Symphonization - Where East Meets West (122112)

SymphonizationTM
Optimal
Transformation
Group
―Be Different, Think Different‖
Acknowledgments
For the love of the ideal planet in our solar
system, the recognition to write this article
was a result of the realization of the need for
transformation through SymphonizationTM
.
This article is a composite of ideas from nu-
merous ―out of the box thinkers‖ that have
impacted and transformed the world as we
know it today. Writing this article has been a
challenge as well as a
learning process and
an exciting experi-
ence. We would like
to give a special word
of thanks to our fami-
lies and friends who
have inspired us both personally and profes-
sionally along the journey of writing this arti-
cle - Dennis Alimena, Chad Bauer, Tracy
Beyersdorf-Davis, Bonnie Bierlein-Weber,
Jennifer Buck, Heather El-Homsi, Karen Gi-
raudo, Moore Greenberg, Chuck Hardy, Re-
becca Harris-Burns, Robert McHugh, and
Steven Paul.
• Acknowledgments P. 1
• Current State of Affairs- VUCA world P. 2
• Quality Movement through the Ages P. 4
• Industrial Age (1850’s - 1980’s) P. 4
• Information Age (1980’s - 2000’s) P. 7
• Conceptual Age (2012 & Beyond) P. 9
• Future State of Affairs—Balance
Thinking world P. 9
• New Way of Thinking P.11
• Human Brain P.11
• Hemispheric Personalities P.13
• The Quantum Mind P.14
• The Two Roles of the Mind P.16
• Heuristics Thinking - Intuitive
Problem Solving P.17
• The CREŌTM
Model
Engaging the Whole Mind P.19
• Recognize P.19
• Ideate P.20
• Visualize P.21
• Create P.21
• Idealize P.21
• The Call for Transformation through
SymphonizationTM
P.22
• References P.23
• About the Authors
• Neil Beyersdorf P.24
• Anwar El-Homsi P.25
• About Optimal Transformation Group P.25
© Copyright Optimal Transformation Group, LLC
contents
Where East Meets West

3
VUCA is an acronym developed
in the late 90's by the US Army
War College in Carlisle, Pennsyl-
vania, to help describe the state
of Volatile, Uncertain, Complex,
and Ambiguity that now characterizes the world. Let us look at
these a little more in detail:
Volatile – The world is changing at a rapid pace. The nature
and the dynamics of these changes along with the speed of
change is creating volatility in the world.
Uncertain – There is decreased probability of predictability and
high possibility for surprise. There is limited sense of aware-
ness and understanding of issues and events occurring. The
world is operating in an unclear about present situation and
future outcomes.
Complex – With multiple forces at play, there is constant cha-
os and confusion that surround an organization. A leader is
faced with a multiplicity of decision factors. Due to the rapid
change in the world, there are an increasing number of forces
that are outside the control of the leader which influence their
situation.
Ambiguity – There is lack of clarity about the meaning of an
event. With constant change, there is confusion about the reali-
ty and the known. What is known today may not be relevant
tomorrow.
The rapid changes and implementation of technology, increas-
ing global interconnections, communications, climate change,
population
growth, and
global leveling
are creating a
highly volatile
and unpredicta-
ble environment. The velocity of these changes has put busi-
nesses in a state of extreme chaos. The world is in interesting,
chaotic, and unstable times full of challenging and complex
problems. The world‘s traditional problem solving methods are
no longer effective and the traditional organizational structures
no longer seem sufficient. This is the leadership challenge in
the 21st century.
The ―2012 State of the Future‖, an overview of our global situa
―The people that are crazy
enough to think they can
change the world, are the
ones who do‖ - Apple's Think
Different Advertising
Campaign, 1997-2002
1) Clean Water Supply
2) Population Growth
3) Democratization
4) Education
5) Energy
6) Global Ethics
7) Health Care
8) Infrastructure
9) Natural Resources
10) Natural Disasters
11) Global Convergence of IT
12) Climate and Environment Change
13) Poverty and Wealth Gap
14) Transnational Organized Crime
15) Transparent Governments
15 Global Challenges Facing Humanity
Current State of Affairs – VUCA world
SymphonizationTM
— Where East Meets West
tion problems, solutions, and pro-
spects for the future co-authored
by The Millennium Project, outlines
15 global challenges facing hu-
manity. These challenges are in-
terconnected and interdependent,
an improvement in one makes it
easier to address others; deterio-
ration in one makes it harder to
address others.
The report points out that short-
term, unethical economic decision
making has led to many global
problems. Also the acceleration of
change and interdependence, plus
the proliferation of choices and the
growing number of people and
cultures involved in decisions, in-
crease uncertainty, unpredictabil-
ity, ambiguity, and surprise. As a
result, many of the world‘s institu-
tions and decision making pro-
cesses are inefficient, slow, and ill
informed.
―We are moving from a
world of problems, which
demand speed, analysis,
and elimination of uncer-
tainty to solve, to a world
of dilemmas, which de-
mand patience, sense-
making, and an engage-
ment of uncertainty.‖ -
Author of Leaders Make
the Future, on Thriving in
a VUCA World, Dr. Bob
Johansen
P. 2

4
SymphonizationTM
© Copyright Optimal Transformation Group, LLC P. 3
are assigned specific roles with
rigid expectations, made inter-
changeable, replaceable, and uti-
lized as machines ignoring their
distinctive abilities, talents, and
values.
The Newtonian model advises us
that any departure from these con-
ditions will cause progress to
cease. We have originated a bu-
reaucratic and dictatorship form of
organization that is locked in an
inflexible order; incapable of mean-
ingful success and growth. In or-
der to have more flexible and more
adaptive companies, where information and knowledge flow
more freely and breed innovation and creativity, a new way of
thinking is required and a shift in the current management
model is essential.
Currently most Fortune 500 companies in the United States,
like Apple, GE, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Boeing, Siemens,
Home Depot, Sony, Motorola, Nortel, Morgan Stanley and
Chase outsource manufacturing, software jobs, and financial
services to India, China, Mexico, Brazil, Poland, Egypt, and the
Philippines to name few, for lower labor costs. Left brain work,
repetitive tasks and automated work, is being done by over-
seas workers for fraction of the wages in the United States. In
order for the United States to maintain its global leadership,
United States workers need to do what workers abroad cannot
do equally well for much less money use right brain capabili-
ties to innovate better, as innovation is not easily outsourced.
Companies are currently undergoing enterprise-wide infra-
structure initiatives to implement technology base communica-
tion systems like Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) systems . These initia-
tives are to address and eliminate ineffi-
cient and redundant reporting of business
information and have the capability of in-
stant reports which previously had report
rates of 30 to sometimes 90 days. These
initiatives are reducing the reaction time
for leaders to execute and respond to
changing conditions; however, it is also
―This organization runs like
clockwork; it‘s always going
round in circles‖ – Author of
World of Difference, Richard
Tiplady
The current state of the world is
not the result of one country,
government, leader, industry,
organization, or department.
Individual theologies and tech-
nological advancements are not
able to solve the challenges and
control their interdependencies.
We live in an unpredictable, un-
controllable, interdependent, and
complex world. The second law
of thermodynamics states entro-
py or disorganization of any sys-
tem will always increase. Order
(sometimes called negative-
entropy) can only be increased
only at the expense of generating more disorder (entropy) else-
where. This disorder will continue to increase as will the com-
plexity of the world will continue to increase. The world is al-
ways in a constant state of VUCA.
The current state of the world and business environments is
seventeenth century thinking based on a top-down command
and control management model, also known as the Newtonian
model. This model depicts the world as a machine or a clock,
operating in an orderly manner
according to its maker‘s instruc-
tions, lead to the idea that the
best human organizations must
also operate in the same way.
The adaptation of this
―organization as machine‖ con-
cept gave birth to this current
world dominant management
model. The model is based on
control, stability, and predictabil-
ity of outcomes to manage an
organization to operate efficient-
ly, effectively and at optimum
performance. It has been used
for as a control system for every
function of the company, from
planning, to budgeting, to man-
aging human resources. People
―Traditional approaches to
problem solving that deal
with complex challenges
are no longer working
which is fostering the need
for a new way of thinking
and a new approach to
problem solving ‖ - Neil
Beyersdorf
―We cannot solve our prob-
lems with the same thinking
we used when we created
them‖ -Theoretical Physicist,
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

