Rickover was keenly aware that there are two kinds of rules.  He understood that laws of nature, such as the effects of gravity, or radiation, or excessive temperature or pressure, cannot be gotten around by fast talk, political influence, or subterfuge.  On the other hand, man-made rules are a different entity.  Some, such as laws passed by legislative bodies, must be obeyed, and he was scrupulous about this.  Others, such as bureaucratic procedures defining how one may carry out assigned responsibilities, sometimes can and should be circumvented, he felt.  In particular, those procedures that “everyone” followed because “it’s just our policy” he not only spurned but did so with great pleasure.” – As told by Theodore Rockwell in The Rickover Effect

Too often we mix up the types of rules.

We ignore the stored energy in an electrical or hydraulic system.  We forget that a closed tank recently opened may not have enough air for us.  We think the heavy thing hanging above our head won’t ever fall.

Yet, we abide by, kneel to, and submit to over-and-over-and-over again a man-made rule (or worse, an acquired behavior) because that’s “just how we do it here.”

When there is something standing between you and the change you want to make, figure out if it is the kind of rule that should always be respected, or the kind that deserves a good challenge.  Submit if you must, but fight if you can.

You’ll be surprised what you can accomplish once you are fighting and fighting well.

                          

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?

                          

The King’s Speech 

The movie’s driving change theme is: Measure someone by their results instead of the letters before or after their name.

I blogged about my love for the movie last February in the post, “No Letters After My Name.” My favorite character in the movie wasn’t the king, but rather I enjoyed watching what happened to his speech therapist, Mr. L. Logue.  He had no lettered training and yet his methods worked.  The crucial scene comes when the king must decide if he would rather have a pedigreed doctor who can do nothing for him or the unlettered man who has already helped him so much.  How I wish more people would take away from the movie that they are too often hiring consultants because they have Dr. in front of their name and are likely overlooking excellent implementers that produce amazing results.  The same is true within organizations where consultants opinions are valued and peer or subordinates with the same (or better) ideas are dismissed.

Moneyball

The movie’s driving change theme is: Create the change you believe in, even as the world calls you crazy.

I watched the movie before I read the book and I loved both because they show you the torrent of emotions and self-doubt someone goes through when they choose to go against the “wisdom” of tradition to find new, better ways to win.  In Moneyball you follow Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane as he takes on all of baseball to create something entirely new: a team that can win for pennies on the dollars the Yankees and other big teams spend.  Our Engine for Change parallel is when you start driving change (instead of driving people) you, like the Oakland A’s, seem to get wins for cheap.  Since the “wisdom” of tradition says this isn’t possible–no one chooses to change and volunteers to participate–they dismiss your successes.  In the end, just like Billy Beane, you change the game by sticking with the method you know works and slowly spreading your new way through the larger organization.   See “I Still Shout” for another way to tell the same sort of story.

Unstoppable 

The movie’s driving change theme is: The people with the best solutions are the ones doing the work. 

An inspired-by-true-events story about a runaway train in Pennsylvania, the movie follows an experienced engineer (played by Denzel Washington) as he and his young conductor (Chris Pine) try to solve the problem in their own way.  Dismissed by company leadership, the engineer and his conductor refuse to comply and instead apply their knowledge of the reality of the rails to save everyone along the tracks from certain terror.  This story should speak to all my friends who have good reasons to mistrust senior managers who have become too far removed from the day-to-day details of the work.  Each time I watch the movie I am more in awe of the power that a job well done instills in a man, and how that power can be put to the best uses if only someone would listen and gets out of the way.  If you ever need to remember that you should listen to the people who do the work, just watch Unstoppable one more time.

Now for Your Thoughts:

What do you think of these three movies? Do they live up to my high praise?

What other movies with strong driving change themes would you recommend?

                          

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.

                          

As you polish, perfect, over-engineer and detail out your idea, the costs of worry pile up: lost time, opportunities and learning.

The costs climb and climb because worry breeds worry.  We know, yet we seem to forget, that our organizations don’t benefit from polished ideas.  They benefit from implemented ideas.  Said another way,  your idea doesn’t matter until you actually DO SOMETHING.

How can we overcome the costs of worry and start doing something new in our organizations?

Leaders: Set the playing field and then let people play.  “Any idea that costs less than $100 to implement and doesn’t impact project YZ can be implemented immediately without higher approval.”  Blanket permission is a beautiful thing!

Idea Generators: Create a playing field out of bare ground. “Boss, I’m going to work on problems related to project WXY.  I’ll only come to you with my ideas if my plans require Group 7 to do something new.  How’s that sound?”

All: Do all that you can to oppose/avoid/destroy the costs of worry.

Don’t create a Power Point presentation that no one would look at if you hadn’t forced them into a room for an hour.

Don’t plan for five different potential outcomes just to show you’ve really thought through the issue.  If your idea calls for one plan for one scenario, just say so and stop there.

Don’t become someone who induces worry in their peers or subordinates.  Talk about how you can make change and ask them what they think about the problem.  See what you’ll learn.

It’s not enough to come up with good ideas.  We must overcome the costs of worry.  Until we DO SOMETHING none of our worry matters.

Stop worrying and let’s drive change together.

Why not try?

                          

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?

                          

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