Action Learning: Research and Practice Vol. 9, No.

1, March 2012, 65 82

ESSAY REVIEW The John Seddon method for public sector transformation self-enlightenment, coercion, or both?
Delivering public services that work, volume one, edited by Peter Middleton, foreword by John Seddon, Axminster, Devon, Triarchy Press, 2010, 132 pp., 15, ISBN 978-0-9562631-6-2 Introduction and context Vanguard Consulting, and their combative leader John Seddon, have created a huge noise and signicant demand for their services by asserting that their specic approach can deliver unimaginable benets in the public sector, and even more so by attacking targets, managers, ministers and other consulting approaches. What strikes some as egregious arrogance, others as the answer to their problems and provides the endless stream of publicity that outspoken blame can easily generate has also led to a strong and committed client base in the public sector. This book offers case studies of the Vanguard approach in practice, demonstrating in detail how organisations have achieved the promised results. So these are consultancy case studies and should be seen as such. Unlike academic case studies, all involved have a vested interest in presenting a picture of success. But those who approach this book with healthy scepticism about the true results will, by and large, nd a pleasing level of detail and exposure of both the method and the challenges that were encountered along the way. The result is an admirably well-edited, signposted, usable collection of six case studies, written by clients or clients with Vanguard consultants (although Seddon and editor Peter Middleton are credited as authors on the spine, and Middleton only on the ysheet). Determining the success of the book A book which sets out to be didactic and descriptive is by nature hard to review without duplicating the course of much of the content. The questions by which the reader might judge the success of this book are likely to be as follows:
. What is the method? Does it work? Is it systems thinking? . How can we begin to apply this method ourselves? . What are the challenges and how might we overcome them?

Given the focus of this journal, I will also ask to what extent the Seddon approach aligns with or uses the principles of action learning. I will refer to
ISSN 1476-7333 print/ISSN 1476-7341 online http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2012.656892 http://www.tandfonline.com

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What has action learning learned to become? (Pedler, Burgoyne, and Brooks 2005), both for its excellent overview and for a number of useful comparative frameworks, principally Revans classical principles (pp. 58 9) and the authors development of Lyotards purposes of knowledge into a framework positioning speculative knowledge (for its own sake), practical knowledge (for organisational improvement) and emancipatory knowledge (personal development) at the apexes of a triangle (pp. 62 3). Those involved in the public sector will be hugely aware of the debate (often generating more heat than light) arising from John Seddons accusations and blame, and the responses of those accused, and will want to understand how this under the bonnet look at organisations sheds light on those discussions. And those of us familiar with the challenges of proving that organisational interventions truly have impact will be interested in understanding whether the claimed successes are real and whether they are sustainable. Potential pointers to lack of stability could include failure to change underlying cultural and organisational patterns or it could be that apparent successes are the result of the Hawthorne effect1 (whereby behaviour during and immediately preceding nearly any kind of intervention will be modied and usually produce better results, simply as a result of the attention, but which may not last). The underlying question here is whether the approach helps the whole organisation to learn to change itself in a systematic way or whether interventions in limited areas are successful in the short term. What the approach is not a number of attacks on other approaches There is very little of John Seddon himself in this book, but in the two scant pages of the forward, one can get a avour of his prophet and saviour stance, the prophetic build-up and the subtle oversell It is now ten years since I rst became involved in the public sector. At that time I was critical of central governments attempts at change but found public sector managers too fearful to heed my criticisms and advice . . . things have changed. Many public sector managers are actively rejecting bad and unproven directives . . . profound improvements evidenced [in these case studies] give an indication of the good that can be achieved across all public services. I anticipate that this will be the rst of a series . . . the improvements [through the Seddon approach] are always greater than would have been thought achievable through conventional planning and change management (my italics). No false modesty here! This assertion of special expertise is in direct contrast to the assumption in action learning both that participants have the knowledge and understanding to resolve their problems and the Revans classical principle (Pedler, Burgoyne, and Brooks 2005) that action learning works with problems (no right answers) not puzzles (susceptible to expert knowledge). He also attacks both the Audit Commission and practitioners in the overlapping eld of lean. In the case of the former, he explains some of his criticisms

