All posts by Simon Black

Teamwork is best – or IS IT?

Group working is one of those topics that is awkwardly both straightforward and complex depending upon how you look at it.

Conventional wisdom sets us to assume that more heads are better than one and this maxim is often used as a justification for working in teams. But is it always a helpful perspective? In the spirit of Change Academy, we need to consider alternative views in order to get a more complete picture.

Cindy Vallance recently posted the question “When are many heads better than one?” This is a sensible question to ask when considering group working. As Cindy points out, sometimes teams are created to simply fulfill a structural need; to fill an office space or to organise a number of individuals under the supervision of a manager. These, as Cindy implies, are not good reasons for organising group working.

Tug of war
A set of clones with the same job is not a recipe for a successful team

What do we really know about team performance? And, if we are honest with ourselves, do groups always work better than individuals?

The answer, surely , is no. Have you ever sat on a committee and wondered ‘why are we all here?’?

Let’s take a sporting analogy. Put five excellent runners into a relay team. How well do they perform? In many cases, really well.

However if I think of the British men’s sprint relay team, in four of the last five Olympics they have been disqualified (1996, 2000, 2008, 2012). In 2004 they won the gold. In each Olympic competition the job is the same and, for the British team over this period, several individuals participated in the team more than once . So why is there such a wide difference between good and poor performances? It is sometimes easy to put it down to a mistake; incompetence or lack of attention, but sometimes the truth lies deeper.

The Ringlemann effect suggests that something different can happen in teams. If people’s personal roles are similar they can be disinclined to put everything into their work (this is a subconscious effect causing ‘free-riding’ rather than deliberate loafing). This effect has been shown in cases where a single worker has been put in a team with ‘non workers’ (i.e. people deliberately faking effort, but not actually doing real work). Even in these instances, the ‘real’ worker is often measured as putting in LESS effort than if they were doing the task on their own. In the classic experiment, assuming that men pulling a rope individually perform at 100% of their ability, apparently two-man groups perform at 93% of the average member’s pull, three-man groups at 85%, with eight-man groups pulling with only 49% of the average individual member’s ability.

So what is the solution? Never work in teams? No this would be a bit foolish, there are better questions…

1. Design team work carefully? Yes

2. Ensure a clear sense of purpose? Yes

3. Establish some reasonable measure of performance or achievement? Yes

4. Agree ways of working together, along with a readiness and willingness to improve ? Of course

5. Encourage trust and mutual respect amongst team members? Yes, but make sure that at its foundation is an understanding of 1-4  above.

So, reverting to my previous blog on teamwork, we must focus on our purpose, our goals, understand our differing roles, agree how we work together at a practical level and look to build positive working relationships based on mutuality and trust.

Like anything in life, if we have a team of people, we need to regularly re-consider the purpose of the team. Do we have a team because it adds to achieving the purpose, or is it just because we have always had a team?

Next time you are in a turgid committee meeting, or your project team has ground to a halt, – have a think about how the group could work better…

 

Further reading:

Beckhard, R. (1972) Optimizing Team Building Effort, J. Contemporary Business.  1:3,  pp.23-32

Ingham, A.G., Levinger, G., Graves, J., & Peckham, V. (1974). The Ringelmann effect: Studies of group size and group performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 371–384.

MacDonald, J. (1998) Calling a Halt to Mindless Change, Amacom, UK

 

 

 

 

Features of a high performing team

In the past I have made a several  links (some more oblique than others) to celebrated efforts and achievements of sportspeople over the past year including Bradley Wiggins, Usain Bolt, and the British Cycling team and the London 2012 Olympics.

Bradford City ‘picked up the ball and ran with it’ by working together, playing to their strengths, committing effort, taking responsibility, keeping discipline, and always believing the dream!