5
―We are moving from a
world of problems, which
demand speed, analysis,
and elimination of uncer-
tainty to solve, to a world
of dilemmas, which de-
mand patience, sense-
making, and an engage-
ment of uncertainty.‖ -
Author of Leaders Make
the Future, on Thriving in
a VUCA World, Dr. Bob
Johansen
SymphonizationTM
driving the reduction of the middle management work force that
has been responsible for reporting business information and
performance to executives. The left brain middle management
work force of reporting business information and performance
requires to be utilized in a new capacity. This new capacity
needs to be repurposed to manage innovation.
The implementation of technology base communication sys-
tems is also leading to shorter product life cycle. The product
life cycle is also a result of the instant communication of cus-
tomer‘s needs. Including the new global market place, this in-
stant communication of the customer‘s needs is forcing compa-
nies to manage change at an ever increasing rate to retain
market share. It is also reinforcing the need for companies to
increase a creative right brain staff for innovation and new
product/service development.
The world is in a new age, which requires a new way of think-
ing; in other words, a ―whole new mind‖. The old way of think-
ing is fading and a new way of thinking is starting. The world is
standing on the brink between the end of the Information Age
and the beginning of the Conceptual Age. This brink is the
transitional period from an uncertain ending and hopeful begin-
ning. Uncertainty caused by a period of intense conflicts and
contradictions which have created a crisis. The world as a
whole is in a period of time where too many problems in our
economic, political, health care, educational and environmental
systems are left unsolved and there is not enough time to im-
plement solutions to problems . The scale of these problems
and the rate at which these is-
sues are unfolding has left the
masses with not enough time to
develop and implement solutions
which would elevate these sub-
stantial issues. As a result of
this, many other systems are
breaking down, which is becom-
ing more and more apparent
with the manifestation of record
unemployment, increased pov-
erty, and crime rates. The result-
ing strain on the fabric of the
world makes everyone take ac-
tion seemingly without thinking,
without direction. Thinking with-
‖The real voyage of discov-
ery consists of not in seek-
ing new landscapes but in
having new eyes.‖ -French
Novelist, Marcel Proust
(1871-1922)
out action is a day dream; action
without thinking is a nightmare.
We must collectively start thinking
and acting.
In a thought-provoking book, ―A
Whole New Mind‖ by Daniel Pink,
envisions the shift from the Infor-
mation Age to the Conceptual Age.
He states, ―we are moving from an
economy and society built on logi-
cal, linear, computer like capabili-
ties to an economy and a society
built on inventive, empathetic, big-
picture capabilities‖. He suggests
that engineers and programmers
will have to master different apti-
tudes, relying more on creativity
than competence, more on tactic
knowledge than technical manuals,
and more on fashioning the big picture than the details. Pink
adds that the future is not some threatening world in which
individuals are either left-brained and extinct or right-brained
and ecstatic, but one where directed thinking remains indis-
pensable. In the Conceptual Age, we require a ―whole new
mind‖ and simply stated what worked in the past will no long-
er work in the future. This article introduces not only a new
way thinking but also a new way of doing. It covers the history
of the Quality Movement and its contributors through the ages
and proposes new ideas for problem solving to face the glob-
al challenges of the 21st century.
The journey of the Quality Movement has been a long one. It
can be traced back to the days of the Egyptian civilization
with the building of the Pyramids of Giza, and the pace has
only accelerated since the early agricultural age of the coloni-
al days and British Agricultural Revolution; to the beginning of
the industrial revolution of Henry Ford‘s mass production sys-
tem; to Toyota Production System (TPS) which emphasizes
elimination of waste and continuous rapid improvement; to
Deming and Juran‘s TQM, which focused on elements of sta-
tistical process control as well as organization transformation;
Quality Movement through the Ages
―Today, the defining skills
of the previous era - the
Left Brain capabilities that
powered the Information
Age - are necessary, but
no longer sufficient.‖ –
Author of A Whole New
Mind, Daniel Pink

6
and to today‘s leading quality and continuous improvement
methodologies like Six Sigma from Motorola. It seems as the
baton of the Quality Movement has been passed through the
centuries as we change throughout the ages. Let‘s briefly re-
view some of the great minds and contributors to the quality
movement through the ages who made an impact during the
times in history when the world needed and was at the pinnacle
of change.
American quality practices evolved in the 1800s as they were
shaped by changes in predominant production methods. By
the early 19th century, manufacturing in the United States tend-
ed to follow the craftsmanship model used in the European
countries. In this model, young boys learned a skilled trade
while serving as an apprentice to a master, often for many
years. Since most craftsmen sold their goods locally, each had
a tremendous personal stake in meeting customers‘ needs for
quality. If quality needs weren‘t met, the craftsman ran the risk
of losing customers who could not be easily replaced. There-
fore, masters maintained a form of quality control by inspecting
goods before sale.
The factory system, a product of
the Industrial Revolution in Eu-
rope, began to divide the
craftsmen‘s trades into special-
ized tasks. The introduction of
quality in the factory system was
ensured through the skill of laborers supplemented by audits
and inspection practices. The craftsmen became factory work-
ers and the shop owners became production supervisors,
which marked the initial decline
in the employees‘ sense of em-
powerment and autonomy in the
workplace. Defective products
were either reworked or
scrapped. In the late19th centu-
ry the United States broke fur-
ther from European tradition and
adopted a new management
approach developed by Freder-
ick Winslow Taylor.
Taylor was an American me-
SymphonizationTM
Frederick Winslow Taylor
(1856 – 1915)
Industrial Age (1850’s – 1980’s)
chanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency.
He is regarded as the father of scientific management, one of
the first management consultants, and one of the intellectual
leaders of the Efficiency Movement. Taylor‘s goal was to in-
crease productivity without increasing the number of skilled
craftsmen. This Scientific Management, also called Taylorism,
was a theory of management that analyzed and synthesized
workflows. This management theory was practiced by assign-
ing factory planning to specialized engineers and by using
craftsmen and supervisors, who had been displaced by the
growth of factories, as inspectors and managers to execute the
engineers‘ plans. Taylor‘s approach led to remarkable rises in
productivity, but it had significant drawbacks. Workers were
once again stripped of their dwindling power, and the new em-
phasis on productivity had a negative impact on quality.
In early 1900s, Henry Ford, an American industrialist and the
founder of the Ford Motor Company, instituted the assembly
line technique of mass production
and sponsored the development of
the lean manufacturing practices.
He is credited with "Fordism":
mass production of inexpensive
goods coupled with high wages for
workers. Ford had a global vision,
with consumerism as the key to
peace. He laid the foundation of
the first highly organized assembly
line system of automobile manu-
facturing. He organized all the ele-
ments of a manufacturing system-
people, machines, tooling, and
products, and arranged them in a
continuous system called conveyor
belt system.
Following the Industrial Revolution
and the resulting factory system,
―I will build a motor car for
the great multitude... con-
structed of the best materi-
als, by the best men to be
hired, after the simplest
designs that modern engi-
neering can devise... so
low in price that no man
making a good salary will
be unable to own one and
enjoy with his family the
blessing of hours of pleas-
ure in God‘s great open
space‖ - Henry Ford
(1863 – 1947)
P. 5

7
SymphonizationTM
quality and process control be-
gan to take on some of the char-
acteristics that we know today.
In the 1920s, statistical theories
were being applied to manufac-
turing and quality. Walter An-
drew Shewhart, an American
physicist, engineer and statisti-
cian, is known as the father of
statistical quality control (SQC),
developed a framework for the
first application of the statistical
method to Quality problems in manufacturing at Western Elec-
tric Company. He is credited for creating the world‘s first pro-
cess control chart. According to Dr. William Edwards Deming:
‖As a statistician, he was, like so many of the rest of us, self-
taught, on a good background of physics and mathematics‖.
Also at the Western Electric Company was George Elton Mayo.
He was Australian psychologist and sociologist at the origin of
the human relations movement, and is considered as one of
the founders of industrial sociology. He studied how lighting
levels, workday lengths, and rest period lengths maximize
productivity. During the lighting level studies at Hawthorne
plant in the early 1930s, researchers found that when the lights
were brighter, worker productivity increased. However when
lighting level was decreased worker productivity also in-
creased. This unchanged behavioral of employees is now
called the Hawthorne Effect, stating that when workers are in-
volved and observed in studies or decision making, productivity
increases.
In the 1930s Toyota Motor Company looked in details at the
Hawthorne Effect, and more in-
tensely just after World War II. It
occurred to Toyota that a series
of simple innovations might
make it more possible to provide
both continuity in process flow
and a wide variety in product
offerings. By the mid-1940s,
Toyota recognized that Ameri-
can automakers had a tenfold
productivity advantage. Toyota
knew that they could not com-
George Elton Mayo
(1880 – 1949)
Walter Shewhart
(1891 – 1967)
compete with other industrialized
economies on cost, volume, or
quality by using typical mass pro-
duction techniques. Most compa-
nies in Japan had limited re-
sources, especially after the dev-
astation of World War II. These
limitations promoted and created
the ideal lean environment. In or-
der to compete with American au-
tomakers, Japanese leaders,
Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo,
revisited Ford‘s original thinking and devised a new, disci-
plined, process-oriented system, which is known today as the
―Toyota Production System‖ (TPS).
Ohno was a prominent Japanese businessman and is consid-
ered to be the father of the Toyota Production System (TPS),
which became Lean Manufacturing in the U.S. He defined
the seven wastes (muda in Japanese) as part of TPS, writing
several books about the system, including Toyota Production
System: Beyond Large-Scale Production. Shingo did not in-
vent the Toyota Production System but he did document the
system and added two
words, Poka-yoke (mistake-
proofing) and Single-Minute
Exchange of Die (SMED), to
the Japanese and English
lexicon.
Shingo was a Japanese industrial engineer and one of the
world‘s leading experts on manufacturing practices and the
Toyota Production System. His concepts of poka-yoke,
SMED, and "zero quality con-
trol" (eliminating the need for in-
spection of results) have all been
applied in fields in and outside of
manufacturing. The Jon M. Hunts-
man School of Business at Utah
State University recognized Shingo
for his lifetime accomplishments
and created the Shingo Prize that
recognizes world-class, lean or-
ganizations and operational excel-
lence.
Shigeo Shingo
(1909 - 1990)
Taiichi Ohno
(1912 – 1990)

