was done, each of the site’s major building were separate fiefdoms and gave rise to was called the period of "King of the Hill." This was when the building manager was God. They approved everything and controlled everything. Everything that was done was through the building manager.

Then, because of the need to improve efficiency, the Reign of Humpty Dumpty started. This was when the site management came in and destroyed the King of the Hill and the building manager was no longer in control. Everything went central but when they broke the building structure they did not put in place the types and kinds of things that addressed the issue in the buildings. Centralization glossed over the many of the real needs. But it was only in time that these needs began to surface and it became evident that the centralization was not working. The approach being taken could not put the pieces back together to get the site back up to previous performance.

But then the Reign of Terror started. That is, the site manager did not want to hear bad news. The messenger would be figuratively killed in some way if they reported what the site manager did not want to hear. Consequently the truth became hidden and the individual building problems only grew. No one was willing to raise their head and report how bad things were getting and had actually gotten.

Because of this key building and operation being shutdown and unable to be restarted for safety concerns, the senior most manager and his key dominions who had caused the Reign of Terror were replaced. However, the new managers made several assumptions. They assumed they had a competent work force to do the work being requested. They assumed the employees understood what was being communicated to them and would follow orders to get the job done. They also assumed they has a functional organizational structure - at least it existed on paper. But it seemed like a never ending game began. One thing would be requested. But something that looked like what was requested was provided or done. However, what was provided or done did not meet the needs of what was needed. Somewhere there was breakdown but nobody seemed to be able to understand why or where the breakdown was. Everyone seemed to just go around and around in a never ending circle of false start after false start.

If this building and site were a purely commercial venture, it would have ceased to function. However, because what the site produced was unique and needed for national defense it was imperative that the problems be fixed. No other facility in the country could do what was done at this site and in the building which was shutdown on the scale that was needed. The facility and site were needed in the long term. Other arrangements could be done short term. So the most cost effective approach long term was to get the facility operational and no consideration was given to creating a new facility. Everyone assumed the issue could be fixed quickly. No one had any idea how deep the problems went.

It was about a year after trying to fix the building that was shut down with innumerable false starts that this above story surfaced. When I heard it, the person who told it to the author laughed as if it never really meant anything but more a satiric commentary on the site. However, the author realized there is a truth behind any story that is told and that the site personnel were literally confused as to what was expected of them. The site was now in it fourth management style in less that 12 years and many of the individual who rose up in the ranks during this time period as middle managers or supervisors did not really know what was expected of them because what was valued keep changing.

On hearing the story, The author immediately took it to a senior manager who was in a position that could make something happen, if they chose. In reply to hearing the story the manager’s reply was, "What are you, a (expletive deleted) psychologist?" The author in reply said, "No, but when people tell stories, there is a truth in what they are trying to communicate and the truth is they are confused whether they realize it or not." Although the senior manager took the story higher, little came of that conversation and over the six months things only got worse. People began to be move in and out of positions like a game of musical chairs. If it wasn’t for the fact the facility was so important for a variety of reasons, it would have simply closed its doors. Of course, in time, people did being to think about alternatives.

In any case, in the effort to get the Department of Energy’s noncommercial facilities to embrace different way of doing business and the number of issue being encountered across the entire complex of Department of Energy sites, it was realized that individuals could not just be told where and why their operations were unsafe. They literally needed to be retrained in order to have the prerequisite knowledge based to become mindful and aware of what to look for in the work place. But, more important, it was not about just retraining to new facts. It was and literally shifting the culture and changing the perspective of the worker and manager about how business should be done. That is, there is a way to do any task and a safe way to do any task and two way reflect both different belief structures and different ways of thinking. Each way, in essence reflects a different work culture.

