This blog is about the relationship between organizations and the people who work for them. And, it’s dedicated to the millions of people around the world who go to work every day wanting to do a great job.
Robert Fritz
“Make it work people!”
OK so now you know. I love Project Runway. And, I especially love Tim Gunn and his iconic line: “Make it work people!”
Why?
Well because in business it’s something we don’t do enough of. Instead, the reflex is to bail. Go back to planning. To second guess the original decision. To rethink it. To run another brainstorming session. To have another meeting.
When Tim says it, it’s because the designers have an adequate idea. They’ve made a decision to go with it. They’ve got what they need to do it. They just need to get on with it.
“Make it work people!”
I think we’d accomplish more. Learn more. And, we’d probably have more fun!
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Time to get curious about organizational curiosity?
Yesterday, as you know, scientists announced evidence that they have now proven experimentally that a Higg’s-like boson particle exists. Higg’s and others first proposed the boson particle to explain mass in the 1960s. Over the past 50+ years since then scientists have been looking for patterns and fundamental underlying structures that would lead to the particle behaviours they see. The task has taken trillions+ of data points and many years just to achieve even this first limited breakthrough – evidence that the Higgs boson “particle” does exist. They will now begin to analyze the particles even further to see to what extent their properties are as predicted by the Higg’s mechanism.
So, what does any of this have to do with leadership, communications and organizational work life – the main themes of this blog?
Well, I couldn’t help wondering, what amazing breakthroughs we could have organizationally if we as leaders had this level of curiosity.
What if we were curious enough that we really wanted understand why things happen the way they do or don’t in our organizations? Discovering patterns and underlying structures that lead to behaviours is key to changing those behaviours. So, why aren’t we more curious about our organizations and how and why they work the way they do? Why aren’t we more disciplined in working to discover the underlying structures that are leading to the behaviours and outcomes we’re after?
Compared to the Higg’s boson research, our research would cost less in time [probably wouldn't take 50 years] and in money [no electron accelerator to build]. The benefits would be huge and direct [knowing there is a Higg's boson particle is clearly important but is unlikely to have nearly the direct impact on us].
Maybe we should begin our exploration by looking at the level of leadership curiosity? Is it adequate or not? And, if it’s adequate is it focused on the right business and organizational questions or not? If not, how can we understand what underlying structures are getting in our way and design an approach that encourages organizational curiosity?
It may not be Higgs-boson, but it’s a pretty important question.
What do you think? Is it time to get curious about organizational curiosity?
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Mindlessness. It’s a plague. There’s a cure.
Mindlessness. It’s not good. It’s everywhere. It’s a plague. And, it may even be the root cause of our current global economic situation.
In Amber Naslund‘s recent post ”Critical thought is an endangered species“and in the comments that follow, the general conclusion seems to be that not thinking [mindlessness] is easier than thinking. It’s easier to go with the flow. It’s easier to do what you’re told. It’s easier to join the whining hordes. It’s easier to follow the path of least resistance.
Why would that be? Are we just lazy? Maybe we’re just not curious?
Or perhaps it’s just that we’ve never learned to think and ask questions. We haven’t been, and aren’t, challenged to think by our teachers, mentors and coaches, leaders – CEOs, Prime Ministers, Bishops or Rabbis, Generals, etc. – fathers and mothers, friends and colleagues. We aren’t encouraged to ask good questions? Heck to ask any questions.
As Amber concluded: “We have to snap the hell out of it.” But how?
Stop being lazy. Get curious. Don’t wait to be encouraged. Practice asking questions. Learn how to ask better and better questions. [BTW - this is the basis of structural consulting as taught by Robert and Rosalind Fritz. Full disclosure: I'm a big fan of their work and have been studying with them and using the principles of structural dynamics to better support my clients for many years]
As an exercise, next time you’re reading anything, watching tv or a movie, in your next conversation or meeting:
- Start with nothing – no preconceived notions, no comparative thinking [this is actually harder than it sounds]
- Picture what is being said, not what you think is, could or should be being said.
- And ask a question where there’s one to ask [i.e. where there's a discrepancy, a need for clarification, an implication, etc.] – if you’re reading, watching tv or a movie this may be the end of the exercise unless you’re only part way through, in which case the answer may become apparent as you read/watch on and/or new questions will emerge.
- Picture the answer
- Repeat as needed. And encourage those around you to do the same.