After a pulsating year of sporting moments in 2012 and having previously prodded at the excesses of football management, I simply cannot miss the chance to celebrate the achievements earlier this month by a humble, honest lower league football club. Bradford City FC are close to my heart, having spent many occasions at their Valley Parade home in years gone by and since then, despite a move down south, I have been able to follow their tortuous progress through financial misfortune and near-collapse with nevertheless genuinely  joyful moments amongst a few hundred Bradford faithful as a regular ‘away’ fan down south) …

 In the early weeks of 2013 lowly Bradford City, a club that have been in the doldrums of lower-league football for over 10 years,  set the media alight with successive victories against Premier League opposition in a winning run that has taken them to a major Cup Final for the first time in 101 years. This gives the team a further chance to shine in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley, the national stadium. At the time of their only previous success, winning the FA Cup in 1911 (a week-and-a half after the Titanic had sunk in the North Atlantic), the site at Wembley was still  a rural landscape of  fields and woodland copses. Bradford are the first 4th tier (lowest division) team to reach any final in England for 51 years.  The story is well documented elsewhere, but it is worth noting that Bradford’s entire squad of players was assembled for a total of £7500 of transfer fees – in a world where opposition players in the Premier League teams which were defeated to reach the final cost millions (often tens of millions) –  EACH.

How is this possible? Surely it is a matter of assembling a team of the best, to achieve success? Bradford illustrates that there is an alternative model – to build the best team you can with what you have. And how? To get the team members to prepare and focus on the things that matter. For Bradford this was all about playing to strengths, taking responsibility, keeping discipline, committing effort, working together, and of course always believing that they could achieve the dream! As the team’s winning run extended from August 2012 against lower league opposition through to a thrilling December night against the big-guns of Arsenal and later Aston Villa in the January semi-final, all of the team’s values and actions were validated and rewarded through the results that they achieved together. This builds both self-belief and belonging which enables performance; a difficult blend to achieve purely through big-money signings. In Premier League teams this process usually takes years to achieve – with a lot of waste and at great expense! It is not just a matter of ‘chemistry’, but rather a matter of focus and action.

So  in our teams let’s focus on our goals, our various roles, how we work together at a practical level and how we build positive working relationships based on mutuality and trust.

 

Further reading:

Beckhard, R. (1972) Optimizing Team Building Effort, J. Contemporary Business.  1:3,  pp.23-32

Coppin, A. and Barratt, J. (2002) Timeless Management, Palgrave MacMillan, New York.

Katzenbach, J.R. and Smith, D.K. (1993) The Discipline of Teams, Harvard Business Review,March-April, 111-120.

McNulty, P. (2013) Bradford reaching League Cup final one of greatest football upsets, BBC Sport,23 January 2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21155111

 

Networking: talk, then work (and see the benefits).

It is easy to be busy and to forget the value of building positive working relationships with people. After all, working relationships are often the source of ideas, innovation, encouragement and better use of resources.

Finding time to make proper contact with people can be tricky, especially in roles where “meetings,meetings, meetings” rule, or if you are stuck behind a computer screen. Nevertheless, if we have the right mindset and a clear sense of purpose, we can make the most of personal networking, even if the opportunities are fleeting.

I recall an occasion when a colleague from an operational department picked up an idea with me for developing a training programme. She had previously drafted out a proposal which had been discussed with a couple of  colleagues, but had not yet discussed the idea at senior levels. We both worked up the idea and, with a minimum of scheduled meetings (I can recall three1/2 hour discussions), by simply keeping our bosses in the loop, within 2 months we had  the programme up and running, briefed to managers, marketed to 150+ people (many of whom voluntarily applied for a place with management approval) and the selected cohort had attended the first event. The normal turnaround for this type of activity – about 6-9 months.

How did things work so effectively on this occasion? Well, for one thing the personal enthusiasm of the people involved, secondly, the trust that each person had in delegating the work (and the trust shown by senior stakeholders in allowing us to get on with it) – and thirdly the purposeful use of time when we briefly met or had a conversation on the ‘phone. These behaviours set the tone when engaging other colleagues for support and encouraged a collaborative atmosphere in the project team. The work needed no significant new resources and the administration was hooked into existing procedures and workflow. The advantage  was a 60 – 80% improvement in turnaround time.