In this realization, the author and several other key individuals developed a course to provide for this change in culture. The course was offered to the facility manager across the Department of Energy Complex so that they could begin to see and experience for themselves what was expected in this change in culture and why it was necessary to make the change. It was during this period where this site was floundering that this course was taken to this site and the opportunity came for the author to have lunch with the then current senior most person at the site. It was during lunch the author relayed the story to him about the people in his organization and their confusion over how business needed to be done. In hearing the story and seeing how poorly the site was performing the senior manager understood what was being communicated. He immediately undertook a program to educate the entire site on new way of doing business. The site then began to improve

It is to be noted after about another year the author was back at the site and the original building manager whose building was initially shut down that started all the problems asked to see him. The former building manager rose in the organization and was in a new job overseeing many of the new changes that were occurring. In meeting with the former building manager, the building manager said that he just wanted to thank the author for helping him. The author replied, "I’m confused. I was responsible for shutting down your building and causing all your problems." The former building manager’s response was, "No, actually, you are the only person who helped my fix my building." The author felt very sad that here was a man who knew how to perform successfully but was not allowed by the system to do so. The former building manager did eventually go on to bigger and better things. But, as discussed in the topic, "Addressing organizational cultural change," as a result of the continuing changes in the world and the environment, this site was eventually shut down and the land turned into a park. So story can be told without embarrassing anyone.

Organizational inertia - the middle layer of managers: Although the experience described in the previous section was at the extreme end of the problems that were encountered in changing culture, it was not atypical. In fact observation was made of a very interesting phenomenon. At the highest levels across the Department of Energy Complex, there was an understanding of the problem and why the changes were needed. Although the manager at the highest level did not necessarily understand what needed to happen, they understood that if they had any kind of significant accident, they had no career. None of them were willing to lose their career if they could do something about it.

Those at the working level had a different perspective. At the working level, those who lived day to day with the dust and the dirt more than understood what needed to be done and why. Most were willing to do what they were told especially if they saw what they were told was helping them do their job and removed hazards from their job. In fact, many were ready to give solutions to the problems they saw and were often frustrated that they could not have their ideas and input acted upon. It was as thought they were not allow to take ownership of their own work. Most of the working level wanted to do a good job and wanted to go home with the satisfaction of having a done a good job. They were proud of what they did and they wanted to do it safely. .

However, there was a layer that almost literally fought to maintain the status quo. It is not a matter of whether or not status quo was good or bad, safe or unsafe. They just wanted to maintain what was. It was a layer of "middle" people. Technically, it didn’t really matter where the individual was in the organization but the phenomenon existed in every organization any where we looked. It is only a matter to what degree did it exist. The "middle" people were individuals who had an influence on the job to be done but they were removed by one or more layers from actually doing the job. In essence what needed to be done was not their "job" so they had little interest in fixing another person’s problem even if the problem was under their supervision. What become evident is the "person in charge" of any operation at any level may come and go. But each individual within a system consciously or unconsciously tends to builds a little informal empire around their job and they fight to maintain that empire.

There has been a philosophy of rotating people in their jobs that goes back to ancient times. It has always been a trade off of rotating individuals as opposed to allowing them to develop a deep loyalty and cohesion to each other. As most probably know, it is a practice that is intentionally practiced by the military although they too have had to face the trade off of creating deep cohesion and yet not create little empires in not rotating people.

On this note, it is interesting that many military individuals do not realize how much their personal success was dependent on the infrastructure they used and not on what they did. When people are rotated or there is routine change over for one reason or another an organization tends to develop a structure that is independent of the individual. Many individual are very successful in organizations with a solid infrastructure or a particular type of infrastructure but do poorly where they have to deal with a changing or weak infrastructure. This is one reason why it is hard to predict how successful any one individual will be in a given situation. The situation may allow talents to appear in the individual which the individual never knew they had were as in other individuals the same situation reveals the individual never had the talents they thought they had but were carried by the infrastructure.

It became very clear relatively early in the effort to change the way these facilities did business that the senior most individuals were on board and the working level was willing to do what needed to be done - especially if it meant their safety. However, if anything was proposed that interfered with the little empires the "middle" people created, they would cause the effort to stall. Not necessarily consciously but they would seek to maintain what they had. In fact, it was noted that you could predict how a new management initiative would fail based on whether or not the management did anything to address these little empires that had been created based on the previous way of doing business. However, the reasons for these little empire was more profound that was initially realized and did not reveal itself until a new set of challenges arose.

