Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/735567
28 The PCB Magazine • October 2016 FEATURE by David Dibble DIBBLE LEADERS With an introduction by Barry Matties, publisher, I-Connect007 Introduction When David Dibble was only 24 years old, with just $5,000, he started a PCB company—in a garage. He built it to a profitable $10 million in sales and 200 employees making printed cir- cuit boards. Focusing upon the work of W. Edwards Deming, Peter Senge, Buckminster Fuller, Ilya Prigogine, and John S. Bell, David became an ex- pert in workplace systems improvement. Since 1990, he has been training and consulting using his Four New Agreements for Leaders and Managers as a proven model for sustainable organizational transformation, with remarkable results. Today, he is the president of Dibble Leaders. I-Connect007 worked with David to formu- late the Biz Brain IQ Test, which we offered to readers during the last several months within I-Connect007 publications. Below are the com- bined responses from the 170 people who com- pleted the quiz, representing a cross-section of disciplines from our industry. The highest possible score for the Biz Brain IQ Test is 200. The average result was 120, while the highest score we saw was 167. Discussion of Results and Answers This question is probably a bit too easy in that there is more than one best answer. The cul- ture of a company is most shaped by the mindset of top management. Having said that, we see that values and vision are part of the mindset of top management. Mission also falls in there some- where. We can even make a case that company policies many times come from the mindset of top management. ______________________________________ This question starts to get to the heart of what it means to be a great manager. The best answer is being a systems thinker. Notice only 13% of re- sponders picked this answer while 50% picked setting people up to be successful. Interestingly, it's very difficult to set people up to be successful un- less the systems in which they work have been op- timized in a systems-based manner. Taking immedi- ate action to solve problems is usually a bad choice in that the "don't just stand there—do something" tenet driving most managers is seldom the best op- tion. Doing something before understanding the problem (system) often makes things worse. How can we hold people accountable, if we haven't opti- mized the systems in which they work? Remember, approximately 94% of the results are a function of the systems in which people work, not the efforts of people. Most of the time when we mea- sure results we attribute to people, we are measur- ing results produced by the systems. ______________________________________