How Do You Solve a Problem Like Salahis?

Party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi have everybody up in arms at the White House.  Our reality-tv-fame-seeking society appears to have prompted this pair to crash the Obamas' first State Dinner, honoring the Singhs of India.

We'll see if the ensuing publicity battle bares out whether the camera-hungry couple actually had a valid invitation for the party.  (My guess is they did not, but I'm always surprised by the depths to which Washington can sink.)  Assuming they truly are just a couple of paparazzi chasers, this leads to some fun lessons in systems thinking:  mainly, what do you do when you have uninvited inputs into your system?

In my work with the SWAT team, I learned a lot about the role of the flash-bang device (otherwise called the noise and light distraction device or NLDD).  Having experienced it firsthand, I can see why tactical law enforcement use this explosive.  Its "flash" and/or "bang" is uninvited by the bad guys and gets their attention.  The distraction allows the good guys to do their job and apprehend the bad guys more effectively.  Good guy and bad guy labels aside, it would appear as though this party crash has served as a flash-bang to the White House.

These uninvited inputs of the Salahis will lead to some serious questions at the White House:

• How did they get in? What lapse in security allowed it to occur? Who was accountable for the failure (i.e., who will be adding to the unemployment statistics by Monday)?
• What impacts will this breach in security have in future White House events? How will processes change to ensure safety and security?
• How will the Obama Administration respond to the Salahis?  Will they press charges or will there be a mere slap on the wrist?  What will the feedback loop look like?
• How will this make things more difficult for future desired inputs (i.e., invited guests)?

You may wonder how this affects you and your organization.  Have you ever wound up with an undesired input on your team?  your department?  your company?  How hard was it to get rid of them?  Or are they still crashing your party?  How many "policies and procedures" were put in place because of your Salahis?  How many additional hoops must you now jump through because somebody crashed your party?  Are you in a position to relax security

Don't Try This At Home

My younger daughter was asked to share with her daycare class how to bake a turkey.  Her response is listed in the picture.  Um... I think we need some lessons on systems thinking.  There's a really simple lesson here:  If you're not sure of your inputs OR your processes, the end result could be a real turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving from Carpe Factum!

Does This Bureaucracy Make Me Look Fat?

I can't do it without authorization.

I'm sorry.  We have to wait for approval.

You'll need five signatures to get that moving forward.

My boss won't let me.

AAARRRG.  It's called a DECISION!

How do you sacrifice a virgin?

Trouble getting things moving in your organization?  The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article by Julian Birkinshaw and Suzanne Heywood yesterday correlating size with accomplishment (or lack thereof).

We've all understood intuitively for years that with organizational size comes greater complexity.  (DUH!)  The value of this article is how the authors break this down even further by explaining the different types of complexity within an organization:

• Dysfunctional - as the name implies, this is the "bad" complexity that adds no value and just makes you work harder for nothing. According to the authors, this kind of complexity is built in over years. My own take is that we tend to generalize all complexity as being dysfunctional and label it with the blanket of bureaucracy. But... not necessarily so...
• Designed - this is planned complexity created on purpose, similar to what Dell did when they created mass-customization. The authors go on to say that some designed complexity can actually lessen dysfunctionality. I personally used this philosophy when designing project change control procedures in a highly dysfunctional big box employer in town. While it added complexity, the added hoops reduced dysfunctionality.
• Inherent - this is just the complexity that's left when you strip away dysfunctional and designed complexity... simply put, how hard is it to naturally do the job? The authors used flight controllers as an example. I'd add into that any job that is highly specialized... programmers, accountants, Olympian figure skaters.
• Imposed - complexity which is outside the control of the company is the last category. I've mentioned before working on government regulatory projects such as HIPAA before. It's highly complex and was imposed by the outside. As a blogger, I sometimes find Typepad itself possesses some very annoying complexity. And don't even get me started about Technorati... have quit using it altogether.

The bottom line again circles back to systems thinking, folks.  Identify the inputs causing the complexity, and it becomes pretty easy to categorize whether it's a value-added complexity or just bureaucratic fodder.

