According to The University of Michigan, "Preventative Maintenance" is defined as "a program in which wear, tear, and change are anticipated and continuous corrective actions are taken to ensure peak efficiency and minimize deterioration." The MED Approach utilizes this perspective in that, like the Michigan definition, it involves planning and controlling of systematic inspection, adjustment, lubrication, and replacement of components, as well as performance testing and analysis. The result of a successful PM program extends the life of the facilities and equipment, and minimizes unscheduled downtime that causes major problems. Figure 1 depicts the MED Approach model, which provides a cross between the tenets of "preventative" and "preventive" maintenance.

Early Adaptation (ISO + LEM = TQA)

Figure 2 depicts my origination of the MED Approach was as LEM (leadership, education, management) also as Tri-Command (leader, manager, instructor), back to LEM, and now as MED (motivator, educator, delegator). I had originated LEM in an equation for TQA (Total Quality Action) in developing my personal action plan during my TQL training in the early 1990s.

LEM Approach is still in affect as I originated it in that it is a part of my TQA equation. Individual, Social, Organizational (ISO) plus Leadership, Education, Management (LEM) equals Total Quality Action (TQA).

This equation was one of my early approaches to the individual, organizational, and social realms. Roger Kaufman was an influencer in that he used these same terms equating them to the micro, macro, and mega levels. These realms are also known by me as the private, professional, and public sectors which is a part of my 3 P-Realms, the point, place, and purpose in our human realms.

TQA is about how the individual, organizational, and social being takes action based on the ability to lead, educate, and manage or motivate, educate, and delegate (MED).

The MED Approach brings to the forefront the ability of the trio of commanders in any setting as being an ideal formulation of characteristics either as three separate individuals or as one individual, organizational, or social (IOS) being.

As such, the new equation would be more like:

IOS + MED = TQA

Figure 2. ISO + LEM = TQA

In revisiting what I've learned in my quality assurance background through TQL (Leadership) and TQM (Management), it is a logical progression to include TQT (Training). Total Quality Training provides a well rounded understanding in the trio of command, the MED Approach. In preventative maintenance, we are able to apply quality assessment techniques to these important fields of leadership, teaching, management. In each field we are able to feel, think, and do as it pertains to producing quality work.

Figure 3 depicts one of my explorations of the feel, think, and do components of the MED Approach. My think/feel/act (do) model was affirmed in TQL. When applied to MED Approach has become feel, think, do. An even earlier use of the feel/think/do paradigm has shown up on Page 17 in the Professional Goal Setting section of Real Estate Success Series program I took during my real estate career in the 1980s.

Figure 3. Think/Feel/Act (feel/think/do) Model

Tri-Learn

My Tri-Learn model is a learning tactics application that also enlists a feel-think-do approach. We tend to learn the most from our emotion (feel) that is subjected to interpretation (think) and which leads to action (do). Likely no progress in learning can happen unless you take all three steps. Tri-Learn is a useful application in project planning. The project description should address emotion, interpretation, and action elements.

For instance, you might begin your description with an expression of sensitivity for the necessity of the project as a solution device. You might move to providing an analysis that would justify the need. You might conclude with the objectives you have for solving the problem. This trio helps you to develop a well rounded proposal in one succinct piece of writing from which further details can spawn.

In the MED Approach such parameters contribute to its application in the preventative maintenance (PM) environment. PM requires extensive use of project planning for which a first step is development of the proposal.

Finally, consider MED Approach in the Data Recycling model. The components can occur then in any order, making the think/feel/do model effective.

PM Environment

Imagine that the leader, instructor, and manager trio possessed the ability to promote the PM environment in the motivating, educating, and delegating functions in a group. This set of individuals would both furnish and command an unbeatable team of operators. Figure 4 provides a glimpse into a workflow process in which this "great group" of commanders may operate for successful output as they supervise individuals from an array of cultural backgrounds. Motivating leaders, educating instructors, and delegating managers are viable members of the "great group" and thereby able to collaborate across cultural differences and ensure preventative maintenance. Collaboration, even among the great groups requires a smooth workflow process. In bridging the cultural divide, leaders, instructors, and managers (supervisors) of the work assignments may benefit from the collaborative workflow process.

Goal Completion Trio

Goal Completion Trio helps determine the importance of your goals and their respective events and tasks. Identifying your values will help you determine the importance of your goals and their respective events and tasks. For example, if you write a statement about your values that states that you want to complete a homework assignment by the weekend so that you can go camping and that you will spend one hour daily working on the assignment, you have just evaluated the priority of this task. In general, three major elements to evaluating and completing your goals are:

1. Governing Values

2. Goals and Objectives

3. Steps to Completion

"Each builds upon the previous level. For example, you must first understand your values, then you can develop your goals and objectives. Finally, you can list the steps you will take to meet your stated objectives. Once again, noting what you must do to identify completion of your objective is critical. Otherwise you’ll not know when you’ve done it." I developed this trio for understanding goal completion in a manuscript I produced in 1999, "Understanding Distance Education" (p. 86). I published this device at this site in early 2005.

Step 3 (Steps to Completion) is where the MED Approach can be enlisted. The steps to completion may be considered to motivate, educate, and then delegate in the goal completion (execution) process.

Leading, Instructing, and Managing Self and Others

Using the LEADERSHIP ARCHITECT® Competency Sort Cards, I have sorted the skill cards into three distinct categories: 1) Leading, 2) Teaching, and 3) Managing. I have discovered that these categories also relate to a feel/think/do paradigm. My first exposure to the sort cards was in Career Development at BASF with Fran Franciosco. Employees were furnished a set of cards for which we were to sort the skill cards to determine our strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement. This was also an encounter with my SOR Analysis approach (strengths, opportunities, roadblocks), a hybrid of SWOT Analysis.