8
The beginning of Total Quality Management (TQM) in the Unit-
ed States came as a direct response to the quality movement
in Japan following World War II. TQM is a management ap-
proach for an organization which is centered on quality, based
on the participation of all its members and aims at long-term
success through customer satisfaction which yields benefits to
all members of the organization and society (International Or-
ganization for Standardization, 1972).
As the technical aspects of quality control evolved, so did the
idea that the quality function needed to be applied not only to
finished product acceptance, but also as part of the in-process,
and development stages. Quality assurance developed pro-
cess checklists, procedures, and confirmation of the product
against the customers‘ requirements. Through the 1940s, most
companies employed quality control and quality assurance
functions, but there was little available in the area of quality
training. This affected the effectiveness of the quality initia-
tives .
In the late 1940s and through the 1950s, American companies
hired industrial engineers and statisticians to run their quality
departments. Among these engineers and statisticians were
the quality experts, the original East meets West, William Ed-
wards Deming and Joseph Juran. Juran was born in the east-
ern European country of Romania and Deming was born in
Midwestern state of Iowa in the Unites States. Both Deming
and Juran became prominent members of the American quality
movement and both consulted companies supplying the U.S.
military during World War II to increase production and manage
quality.
Deming was an American statistician, professor, author, lectur-
er and consultant. He is best known for his significant contribu-
tions to Japan's later reputation
for innovative high-quality prod-
ucts. From 1950 onward, he
taught top management how to
improve design, product quality,
testing, and sales through vari-
ous methods, including the ap-
plication of statistical tools. Ju-
ran was a Quality Management
consultant who is principally re-
membered as an evangelist for
Quality Management, having
SymphonizationTM
William Edwards Deming
(1900 – 1993)
written several influential books on
the subject. Rather than concen-
trating on inspection, both Deming
and Juran focused on improving all
organizational processes through
management and people who
used quality methods.
After World War II, Japan was
known for poor quality products
and was in an economic crisis. The
Japanese welcomed the input of
Americans Deming and Juran and
in 1954, Juran was invited to Japan to consult on quality man-
agement. At the same time, Deming independently came to
Japan to consult in the application of statistical methods. By
the 1960s, Japanese products became known for high quality.
In the 1970s, people around the globe wanted to know how the
Japanese were turning things around so rapidly. Japanese
companies like Toyota were ex-
porting cars around the world that
were not only less expensive than
competitors, but they were also of
higher quality. They achieved this
high quality through the application
of both TQM and TPS.
One of the first American corpora-
tions to seek consulting from Dem-
ing was the Ford Motor Company.
In the early 1980s, Ford had in-
curred $3 billion in losses. Deming
questioned the company's culture
and the way its managers operat-
ed. He did not consult on product
quality, but rather on management
itself. He told Ford that manage-
ment actions were responsible for
85% of all problems in developing
high quality cars.
In the 1980s, Motorola was strug-
gling to compete with foreign man-
Information Age (1980’s -
2000’s)
Joseph Moses Juran
(1904 – 2008)
―We are moving toward
building a quality culture at
Ford and the many chang-
es that have been taking
place here have their roots
directly in Deming's teach-
ings. There was a great
deal of talk about the se-
quence of the 3P‘s – peo-
ple, products, and profits. It
was decided that people
should absolutely come
first‖ - Former Ford Motor
Company CEO, Don
Peterson
P. 7

9
SymphonizationTM
ufacturers, especially Japanese
companies. This struggle be-
came apparent after an execu-
tive meeting held in Chicago,
chaired by Robert Galvin,
Motorola‘s president. Senior
Sales Vice President Art Sundry
stood up in front of 75 execu-
tives and admitted, ―Motorola‘s
quality stinks.‖ The recognition of
their need to improve the quality
of their products forced Motorola
to benchmark other companies. Galvin challenged his people
to improve the quality level tenfold. Six Sigma was the method
presented as the way to meet his challenge. Bill Smith, a staff
engineer at Motorola, first introduced his statistical approach
aimed at increasing profitability by reducing defects. Smith
credited for coining the term ―Six Sigma‖ and noted as the fa-
ther of Six Sigma.
In 1986, Six Sigma implemen-
tation began at Motorola with a
plan to close the quality gap.
Goals were set to achieve a
tenfold quality improvement in
two years, a hundredfold quali-
ty improvements in four years,
and to obtain a Six Sigma quality level in six years. To achieve
a Six Sigma quality level, a process must meet 3.4 defects or
errors per one million produced or processed. The Six Sigma
problem solving methodology is a five step process called
DMAIC. The five steps of the DMAIC process are Define,
Measure Analyze, Improve, and Control. As a result of their
Six Sigma methodology,
Motorola realized powerful bot-
tom-line results and documented
more than $16 Billion in savings.
Also as a result of the Six Sigma
methodology, Motorola received
the first Malcolm Baldrige Na-
tional Quality Award in 1989.
Head of Motorola Six Sigma Re-
search Institute, Dr. Mikel Harry,
was appointed to be the drivingDr. Mikel Harry
Bill Smith
(1929 – 1993)
force behind the development of
Six Sigma Methodology. He devel-
oped the model and coined the
levels of practitioners, "Green
Belt", "Black Belt", and "Master
Black Belt", similar the craftsman-
ship model used in the European
countries in the early 19th century.
After the success Motorola demon-
strated with their Six Sigma Meth-
odology, Eastman Kodak Compa-
ny, Allied Signal, and Texas Instruments adopted the Six Sig-
ma Methodology and also documented and realized powerful
bottom-line cost savings.
Larry Bossidy, former CEO of Allied Signal, introduced Six
Sigma to Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric. Welch
convinced Bossidy, who was an ex-GE senior executive, to
talk to GE‘s leadership team about Six Sigma initiatives, the
successes achieved at his company, and how this approach
would benefit GE as it transformed itself.
The GE leadership team was convinced that Six Sigma was
the tool needed to improve its business. In 1995, Welch di-
rected the company to undertake Six Sigma as a corporate
initiative with a corporate goal to be a Six Sigma company by
the year 2000.The success achieved by Motorola and GE
through their Six Sigma programs has secured the popularity
of this business-improvement
methodology.
Six Sigma can be defined in many
ways: a vision; a philosophy; a
symbol; a metric; a goal; and a
methodology. The quality leaders,
throughout the history of the Quali-
ty Movement, were all in the manu-
facturing industry. By the early
2000s, non-manufacturing, service
companies, like banks, insurance,
investment, software developers,
health care providers, hotels, R&D
firms, marketing firms, and con-
struction companies took notice
and began to implement Six Sigma
initiatives. This was a direct result
―Six Sigma has changed
the DNA of GE — it is now
the way we work — in
everything we do and in
every product we design‖
– Jack Welch
Larry Bossidy

10
SymphonizationTM
of many of American leaders, like Jack Welch, openly praised
the benefits of Six Sigma.
Also at that time, the methods of both Lean and Six Sigma
were practiced in combination to eliminate waste and increase
and sustain quality.
Lean Six Sigma has shown to be beneficial in manufacturing
and non-manufacturing settings. The popularity and success of
this quality methodology could not be disputed. Today, thou-
sands of companies around the world including household
names, like American Express, DuPont, The McGraw-Hill Com-
panies, Sony, Toshiba, and Xerox, have adopted Lean Six Sig-
ma successfully as a way of doing business.
Over the recent years and through a relatively short period of
time, the Quality Movement has grown and evolved massively
through the ages. It became more than just quality systems
and methodologies like TQM, TPS, and Lean Six Sigma, it is a
way of doing business. Some companies have completely em-
braced and embedded it in their culture while others use it as
required. Today companies use
quality methods, which have
been developed over the last
two centuries, to achieve great
business advantage, improve
product and service quality, and
high customer satisfaction.
Speed of technology develop-
ment, economic globalization,
internet connectivity and infor-
mation, outsourcing, decentrali-
zation, and employment con-
tracting are greatly impacting
individuals and societies, and
are causing a movement toward
what Daniel Pink calls the
―Conceptual Age.‖ It is an age of
creators and empathizers, of
pattern recognizers and mean-
ing makers. He suggests that
there are three forces which are
driving this movement: abun-
Conceptual Age
(2012 & Beyond)
―While acknowledging that
the speed of changing
technology and innovation
are important factors, she
proposes that there can
be no invention in busi-
ness or technology without
human consciousness.
Technology is conscious-
ness externalized‖ - Au-
thor of Megatrends 2010:
The Rise of Conscious
Capitalism, Patricia
Aburdene
dance, Asia, and automation. By abundance he means that
most people in the world have enough material wealth (There
are more people in the world with access to mobile phones
than access to toilets). The growing economic and political
importance of Asia, especially China and India, is impacting
the global economy, resulting in jobs outsourcing. From com-
munications to manufacturing, automation is resulting in in-
creased productivity. This means the requirement is for fewer
workers, so there are more people available to do other activi-
ties. The rise in human consciousness is another force contrib-
uting to the movement toward the conceptual age.
Many experts clearly suggest
that ―Innovation‖ is the best
approach to address global
challenges and improved
quality of life, raise productivi-
ty, and foster competitive
businesses. As a result many countries around the world are
competing for innovation, it becomes the guiding force for na-
tional progress. Innovation means
to make something new by pur-
posefully combining different exist-
ing principles, ideas, and
knowledge. John Kao, a Innova-
tion Activist and the author of ― In-
novation Nation: How America Is
Losing Its Innovation Edge,
Why It Matters, and What We Can
Do To Get It Back‖, says ―not long
ago, Americans could rightfully feel
confident in their preeminence in
the world economy. The U.S. set
the pace as the world‘s leading
innovator – from the personal com-
puter to the internet, from Wall
Street to Hollywood, from the de-
coding of the genome to the emer-
gence of Web 2.0, we led the way
and the future was ours. Today it
is not the case, the US has been
―Innovation has become
the new currency of global
competition as one country
after another, races toward
a new high ground where
the capacity of innovation
is viewed as a hallmark of
national success.‖ -
Innovation Activist, John
Kao
Future State of Affairs - Balance Thinking
world
P. 9

