Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Systems Thinking

Wasted effort
April 17, 2019

Wasted effort

It’s easy to get very excited about increasing efficiency through digitalisation, automation and AI.

But in the excitement we can forget that by ‘increasing efficiency’ what we are really trying to do is reduce ‘waste’, or to put it better, ‘wasted effort’.

In Lean, ‘wasted effort’ falls under 3 categories:

  1. ‘Mura’ or wasted effort due to variation
  2. ‘Muri’ or wasted effort due to overburdening or stressing the people, equipment or system.
  3. ‘Muda’ also known as the “seven forms of wasted effort”

Muri seems like the kind of wasted effort we should always try to eliminate (and interestingly, is the least talked about).

Otherwise, what makes effort wasted?

Quite simply that the customer is not willing to pay for it.

This seems blindingly obvious. Less obvious is the necessary implication – that if a customer is willing to pay for effort, it is not wasted.

So if a certain type of customer is happy to pay extra to be treated differently, this is not Mura. If a customer is willing to pay to have their papers picked up in person, this is not Muda.

The customer’s perception of value is your source of profit. Don’t throw it out with the bathwater.

Rules
March 1, 2019

Rules

How far can you take the idea of a guitar, and still end up with something recognisable as a guitar? … Read More “Rules”

Roundabouts
February 28, 2019

Roundabouts

Roundabouts depend on self-government. Drivers just need to follow a few simple rules: give way to traffic coming from the right; don’t get on the roundabout unless you can get off; signal left or right before you get on; signal left before you come off.

If the rules are followed, roundabouts prevent gridlock at busy times, without slowing down traffic the rest of the time.

Lately though, people seem to have forgotten how to use roundabouts. Maybe they weren’t told the rules; maybe they are used to different rules; maybe they don’t think the rules apply to them, or at least not right now, when they are in a hurry.

The problem is that if roundabout culture continues to change in this way, we will lose self-governance. Roundabouts will be replaced by traffic lights, and make things worse for everyone.

This is how culture changes. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, through daily usage, until the system has to be re-shaped around it.

For good or bad, we should at least do this with awareness, and perhaps even on purpose.

Self-Orchestration
February 27, 2019

Self-Orchestration

Orpheus is an orchestra without a conductor.

That doesn’t mean they are directionless, they have a score that tells them what to play.

That doesn’t mean they are mechanical, a core group guides the interpretation for every piece they play, and that core group changes every time.

That doesn’t mean they are homogenous, many players dip in and out, although a minimum number of experienced players ensure the Orpheus promise is kept for every performance.

Being conductorless doesn’t mean they are leaderless, it means everyone has to step up and take their turn at leading.

There’s always another way of succeeding. It just needs to be thought through.

Orpheus (the orchestra) has been doing this for more than 40 years.

Adjustments
February 26, 2019

Adjustments

In a complex evolving system, the impulse to change often comes from outside. Something is felt at the edges and creates a kind of tension that can only be relieved by making some sort of adjustment.

It pays to make your edges sensitive to these tensions and to make the process of adjustment as quick and as easy as possible.

In a murmuration of starlings this happens through a small number of simple rules that each bird follows.

It ought to be possible to come up with something similar for a business.

It would probably look different for every business, but I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t involve waiting for instructions from the top.

Exceptions
February 22, 2019

Exceptions

Exceptions are where it pays to treat everyone the same. By which of course I don’t mean “computer says no”.

Much better to have a ‘golden rule’ to fall back on that enables anyone on your team to deal with the unexpected in a way that shows you absolutely stand by the promise that you make – even if the exception in question isn’t actually a customer.

Standardisation enables brilliant exception-handling, because it takes care of the routine and so frees people up to be human.

Handling exceptions brilliantly, as a human being, creates fans.

Standardisation
February 21, 2019

Standardisation

‘Standardisation’ often results in every customer being treated the same – whether they like it or not.

To my mind, a better way of looking at standardisation is that it is about treating the same kind of customer in the same kind of way – and of course, in a way that delivers on the promise you’ve made to them before they bought..

So if, for example, you have 4 different services, you could design 4 delivery processes. They may have a lot of activities in common, but by designing a process for each service, you’re making sure the process is easier for everyone to follow – neither you nor your customer is being made to do unnecessary work.

It may even be the case that different people on your team prefer delivering one kind of service to another, so splitting them means you can always have the best person for the job.

Of course there will always be exceptions, so room has to be left for these to be handled in a way that still delivers on the promise, but they should really be exceptions.

The key to all of this, is to start from the customer’s shoes.

The interesting thing is that, in my experience, getting it right from the customer’s perspective, actually makes things much easier and more profitable to run.

Leeway – but not complete freedom
February 17, 2019

Leeway – but not complete freedom

Quilts have often been made collaboratively, especially in America, where the idea of making a quilt in components (called blocks) really took off. This method meant a quilt top could be assembled very quickly, since the production of blocks was effectively parallelised. If you wanted a bigger quilt, you simply enlisted more friends.

Once the component blocks were completed, they were sewn together to make the top, which was then tacked together with the filling and backing layers. Then everyone got together again to quilt the 3 layers into a single unified whole – the finished quilt.

As well as speeding up the making, this block method allows considerable leeway to the individual contributors. In this Friendship quilt, each contributor has chosen their own block design, but they’ve clearly been given a colour scheme to work with, and at least some fabrics have been shared – its leeway, but not complete freedom.

The result is a bedcover that looks coherent, but is still lively and full of interest. An excellent example of balancing tight rules with interpretive latitude.

Those quiltmakers knew a lot about creative collaboration.

Process
January 30, 2019

Process

What springs to mind when I use the word ‘process’ in conversation with people is something boring and robotic – … Read More “Process”