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and complains at being the subject of an ad hominem attack from an ofcer of an organisation he has variously described as bullying, coercive, behaving like the worst of managers, announcing CPA with a plethora of meaningless blather, offering prejudice over knowledge, a purveyor of bad management, clumsy and ill-informed, etc.2 In the case of lean (despite the Vanguard approach having being described as lean over a number of years3), he dismisses a signicant body of work being deployed with some demonstrable results across sectors with the line if you are not in the business of producing cars at the rate of demand, the tools associated with solving the associated problems are unlikely to be of much help to you. The unattributed section What is systems thinking? also attacks another paper tiger command and control management apparently the dominant model in the UKs public sector. Table 1 contrasts command and control thinking with systems thinking (from which the continually developing nature of the approach can perhaps be judged by comparing it with the version of the same diagram from seven years ago, reproduced on page 69 of the same book). We are also told that:
The key characteristic is that command and control organisations are driven from the top. A goal is set of, say, 3% cost reduction (Gershon Review, 2003) . . . or of using IT to improve efciency (Varney Review, 2006), and the organisation is obliged to respond to achieve the arbitrary target. The problem is that the target is set by people separate from the work and with no knowledge of how the work is carried out. Instead of engaging the workforce, a premium is placed on their compliance and how they perform against the target. This channels their ingenuity away from serving customers to achieving the target.

Table 1. Command and control contrasted with systems thinking. Command and control thinking Top-down Functional specialisation Separated from work Budget, targets, standards, activity and productivity Extrinsic Manage budgets and the people Contractual Contractual Change by project/initiative Perspective Design Decision-making Measurement Motivation Management ethic Attitude to customers Attitude to suppliers Approach to change Systems thinking Outside-in Demand, value and ow Integrated with work Designed against purpose and demonstrate variation Intrinsic Act on the system What matters? Partnering and cooperation Adaptive and integral

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Well, one wants to respond yes and no! Yes, this is a huge problem, but does it adequately or completely describe a style of thinking and of management? People even managers, even councillors are not stupid and work intelligently with, and if necessary around, many of these externally imposed targets. Bigger impacts are perhaps derived from the same kind of problems driven by traditional accountancy, but this is not discussed. After 10 years of involvement in the sector, does Mr Seddon not understand that in local government (his stomping ground), only a few eager-beaver councillors and external consultants who do not really know the sector quote the latest central government dictat as though everyone were keen to jump to it? This is certainly an issue, but if [s]taff constantly look upwards for direction rather than outwards to their customers, the causes seem to be more complex than is being credited. A systems thinker should know better than to use a few examples to adduce a whole management approach and mindset and then label it as the root cause of much bad service and low levels of innovation in the public sector. There is also a related diversion into target-setting and its problems [t]he purpose of this book is to provide evidence that targets are causing vast amounts of waste in the public sector. They are, and I have seen it myself but the book, wisely, does not focus on this area but focuses on the positive side of how to actually improve. The one-page overview of how to start in half a day in your organisation and the ve pages on what is systems thinking? continue in a similar vein. The half-day exercise is simply about getting involved with customer contact and understanding the drivers (necessary or unnecessary) of contact and the true end-to-end time for resolution (likely to be longer than half a day, of course). A brilliant place to start, indeed. But does this justify the claims that the Seddon approach enables greatly improved services, lower costs and happier staff. It allows all but the most dysfunctional of government performance targets to be greatly exceeded? Indeed, if this is the case, why are the targets such a huge problem worth attacking with this level of gusto and vitriol? What is the approach and is it systems thinking? The scant regard paid to the whole body of systems thinking work comes initially in a single sentence: Systems thinking emerged after the 2nd World War and several variants have since developed. The systems thinking method described here was created by Seddon (2003, 2008) as a framework to enable organisations to achieve higher performance. It is also claimed that this approach is unique because it was developed by working in partnership with both private and public sector organisations for over two decades, a claim which would be challenged by some let us limit ourselves to action research practitioners for one! Another dubious claim swiftly follows [t]he big differentiator with this. . . method is that it starts with obtaining knowledge

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about how your organisation is actually functioning. Other methods assume that the problem to be solved is known. For any practitioners reading this, does your approach assume that the problem is known from the start? Or do you, like the action researchers, and the Senge-style systems thinkers, and any old hack mapping a process, actually start with a lens which you consider to be more or less useful and see what opportunities for improvement emerge? However, all this build-up is necessary to justify the lofty tone: Due to the remarkable results [the Seddon approach] makes possible, this proprietary material has been placed in the public domain. Let me be clear no harm and a great deal of good should come from application of many of the ideas in the book but unique? Even proprietary might be an exaggeration. The Vanguard Method, it is claimed, uniquely combines two main components: 1. Systems Theory how organisations work. 2. Intervention Theory how to make successful change. Italics mine, but I think it is fair for anyone who believes that they use both an organisational theory and an intervention theory to challenge this claim and to look for detailed evidence that the Seddon approach has a fully developed, and better, version of either. One challenge to this comes from Geoff Elliott,4 an outspoken critic who says that:
Seddon doesnt seem to understand that a system can link processes and activities which can be analysed using traditional TQM (total quality management) and quality methods and also at the same unbounded messes which cannot be addressed using quality tools and techniques. All organisations both public and private operate simultaneously as closed and open systems.