11
SymphonizationTM
losing its edge with regard to
innovation, he states that our
national capacity for innovation
is eroding, with deeply troubling
implications for our future. In
tomorrow‘s world, even more
than today‘s, innovation will be
the engine of progress. So un-
less we move to rectify this dis-
mal situation, the United States
cannot hope to remain a leader.
What‘s at stake is nothing less
than the future prosperity and
security of our nation.‖ Kao ar-
gues that the U.S. still has the
capability not only to regain our competitive edge, but to take a
bold step out ahead of the global community and secure a
leadership role in the twenty-
first century.
It is clear that in the conceptu-
al age, global competitiveness
depends on the ability to inno-
vate. A significant part of the
innovation process revolves
around ‗creativity‘, it is the raw material of innovation, put it in
other words, innovation is creativity implemented, innovation is
impossible without creativity.
For all of its recognized value, a
stigma surrounds creativity that
often inhibits its organizational
development in most companies.
Creativity is often seen as a risk
management liability and an im-
pediment to process and opera-
tional control. To integrate and
foster creativity in organizations,
leaders should:
1) Understand that people are
the sources of creativity
2) Have inspiring vision and
purpose for innovation
3) Promote a culture of innova-
tion and trust ―High Trust corp-
orations outperform low trust by
286%‖ - Watson Wyatt 2002 Study
4) Connect ideas and people in
novel ways
5) Create an environment where
employees can take reasona-
ble risks
6) Remember that failure is a
great teacher
7) Create an anxiety free work-
place
8) Have a system to collect, eval-
uate and implement ideas.
9) Allocate time and provide the
physical space dedicated to
innovation and give employees
the freedom to work on new
ideas
10) Reward organizational creativi-
ty and innovation
11) Allow employees to celebrate
their individuality
12) Drive out fear, fear is the great-
est enemy of innovation
In addition to innovation, success
in the Conceptual Age requires
leaders to restructure their organi-
zations to have them function more
like adaptive living system; they
should learn from and get inspired
by nature. In nature, waste is food,
consumption is beneficial, relation-
ships are synergistic, and the fo-
cus is on optimizing rather than
maximizing. In nature, there are
more
© Copyright Optimal Transformation Group, LLC P.10
―The first step in winning
the future is encouraging
American innovation.
None of us can predict
with certainty what the
next big industry will be, or
where the new jobs will
come from …What we can
do—what America does
better than anyone—is
spark the creativity and
imagination of our people.‖
- 2011 State of the Union
Address, 44th President of
the United States, Barack
Obama
―Innovation distinguishes
between a leader and a
follower‖ - Late Former
Apple CEO, Steve Jobs
(1955 - 2011)
―The best companies excel
in identifying and fostering
good ideas every minute of
everyday‖ - General
Manager of IDEO and
Author of ―The Art of
Innovation‖, Tom Kelley
―Go to the local kindergarten
and watch the children play.
They are masters at rapidly
building coalitions – before
they get ‗educated,‘ that is...‖
- CEO of Creative Pathways,
David Kayrouz

12
collaborative, decentralized,
multifunctional, adaptive, and
resilient systems.
Leaders should see the whole
organization as a system, and
structure it based on values and
common purpose. They should
promote learning, leverage di-
versity, and inspire collaboration.
They need to encourage syner-
gies across the business at all
levels. They should create con-
nections based on authenticity,
transparency, and common core
values, promoting a culture that inspires vision built on trust.
Again, most importantly support creativity and innovation.
In the 16th century, in Venice,
Italy, Galileo Galilei, an Italian
physicist and astronomer, took
the leaders of that day to the
top of the St. Marco tower to
prove to them, using his newly
perfected ―spyglass‖ telescope, the theory of Copernicus which
states that the sun, not the earth
is the center of the solar system.
He showed them the discovery
he had made in the night sky
verifying that the earth revolved
around the sun and not the other
way around. That was a revolu-
tionary idea, it contradicted be-
liefs at the time and it was met
with substantial resistance from
thoughtful people. That re-
sistance extended to the point
that he was threatened with tor-
ture in order to get him to retract
his idea. He was told to recant
his theory or face execution.
Galileo complied.
As a matter of fact, most great ideas are met with great re-
sistance. It's easy to say no to a new idea. After all, new ideas
cause change, and change triggers fear of the unknown. In
1861, Phillip Reiss invented a machine that could transmit mu-
sic and was on the verge of inventing the telephone. He was
persuaded there was no market for a telephone, because the
telegraph was an adequate way to send messages. Fifteen
years later Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer Inc., tells the story
of how his idea of a personal computer was rejected by Atari
and HP, ―So we went to Atari and said, ‗Hey, we‘ve got this
amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do
you think about funding us? Or we‘ll give it to you. We just
want to do it. Pay our salary, we‘ll come work for you.‘ And
they said, ‗No.‘ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they
said, ‗Hey, we don‘t need you. You haven‘t got through college
yet.‘‖ Apple personal computers have changed our world forev-
er. Another In another story of a rejected great idea, Yale stu-
dent Fred Smith came up with the concept of Federal Express,
a national overnight delivery service. The U.S. Postal Service,
U.P.S., his business professor, and virtually every delivery ex-
pert in the United States predicted his enterprise would fail.
Based on their experiences in the industry, no one, they said,
would pay a fancy price for speed and reliability. History is full
of stories of great ideas that were rejected.
This is an unconventional article with many new ideas to set
you thinking about new ways to
leading your organizations, and
new way of problem solving. It is
intended for professionals who are
willing to explore new dimensions,
create their own realities, and have
the fortitude to have their way of
thinking challenged and perhaps
changed for the better. It is about
illuminating your mind to clearly
see systems, interdependencies,
interconnections, the real complex-
ities of the world, and creating an
environment for more efficient,
more effective, and more resilient
and more sustainable organization
regardless of the complexity.
SymphonizationTM
―The Brain is wider than
the sea, For put them side
by side, The one the other
will contain, With ease, and
you beside‖ - American
Poet, Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)
―You cannot teach a man
anything; you can only
help him find it within him-
self.‖ - Italian Physicist and
Astronomer, Galileo Galilei
(1564-1642)
―There is nothing permanent
except change‖ - Greek Phi-
losopher, Heraclitus of Ephe-
sus (c.535 BC - 475 BC)
New Way of Thinking
P.11

13
SymphonizationTM
In the human body, the cen-
tral nervous system is made
of the brain and the spinal
cord while the peripheral
nervous system is comprised
of nerves. Together, they
control every part of a per-
son‘s daily life, from breathing to blinking to walking. Sensory
nerves gather information from the environment, and send that
information to the spinal cord, which speeds the message to
the brain. The brain then makes sense of that message and
fires off a response. The motor neurons then deliver the in-
structions from the brain to the rest of the body.
Beyond managing information and delivering orders, the hu-
man brain is thought to be the source of the conscious cogni-
tive mind. The mind is a collection of processes related to per-
ception, interpretation, imagination, and memories, of which a
person may or may not be aware. This is where the ability to
dream, believe and lead resides.
From a philosophical point of view, the most important function
of the brain is to serve as the physical structure underlying the
mind. From a purely biological point of view, the most important
function of the brain is to gener-
ate behaviors that promote the
welfare of a human and the sur-
vival of the species.
The brain is the most mysterious
and complex organ in the human
body. It is about the size of a
grapefruit and weighs about
three pounds (78%water, 10%
Fat, 8%Protein). It is very soft,
tan-gray on the outside and yel-
low white on the inside. It con-
sumes about 20% of the body's
The Human Brain energy and oxygen. It is a delicate
grey matter with a wrinkled surface
that is covered with all sorts of
ridges and dips. These ridges are
called 'gyri' and the dips are called
'sulci'. When viewed from above, it
looks like an English walnut with
the shell removed. It is divided into
a symmetrical left and a right
halves or hemispheres connected
by white communication fibers
called the corpus callosum. With-
out this connection, the two halves
of the brain would be unable to
communicate with each other.
These hemispheres are almost
completely separate but are de-
signed to work together as an inte-
grated whole. Each of the hemispheres interacts with the op-
posite side of the body. This is referred to as lateralization;
which means that the left side of the brain interacts with the
right side of the body and vice-versa.
The brain contains about
100 billion nerve cells,
called neurons, which can
receive and send electro-
chemical signals. These
create a network of connec-
tions that guide all of our
conscious and unconscious
actions. Each neuron has an average of 10,000 connections
with other neurons. Dendrites (branch like fibers, from the
Greek word for tree) grow out of the neurons when you listen
to, write about, talk about, or practice something. Dendrites
take time to grow, and it takes a lot of practice for them to
grow. When two dendrites grow close together, a contact
point is formed. A small
gap at the contact point is
called the synapse. Mes-
sages are sent from one
neuron to another as elec-
trical signals travel across
the synapse. Special chem-
New Way of Thinking
―The brain is the last and
grandest biological frontier,
the most complex thing we
have yet discovered in our
universe. It contains hun-
dreds of billions of cells
interlinked through trillions
of connections. The brain
boggles the mind‖ - Ameri-
can Molecular Biologist
―...the Astonishing Hypothesis
– that each of us is the be-
havior of a vast interacting set
of neurons.‖ - Molecular Biol-
ogist, Biophysicist, and Neu-
roscientist, Francis Crick
(1916 -2004)

14
icals called neurotransmitters carry the electrical signals
across the synapse. When you practice something, it gets easi-
er for the signals to cross the synapse. That‘s because the con-
tact area becomes wider and more neuro-transmitters are
stored there. Also, practice builds faster connections, when
you practice something; the dendrites grow thicker with a fatty
coating of myelin. The thicker the dendrites, the faster the sig-
nals travel. The myelin coating
also reduces interference. With
enough practice, the dendrites
build a double connection faster,
and stronger. Double connec-
tions last a very long time, lead-
ing you to remember what you
learned.
This theme that appears throughout the book ―Outliers: The
Story of Success‖, by Malcolm Gladwell, is the "10,000-Hour
Rule" based on a study by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson. "10,000-
Hour Rule" claims that the key to become an expert in any field
requires, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task
for an approximate time of 10,000 hours.
The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200
times from the early to mid-1960s, accumulating more than
10,000 hours of playing time, therefore meeting the "10,000-
Hour Rule". Gladwell asserts that all of the time The Beatles
spent performing shaped their talent, and quotes Beatles' biog-
rapher Philip Norman as saying, "So by the time they returned
to England from Hamburg, Germany, 'they sounded like no one
else. It was the making of them.'" Bill Gates met the "10,000-
Hour Rule" when he gained access to a high school computer
in 1968 at the
age of 13, and
spent 10,000
hours program-
ming on it. In
other words,
practice makes
perfect.
The brain has a neuroplasticity property (Neuro is for neuron
and plastic is for changeable, malleable, modifiable) and acts
like muscle that grows when stimulated. Mental training in-
creases brain‘s weight, neurons develop more branches and
increase their size, the number of connections, and their blood
supply. The theory of neuroplastici-
ty states that ―thinking, learning,
and acting actually change both
the brain‘s physical and the func-
tional structure. If we change the
way we think, we change our
brains.
Whenever individuals work togeth-
er with a common purpose work
strategies and thinking processes
develop, and an organizational
culture is created. Corporations have belief structures that they
operate on and we call this belief structure ―the corporate cul-
ture‖. Everyone who has ever worked for the organization
played some role in shaping its culture. Corporate culture is
based on people‘s perceptions and assumptions about how
things are accomplished within the organization. Corporate
culture is referring to the habits, attitudes, shared beliefs, be-
haviors, and expectations. It guides how employees think, act,
and feel and it drives action in the organization. Recent brain
research has shown that every sustained activity including do-
ing, learning, thinking, and imagining changes the brain struc-
ture. As culture evolves, it continually leads to new changes in
the brain, culture shapes the brain.
As we get older, the brain plasticity declines, it then becomes
increasingly difficult for us to change in response to the world,
even if we want to. We tend to ig-
nore or forget, or attempt to dis-
credit, information that does not
match our beliefs. It is very dis-
tressing and difficult to think and
perceive in unfamiliar ways
and that is why change program
usually fail. For a change program
to succeed, employees need to
unlearn their preexisting mental
structures and develop new ones.
SymphonizationTM
―The illiterate of the 21st
century will not be those
who cannot read and write,
but those who cannot
learn, unlearn, and relearn‖
- American Writer , Alvin
Toffler
Bill Gates
P.13

