Discipline makes Daring possible. – Page 80 – Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

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 19, 2021

How to capture a business process: Step 2

Step 2 of capturing a Business Process is to work out where it really starts.

A good rule of thumb is to think about where the ‘thing’ you’re dealing with – the ‘Noun’ in your process’s name – gets created, from the perspective of the business. These are good questions to ask:

If the thing is created outside the business, where does it first come into contact with it?
If the thing is created inside the business, where does that happen? Is that where it should happen?

You can ask similar questions to find where your process really ends:

If the thing passes through the business, when does it leave?
If the thing only exists inside the business, where does it get destroyed, or archived?

It’s helpful to think about the process from its real beginning to its real end, because that’s how many opportunities for improvement can be identified, without having to go to the trouble of documenting the entire thing first. It gives you a shortcut, if you like.

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.

Self-determination

I’ve spent the whole of the day re-setting and rebuilding my computer. Windows simply refused to restart. No reason was given, no error messages, no hint of what might have caused it, just an escalating series of interventions that culminated in a factory reset.

That’s my day gone. I don’t have a choice. My laptop is infrastructure. I need it to work.

Imagine if corporations like Microsoft decided to do that to us on purpose.

It’s easy to miss where power really lies.

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 12, 2021

Meeting Spec

Specifications highlight the difference between value creators and value extractors brilliantly.

Value creators treat specifications as minima. They’re always looking to see far they can go above and beyond, within the time and financial constraints they face. For them the spec is a starting point.

Value extractors, on the other hand, view specs as maxima. They’re always looking to see how little they can get away with, how much they can bend the definitions, while still being able to say they’ve met the specification. For them the spec is the bar, and they’re always trying to lower it.

Extractors win in the short term. But the future belongs to the creators. Especially if they collaborate with each other.

The picture is 2 days worth of lunches for a Finnish schoolchild during lockdown last year.

January 11, 2021

A virtuous flywheel

I love it when somebody else finds ways to say things better than I can. Here’s a great post from Corporate Rebels exploring how 2 very different companies found similar ways to turnaround and then grow:

3 Principles To Run A Company Sensibly

“both were motivated to adopt their unique methodologies to rescue the struggling companies they were leading. They wanted to save the jobs of people in their organizations. They thought this could be achieved by giving all an understanding of how the businesses were run—and then involve them in improving them. Their way of saving jobs became a new way to create jobs. These new jobs created new wealth. This wealth, was then shared with those who created it in the first place: all those in the company.”

In other words, they created a virtuous flywheel that didn’t depend on the bosses.

Sounds sensible to me. Flywheels get going faster when everyone pushes in the same direction.