This is Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership. I am OpenAI. I am the host of today’s podcast. The BEPS framework is useful for understanding a leader’s different roles and responsibilities. It helps clarify the various areas a leader should focus on to be effective and achieve success.
Hold on a minute! Is OpenAI the host of Le Podcast?
Just for today. The regular host shared the BEPS framework with OpenAI and asked for questions to ask.
Emma Monville impersonated OpenAI for the recording!
Now that this is clarified let’s continue!
Let’s draw together the four axes of the BEPS framework.
Starting from the center of the page and going up, the Business axis involves understanding the business and the ecosystem in which the organization operates. It also involves developing a clear vision and understanding the reasons behind the organization’s solutions, products, features, and services.
Starting from the center of the page and going down, the Execution axis involves delivering the work and achieving results.
Going back to the center and heading to the right, you have the People axis. The People axis focuses on the management and development of people within the organization. This includes hiring, growing people, managing performance, and, of course, self-improvement.
And finally, starting again from the center of the page and heading to the left, the System axis involves understanding the system formed by people, organization, processes, and tools and removing obstacles to great work.
By considering these four axes, a leader or manager can ensure that they effectively balance their time and focus on achieving success and meeting the organization’s and its people’s needs.
Today, I have the great pleasure of having Alexis Monville, the creator of the framework, as the guest on the podcast.
OpenAI
Alexis, how would you describe your role to someone you just met?
Alexis
I am the Chief of Staff to the CTO at Red Hat, an enterprise software company with an open source development model.
OpenAI
What inspired you to develop the BEPS framework?
Alexis
I was really looking for something that would be able to help people get out of the corner of the room they were stuck in. I was trying to help teams. I was trying to mentor people and help them see the full spectrum of their role, and they seemed to be blocked somewhere, stuck somewhere in the corner of the room. So for me, the BEPS Framework represented an opportunity to help them turn around and see all the available space for them to grow themselves and grow their organization or teams.
OpenAI
How did you develop the four axes of the BEPS framework (Business, Execution, People, and System)?
Alexis
It all started with working with a team and especially the managers of the team we were trying to really transform the organization from an organization that was built by functions. So you had product management, engineering, quality assurance, and support. All those organizations should work together to develop a product, but they were a little bit fighting with each other, trying to justify their lack of results. We were trying to change the organization and build cross-functional teams. The managers were wondering what their roles would be because they saw their roles as really focused on one aspect of the work, not looking at all the other axis. So, showing them the four axes was a way to tell them: Oh, okay, there’s more to my role than just micromanaging the people already doing the work.
OpenAI
In your experience, which of the four axes do leaders and managers often neglect or underinvest in?
Alexis
It’s really interesting because I believe the axis people love to be involved in is Execution, and they usually neglect all the others. So. It’s not necessarily one of them. It’s more all of them except execution. And they focused on execution, but in the wrong way. I’ve seen people already focused on really doing their work but forgetting about everything else. I’ve seen managers focused on getting people to do work, do work, do work, do work, do work, do more activities, and more work, more work, more work, and really micromanaging the activities but not looking at the other axes and not looking at the impact of that work and missing the whole point.
OpenAI
How can the BEPS framework be used by leaders, either individual contributors or managers?
Alexis
I believe a framework is first of all a self-improvement tool. It’s really, looking at it and reflect on what are your contributions. One way to do it is simply to look at your past week and reflect on how much time did you spend on each axis. If you look at the definition of the axis, what do you know about the business axis for example? What do you know about the industry you are in? What do you know about your competitors? What do you know about your partners? What do you know about your own business? Do you know how your company is making money? Do you know what are the really important forces at play there? Ah and if you have all the answers. That’s great. You can use all your knowledge about that business axis to improve on the three other ones. If you know nothing, there’s probably an opportunity for you to develop and an opportunity for you and your team to grow, work with your peers on so on and so on. So, first of all, a self-reflection tool that can help you be more effective.
OpenAI
Can you give an example of a situation where the BEPS framework helped a leader or team to be more effective?
Alexis
That’s really interesting because, in many mentoring sessions I did, people were usually a little bit stuck on execution. They wanted to get to the next promotion. In a way, they wanted to get to the next level. But they were missing the point about how to get there. The BEPS framework was an interesting tool to show them: Okay, where are you already working on? What are you really working on? And for example, if I pick the system axis for example, what are you doing to really improve the processes and the way the organization is set up? A lot of time, the leaders put that responsibility on their manager. Asking them: Really? That’s only on your manager to improve the organization, the system, and the processes. You have no role in that, and of course, by asking a few questions, they realized that they could do many things. They were the ones dealing with that system on a day-to-day basis, providing the experience to people. So that was a way for them to realize that they could be more effective. We can go to the other axes and have the same kind of conversation. So. It’s really an opportunity for people to see other aspects of their roles, other facets of their roles.