15
Hemispheric Personalities
SymphonizationTM
New technologies and imaging techniques, like CT scans, PET
scans, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), allowed neuro-
scientists to examine the human brain in detail. We now know
that the brain is composed of two completely separate hemi-
spheres. Each hemisphere processes information and func-
tions differently. They each possess different personalities, so
different they that are often referred to as the Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde. The right hemisphere is
the artistic, intuitive and thinks in
pictures and abstractions. It re-
sponds to non-verbal and non-
rational instructions, solves prob-
lems with intuition, and under-
stands patterns and similarities.
It is fluid and spontaneous, fa-
vors elusive, uncertain infor-
mation, prefers drawing and ma-
nipulating objects. It is also free
with personal feelings, connect-
edness is important, sees corre-
spondences and resemblances,
draws on unbounded patterns,
and synthesizes the big picture.
The right hemisphere controls
―non‐conscious‖ learning. The
left hemisphere is the academic,
logical and processes words or language. It responds to ver-
bal and written instructions, solves problems logically and
sequentially, prefers plans and structures, understands differ-
ences, cause and effect, conditional relationships, and ana-
lyzes details. The left hemisphere controls conscious learn-
ing.
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain
scientist and the author of the
book ―My Stroke of Insight: A
Brain Scientist's Personal Journey‖, shares her amazing and
life changing story of having a stroke on the left side of her
brain. She explains that when her
left brain became nonfunctional,
she lost the memories of her past
and had no perception of the fu-
ture. Her consciousness shifted
into a "right here, right now‖ mo-
ment. She describes it as an ex-
perience she called ―La-La Land‖
and that everything was an explo-
sion of magnificent stimulation as
she felt complete euphoria. She
could not define the boundary of
her body, she was captivated by
the magnificence of the energy
around her, and she felt part of this
energy. She was looking at the big
picture and could see that she was
connected to everything around
her. She felt part of the whole and
that everything and everyone are
connected together as one with the
universe. Most importantly, she
categorically reveals that the left
brain is egoistic, intellectual (logic)
and attached to time and that the
right brain is egoless, intuitional
and time-transcendent.
Recent discoveries in quantum
physics, also known as the new
science, suggest that there is ener-
――I am an energy being
connected to the energy all
around me through the
consciousness of my right
hemisphere. We are ener-
gy beings connected to
one another through the
consciousness of our right
hemispheres as one hu-
man family. And right here,
right now, we are all broth-
ers and sisters on this
planet, here to make the
world a better place. And in
this moment we are per-
fect. We are whole. And we
are beautiful‖ - Brain Scien-
tist, Author of My Stroke of
Insight, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
The Quantum Mind
LEFT HEMISPHERE
Verbal
Analytic
Symbolic
Rational
Digital
Logical
Linear
RIGHT HEMISPHERE
Nonverbal
Synthetic
Actual
Non-rational
Spatial
Intuitive
Holistic
―The intuitive mind is a
sacred gift and the rational
mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society
that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift‖ -
Theoretical Physicist,
Albert Einstein
(1879-1955)

16
energy everywhere that con-
nects everything with everything
else and with the whole uni-
verse. Scientists know this uni-
versal energy field as
―consciousness‖. In 1944, Max
Planck identified the existence of
this energy, which he called the
―Matrix‖. This field of energy con-
nects everything in our world; it
is a non-local energy. Locality
comprises the idea of normal
cause and effect under which
objects move or change as a
result of being impacted by other
objects, or of being directly act-
ed on by energetic forces such
as the electromagnetic force. By
contrast, non-locality involves
the ability of one object to deter-
mine the behavior of another
distant object instantaneously,
and without any matter or ener-
gy passing between the two, an
object appears to affect the other even though there is no
known means by which they could be connected, this refers to
in quantum physics as ―entanglement‖. It violates Einstein‘s
theory of relativity, which states that all interactions in space
and time must occur via signals, Einstein called entanglement
―spooky action at a distance‖, and he also noted Quantum
Physics as real black magic cal-
culus. Non-locality shattered the
very foundations of classical
physics. Matter could no longer
be considered separate. Suba-
tomic particles had no meaning
in isolation but could only be
understood in their relation-
ships. The world, at its most
basic, existed as a complex web
of interdependent relationships,
forever indivisible.
Dr. Amit Goswami, a renowned
Quantum Physicist, explains in
―The good news experiment –
we are one‖ that this non-local
connectivity between people was
proven via experiments. The first
of these experiments was conduct-
ed in 1993 by neurophysiologist,
Jacobo Grinberg and his collabora-
tors at the University of Mexico.
They tried to show a non-local con-
nection between two brains. They
wired up the brains of two people,
who had the intention of direct sig-
nal-less communication, to an
electroencephalogram (EEG) ma-
chine and then were placed in two
separate Faraday cages (electromagnetically impervious
chambers). One of the people was shown a series of light
flashes that produced electrical activities in his brain. Surpris-
ingly, identical electrical activities were produced in the other
person‘s brain demonstrating a nonlocal connection between
the two people. The existence of nonlocal connections among
people has been verified and repli-
cated in numerous experiments.
As the brain is part of the physical
world and since the world obeys
the laws of quantum physics, many
quantum physicists believe that
quantum theory explains the mys-
tery of the mind. There are many
similarities found between the
thought process and the quantum
process. Henry Stapp, a distin-
guished quantum physicist at Law-
rence Berkeley National Laborato-
ry, believes that classical physics
cannot describe the brain, and
thinks that a quantum framework is
needed for a full explanation.
Quantum is the Latin word for
amount and, in modern under-
standing, means the smallest pos-
sible discrete unit of any physical
SymphonizationTM
New Way of Thinking
Quantum Physicist
Dr. Amit Goswami
―I regard consciousness as
fundamental. I regard mat-
ter as derivative from con-
sciousness. We cannot get
behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk
about, everything that we
regard as existing, postu-
lates consciousness‖ -
German Theoretical Quan-
tum Physicist, Max Karl
Ernst Ludwig Planck
(1858 –1947)
"When you change the
way you look at things, the
things you look at change"
- American Self-Help Au-
thor and Motivational
Speaker, Dr. Wayne Dyer
New Way of Thinking
―Everything you see or
hear or experience in any
way at all is specific to
you. You create a universe
by perceiving it, so every-
thing in the universe you
perceive is specific to you‖
- English Writer, Humorist
and Dramatist, Douglas
Noel Adams (1952 –2001)
P.15

17
SymphonizationTM
property, such as energy or mat-
ter. The results of recent quan-
tum physics experimental dis-
coveries are truly remarkable.
One of these experimental dis-
coveries is the double-slit experi-
ment. Geoffrey Ingram Taylor, a
British physicist first conducted
the experiment in 1909. In
2002, the double-slit experiment
was voted "the most beautiful
experiment" by readers of Phys-
ics World. The result of the ex-
periment was quite bizarre, an
electron behaved as both parti-
cle and wave. Electrons behave as a wave until it is observed,
then it acts as a particle. This is called the ―observer effect‖,
this means that when we are looking, an electron behaves like
a particle and when we are not looking, an electron behaves as
a wave.
The double-slit experiment
concludes that electrons are
potential, rather than actual
physical entities. So that
there are various potentials.
Until somebody looks, it forc-
es the universe to make a
determination about which potential is going to be reality. Reali-
ty is not fixed but fluid hence it is open to our influence. At the
smallest, quantum level of existence, we change matter, by
simply observing it. In other words, your perception is your real-
ity.
―What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking
about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can
taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals inter-
preted by your brain‖ - Matrix — Morpheus, Laurence
―Reality is merely an illu-
sion, albeit a very persis-
tent one.‖ - Theoretical
Physicist, Albert Einstein
(1879-1955)
Scientists from top-ranking US uni-
versities such as Princeton and
Stanford and from around the
world are coming to the realization
that human beings are packets of
quantum energy constantly ex-
changing information through their
mind. Some scientists have even
gone as far as to say that our
memories don‘t even sit inside our
heads at all. Our brains are simply
the retrieval and read-out mecha-
nism of the ultimate storage medi-
um, the consciousness. Scientists
now acknowledge that we can‘t
know reality completely, nor con-
trol or predict anything. Approxi-
mation is our only hope. As a re-
sult, organizations should change their approach to how they
set their visions, develop their business and strategic plans,
utilize people‘s skills, and how to go forward and succeed
without aiming at specific critical and measurable targets.
Everything in our known universe is ultimately energy, and
this energy is influenced by our
mind. Something only appears as
matter when it is being observed.
All of existence is fundamentally an
unlimited quantum field of energy,
a sea of infinite possibilities waiting
to happen. It gives us the ability to
influence everything around us and
to shape our world.
By ―Thinking‖, the right hemisphere
of the brain receives creative ideas
from the non-local energy, while
the left hemisphere of the brain
validates and processes them. The
validation is accomplished through
testing, experimentation, and anal-
The Two Roles of the
Mind
P.16
―Quantum science sug-
gests the existence of
many possible futures for
each moment of our lives.
Each future lies in a state
of rest until it is awakened
by choices made in the
present‖ - Author and
Speaker, Gregg Braden
―The very study of the
physical world leads to the
conclusion that the concept
of consciousness is an
ultimate reality‖ - Physicist,
Nobel Laureate, and
Founder of Quantum Me-
chanics, Eugene Wigner

