Front Line Leader Program (FLLP)

Initialization

The website opening page presented the site theme – we are our choices.

Making choices is an intellectual activity of an individual brain, an effort philosophers call thinking (2) responding to a “call” (1) also originating in the subconscious mind. Our target is confined to the significant sociotechnical system problems we label Category three.

“Thinking” underwrites choice making by comparing the knowledge about candidate fixes to a prioritized value system also held within the individual’s brain (3). Choices made that turn out to be good attest that high-stakes thinking took place. 1 2 3

The theme is so central to our life’s trajectory it is expressly connected to this page:

• Scope of page subject matter
• The logical couplings between theme, the sociotechnical system, and this page
• Choices to be made

Scope: This page presents the topical content of the process used to transpose the MitMs caged in Plan A to the freedom and control keystones have in Plan B. The title of the episode does not reveal what actually takes place in the hyper-learning environment. Participation of the keystones themselves shapes what knowledge is exchanged in an episode, exactly two hours in length, spaced a month apart.

Connections: Each episode introduces the natural laws that determine the dynamics of the subject matter. Each module has 3 or more models (graphical representations – visual diagrams) which supplement the instructional material. The models connect key concepts into understandable units, which are useful for action and implementation. These models provide take away aids which the student can use and apply in the field. The training method requires active engagement by students, and incorporates practical exercises and participation as a component of the instruction.

Foremanship by Foremen for Foremen

Season 1 Episodes

1. Fundamentals of Frontline Leadership
   1. What is Frontline Leadership
   2. Roles and Duties
   3. Acting with Intelligence & Mental Models of Reality (M2Rs)
2. Work Relationships, Group Dynamics and Teamwork
   1. People in groups
   2. Teams, Team Work and Teamwork
   3. C3C
3. Communications, and Trust
   1. The Communications Model & C3C6C
   2. Getting Alignment, Cohesion and Engagement (SM2)
   3. Orders, Directions, and Instructions
4. Structuring Work
   1. DED, Time Phases and Project Planning
   2. Organizing and Preparing
   3. Work/Project Design
5. Adapting, In Stride and Under Fire
   1. Problem Detection
   2. Problem Solving
   3. Decision Making
6. Work Execution Process
   1. Before, Now, Next
   2. Task Accomplishment Cycle
   3. Starting Right and Appropriate Selection

Each participant has take-home assignments from each module. This consists of critical questions, which require the concepts covered to be evaluated by each individual when they have time to think and consider their answers.

Between episodes, individual field coaching sessions are conducted with each participant. These are used to foster improvement through direct one-on-one coaching. Each discussion is confidential between the student and the facilitator, so that individual questions and concerns can be discussed at length.

All elements of this program season are repeated in each subsequent season, as they become process elements which create a thread of continuity for the participants, which reinforces the objectives each year.

Season 2 Episodes

7. Frontline Leadership Extended
   1. Review of Season 1 Contents
   2. Acting with Intelligence
   3. Viability, Productivity and the Critical Role of Gatekeepers
8. Human Factors: Making Performance More Reliable
   1. Errors versus Violations
   2. Practical Drift
   3. States and Tools
9. Situational Awareness
   1. Process of Continual Comparison, and its importance
   2. Team Role versus Individual Component
   3. Local and Particular
10. Advanced Communications
    1. Significance of face-to-face
    2. Psychological Safety
    3. Social Guerilla Warfare
11. Coaching: Improving Performance
    1. Working with Individuals
    2. Direct Engagement
    3. Process of Conducting Sessions
12. Closing The Loop
    1. After Action Reviews (AARs)
    2. Fairness in Leader to Group Dealings
    3. Rewards vs Incentives vs Concerned Care

These episodes build upon material presented during Season 1. Unless the individual participant has completed all episodes in Season 1, they will not be able to participate in Season 2. Numerous concepts and tools, which are essential, get expanded upon, but without in-depth explanation, since they are thoroughly reviewed in Season 1.

