Post growth society

I see September’s HBR focuses on the ‘green’ economy and life in the post growth society. Yes the idea of limitless growth seems to have been exposed as a myth over the last 12 months. But post-growth society?

There will be growth alright, it just won’t be evenly distributed. While the ‘net’ might be flat, some will grow strongly and others contract significantly. I’m already sensing an inspiring and revolutionary undercurrent of activity and change. Expect a significant redistribution of capital and wealth. Keep your eyes open. Stay light on your feet. Make sure you’re on the right side!

Materialism has taken a heavy blow though. About time. Don’t think that will change any time soon.

Russian roulette

The track record for organisational change seems poor. Some research puts the success rate for change initiatives at 20% or less. Measured against the expected benefits. That’s like playing russian roulette with 5 bullets!

Almost all of the research seems to focus on faulting the change management process. The problem was poor communication or lack of ownership or insufficient consideration of culture or poor implementation, or …

But how much of the underachievement is because the change itself was wrong? The expected benefits are clear, it’s just that the ‘what’ of the change won’t deliver the expected benefits. I imagine, some change sounds good but isn’t. For example, consolidating process into the ‘back office’, may in fact increase costs and reduce quality.

It seems unfair to criticise the change process if the change itself is flawed. And yet it may not be easy to detect the flaws before the change has been implemented.

With such a bad track  record, a prudent course would be to tread carefully. Perhaps change is best approached as a series of small experiments to trial and validate different changes. Big bang approaches seem too dangerous. When you’re playing russian roulette, it really can be a big bang!

Huh?

Trying to focus on achievership (the discipline formerly known as leadership!) by thinking of the questions that achievers should ask themselves daily.

1. What is my personal purpose?
2. What am I doing about it in terms of a personal mission?
3. Who needs to be committed to achieving my mission?
4. What needs to be done today to achieve my mission?
5. Am I on course?

Looking at our world there seems to be plenty of challenges and opportunities to make a difference. Pick one. Get started.

Concrete specificity

For a quick start like me, building sustainable momentum is a bit of a challenge.

Earlier in my career, one of my bosses used to drive me crazy with her decision making. She was slow. She seemed to take an excessive time to come to a decision. Sometimes up to 20-40 minutes! That’s not long, but it was to me. I’d make an in-principle decision very quickly. Maybe in 2 minutes. She would ask question after question and I’d get frustrated. We would come to the same conclusion mostly. But the real difference came  when taking action. She was ready to start, I wasn’t.

The documentary I’m planning to film proves the point. I’ve enrolled people but struggled with action and momentum. I wasn’t specific enough about what I wanted to say. So taking action was hard. Finding the right people was hard. I’ve had to go back to the story I want to tell, and get a lot clearer about it. Make it a lot more specific. I’ve now done this by writing a high-level script. I’m ready to re-engage.

It seems one of the challenges of leadership is crafting the right level of specificity into a meaningful mission and communication. Too little and it’s difficult to take action. Too much and people don’t engage. But what is the right amount of specificity?

I enjoyed reading Chip and Dan Heath’s “Made to Stick” last year. It’s worth reading if you haven’t already. One of their concepts is that of ‘concreteness’. Language by nature is abstract, but life isn’t. Their suggestion is to avoid expertise language and talk about specific people doing specific things. That make’s your message concrete. I think that’s a useful idea for leaders as communicators.

Inside the box

It’s a cliche today to “think outside the box”. Everyone seems to want creative, innovative ideas. Few are prepared to invest in making them happen though!

I had lunch with a friend last week who talked about her boss’s interest in thinking outside the box. Liz had a different point of view. Liz was passionate about the need for more thinking “inside the box”.

I have just finished reading John Seddon’s book “Systems Thinking in the Public Sector”. It’s a sobering critique of the British government’s reform agenda. He uses some compelling examples of how ideological approaches to improving public services are in fact increasing cost and lowering quality. He takes a systems approach and draws on the thinking of Edward Deming and Taiichi Ohno. Ohno was the developer of the Toyota Production System.

Anyway, here’s a quote from Ohno.

“Everything you need to know in order to make improvements will be found in your own system. If you go looking elsewhere, you will be looking in the wrong place”

Liz is right, lets think inside the box! I think Liz sees plenty of opportunities for improvement right in front of her.

Caring less

Confession time.

A week ago I wrote about the challenge of communicating so people “get me”. So that people get my meaning, not just hear what I’m saying. Of course, it’s easier when I’m clear about what I really mean in the first place.  And getting clear for me, is often about interacting with others. Meaning has a way of evolving through interaction over time.

But, I have to confess that I don’t just want people to “get me”.

I want people to “agree with me”!  And that’s a big problem. 

As I grow older, I think I’m only just learning to care less about the outcome of my communication. And just focus on what I mean. And how I can communicate that.

If I care less about the outcome, I’m more open to exploring my meaning when others have different points of view.  I get clearer on what I mean, and hopefully others do too!

Amen.

Before “we”, there is always an “I”

I have started a project to produce a New Zealand film. It will be an interesting experience having never made a film before. But there seems to be a lot of interest and offers to help. I’m expecting that I’ll learn some practical lessons in leadership. I hope not too painfully!