18
SymphonizationTM
sis. We call this the ―Doing‖. All
human achievements and pro-
gress are accomplished by the-
se two forces - ―Thinking‖ and
―Doing‖.
Dr. Amit Goswami clarifies that
thinking is being which means
stepping back enough to tap the
energy of the consciousness,
and that doing means you‘re
converting possibility into actual-
ity. He says quantum leaps of
insight come from not just do-do-
do or be-be-be, but rather alter-
nating Do Be Do Be Do Be
Do……. He explains that when
we are doing, we are actually in
the ego (left brain). When we are
just being, we are aligned with
non-local consciousness (right
brain). Testing and analyzing are
ways to ―do‖, and meditation and
mindfulness are ways to ―be‖.
Further, he describes that we
connect with others through a
non-local consciousness. He
says that in Western cultures,
there is a lot of doing, while in
Eastern cultures, is more fo-
cused on being. The secret to
success he says is a balance
between the two. Solutions to
our current problems are out
there in the Matrix, we receive
them as creative ideas through
our right brain, and we evaluate,
test, and analyze them through
―When in the course of
scientific endeavor, it be-
comes apparent that deep-
er truth exists, a decent
respect to Nature requires
that such truths be ex-
plored. We hold these
truths to be scientifically
approachable, that all
forms of existence are
interconnected, that they
possess certain funda-
mental and unalienable
properties. That to de-
scribe this interconnected-
ness and these properties,
successive theories shall
be constructed by man-
kind, deriving their explan-
atory and predictive pow-
ers from the approxima-
tions of laws of Nature.
That whenever any theory
becomes inadequate of
these ends, it is the duties
of mankind to modify it or
to abolish it, and to estab-
lish new ones, laying the
foundation on such princi-
ples and organizing the
structures in such forms,
as to mankind shall seem
most likely to reflect their
our left brain.
House is an American television medical drama show staring
Hugh Laurie who plays the character Dr. Gregory House. Dr.
House, who is a drug-addicted unconventional, misanthropic
medical genius, leads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional
Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) in New Jer-
sey. In every episode, the team faced patients with an uniden-
tified medical emergency; which is usually a matter of life and
death. Dr. House begins his diagnosis the moment he meets
the patient, even before conducting any examination. He ob-
serves the patient‘s appearance, his complexion, and the tilt of
his head, the movement of his eyes and mouth, the way he sits
and stands up, and the sounds of his breathing. His theory
about what is wrong continues to evolve through the show as
his theories are tested in the labs for confirmation and valida-
tion. The team solves the medical problem and save the pa-
tient's life in the last 10 minutes of the show while reassuring
us that the world makes rational sense and we can know it.
Dr. House‘s process of diagnostics is mostly based on hunch-
es, gut feel, and intuition; he
uses a concept called
―Heuristics‖. He always has
an initial theory in mind about
what is wrong with the patient
(Thinking, using right brain)
and he always tests his theo-
ry to validate it (Doing, using left brain). Some argue that every
physician who faces an undiag-
nosed complaint goes through a
process very similar to that per-
formed by Dr. House (some more
thoroughly than others). They use
heuristics and insight, when trying
to decide a course of treatment,
given a set of symptoms, more
than formal logic and careful rea-
soning.
The word Heuristics comes from
the same Greek root as "Eureka!" Hugh Laurie
Heuristics Thinking -
Intuitive Problem
Solving
understanding and
knowledge of Nature‖ – 3rd
President of the United
States, Thomas Jefferson
(1743 – 1826)
P.17

19
SymphonizationTM
It means "to find" or "pertaining
to finding". It may also be de-
fined as the study of search.
Heuristics is the study of ways to
direct your attention successfully
to find something. That some-
thing is somewhere. It's just bur-
ied among many places to look
for called ―Search Space‖.
The Search Space is the set of
possible places to look the solu-
tions you're trying to find. It is a
trial and an error process where
a number of possibilities are
generated and the best selected
by try-it-and-see experimenta-
tion. It is a strategy that ignores
part of the information, with the
goal of making decisions more
quickly and accurately than more
complex structured methods.
This problem solving method
that uses the whole mind; we
have a theory in mind (right
brain) and we test it (left brain)
that leads to a solution much
faster than the current popular
problem solving methods. It
helps a person to quickly con-
nect a set of data points into a
recognizable pattern and thus, using that pattern, to decide on
an effective course of action. Heuristics are especially useful
when time is critical, like in emergency room situations.
Intuition uses heuristics, which is then applied and ingrained in
the subconscious to initiate instantaneously without conscious
summons. An idea appears from
the subconscious while investi-
gating a problem. It is clarified,
defined, and subjected to appro-
priate testing for verification and
validation, and further refined to
generate a potential solution.
Heuristics is an innate human
―A great discovery solves
a great problem but there
is a grain of discovery in
the solution of any prob-
lem. Your problem may be
modest; but if it challenges
your curiosity and brings
into play your inventive
faculties, and if you solve it
by your own means, you
may experience the ten-
sion and enjoy the triumph
of discovery. Such experi-
ences at a susceptible age
may create a taste for
mental work and leave
their imprint on mind and
character for a lifetime‖ -
Mathematician, George
Pólya (1887-1985)
ability and the key to finding conceptual solutions.
Heuristics thinking begins from an initial unresolved, unan-
swered, or unknown problem referred to as ―initial pattern‖.
The solution must already be implicitly inherent in the mind
called ―target pattern‖. The process of heuristics thinking is
therefore a gradual approximation to the target pattern by
converging and merging the initial and the target pattern into
a whole and complementary pattern, consisting of both the
question and answer. This conver-
gence is called ―knowledge‖. It is
like climbing an unknown mountain
or setting out to sail on an un-
known ocean without a step-by-
step map to a known destination.
The steps are adjusted as road-
blocks, variability, and unknowns
are faced and overcome during the
journey to the know destination.
The book, ―The New Drawing on
the Right Side of the Brain‖, fea-
tures an article, ―Split-Brain and
the Culture-Cognition Paradox‖, by
J.A. Paredes and M.J. Hepburn.
In the article Thomas Gladwin con-
trasts the ways
that a European
and Trukese
sailors navi-
gated small
P.18
The left hemisphere has no
patience with this detailed
perception, and says, in
effect, "It's a chair, I tell
you. That's enough to
know. In fact, don't bother
to look at it, because I've
got a ready-made symbol
for you. Here it is; add a
few details if you want, but
don't bother me with this
looking business" - Author
of ―The New Drawing on
the Right Side of the
Brain‖, Betty Edwards

20
SymphonizationTM
boats between tiny islands in the
vast Pacific Ocean. Paredes
and Hepburn conclude the Euro-
peans used left hemisphere
thinking and the Trukese used
right hemi-sphere thinking to
navigate.
Problem solving is not a series
of linear steps. It is an adaptive
and iterative process that un-
folds based on the findings of
the problem being solved. This
unfolding of findings is called
heuristics thinking. The decision
on what to do next is based on
what is learned at each step. It
is a learning process where one
―learns‖ his way to a solution by
increasing his knowledge at eve-
ry step.
In the movie ―Apollo 13‖, would
NASA have been able to rescue
the crew using a step-by-step
problem solving method like the
Six Sigma methodology, the
DMAIC step-by-step process?
NASA used heuristics thinking to
bring the crew of Apollo 13 safe-
ly back to earth. Heuristics
Thinking is an innate intuition and naturally intelligent way of
solving complex problems and a whole mind problem solving
method.
Everything we see
around us, buildings,
cars, computers, etc.
were created by humans. They had first to exist in the human
mind; therefore the human mind is constructive and creative.
In a way we all are creators, hence the name CREŌTM
.
CREŌTM
comes from the Latin meaning "to create or to make",
to originate, or cause to come into existence an entirely new
concept, principle, outcome, or object. Current problem solving
models and methods (like the Six Sigma DMAIC, and PDCA)
are structured step-by-step left brain solutions. These models
and methods are one half of the equation.
Based on Quantum Physics, there are infinite solutions to
problems; the question is, which solution is the best? Based on
what the world is experiencing and the challenges we face as
humanity, we need a whole mind problem solving model. In
this section, we introduce you to the CREŌTM
Model where
right brain tools such as creativity, imagination, empathy, inno-
vation, synthesis, and visualization are included. The CREŌTM
Model consists of five phases,
Recognize, Ideate, Visualize, Cre-
ate, and Idealize. Also ―Think‖ and
―Do‖ (Theory into Practice) or heu-
ristics thinking is practiced in each
phase.
Recognize - The first phase in the
model is the Recognize phase.
The use of the CREŌTM
Model be-
gins when there is recognition
based on a need to improve a pro-
―Before setting sail, the
European begins with a
plan that can be written in
terms of directions, de-
grees of longitude and
latitude, estimated time of
arrival at separate points
on the journey. Once the
plan is conceived and
completed, the sailor has
only to carry out each step
consecutively, one after
another, to be assured of
arriving on time at the
planned destination. The
sailor uses all available
tools, such as a compass,
a sextant, a map, etc., and
if asked, can describe ex-
actly how he got where he
was going. In contrast, the
native Trukese sailor starts
his voyage by imaging the
position of his destination
relative to the position of
other islands. As he sails
along, he constantly ad-
justs his direction accord-
ing to his awareness of his
position thus far. His deci-
sions are improvised con-
tinually checking relative
positions of landmarks,
The CREŌTM
Model -
Engaging the Whole Mind
―The reason a lot of people
do not recognize oppor-
tunity is because it usually
goes around wearing over-
alls looking like hard work‖
- American Inventor and
Businessman, Thomas
Edison (1847 – 1931)
P.19