When you find yourself faced with a complex process or job, ask yourself the following:

1. What's causing the complexity?
2. What factors do I control in the complexity?
3. How much can I experiment with this job/process to make it less complex?
4. How far can I push the envelope before anybody notices?
5. Would anybody (including me) go to jail or get fired by simplifying the complexity?
6. When did this complexity come into play? (a tell-tale sign of dysfunctional complexity)

Ultimately, it all comes down to the authors' recommendations to either reduce, channel, or accept the complexity in your system.

Why is this important?  Well, rather than just labeling something as too complex (thereby dismissing your own accountability for fixing it), this article (and this mindset) allows you to dissect the problem a little more succinctly.

And in the end, isn't that the most important aspect of accomplishment?

Blind, Deaf, and Dome

I'm not a sports buff.  There, I've said it.  I can appreciate and coexist with sports.  I understand the basics of most sports (except curling; I still see no point in that as an Olympic sport).  I can root for teams, and I do have favorites.

So it was a bit of a surprise when I noticed a piece in this morning's Wall Street Journal asking if it was time the NFL banned domes.  The authors' claim is that indoor teams develop a dominatingly fast and precise offense because of their "weatherless" environment.  First of all, I think the authors of the piece should be sent to a statistics class (the most basic one, please).  All of their data is based on either current year selected teams or prior year outliers.  Even they acknowledge in the article that the Rams and the Lions (both indoor teams) combined have a 1-11 record this year.  They mentioned the 1999 Rams, writing up Kurt Warner's spectacular run as a quarterback to his INDOOR experience at arena football.  Maybe they were too busy writing sports briefs to actually catch a game, but the reason Kurt Warner was good was because of the fast pace of arena football.  It could have been played at Lambeau Field in January, and it still would have been fast paced.

I'm surprised they didn't recommend banning all outdoor fields south of the Mason-Dixon line while they were at it.  After all, if a team can't play in the blinding snow and/or driving rain, what's the point?  Personally, I've always assumed the opposite premise was intuitively true, since those who play outdoors in northern climates would naturally be tougher and better able to adapt to any environment.

So why am I going on a tirade about football venues?  Well, we do the same thing in business, don't we?  Very few companies get to choose their business environment.  Every system, every organization operates in an environment.  It's a key component of systems thinking.  Right now, the general economic environment stinks, but nobody chose this environment (except for the greedy brokers of Wall Street, the shoddy mortgage underwriting policies of the past 15 years, the fine upstanding credible staff at Moody's, and an accountant named O'Leary whose cow knocked over a lantern and started the whole mess).

The trick in systems thinking is to figure out how to modify your system to make the best of your business environment.  So our customer base is drying up.  Do we make less?  Modify our pricing structure?  Purchase a new company?  Undermine a competitor?  Find new products and/or new customers?  The bottom line is still the bottom line, regardless of the environment in which it operates.  Sometimes you can get lucky and modify the environment.  Other times you have to tough it out.  Like the Patriots, whose last 10 seasons (2009 included) are 106-44 or the love-em-or-hate-em Packers who have a respectable 84-60 from 2000 to 2008 (adjusting for any flaws in my math if I miscalculated the totals in my brain).

What about you?  What's in your environment that you want to blame for your business results?  How can you adjust your inputs or transformation processes to adapt in order to get the outputs and feedback loops you desire?

But what do I know?  I'm not a sports buff.

Where You Goin' Buddy?

You just have to appreciate New York taxi drivers.  Daring to a fault, a healthy dose of reckless abandon, and an air of psychosis... but all with a smile.

I sort of think more organizations could use some New York taxi drivers on their staff... especially when it comes to systems thinking.  In the game of Get-From-Point-A-to-Point-B, the average taxi driver (once the passenger communicates Point B effectively) is on a mission:  weave through the quagmire of concrete to reach Point B (preferably safely).  Very few have GPS.  Even fewer speak English.  But they all have the same goal:  Point B.