Of course networking may involve a host of other things; ideas, innovation, opening  up opportunities in new markets, new career pathways, business partnerships, research collaboration, cost saving opportunities, learning. There is no magic networking chemistry – ALL effective networking behaviours can be learned. If networking fails it is probably because one or both people choose for it to fail either consciously or sub-consciously…or they let the potential impact of the contact to ‘wither on the vine’ through lack of effort.

Networking is not just a social process – it needs to be far more than that in order to work properly. Good work involves the use of knowledge, understanding the psychology of people, understanding how systems work, and responding to the comings and goings of events in an appropriate manner. Networking that just involves chat delivers what it deserves…

Incidentally on a separate note – during the same two-month period described above, I had a contrasting experience. I was involved in various discussions (I lost count of the meetings, but it must have been at least six or seven) with essentially the same types of positive people (so the same positive chemistry SHOULD have been working), to resolve some minor concerns in a half-day training workshop. Now on this occasion maybe I was the problem, but progress in this instance was simply not very productive. Avenues were examined which did not require consideration and assumptions were taken which only served to delay decisions (until the real facts were extracted). This experience reminded me of some observations made in a recent blog which included some interesting ideas (attributed to the likes of Deming) but which were summarised as equations. A few choice ones are shown below:

  •              Opinions+opinions+opinions = opinions
  •              Meetings = opinions x people + documents

And the moral of these equations?   –    None of these activities is real value-adding work.

We need to be diligent in how we use our time. When networking, be purposeful – look to bring something to offer to a discussion as well as have in mind something that you want to get out of it for yourself. Remember that talking together is fine, but working together can be much more rewarding.

Further reading:

Coppin, A. and Barratt, J. (2002) Timeless Management, Palgrave MacMillan, New York.

Deming W.E. (1993) The New Economics, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Restoration, re-invigoration and renewal

Two types of change are commonly experienced at work (or in life) – ‘incremental improvement’ and ‘renewal’. In a previous blog I discussed incremental improvements and change.

Sometimes this terminology gets muddled – people often talk about ‘incremental change’, as if this is to be expected and welcomed, but it risks us accepting uncontrolled or ill-considered changes…

Drifting in a storm of change is a worst-case scenario!

… analogous to the experience of an untethered boat, without power or sail, bobbing across a choppy sea – at the mercy of external tides and winds and its own susceptibility to leak!

To cope better with change we need to anticipate it, by being proactive in improving our service before it is forced upon us and by getting everyone involved in shaping the change and being a part of what needs to happen. It is of course important to know which change to address and when and part of this is informed by involving people who know what is happening on the ground.

‘RENEWAL’, on the other hand, is a much more glamorous cousin; highly visible, demanding ‘out of the box thinking’ (I think this is the correct parlance) and often packaged as ‘strategic’. Each of these aspects can be very useful, but should be handled with care. Many of us will recognise the renewal approach as the preferred option of many a manager (particularly people new into a role):

One only has to think of a new football manager installed at a Premier League club, who ushers players out (‘dead wood’) and in (‘new boys’) for millions of pounds to ‘get the team into shape’, or to ‘have them working my way’.  By the time THAT manager has been fired (often in a matter of months) another ‘new man’ comes in (they usually are men) and does the same thing over again. On occasion the ‘new man’ may re-install players who had previously been in the club, whilst offloading the previous set of new boys…and so the cycle continues. Coincidentally a sacking occurred in the Premier League this week; Chelsea’s manager was hired temporarily in March, formally appointed August and fired in November.

After eight sackings since 2003, Chelsea Football Club now seek a ninth manager in as many years.

This is NOT to say that renewal is bad. Clearly at times it is vital – but it can easily be mis-handled. When well directed and purposeful, renewal is essential and can have significant impact. The caveat is that when it is not purposeful nor well-directed it is causes disruption (or worse).

So how do we avoid the problems? One major problem with many efforts at renewal and incremental improvement is that it is not really renewal at all, but simply an attempt at copying the previous experience of particular managers or other organisations. Whilst this appears perfectly plausible, attempts at applying methods from one place to another may not work. This lack of success is not just about people, but about the complex needs of different users (customer, clients etc), systems and the way that work is organised. Rather than copying, it is much better for teams to examine their users needs and the work they do to deliver the service. At that stage, use that new knowledge to make decisions about change – which may be incremental or may involve more significant renewal. Well-focused, well-thought out effort will enable change to have a better and lasting impact.

