Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: The Autonomous Enterprise

My workflow problem
June 3, 2020

My workflow problem

I’ve long had a problem with ‘workflow’.   It’s taken me a while, but I think I’ve finally worked out why.

Workflow is the application of a pin factory model to service businesses, to professions.   It breaks a process into tiny, individually repetitive steps that can be done faster and faster over time, making the whole process more efficient.

This is great for pins, and was a leap forward when Adam Smith wrote about it in 1776.   Back then, “See a pin, pick it up, then all day you’ll have good luck.” made sense.  A pin was valuable.  You were lucky to find one for free.

Nowadays, we don’t have a shortage of pins, or of other simple things that can be efficiently made using the factory method.   We have made enough garments to clothe the next 4 generations of the entire human race.

We do have a shortage of what’s needed to thrive in the face of enormous  and challenging complexities: empathy, creativity, imagination, judgement and flair.

You can’t make any of those in a pin factory.

The best way to learn
May 21, 2020

The best way to learn

It’s said that the best way to learn is to teach.

I’ve had a couple of conversations recently that have got me thinking about this.  The first was around training people remotely, the other was about franchising.

I think it’s true.

The thing about teaching is that your students don’t know what you know.

They aren’t in your head, and they haven’t been working next to you for the last umpteen years.   In terms of your business, your unique system for making and keeping promises, they know nothing.

That means they ask stupid questions: “What’s one of those?” Why do we use that?” “Why do we do it that way?” “What if we did that instead”.

Good students point out contradictions, anomalies, blind spots.  Things you should have seen, but have never had time to look at.  things you never imagined could be done, that come naturally to them.    This can feel threatening, but really what’s happening is that the value is passing both ways.   They learn from you, you learn from them.   A better business results.

Having to explain something forces us to think about it.   Teaching forces us to make habits explicit, to surface reasoning that we just take for granted, to make our assumptions visible.  It forces us to write down our score, so someone else can learn to play it.   Writing it down allows it to be questioned, validated, improved, until suddenly we are no longer the only people who know how it goes.   Even better, new people take our score and riff on it in new and exciting ways.

You don’t need new students to do this.   You already have them working with you in your business.

Teach them, then let them teach you back.

Investment
May 19, 2020

Investment

We’ve got used to thinking of investment as a purely financial thing, undertaken by shareholders in a company.   A risk taken in the hope that the return will be worth it.

We’ve also got used to the idea that capital investors are the most important investors, and that returns to them should be kept high and constant, because otherwise they’ll take their capital elsewhere.

‘Investment’ carries another meaning though – to put on clothes, especially the ceremonial clothes of office.   In other words to publicly adopt the roles and responsibilities associated with that office.

Looked at this way, there are certainly other investors in a business.  The founders, workers, suppliers, and customers who take a risk with their time, energy and belief, in the hope that the return will be worth it.   These (along with some personal capital investors to be sure), are the people who adopt the roles and responsibilities associated with it.   Who clothe themselves in its values, purpose and ways of doing things.   Who may even wear its uniform, badge, or logo publicly and with pride.

Money isn’t the only thing necessary for the long-term success of a venture.   It certainly isn’t sufficient.

What if we focused our dividends accordingly?

Reading the signals
May 14, 2020

Reading the signals

Quite a while ago, I lost a lot of weight.   I was happy with where I was, so I stopped trying.   I ignored the signals (tightening waistbands, reverting to my old clothes), and refused to even look at the ones that would have told me the brutal truth (the scales, mirrors).

Now I’m back to where I started, doing it all again, with 5 stone to lose instead of only 1.

Don’t judge me.

What signals are you ignoring in your business?  Which are you wilfully blind to?  Which are you not even seeing?

From Recovery to Evolution
May 13, 2020

From Recovery to Evolution

A little while ago, I mused on what might make a good recovery process:

I’ve been thinking about this again, and with a simple addition, this becomes something much more sustainable – a process for evolution as well as recovery:

Maybe we’re always recovering?

Being prepared is much better than trying to predict the future.
May 12, 2020

Being prepared is much better than trying to predict the future.

Yesterday, I caught a repeat of “The Spark” on BBC Radio 4.   A conversation with Margaret Heffernan on preparedness.

There was far too much in this 30-minute programme to summarise here.   I recommend a listen, but here are some of Margaret’s brilliant thoughts on preparing for various eventualities rather than trying to predict which will happen:

  • “Preparedness is a better mindset when you know you are dealing with things that are generally certain, but specificially amibiguous.”   For example, we know epidemics occur, but we don’t know when, where, or exactly what.   We can’t predict, but we can be better prepared by asking questions like this: “If X (or Y or Z or J) happens, what will we wish we had had?”
  • Too much focus on efficiency (as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible, as high a utilisation as possible), is the enemy of preparedness. Cutting out the margins for error, leaves no margin for resilience when you need it.
  • It’s a good idea to separate what’s predicitable from what isn’t, and deal with the two things as separate processes.   Human beings are inherently unpredictable, they can’t and won’t be bureaucratised.  Don’t try.   For truly predictable things use technology.   For the unpredictable stuff (such as dealing with human beings), use human beings, they are much better at using their judgement.
  • Surround yourself with people who are different from yourself.  who don’t see things the way you do.  Who will help you ask this question regularly: “If you were wrong, what would you see?”

And if you want to take preparedness even further, I recommend “Antifragile: things that gain from disorder”, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Purpose
April 29, 2020

Purpose

If there is one thing that human beings like better than making their own individual dent in the universe, it’s being part of something that promises to ma

Mastery
April 28, 2020

Mastery

Humans love learning to the point of mastery, where we can start to pass that learning on to others.

We can’t help ourselves.  If we don’t get the opportunity in school or at work we make our own opportunities.

Don’t believe me?

I challenge you to pick anybody in your circle who has not mastered something well enough to be able to teach you what they know.

You may not think it a skill worth mastering, but it is mastery nonetheless.

Maybe we’ve got work all wrong?   We’re making people seek mastery outside work instead of helping them to find it in their work.

Why is that?

Go!
April 24, 2020

Go!

Now go.

Get started.

Move faster than you feel you should.  Faster than you thought you could.

Not because you’ll get there quicker, not even because you’ll get there.

Because it’s the running, the doing, the moving forward, with others, with people like us, that is the real reward.

This is what it means to be human.