"70% of organizational change efforts fail to meet their objectives"
Read MoreDynamic Dialogues: Some of My Favorite Facilitation Techniques
94% of employees attribute their most successful collaboration experiences to effective facilitation techniques in workshops and meetings (Gallup, 2021).
Yet, many leaders are still in the dark when it comes to unlocking the full potential of their teams. Below are some of the most popular workshop facilitation techniques that have transformed organizations around the world. They are created by industry experts like Juanita Brown, David Cooperrider, and Edward de Bono, who've revolutionized the way we collaborate and problem-solve.
Read MoreOrganizational Homeostasis
The human body is at homeostasis if our body temp is at 37C, blood sugar is between 80 and 120 and blood pressure is between 90/60 and 120/80mmHg. Our bodies maintain homeostasis through a series of feedback loops that get triggered when we are outside of this range and are managed by control centers. This is all managed by the hypothalamus, the CEO of the control systems.
Staying chronically outside these ranges results in diseases and eventually death.
This got me thinking. Do complex organizations also have homeostasis? If so, what are the healthy markers: Low attrition(<10 percent), Positive cash flow and NPS > 70.
For your organization, division, team, or family:
What are the homeostatic measures
Are you currently at homeostasis?
What are the feedback systems in place to ensure you are in homeostasis?
Two Types of Resistence
I have been diagnosed as being pre-diabetic and since have gone down a rabbit hole of learning and self-diagnosing.
It seems I have developed two types of resistance: Insulin Resistance and Medical Advice Resistance.
Medical Advice Resistance
I am a healthy 44-year-old who exercises almost every day and has relatively low body fat. Despite that, the speed at which doctors will prescribe medicine is shocking to me. I don’t blame them, I blame a system that does not give them the time to do route cause analyses and a system that prioritizes quick fixes by way of medication.
"your the worst kind of patient." Said one doctor to me. You won’t just do what I say and you question everything.
One doctor suggested that I try Metformin to control my blood glucose. I researched this wonder drug and noticed it not only can help regulate blood sugar levels but also has studies that show that it extends life.
Not only can I solve my blood sugar problem, but I can also live longer.
That’s until I happed from another doctor and Ph.D. that cited studies that recommend against metformin when the patient exercises.
It seems for every doctor, there is a doctor with an equal and opposite opinion.
While I have a healthy resistance to the medical profession, I love when I find a doctor who is not only passionate about a subject but willing to take the time to really understand the context. I don’t believe they are motivated by money, but I find they are usually not cheap.
Insulin Resistance
While on the subject of resistance, my current working theory is that I have developed insulin resistance. which basically means that my body can’t effectively deal with the sugar(glucose) created by my liver so it stays elevated in my bloodstream. To deal with the blood sugar, my pancreas releases a hormone called insulin to deal with the blood sugar. Insulin either converts the glucose into fat and stores it in my love handles or helps get it into the cells. This process reduces the blood sugar levels and it signals to the pancreas that it doesn’t need any more insulin.
The process doesn’t seem to work well for me and I constantly have high blood sugar levels. This means that despite my body producing a lot of insulin, my blood sugar levels are not going down. To counteract this, my body then keeps on producing insulin. My body in a sense is resisting the insulin, in other words, I'm insulant resistant.
So what if I am insulin resistant or have higher than normal blood sugar?
I have a high chance of developing type 2 diabetes and will be injecting myself with exogenous insulin to manage my blood sugar. Other symptoms of high blood sugar are dehydration, fatigue, urinating a lot, and blurred vision.
My Assumptions
The working assumption I have is that I have developed this IR because I'm frequently eating. I snack all the time. I eat healthy things, like dried fruit, nuts, and dark chocolate. I eat a lot of healthy things, the problem is that I am always eating them. I exercise enough to keep my weight under control. This constant snacking may have resulted in IR.
I may have hypothyroidism. For this, I found a doctor that meets the above conditions that I will consult.
I assume it took years to get to this point, I'm assuming it will take many months or years to fix naturally.
My Approach.
No Medication
I've started wearing the Dexcom g6 continuous glucose monitor. This has been a game changer
I stop eating after 6:30
I intermittently fast 4 times a week. One of those is 24-36 hours
I have cut out all refined sugar and most carbs
I eat a high fat/high protein low carb diet
No snacking and only 2 meals a day Monday - Friday.
