Enabling Framework – Page 13 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

August 12, 2021

Sharing

I’m one of seven children. A lot of work for my mother, who was nominally ‘The Boss’ in our house.

She didn’t like it though.

She resented being the parent who had to get us to do homework, or tidy our rooms, or do the washing up. She resented being the one who shouted and told us off. She resented the fact that her contribution was taken for granted, invisible, unappreciated. Most of all she resented being the one who had to think of everything, for everyone else.

Fortunately for my mum, and as I realised later, for us, she went on strike when she was in her mid 40’s.

From that point on, if we were 16 or over, we took responsibility for ourselves. If we wanted washing done, we did it ourselves. If we wanted clothes ironed, we did it ourselves. If we didn’t like ironing, then we could choose clothes that didn’t need ironing. If we didn’t like tidying our bedrooms, we could live in a mess. If we wanted a different meal from everyone else, we could, as long as we planned and cooked it and washed up ourselves.

It was hard for my mum, because it meant we did quite often live in a mess, but it showed me at least that beyond a certain age, a family, like a small business is a collaborative affair. And that this collaboration works best when its the responsibility that’s shared, not just the work.

Being ‘The Boss’ isn’t as nearly as much fun as people think.

The solution is to make everyone the boss of themselves, within a framework of shared purpose. Everyone is better for it. Especially the business.

August 2, 2021

The devil is in the detail

Except when it isn’t.

Often, the devil is in the big picture. The model you’re working to. Unquestioningly, perhaps even unconsciously.

That’s what Julian and Andrew realised at Matt Black Systems. After a decade of attempts to turn around their business, with LEAN consultants, re-organisations, and efficiency drives, none of which worked, the devil wasn’t in the fine detail of processes, nor was it in the employees. It was in the model the business was built on – top-down, hierarchical, siloed into specialisms, command and control.

Alternative models aren’t necessarily easy, but they give you the opportunity to choose your problems:

“The organisational design you adopt will determine the set of problems you have to live with. Often the design is considered a ‘given’ its problems unavoidable. We chose to change our model because the problems we had were threatening our business. We wanted a better set of problems.”

Once Andrew and Julian had realised this, it took just 18 months to transform their business to the point where productivity had increased by 500%; customers were delighted, and staff found their work rewarding personally and financially, without killing themselves in the process.

Julian and Andrew could leave the building, never to return.

Of course, business-threatening problems are a great spur to radical change. But you don’t have to wait till then.

You could pick your problems early, and walk out of your business when you choose.

July 30, 2021

Pruning for productivity

When you grow a tree for a productive canopy (of shade, or fruit, or flowers, or air-cleaning properties), just letting it grow straight up is rarely the most effective approach.

Instead you let the main stem (the leader) grow up nice and strong until you’ve got the height you want.

Then you take it out, to encourage as many side shoots as you can, because that’s where production happens. From then on, every would-be leader is ruthlessly pruned out.

Every tree needs a strong leader at the beginning of its growth.

Once it’s the right shape though, its better to redirect that energy to where it’s really needed – the productive boundary.

July 13, 2021

The sleep of reason

NASA engineers had noticed a problem with the O-rings used to seal joints in the boosters of the Challenger space shuttle. When the weather was cold at launch time, the O-rings failed to seal the gaps properly. But they couldn’t quantify the effects, so were not allowed to act on their concerns. After all, the NASA engineering watchword was : “In God we trust. All others bring data.”

But what if you don’t have data? Does that mean you just leave it to God?

Of course not.

As Richard Feynman said at the enquiry following the disaster “If you don’t have data, you must use reason.”

Our processes must allow for that.

If the sleep of reason produces monsters, imagine what wonders we create when we combine data with waking reason, driven by humanity?

Our processes must be designed for that.

HT to Abishek Chakraborty for the prompt.

June 21, 2021

Acumen

Acumen: Sharpness. The ability to get right to the point, to the heart of the matter.

Acumen is something Jaqueline Novogratz obviously has in spades, because she realises that the people at the bottom of the pile have it too.

And that the best way them to help them is to enable them to apply it to help themselves.

