Engine For Change

Have you ever been punished in your organization for an error that someone else did?  Usually these punishments aren’t personal (e.g., Joe gets a fine for Bob’s behavior), but are more subtle versions like Joe now has to follow a 10 page checklist because Bob messed up once.

Why do punishments like this one and others of its sort spread across our organizations?

I think they spread because of the destructive power of similarities.  Let me explain.

Someone wrote a paper decades ago about the ways scientists and engineers make judgments compared with the way executives and other decisions makers do things.  I’ve never read the paper, but I’ve often repeated this story, told in The Rickover Effect by Theodore Rockwell (pages 128-129 if you’re really interested):

“Well, this guy says that some people, particularly scientists–and I guess that would include engineers and most of us–we tend to see things in terms of similarities…

He picked up two partially filled water glasses and poured the fuller one into the other, to bring the levels about equal. He put them down in front of me and said, “You haven’t read the article yet.  Just tell me about these two glasses.”

“Well, they are physical objects, not an abstraction or an idea.  They are man-made. They are made of glass and contain water.  They…”

“Can’t you see any differences between them?”

I looked long and hard at the glasses and then said, “Well, nothing significant. This one seems to be a little fuller, maybe.”

“Believe it or not, I tried the test on the Boss.  He was amused, but he went along with it.  I asked him to describe the two glasses. ‘Which one?’ he asked.  I asked him to consider them together. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ he says. ‘One has a chip and the other doesn’t. One is fuller than the other.  One has a dirty fingerprint on it,’ and he went on and on.  I’ll have to admit, the article really helped me see why I was having so much trouble communicating with the Old Guy.”

Because Rockwell doesn’t provide any details on the paper I can’t check the authors claims, but I have attempted to test his conclusions.  My testing doesn’t suggest such a clear occupational line between similarities and differences people, but I have found that the differences people are much more rare than those who see the similarities.  The surplus of similarities people, unbalanced with differences people, create the destructive power.

When a similarities person looks at the behavior of Bob, they don’t see the special causes behind Bob’s error.  They see Bob as an employee, who holds a certain position and does a certain job.  When they then look to solutions, they assume that all people who are similar to Bob (i.e., all other employees in similar positions doing similar jobs) will make the same error, and they jump to the 10 page checklist.

Their similarities bias has truly destructive effects when topic of ethics or “right behavior” are involved because an error (blatant or accidental) by anyone of a similar group or class to you is likely to bring an assumption of unethical shame right upon you.  And, when the shame starts flying and the guilt kicks in, organizations shut down.

I see two ways to diffuse the destructive power of similarities:

1. Admit the existence of similarities and differences people.  You can quickly test people with props as simple as two pictures (you know those “Has anything changed?” two cartoons) or as complex as two water glasses.  As them to describe them and see which way they go: listing similarities or decrying differences.

2. Refuse to let similarities win when the differences are what matter most.  There are times to let people have their view of the world, even when it doesn’t seem quite right, but when whole classes of people are going to face real (the checklist) or implied (the shame/guilt attack) you must speak up.

We must not let the similarities wash away the important differences.

True to our driving change philosophy, the place to start is with yourself.  What are you?  A similarities gal or a differences guy?

I’d love to hear from you.  Post which one you are in the comments.  I’ll post what I am too.

For added fun, guess which one I am then check the comments.

To do a job effectively, one must set priorities.  Too many people let their ‘in’ basket set the priorities.  On any given day, unimportant but interesting trivia pass through an office; one must not permit these to monopolize his time.  The human tendency is to while away time with unimportant matters that do not require mental effort or energy.  Since they can be easily resolved, they give a false sense of accomplishment.  The manager must exert self-discipline to ensure that his energy is focused where it is truly needed.” – H. G. Rickover, as quoted by Theodore Rockwell in The Rickover Effect

Leadership attention; it is a real constraint in your organization.

If you want more from your organization, first focus on freeing up leadership attention.

Stop doing pointless tasks just because someone said you must.  Show them why you mustn’t.

Carve out time to think deeply about something.  Schedule a real block of time into your Outlook calendar and refuse to double book the time.  Then, shut the door and think.  It is that simple.

Allow someone else to attend a meeting for you, carry your regards to another group for you, or fill in for you.  They will grow and you will be free to do something else that matters, in effect doubling what you can accomplish.

It’s hard to stop doing the trivial, but it’s not climbing Mt. Everest hard.  It’s more passing up the offer of a cookie in the mid-afternoon.  It’s hard to resist because the temptation is so close and the consequences seem so small, yet there remains a great win in resisting .

Focus where it is truly needed and you will get closer to the organizational (or personal) results you most desire.

Why not try?

Last week I posted some stuff about being a troubleshooter-for-hire.  I’ve since taken the post (and coordinating page) down.  The post introduced too many loose ends that I didn’t care to spend time tying up right now.  I dipped my toe into new water, even if only virtually, and only for a few days and I learned a lot.

When I venture into the water again, I’ll be much more prepared.  Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.” – Maya Angelou

I just love it when I’m on the same wavelength with Dr. Kotter, author of Leading Change and the famous 8 Step Process.  Once again, he and I posted about the same topic only days apart. [See his post and mine from Nov 2010.]