My plan is to do this for 3 months and see what happens to my blood markers.
Managing the invisible
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley
Fish tanks are living pieces of art.
They mesmerize adults and children with their colors, movement, and majesty. But behind the beauty is endless hours spent managing the tank. The success of the fish tank depends on your ability to control the one thing you can’t see: the water.
The water dictates whether the sensitive Orange Spotted Filefish will thrive in your tank, or die within days.
It’s all about the water.
Culture, like water to a fish, is invisible and generally goes unnoticed. Yet it's the most important factor for everything and everyone in it.
Culture, not money, is the reason that organizations can’t retain certain talent.
Culture, is the reason organizations don't take risks.
Culture is the collective behaviors of organizations, both good and bad.
It’s all about the culture.
Fundemental Attribution Error
"Over 90% of the problems that arise in a corporation are better solved somewhere other than where they appear." — Russ Ackoff
I’m usually brought into an organization to solve a specific problem: “Teams are not delivering enough” or “requirements are not well defined”. In almost all cases, these issues are just symptoms of an underlying problem, the root of which is to be solved elsewhere.
Not understanding this phenomenon can often result in making the problem worse. Take lower back pain as an example. Oftentimes, lower back pain is caused by an issue somewhere else in the body. Trying to massage the specific area of pain will only cause more inflammation.
The same phenomenon exists in corporations.
This cognitive bias is referred to by systems thinkers as the 'Fundamental Attribution Error'(FAE); attributing the issue to the individual or a localized part of the system rather than the overall systems.
The first step in correcting FAE is knowing that this bias exists and that trying to solve the problem at the localized level will most likely just make things worse.
So, what's the solution?
Use the symptom as a signal to explore the real cause of the pain. In the case of lower back pain, it is usually tight hip flexors from sitting too much.
To discover the cause in an organization system, you will need to learn to see through the lens of tools like causal loop diagraming and root cause techniques such as 5-whys.
“If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it,” Albert Einstein.
Some further resources on FAE:
https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/the-fundamental-attribution-error
https://www.ease.io/5-root-cause-analysis-tools-for-more-effective-problem-solving/
Friends on Bikes Getting Coffee
“the peloton (from French, originally meaning 'platoon') is the main group or pack of riders. Riders in a group save energy by riding close (drafting or slipstreaming) to (particularly behind) other riders. The reduction in drag is dramatic; riding in the middle of a well-developed group, drag can be reduced to as little as 5%-10%” -Wikipedia
I usually ride my bike alone. I decide when I leave, the speed, distance, and how long I will stay in the café.
I do not enjoy group riding. It is stressful. Rather than getting lost in thought about myself, I have to focus on the rider In front of me and communicate to the one behind me. I need to be aware of my surroundings. Riding in a pack is an exercise in claustrophobia moving at 35km per hour. Group rides usually meet much earlier than I would like, and last longer.
In short, I usually ride alone.
Over the past couple of months, I have been riding with a local Istanbul group called Rota Biskilet, and I have learned some things about group riding and friendship:
Riding in a group only works if you over-communicate. Not communicating can result in people getting hurt.
It is based on trust. I trust that the rider in front of me will let me know if there is a hole in the ground.
You cannot be focused on yourself, you need to be focused on others.
Everyone must take a turn doing the hard work at the front.
It can be dangerous. You are riding inches from another rider going 35-40km per hour.
You can go further, faster, with the same effort.
You learn from others. How to eat, peddle, signal, etc.
If you get tired, the group will not leave you.
You practice being present.
If you are lucky, you will find some in the group that will take you under their wing. For me, it has been Gazi Abi. Sometimes, they send you to the back of the peloton, because you pose a threat.
You will become stronger when you ride with stronger people.
It takes time to become comfortable in the group.
Like riding, I also enjoy being alone. Since leaving New Jersey in 2006, I have mostly been alone, choosing not to make deep friendships.
“It’s just easier and less complicated,” I tell myself.
I wonder how much growth I have lost in the past 14 years, had I been surrounded by a peloton of friends who, together, are stronger than each can be individually. Or rather, how much stronger could I be in the coming years if I surround myself with people whom I trust? All I have to do is risk getting hurt.