Bottom up, ripple out. That’s the way to do it.

No need for you to be there.

June 18, 2021

Work/play

Why do we enjoy playing Dungeons and Dragons?

Because we know the rules. We know the world we’re operating in. We know our own capabilities. We know there is randomness, provided by the dice. And we know that the people we’re playing with know all that too.

Within that framework, each one of us can play freely with the skills we’re given and the attributes we acquire. We can collaborate, go it alone, or switch between the two. If we’re Dungeon Master, we can even change the rules.

Nothing is predetermined, there’s room for the unexpected, yet everything is coherent. It’s a safe space enclosing the perfect balance between constraint and freedom, between box and creativity, between process and play, between community and individual.

Life can’t be like this.

But work can.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

June 11, 2021

Give us a clue

In a business, striking the right balance between control and freedom is hard.

We want the serendipity that freedom brings. To be open to emergent behaviour or trends. And increasingly, we want our workplaces to be human, places where people can exercise their natural powers of creativity, collaboration and problem solving to the benefit of the customer and the company.

But emergence without direction or foundation simply turns into entropy.

The answer is to make sure the culture doesn’t only live inside people’s heads.

Document your Promise of Value as a compass to guide everyone on your journey.

Install a floor through which nobody can fall.

Capture the high-level process as the clue that will get everyone (especially newbies) through the labyrinth safely.

Then set your people free.

May 5, 2021

Superficiality

I had my blood test yesterday. Ahead of me in the queue was an angry (not rude) man. He’d waited 2 weeks for his appointment and taken time off work to attend, only to be told “You’re not on our list”.

Testing was a pretty efficient set-up, with 3 people taking samples for 3 people every 5 minutes, so they were able to fit him in.

During my turn I asked what had gone wrong.

“It’s the call centre”, I was told. ‘They send us about 30 people a day, who aren’t on our list of appointments. Sometimes for appointment times that are already taken. Sometimes for children who shouldn’t even be sent here – we can’t handle children here. We do our best to fit people in, but we can’t always do that. It wastes everybody’s time and makes our job miserable. We’ve tried to tell the call centre, but we don’t have the authority.”

On the face of it, centralised booking for several different units at different hospitals should be more efficient. A small team can handle more volume more efficiently, saving costs across all units.

But this only works if the central team are a) incentivised to produce a satisfactory outcome of the entire process; b) have all the information they need, when they need it, to do that job properly, and c) use feedback from people further down the line to improve how it works.

Otherwise all you’ve added to the process is a silo that increases real costs for everyone involved.

There’s a more fundamental error that’s been made here. The people delivering a service should be in control of the customer experience of that service. Either by managing the end-to-end process themselves, or being a key player in its design and continuous improvement.

But I’m guessing that customer experience was probably the last thing on the mind of whoever came up with this, along with a genuine interest in efficiency. Superficial gains were enough for them.

It shows.

April 29, 2021

Footpaths

Processes for people should be more like a footpath than a railway track.

Footpaths allow for more sensitivity to a change in conditions, or a productive diversion, for heavier or lighter traffic.

As long as you all end up in the right place, with the right feeling, it’s good.

Well-worn means you’ve probably got it right, but there’s no need to set that in stone.

February 2, 2021

Hegemonic Narratives

I learned a new concept today: ‘hegemonic narrative’. In plain English, a ‘dominant story’ about why things are the way they are.

Dominant because more or less everyone subscribes to it.

Story because it’s made up.

In fact human history could be said to be one long sequence of hegemonic narratives, each one displacing the previous one, not necessarily for the better. Often benefiting one group of people over others. Beneficiaries therefore have an incentive to keep their story dominant.

They are psychologically useful, because they help us live with contradictions. But they are nevertheless made up.

Much better to try and resolve the contradictions, and create a story that works well for everyone.

The good news is that inside your company at least, you are free to do just that.

For a long, but very interesting article on how such stories work, check out this article: “Explaining the Persistence of Gender Inequality: The Work–family Narrative as a Social Defense against the 24/7 Work Culture“. It’s a fascinating read.