Much later in the same section, the work of precursors such as Ohno (1992), Deming (1982) and Ackoff (1987) is acknowledged, and another interesting denition of systems thinking is given:
Whilst all systems thinkers agree that a system is the sum of its parts and the parts must be rearranged as one, this approach is unique in that it starts and ends with the work.

Do systems thinkers agree with this? What would it mean to rearrange the parts as one? Does the Seddon approach start and end with the work and, if so, is it unique in doing so? The somewhat frustrating paragraph entitled What is systems thinking? in the rst case study is worth quoting in full:
In the time we have spent learning and applying systems thinking to our organisation, we have come to understand that it is an approach to how organisations design and manage their business that has far reaching implications for every aspect of organisational life. Primarily, systems thinking is a perspective from which an organisation can understand and then improve the service that it delivers to customers. However, what is so challenging and therefore is so

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powerful about this perspective is that it shows much of what traditional management thinking would regard as good practice to be a part of the problem not the solution. (p. 3)

As throughout, if you substitute the Seddon method for systems thinking, this reads perfectly sensibly. However, this clearly demonstrates that the systems thinking in the title and throughout refers to one particular lens or approach a perspective, to quote, not to the broader discipline of coming to perceive and understand how things work systemically. Systems thinking, of course, is far more than a perspective from which an organisation can understand and then improve the service that it delivers to customers, but the Seddon method is precisely that. Furthermore, the Seddon method is challenging to traditional management (see Figure 1), but that this is where its power is derived from is an assertion not an argument. Of course, any systemic perspective is likely to produce challenges to existing mindsets, but what Figure 1 demonstrates is that the Seddon approach is (a) predicated on an assumption that an existing command and control set of assumptions and beliefs is in place (and is false and unhelpful) and (b) that the new set of assumptions and beliefs on the right-hand side are true. In this understanding, I am indebted to Richard Veryard, who on his Demanding Change blog continues:
Vanguard clearly regards the new set of assumptions and beliefs as true; thus the question about changing how managers think becomes a tactical question how do you create a learning environment in which managers adopt the Vanguard principles for themselves, without obvious coercion. So the new beliefs (content) are primary, and the process of arriving at the new beliefs is merely a secondary means to an end. This is where the Vanguard notion of Systems Thinking diverges radically from those schools of systems thinking that focus primarily on the process of thinking deeply about systems, and regard the insights that emerge from this process as important but secondary.5

These case studies, then, provide an opportunity to reect on whether those applying the Seddon method are simply adopting a new set of (presumed

Figure 1. The Vanguard method.

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more effective) assumptions and beliefs or whether they are developing and changing their assumptions and beliefs in an insightful way based on reecting on both their results and the inuencing factors: true double-loop learning.6 The section concludes with the Check-Plan-Do triangle, with check described as understand the current organisation as a system, plan as identify levers for changes, and do take direct action on the system. Interestingly, while the diagram is cyclical, this continual element is not referred to. Nor is the Check-Plan-Do loop referenced to Joiner, who introduced this as Can-DO (Check-Plan-Do-Act) in Fourth Generation Management (McGraw-Hill, 1994, p. 49 in most situations . . . it is more appropriate to start the cycle with Check), which is not listed in this books bibliography. The model for check, looking at organisational purpose, customer demand, process achievement, process analysis, process constraints and underlying assumptions, is admirably simple and clear for something similar, see Total Quality Management by Develin and Hand (Accountancy Books, 1993). What do the case studies reveal about the method and its application? And so to the meat of the book. The six case studies are neatly divided into thirds the rst two deal with housing benets in district councils and the nal two with whole-organisational transformation in housing associations. The centre two cases studies are outliers, one an organisational development-led intervention in various parts of Stockport district council and the other on change work undertaken by Central Otago district council of Alexandra, New Zealand. Application to Housing Benet processes and management The two case studies concerning housing benet do not include any cross-references for similarities or differences, but both (understandably) treat the processing of housing benets as a closed (limited) process or system. The rst chapter proper deals with East Devons housing benets change. Each case study opens with a series of bullet points identifying the learning it seeks to illustrate, and these are simple and powerful: in essence, that to improve service, one must learn about current management assumptions and their aws; understand purpose from customer perspective; understand customer demands precisely and come to the realisation that poor service generates work; and understand that targets, organisation and process design and management can be part of the problem. These seem to be powerful, even brilliant, insights for improvement graspable and applicable. Clearly, one would not ordinarily approach action learning with such an explicit set of assumptions, nor would one expect to conclude with such a degree of certainty at the end. However, there seems to be nothing objectionable about them in principle and indeed they suggest the start of rich veins of enquiry (more than the xed conclusions).