Why do strategic projects die and tactical projects live forever
In 2010, TinySpeck had a big idea for a game. A massively multiplayer game, similar to WarCraft, without the war, named Glitch. TinySpeck lived up to its name and only a handful of employees in different locations. The founder was hugely influenced by 90’s technology and used IRC as the primary mechanism for communication across the company. As they developed their groundbreaking game, TinySpeck continued to enhance, upgrade and replace IRC to cope with the demand of their growing company.
A screen capture of the game Glitch
After 3 years of building the game, launching, and subsequently unlaunching the game, the founder, Stewart informed the investors that the game wasn’t viable. But he had, what he thought was a viable product that could be commercially successful, their IRC clone that named linefeed.
Linefeed was later rebranded as Slack. It was recently sold to Salesforce for 27.7 billion dollars.
This story is not unique and I have seen it play it in my career. I have seen so many strategic projects fail and have seen tactical projects succeed and refuse to die beyond their original expiry dates.
Looking at the characteristics of a strategic vs tactical project can shed some light:
Strategic
Strategy and governance structure prepared by a reputable consultancy
Lots of senior oversight and governance
Long requirements gathering process with sign-off which leads to even longer sign-off processes because people know they only get one chance before the dreaded change control process
With the large budget, come lots of new hiring and onboarding
A strong change control process
Big expectations and promises
Distributed and siloed teams with some matrix management thrown in for good measure
Politics between technology and change management
Architecture oversight
Strong project manager/program manager to hold it all together
A three-year deadline
Tactical
They start with a well-understood problem
Sense of urgency
Well understood problem
They use existing infrastructure or buy something out of the box
Built by a small team with a limited budget
Because it’s tactical, companies don’t spend a year building a future-proof architecture or gathering requirements. Both are done on a JBGE (Just barely good enough) basis
They fly under the radar
Three-to-six-month deadline
You could just as easly relable the left as Waterfall and the right as Agile and most bullet points will still be correct. The reality is that many “Agile” projects resemble the left more than the right these days. Perhaps we should stop doing Agile and only do Tactical :)
Crossing the chasm of Zoom
As I'm writing this, the vaccine is currently being distributed and it seems like life should start going back to normal by the summer. But for some companies, like Twitter, working from home will become the new normal. This post is for those companies that have embraced distributed work as the new normal.
The current way most companies are working is anything but normal.
Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, created “Distributed Work: Five Stages of Autonomy”
I have simplified and modified it to:
0 Not possible. E.g. Fire fighting
1 Co-located first, with a distributed capability
2 Distributed but synchronous (The chasm)
3 From co-located first to distributed-first
4 Fully Asynchronous
5 Outperforming
Most companies are stuck in the second stage, what I referred to as remote purgatory. Covid has forced us to stay at home, contending for space, and quiet with our family. We are still experiencing Zoom fatigue from all day calls. We have basically ported what we do in the office at home. We are constantly yelling, “Shushhh, I’m on an important call." Companies are measuring the wrong thing(code commits) in the hopes of measuring productivity.
Rather than adopt what we did at work to how we need to rethink how work is done at home from first principles. Here are some ideas Ideas for going from level 2 to 3 and start reaping the benefits of distributed work:
Create space for long periods of deep work
Meetings are the exception rather than the rule
Replace output measures and oversight with trust and transparency
Invest in the work from home experience
Increase empathy and compassion
Create space for long periods of deep work.
Cal Newport describes deep work as:
“Professional activity performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”
The goal should be that 50 to 80 percent of your time should be reserved for deep work and the rest should be meetings. It should give you pause if you find yourself questing what you will do with the free time?
Meetings are the exception rather than the rule
Meetings are on the default communication mechanism. Consider the opposite and create rules:
The Automattic rule: Meetings are only held if a similar outcome cannot be achieved over call, message, or email.
Formal agenda must be posted ahead of time.
Meetings recorded to avoid FOMO.
Real-time documentation so that people can read the output.
Replace output measure and oversight with trust and transparency
Measure what matters: Outcomes(e.g. Features delivered to customers) over output measures(number of commits). Many companies are tracking code commits to ensure the productivity of their workforces or hours logged into the system.
People should not have to start at 9 am and 5. They should own their time so long as they are achieving the desired outcomes.