And as for meeting the changing demands of a vibrant, challenging world – what can we really do to be effective? Well, with the right effort and focus, even a tiny turtle hatchling can negotiate an ocean…

 

BBC Sport (2012) Roberto Di Matteo sacked by Chelsea after Juventus defeat,  21 November 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20423905

MacDonald, J. (1998) Calling a Halt to Mindless Change, Amacom, UK.

Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom from Command and Control, Vanguard Press, Buckingham, UK.

 

How quickly can you build a new spirit of change? Lessons from London 2012

One of the interesting background stories from the London 2012 games has been the clear build up of enthusiasm by the public and their engagement with the games, its values, the experience and excitement of the competitions, support for the athletes and the appreciation for the venues and facilities. It is easy to forget in the afterglow of what has been, arguably, the best games in Olympic and Paralympic history, that this enthusiasm was not always apparent in the public or in the media.

I remember back in 2005 when the bid was announced by the International Olympic Committee. I was working in a college with hundreds of young people present. Yet I could only find one other person, an older staff member (who I heard scream out in delight from down the corridor when the announcement was made on the BBC) who was remotely enthusiastic about the winning bid – even the young people were unimpressed. Of course few can forget the impact and shock of the London bombings the following day, but the actual build up to the whole event thereafter remained low key – even the post Beijing festival in St James’ Park seemed a tiny bit lame (performances by ‘M People’ and ‘Scouting for Girls’ spring to mind).

Subsequent years saw a progression of non-stories (about hitting budgets and targets with little to moan about). Various celebrity charity cycle rides which aimed to culminate in a finish at the then-to-be-completed Olympic Park where left stranded next to hoardings and barriers, unable to enter the site due to ‘Health and Safety’. Initially there were worries about who would take over the stadium and how facilities would be maintained and the increasing costs to taxpayers. Later, when the ticketing system came on line, there was a tangible sense of cynicism – would the Games just be the preserve of the wealthy, merely rolling its customers over in a marketing runaround… and what the heck should MY family-of-four do with the disappointment of just two tickets to the women’s volleyball?

Wind the clock forward to 2012 itself and the sight of David Beckham traveling with an entourage to Greece to collect the Olympic flame sniffed a little of a media circus (would he even be in the GB football team?). At that stage the prospect of the Olympic torch touring around the country seemed a little…well…desperate.

But what actually happened? When the torch relay started out thousands upon thousands of people turned out to watch it. Slowly across the country more and more people wanted to be a part of the experience. This is partly a cultural phenomenon in the UK – ‘being there’ – but there did appear to be genuine enthusiasm from people who went, a surprising sense of belonging shared with family and friends (my parents stumbled upon the relay at Mount Snowdon by complete accident, but were genuinely caught up in the excitement of the event).

Despite this, as the Games came closer, the media doom-mongers jumped on security shortfalls, controversial anti-aircraft missile sites and rumours of ticket touting. In the preliminary football matches (played in the days before the opening ceremony) there was tangible delight in how the South Korean flag was presented for the North Korean women’s football team at Hampden Park stadium. A few days later and outcry followed apparent swathes of empty seats at venues in the early days of the Games.

But somehow the Games came together in spectacular fashion. One great surprise being the impact of volunteer ‘games makers’ who were the engine room for festival spirit and a warm welcome. Spectator interest grew –  I witnessed 80,000 people turning up to watch women’s football match – unheard of in the history of the sport.

The Games were a success on pretty much every front.

In the lull between the Olympics close and the Paralympics there were attempts to bleakly reflect on the stars who had refused to perform at the closing ceremony (Led Zeppelin, Manic Street Preachers, Elton John) although most of the reasons were legitimate. There was a suspicion that frankly, the Paralympics would fail to ignite the same feeling of excitement (what with tricky ticketing procedures, lack of ATM machines for the blind etc, etc, etc).