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It is worth noting that in the nal point, what I will call the Vanguard argument form is employed:
[The data showed that] setting staff targets was part of the problem. The problem was how the system was designed and managed. People were doing what they were employed to do. Targets are not the way to improve systems, indeed they sub-optimise a system and make performance worse.

By system in this case, it seems that what is meant is the approach to running customer-focused processes and the organisation design in question (and potentially some shared norms, management approaches and so on) essentially a closed system. Once this is established, the argument appears to follow the form: A (setting staff targets) is part of the problem. The problem is B (system design and management). The problem is not C (implicitly: people behaving in ways they were not employed to do). A does not solve the problem. A makes the problem worse. This is clearly a circular argument, but all apparently founded on the data. However, the nal step Targets . . . sub-optimise a system and make performance worse cannot be a generalisable result of this argument (which is not to say that it might not be true). One can, however, begin to see how the Seddon approach provides a useful perspective (this phrase is used more than once in the case study). Figure 1 introduces the Vanguard Model for Check an overview of the simple framework used: This rather confusing diagram is the Seddon approach in a nutshell: identify purpose, measure whether demand is supporting or allowing that purpose, whether the organisation is fullling the value demand (that which does support or allow purpose), and how efciently it is doing so, and then examine the system conditions and thinking inuencing that behaviour. Note that there are signicant predetermined data-gathering steps before the nal two elements, which appear closest in form to action learning, are introduced. One might argue therefore that the problem domain is predetermined, which as we will see has important implications in comparing and contrasting the Seddon approach to action learning. First case study East Devon District Council The insights generated through the Seddon lens are explored in this case study the basic insight being that the demand coming into the system is not best understood (as perhaps would have been understood through standard

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performance reporting) as processing units of new applications, changes of circumstances, etc. Instead, the demand really is a mish-mash of different requests and requirements based on users testing and exploring the organisations responses and trying to make it do for them what they require. This is classied into valuable and preventable demands across three different contact channels (post, telephone and face-to-face), showing between 25% and 58% of preventable demand: 42% of demand placed on the service arose because our system had either failed to do something or to do something right for our customers. Capability is then measured based on the simple measure of full, end-toend time to resolve in line with purpose (in customer terms) Time (days) taken to pay the right person the right amount of benet. This is depicted in a simple run chart which shows (unlabelled) an average and upper control limit. All these data demonstrate that there were clear opportunities for improvement, and a basic process ow diagram highlighting hand-offs, loopbacks, failure levels and process problems is offered to depict Benets as a System. This is clearly a useful way to generate an overview of a process and some of the issues and is of course a particularly closed and limited type of system. Working from the premise that, having observed the work being undertaken through sampling cases, employees were doing what was expected of them, the team then identied a number of issues around the management of the process. These include functional working (with attendant hand-offs), functional specialism (with delays when individuals not available) and a number of other issues which will be familiar to those who have done process improvement work. It is important to note that while the data-gathering approach was predetermined, the customer purpose measure of time to pay the right person the right amount is presumably derived as the result of Vanguard consultants facilitating discussion. It is certain that it is essentially the same as in other Vanguard-led consultancy projects. It is my personal prejudice that this is a fundamentally sensible measure for a service of this kind (though not, perhaps, the only possible such measure). An element of paternalistic guidance inherent in the process (the consultants know best) and faith that the right set-up will lead to positive results is not necessarily a bad thing. But it surely militates against a truly emergent or action-learning-based approach. This appears to be an example on the part of Vanguard of what Argyris and Scho n call the 7 gap between espoused theory and theory-in-use. The learning from this approach was the inadequacy of our methods of management, that each of these issues had spent so long under the radar and that each had been brought about because of a supposedly positive logic. This was clearly revelatory and exciting and led to real changes and improvements. By experimenting with alternative and sometimes opposing logic, and adopting some clear, shared principles, signicant performance improvement is achieved setting out new principles for the process, creating

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measures of meeting the purpose of the service and generating shared visibility and the teamwork that followed. As a practitioner helping public sector organisations to improve, I would be very proud of the results documented in the case.