Invest in the work from home experience
Companies are viewing allowing their staff to work from home as a cost-savings exercise. While there will be significant costs savings, be prepared to spend some of those savings on:
Increase our travel budget so teams can get together twice at least twice a year
Better setup: tools, desk, seat, audio, and video
Increase empathy and compassion
It's hard to separate work and personal life when the home is also the office. Consider employees holistically, not just in their work roles. Avoid sending communications outside “official business hours”. If your new working time happens to be later, consider scheduling your emails to send during normal business hours to remove the expectation of working all the time
Write at the right time. Simply ‘getting it off your chest’ can seriously affect someone else’s schedule. There may not be a perfect time, but there's always a wrong time.
The goal of goals
“Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.” Bernie S. Siegel
12 years ago, I wrote goals for the first time. I wrote a career, fitness, family, and self-development goals. A year later, when I reviewed the goals, to my amazement I had achieved the majority of them. Encouraged by the success, I set even more difficult goals for the following year. 12 years later I still follow a similar process.
Setting goals became a big part of my personal and professional life. I even developed my own goal setting framework that I use with my clients.
After years of setting bigger and bigger goals, I stumbled on a realization.
The goal of the goals is not the goals at all.
The reality is that goals are just the means to something greater. What could be greater than doing an Ironman, publishing a book, or learning Mandarin?
Simply, the person/organization you become when on the journey to becoming an Ironman, publish a book, or learn Mandarin.
What does it take to achieve a goal that you can’t do right now? It usually involves starting to do new things and stopping habits that deter you from your end goal. In other words, you adopt good behaviors and put a stop to toxic ones.
One of my primary drivers in my personal and professional life is identifying and systemically removing what I deem as “toxic” behaviors and fostering “good” ones. That is what I consider growth.
Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest will remain at rest unless there is an external force. I believe that the same applies to behaviors. A person will remain at rest unless there is an external force. For me, external forces are goals.
Big goals give me the impetus I need to change my behavior.
When I leave this world, the goals I have accomplished are not what matters to me; it’s who I have become in the process.
Going down the purpose rabbit hole
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” – Viktor Frankl
I found myself in a long slack dialogue today that resulted in a zoom call with a friend and colleague Viktor. I relish the opportunity to explore ideas with him as I tend to think and learn more than usual and ultimately challenge my cognitive biases and the stories I tell myself.
The dialogue centered around the idea of purpose.
One of his assertions was that investment banking and trading don't have an inherent purpose. He based that assertion on the sampling of friends who are traders all of which can't wait to retire to do what is more purposeful and meaningful. I contend that this holds for most people, not just investment bankers and points to a bigger issue: a lack of dialogue on the idea or purpose.
After going down multiple rabbit holes, we landed on some common ground. Firstly, we are encoded to search for purpose. We either get it from religion, tribe, or society. If not, we continue our search. Second, most people tell themselves a story about how they define their purpose at work. Stories that usually go unchecked and are fiercely protected:
“My purpose is to end suffering in product development”
“My purpose is to earn a paycheck so I can do the things I like to do”
“My purpose is to ignite some passion with those I work with”
“My purpose is to heal the sick”
Why does purpose even matter?
According to Dan Pink’s popular thesis, purpose is a key component for people to do their best work. Along with autonomy and mastery, purpose is a required ingredient to achieve intrinsic motivation.
Most leaders think about how they can create an environment that creates purpose. While necessary, it's not sufficient. Purpose needs to be top-down and bottom-up as beautifully illustrated in Christopher Wren’s story of the three bricklayers.
It’s your job
Purpose (noun): why you do something or why something exists
Finding purpose starts with asking the hard questions: What is my higher purpose? How do I align with my higher purpose? Does my job align with my purpose? How can I find purpose in what I do?
Tim Born, a coach, and a mentor recently told me that he finds purpose in teaching. Whether it's Unix command line or teaching youngsters about compound interest, he is always teaching. If you meet him, his passion comes through whether he is talking about Kubernetes or grouse hunting. He is not waiting for management to manufacture a purpose for himself.
“To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
But it all starts with having a dialogue with your inner Viktor.
