LLC: A Case Study of Organizational Learning at EDS

Chapter Five, Historical Context

"We Want It All and We Want It Now"

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The previous chapter reviewed EDS' organizational and industry background and concluded that EDS' emphasis on strategic positioning was the motivation behind the project, Leading Learning Communities. This chapter will discuss, the challenges that EDS faced and describe the relationships that were developing between the MIT Organizational Learning Center (OLC) and EDS and how these events and circumstances came together for EDS in a unique way.

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Corporate Initiatives and Company Structure

There were several strategic corporate initiatives within EDS that eventually came together to create the need for Leading Learning Communities. EDS had attempted to change its' approach to leadership in the early 1980's, but the company was not ready at that time. Clark indicated "EDS was trying to keep its head above water as the GM consolidation caused tremendous turbulence." The period from 1984 to 1989 was a period of volatility and growth and the organization was struggling to stay on top of its commitments. Dennis Drislane, President of the Health Care SBU, commented, "...with growth comes tremendous obstacles and bureaucracy."

The GM consolidation created an opportunity as well as a great deal of organizational turbulence. In 1989, the company reorganized to form Strategic Units (SU's) to run the businesses. This structure shifted in 1992 to further divide the SU's into Strategic Business Units (SBU's) and Strategic Support Units (SSU's). This structure created intersections between the SBU's and the SSU's. Management of the intersections became a critical part of EDS' operations. This structure began to shift the corporate culture from that of an individual emphasis to an increased awareness of the importance of teams and team work. EDS believed they needed to develop the ability to bring together high performance teams from various cultural, geographical and technical backgrounds.

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EDS Meets MIT

Jim Young, assistant to Les Alberthal, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of EDS, knew Peter Senge, Director of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT. This was around the time The Fifth Discipline was being released. Dennis Drislane and Dave Ellot, President of the Human Performances Systems Division for EDS, read Senge's book, The Fifth Discipline, and distributed copies to selected individuals within EDS. In March of 1992, a group of EDS executives, intrigued by the book, attended an MIT "Core Competency" course on organizational learning. The group included, Jim Young, Pat Sculley, Director of Leadership Development for EDS, Jim Thorson, Director of Sales - Special Project and Mark Moll, SBU President, North American Vehicle Platforms. The course was taught by Peter Senge, Bill Isaacs and Fred Kofman, all members of the Organizational Learning Center.

Moll recalled from that session " ...I finally understood there was real depth to the material that was being taught. I started to reassess my behavior and role as a leader." Moll felt that Kofman was most effective at getting the group to look within themselves. A relationship was initiated and discussions continued between Kofman, Senge and EDS executives over the course of the next year.

Kofman commented after that five-day session that, "They, EDS, liked that I was about to be lynched three times during that seminar by an angry crowd. They actually enjoyed that. They enjoyed seeing that I could slip away and they said "Oh, we want that." So they asked me if I could do that at EDS. I asked if they wanted the lynching or the escaping and they said both." 33 This comment serves to illustrate the relationship that was developing between Kofman and EDS.

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Kofman Works With EDS

Kofman became a consultant to Sculley on communication techniques to utilize in Leadership Development staff meetings and this evolved into a coaching role for the Leadership Development staff. Sculley invited Kofman to hold a three day introductory series on organizational learning at EDS' facilities in Dallas, Texas. This first session included some of the most senior leadership at EDS. This session created a great deal of enthusiasm among the participants. Sculley invited Kofman back to repeat the session with other groups of EDS leaders. This started a relationship with the EDS corporate strategy group that will be detailed in Chapter Six - Organizational Strategy. Marsha Clark replaced Pat Sculley as the Director of Leadership Development and inherited the relationship that Sculley had initiated with Kofman.

Kofman continued conducting three day sessions within EDS at a rate of one every few months. People from all over the company were invited to attend these conferences. The experiences were generally positive. When the sessions ended, people wondered how this could be done for a whole company. People felt they were on the edge of learning something, but a three-day session did not allow enough time to effect lasting change of the participants. These sessions began creating a general awareness of organizational learning within the leadership group at EDS. According to a manager from the Leadership Development Unit, Dean Linderman, Senior Vice President for EDS, wanted the Leadership Development organization to focus on sweeping transformational change of leadership not management. He wanted some "magic"! Clark's first two proposals to Linderman were rejected for not having any "magic". She was also charged with developing the mechanism or training to support the seven Leadership attributes developed as part of the corporate strategy (detailed in the next chapter).

Kofman was influenced by the type of teaching he was conducting at EDS. He said he enjoyed "... the facilitator role in a business environment more than teaching Harvard Business School case studies." He began developing an idea to offer a program on organizational learning for approximately forty individuals from the OLC partner companies. He did not envision a one company sponsorship because he could not imagine one company committing the type of resources necessary to conduct an exclusive program. His concern was not only program costs, but the time that would be required of the participants. Kofman was also interested in the possibility of creating cross-company collaborative projects. The drawback of such an endeavor included: uncertain commitments, a large administrative structure and communication difficulties. He was interested in a test of this concept before moving beyond the Learning Center partners.

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"I Want It All..."

In March of 1993, during one of Kofman's, now frequent trips to Dallas, he was discussing his idea with Clark and two other managers of the Leadership Development Unit. He asked if EDS would be interested in sending four individuals to the Organizational Learning Center for this type of training sometime in the future. Clark responded, "No, we don't want to have four people in the program next year. We want it all and we want it now." Kofman's proposal was the "magic" that Linderman was looking for and eventually became known as Leading Learning Communities. The desire was to create a program allowing participants the time and psychological safety to utilize the structure of transformational learning. EDS signed a contract with Kofman to create the LLC program. According to Kofman, the agreement between he and EDS, was "... an agreement to work on Humility, Wonder, Love and Compassion." 34 LLC at EDS was a process of creating something new, not duplicating or repeating something that happened before. The next step was to identify the Strategic Units that would commit financial and human resources to the pilot LLC program.

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