Culture – Page 16 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

May 11, 2021

Collective authenticity

If authenticity is doing, not being, it follows that for a company of more than one person, achieving corporate authenticity requires everyone to be ‘doing’ what is consistent with the company’s values and personality.

How can you ensure that?

Be crystal clear on the Promise you make as a business. Use that clarity to attract and recruit only those who share it. That way you can be confident that whatever work they produce ‘from within themselves’ will align with it.
Support them with a Customer Experience Score to make learning easy.

Then give them the responsibility to deliver, and the autonomy to do so.

As all master craftsmen know, practice never makes perfect, but it does make authentic.

And authentic is what clients really buy into.

May 10, 2021

Authenticity

Authenticity is a result of mastery.

Our word comes from the Greek roots ‘auto‘ – self and ‘hentes‘ – maker or doer. For the ancient Greeks it indicated someone who had mastered their craft to the point where they could produce work from within themselves, as opposed to copying from someone else.

What’s interesting to me about this is that authenticity isn’t so much about being as doing. We master our craft by interacting with the world, changing both sides of the equation in the process. Eventually, other people see us as authentic because we appear to have mastered our means of expression. Of course it never feels like that from the inside, which is why artists never give up.

You can’t be authentic, you can only do it, over and over again. In whatever field you’ve chosen to practice your art.

That’s how you leave your mark.

May 4, 2021

Piracy

Pirates were a threat to the 18th century establishment. Not only because of their predations, but because of the alternative organisational model they offered.

Here are the Articles for Revenge, a pirate ship captained by John Phillips pictured above:

Every Man shall obey civil Command; the Captain shall have one full Share and a half in all Prizes; the Master, Carpenter, Boatswain and Gunner shall have one Share and quarter.
If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any Secret from the Company, he shall be maroon’d, with one Bottle of Powder, one Bottle of Water, one small Arm and Shot.
If any Man shall steal any Thing in the Company, or game to the Value of a Piece of Eight, he shall be maroon’d or shot.
If at any Time we should meet another Marrooner [pirate], that Man that shall sign his Articles without the Consent of our Company, shall suffer such Punishment as the Captain and Company shall think fit.
That Man that shall strike another whilst these Articles are in force, shall receive Moses’s Law (that is, 40 Stripes lacking one) on the bare Back.
That Man that shall snap his Arms, or [smoke] Tobacco in the Hold, without a Cap to his Pipe, or carry a Candle lighted without a Lanthorn, shall suffer the same Punishment as in the former Article.
That Man that shall not keep his Arms clean, fit for an Engagement, or neglect his Business, shall be cut off from his Share, and suffer such other Punishment as the Captain and the Company shall think fit.
If any Man shall lose a Joint in Time of Engagement, he shall have 400 Pieces of Eight, if a Limb, 800.
If at any Time we meet with a prudent Woman, that Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer present Death.

A pirate ship was governed by the Pirate Council, who deliberated on decisions until a consensus was reached. A Captain was only elected for engagements, and could be anyone.

A far cry from life on a Navy ship, where the Captain’s rule was absolute, and his share of booty determined by him.

As Colonel Benjamin Bennet wrote: “I fear they will soon multiply for so many are willing to joyn with them when taken.”

No wonder they were crushed.

April 23, 2021

Fallibility

The danger of software systems is that because we talk about them as being ‘engineered’, we take them to be infallible, in a way that would be reasonable if we were talking of a bridge, or a train, or a road.

Bridges, trains and roads obey the laws of physics.

There are no such laws behind software systems, only human beings, with prejudices, pressures and sometimes perverse incentives.

We would do well to remember that, especially when the system is accusing a human of being in the wrong.

April 13, 2021

Blind man’s buff

Working away from the office has been uncomfortable for many people. Not least leaders.

We’re so used to the panopticon of open plan, together with the richness of non-verbal communication that enables ‘management by walking about’ – the ability to dip in and help where it’s needed with feedback and encouragement.

Remote working has made leading feel like a game of blind man’s buff.

It feels like we should become more like old-fashioned managers – telling people what to do then trying to assess where they really are through regular progress reports or software. None of these things tell you what you really want to know – whether people are struggling, or have misunderstood what’s required, or are simply missing something – all the things you used to be able spot really quickly when everyone was together in the office.

It’s an interesting problem, that existed long before before lockdown and work from home. What do you do when people struggle but don’t ask for help?

For some the answer is more surveillance, and more checklists. For others it’s mandating a return to the office. But I wonder if framing the problem differently might work better?

What if we looked at our people as students, rather than workers? What if instead of asking ‘How do I know they are where they should be?’ we asked ourselves ‘How do I know they are learning?’.