Season 3 Episodes

13. Review of Contents Seasons 1 and 2
    1. Theme of Season 1: Acting with Intelligence
    2. Theme of Season 2: Viability, Productivity and the Critical Role of Gatekeepers
    3. Looking forward: Season 3 Theme:
       1. Learning as the Path to Improving
14. Self-Leadership: Strengthening the Man-in-the Middle
    1. The Rogerian Triad
    2. Inside Out: Self-Talk, Goals and Positivity
    3. Getting your own act together: Being a strong Role Model
15. Communications Revisited
    1. Just Culture, Courtesy, Civility and Psychological Safety
    2. Combining the Power of Questions and Listening
    3. Building multi-method communications
16. Advanced Coaching:
    1. Building powerful and capable subordinates
    2. Targeting Feedback to Increase its value
    3. Touchstones of powerful coaches
17. Conflict Management: The friction of Interpersonal Relationships
    1. The Law of Reciprocity and Working with Individuals
    2. Conflict, its source and role in personal relationships
    3. Fostering Respect and equitable resolution
18. Stress Management and Coping Skills: Improving Work/Life Balance
    1. Leveraging Stress, while avoiding distress
    2. What powerful people do to cope
    3. Managing and channeling stressful situations

These episodes build upon material presented during Seasons 1 and 2. Unless the individual participant has completed all previous episodes, they cannot participate in Season 3.

Season 4 Episodes

19. Frontline Leadership Continued
    1. Review of Contents Seasons 1, 2, and 3
    2. The elements you have learned to use, and making yourself more effective
    3. Looking forward: Season 4 Theme
       1. Learning the Mechanisms of Action
20. Foreman: in the Middle with The Man-in-the-Middle
    1. The Origin and Evolution of the Key Man
    2. Roles, Responsibilities and Duties
    3. Understanding the primary “linchpin” role
21. Survivor
    1. The Challenge of Surviving
    2. The Choices of Survivors
    3. The techniques for Survival
22. Self-Leadership: Strengthening the Man-in-the Middle:
    1. Self-Awareness and the internal focus
    2. Discipline to power transformation
    3. Development: the Path of Continuous Improvement
23. The Key Tools of Productivity: powering the MitM
    1. Viability Husbandry
    2. Work Design and the Problem Solving Quad
    3. The Rogerian Triad
24. Psychological Hierarchy and Discretionary Energy
    1. The importance of energy and limits on discretion
    2. Understanding the levels
    3. Moving up the pyramid and its implications

Each episode builds upon material presented during Seasons 1, 2, and 3. Unless the individual participant has completed all previous episodes, they cannot participate in Season 4.

Front Line Leader Program (FLLP) Season 5 Episodes

25. Leadership: From the Upper Decks
    1. Building with Themes: Seasons 1-4
    2. Looking forward: Season 5: Climbing To The Gödel Level
    3. The Choice

26. Self-Leadership : Advancing The Man-in-the-Middle
    1. It Starts with Knowing
    2. Self-awareness and Personal Responsibility
    3. Maintaining Balance
27. Positive Reciprocity: Fostering Relationships at Work
    1. Interactions and the Role of Trust
    2. Triggering Trust
    3. Developing Trust
28. Trust to Strengthen the Group:
    1. Powerful Inquiry: Acquisition of Ground Truth and AQI
    2. Radical Candor: Building Powerful Subordinates
    3. Deliberate Practice: Delivering Individual Development appreciation
29. Challenging Communication:
    1. Dealing with Difficult People
    2. Confronting with Conversation
    3. Conducting the Dialogue Effectively
30. Psychological Hierarchy and Transcendence
    1. Argyris Core Functions
    2. Understanding the Maslow levels
    3. Moving up the Psychological Pyramid

Season 6 Episodes

31. The Path of Personalization
    1. Reciprocity and Leadership
    2. The Critical Needs of Others
    3. The levels of Personalization