And, let me know how it goes. Mindfulness takes practice, so be patient. Guaranteed it will be worth it.
For a little summer fun, check this out. Is Perry Mason starting with nothing?
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Thriving in chaos
According to a recent article in Fast Company, This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business, we’re in trouble. The volume and pace of change is relentless and uncontrollable. We can’t know the future. And the past may or may not be relevant. It’s chaos.
“Our institutions are out of date; the long career is dead; any quest for solid rules is pointless, since we will be constantly rethinking them; you can’t rely on an established business model or a corporate ladder to point your way; silos between industries are breaking down; anything settled is vulnerable.”
And then, just when you think there’s nothing we can really do institutionally, except hope and pray, comes this: “The key is to be clear about your business mission. In a world of flux, this becomes more important than ever.”
When you can’t know, get back to basics. Get back to your institutional values and aspirations. Not the stuff that’s written on plaques on walls. The real stuff. The essence of what your organization is and what you stand for and care about.
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Annual performance reviews may be making things worse. Now what?
If, the idea is to improve organizational and employee performance, then the annual performance review may be making things worse not better. Today’s Globe and Mail confirms that according to an “academic review of more than 600 employee-feedback studies… two-thirds of appraisals had zero or even negative effects on employee performance after the feedback is given.” [link not available - "Every year not enough, try weekly performance reviews", Rachel Emma Silverman]
Since it’s that time of year, the time of year when I know many of you are focused on reviewing this year’s performance and defining next year’s team and individual objectives, I thought you might be interested in learning about something completely different. Something that will really increase your chances of improving performance next year.
The “Managerial moment of truth” presents a framework and an approach to skill building. As Robert Fritz describes it, “the managerial moment of truth is a one trick pony. But, it’s a really really good trick.”
It’s not personal. It will help you build an institutional and individual ‘cycle of correction’ and learning. It will enable you to effectively increase organizational and individual performance.
Here’s co-author Bruce Bodaken, CEO of Blue Shield of California, speaking about the impact of this approach on his business’s leadership and performance. He believes that this approach has helped him and his team unleash between 25 and 40% of the underutilized capacity in his organization at little or no cost. In his 5 years as CEO, BlueShield has become the fastest growing health plan in California. They’ve doubled membership and grown revenues from $3B to 8B. A remarkable achievement indeed. Worth checking out the full video, especially after minute 6.
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Storytelling, media & me
Today, I read an article about the growing demand for people who are able to tell stories in every media - photographs, text, audio, video, alone or in any combination - and made the case for pr [read communications] professionals to build these skills. The medium, it seems, really is the message.
So, I thought it was a good time to check in and see where we stand in this world of ‘content’ production.
Me? For the past couple of years I’ve been experimenting with different social media and getting used to writing and sharing ideas and stories online - here, as support to Michael for From Marshall and me, on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and FourSquare [which after much frustration I've stopped using] and by commenting on other blogs when I feel I have something to add to the discussion. I’ve attended a two Montreal PodCamps and several Third Tuesdays to get a deeper understanding of what technologies and applications are out there, how they are used, and what opportunities there are for institutional communications. I’ve met amazing people - Mitch Joel, Julien Smith and Michelle Sullivan - who have advised, provoked and inspired.
In the past few months, I’ve been revisiting and rebuilding my structural thinking and consulting skills. The most recent training was last week. I attended a fabulous 5-day Advanced training with Robert and Rosalind Fritz. The importance and power of structure to the creative process and in storytelling was clearly evident. I always knew this training was key to my professional consulting practice. Now I know it is key to being a good storyteller.
Today, I’m officially committing myself to the next step in my journey to create compelling content and learning how to share it in different ways. Sure, I will continue to blog and do the stuff I’ve been doing, and, over the coming months I’ll be learning and building mastery [OK getting competent] with as many communications technologies and applications as I can.
This is a pretty big step for me. As those of you who know me will attest I’m no geek! Here’s my starting point. What technology is usable and what’s not!
Ouch! And, it is a secondary choice to a primary choice to producing great, compelling stories that I can share. Standby.
You? I’d love to hear about what you’re doing to build your storytelling and media skills? What were your successes? What did you learn from your failures? What can you recommend?