But somehow the Paralympics DID raise the same spirit and enthusiasm. The whole 2012 experience was a fantastic festival of sport. How on earth was this possible? It seems that we can learn a few things:-

A long term vision
Sebastian Coe’s team somehow generated a clear vision of the event and its style; even the garish logos, mascots and colour schemes (blue hockey pitches? Rather ‘un-Olympic’, surely!) really did work

A strong sense of values
The volunteers embodied this in their behaviour and support of the public – and it rubbed off on the people visiting the events

A belief in the user community
The organisation aimed to make things straightforward for spectators; you had a train pass but no-one checked it – there was trust. Event organisers understood that spectators were part of the event, not just bystanders or observers. The athletes themselves were made welcome and provided with excellent services.

A healthy avoidance of other agendas
The focus was on the games, rather than politics or (mostly) economics. Protest and dissent were not so much quelled, but rather left to look out of place. Interestingly the Games appeared not to be a good platform for launching any kind of lobbying.

A consistent message built over time
The sense of what the Games represented was built up over time, but the core issues always endured.

Encouragement and feedback
Along the way the team needed to know that they were on track, on budget, the GB sportspeople needed to know that they were building their competition performances ready to ‘peak’ at the right time. Operational teams used test events and scrutinised feedback. Plenty of learning was applied in the build-up and throughout the Games (even the security procedures were changed over time – if you observed them closely).

Of course this is not a definitive checklist for navigating change, but it is worth consideration.

Read more:

Covey, S. (1989) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Shuster, New York, NY.

Herrero, L. (2006) Viral Change, meetingminds, UK.

Senge P. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, Doubleday, New York.

Joy in work: avoiding the Olympic hangover

As we reflect on the joy of the Olympics and Paralympics of London 2012 we are faced with the potential of post-summer blues. How do we make sure that our return to the familiar  work routine is not accompanied by feeling flat?

Whilst trawling through some old reading materials I stumbled across an often overlooked principle of management:  ‘joy in work’, originally discussed by W Edwards Deming (1993).

When we think of work, what is ‘joy’ or indeed ‘happiness’, or ‘fulfilment’ or ‘success’?  The topic of joy has been revisited by psychologists and practitioners alike (e.g. Bakke, 2005; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) and our understanding of well-being, motivation and performance at work is now increasingly informed by both neuroscience and psychology.

Csikszentmihalyi suggests that in seeking joy ‘only direct control of experience, the ability to derive moment-by-moment enjoyment from everything we do, can overcome obstacles to fulfillment’.’ In doing so we are able to get ‘in the zone‘ (or ‘flow’ as Csikszentmihalyi labels it). He argues that we should organise work into flow-producing activities and by implication, eliminate obstacles to flow. In Deming’s words, these obstacles are the ‘system conditions’ that prevent people from having influence over the results and outcomes of their work.

At work the flip-side of joy is stress (and distress). It is not a surprise to find recent research that suggests a link between stress and  a lack of control over your job. This relates to all jobs, not just ‘high powered’ executive jobs. Just this week The Lancet published one such paper (see the BBC link below).

One task in creating a true service culture is to put decision-making authority at the level of the people who do the work, so that they can respond to a variety of customer needs at the point of contact. Being able to make a difference for the people you are serving  is often cited by colleagues as a key part of enjoying work. However, to get an organisation to entrust that level of involvement and autonomy in its staff is a significant challenge…

What are we up to next week?

 

Further reading:

BBC NEWS, Work stress ‘raises heart risk’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19584526

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: the psychology of optimal experience, Harper Perennial, New York.

Deming W.E. (1993) The New Economics, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Olympic success & continuous improvement: accumulation of small gains.

Having sneaked the Tour de France success of Bradley Wiggins into my last blog I cannot resist a reference to the London 2012 Olympics. Team GB’s successes have be encapsulated by the achievements of the track cycling team which virtually swept the board in the velodrome. Members of other national teams questioned how this level of achievement was possible.

Consistent excellence – but how?