The answer to that question would I’m sure lead to a different way of organising how teams are supported.

And from my experience we could do worse than look at how Akimbo does it.

March 31, 2021

Unwritten

A written constitution is certainly open to interpretation (Who exactly are ‘We, the People’? What exactly does ‘Happiness’ mean?), but it does at least provide a tangible, concrete reference point for discussion, amendment and clarification. It is separate, both from the people who made it and the people interpreting it right now, a thing in its own right, and therefore capable of improvement. And at all times, citizens can compare the current culture with what that culture once aspired to be, as embodied on the constitution, and decide to act.

The unwritten is protean, slippery, even more open to interpretation, even exploitation. But what’s worse is that the culture that surrounds it can change beyond recognition without anyone really noticing. Until suddenly, the flag we’ve grown up with comes to stand for something rather disturbing.

Brands, whether national or corporate, are tokens of an underlying culture. If you want that culture to persist, it’s a good idea to write it down. An an even better idea to share it with everyone.

That way everyone can hold you to account for it.

March 25, 2021

Semiotics

I keep thinking about yesterday’s recorded message, about how simple it was, how effective. And how creating such a message isn’t rocket science. It probably doesn’t even need the latest tech or AI.

It reminded me of a visit to a care home a few years back. It was more like a hotel, or serviced apartments, actually. The decor was lovely, the amenities were plentiful, a lot of support was included.

But the main thing that made it attractive was the attitude.

“This is home for everyone who lives here. They should be able to live as they would at home. So we run this place around them. There are no mealtimes, no prescribed activities, no common routine. Just lots of extra support, from simple things like extra deep dado rails to a hoist over the bath and onsite carers.”

In other words, the attitude drove the design of everything – the building, the services and the atmosphere. It showed.

It always shows.

When everything behind the sales pitch sends the same signal, nobody can be disappointed.

February 10, 2021

Emotional labour

Recently I’ve been thinking about (and remembering) why being ‘The Boss’ is no fun. Or at least not for me.

It’s not the hard graft, or the long hours, or the uncertainty of income. Nor is it the responsibility to clients, or the need to exceed expectations. We knew this was part of starting a business, it’s actually what we wanted – the possibility to get more out of work than the means to live.

Being your own boss is fine. It’s being boss of others, directly or indirectly, that’s difficult. Because although you can now share the physical or mental work involved in delivery, you’ve at least doubled the emotional labour, and emotional labour is harder to share out.

The first step is to recognise that it’s a big part of what gets done. Probably the most important part too.

The next step is to make it explicit, and cover it in the manual.

February 5, 2021

Synthesis

I spent quite a bit of my early career being called an analyst – someone who resolves or separates things into its elements or constituent parts.

In reality, like all of us, I’m mostly a synthesist. Putting thoughts, information, ideas, anecdotes, experiences together to make a whole – a model of the world that is coherent, at least to me, hopefully to others too.

When it comes to work, here are some of the ideas (axioms? premises? prejudices?) I grapple with, trying to synthesise a useful model of what it means to scale successfully as a business:

Making things (not necessarily tangible) that will be appreciated by other people is a fundamental human need.
Everyone needs agency, mastery, autonomy, purpose, community and status.
Being human is difficult, valuable, not to be wasted.
Nobody has a right to control another person (with rare exceptions that are to do with the other person’s safety).
Nobody ever achieves anything alone.
Most small business owners care about the impact they are making on their customers, their team and their community. Increasingly they care about the impact they make on the planet.
Most employees work in order to live.
Most employees want to do their best work.
Most people want to be able to bring their whole self to everything they do, including work.
Most employees want clarity about what they are there to do.
Most employees don’t want to be told how to do their job.
Most small business owners never set out to be in charge of other people.
Most people want to do things for themselves, until they can’t. When they can’t they want to be helped to get back to doing it for themselves.
Most small business owners aren’t capitalists.
There is plenty of business to be done to enrich people and planet. Small business owners don’t need to be capitalist.
Processes are for people. Procedures and work instructions are for machines.

I’m not there yet with my coherent model, but I feel like I am getting there, and I’m enjoying the process.

What would you add to/remove from my list?

January 18, 2021

Self-determination

I’ve spent the whole of the day re-setting and rebuilding my computer. Windows simply refused to restart. No reason was given, no error messages, no hint of what might have caused it, just an escalating series of interventions that culminated in a factory reset.

That’s my day gone. I don’t have a choice. My laptop is infrastructure. I need it to work.

Imagine if corporations like Microsoft decided to do that to us on purpose.

It’s easy to miss where power really lies.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Culture