21
SymphonizationTM
cess, product, or to create a new product or service. Improving
a process or product consists of characterizing the process‘
problem which includes defining; evaluating the measuring sys-
tem, and assessing current process‘ performance. For process
improvement, it is best for the team to walk and see the entire
process. If possible, perform the steps or tasks of the process
that are in question to gain the experience of the process. It is
aimed at answering the following questions: Is there truly a
problem, and if there is, how bad is it?
Creating a new product or service consists of identifying stake-
holders and eliciting their needs, translating the needs into a
set of product requirements, defining the bounds of the product
to be created, defining the functions that the product must per-
form, and determining the ―best‖ technology with which to im-
plement the functions. The best way to identify and elicit the
stakeholder‘s needs is to go out into the world and observe the
actual experiences. A stakeholder is defined as any person or
entity that touches, or is touched by, the product or service.
Ethnography, the study of human culture, is a powerful tool that
is finding greater use in eliciting unspoken customer needs and
getting to the ―heart of the customer‖. The customer‘s needs
must then be prioritized based on importance. The prioritized
needs should be set from the customer‘s perspective, not the
company‘s assessment of what needs are important. If the
prioritized needs are set on the customer‘s behalf by the com-
pany, feedback from the customer to confirm the design of the
product or service will come after
the chosen priorities actually
match those of the customer.
Also for creating a new product
and service, it is best to observe
what people do in the real world,
examine how they think, under-
stand and empathize with their
needs, and involve many people
and functions from the start.
Product and service designers
gain empathy by looking at the
world through other people's
eyes in order to understand
things at social, cultural, cogni-
tive, emotional, and physical
levels.
Ideate - The second phase in the
model is the ideate phase. Idea-
tion is the process of forming and
relating new ideas in order to solve
a process problem or to create the
a product or service. Ideas are the
result of a wide variety of mental
activity that can be based on past
or present knowledge, thoughts,
opinions, convictions or principles.
The Ideate phase generates ideas
in a more flexible manner, without
worrying about any rules; it pushes
ideas into more actionable and
innovative concepts.
Creativity is the foundation of idea-
tion and requires three distinct
skills: Expertise, Creative Thinking
Skills, and Intrinsic Motivation.
Expertise requires knowledge,
technical proficiency and familiarity with the problem. Crea-
tive Thinking requires the individual to take new perspectives
on problems and apply creative tools. Intrinsic Motivation
requires determination of what the person will actually do, in
spite of his/her ability to do it as a result of skills and exper-
tise; potential to be driven by curiosity or a personal sense of
challenge, enthusiasm and pride. Creativity is something of a
mystery and leads to wonderful
insight and imaginative effort, it is
an illumination and intuition that
comes from nowhere. It is the
work of magic, it is a divine gift.
To improve ideation, listen to intui-
tion, think in pictures, look for pat-
terns, embrace the unknown, sleep
or take breaks often so the brain
can reconsolidate thinking, and
most importantly have fun. Fun
will create free thinking. Only 2%
of great ideas are generated from
scheduled meetings and 98% of
them are generated while driving,
in bed, in the shower, or away from
―Aha, the idea came to me
without anything in my for-
mer thoughts seeming to
have paved the way for it‖ -
French Mathematician,
Jules Henri Poincaré
(1854 – 1912)
―Most new discoveries are
suddenly-seen things that
were always there. A new
idea is a light that illumi-
nates presences while
simply had no form for us
before the light fell on
them‖ - American Philoso-
pher, Susan Langer
(1895-1985)
―Imagination is everything. It
is the preview of life's coming
attractions‖ - Theoretical
Physicist, Albert Einstein
(1879-1955)

22
work. Also, it is advisable to use the concept of biomimicry to
get inspired by nature and generate creative ideas. Bio, means
―life‖, mimesis means ―to imitate‖, and biomimicry means to
imitate life. Biomimicry is the examination of nature, its models,
systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspira-
tion from in order to solve human problems. It is a concept
based on the belief that the solutions to problems are discov-
ered by learning from the plants, animals and natural process-
es.
Visualize - The third phase in the model is the Visualize phase.
Visualization is the process of imagining or visioning things and
ideas in your mind. As a boy Albert Einstein looked into a mir-
ror and wondered what the universe would look like if he could
travel on a beam of light. That one thought started him on the
road to discover his theory of relativity. Visualization is a tech-
nique of using your imagination to form a detailed picture of
what you want to create. It grants you direct control over your
thoughts at the subconscious level. It is frequently used by
athletes to enhance their performance. Create a picture in the
mind of what the solution will look like or what the product be-
ing created will look like and visualize it over and over again to
mentally train muscle memory using all of the senses; see it,
feel it, hear it, smell it, and even taste it. Imagining what is de-
sired to do and doing it are not as different as it seems. When
people close their eyes and visualize what they want to do, like
solving a problem or designing a new product or service, the
primary visual cortex in the brain lights up, just as it would if
they are actually designing the products. Brain scans show
that in action and imagination
many of the same parts of the
brain are activated. That is why
visualizing can improve perfor-
mance. In some cases, the fast-
er something can be imagined,
the faster it can be done.
For effective visualization, first
escape from everyday noise and
find a comfortable place, relax,
sit upright, and clear the mind.
Then imagine the intended solu-
tion working perfectly, bring it to
life in the mind, use emotions,
envision the happiness of the peo-
ple with the solution, believe it is
real, and practice, practice, and
practice this process over and over
until you have a clear picture of
what you are about to create. The
visual pictures that are formed in
the mind should be crystal clear
and in full color. Everything creat-
ed by humans once existed as a
picture in somebody‘s mind.
Create - The fourth phase is the
Create phase. This phase consists
of creating a detailed design using
the ideas generated during the ide-
ation phase. This phase is for pro-
totyping, turning ideas into actual
products and services that are then
tested, iterated, and refined. It typically follows a staged and
gated structure in which a series of activities are conducted in
each stage. These activities produce a predefined set of deliv-
erables, after which a gate is reached that stops further pro-
gress to allow inspection of the current stage‘s deliverables. If
the deliverables have been sufficiently met and if the risk of
going forward is acceptable, then the gate opens and the next
series of activities are conducted in the next stage. The next
gate is reached and so on, until the development effort has
been completed.
Idealize - The fifth and final phase of the CREŌTM
Model is the
Idealize phase. It is turning the
vision into reality. Oxford diction-
ary defines ideality as the state or
quality of being ideal. This phase
serves as the target toward the
best, elegant solutions to provide a
win-win situation. It describes the
disposition towards perfection, to-
wards beauty and refinement in all
aspects.
The best solution and the result of
all innovative ideas are the one
SymphonizationTM
―The ideals which have light-
ed my way, and time after
time have given me new
courage to face life cheerfully
have been kindness, beauty,
and truth‖ - Theoretical Phys-
icist, Albert Einstein
(1879-1955)
Genrich Altshuller
(1926-1998)
―Imagination is the path
that leads to creation, it is
the beginning of everything
new‖ - Anwar El-Homsi
P.21

23




HarmCost
Benefits
IFR
SymphonizationTM
that evolve toward ideality. The
Theory of Inventive Problem
Solving (TRIZ), developed by
Genrich Altshuller, a patent ex-
aminer for the Russian navy, is a
problem solving method used
today for developing innovative
products and services. Altshull-
er defines ideality as the imag-
ined ultimate solution; it is a sys-
tem that meets the following
characteristics:
 Eliminates the deficiencies of the original system
 Preserves the advantages of the original system
 Does not make the system more complicated
 Does not introduce new disadvantages
The following equation measures progress towards the ideal
final result (IFR)
To increase Ideality, the sum of benefits are required to in-
crease, while the sum of both costs and the harmful functions
are required to decrease. Harmful functions are all factors as-
sociated with cost of a system‘s functionality including ex-
pense, space it occupied, consumed resources, etc. The ideal-
ized solution should provide the best outcome at the time and
will also require to be transformed over time.
For process improvement, the ideal solution consists of dissolv-
ing the problems that exist by creating a new and improved
system. This way, the problems inherent in the current system
disappear with the creation of a new system. Generating ideal
solutions follow a different logic than problem solving. Eliminat-
ing a problem does not necessarily lead to the ideal solution.
For example, the process of solving the problem of a disease is
focused on getting rid of the disease through medication. On
the other hand, the process of generating ideal solutions might
focus on health by using nutrition and exercise as a preventa-
tive strategy, which may eventually dissolves the disease.
When solving a problem, do not focus on the problem itself.
Focus on the ideal, what should be rather than what should
not be.
The last decade has been called the decade of fear, the dec-
ade of chaos, the decade of volatility, and the decade of
change. Whatever it is called, the message is clear: transfor-
mation is needed. In 1992, over 1600 senior scientists, in-
cluding a majority of Nobel Prize winners in sciences, signed
and released a document entitled ―Warning to Humanity‖.
They declared that ―human beings and the natural world are
on a collision course‖ and there is an urgent need for fresh
approaches to thinking and living if we want to sustain life in
the manner that we know. Clearly
the world is entering into an excit-
ing time in history, perhaps the
most challenging and most com-
plex time the world has ever expe-
rienced, but a time none-the-less
full of opportunities. With the ever-
increasing rate of change, and the
number and complexity of issues,
the world must change its way of
dealing with problems. It must
begin to transform its way of think-
ing and take responsibility of the
future.
Daniel Pink describes ―Symphony‖
as the ability to see the big picture,
to sort out what really matters, to
synthesize rather that to analyze,
to see and integrate relationships,
and to invent something new. It is
the ability of organizations to use
the whole mind to solve issues.
"If you want to change the
world first try to improve
and bring about change
within yourself. That will
help change your family.
From there it just gets big-
ger and bigger. Everything
we do has some effect,
some impact" - Author of
―Book of Daily Medita-
tions‖, The Dalai Lama
―The mind is the receiver of
innovative ideas and the
transmitter of idealized
solutions‖ - Anwar
El-Homsi
The Call for Transformation through
SymphonizationTM

