12 July 2011

Opportunity Knocks – Big Gains Waiting in Business, Government, Health Care and Education

Dr. Bill Bellows

Many of you will remember the excellent NET2 sessions that Dr. Bill Bellows led four or five years ago. Bill lives in California where he works as an Associate Fellow at United Technologies’ Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne business unit. For this extra all-day seminar, we were delighted to welcome him back during a brief trip to England.

What was it all about?

In his role as consultant, facilitator and instructor at Rocketdyne, Bill has built working associations with some of today’s most highly-regarded writers on improving performance of products, processes, and the delivery of services. They include Russell Ackoff, Edward de Bono, Tom Johnson, and Genichi Taguchi. Bill explained how their thinking (and of course that of W. Edwards Deming) can help us address an issue fundamental to anyone concerned about long-term success in whatever setting: the proficient use of resources, from ideas to funding to equipment and space.

Using a series of questions specially selected to create awareness of a new approach, Bill led us into discussions about the practical application of concepts such as “better thinking about thinking”, “working together, learning together, and thinking together” and “Blue Pen” organisations. In doing so the aim was to make us more conscious of individual and collective thinking about sub-systems, variation, knowledge, numbers, interactions and thinking patterns and how this awareness will foster more effective resource management and resource leadership.

What participants said…

“I could have listened to Bill for ages so would just have liked more time”

“I had expected to hear more about examples/ models of how integration was achieved using the techniques described. I scored a 6 [out of 10] becasue it was a helpful refresher and assisted in some preparation for an event I was involved in the following day.”

“Bill is a great speaker.”

“I found the intellectual level extremely stimulating and impressive, and really appreciate the opportunity to meet and experience people of this calibre.”

“I found Bill’s talk a little formless, and it seemed to take time to get anywhere.”

“I scored 8 [out of 10] because I found the Trip Report session fairly simplistic. Most of the day was challenging and kept me on my toes but the Trip Report session seemed rather lame to me and encouraged people to generalise rather than really understand the complexity of how organisations appear.”