Systems Thinking – Page 32 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

May 11, 2022

Approaching equilibrium

Systems of all kinds can persist for long periods, staying more or less the same. Not static, but always hovering around some equilibrium value, even as they grow.

This happens because of feedback. A change in the equilibrium value triggers a change in the flow of something that affects that value. Like your central heating thermostat, which uses feedback on the actual room temperature to regulate the flow of hot water to your radiators in order to maintain a temperature that feels comfortable to you.

A business is a system too. We’re usually looking to grow it, exponentially if we can. We don’t often think of it as something we want to keep in equilibrium.

But perhaps we should.

A business is a system for making and keeping promises. That means that whatever else we might like to see, the important equilibrium value is how many promises we keep – or perhaps even how many we exceed.

If we all made that our thermostat there’s a good chance that a better kind of exponential growth would take care of itself.

May 9, 2022

Being an ancestor

As I get older, I am more conscious that I am not immortal. It’s quite hard to imagine my life 20 or 30 years from now.

But then, I never did think that far ahead – not even when I could reasonably expect to have another 30, 40 or even 70 years ahead of me.

Would I have made different decisions if I had?

It is of course impossible to foresee the future, so the question would have to be about impact and ripple effects rather than concrete, specific results, but ancestor questions are well worth asking, of one’s self and one’s business:

“What impact do I want to make on my generation?”

“What impact do I want to make on the next generation?”

“What impact do I want to make on the generation after that?;

“And the one after that?”

…

We can’t know how they’ll live.

We can know whether we have made living harder or easier for them.

And it’s not too late to change what we do. Especially if we change together.

May 5, 2022

Beyond urgency

For a long time, paid-for journalism has been in trouble.

It has relied on a model of change that it no longer monopolises. That model is based in acting as a fire alarm: find smoke, shout ‘Fire!‘ and let the outrage build until those in power do something to put the fire out.

The trouble is, anyone can shout ‘Fire‘ on social media. Plus those in power often start fires of their own, as a distraction from the big fire everyone’s worried about. The result is that there’s a lot of outrage out there, and very few fire extinguishers.

There is an alternative. Some call it Solutions Journalism, others Constructive Journalism.

This journalism says it’s no longer valuable enough to simply shout ‘Fire!‘ and expect the problem to be solved, this journalism seeks out people and places who have solved the problem already, finds out how they did it and shares that knowledge with their audience.

This journalism uses knowledge transfer to move the audience “from urgency to agency“.

Why am I telling you this?

One, because The Carbon Almanac is an excellent example of this kind of journalism. Sign up for a Daily Difference newsletter.

Two, because I think this is an excellent model of change for small, purposeful businesses to adopt too.

If you’re struggling to change, instead of shouting ‘Fire!‘ and waiting for the consultancy fire engines to arrive with the usual solution, why not seek out people and places who’ve already done what you seek to achieve, and share that learning with your team?

Even better, why not encourage your team to be the journalists and do the seeking out? Once everyone knows something is possible, it’s easier to see how you can make it happen in line with your own Promise of Value.

This post is mostly a paraphrase of this excellent speech by Professor Jay Rosen. I recommend a read of it.

Meanwhile, here are some questions I’ve extracted for you to assign to your investigative journalists:

What’s working where? (It’s a simple starting point. But so different from, “what’s broken here?”)
Who does it better than we do? (Who in North Rhine-Westphalia, who in Germany, in Europe, or around the world.)
Who has bucked the trend? (Meaning: faced the same problem, got a different result. Also called “positive outliers.”)
How did they find their way to a better outcome? (Bornstein calls this the “detective story.”)
What’s missing from our community that these other communities seem to have?

Go beyond urgency. Construct agency.

April 29, 2022

We are many

A quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead today:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Imagine what we could do if we all got together?

April 28, 2022

The other way around

Of course the Cui Bono? question is worth asking the other way around too.

“Who truly benefits from the way you want things to be?”

That might be why some people are resisting.

April 27, 2022

The scientific method

We constantly observe the world around us. We form certain assumptions about how it works and why it works that way.

But we rarely take things further and actually test those assumptions with an experiment. If we did, we’d find out that they are often incorrect. Which might lead us to draw new conclusions and most importantly take different actions as a result.

“The scientific method” isn’t just for science. It’s a great way to approach building your business ‘on purpose’.

Using it to understand your customers better is a profitable place to start.

April 26, 2022

Instinct

Instinctively, I don’t like being paid by the hour or day. I’d much rather be paid for delivery of a service.

There are a couple of reasons for this. One is a simple dislike of being at someone else’s beck and call. The other is to do with risk.

If I am paid by the hour, and I take longer than expected to deliver the goods, the client pays more. If I take less time than expected, they gain. They are incentivised both to pay me as low a rate as possible and to have me work as fast as possible – perhaps even more hours than we agreed.

These risks are flipped if I am paid for delivery. If I have to put more effort in than I expected, I lose. If I am able to deliver with less effort, I’m the one who gains. I am incentivised to deliver a clear result in as short a time as possible. The client gets whatever it takes to complete the job.

For a business like mine, being paid for delivery makes more sense, because I am in control of the process. Over time I can expect to get better at estimating effort, and slicker at delivery, so over time, I can expect to gain.

For a business that is not in control of the process – like shipping cargo by sail for example, the situation is different. On the whole, ships prefer to be chartered, because they can’t control the weather. There is little opportunity to gain by delivering faster. Being chartered means that even though they can’t gain, they at least don’t lose.

What was counter-intuitive (to me at least) is that this arrangement might be preferable to the client who charters them. Until yesterday.

For one of my clients, Sail Cargo Alliance, the aim isn’t just to ship goods by sail, it’s to connect a worldwide community of small producers, ships, ports, independent shops and customers. For the Alliance, paying for the ship’s time makes perfect sense, because their attitude is collaborative.

OK, they take the risk of the ship arriving late, but having control over the ship’s time creates opportunities for revenue generation that don’t exist if they are simply paying for delivery. For example, they can add passengers to the trip, or if a ship arrives early, they can offer day-sailing trips, or tours, or on-board hospitality. And by sharing any additional revenues with the ship, they might just have created the best of both worlds.

Clearly my instinct is wrong. The answer is not time or delivery, but some mixture of time and delivery that minimises the downside and maximises upside for both parties. That enriches the relationship rather than simply exploiting it. Commerce without the capitalism.

Hmm. Worth thinking about for the next project.

April 25, 2022

Signals

We set up signals in our societies and our businesses to warn us when things might be going wrong.

It is possible that they go off by mistake, or due to causes we didn’t foresee. The systems we live in are complex.

But investigation is always a better bet than simply shutting our eyes.

The least that will happen is that we learn something.

April 21, 2022

Cui bono?

There’s a question worth asking whenever someone says “that doesn’t work” or “we can’t do that”, or “that’s not worth investigating”.

“Who benefits from the way things are right now?”

Those are the people you really need to convince.

April 20, 2022

Just in time

When you’re setting up a client in your systems for the first time, it’s tempting to ask up front for everything you will need for the journey.

Resist.

If your tailor is making you an overcoat, you don’t expect them to measure your inside leg.

Only ask for what you need right now, to get the client started. Otherwise you’ll overwhelm them with unexpected (and to them, unnecessary, perhaps even unnerving) work, to get information that may well have changed by the time you actually need it.

Keep your information gathering aligned with what you’re doing together. That keeps it feeling natural, and you’ll have all the right information when you need it – just in time.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Systems Thinking