24
SymphonizationTM
SymphonizationTM
is the process of becoming a whole mind organization, to encourage, reward and
honor both the left brained scientists and the right brained artists. Ability to see both the small and
the big pictures. Understanding interconnectivities and how everything is related with integrated
relationships. Collaboration across functions and identifying new opportunities. Ability to empa-
thize with customers and sort out what really is important to them. Encouraging excellence in man-
ufacturing and in innovation promoting whole-mind solution and attitude, and possessing an
―imaginative rationality‖. This is an invitation to challenge leaders to transform their organizations
through SymphonizationTM
as the Quality Movement progresses and evolves into the Conceptual
Age.
We all have a choice!
What will your choice be?
1) American Society for Quality (ASQ)
2) Amit Goswami, ―How Quantum Activism Can Save Civilization: A Few People Can Change Human Evolution‖, Hampton
Roads Publishing Company; January 1, 2011
3) Daniel Pink, ―A whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future‖, Riverhead Trade; March 7, 2006
4) Edwards, B. ―Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain‖; Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York,
5) Gerd Gigerenzer, Wolfgang Gaissmaier, ―Heuristic Decision Making‖, Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2011. 62:451–82
6) John Kao, ―Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It
Back‖, Free Press; October 2, 2007
7) Malcolm Gladwell, ―Outliers: The Story of Success‖, Back Bay Books; Reprint edition; June 7, 2011
8) Margaret J. Wheatley, ‖Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World‖, Berrett-Koehler Publish-
ers; September 1, 2006
9) Norman Doidge, ―The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science‖, Penguin
Book; December 18, 2007
10) Peter Russell. ―The Global Brain Awakens: Our Next Evolutionary Leap‖, Element Books Ltd; May 2000
11) Taylor, Jill Bolte, ―My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey‖, Plume; May 26, 2009
12) The Biomimicry Institute, (http://biominicryinstitute.org), September 2011
13) Tim Brown, ―Design Thinking‖, Harvard Business Review; June 2008
References
"How does one become a
butterfly?" she asked pen-
sively. "You must want to fly
so much that you are willing
to give up being a caterpillar"
– Author of ―Hope for the
Flowers‖, Trina Paulus
P.23

25
Born in Michigan, he is the
youngest of three siblings, a
brother and sister, and has four
nephews and two nieces. He is
one with a passion about the
balance between working smart
and playing hard. Neil enjoys
what he does both personally
and professionally. He loves
being active outdoors and stay-
ing fit. Neil has many hobbies
including weight lifting, hiking,
running, mountain biking, cy-
cling, kayaking, kickboxing, trav-
eling, road trips, wine tasting,
white water rafting, camping,
beach, yoga, meditating, movies,
meeting new people, and visiting
with friends, colleagues, and family. Some of his interests in-
clude; architecture, automobiles, continuous improvement,
cooking, global economics, health & fitness, investing, learning,
nature, technology & science, philosophy, and food.
Neil‘s work ethic and resource management were ingrained in
him by his parents, growing up on a farm in the small Midwest-
ern town of Hemlock Michigan. At an early age, Neil was al-
ways busy working on a project building or fixing something
and he also enjoyed drawing, constructing, and painting. Also
at an early age, his philosophy was simply, if there is a will
there is a way, and anything he could set his mind to, he could
learn and achieve. After graduating from high school, he en-
joyed architectural drafting over mechanical drafting and phys-
ics over calculus. He had four fundamental understandings; a
vision, a path, simple strategy, and a strong positive spirit. Neil
chose an untraditional path for his college education. It was his
philosophy to have as much if not more experience with a col-
lege education to set him apart from others entering into the
real world. Since he grew up in a General Motors town, he pur-
sued a degree in mechanical engineering at the local university
with an internship at General Motors.
At the age of 18, Neil started his corporate experience at one of
General Motors‘ oldest plants in Saginaw Michigan. Saginaw
Steering Division - Plant 2, nick-named ―Guns and Hoses‖, was
About the Authors
Neil Beyersdorf
Author, Certified Lean Six
Sigma Master Black Belt,
Engineer, Entrepreneur,
Executive Coach,
Heuristics and Systems
Thinker, and Quality and
Change Management
Consultant
known for making machine guns for WWII and also the long-
est steering gear box produced by General Motors. With his
experience at General Motors, Neil managed to earn an un-
dergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at Saginaw Valley
State University and a graduate degree in Engineering Man-
agement from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute all while work-
ing full time. Also Saginaw Steering Division (which became
Delphi Saginaw Steering Systems a division of Delphi Auto-
motive Systems) he had various positions in areas including
Quality Assurance, Production, Product Design and Develop-
ment, Completive Analysis, Purchasing, Warranty & Reliabil-
ity, Prototyping, Customer Demos, and R&D. As a program
manager within Delphi Automotive Systems‘ Steering Sys-
tems Innovation Center, Neil earned his Six Sigma Black Belt
certification with the Six Sigma Academy.
After 14 years of experience in the automotive industry in
Michigan, Neil had an opportunity to realize an old and almost
forgotten dream to relocate to southern California. He was
relocated by a small startup consulting firm for a competitive
analysis, supplier development project with Volkswagen. Af-
ter completion of the project with Volkswagen, he launched
his continuous improvement career in the financial industry.
Re-certified during the Lean Six Sigma deployment with ING
Americas, Neil has practiced business process improvement
and continuous improvement with some of the leading finan-
cial institutions such as Bank of America Corporation, Coun-
trywide Financial Corporation, TD Ameritrade, and Automatic
Data Processing, Inc. Recently, Neil has been on business
transformation engagements in other industries such as the
high tech industry with Cisco Systems and the data manage-
ment/market research industry with JD Power and Associ-
ates, owned by the McGraw-Hill Companies.
Residing in southern California, Neil is a quality and change
management consultant and executive coach to Fortune 500
companies in the areas of continuous improvement methodol-
ogies, Six Sigma deployment, and business transformation.
He is currently working toward his Ph.D. in Systems Engi-
neering and is the originator of the SymphonizationTM
– Dis-
continuous Business Alignment & Transformation Methodolo-
gy.

26
About Optimal Transformation Group
P.25
He was born in Lebanon, he is
the oldest among four siblings—
a brother and three sisters. His
father was an educator and poli-
tician, and he wanted his chil-
dren to be raised with good mor-
als and values and receive a
higher education. His father died
at the age of 36. His life was
then changed forever. He al-
ways remembered his father‘s
wishes for him to pursue a high-
er education and realized how
hard life is without an education.
He promised himself and was
determined to never give up on
his dream of furthering his stud-
ies and acquiring a good educa-
tion.
When he was 15 years old, the Lebanese civil war began and it
was difficult for him to attend school and study but he contin-
ued his education at a French private school and one of his
dreams was to eventually attend University. During the war, he
witnessed many people suffering and he wished that he could
alleviate all their pain and make them happy. He promised
himself then, to do his best to assist people and be a peaceful
and loving person. At the age of 25, he was granted a full
scholarship to come to the United States to study from the
Hariri Foundation, which was founded by the former Lebanese
Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, who was unfortunately assassinat-
ed on February 14, 2005. Anwar came to the United States in
August 1985 to pursue his dream
He received a BS degree in material-ceramic engineering, an
MS degree in applied statistics, and Ph.D. in Business Sys-
tems. He has over 20 years of quality, reliability, and statistics
experience in a variety of industries. He has held many engi-
neering and management positions at many reputable compa-
nies such Eastman Kodak Company, Heidelberg, Xerox Corpo-
ration, and Corning Corporation. As a consultant, he has
coached many Fortune 500 companies to improve the quality
of their product and services. Anwar has passion to share
knowledge and his philosophy with others; he has trained more
About the Authors
Anwar El-Homsi
Author, Certified Lean Six
Sigma Master Black Belt,
Engineer, Entrepreneur,
Executive Coach, Data
Scientist , Heuristics and
Systems Thinker, Professor,
Statistician, and Quality and
Change Management
Consultant
than a thousand engineers, managers, directors, and scientists
in quality and statistical tools. He has been active in many
professional societies such as the American Society for Quality
and Society of Reliability Engineers, and he was a member of
the advisory council for Rochester Institute of Technology‘s
Center for Quality and Applied Statistics. He is considered an
authority on Six Sigma, Quality Management, Design of Exper-
iment (DOE), Statistical Process Control (SPC), and Systems
Thinking. He is the originator of the CREŌTM
problem solving
model and the author of two books, ―Corporate Sigma: Opti-
mizing the Health of Your Company with Systems Thinking‖,
and ―TPS-Lean Six Sigma: Linking Human Capital to Lean Six
Sigma – A new Blueprint for Creating a High Performance
Company‖. Anwar‘s interests include tennis, swimming, read-
ing and writing, traveling, and cooking, and his personal vision
is to be happy with his personal life and career, to grow profes-
sionally, and help others by sharing his knowledge and experi-
ence, and to make a great contribution to society.
Optimal Transformation Group (OTG) is devoted to helping
individuals and organizations become more successful. We
provide integrated and sustainable professional services
(consulting, coaching, certification, training, and project base
solution implementation) based on the proven Whole New
Mind solutions and principles. The results are individual and
organizational effectiveness and a related unique competitive
advantage. For more information about our products and ser-
vices, email us at:
anwar.el-homsi@optimaltransformation.com
neil.beyersdorf@optimaltransformation.com

27
Optimal Transformation Group, LLC
San Jose, California
USA
This Article was produced in the United States of America
December 2012
All Rights Reserved
Symphonization™ and CREŌ ™ in this document are registered trademarks of Optimal Transformation Group, LLC
in the United States, other countries, or both. If these and other OTG trademarked terms are marked on their first
occurrence in this information with a trademark symbol ™, this symbol indicates U.S. registered or common law
Optimal Transformation Group
―Be Different, Think Different‖

Symphonization - Where East Meets West (122112)

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