Ego needs and the workplace: What become clear in the effort to change the organizational culture was that to retrain a workforce to implement a new way of doing business we could tell them what to do and point out what to do only to a limited extent. Something more was needed. Similarly we could teach them what to do and give them an experiential understanding of what needed to be done. Still something more was needed. What became clear was that unless there is someone within the organization who believes in what needs to be done and is willing to create the space for the changes to occur it and then live the changes themselves, it will not happen. So what came next was inevitable. After creating the necessary rules and training the people on the new rules and ways of doing business it become necessary to become part of the system to live the new way of doing business. To show people how to live the new rules, the author became part of the problem so to speak and move directly into the chain that was responsible for making the changes. Moving into the line organization responsible for implement all the changes caused a very interesting discovery.

Being near the top of the management chain, the author could leverage the resources to make the necessary changes happen. However, as the pressure increased the site managers complained that their resources were being stretched very thin and they could not manage all that was being asked. They said something had to be taken off their plate. Since the author was now in the management chain, he was told to fix the problem but nothing goes off the plate. Some way as needed to understand how to do it all. The response was to form a team form all the sites that were complaining and we set out to solve the issue of how to deal with all the demands and we stumbled on a way of doing so. But what it revealed wasn’t acceptable because of what it revealed.

The approach to solving the problem needed to be able to address all aspects of the operation. It needed to deal with safety in the form of workplace safety and hazards control. Here one would need to have a knowledge of the hazards and compensatory measures to control the hazard. The approach needed some way to addressed the production and quality issue where clear specifications were needed and criteria to meet the specifications. It addition the approach had to address the context and environment of the workplace and looked at cultural beliefs, physical location, alignment of the workforce to the organization, alignment of the workforce within itself and alignment of the organization with the community. The approach also needed to look at long term improvements in the overall site operation and improved mission capability. The goal of the chosen approach was to look all aspects of the what was being demanded and try and remove the personal influences from the decision making process so the facts could be seen for what they were and any decisions could be based on the facts and where the true needs existed. What ultimately gets done is a personal decision by a manager but the question was, "Was there a way to just look at the facts and to see were the real issues lied in a given situation?"

Using a technique call Multiattribute Utility Theory, the group was able to successfully create an extremely effective prioritization model that more than adequately addressed all the competing demands that a site manager would face. It was called the Laboratory Integrated Prioritization Systems, LIPS, for short. Its focus was to included all facets of operation especially research and development that often is seen competing with production and often even safety. Research and development is often seen compete if not conflict with safety because research and development takes us into the unknown where frequently we don’t know what it is with which we will need to be concerned. Most importantly, the model also allowed for sensitivity studies such that we could vary a parameter and see how big an influence it had on the problem. Or, said another way, we could see what was really driving the problem.

Since all site operation ultimately boiled down to spending money and paying for material or for people’s time for the work that they did, the dollar became the normalizing factor. This posed a few interesting problems. For example, one of the issues was putting a value on the price of a human life. However because sensitive studies could be done, one did not have to put an actual price on the human life. One could simply vary the cost see how it would affect the outcome. Something that was driven by worker or personal safety would have be very sensitive to the human life. Something that was not safety related the value of a human life would not have much of an influence on the outcome.

Although the model was ver effective, unfortunately it was too effective for two primary reasons. One was the awareness that it caused about the decisions that need to be made. The other was that it revealed there were personal agendas carried by individuals, including the manager ultimately making the decision, that did not want to deal with the facts.

What became rather obvious in the process was that in the decision process the personal beliefs an individual carried became very important. What the individual believes was important because the beliefs the individual holds causes expectations to be brought into the workplace. These expectations that may or may not have anything to do with the situation at hand and the decision to be made but nevertheless could influence the decision.

Although the output of the model was not binding, it nevertheless caused an awareness of what one believed to arise. In the decision process, the decision maker needed to become aware of the influences on the decision. One of the greatest awareness they came face to face with was an awareness of their own personal beliefs and expectation they were bringing into the decision process. Additionally they needed to become aware of their decision no matter what it was. This meant that the decisions they made needed to be made with the clarity that they were making a decision. To not to decide is a decision. To delegate was a decision. To postpone a decision is a decision.