Is the improvement sustainable; does it help the whole organisation to learn to change it systemically? The conclusion, as positive as it is, might disappoint practitioners who saw in (5) and (6) of Figure 1 the possibility of action learning or at least real force eld analysis, of which this seems to be a simplistic version at best.8 Rather than true double-loop learning, what seem to be happening here are three things: (1) Natural improvement of an organisation at Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) level 19 (i.e., a very low level of process maturity) once the process is documented and visible accompanied by improvement according to the Hawthorne effect. (2) Clients being guided by a practitioner to realise that some of their assumptions which appeared to suggest plausible ways to improve performance had, in application, a negative effect on performance. (3) This experience is used to replace one set of beliefs with another, which (in the short term at least) prove more effective in supporting performance. Interestingly, ongoing learning is explicitly referenced in the conclusion: we know that our improvement journey is not yet over, though there is a clear tension: In adopting a systems thinking approach to our organisation we have started to hard-wire a new framework for leadership, management and service delivery which we know will keep us improving into the future. True continual learning will no doubt develop and change the 9 leadership principles and 14 management principles codied here. But the three core principles bear repeating here: Its the system not the people . . . the role of management and leadership is to help those in the work to nd solutions to the problems that affect their work, measure the right things or pay the price, and it is by understanding how current thinking has resulted in the current design and the current focus that a service can identify its greatest levers for change and improvement. Even if the intervention has merely replaced one set of beliefs and assumptions for another, this does appear de facto to open the possibility for double-loop learning.10 The great question left unanswered (and perhaps for the sequel which Seddon predicts in the introduction) is how, given that East Devon is working with Housing Benets as a pilot, the approach to improving the rest of the organisation has fared. The approach is certainly an optimistic one: It is with condence therefore that we have embarked on further systems thinking service change in other areas of our business . . .

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Second case study Stroud District Council The second, from Stroud District Council, is also based on Housing Benets (although, intriguingly, following training of 13 people including the Chief Executive in the Seddon approach, 6 pilots were apparently started). Again, the key points that begin the case study are very interesting analysis of customer contact is a good start to improvement (as is starting from the clear objective of fullling customer expectations as quickly and efciently as possible), people who work in the processes should be involved in the change and the counter-intuitive act of putting more resources at the start of a process to ensure only correct work enters the system can produce considerable savings in time and processing effort. The latter, of course, seems likely to be conditional on the type of the process and the inputs. The most interesting nding, and one which would be fascinating to explore more fully, was that staff now have a sense of accomplishment and pride in their work, reected in sickness levels falling by 44%. The three or four key points above illustrate the undifferentiated mix of statement of method and assertion of principle, which you may note is already becoming a common theme. Initially launched as a cross-organisation shared learning project and then with internally trained staff, after initial improvements, the project reportedly ran into problems and had to be relaunched with the involvement of a Vanguard consultant not the only time this potentially disempowering message appears in the book. A controlled prototype was then launched focused on managing demand and contact to ensure real understanding of the customer enquiry and a really appropriate response. This is presumably more highly featured as Stroud apparently found 90% failure or avoidable demand, compared with only 55% in the previous example commentary as to the comparison would have been interesting here. However, whether this is a pragmatic and conditional response to circumstances or potentially a generalisable nding is left unclear (Sense and Respond by Parry, Barlow and Faulkner (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) takes a similar approach much further through wholeorganisation transformation in a systemic way).

Interventions in Stockport and Central Otago (NZ) Councils The next two case studies in Stockport Council and the Central Otago Distict Council of Alexandra, New Zealand present examples very much led from an organisational development (rather than a service management, operational improvement, efciency or process) perspective. The Stockport example focuses on the challenges imposed on local government, principally listing those emanating from central government (a good, and thorough, summary of pressures which will be all too familiar to those working in the sector). It also talks about the challenges to management of adopting really different approaches and the emergent nature of systems thinking. The starting point