American Egyptian Psycho -My COVID routine to stay lean and sharp
I know this post runs the risk of sounding like the opening scene of American Psycho. The truth is that I have two daily modes: one where I feel mentally, physically, and emotionally terrible, and one where I feel the opposite. I am in a constant battle between the loser version of me and the better vision. The better version wins about 80 percent of the daily battles. Below is the routine that creates a better version of me:
Monday - Friday
AM - (Boot up sequence)
Apple cider vinegar and water
Green tea and mint (15 minutes)
Morning spiritual practice (30 Minutes)
Morning Cardio (45 minutes - 90 Minutes)
Stretch (15 Minutes)
Contrast shower(3 minutes hot, 1 minute cold)
First meal at 12 pm
Daily Covid specific vitamins (C, D, Zinc, Selenium)
PM
Nightly spiritual practice(10 Minutes)
Fast starts at 6 pm
Strength training (Monday, Wednesday & Friday). More carbs on those days)
Sleep at 10-11
Weekend
Longer rides/runs on Saturday and Sunday
I eat whatever I want on Saturday. No restrictions and no intermittent fasting
I keep track of all my habits using the Habit Tracker and Zero app. These allow me not only to track but share my habits with my close friends. This has been a game-changer for me - there is something about clicking those buttons that gives me a dopamine hit.
Habits that haven’t stuck
Write for 1 hour every day. (I do write one hour every Monday to publish this blog)
No electronics after 9 pm
No phone
Turmeric Milk
Measuring happiness is good...but not good enough
I recently learned that Finland is the happiest country in the world; while my country, the United States, is number 18. Ironic, considering the US is the richest country in the world and happiness is mentioned in its constitution as an inalienable right.
As I read this, one central question emerged, how do you measure something as qualitative as happiness?
The creators of the World Happiness Report rely on the Cantril Ladder (See photo on the right):
“It asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.”
Is that all? No fancy differential equations?
It is eerily similar to other popular metrics from the business world: the Net Promoter Score which asks a different question: How likely is it that you would recommend [brand] to a friend or colleague. The respondents are asked to rate from 1-10.
Why I like this approach
I am often asked to gather metrics to test whether or not the change is effective. The gut reaction of managers is to measure productivity by way of code commits or story points or some variation. All of which are subject to both Goodhart’s and Campbell’s laws:
Goodhart's Law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
Campbell’s Law: "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."
I then engage them in a series of 5-whys about what they are trying to achieve. As we go down the rabbit hole, we usually end up with what we want to see if the customer or internal stakeholders are getting value.
“Why don’t you just ask them if they are happy or not with the last release?”
This is usually met with a quizzical look, trying to decide if I’m an idiot or if it's a good idea.
“If you want to find out if they are happy with what they got, why don’t you just ask them?” This approach seems to be the go-to approach for the PhD.’s that are trying to find out the happiest counties in the world, why can't we use it to find out if our customers/product owners/ internal stakeholders are happy?
What is missing
This is a useful approach, but it’s not sufficient because they are all lagging indicators. Lagging indicators tell us something after it is too late. What we also need are leading indicators that point us to the true north.
The world happiness index suggests 6 key leading indicators for happiness: income, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on in times of trouble, generosity, freedom, and trust (measured by the absence of corruption in business and government).
The question for those who choose a happiness metric as a lagging indicator is: what are the key leading indicators that need to be measured? Here are mine:
Happy/fulfilled team members
Quality (Post-production)
Product Owners that own the product
Low lead time
What pickles can teach us about OKRs
What are OKRs?
“Good ideas with great execution are how you make magic. That’s where OKRs come in.” Larry Page
OKR (Objectives and Key Results) is a framework for large organizations to execute company-wide strategies. It was created by Andy Grove, CEO of Intel and popularized by John Doerr, who introduced the framework at Google and later wrote the popular book: Measure what Matters. OKRs are very fashionable right now.
What goes into an OKR:
| Objective |
•Directional
•No constraints •Idealistic •Inspirational •Even if you fail, you still succeed |
•Go to the moon and come back safely in a decade •Eradicate malaria by 2040 •Win the Superbowl in the next 5 years •End mother to child Aids transmission by 2020 |
| Key Results: What pickles can teach us about OKRs |
•Measurable
•3-5 only •Measure quality and quantity •Binary. You either do them or don’t |
• Our new web browser has 100 million users • lose 10 pounds • Submit 10 conference proposals |
| Color coding check-ins |
• Regular check-ins for key results • Green: 70-100% (Continue) • Yellow 30-70% (Recover) • Red 0-30% (Recover or replace) • Always green is bad. Means sights are set too low |
Why OKRs will not work
OKRs will most likely suffer the same fate as most other management fads - they will be introduced into an organization with good intentions, but will follow the same predictable path as other frameworks and methodologies. They will be implemented in name only, but the underlying dynamic will remain the same.