The model began to cause people to take responsibility for what they believed and how what they believed was influencing their decisions. They needed to recognize and understand what they saw and why they were seeing the way they were. In this regard choice of action become more important than the actual decision. Here again, to choose not to decided is a decision and to delegate is a decision. In essence use of the Laboratory Integrated Prioritization Systems process would reveal the personal agenda of the manager. The question then became whether or not the manager was willing to accept the call to the adventure of accepting or rejecting the challenge to explore their own beliefs about the situation at hand. It forced managers to being to realize wether or not they were operating outside their own capabilities and that they really understood what needed to be done.

What became apparent was the individuals using the model would need to be trained to become discerning. Discerning is about perceiving something obscure or concealed and recognizing and comprehending it mentally. It is to be able to see the separation and distinction between otherwise similar look objects or entities. It is about being able to discriminate and having an acuteness of perception and understanding about that which with one is working. This level of discernment is something managers did not want to face. They did not want their way of thinking to be disturbed in any way. In many ways the Laboratory Integrated Prioritization Systems model undermined their whole reason for becoming a manager, that is, to control and influence the situation the way they wanted it to go and not necessarily in the direction of what was in the best interest of the people or the organization.

What needs to be understood is that these private agenda that the decisions makers held were not necessarily conscious. It is just that the awareness the model brought to a situation causes the manager to become aware of the agenda they had whether or not it was a conscious or nonconscious agenda. It is rather cynical to say, but it was discovered that the decision makers and managers tended to decide in favor of themselves and not the organization. They will give to the organization so as to not loose face or in a way that insure their image was protected but in the end, most were more concerned with their personal position that the position of the facility. Here again, it was often a nonconscious process. In the end, when it was discovered that one of the senior manager’s organization was adding little value, the manager fired the individual who worked within his organization that helped create the model. As with many managers, it is easier to kill the one who bring truth rather than deal with the truth.

Lack of freedom to creative play: Paralleling these events, was a growing awareness that although there were many very highly trained and intelligent personnel available, few were able to give truly creative solutions to the problems being faced. Usually the solutions they gave were the solution to a similar problem that were similar but actually different than the one at hand. It was as though the individuals lost their ability to be truly creative and the freedom to think "outside the box" even when they were given permission to do so. There was a desire to avoid the risk of uncertainty found in a new and creative solution and seek the safety in the solution someone else had explored for a similar situation. One of the questions that was raising it head was, "Why did individuals seem to lose the freedom to creatively play and what would it take to restore that creative play they had as child to access the types and kinds of solutions necessary to truly fix the issues that were being faced?"

Any management technique will work: Parallel to the effort to retrain and reorientate the Department of Energy’s noncommercial nuclear facilities was the on going attempt by senior management to find a management style that would help fix the problems. The story about the three reigns of management told about at a particular site above paled in comparison to what was created across the entire complex of noncommercial facilities. Within a period of about six years, for a variety of reason that cannot be addressed here there were at least seven identifiable different approaches employed to try and change the way these individuals were performing their work. Several of these approaches were occurring simultaneously. All the approaches started from the starting point that could be best defined as a weak decentralized organization with an almost "hands off" type policy as to how work was accomplished. As can be expected, the pendulum swung between move towards a highly centralized approach back to again to a more decentralized approach and oscillated between and tug and pull between a centralize and decentralized organization. The various approaches used to attempt to fix the issues being faced varied. They included: an inspection approach, using voluntary standards approach, a nuclear navy formal disciplined type approach, an total quality management approach, a quality team approach, a Covey approach, an internal enforcement approach and an external enforcement approach. All of these approaches had proven themselves successful in other environments. It was as though everyone had their recommended fix based on where they had been. However, no body wanted to really look at situation at hand and see what creative solution really worked and to address the true needs of the desired task to be accomplished..

