The book Making the Impossible Possible is a case study the management of Rocky Flats. Rocky Flats was the most contaminated nuclear weapons plan in the country. It was a environmental disaster and the site of rampant worker unrest. Although estimates projected that cleaning up and closing the facility would take 70 years and $36 Billion, the project was complete 60 years ahead of schedule and $30 Billion under budget, and most of the site is now on its way to becoming a wildlife refuge.
The book describes how this amazing feat was accomplished and how other organizations can apply the same methods to achieve breakthrough levels of performance. The authors discovered that Rocky Flats leaders used a distinctive abundance approach identifying and overcoming difficulties. 21 specific leadership practices and key techniques were fundamental to this innovative approach.
This researched case study provides a complete guide for anyone wanting to better understand and apply lessons of this remarkable, history-making acheivement.
Here is the top level structure of those practices and techniques. This structure organizes improving performance into the typical 2x2 matrix, with tensions between each necessary for the extraordinary performance. This tension, simultaneous opposites, and paradox have been shown to be the source of success (Cameron, 1986). I'll post on Positive Deviance and Abundance approaches that underpin this success and how these can be generalized to any project-based domain and context.
But here's the quick summary:
- Most leaders of change look for issues and ways to close gaps. Leading change focuses on overcoming these gaps in their path to change. (Kotter 1996).
- Abundance does not replace this approach. Abundance supplements it by focusing on the gaps between acceptable performance and spectacular performance, with emphasis on positively deviant accomplishments instead of just normal accomplishments. The focus is on poistive possibilities not the closure of deficits.
For anyone proposing organizational change in the domain of project based work, this framework should be considered a must read. For all who propose management change, these extensively researched working examples show how theory can be turned into practice. Without the means of connecting theory with practice, those suggestions are simply unfounded conjecture.
(Cameron, 1986) - "Effectiveness as paradox: Conflict and consensus in conceptions of organization effectiveness," Management Science, 32: 539-533.
(Kotter 1996) - Leading Change, John P. Kotter, Harvard Business Review Press, 1996.