“Did you meet your objectives?” will be replaced with “Did you fulfil your OKRs?”
This can be explained by Prescott’s Pickle Principle:
“Cucumbers get more pickled than brine gets cucumbered.”
While this principle is in reference to people, I believe it also applies to the introduction of any new management system, framework, or methodology.
A brine where OKRs flourish :
1. Radical transparency. Sundar Pichai reviews his OKRs with the whole company every three months
2. The ability to set audacious goals without being a slave to stock price. Founder-led companies, such as Google, Tesla and Amazon set audacious objectives. Most publicly traded companies are slaves to whims of their stock price, which drive short-term earnings and cost savings. And that is the real objective of most companies, keep the shareholders happy. This is exactly what Elon is not.
3. Driven by the CEO. The rollout of the OKRs will be driven by HR, but owned by the CEO. Andy Grove taught the class on OKRs in Intel.
4. Amber and red are good. Red/Amber/Green means different things in large organizations. If OKRs are constantly green, it means something is wrong - it is not a reflection of success, but rather a suggestion that the objectives are set too low. Amber is good - it highlights that objectives are only being partially met, but a significant drive is required for greater success. Red could either mean that objectives are set too high, or the process by which the objective is met is in need of serious improvement. Most organizations reward green, which will result in weak Key Results.
5. No annual performance reviews.
6. Compensation is not tied to Key Results.
Compare your current company’s’ brine with a flourishing brine.
So what?
The focus of leadership should not be to introduce OKRs which will follow a predictable path. Rather, It should be to slowly change the brine. Choose one of step 1-6 and change it.
Another option is the experimentation route. Take a pickle and create an entirely new brine (e.g. Skunkworks).
Are we experimenting in name only?
As a coach, I use the word experiment a lot. I use it to reduce resistance from a client in trying a new idea. I find the barrier to entry is lowered greatly when I suggest that we try an experiment with a fixed group and a fixed time frame over a major change.
The use of the phrase experiment has been hugely valuable in my practice. When I suggest to a team or an organization that we experiment with “mob programming as a way to increase productivity and learning” or “Automation as a way to decrease lead time” are these actually experiments in name only?
After nearly three hours “researching” on the internet and going down the rabbit hole of the scientific method, field experiments, variables, laboratory experiments, quasi-experiments, and behavioral economics, left me with a resounding feeling that the types of experiments I am conducting with my clients are not scientific in the least, but do they have to be. If yes, what is the minimum level of rigor I need to apply to conduct a useful experiment?
The types of scientific experiments are largely divided by the context in which they are run: lab or real world and how the variables are controlled.
The types of experiments I run with my clients are all in the “real-world”. Where they largely fall short is (3-6) in the scientific method.
Make observations.
Formulate a hypothesis.
Design and conduct an experiment to test the hypothesis.
Evaluate the results of the experiment.
Accept or reject the hypothesis.
If necessary, make and test a new hypothesis.
How we can elevate our organizational experiments to something that resembles the scientific method?
“Teams seem to approach this aspect of continuous learning rather sloppily. Even when I try to institute an improvement experiment into the retrospective, rarely do they remember to be explicit about exactly what problem they are addressing, and (especially) what measure they use to observe an effect.” -Tim Born
Elevating our experiments
Harvard professors John Beshears and Francesca Gino suggest a simple framework for organizational experiments that I find useful as a starting point.
Identify the target measurable outcome
Articulate what exactly your proposed change will involve
Introduce the change in some places in the organization (the “treatment group”) but not in others (the “control group”)
More on this in future posts.
Who not how
““Alone we can do so little; together we can do...” ”
When you set a goal bigger than yourself, the standard mental model is usually to ask yourself: How can “I” achieve this goal, what steps do “I” need to take. A far more effective mental model is to ask: “Who can help me achieve this goal?”
To many, asking “who” is almost cheating. Dan Sullivan argues it's an artifact of our education and rewards systems.
A close friend and highly successful entrepreneur Amr has this mental model intuitively. Whenever he sets a goal, he asks immediately: “Who can help me?”