In any case, an assumption was made that if there were any truth in all these different approach to ensure quality, safety and production, there must be some common attributes such that if one focused on the attributes as opposed to a give philosophy, one could obtain the type of organization they desired. However, in looking at all these different approaches, for common attributes each approach did have a set of attributes that could be taught that characterize the approach. However, there was no consistency across approaches and in fact, many of the approach actually conflicted with each other even those that seem most closely related. The end conclusion was that any approach could work if the organization remained very focused on the approach they chose and retrained personnel according to that approach and the organization lived that approach at all levels. The managers had to walk the talk. They could not have a different philosophy of operation. The same philosophy was needed throughout the organization.

Alternative and accelerated training: Where this all lead was that ultimately the issue centered around training the workforce in a given, consciously chosen philosophy of operation. Didn’t matter much what it was, but it had to be consistently applied and the organization had to be structured to embrace that given philosophy. So no matter how we wanted to approach the problem, we eventually had to train the personnel as to the expectations we needed to have in the work place. So the next step was rather obvious. Look at alternative and accelerated training techniques to figure out how to get the training does as fast, effectively and efficiently as possible. Here again, it seemed there would be a simply exploration of multiple learning styles and learning how to apply the different styles in a way that could more efficiently accomplish what needed to be done. However something else was discovered. In looking at accelerated training techniques the door open to understanding the journey of what is symbolized in the heart and its expression in the workplace.

Journey into what is symbolized in the heart within the work place: What became clear as the pieces started to fall together was that individuals were looking for a inner satisfaction with life that spilt over into the job in two ways. One was how they focused their attention and awareness and the other was how they chose to direct their creative life energy based on that focused attention and awareness. It was observed that ultimately people were looking for something inside themselves and the organization was being used in one way or another to help achieve that end. Some were only using the organization as a pay check to pursue their desires else where. Some viewed the organization as an interference for what they wanted to do in life and something that needed to be tolerated because they needed a pay check. Some were using what the did in the organization as a way of doing what gave them satisfaction. Some were using the organization to give them what they thought they were seeking. In any case, this series of experiences takes us point of were the exploration of creativity in the workplace stopped and the journey into the exploring of the inherent creativity within the individual Started. The questions was, "What really was motivating people to seek what they were seeking?"

Returning to the workplace - what lies in the heat and orchestration: Ultimately it was discovered that what individuals truly seek is the free creative expression of the truth of their being. The energy that flows through us is a creative life energy. When it is allowed to flow freely it will be creative and create a life worth living. One will experience a fullness of being or expansion of one’s being such that they are full of life with a desire to engage life. They will find an inner satisfaction which never runs dry no matter what is happening in the external world. They will be very attention and aware of what they do in life.

When this creative life energy is not allowed to flow freely, it will create nonconsciously in an attempt to create the space to create a life that can be freely express - even to the point of killing the body if that is the way it will find freedom. The struggle we face is that most of us have never been free to consciously experience the free flow of our creative life energy and allow ourselves in consciousness to flow freely with however that energy desires to express itself in a given situation. We had all experienced this free flow of this creative life energy as a child before we become aware of the pain of life and the judgments mind carries about how we can and cannot express this energy in our world. However we all lost that ability early in life.

In realizing this desire for the free expression of the truth of one's being lies within each individual and lies at the root of the energy that we use for any task we do in life, the issue was seen as to figuring out how to arrange the existing environment to optimize this free flow of energy within the individual and direct it in such a way that it is not restricted but the work environment can channel it into what needs to be accomplished for the organization. The issue was not seen as controlling the individual. Rather is was about harnessing the individual's energy in a way the creative spirit was nurtured. It about understanding how to somehow orchestrate or arrange the existing pieces to create the space to optimize the energy. It was more like trying to choreograph a the dance or to an existing pieces of music or arranging the parts of an orchestra based on the music to be played and what each musician can bring to the performance. This realization of course, brought the author back to the way he had been viewing organization his entire professional career as a result of the Band Company experience. How does one orchestra the organization such that both the individuals in the organization are performing within their capabilities or they are give the requisite abilities to perform in a new and different way that does not in any way restrict or retard the free flow and expression of the individual’s creative life energy. There was the need to understand how to orchestrate the organization.

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Understanding from where a creation ultimately comes

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