We started with a meeting to define the purpose of the film. It’s interesting when a group of eclectic and talented people get together to discuss the initial purpose for a project. There was a lot of input. A lot that challenged my initial thinking. But I held my breath and wondered how we would ever find a clear purpose that engaged everyone.

I thought that leadership would be about finding and engaging the collective will of the group. But it was obvious the group comprised many different agenda’s and motivations. A collective will or purpose would either be impossible or so bland that it won’t really engage anyone.

Some leadership writers talk of leaders using the language of “we” rather than “I”. I get what they saying. Leadership should be selfless, I thought.  The idea of leadership as service. Giving yourself to a greater goal/good. I think that seems right.

But not at the start. It all starts with what I want to do. It is all about me, after all!! What is the purpose that engages and inspires me? That’s my next step.  To take the generous contributions of others and craft my purpose for the film project.  If it engages, energises and inspires me, I hope others will feel the same way. Because I need them to make this happen. But some won’t feel the same way. They will have other projects that are more meaningful to them. I wish them well.

So my leadership insight is that before I get the right to use “we”, I must have a group. And the group doesn’t start with the need to define it’s purpose. It starts with a purpose that inspires them to be in the group. I need to define that and see you shows up.  Wish me well.

Connecting things

My daughter said to me recently “I’m not creative”. That is an interesting decision to make about herself. Especially these days when every job stresses creativity and innovation. She meant creative in the sense of  creating products and ideas that are original and/or aesthetically pleasing.

Well apart from thinking everyone is creative, it made me think about what creativity is these days. Firstly, what I think it isn’t is, individuals thinking in splendid isolation until the ‘aha’ moment arises. And something beautifully complete emerges. Everyone goes ‘wow’!

That’s not creativity anymore. Perhaps it was once. Today almost all the interesting thinking is collaborative. It reminded me of Steve Job’s quote “creativity is just connecting things”. Once it might have been connecting things in one’s own brain. Today it’s more about connecting lots of things in lots of brains – to yours.  That’s why the Twitter phenomenon is so interesting.

So what are the skills that make you creative these days. I’d say the main ones are  questioning, listening, observing, reading widely, indulging in a range of experiences, and taking a non-judgemental and  open  attitude to life. Then the ideas emerge.You can see what’s already there. Because there seems to be no shortage of ideas out there. And very few are originally crafted by individuals.

So if you’ve convinced yourself that you’re not creative, it doesn’t matter. Take someone else’s ideas. They’re probably not using them anyway. Outsource your creativity to your network, because ideas aren’t in short supply. What is in short supply is the awareness, courage and the ability to successfully implement them. Creativity is just a commodity, but making new ideas happen is still a very rare ability. Practise that.

A coach, face-to-face with me

A key element of success in any activity is the ability to come face to face with yourself. To robustly interrogate our own thinking and behaviours. It’s very hard to do that from the inside. We need a confidant, a mentor or a coach. Because it’s difficult to see ourselves from the inside. Someone’s got to hold the mirror.

I’m noticing a signifiicant increase in coaching enquiries and work. Perhaps because of the current business climate. It has made me think of the qualities that I respect in my coach/mentor. Apart from the expected professionalism and integrity, here are my top 5 qualities:

• an unwavering belief/commitment to my potential.
• a depth of life experience  that recognises living without easy answers.
• a generosity of spirit.
• an openness to possibility and learning in every moment
• a sense of play, fun and humour.

Thanks Bob.

If you don’t have a Bob, perhaps you could find one. (I’ve added Bob’s website to my blogroll!)

assuming they’re remember

I was running late today to catch a bus. In the front of my mind was how little time I had left myself to get where I needed to be. As I rounded the corner, the bus sailed past. I knew I had 100 metres to sprint to get to that bus-stop. And I hoped that there were enough people waiting so that the bus would still be there when I got there. I was in luck. I’d got my timing perfect. For someone in a hurry, I’d lost no time waiting for a bus!

Unfortunately while timing was perfect, there was another criteria that was just as important – destination! That’s right, I got on the wrong bus. Now, I know destination is important. I know buses at that bus-stop take different routes. But, it wasn’t front of mind when I made the decision to get on.

I’ve talked earlier about the dangers of assumption when it comes to communication. It’s dangerous to assume others think like me. It’s dangerous to assume others have the same values/motivations to me. It’s dangerous to assume that others know what I know. It’s dangerous to assume others will react how I expect them to react. It’s dangerous to assume others will draw the same meaning/conclusion as I do. A useful discipline is to always test our assumptions. Don’t assume, find out.

But here’s another dangerous assumption. It’s dangerous to assume that others will remember what they already know! When leading or seeking to influence others don’t ignore what your audience already knows. They may be forgetting it’s relevance to this specific situation. Don’t assume they’ll remember, remind them. You may need to be explicit. Not because they don’t know it. But because you want it at the front of their mind when you’re communicating. Particularly if it’s important to your objective and message. Don’t assume they’ll remember. They may get on the wrong bus!