Why the name LOCERN?

This comes from the initials of Chris Cooper’s children - Louis Oliver Christopher and Elliott Ryan Nicholas. Youngest and Oldest Respectively.

What does the logo mean?

Human change is typically triggered from two places - within and without. The curved line starting in the red is the start of a change and the curve and colours denote the path and potential human response to that change. The curved line starting outside the box travelling through amber to green shows the pathway of innovative change that is normally happening externally to the existing order.

Why Have I Not Heard of Work 1.0 / 2.0 /3.0 /4.0 /5.0 - Before?

In both general and advanced education pathways such matters are not covered. In the UK for example, a lot of our history is discussed and taught within the (then) dominant context of Craft style working (2.0). The Master /Apprentice system and indeed most professions have foundational education and execution patterns that follow the craft work model. The industrial revolution ushered in work 3.0 with the division of labour and was put into large scale global use by Henry Ford and others but in the UK it is viewed as only applicable to lower status factory work. In the USA Ford’s story is taught widely as other ‘industrialised’ countries. Many of these then conveniently ignore the Just-In-Time revolution created by Toyota whose so-called ‘Lean Thinking approach Production’ eclipsed the Fordism upon which it was built. As an early pioneer responsible for upgrading a traditional organisation from Work 2.0 to Work 4.0 and beyond LOCERN’s founder acquired knowledge unmatched in the modern era. His book Work 5.0 available through this website details both that journey and what lies beyond Lean within the realm of Work 5.0

Ultimately it is quite strange that we are not taught that there are different ways to work nor that there are significant qualitative differences between them. Today the way we work is often seen as a style choice rather than an informed selection. Perhaps this is why the required knowledge is in such short supply and highly prized. Just as there are few coaches able to take a beginner from amateur to world-class in the world of sports, the same is true in our working lives.

Most Organisations Have Internal Improvement Though?

Medium to large organisations do, smaller enterprises typically rely on founders to do this but the majority case is one of an ad-hoc approach neither driven from the top nor hard linked to strategy. We find that lots of organisations have strategic intent and may have aspirational goals to raise performance but most fail to articulate how to put strategy into action. The typical functional or matrix style organisation means that as soon as strategy is delegated it becomes confused and fragments. You see evidence of this whenever everyday fire-fighting has consumed any time for more strategic improvements. Leaders soon unwittingly send messages to internal improvers that they have no time for such things and most opt to ‘stay-in-their-lane’. Locern’s founder was one of the rare few who made his reputation through brave cross-functional improvement often in the face of criticism and prevailing wisdom. He saw on entering the aerospace industry that the goals of the industry could not be met by doing more of the same.

How does the LOCERN way differ from a regular consultancy?

LOCERN is, if anything, an anti-consulting company in the conventional sense of that c-word.
Our founder started his working life in a bluechip publicly traded corporation. The annual arrival of big-four consultants and how they worked, had a profoundly negative impact on both the business and its people. Their work typically consisted of what was really an inspection, followed by a closed room brainstorm with lots of time consuming, expensive analysis and report writing. Glossy reports were fed back with benchmarked targets leaving mid-level leadership with no clue how to do the ideas and recommendations suggested in the report. The working hypothesis was rarely evaluated as mostly the reports were focussed on gaps between the current results and those of best in class. As Elliott Cooper is fond of saying “it’s like telling a young gymnast to get better just by repeating targets over-and-over-again.” What is actually needed if you have no new ways of achieving higher goals is a coach that knows how to breakdown those goals into both milestones and inch-stones along with the best pathway for YOU. What is YOUR route to excellence? He adds: “Only coaches with the depth of experience and ability to tailor a plan and situationally adjust it with you on the path to success can do that”. The LOCERN way is ultimately based on the goal of training leadership teams and their people through their tailored journey to ultimately be able do their own upgrades on a routine basis. We do not believe the overhead of an internal improvement team is worth the investment and in almost every case we have seen it has actively worked against real transformation. LOCERN works with leadership teams to increase their skills not to activate a fifth column who end up angry at the leaders that created those jobs.

What are the unique selling points of the LOCERN approach?

What is unique about LOCERN is the breadth of ability to work with all elements of the modern enterprise. As comfortable on the ‘shop floor’ whether that is the front-line of customer service, the back office support, deeply technical fields or the boardroom, we have worked them all. One of our founder’s most famous transformations took place on an Aircraft Carrier at Sea where the whole enterprise’s performance was raised four-fold with no extra people, money or equipment. From the Captain’s table to the sailors mess no area was left untouched and many Navy personnel learned new ways to work which they took into civilian careers and the designs for future vessels. This legacy is a product of LOCERN’s founders unique approach which is to get long lasting transformation via, BOTH: the physical cycles of human learning AND the mental cycles of human habit and belief forming. Elliott also comes from a world where only repeatable performance will do. Understanding the psychology of that and more importantly how to coach world-class levels of performance is a skill in vanishingly short supply.

What do I need to Start?

LOCERN is not interested in the traditional ‘parlour-trick’ approach to selling the idea of upgrading work. This is where a revelatory change event is suggested to create a local ‘showcase’ aka ‘Kaizen Event’ in order to demonstrate higher forms of work. The phrase Kaizen event is actually an oxymoron because Kaizen means continuous incremental improvement mostly led by workers. Kaikaku + Kaizen is the approach we take at LOCERN where Kaikaku means more fundamental step-change to the way work is done. Kaikaku can only be led and performed with leaders taking the initiative alongside their workers under the guidance of an experienced coach. What is then required is Kaizen coaching for the follow-up with the team operating the new way of working. This model is the sustainable way of transformation that leaves both leaders, first-line supervisors and workforce alike ready to build upon transformative change and the minor issues it reveals rather than un-pick it and regress.

What are the first steps?

With so many failed or underwhelming initiatives in the modern workplace some foundations for lasting change have to be in place before you start. Critical amongst these is a closed-door session with leadership to determine the current starting point and an agreement of the principles and goals. LOCERN’s unique approach is to treat this first as an awareness and sharing session within the senior leadership team. We do this in order to impart critical knowledge to the leadership team initially. This enables them to be better equipped to explain and lead the upgrade more effectively with their teams. So much of the upgrade will require a team-based approach that we must start team working at a senior level right away. In addition in our field there are far too many self-aggrandising and/or unwitting ‘insultants’ who like to wave their ‘hidden knowledge’ around in the drive to establish intellectual authority and / or create humility through humiliation. Having reflected on what amounts to a morning’s worth of knowledge sharing and input the team can then scope out a response. We do this activity for expenses only in order for any obligation to work together not to be implied by either party. If our help and guidance is sought beyond this we can scope out the work using a simple template. In most case this can be completed in the same day and 90% of former clients did so.

How do we contact LOCERN?

The e:mail at the bottom of the page contacts Chris directly otherwise you can phone +447801285501