Engine For Change

The workers are handicapped by the system; and the system belongs to management.” – W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

On Friday I participated in a conversation which oscillated between advocacy for a top-down approach to change and another arguing for a bottom-up approach.  Sadly, neither term included anything close to what Deming would have considered an operational definition (a communicable meaning in the concept that reasonable men could agree to), so the conversation dissolved into what Deming predicted would happen: endless bickering and controversy (see Out of the Crisis again for more details).

The whole conversation would have been better framed if both sides agreed that the problem is in the system and any solution rests on management’s willingness to act on the system for the betterment of both the workers and the managers.  If that can be agreed to, then the details remaining are what actions should we (managers and workers) enact upon the system to get the outcomes we want.

Deming says 94% of problems in a system come from common causes (faults in the system) and only 6% come from special causes (faults from fleeting events or specific people).  If we can keep those numbers and the above quote in mind while we drive change, I bet we can create a lot better solutions a lot faster.  Who wants to try with me?

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.”– F. A. Hayek

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

There are two distinct types of difficulties: ones you create and ones you observe.

It is essential, if you are managing change or change agents to be able to see the difference.

When someone points out a difficulty, listen for whether they are observing it or creating it.

If they are noticing a difficulty, treasure your optimist and pull from them some solutions simply by asking, “How would you solve it?”  Then listen to them.  Chances are they are going to provide you with a perspective on the problem and solutions that you never would have seen on your own.  Then, help them implement their idea.  It’ll be amazing what you accomplish.

If they are creating a difficulty, put out the fire of your pessimist with, “What would you do if that obstacle wasn’t there?”  You must keep putting the action back on them, just as they are trying to push it onto other people.  They’ll never improve if they are allowed to throw their responsibilities onto other people’s shoulders.

Why not try?  It’s just one more difficulty to overcome.  You can do it.  Let’s drive some change.

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?

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

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

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.]

If you ask me what I have come to do in this world, I who am an artist, I will reply: I am here to live my life out loud.” – Emile Zola

Here’s to a 2012 that is lived out loud, sharing our art with the world.

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?… The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” – George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5

Have you read Orwell’s 1984?  If you answered no, don’t feel bad.  I hadn’t until recently (and I’m not quite done with it yet).

If you consider yourself a change agent, especially one working inside an organization to remake it, I encourage you to pick up a copy of 1984 and dig in.

What bearing does a 62-year-old book have on people working in modern organizations? A lot.

For the sake of this post I’ll stick to Orwell’s fascinating take on the use and destruction of language.  One of my earliest posts on this blog, When One Blue Crayon Isn’t Enough, discussed the willful shrinking of language within organizations and how the loss of language kills thought.  Little did I know then that Orwell had painted that topic well in 1984.

When we are challenging the orthodoxy in our organizations, we must have enough words to paint new pictures of the future.  We can use words that others don’t.  We can broaden the language to improve thinking.   Language doesn’t have to only shrink.  If you work at it, you can make your organization’s language grow, and with it the organization’s ability to think bigger and better about your future.

Whether you are implementing Lean with all its words or Theory of Constraints or even just driving change (instead of driving people), try to grow the language in your organization in 2012 and I bet you’ll win more in your changes along the way.  Why not try?

Science can tell us how to do many things, but it can not tell us what ought to be done.” – Author Unknown

In most workplaces, everyone knows who the internally motivated people are and most everyone doesn’t like those people.  Why? I’d offer it’s because most of the internally motivated people you meet in a workplace seem to only be internally motivated to gain power over their fellow workers so they can better drive people.  You see, driving people successfully (yes, sometimes it is successful in the short-term) requires power over others and thus the internally motivated people seek the power.

No wonder most people I’ve met have at first been truly suspicious of me whenever I’ve used my internal motivation to break free and try new things.  From the perspective of the coworkers it must have seemed that it was only a matter of time before I dropped the “nice girl” act, stopped driving change and pulled out my whip and started driving people just like all the others had done before me.

No wonder they flinched when I asked what their obstacles were to accepting the change.  They weren’t really responding to me, in that moment, but instead responding to all the other times where they at first trusted and then were driven to change by those they had trusted.

No wonder “flavor of the month” and other awful terms follow around process improvements in most organizations.  It’s the trust and let down of too many of those people driving other people.

Through our past actions and the past actions of so many change agents like us, we’ve killed the willingness to change in many of our coworkers.  In 2012, let’s vow to do better by ourselves and by our coworkers and actively drive change instead of driving people.

We can change the world if we do what we ought to do and drive change.  Who’s with me?