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is not a plan, but rather spending time with front-line work to obtain specic knowledge of the reasons for the demands on the system. We can note that this is context-specic teaching,11 but this challenging part of the Seddon approach, rejecting as it does traditional project management (presumably by analogy with all targets sub-optimise the system), is not fully addressed. The organisation took two years to build up to and develop their approach, and almost two years after a senior manager saw John Seddon speak, Vanguard were procured for clear approach and commitment to transfer capability. The OD team then ran interventions in human resources and IT. An important aspect of the approach is the reference on page 32: the absolute requirement for senior leaders to be not only committed, but also to take ownership of interventions within their areas of responsibility and to remain close to what is going on . . . it is not possibly to simply rubber stamp the strategy and then turn attention to other issues. Clearly, such engagement is important for any transformation, but many who use different consulting approaches will feel that with this level of engagement, visibility of work processes and organisational commitment, any reasonable approach to process or organisational change might have a good chance of achieving similar results. Perhaps the secret of the Seddon approach is that the antagonistic rhetoric creates the justication for this level of commitment. The specic approach to the interventions is only lightly discussed, highlighting some of the problems in the process thrown up by the check phase and some of the impressive outcomes from the redesign phase. Interestingly, these appear to have been focused on the more transactional, closed systems of helpdesks and Contracts and Payroll. Stockport has undertaken signicant training and development in the approach at all levels, as well as a generally described leadership programme and coaching, and approaches are now being scoped in Taxi Licensing (a transactional process). There are also plans in train to scope Social Transport, a multi-agency and potentially more complicated area, and Street Lights, as well as intention to use this systems thinking approach to challenge the value added by the Councils Contact Centre strategy perhaps a reection of the potential risk of confrontation with existing approaches. Some other risks and challenges of this approach are well documented, from the real challenge of creating change in a four-star, improving strongly organisation, the need (given the lack of traditional project or programme planning) to take a leap of faith, and the challenge to management authority and existing approaches. The case study does not address how the approach which engages and uses the knowledge of the people in the work deals with at the same time releasing capacity and so providing the much needed efciencies (i.e., making people redundant). Perhaps a hint of this dynamic is given in recognising that those in the Check team can easily be seen as being favoured . . . the almost evangelical enthusiasm of the Check team . . . actually resulted in alienating some of those still working in the original system. What are addressed are [f]eelings

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of stress and dejection . . . when employees realised how their current thinking had led to poor performance. The disclaimer that the Seddon approach is based on the belief that variation in performance is mainly due to the system and not the workers stands somewhat in opposition to the sales pitch, which blames people squarely (from the introduction: I was critical of central governments attempts at change but found public sector managers too fearful to heed my criticisms and advice). It is noted that the jargon of waste and failure can increase initial feelings of worthlessness, blame and guilt and that interventions can have short-term negative impacts on performance. The case study concludes with the positive if, as yet, inconclusive nding that the early signs are that systems thinking really does have the potential to deliver on what it promises i.e., improved services and reduced costs. . . curiosity has been generated and take-up, though slow, is gathering pace. The ultimate conclusion is that local learning would suggest that designing the service around the needs of the customer, based upon demand, provides a much better solution than central guidance and third-party inspection. In coming to the Seddon approach in Central Otago in New Zealand, attempts were made over 15 years to nd or develop an approach, and though early attempts with only remote assistance from Vanguard consulting showed substantial early gains followed by a period of regression, a greater commitment to learning and applying the approach showed real results. The pressure here was not reducing budgets, but managing increasing costs in a booming economy. The approach taken for planning and building consents shows the importance of listening to customers, understanding their needs and separating for planning purposes the different needs (segmentation). It also points to the importance of a positive reframing of purpose from complying with regulation to to help people develop appropriately. It is important to note here that purpose in Seddons terms is a single, unifying mission statement for a service or team, not the purpose which systems dynamics would dene as simply the action (or multiple actions) of the system. Good solid process analysis (including some statistics and basic process maps, and repetition of the key diagram of the Seddon approach from earlier in the book), provides powerful examples of how the processes were generating their own demands, which was completely unnecessary to meet either organisational or customer needs a familiar story to process improvement practitioners. After several iterations of process redesign, real cost and time savings were achieved. Another unlabelled run chart shows processing speed improvement based on weekly averages. A similar example in roads shows the revelation of messy three-way control relationships and tender costs adding massively to complexity. The major nding is that when attention to cost and budget is replaced with attention to ow and waste, costs have declined without the fanfare or upset normally associated with centrally driven change. The author of the case study, previously the organisations chief executive,