Figure 5 depicts how leading, teaching, and managing employs certain terms resulting from the development of "takeaways" from each card sorted into these three categories. The cards may be sorted differently by others. This represents my own findings. The terms here can be used to define the leader, instructor, and manager. There are several shared terms (emerging themes) such as being balanced, timely, and selective. It might be stated that leaders, instructors, and managers share many characteristics. Creativity takes place in all three roles as well. Leaders tend to be motivating to self and others and have relationship involvements. Instructors tend to be educating to self and others and have cognitive involvements. Managers tend to be delegating to self and others and have production involvements.

Figure 5. Leading/Teaching/Managing Self and Others

While teaching a course in Organizational Behavior in 1998, I taught my students how to develop a hybrid personality by mixing leaders and managers and by developing a hybrid leadership theory. The image below is what I shared with my students to help them create their own hybrid:

The result was the following creative exercise in the Organizational Behavior course I taught:

Creative Hybrid Exercise - Leadership Theory

Another creative exercise was to develop a hybrid theory from a set of existing theories. The resulting theory would contain three terms.

Creative Hybrid Exercise - Organizational Theory

In 2003, I shared my experiences with the "hybrid leadership" model in relation to the born or made leadership argument as defined in the following e-mail excerpt:

MS suggested the paradigm might consist of the "born, made, and developed" leader. I contend that there is not enough differentiation between the terms "made" and "developed," and that using the term "hybrid" might make more sense. I continue to believe that it is possible that leaders are both born and made and therefore there exists a hybrid leader that may overcome this aged old argument whether leaders are born or made.

I also shared my development of a hybrid perspective in creating a new paradigm consisting of the leader, manager, and possibly the educator/trainer as I had previously developed. The result was a collaboration on the model depicted in Figure 3, which did not align with my original perspective. 

Here is another perspective on the "Hybrid Commander:"

In this instance the "instructor" might be considered the "developer."  Relatively, my model comprises the following components, which does not call for a hybrid addition as the merge of these three commanders is the hybrid itself. The resulting model merges the following characteristics.

Leader: charismatic (motivator)

Instructor: transformational (educator)

Manager: transactional (delegator)

The outcome is the "hybrid commander" or the "transcendental being."

In 1989, I used the term “transactional being” in association with leadership, which spawned from my real estate training (Chapter 1: Customer-Agent Behavior RS202 – Sales Strategies for the Residential Specialist). In this instance I explored the transactional being based upon the three “little people” inside us.

In 1992 I studied TQM and in 1995 I studied TQL in which I developed the MED Approach that encompasses the leader, instructor, and manager in its early form (leader, educator, manager). My perspective is that we are able to merge leaders, instructors, and managers for the development of a "hybrid individual" who is astute at navigating in the private, professional, and public sectors using leadership, teaching, and management skills. This is an individual who is able to motivate, educate, and delegate effectively, someone able to think outside the box . . . the circle, and the triangle; the mark of a true transcendental being.

In 2000, I published the matter of transcending the environment in my dissertation:

Here's an application I started in 1999 after reading about "Adaptive Instruction" in “Instructional-Design Theories and Models” (Reigeluth, 1999).  Adaptive instruction provides the opportunity for student and instructional strategist to coordinate learning.  The adaptive system adapts the instructional methods to the needs of the user.  

Now take this into the realm of the MED Approach. Consider that we have the adaptive leader, the adaptive instructor, and the adaptive manager rolled up in a single personality. We would then have the individual who is adaptive in motivating, educating, and delegating. We might refer to this individual as the "adaptive commander."

As featured in USA Today a book came out March 7, 2005 on this subject of the manager, leader, and top performer that seems to somewhat hit upon this concept:

According to Buckingham (2005), "The opposite of a leader isn't a follower," it's a pessimist. I have long said that we need to place attention on the how to become an effective follower, which is not the opposite of the leader, but rather the "team player." Among the team player styles we often see the makings of a pessimist in the "questioner." To learn about team player styles, visit my article, "Bottom Line Team Development." Also, check out the corresponding slides to Buckingham's book. Buckingham does not believe that leadership and management are interchangeable.

My own perspective is, "The Three Things You Need to Become: The Leader, the Instructor, and the Manager." I have had the steadfast belief since the early 1990s that we each should strive to "command" these three characteristics in the "hybrid commander,"  the "transcendental being." 

Summary

Motivating, educating, and delegating takes place among the "trio of commanders," the leaders, instructors, and managers in our private, professional, and public sectors in which we live and serve. Separately and collectively they relate to performance improvement and preventative maintenance in these realms. The MED Approach has far reaching implication as a result. You might find that you relate to one or another of these commanding roles or that you possess the characteristics from all three roles, making you a formidable player across all sectors. 

Communication with self and others takes place in all three roles (leader, instructor, and manager) as well. In my admissions package submitted to Union Institute in 1998 where I was accepted into its doctoral program I offered that communication involves emotion, motivation (feel - motivate), information (think - educate), and control (do - delegate). I also provided that there are three barriers to communication pertaining to data: 1) omission, 2) distortion, and 3) information overload. Barriers to communication are ultimately barriers to preventative maintenance (PM).

Consider the various ways and means by which the elements can be arranged. In using the SCaT model (square, circle, and triangle) the arrangement might be:

Leader (motivate - feel - circle)

Instructor (educate - think - triangle)

Manager (delegate - do - square)

Sources

Buckingham, M. (2005). The one thing you need to know. Free Press.

Reigeluth, C. M. (1999). Instructional-design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Publishers.