OpenAI
How can the BEPS framework be used to assess the focus and priorities of a team or organization?
Alexis
Yeah, it’s definitely that! Where do you put your focus on? How do you define your priorities, and if your priorities are to deliver a list of activities and to tick all the boxes I’m asking you? Okay, but what do you know about your business? How do you improve your knowledge about your business? How do you know you are right? How do you know you are wrong? How do you know you’re developing the right things to serve your customers or users of your product or services? How do you help your people grow? How do you keep them in the company? Keep them engaged. So, If you look at the priorities of a team or an organization, there should be something on all of the axes. If everything is focused on one, you’re probably missing the point. So that’s a great tool to look at how people define their focus and priorities and help them reconsider, then move things away from their default axis.
OpenAI
How do the four axes of the BEPS framework relate to other common frameworks or models of leadership and management, such as servant leadership or the seven habits of highly effective people?
Alexis
Oh yeah, that’s a really great question. I was looking for a framework that is simple enough to explain and will cover all aspects without being too simple. For example, I’ve heard many times that the only framework you need to have is Strategy People Organization. No, Strategy People Operations more exactly. But you’re missing the point there because strategy, I can say, okay, that’s my Business axis. People, Okay, that’s my people axis. But Operations is Execution and System; usually, when you mix the two, people focus on the execution. They forget about improving the system, and as William Edwards Deming said: a bad system will beat good people each time. So you really want to have all those axes together.
If I consider Servant Leadership, it’s a really interesting one because basically, the managers I was helping when we changed the organization from functions to cross-functional teams with people in charge end to end of delivering something, the managers were looking for a new role because they were not supposed to micro-manage people and focus only on execution. So their role was already moving to that servant leadership role, so we helped them see that, and we used some of the servant leadership principles to help them reconsider their role, and it really worked well. And, of course, the 7 habits are well-known for many people, so that’s also simple training to have simple things to do, which helped them realize that they were not really working on the other axes. So, we use the other frameworks to help people grow on the four axes. BEPS is a simple way to help people discover all the facets of their roles and responsibilities.
A bad system will beat a good person every time.
William Edwards Deming
OpenAI
Can you share any tips or best practices for how leaders and managers can effectively balance their time and focus across the four axes of the BEPS framework?
Alexis
The first one is knowing what we are doing—knowing what you are doing and where you invest your time. So if all your time is focused only on one axis or you’re imbalanced, that’s a problem. But how do you know that? You only know that when you can track where you invest your time during the week, and you can do that in several weeks to have a good balance. So, of course, not all the weeks are exactly the same. Let’s say you’re doing that for four weeks, and you look at all the different aspects of your work, and each Friday, you take some time and tag. You say, okay that was really business, that was more execution, that was more already working in the system, that was more already working on the people, and so on and so on. You look at how balanced or imbalanced you are, and maybe you reconsider how you will invest your time in the following week or following weeks. I believe that’s this way. Ah, you can really have a better picture or a better balance. Of course, the things that you will probably do, and let’s say every month or quarter, you need to do that for a longer period to have a good picture of your balance or imbalance. For the people aspect, growing people or managing their careers, that’s maybe not a conversation you have every week. That’s maybe a conversation you have monthly or even sometimes quarterly only, so there’s a cadence to find and a balance to find on a quarter. That would be a good setup.
OpenAI
How has the BEPS framework evolved or changed since you first developed it?
Alexis
The beginning of the framework, and I’m a little bit ashamed of that. To be honest, there were only three axes. That was Execution, of course, and there were the business and the system axes. I really wanted people to connect their knowledge of the business with the execution, with the day-to-day work. I was focused on improving the system so you could see what was missing. And that’s why I’m ashamed of it. There was just a small missing piece. I forgot that people were maybe an interesting aspect of that framework. So, of course, I added that later. But just as an excuse for that, to try to justify me a little bit. The people I was working with really saw all the HR things as really bureaucratic and just ticking-the-box exercises, and I didn’t want to fight that battle upfront as a starting point. I already wanted them to reconsider the organization and all the processes involved first. So we started with those three axes, and then we added the people axis when it was the right time to do it.
OpenAI
In your opinion, what are the key qualities or characteristics that a leader or manager should possess to be successful using the BEPS framework?
Alexis
There are probably two qualities or two characteristics. It’s curiosity and humidity. I believe the two are really needed. You need to be curious. You need to learn to listen to others, and you need humility to reconsider things and accept that you don’t know everything. You probably don’t know how wrong you are or how right you are. Until you really see all the perspectives of the people of an organization. So Yeah, I would say curiosity and humility are the key qualities.
OpenAI
Alexis, you are the Chief of Staff to the CTO at Red Hat. Thank you for joining me today.
Alexis
Thanks for having me!