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appears to have been so converted by the approach that he has now become a consultant delivering the approach in New Zealand. Wider organisational transformation in Flagship and Glasgow Housing Associations The nal two examples are from Flagship and Glasgow Housing Associations and (perhaps due to the smaller and less unwieldy nature of the organisations) demonstrate more whole-organisational change. It is perhaps noteworthy that housing associations, in my experience, tend to resist rather strongly being labelled as public sector organisations, often seeing themselves as public service businesses, due to their history and business model. Flagship began with a reading and study programme again the Seddon approach diagrams are repeated, this time attributed to the earlier book, Freedom from Command and Control (2003). The horrifying ndings from their analysis of the processes and results of processes in their own organisation, and the changes they have introduced, demonstrate that they really have achieved public services that work (better). Ironically, one result has been the opening of a 24/7 [call centre], something often criticised by Seddon. Real examples of the types of barriers to successful service delivery from the audit and inspection regime are provided: [o]ur customers want repairs done when they want them done. Restrictions imposed by regulators often conicted with the wishes of our customers and so led to use being penalised for not meeting prescribed timescales if we attended when customers asked us to. The group has created seven process improvement principles do what matters to our customers, get it right at rst point of contact, only do the value work, minimise hand-offs, minimise waste, do clean work in endto-end ows, and design against demand, broken down organisational barriers, reorganised, and created Community Managers, based in the elds, to look after all demands (and administration work around those demands) from a specic geographical area of houses. This, of course, begs the question of how (in the absence of command and control), the quality and consistency of this work are managed and how organisational risk and probity are managed and maintained. The answer appears to be that fewer managers now work directly with these Community Managers asking them questions about their measures, processes and improvement, and from top board down, supporting the changes this perspective suggests. It seems that there has been a shift from application of one mindset and approach to another, potentially close to action mentoring or coaching (Pedler, Burgoyne, and Brooks 2005). However, in this case, there seems to be an interesting but potentially submerged conict between the specication of principles and the supporting approach of questioning about method. Glasgow Housing Association likewise suggests a whole-organisational transformational change, with 45 interventions in a year, although (despite numerous

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clear improvement) they strikingly admit to not yet having gathered real evidence of changes in customer satisfaction! (In fact, they point to Investors in People accreditation as a possible proxy measure; just the sort of generally plausible, specically sub-optimal sort of process which Seddon so roundly critiques.) Refreshingly, they call their programme Common System, Common Sense. Vanguard want us to believe that their combination of staff-led process analysis using some basic process improvement and total quality management tools and light-touch force eld analysis is the direct intellectual descendent of Ackoff, Deming, Taichi Ohno the Toyota Production System for services, as they style it. Perhaps the elegant, common-sense and impactful interventions depicted in this set of cases have much to recommend them. But perhaps, in generating the wow factor which can power through the usual constraints, parameters, barriers and hesitations with which organisational systems naturally tend to hedge around process and service improvement initiatives, there is more than a hint of the Wizard of Oz to Mr Seddon a loud voice which can achieve many things, but only because the potential was actually there all along. This book and the task of this review were enthusiastically recommended to me under the email header systems thinking works its ofcial! In this case, as in the Wizard of Oz, once we take it apart to see how it works, we can either be disappointed that there is not really that much to it or be excited at the possibility for potential change in our own work and organisations it points to with, or without, the interventions of Vanguard Consulting. Conclusions There clearly is a method here, although systems thinking does not seem to be the most appropriate name for it. It should immediately become clear that the goals of the method are primarily practical knowledge (service improvement and cost reduction), perhaps with an undertow of emancipatory knowledge (inasmuch as we can deduce from Seddons attacks on managers and Ministers and all forms of top-down authority). Likewise, if it can be compared with anything in action learning, there is more connection with the classical principles we take directly from Revans than with the more personal problem-oriented group of six approach commonly applied. The requirement for action as the basis for learning, the opportunity for profound personal development and problems being aimed at organisational development are all relatively familiar. But the predetermined, codied approach, the expertdriven interventions (tending to portray closed systems as puzzles susceptible to expert answers, not problems with no right answer) and the inherent conict between challenging existing thinking and asserting a new way of thinking take us away from action learning. Seddon talks about intervention theory, but as far as I am aware, Vanguard Consulting do not reference Argyris work on this or dene in any way what they mean by it. This makes it difcult to know what they mean or how effective they are at using it. The obvious conclusion is that