I am no cyclist, but for what it is worth I can recall the machine-like efficiency of the East German (GDR) athletics teams of the late 70s and early 1980s, particularly the dominance of the women (there was a similar story in the Olympic swimming pools during that era). A decade or so of women’s athletics was dominated by the stereotypical ‘East German shot putter’. Sadly it was a factory driven on the fuel of anabolic steroids; after reunification of Germany the coaches, who had fed drugs to thousands of unwitting athletes, were discovered and convicted of intentional bodily harm of athletes, including minors. The coaches had attempted to impose control on the athletic system by introducing a new approach (systematic drug-based training  programmes), but ultimately they failed themselves and tragically failed the athletes in their charge, many of whom suffered lifelong side-effects from the drug programme.

Most certainly, GB cycling’s head coach Dave Brailsford has achieved success without resorting to the approach of the former GDR coaches. He has used a better way. Instead of imposing a command-and-control structure on his athletes, he has developed a ‘system’ and more importantly, he appears to be applying systems thinking in the way that he manages the team. Every part of the team; cyclists, coaches, physiotherapists, equipment, clothing, catering, hotels, planning, finance, even the families of the athletes are considered part of that system.

“It was attention to detail that gave us the advantage over the other teams. We considered everything, even the smallest improvements, to give us a competitive edge. It was the accumulation of these small details that made us unbeatable.” Dave Brailsford, Team GB

Big leaps are an accumulation of many small improvements

The smallest things can be significant influencers.  For example, each British cyclist has to bring his or her own pillow and mattress to a championship. A minor detail, but it is all about a much bigger factor – ‘sleep’, which governs athlete well-being, recovery and preparation. Being settled with the right pillow means more hours of comfortable sleep which impacts race performance. A pillow does not guarantee a good night’s sleep, but it improves the chances and the possibility of a fresh athlete on the day of the race.

So what does this mean for us in progressing our changes and improvements? It suggests to me that any organisation would benefit from a culture of learning and continuous improvement; work on what you CAN influence in the reasonable hope that it will overcome the factors over which you have no influence. As Juran (1989) said – focus on the vital few rather than the trivial many to achieve your purpose then, as Senge (1990) urges, always keep an open mind to unexpected outcomes and be ready to understand what else needs to be done to improve.

Juran J. (1989) Juran on Leadership For Quality,The Free Press, NY

Senge P. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, Doubleday, New York.

 

Why the long wait? A ‘tour’ of competence

Winning ‘le Tour’ starts with the first wobble

It has been encouraging to see some positive action coming through this summer with new people being engaged in change activities. In our experience this year the Change Academy team has noticed that, on occasion, things have moved more slowly than expected in our first year. Is this normal?

We should be encouraged to hear that experienced practitioners often see that change efforts go through a ‘lull’. This appears to be caused by a typical learning curve experienced by people going through organisational transformation (Scholtes 1998). This can be attributed to the steps made by people experiencing the change.

If we challenge ourselves with new concepts, we are faced with the question – how do we do this? We move from a state of ‘unconscious incompetence’ (we didn’t know that we didn’t know) into ‘conscious incompetence’ (now we KNOW that we don’t know). It’s like learning to ride a bike; until we sit on it and make our first push forwards (and start wobbling, panicking and falling) we don’t really understand that we don’t know how to do it. With new experience and insight, now we truly KNOW that we don’t know how to ride! That experience leads us to consciously learn more: to balance and shift our weight, to steer (but not over-steer!), to pedal left and right.

Steps to competence – (Adapted from Drejer, 2000)

 

At that point it appears that people can sit in a lull, where we mull over how to put the new concepts, ideas and learning  into action. Scholtes suggests this lull can take a year.

 

Deming is more frank:

 “It does not happen
all at once.
There is no instant pudding.”

However, once people have got their heads in gear (I know, another cycling analogy) thereafter they are able, with conscious effort, to apply the new thinking in their work. Over time, with continued effort, this new level of competence becomes unconscious – a habit. As long as we keep our eyes open and purposeful in our efforts, we will not slip into complacency. Instead our proficiency will progress into expertise and we can look for other challenges.