Yesterday, I posted about the need to refill the tank, in part by stopping some activities that are draining all your time.

Today, Dr. Kotter posted about Why Busy Work Doesn’t Work and included a video.  Anyone who’s sick of staying busy instead of accomplishing something truly important should check out his post.

Let’s not be busy (and drain all our time pretending to change).

Let’s be urgent and drive some amazing change.

Why not try?

One option is to struggle to be heard whenever you’re in the room…Another is to be the sort of person who is missed when you’re not. The first involves making noise. The second involves making a difference.” – Seth Godin

With a quick Google search you can find page long lists of blog posts dedicated to complaining about meetings.

I challenge you to find another blog post like this.

Why is this post unique?  Because I intend not to complain about meetings, but about the word meeting itself.

As of today, I’ve given up the word meeting.  I’m writing to ask all my friends to help me strike the word meeting from my vocabulary.

Why such a bold (and odd) move?  Because meeting is a word used beyond its usefulness.

How can I tell? Because one word, meeting, should not be commonly used to describe both of the scenarios below.

Scenario 1: A gathering of a group of excited “get to” team members eagerly working on a project they are passionate about.

Scenario 2: A forced encounter of disheartened workers confused as to the purpose of the current physical co-location, learning and doing nothing of importance.

After reading those scenarios, can you see the disservice we are doing to the powerful difference driving change brings?  Our gathering with other “get to” energized people gets the same word as a sad session of driving people.  No more!

Join me in boycotting the word meeting.

Here’s one way you can carry out this boycott.

When you send your electronic invitation, or make you in person request, describe your gathering in other words.

Examples:

• We need to generate our next goals.  Would you like to come to the Improvement Improvisation Hour we’re holding at 2 on Tuesday?
• I’m seeking volunteers to help me safe-fail test my idea to find the flaws. Would you be willing to attend my Devils Advocate Session at 8 on Wednesday?
• We’ve accomplished a lot in the past two weeks.  Shall we hold a Wins Report from 10 to 11 on Friday in the small conference room?
• It’s time for performance reviews.  My boss and I are taking Reflection and Projection Time on Thursday at 1.

I’m sure I could come up with plenty more.  The options are endless if we cease the mindlessness of calling everything a meeting and start describing why we are gathering people with the title we give the gathering.  These new titles are more enjoyable to read and they clearly tell me what sort of preparation or mindset I should be in when I finally get to join the other attendees.

Imagine the time saved if you knew exactly why you were there (on top of the wanting to be there energy that driving change brings!).  Can you tell this idea excites me?!

I’m so excited, I started to wonder what the non-meeting titles of current driving people sessions could be.  Here are a few examples, included just for fun:

• I have to go to the Listen-to-Bill-Yell-At-Us event again on Wednesday.
• I wish I didn’t have to attend John’s I-Insist-on-Reading-the-Status-Report-to-You-Instead-of-Just-E-Mailing-It gathering every Thursday.
• Will your boss skip the No-One-Knows-Why-Any-of-Us-Are-Here session again on Friday?  I wish I could skip it.

Join me in boycotting the word meeting.

Don’t wait.

Be brave.

Start renaming your meetings today.

Why not try?

[Bonus: If you want to check out one of my earlier rants about language at work, read Why One Blue Crayon Isn't Enough.]

The rules of improv are simple:

1. Always agree with and add to the last person’s statement.  “Yes, and…”

2. Always make the other people look good.

If you’ve watched a comedy improv troupe in action, you know improv results are always unexpected and hilarious.

If you apply those same improv rules to your team discussion, you can create memorable, amazing discussions.

Peter Sims, in Little Bets, sings the praises of improv in unleashing creativity.

I’ve seen the improv power at work amongst my own group of friends, a troupe of our own that gets together one weekend day twice a year to discuss improvement methods and implementations.  We talk for 12+ hours and the conversation never idles.  We talk at a mad rush all day, building on the first kernel of conversation using the “Yes, and…” improv language to build, and build, and build. By the end of each day we’ve learned more than any of us thought possible and had a wonderful time doing it.

This week I tried a safe-fail experiment using the improv rules to unleash creativity during a two-person meeting.  Our goal was to create a new training product and we had few boundaries to limit ourselves.  Using the “Yes, and…” language we created more than a few major “ah-ha” ideas.  I’m excited to try the concept out again with another team next week.

So far, I’m hooked on this improv idea.  Try it out and tell me what you think.

If you’re interested in how the improvisation method works to shut off the judging center of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, check out the research of Dr. Charles Limb at this Ted Talk.

Change is good. You go first.” – Anonymous

In her blog post, “What? You want me to go first?” Connie Moore writes about her thoughts after seeing the sign above in a store.  Readers of this blog will likely relate to her ah-ha moment realizing how little about change discussions includes emphasis on going first.

Let’s all drive some change this week and show the world how powerful going first with a change can be.

[H/T to Rogue Polymath for sending me the link to Connie's post.]