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rather than presenting a theory of the organisation and a theory of intervention as claimed, the entire Vanguard consulting project is an intervention designed to change thinking in an organisation in a predetermined way. One of the necessary steps of this process is that those who had created the workplace system (principally the managers but, as we saw in the Stockport example, also the workers themselves) must learn that they were wrong and to be blamed for their circumstances. There seems to be something intrinsically problematic in the way Seddon tends to formulate this, but it does match well with my personal experience of developing enthusiasm for the Vanguard approach, when in a relatively junior role, partly because of the high degree of common sense and insight which it offered, but also (and perhaps primarily) because it allowed me to be right and my managers to be wrong. The implication is that using some of the analyses and tools of the Seddon approach combined with a truer action learning approach which recognised the primacy of the knowledge and the complexity of the interactions in the organisation might unlock signicantly deeper layers of learning and long-term organisational transformation. Ultimately, the largest and most important claim is that these case studies demonstrate real improvement. This is well supported by the evidence presented. The Seddon approach to organisational change clearly can work and has worked in these examples. The authors from the sector come across as enthused, positive and dedicated and describe signicant personal learning: many have found this journey to be the most stimulating experience of their careers (p. xi), in line with the classical principle of profound personal development resulting from reection upon action. Yet while they are clearly genuine cases, their selection and the fact that a number are co-authored by Vanguard consultants mean that they do not provide independent evidence of the benets of systems thinking in the public sector.12 A large number of organisations have tried the Seddon approach, with reported successes and failures hopefully further successes can be found for subsequent volumes, but will the lessons learnt from the failures also be reported? What were the reasons for them? Without this fuller picture, the book will indeed enable you to begin to apply the method in your organisation but is presumably likely to stimulate a call for help to Vanguard when the rst problems emerge. Perhaps more importantly, the broader question is: does the Seddon approach lead to sustainable improvements? Does it provide for ongoing improvement without the need for radical specic interventions, creating a situation where the underlying systemic problems are identied and addressed by the organisations itself. There are some tantalising hints that some of this may be happening in some cases, but nothing that provides real evidence either way. Ultimately, for those committed to action learning, the idea that the controversy and polarisation which John Seddon creates may play a direct role in the success or failure of his method in application (as well as generated interest and awareness) may prove the most interesting question of all. While his books13

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should be part of the required reading list for those seeking operational improvement, particularly in the public sector, John Seddon remains (in more or less direct contradiction to his description in The Times) merely another consultant with a product to sell.14 Notes
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect. 2. Vanguard monthly email newsletter passim. 3. www.lean-service.com, http://www.lga.gov.uk/idk/aio/4626517 (A new programme from Vanguard: Lean Fundamentals). 4. Personal correspondence Geoff is at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/geoff-elliott/0/ 143/680. 5. http://demandingchange.blogspot.com/2010/05/changing-how-we-think.html. 6. A good overview and discussion can be found in Smith (2001) Chris Argyris: Theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning, the encyclopedia of informal education, as available at www.infed.org/thinkers/argyris.htm. 7. When someone is asked how he would behave under certain circumstances, the answer he usually gives is his espoused theory of action for that situation. This is the theory of action to which he gives allegiance and which, upon request, he communicates to others. However, the theory that actually governs his actions is this theory-in-use (Argyris and Scho n 1974, 67). 8. Developed by Kurt Lewin, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_eld_analysis. 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model_Integration. 10. See Smith (2001). 11. Mabey and Thomson (2001), Horne and Stedman Jones (2001), referenced in Pedler, Burgoyne, and Brooks (2005). 12. Vanguard news, April 2011, referring to the book, emphasis theirs. 13. I Want You to Cheat! The unreasonable guide to service and quality in organisations, Vanguard Consulting Ltd, 1992, Freedom from Command and Control: a better way to make the work work, Vanguard Education, 2nd edition 2005, and Systems Thinking in the Public sector: the failure of the reform regime and a manifesto for a better way, Triarchy Press, 2008. 14. The Times, July 31, 2009 New way thinker John Seddon aims at council targets http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/public_sector/ article6733600.ece.

References
Ackoff, Russell L. 1987. The art of problem solving. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Argyris, C., and D. Scho n. 1974. Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Deming, W. Edwards. 1982. Out of the crisis. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Educational Services. Horne, M., and D. Stedman Jones. 2001. Leadership the challenge for all? London: Chartered Management Institute. Mabey, C., and A. Thomson. 2001. The learning manager: A survey of management attitudes to training and development at the millennium. London: Institute of Management. Ohno, Taiichi. 1992. Toyota production system: Beyond large-scale production. Cambridge, MA: Productivity Press.

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Pedler, M., J.G. Burgoyne, and C. Brooks. 2005. What has action learning learned to become? Action Learning: Research & Practice 2, no. 1: 49 68. Seddon, John. 2003. Freedom from command and control: A better way to make the work work. Buckingham: Vanguard Education. Seddon, John. 2008. Systems thinking in the public sector: The failure of the reform regime and a manifesto for a better way. Axminster: Triarchy Press. Smith, M.K. 2001. Chris Argyris: Theories of action, double-loop learning and organizational learning, the encyclopedia of informal education, as available at www. infed.org/thinkers/argyris.htm.

Ben Taylor RedQuadrant Ltd, London, UK Email: ben.taylor@redquadrant.com # 2012, Ben Taylor