Responsible Autonomy – Page 42 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

February 9, 2021

Beyond startup

I’m a big fan of ‘The Lean Startup’, which I’d sum up as follows:

“The job of a startup is not to make money. It’s to find out what the market really wants.”

In other words, starting a business is about testing, refining and re-testing until you find what delivers real value, and so makes you money.

The trouble is, this can take years. There’s no shame in that. It’s just that most of us do this in an undocumented and somewhat unconscious way, internalising our findings as we go.

This means that when the time comes to expand our capacity, to meet the demand we’ve identified and finally start making the money, we struggle to communicate this vital information – who we are for, what we promise them, and how we deliver on that – to the people we need to work with, and that can lead to stunted growth.

The first step to remedying that is consciousness, which is why The Lean Startup is such a help. But what about after startup?

Here’s my solution:

Purposely design your business as a system for making and keeping promises, and improving how you do that:

That way, everyone involved in your business can stay conscious. Even after you’ve gone.

February 1, 2021

The Disappearing Boss

I’ve met hundreds of small business owners, but I’ve yet to meet one who set out to be a Boss. Or at least a Boss of more than one person.

We embrace the challenge of starting a business, of finding customers, but we become Bosses reluctantly, sometimes half-heartedly, not always effectively.

Sometimes the experience of being the Boss of other people is so painful we joyfully go back to being the Boss of just ourself.

The trouble with that of course, is that the potential to create ever more value disappears along with the role we dislike so much.

There is another way to disappear as a Boss.

Instead of walking away, make yourself blend in. Enable your people to act more like Bosses, more like you.

After that it’s the more the merrier.

If you’d like to learn more about how, there’s a little welcome treat from me: Sign up for The Disappearing Boss Newsletter

January 29, 2021

Swarms

Swarms look like an attractive option for decentralisation. After all, “Social insects work without supervision. In fact, their teamwork is largely self-organized, and coordination arises from the different interactions among individuals in the colony. Although these interactions might be primitive (one ant merely following the trail left by another, for instance), taken together they result in efficient solutions to difficult problems (such as finding the shortest route to a food source among myriad possible paths). The collective behavior that emerges from a group of social insects has been dubbed ‘swarm intelligence.'” (Corporate Rebels blog ‘Reinventing work‘)

As you know, I’m all for self-organisation, but for me it has to emerge from autonomy and a shared purpose. Ant colonies work through programming. Individual ants don’t get much say. I’d rather be a goose.

A different kind of swarming showed up this week around GameStop shares. Bottom-up collaboration between individuals.

The queen ants of Wall St. didn’t like it at all.

January 25, 2021

Mechanical ecosystems

Let’s look at the human body. Simpler, less tightly-coupled joints are held in place by muscle and cartilage, combining rigidity and strength with flexibility and adaptability. Although there is a ‘standard’ bone shape, tolerances are high, accommodating a wide range of variation in components – both across a population and within a single individual. Growth is allowed for.

At the same time, possibilities are constrained by the surrounding muscles. If there is too much play in a joint, strengthening muscles will help. If there is too little play, stretching and loosening them will allow more movement. Remediation is possible without taking anything apart, or even stopping – all that’s needed to keep things in good order is a healthy variety of movement.

Perhaps this is the sweet spot between machine and ecosystem we should aim for in a business?

January 22, 2021

Ecosystems

The thing that makes ecosystems different from machines is that they are made up of autonomous, interdependent and loosely coupled components, which may themselves be ecosystems.

Autonomy allows evolution in the component. Loose coupling means that the ecosystem can tolerate a good deal of evolution before it breaks. Interdependence gives feedback to evolving components, constraining or encouraging variation, and, in the end, allowing the ecosystem itself to evolve.

Actually, it’s not really possible to break an ecosystem, but it can evolve into something that becomes hostile to one or more of its components. So the question for owners who want to build an ecosystem rather than a machine, is how to keep it in balance, without stifling creativity?

Maybe the answer is to explore something between a machine and an ecosystem?

January 21, 2021

Building precision

When you’re putting together a machine that needs to run without you, precision engineering is key. Each component must fit tightly to the next, in exactly the right position in order to perform a single highly specific function, and no other.

The upside of this approach is efficiency, durability and a kind of austere beauty. Standardised parts are simpler to mass-produce and easy to replace. You can reach a much larger market. And the whole thing runs as we say, ‘like clockwork’.

The downside is that building a machine takes a lot of upfront investment, and when new technology comes along, that highly-engineered investment turns itself into a pile of scrap. This is true of software machines too.

So maybe the answer is to take our cue from nature and build ecosystems instead?

January 18, 2021

Devolution

Often, when we think about delegation, we’re thinking about merely handing over execution to someone else. We’ve already worked out what needs to be done, all they have to do is reproduce that. This somewhat mechanical form of delegation works well for really simple and generic tasks such as answering the phone, booking meetings, or filling in forms, or even for generic functions such as preparing annual accounts, fulfilment, distribution, even marketing.

But for what really weighs down a business owner, delegating execution doesn’t help much.

I remember my mum telling me, when as a child I offered to go shopping for her “The shopping is the least of my worries – I still have to think about what we’re going to eat, plan the meals, and write out the list. That’s the hard bit.”

What we really want to be delegating is the thinking, the decision making – in other words, the management. And that’s hard, because it means giving up power, entrusting business outcomes to other people. It means devolution.

But devolution is what really pays off. If my siblings and I had all taken turns to ‘manage’ the household, or taken responsibility for different parts of it, I’m sure that our family horizons and opportunities would have been broadened. 9 heads – even childish ones – are always better than 1.

The good news is that as business owners we have an advantage over mum, in that we’re dealing with adults we’ve selected for shared values, principles and beliefs. Who will welcome the ability to step up and lead.

Especially if given a score to follow while they (and you) get used to the idea.

January 14, 2021

Fractals

I was delighted to see Matt Black Systems feature again in this week’s Corporate Rebels blog. I’ve told their story so often, since I visited them back in 2012.

I’m even more delighted to see that they offer consulting on how to apply their fractal model for businesses.

The fundamental thing that makes that model work, as I discovered on my visit, is responsible autonomy. Enabled by process. Rewarded by profit.

That makes it a natural model that can work in any business.

They’ve also published a book. It’s been ordered. Of course.

January 13, 2021

The problem with empowerment

The problem with ’empowering’ people, is that it implies a transfer of power from someone who has it to someone who doesn’t.

Why don’t they have it already? How come you have it to give? Where did yours come from? How is it maintained?

Everyone has power. They don’t always have the autonomy to exercise it.

Autonomy is much more powerful than empowerment. Which is why it’s scary for the currently powerful. And it’s a fairer bet for everyone.

HT to Gustavo Razzetti for the prompt.

January 7, 2021

A technology for thinking

One of the great reasons for reading so much on so many subjects (a fact which is being brought home to me as we bring our books back into the house) is that you stumble across stuff that helps, that you would never have gone looking for.

Aeon and it’s sister-publication Psyche are two of the my favourite places for stumbling across interesting things.

This week it was this article from Nana Ariel:

Talking out loud to yourself is a technology for thinking

It’s obvious once you think about it.

And it’s why a good first step for capturing a process is to try to explain it to someone else.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Responsible Autonomy