469. Good Leaders Get Their Hands Dirty, with Guest Mentors Nelson Repenning and Don Keiffer
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Who are the guest mentors and what is their background?
And now, The Mentors Radio, one of the most popular and unique shows on the air today. Here each week, remarkable CEOs and leaders, including host Tom Lurie and Dan Hesse, and their guest, will mentor you, challenging your thinking about life and work. sought after for their ethical leadership and advice, and for helping others succeed throughout their careers, now these same CEOs, the mentors, want to help you achieve your highest level of profitability, success, and personal fulfillment in life, at work, and in business. Learn more and check out the show notes at TheMentorsRadio.com. That's TheMentorsRadio.com. And now, here's your mentor.
welcome i'm your host dan hesse and i'm with mit professor nelson repenting and senior lecturer don keifer nelson is the faculty director of the mit leadership center and the distinguished professor of system dynamics and organizational studies at the mit sloan school of management he received the international systems dynamic society's Jay Wright Forrester Award, which recognizes the best work in the field in the previous five years, and he received the Jameson Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Nelson was recently recognized by Poets & Quants as one of the country's top instructors in executive education. Don Kiefer's 40-year career and operation spans from frontline work to executive roles, including 15 years at Harley-Davidson, where he was VP of Operational Excellence.
He is currently advising executive teams around the globe in operational strategy and improvement. He is a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and at the AVT Business School in Copenhagen. Don and Nelson are partners in Shift Gear Work Design, and they have co-authored a book, There has got to be a better way. How to deliver results and get rid of the stuff that gets in the way of real work.
How did Nelson Repenning and Don Keiffer collaborate on their book?
Describing dynamic work design, which we are going to discuss today. So welcome, Nelson and Don. It's a pleasure to have you as guest mentors. Dan, great to be here. Thank you.
Thanks, Dan.
So you two are a team of sorts. And one of the things we as business leaders learn how to do is design optimal teams with complementary skills. To oversimplify, Nelson, you're primarily from academia, Don from kind of the shop floor. How did you two guys get together and how do you collaborate, whether it's in the classroom or consulting or even in writing this book?
So I can start and then Don can tell his part of the story. But when I was a grad student, you know, there's really only two things in life that you want when you're a grad student, which is funding and data. And the funding came from the National Science Foundation. And at that time, they had a what was a very novel grant proposal, which is you had to have industry partners in order to get this particular grant. So my senior colleague, John Sturman, I applied for it.
What is dynamic work design and how does it differ from static work design?
We got it. And at a meeting, one of Don's Harley colleagues had put his hand up and said they'd love to work with us. And so I was starting to go collect data at Harley and talking to my contact there, who was the late Ron Hutchinson, who was then the director of quality for Harley. And as we're walking down the hallway, he said, Oh, you really should talk to this Don Kiefer guy because he's doing some pretty impressive things in new product development. And literally, Don was walking the other way and we ended up having lunch together. He and I had a huge debate writing the book about what the name of the cafe was where we had our first lunch. But we hit it off. And I think even though we came at this from almost completely opposite directions, we shared a real interest in getting work done.
And, you know, that was 30 plus years ago. And, you know, the book is sort of the next product in that collaboration.
And as far as being complimentary, uh nelson was a cool calm collected thoughtful mit professor quite a bit younger than me and i was the uh i don't know the very excitable, fought my way up from the shop floor to running a big engine program.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who are the guest mentors and what is their background?
0:07–1:55
2
How did Nelson Repenning and Don Keiffer collaborate on their book?
1:55–2:56
3
What is dynamic work design and how does it differ from static work design?
2:56–4:05
4
Why are workarounds detrimental in organizational processes?
4:05–5:24
5
How can leaders effectively identify the right problems to solve?
5:24–6:49
6
What role does AI play in the future of work design?
6:49–8:27
7
How should leaders balance hands-on involvement with strategic oversight?
8:27–9:44
8
What is the mission of the MIT Leadership Center and its unique approach?
9:44–43:09
Speakers
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464. Stop Selling and Start “Falling into Trust” with Richard Harris, and Host Tom Loarie
463. Learn to Live Your Values and Say No, with Dr. Sunita Sah and Host Dan Hesse