BTW: I’ve already started experimenting with my new camera [Canon S95] [no commercial relationship]. I’m still not working with the SLR or video features, but I’m looking forward to that. And, the scanner is plugged in and ready to go so that I can start a family project I’ve been thinking about for years. An opportunity to experiment and learn to tell a different story in a new way…
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The engagement factor
A little noodling on a snowy winter day.
Communication often finds itself at the centre of the employee engagement discussion. I find this interesting because I doubt if you were asked to describe the elements that impact their engagement that communication per se would come to mind. Or it wouldn’t be a major focus. I know it wouldn’t for me.
Instead isn’t your level of engagement based on factors like:
- The business you’re working for. What stuff does the business do and what impact does it have?
- The nature of the job you get to do. Is it management or non-management? Is it hands on or hands off? Constructing stuff, moving stuff, or taking stuff apart? Etc.
- And your experience of the business. What are the working conditions like? The kinds of people you get to work with? The level of collaboration? Etc.
For every one of us, each of these main categories of factors will have different elements that are important to us. And for each element they could be positive, neutral or negative from our point of view.
|
Factors |
Elements |
From the employee’s point of view |
|||
| Positive | Neutral | Negative | |||
| What | The business we’re in -What the business does and the impact it has
|
[Insert the things that matter most from the employee’s point of view] |
|||
| The job – What I do “at work” every day
|
|||||
| How | The brand experience -What’s my experience of the company?
What’s our customer’s experience of the company?
|
||||
Taken together, these rankings in relationship to each other[1] will result in a level of engagement – high, medium, low, non-existent.
What I find interesting is that these elements of engagement are more likely to be about organizational design and management than they are about internal communications.
I’m not saying communications isn’t an element. It certainly can be; especially where it’s in anyway discrepant with the brand values. It’s just doesn’t seem to be the place to start.
What do you think?
[1] This is based on something called “digital decision making” an approach discovered by Robert Fritz.
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“Leadership makes all the difference”
Robert Fritz’s work on Structural Dynamics began over 20 years ago after he observed something pretty odd: “Success does not succeed in organizations” and asked “Why not?”
As those of you who follow this blog know, I studied with Robert Fritz for over 8 years. The principles of Structural Dynamics remain the foundation for the work I do in communications and change management. Last month, he and the other founding members of Innovation Associates – Peter Senge, Charlie Kiefer, and Peter Stroh – were invited by the Pegasus Systems Thinking in Action Conference to talk about the work that originally inspired them. Robert’s talk – “The Structural Dynamics of Leadership” – is a great primer to the work that has inspired me for years. So, for those of you who are interested, here are some highlights from the talk that may provoke some thinking and questions:
- Leadership is critical
- Leaders are subject to the structures they are in. Structures are created by elements in relation to each other and lead to specific behaviours – oscillating [structural conflict] or resolving [structural tension]
- Without a change in underlying structure change efforts will be reversed [i.e., where the structure is an oscillating one]
- Structural conflicts that drive oscillation can be addressed through hierarchy. The hierarchy is a leadership decision. [i.e., Where there are competing systems there needs to be a decision about what is primary]
- Structural tension can be designed in
- Shared vision is good. Shared structural tension is even better
- Structural tension as an object gives direction and coordination. Working with structural tension can take the complexity and organize it very simply to a unified and aligned direction while providing for all the freedom in the world to express your talents, creativity and imagination
- Leaders need to think in terms of outcomes not problems
- Workload to capacity is one of the key issues of leaders today. Leaders need to build capacity for the future.
- Leaders are pressured into short-term thinking. Short-term thinking without a sense of vision will hurt the organization
- The purpose of a company is not shareholder return on investment. Maximizing profits undermines the company’s ability to grow and better compete in the marketplace
- Business strategy is about generating wealth. The key to business strategy is making an offer that can’t be refused
- Composing the organization aligns resources and systems to a common direction
- The senior person needs to have an executive team that is aligned and masterful at implementing strategies. Too often the executive team is the first to undermine the alignment
- Where senior people are doing their jobs then dissemination, multiplication, amplification of leadership becomes available to the organization. That is golden.
And here’s the full talk [80+mins]. It has lots more provocative thinking including some thoughts about the difference between command and control, self-organizing and compositional organizations that are very convincing and worth a listen just for that.
http://www.robertfritz.com/tsd_of_leadership.mp3
Does success lead to success in your organization? If not, why not? I’d love to hear what you think.
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Recent posts
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