About
We only do one thing. We change management thinking.
Since 1987, Vanguard has created and developed both systems thinking and intervention theory, which combine to create the Vanguard Method. Uniquely, this method’s sole purpose is to transform organisations by changing management thinking and helping this translate into a better system and improved performance. This is all we do and we are the only ones that do it using a proprietary method that Vanguard has pioneered and constantly evolved.
1987
Vanguard founded by John Seddon and a group of friends.
1989
John discovered ‘Failure Demand’ studying failed TQM programmes - initially labelled as ‘demand we don’t want’.
1992
John wrote his first book: I Want You to Cheat!: The Unreasonable Guide to Service and Quality in Organisations.
1997
John wrote his second book: The case against ISO 9000. John described how specifications and inspections actually impede quality in service organisations.
2003
John Seddon published his best-seller, Freedom from Command and Control.
2008
John published his first book on Vanguard’s work in the public sector, Systems Thinking in the Public Sector.
2010
John Seddon and Owen Buckwell awarded the first global Management Innovation prize for Reinventing Leadership.
The first book of public-sector case studies, Delivering Public Services That Work, volume 1 was published.
2012
The second book of public-sector case studies, Delivering Public Services That Work, volume 2, was published.
2013
John awarded his fourth visiting professorship by Buckingham University.
2014
The Whitehall Effect was published, a book about why public-sector reform failed and how a systems approach is a profoundly better way.
2015
Vanguard was invited to be the UK representative of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table.
2016
Vanguard’s work in social care systems led to the principle of ‘what matters to citizens’ being enshrined in Welsh law (the Social Care and Wellbeing (Wales) Act).
2017
Vanguard set up the Beyond Command and Control Network
2019
John Seddon publishes 'Beyond Command & Control', describing everything Vanguard knows today.
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2020
1970s | Where it Began
John Seddon worked in the prison service in his early 20s as a prison psychologist. This work and meeting the academic, Nick Georgiades, introduced John to the idea that working on the system would have greater impact than focussing on the people. John went on to study – under Georgiades – for an MSc in occupational psychology and became fascinated with Intervention Theory and Method. This informed a lot what of what eventually followed.
1980s | A Shock to the System
John was teaching performance management to managers in Africa. They (kindly) told him what he was teaching didn’t fit with their culture so John began wondering if management is grounded in knowledge or merely convention. John became preoccupied with how organisations really work.
John then got involved in the famous ground-breaking British Airways culture change programme. The British Airways experience taught him the importance of focusing on the customer but raised questions in his mind about “culture change”.
John learned the critical importance of studying demand in transactional services – the greatest lever. It is where he first discovered the importance of the idea o ‘failure demand’. Understanding demand was the first crucial ingredient in taking a systems approach. For the first time he saw first-hand how better service drives costs out of service organisations.
1990s | Developing the Vanguard Method
Vanguard expanded rapidly in the early 90s working with Honeywell Bull, IBM and Digital Equipment Corporation. The early work was based on delivering training but the team soon realised that this was not effective at changing management thinking. Instead we decided to help leaders get into the work and study it as a system. This is now known as the Vanguard model for ‘Check’.
Throughout the 90s The Vanguard Method was honed using trial and error working with a series of services organisations. It became clear that the principles of study and redesign worked for all transactional services.
2000s | Going International
In 2003 Vanguard started working with the UK public sector and expanded into new territories. Over the following years we opened in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Canada.
2010 - 2015 | Serving the Public
During this period Vanguard became increasingly involved in the public sector with John publishing four books including ‘The Whitehall Effect’ - an analysis on why public-sector reform failed and how a systems approach was a profoundly better way. John also lobbied for the closure of the Audit Commission in 2010 as an egregious form of specification and inspection of “best practice”. This was shown by our work to be a bad idea.
2016 - Present | The Management Factory
Vanguard has continued to grow and now has a presence across 12 countries. In recent years we have turned our attention to the “management factory” – all the activity sitting above operations, which has grown in numbers and impact over John’s lifetime. John’s newest book, Beyond Command and Control, describes everything Vanguard knows today.
