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Applying the 5Ps Leadership Analysis Framework
Business Essentials · Chapter 6: Leadership Theories and StylesSection 6.5 · lesson 35 of 10513 min · free with a free account
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In this lesson
Diagnosing a unit, and choosing what a problem is about.
- Apply a 5Ps analysis to a leadership situation
- Explain how framing sets the options a leader sees
- Compare 2 framings of the same problem
- Identify a binding constraint and present it
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Leadership Theories and Styles
Applying the 5Ps Leadership Analysis Framework
When a unit is struggling, the first explanation that comes to mind is usually the one that gets acted on. This section is about slowing that down. We'll use a framework called the five Ps to diagnose a unit before acting. Then we'll look at framing, the decision about what a problem is about, which quietly decides which solutions you'll ever consider. We'll see how to run a diagnosis down to a single binding constraint, and how to present it so others can test it. And we'll watch two managers discover that their problem wasn't the one they first assumed. Diagnosis comes before style. You can't match a style to a situation you've misread. And the way a problem is first stated often decides the answer, before anyone notices.
Diagnosing Before Acting
Understand the Situation First
Sections six point one to six point four were about how a leader behaves, and how that behavior should fit the situation. But before a leader can match style to situation, she has to understand the situation. And a common failure of leadership is acting on the first explanation that comes to mind. It feels decisive. It's often wrong. So this section does two things. First, it gives an analytic frame for diagnosing a unit before acting, called the five Ps. Second, it examines the step that comes before any solution is even considered. Deciding what the problem is about. Both of these happen before anyone acts. That's exactly why they're so easy to skip.
Figure 6.5.1
5 Lenses on One Unit
The five Ps are five lenses through which a leader examines a unit. Purpose, people, processes, performance, and position. The framework appears in several variants, with the same letters standing for different terms. So the version used here is stated explicitly. Each lens asks its own question about the same unit. What is it for? Can and will the people do the work? How does the work flow? What is measured? And where does the unit sit? A leader who uses only one or two lenses sees only part of the unit. And the lens left out is often where the cause lies. Keep all five in view. Each one can reveal a cause the other four would miss.
The 5Ps
Questions, and the Evidence That Answers Them
Purpose asks what the unit exists to achieve, and whether everyone in it would give the same answer. The evidence is what members say when asked separately, and what the stated goals and resources imply. A unit whose members give different answers is pulling in different directions. People asks about capability, motivation, and relationships. Can the members do the work? Do they want to? And how do they work together? Evidence includes skills records, turnover, and how the group handles disagreement. Motivation theory comes in chapter nine. Processes asks how work actually flows, as against how it's supposed to. The design of operations comes in chapter eight. The evidence is a trace of real items, from beginning to end. Performance asks what's measured, what it shows, and what it omits. That's the control function from section five point two. A measure can show the unit meeting its targets, while ignoring the outcome that matters. Position asks where the unit sits in relation to its environment, its stakeholders, and the rest of the organization. Who sends work in? Who depends on the output? And who has influence over the unit? The five lenses are interdependent. Purpose shapes the measures, and the measures shape what people do. People shape the processes, and position shapes what the unit can achieve. So the classic failure is optimizing one lens. Change the processes but keep the old measures, and the old behavior wins. That's the interdependence principle of section five point five, in another form.
Framing
The Frame Sets the Options
Now the step that comes before any solution. Framing. Framing is the choice of what a problem is about. It's usually made quickly, and without deliberation, simply in the way the problem is first stated. The crucial point is that the frame determines the option set. Frame a problem as a staffing problem, and you'll generate staffing solutions. Hiring, overtime, or reassignment. And nothing else. The other possibilities never appear as candidates. A leader who frames a backlog as a staffing shortage won't look at the process that produces it. Within that frame, there's no reason to. That's what makes framing dangerous. The choice is invisible, but it limits everything that follows.
5 Common Frames
Each Can Be True, and Evidence Decides
Five framings are common in management. A resource frame says the unit lacks what it needs, in people, money, or equipment. A capability frame says the people lack the skills. A motivation frame says the people can, but won't. A process frame says the way work is organized produces the result. A structural frame says the arrangement of units and responsibilities is at fault. Each can be true, and evidence would tell them apart. If it's resources, productivity per person will be normal, and demand will exceed capacity. If it's capability, errors will concentrate among people with less training. If it's motivation, the same people will perform well in some circumstances, and poorly in others. If it's process, delays will occur at particular handoffs, and persist however the people change. And if it's structural, delays will occur where responsibility crosses a boundary between units.
Table 6.5.1
A Growing Returns Backlog, 4 Ways
Here's one problem, a growing backlog of unprocessed returns, under four framings. Framed as a resource problem, the options are hiring, overtime, or borrowing staff from other units. What it ignores is whether existing work is done efficiently, and why the backlog grew. Framed as capability, the options are training, hiring experienced people, and reference guides. It ignores whether trained staff would hit the same delays, because of how the work flows. Framed as motivation, the options are targets, incentives, and more supervision. It ignores whether the measures reward speed on easy items, and leave the hard ones untouched. Framed as process, the options are redesigning the flow, and removing repeated handling. Also fixing the information passed in, and changing the measures. Even that frame ignores something. Whether more capacity is also needed once the flow is fixed. Each framing leaves out what the others would have examined. A leader who states the frame openly can be asked what evidence supports it. One who doesn't may not even know a choice was made.