8 months ago at the age of 55, overweight with two herniated disks and bad knees, he set the goal of doing an Ironman 70.3. He asked who can help him achieve this and found them. He asked me to pace him. Yesterday, we crossed the finish line together. He is a powerful example of someone who embodies who, not how.
Most people would be too embarrassed to ask for help. He was not. He simply asked and I said yes.
More Resources:
Watch the podcast for more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdQqrMTVWY8
Buy the book https://www.amazon.com/Who-Not-How-Accelerating-Teamwork-ebook/dp/B0867ZJ151
Go with which flow?
Writers, artists, inventors, or anyone who has undertaken a creative enterprise describe a seemingly otherworldly experience. A dimension of consciousness where they seem to transcend time and space and access to something greater than themselves.
This phenomenon was coined flow state in 1975 by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. This state has existed since time immemorial and has many names. In sports, it's referred to as the Zone, in martial arts as Budo, even runners describe a euphoric state at some point during a run.
Any creative professional strives to create the environment and the discipline that enables them to enter a Flow state.
Do a group of people who seek to create a product need to enter Flow State, or is the other Flow they need to think about?
Lean Flow
The concept of flow also exists in manufacturing.
“Flow is how work progresses through a system.”
In this case, it refers to the flow of value to the customer. The goal of Lean is to maximize value to the customer in the shortest amount of time.
Lean calls anything that obstructs the flow of value to the customers as waste. Much work has been done on waste. The 7 lean wastes are well documented. Tools and techniques such as Gemba walk, Value Stream Mapping, and 5s have been created to identify waste.
“All we are doing is looking at the timeline from the moment a customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that timeline by removing the non-value-added wastes.” Taiichi Ohno
Querying theory and Theory of constraints also have lots to say on the subject by addressing bottlenecks in the process.
Flow in product development
Many of the ideas from manufacturing have been adopted to the world of product development, specifically software product development. May and Tom Poppendeck have created the 7 wastes in product development, a reinterpretation of the lean wastes applied to software product development
The work of Donald Reinertsen, The Principles of Product development flow provides principles and patterns for increasing flow in product development which draws heavily from queuing theory.
The Agile software community has also adopted many of the techniques from the lean world: value stream mapping, 5-whys, Gemba sprints. These are meant to surface and eliminate unnecessary waste from software product development.
Is product development Creative Flow or Lean Flow?
Is the creation of a product a creative endeavor or a manufacturing problem?
My believe is that it’s both.
The introduction of a new product involves a research and development phase and generally consists of a small group of people working together, lots of uncertainty to solve a difficult problem.
The original Model T and the iPhone were developed by a small group of people with a high degree of unknowns.
These were creative enterprises. Like writing a book or a poem, but made more difficult by virtue of the fact that more than one person is involved. At a certain point, the problem set changes to that of manufacturing.
"We had to figure out how to build iPhones in mass quantity. Anyone can make one hundred of something. Making a million of them is something else altogether”. Bob Borchers, Apple's then head of iPhone product marketing.
Henry Ford’s process for inventing the Model T looks more like Agile development than Scientific Management. He only Turned to Taylor for help when he needed to mass-produce the Model T.
Which Flow is it?
“The ultimate problem is that (in my view) most organisations need both Flows and the art/skill is knowing when and how to enter both.“ Lee Nicholls (CIO Tegra118)
For the introduction of a new product, when the unknowns are highest and uncertainty is the greatest, we should turn to the creative world rather than the manufacturing world. Bringing a new thing into the world is art and the best art is created when the artist is in a Flow state.
According to the Flow Theory, to achieve flow, you need:
intrinsically rewarding.
clears goal and a sense of progress
clear and immediate feedback
match the challenge and skill.
intense focus on the present.
We should be looking at Flow theory and the ideas, principles, and practices adopted by high performing sports teams rather than Lean manufacturing for the introduction of a product.
This begs the question(s):
How do you create an environment where a group of people can enter group flow and how do you protect them from resistance.
Is it possible for a group of creative people to enter into Group Flow?
The War of Art Mind map
The war on waste
“Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”
During my classes and workshops, when introducing the term waste, I often hear: “are you saying my job is waste?” or “I think what I do is important, why do you feel it’s waste.” These are strawmen. The discussion of waste should trigger a re-examination of value. Then the waste part is easy.
To fight waste, we first need to define it. We need to know and understand the enemy.