More reading:

Drejer, A. (2000),”Organisational learning and competence development”, The Learning Organization, Vol. 7 Iss: 4 pp. 206 – 220

Scholtes, P. (1998), The Leader’s Handbook: A guide to inspiring your people and managing the daily workflow, New Yok: McGraw-Hill.

Keep managing change – but deal with the issues

It is important to focus on relevant priorities when navigating through change. Few things are more irritating to people than being forced to implement changes which don’t deal with the issues. Consider the things that might really occupy people’s minds;

* what does it mean for me?

*are my ideas being heard?

* will things be better?

*will work be more effective?

*do we agree that these are priorities?

* will new costs replace the old ‘bad’ ones?

*will users’ complaints be addressed?

*will changes add any real value?

*will this just create more layers of ‘work’?

If we ignore obvious issues we risk establishing a norm where honesty is avoided in conversations. This leads to people wrongly assuming that honesty should be traded-off against ‘support for change’ such that people fall into ‘towing the party line’.  Unfortunately, over time, a lack of openness undermines trust. More fundamentally, there are more immediate operational effects, since filtered discussions block learning and improvement. Previously we have pointed out that (quoting Basil Fawlty) the ‘bleedin’ obvious’ can be unhelpful. This is true if noticing the obvious is not followed by thinking about the issues- seeking symptoms not causes.

It would be more helpful to stop ignoring the ‘elephant in the room’; we should stop pressing on regardless or merely  ‘just doing our best’ in the face of genuine difficulties. Nevertheless, it does take effort to change; we need new types of knowledge and skills. People need to establish new ways of thinking and working, to share ideas, to identify and test recommendations, to communicate those ideas and implement relevant action. The good news is that all of these things can be learned.

There are also some useful ways to analyse problems which help to identify priorities, such as 80/20 thinking (see Barratt and Coppin 2002), which Joe Juran was the first to identify as a “universal principle” applicable to many fields; focus on the ‘vital few’ rather than the ‘trivial many’. It is helpful to be ready to seek knowledge (and get some hard data) before plunging headlong into well-intentioned but mis-directed effort.

Read more:

Coppin, A. and Barratt, J. (2002) Timeless Management, Palgrave MacMillan, NY

Juran J. (1989) Juran on Leadership For Quality,The Free Press, NY

 

 

 

What does ‘good’ look like?

Usain Bolt didn’t fit the ‘norm’ for championship sprinters, but his performances redefined ‘what good looks like’

Early in my career I was fortunate enough to work with some very good change experts who introduced me to some very useful ideas which have proven to be very enduring.

One perspective was to understand ‘what good looks like’. Although essentially straightforward, this is not about the obvious. In the world of work, what ‘good looks like’ is about how ‘good’ actually works. Good is good because it is effective (not because it is trendy or fits current norms).

Look beyond the outward signs of ‘good practice’ (i.e. methods) and seek the inward signs: symptoms versus causes, stability and control versus instability and chaos,  integrity versus game playing and politicking.

The best change leaders engage people’s attitudes and mindsets before discussing methods; they are able to engage with feelings and emotions. Human beings are emotional entities and, to put it bluntly, we don’t behave rationally. This happens because we process logic through the intricate filters of emotion and experience. If we ignore emotions of working people, we are unlikely to get their support. Charles Jacobs (2009) suggests that we engage people with the story of change, not merely the logical argument. Why? “Because people are more likely to change when the motivation comes from within, and when we ask rather than tell” (Jacobs 2009).

We need to emotionally own and engage with the change on our own account. As Coppin and Barret (2002) put it, “whether we believe we can  or we can’t, we’re right” – we need people who choose to make change happen. They remind us of the words of George Bernard Shaw:

“People who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

Or to paraphrase Ghandi: “…be the change you want to see in the world.”

Read more here:

Coppin, A. and Barratt, J. (2002) Timeless Management, Palgrave MacMillan, NY

Jacobs, C.J. (2009) Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science, Penguin Group Portfolio, NY