32. Gratitude: The Gift that Keeps on Giving
    1. Circles of Relations and the fuel of Positive Reciprocity
    2. What it is and how it works
    3. Giving to get
33. Structuring for the Success of the MitM
    1. Why it starts with Self-Awareness
    2. Subjective Well Being
    3. Getting Your Own Act Together: Fundamentals
34. Understanding What Drives Others
    1. First Grub, Then Ethics
    2. Myths of Turnover: Why People Really Leave
    3. Social Instinct and Purpose, Growth, and Connection
35. Fostering Feedback
    1. Dyads and Triads
    2. One to Many
    3. Individual Development: Feedback, recognition and appreciation
36. Spirit and Morale:
    1. Power in Groups: Fostering Cohesion and Loyalty
    2. Enhancing Group Power: Spirit and Morale
    3. Putting it Together: Convergence of Personalization

Bonus: Hyper-learning concept in development

The large quantity of scientific research on human learning is and has been the design basis of MitM “guidance” efforts. If there is something significant to your life to learn, some knowledge already developed and proven useful by others, why not transfer that value as seamlessly and productively as possible? The various perspectives on human learning, medical and clinical, are value-adding subjects. To whose benefit is low efficiency learning?

The gold standard for learning established by science was the template used for MitM assistance from the start (2002). The first curiosity about this design guide, assembled from discipline research over centuries, results widely known, is that academia doesn’t apply the knowledge to itself. In fact, the venerable, traditional practices in use today crowd themselves into the bottom of the productivity rankings. These ubiquitous, ingrained “teaching” practices have been measured as painfully ineffective many times over. Accordingly, the features of best-learning technology are incorporated into the stop-rules document issued at the kickoff of the MitM program.

Considerable experience with the MitM assistance program, FLLP, has shown that the gold standard, as graded by the MitMs themselves, is at least fifteen times more effective than conventional training techniques. This experience with applying the research on human capability to learn significant, complex knowledge calls conventional wisdom into question. Sound-bite teaching fails the MitM “sprint” criterion. The difference between customary and the gold standard, in the MitM case, makes the difference between success and failure in getting to PS³. We’re in this sprint for the outcome, not the income.

As you would expect, the vicissitudes of teaching situations have tested the gold standard beyond dispute. On special occasions, with special circumstances, however, the ability of the human brain to learn complex sociotechnical information has revealed the existence of a hyper-productive gear. These recently-documented experiences, with participants available for your interview, have demonstrated human learning capabilities an order of magnitude above the gold standard. Quite special conditions to ignite, to be sure, but breathtaking performance still.

In hyper-learning conditions, you have more available internal energy when a session is over than when it began, rather than the other way around. This feature is there by plan. The material presented is being ingested, venting off accumulated angst, and reallocating the instantly-available energy for learning as it goes. It is apparent that the new energy supply being made available is larger than the energy it is taking the MitMs to learn new material. So far, no examples of the hyper-learning event have been found in the literature. Can you guess how anxious academia is to investigate this game-changing hyper-learning capability?

You can reckon for yourself what it means to society to have a practical learning process, however special the circumstances, at least 100x more productive than business as usual, in hand. Can you guess how anxious the Establishment is to implement the hyper-learning system? And, what does that rejection tell you about the Establishment?

Now that hyper-learning has been experienced, it has become a high-priority goal of ours to learn more about the special conditions that trigger it. The process of elimination is the main investigative tool. The conditions of hyper-learning are quite narrow and extremely sensitive to disturbance. For example, the participants must be of the same sex. Mixtures do not work.

Take the hyper-learning concept and use it as a device for your advantage. Simply take the fact of hyper-learning recited above and pick a target. Using the circumstance of its implementation as a tool, discuss the benefits of hyper-learning to his world and invite your target to go to an implementation and see for himself. Hyper-learning is always cheek by jowl.

When your target goes catatonic, refusing the offer to examine and evaluate such an important discovery first-hand, you have established a new relationship. No longer can he claim to be pro-improvement. He has demonstrated deliberate ignorance, willful blindness, in public.  This tool, “see the fix for what you’re complaining about – implemented,” will work on anyone. Refusal of the fix goes a long way to account for the track record of the metabolic syndrome of organizational dysfunction (OD).

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