The Leader's Responsibility
Who Sets the Frame
A team inherits its frame from the way the problem is first stated. If a leader opens a meeting by saying the unit needs more people, the discussion that follows will be about staffing. So the leader is responsible for the frame the team adopts. It's a form of the influence described in section five point six. A responsible leader states the problem as the symptom, not the presumed cause. The backlog is growing. Not, we need more staff. Then she asks the team what could explain it. Reframing is deliberately substituting a different frame for the one in use. It's legitimate and valuable when the existing frame has produced options that haven't worked. But it becomes evasion when it's used to avoid a real problem. For example, recasting a serious staff shortage as merely a process issue, to avoid asking for a budget. The test is simple to state. Is the new frame supported by evidence the old one ignored? Or does it just make the uncomfortable question go away?
Binding Constraint
Run the 5Ps to One Constraint
A diagnosis that ends in a list of five observations isn't finished. The objective is a binding constraint. The one condition that most limits what the unit can achieve. It must be relieved before other improvements will have any effect. The leader runs each lens, assembles the evidence, and asks how the findings connect. Then she asks which one, if removed, would release the most. Three tests help. First, explanatory reach. Which finding accounts for the largest number of symptoms? In the returns unit we'll meet shortly, missing order data at intake explains the repeated handling, the handoffs, and much of the delay. The unclear purpose explains only disagreements about which returns to take first. Second, upstream position. Poor information at the point of arrival causes delay at every later step, and the reverse isn't true. Third, independence. If a finding were fixed on its own, would it stay fixed? Changing the performance measure alone, without changing the process, would produce a new pattern of gaming, not a better result. So the measure matters. But it isn't the binding constraint.
Priority And Presentation
An Order of Work, Open to Testing
A binding constraint is a claim about priority. It isn't a claim that nothing else is wrong. The unclear purpose in the returns unit is real, and so is the measure. The leader should say so. What the diagnosis adds is an order of work. Relieve the constraint first, because effort spent elsewhere won't show in the results until it's relieved. Then reassess, because removing one constraint typically reveals the next. A diagnosis must also be presented to a decision-making group, and a clear order helps. State the frame you've adopted, and why. Present the evidence. Name the binding constraint. Set out the options that follow, and what each would cost. And say what evidence would change your conclusion. That last element matters most. It shows the diagnosis is a claim open to testing, not a verdict. And it invites the group to supply evidence you may have missed.
Worked Application
Rosa's Pharmacy: 2 Framings, 2 Plans
Here's framing at work in a hospital pharmacy. Discharge medicines are late, and patients wait hours for prescriptions after the decision to discharge them. The manager, Rosa, states the problem in two ways. And the two produce entirely different plans. Under the first framing, the pharmacy is short of staff. So hire another pharmacist, pay overtime, or borrow a technician from the dispensary. Each option costs money, takes weeks, and depends on a budget the pharmacy doesn't control. And if hiring is refused, the discussion has nowhere to go. Under the second framing, the problem is process and position. The five Ps show that discharge orders are written throughout the morning. But they reach the pharmacy in a batch, when the ward rounds finish. The pharmacy sits downstream of the ward. The pharmacy is measured on prescriptions dispensed per hour, which late orders don't affect. So no one there sees the wait. The options change completely. Ask the wards to send orders as they're written. Prepare common medicines in advance for expected discharges. And add patient waiting time to the measures. These cost little, can start within days, and can be tried before any request for staff. Neither framing is wrong in principle. The shortage may turn out to be real. But if Rosa had opened by saying the team needed more people, the batching of orders would probably never have been found.
Case Vignette (Composite)
The Backlog That Was Not About Staffing
Here's a composite case, built for instruction, that runs the whole method. Jonas heads a returns unit at an online retailer, with twelve staff. The backlog has grown for three months, and customers are complaining about refund delays. He frames it at once as a staffing problem, and prepares a request for four more people. Before he submits it, his manager asks him to run the five Ps first. Purpose is unclear. Some staff think the unit exists to process returns quickly, others that its job is checking for fraud. On people, the staff are experienced, and turnover is low. On processes, a trace of twenty returns shows each is handled five times, with three handoffs. That's because order details must be looked up in a system the unit can't access directly. On performance, the weekly report counts returns per person, so staff take the easy ones and leave the complicated ones. On position, returns arrive from the warehouse without order data, and the unit depends on customer service to supply it. The binding constraint is the process, and the missing information at intake. Not the number of people. The unit can't change the warehouse's practices on its own, so this route is slower than a staffing request. Jonas reframes from resource to process, and presents the trace as evidence. He proposes attaching order data at the warehouse, and handling each return once. And he proposes changing the measure, to returns completed and refunds issued within a set time.
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