I define waste as
any activity that does not contribute to why the thing exists
This definition results in existential questions. Why do I exist? Why do families exist and why do companies exist? Let us try the easiest one: Why do companies exist?
Most companies exist to make its’ shareholder money. Therefore, waste can be defined as: Anything that does not contribute directly to making shareholders money. Money is what shareholders value and why they invest in companies. But that sounds greedy, so we call it shareholder value instead. Sounds better
Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not about making the customer happy, it’s about making the shareholder money. If a company can make the maximum amount of money without a single customer, they would.
Does it then follow that customers are waste? No. Customers pay money for a product or service; therefore, they are valuable. However, anything that takes away the shareholders money is waste: Employees, Buildings, even the CEO.
If Amazon can design an AI that eliminated all employees including the CEO, they would. Because human “resources” are the biggest expense and takes away from the shareholders “value”.
If this all seems ruthless, it is after all, war. But the culprit is not waste, it is how we define value.
According to Mike Rother, author of Toyota Kata, Toyota values above all else “Making good products for its Customers.” It follows that Toyota defines any activity that is not directly contributing to the creation of good products for its customers as waste. Many companies who have been trying to imitate Toyota’s processes and procedures for eliminating waste should start with seeing if they value the same thing as Toyota.
Richard and Mourice valued above all else giving their customers A delicious product in the shortest amount of time possible. In 1948, they were the original lean experts before lean had a name. They could give you a delicious burger, fries, and drink in 30 seconds while their competition would take 20 minutes. Their new partner, Ray, values something else: Growth and Capital. The difference in values was the source of their tension and ultimate separation. One viewed using powdered ice cream as waste and sacrilegious while the other viewed not using it as waste.
The value shift is already happening
As a thought experiment, rather than companies existing to maximize profit, imagine a world where companies existed to further exploration. Then waste would be any activity that does not contribute to bold exploration.
Companies that value furthering humanity of the environment are not new and are not limited to SpaceX. The Impact Investing industry is nearly a trillion dollars a year.
“Impacting investing aims to generate specific beneficial social or environmental effects in addition to financial gains.”
A beautiful example
The shift is not limited to companies. I have been lucky over the years to work and meet with some amazing people. One of them is a founder and CIO named Andrea. At the height of his career and power, he decided to shift gears entirely to work with organizations that want to solve difficult problems that impact humanity.
Andrea, and those like him personify the following quote:
“To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be”
How I stopped eating 1,000 "healthy" calories at night
I have no problem with willpower during the day. Like a vampire, I am dangerous at night.
During that time is when I eat my healthy snacks. Primarily nuts, fruit, and the occasional piece of dark chocolate. All healthy stuff, because I’m a healthy guy. I play a mind game with myself: “It’s not like I’m eating junk.”
One day, I decided to count the calories I was eating before I sleep and was shocked to find out they were over 1,000 calories. Suddenly the fact that I couldn’t lose those stubborn 10 pounds made sense.
The following day, armed with this knowledge, I did exactly the same thing. My thirst for salted cashews couldn’t overcome my desire to save my midsection. This continued for months. Until this month, when I finally conquered it as I studied behaviors and habits.
My Habit Loop
My will power and desire to change were not strong enough to overcome my nightly habit loop.
Trigger: Sit on the couch after a long day
Routine: Tell one of my family to grab me some fruit and nuts
Reward: Dopamine hit of a fatty, salty, and sugary snack
I decided to try a different habit loop using the knowledge I gained from the different books I read this month.
To change the habit, I used the knowledge that I needed several things to overcome my urges. Namely: be part of a tribe, A constant supply of dopamine, a new trigger, routine, and reward habit loop.
I found that I could cover most of these things using the Zero fasting app. My wife and a close friend also began to fast with me. They along with the millions of others using the fasting app became my tribe.
My routine became:
Trigger: Click start fasting on the app at 6 pm.
Routine: Intermittent fast for 18 hours
Reward: The dopamine hit of clicking the end fast 18 hours later.
For the first couple of days, my mouth would start to salivate at around 8 pm. Rather than fight it, I know from the work of Charles Duhigg that I should change the routine. I will have some sparkling water or chamomile tea instead.
The intermittent fasting coupled with my normal habit of zone 2 cardio, paid dividends in the long run. As with most things, good habits have delayed gratification as opposed to bad habits. I lost those stubborn 10 pounds in a month.