Responsible Autonomy – Page 47 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

September 3, 2020

Avoiding Bureaucracy

For Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini the opposite of ‘humanocracy’ is ‘bureaucracy’:

“In a bureaucracy, human beings are instruments, employed by an organization to create products and services. In a humanocracy, the organization is the instrument – it’s the vehicle human beings use to better their lives and the lives of those they serve.”

Here’s a quote from Dee Hock that I think, sums up nicely how we get to ‘bureaucracy’:

“We grow to detest any societal organization in which we have no secure place and can find no meaningful life. We ignore it when we can, circumvent it when we must, destroy it if we are able. An organization that does not provide a secure, equitable, meaningful place for each person of which it is composed is not civilised at all; it is to a greater or lesser degree, tyrannical and barbaric.”

In truth, all organisations are instruments, consciously or unconsciously wielded. As Eric Reis observed to Airbnb’s Brian Chesky:

“The product you make is not your website, it’s not the travel, its not even the delightful experiences, the product is the organisation that brings stakeholders together to produce those outcomes.”

The questions to ask are:

Whose lives are you bettering?
At what cost to the rest of the world?

It seems to me, that if we want to build a truly successful enterprise that will carry on without us, we should maximise the answer to the first, and minimse the answer to the second.

Fortunately, we’ve invented several ways to do that. One of which is mine.

September 2, 2020

Humanocracy

This arrived yesterday evening (see why I need an extension?).

The promise is to “show you how to create an unstoppable movement to create an organization that’s fit for the future and fit for human beings.”

I’m looking forward to reading it, although I suspect it won’t go far enough for me.

I’ll keep you posted.

September 1, 2020

There’s nothing new under the sun

A coal mine isn’t the kind of place that springs immediately to mind when you think of innovative, even revolutionary forms of management, but as the Corporate Rebels shared today, that’s exactly what Eric Trist found at Haighmoor Colliery, way back in the 1940s.

The article is well worth a read, but what really resonated for me were these highlights:

“Miners were recognised for ‘cycle completion’: meaning being jointly responsible for the whole extraction process.”
“The miners not only ran the mining job. They also took care of selling the coal they mined. They were responsible for the product they produced.”
“a reward policy based on a basic wage and a bonus linked to productivity of the group throughout the extraction cycle, rather than a single shift.”
“Each miner at Haighmoor could handle a half-dozen jobs. That meant each could take on multiple team roles.”
“All teams were multidisciplinary.”
because the miners could influence their own work, they continuously innovated.”

Observing these work practices, Eric Trist and his former coal miner colleague, Ken Bamforth, called the whole thing practising “responsible autonomy”.

Sound familiar?

Which begs the question:

If we already know that responsible autonomy works, why aren’t we practising it more often?

August 24, 2020

Invisible processes

The walls of our new extension are going up fast. It’s fascinating to watch how quickly they grow under the bricklayers hands.

In part this is because the bricklayer is good. He’s fast, accurate and meticulous.

But at least as much of the speed is due to the parallel activities of his labourer, who systematically ensures that blocks, bricks and mortar are to hand before the bricklayer needs them. This isn’t as simple as it sounds. As the wall grows, ‘to hand’ moves from atop a stack of blocks, to sat on a hop-up, to set out on a high platform rigged from trestles and scaffold boards.

It’s a whole construction/deconstruction/reconstruction process in its own right, that requires brains as well brawn, yet will leave no trace once the wall is finished. All so the bricklayer can do nothing but exercise his considerable skill.

This labouring role may be lower paid, and lower status, but it is essential if you want to get the most out of a bricklayer. In essence, the labourer’s product is the productivity of the bricklayer.

Perhaps this should inform how this kind of work is rewarded?

August 19, 2020

Mash-ups

Humans love mash-ups. Collisions of disparate ideas to form a new, even more interesting idea. Given the chance, we mash-up all the time – most obviously to make each other laugh.

Surprisingly often, a mash-up leads to a breakthrough, and even more often, these breakthrough mash-ups come from an outsider asking a ‘stupid question’ – “Why can’t I see the picture now Daddy?”, “Why can’t I cast iron the way I used to cast brass?“.

If you’re running a business, you want mash-ups to occur, but not at the expense of delivering on your promises. So how can you achieve a balance?

Keep your Promise of Value tight.
Keep your Customer Experience Score loose.
Recruit from as diverse a pool of experience, mindset, interests and backgrounds as you can.
Admit only those who buy into the Promise.
Leave room for randomness.
Create a process for capturing, testing, building and rewarding mash-ups that help you fulfil your Promise better.
If someone comes up with a great mash-up that doesn’t fit your Promise, help them to turn it into a new business.

Sparked by ‘Rebel Ideas’ by Matthew Syed, recommended and kindly given to me by Nigel Whittaker.

August 17, 2020

Advance notice

As you probably know, I have a bit of a book habit.

I read this one on Saturday, and for now all I’m going to say is that I recommend it.

I hope to share more later, but I’m asking permission first.

Have a great day!

August 14, 2020

The artist’s hand

“They say that truth is naked. I cannot admit this for any but abstract truths; in the arts, all truths are produced by methods which show the hand of the artist.” Delacroix, ‘Journal’.

Your business is your art, your Promise of Value is your truth. Let your people be your fellow artists, and show their hands in the work.

HT to Project Gutenberg for tweeting this. They happen to be a brilliant open source for free e-books.

August 13, 2020

We all make mistakes

It’s impossible to be right all the time, especially in the midst of ‘unprecedented’ happenings.

But it is entirely possible to be transparently fair all the time. Especially if you have a compass to guide decision-making where there is no map.

So, when you see ‘mistakes’ produced by an opaque process following an invisible compass, it’s legitimate, even necessary to ask questions:

Why is it like this?
What does this say about the compass of the people who designed it?
Why isn’t that compass explicit?
What needs to change to make the process fairer and more open next time?

With a clearly visible compass and a fair, transparent process for your business, your people can’t go far wrong. Even when they’re not right.

August 12, 2020

As-is, Should-be

Mozart didn’t write down his music ‘as-is’ before writing it again as ‘should-be’.

Of course not.

Like all composers, Mozart started with what he wanted the audience to hear, the ‘should-be’, translating as closely as he could what he had in his head into musical notes on paper.

I doubt if his first result was the only one.

Once you’ve got your Customer Experience Score written down, it doesn’t matter that it started as ‘should be’. The job now is to make it your ‘as-is’, then to continually evolve it in line with the best ‘should-be’ you and your people can imagine.

August 11, 2020

Idiot-proof

“I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.” Warren Buffet.

There are 2 ways to make a business idiot-proof.

One is to build a business that generates and shares real value, making and keeping promises to customers and continually improving how it does that. All protected from a potential ‘idiot’ at the top, because there is no top. The people who do the business run the business, the way an orchestra plays a symphony, without needing a composer to be present.

The other way is to build and protect a racket, a monopoly (Buffett calls this ‘putting a moat around the business‘), that can’t help but make extraordinary profits, no matter who’s in charge.

The first way takes investment, but for most of us, it’s the affordable option (as well as being the right one).

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Responsible Autonomy