Many organizations couldn't handle a taxi driver.  There is too much ambiguity.  They know the streets of New York (all 5 boroughs) like the back of their hand.  They know where the construction is.  They know where the temporary clogs are.  Regardless of how little English they may speak, they will unabashedly tell you how much they hate that part of Broadway/Times Square has been shut down for pedestrian traffic.  Their focus is Point B.  They don't need a Six Sigma black belt to work their way through the system.  They will not call a committee meeting of other taxi drivers to figure out the best route.  You point them in the direction you want to go, and that becomes their focus.

So how much are you allowing your people to be New York taxi drivers?  Are you pointing them in the right direction and then letting them do the job they do best?  Or are you still trying to be a back seat driver?  Are you relaxed or white knuckled and pale?  Are you communicating Point B or are you leading them in circles and racking up higher charges because of it?

So many lessons from New York... wish I could have stayed longer.

Not Right Now

Anybody who wears the title "Mom" or "Dad" is very familiar with the phrase, "Not right now."  It's our noncommittal safety net when we don't want to give our child a "yes" or "no" answer at the moment.  It's our "Let me think about this one before I answer" contingency plan.

I personally love "not right now" because it gives me a reason to pause and catch my breath, an excuse to stave off a decision when I don't have all the facts or the mental bandwidth to process the facts that might be in front of me.

I use "not right now" whenever my system is affronted with too many demands.  I use it when I've been blind-sided or offended and I need to process my next steps.  I use it when the output decision is low priority compared to the other things in my life.

"Not right now" is not merely a stall tactic, nor is it passive aggression.  I will give an answer, and I expect to be held accountable for providing an answer.  I just can't or won't give it at this exact moment.

Our Six-Sigma-infested business world is not on good terms with "not right now."  The phrase means a lag in the system.  It creates inefficiency.  It's not "lean" enough for fast-paced processes.  We tell people we want to do a root cause analysis, but we want it yesterday and we want it accurate.

I love systems thinking guru Peter Senge's story about the "Beer Game" exercise he gave his students.  You get to see firsthand why and how fast decisions lead to wrong decisions.  And you get to see why and how those wrong decisions compound themselves further down the line.

One question I've started asking religiously whenever a demand is presented is "When do you need this by?"  Then I take some time to negotiate a response.  If I make demands of others, I try to build in their "not right now" time for them.

"Not right now" will do one thing for you if used correctly:  it will improve your over-all effectiveness.  By delaying things of lesser priority, you can now focus on the really important things in your life and bring them to fruition.

If you are shooting for an accomplishment, you'll need to learn to embrace "not right now" on occasion.  It will save you a lot of anxiety... but maybe not right now.

Shell Game

As long as we're talking about law enforcement ironies, another event occurred this past week here in Des Moines.  A local man was threatening suicide, and Polk County Sheriff's deputies were called to assist in the stand-off.  Eventually, the decision was made to end the stand-off by shooting the man with a "Less-Than-Lethal" bean-bag round.  This ammunition is intended to stun and hurt an individual, allowing them to be subdued more easily.  The unfortunate part of this decision was that somebody mixed a live round in with the bean bag rounds, and the shot intended to end the suicide attempt caused the end of his life.  His funeral was Friday.

Again, even the most unfortunate of ironies can teach us a thing or two about how we operate on a day-to-day basis.  You may be trying to help out on a situation, but if you are not paying attention to HOW you are trying to help, you may end up causing even more harm.  I did a quick blog search on the phrase "unintended consequences" and yielded some interesting results:

• Freakonomics saw problems in the networks of "secret and hidden" fiber optics cables running throughout Washington DC.  Due to our fear of terrorism, they're so secret that our own maintenance guys do damage to them because they don't know they are even there.

• Nate Hagen had a great essay, asking whether all of our crisis blog posts are doing more harm than good if people take knee-jerk reactions to a problem, which in turn creates more problems.

• The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette brought up problems with solar power and how it messes with other delicate balances.

• Iran's recent election didn't go unquestioned as we consider where the power will really lie, and how will the regime fit in with the US stance.

• James Joyner, in his attempt to show us the impacts of political finance, generated the best quote about unintended consequences:  "It is a truism that well-intentioned attempts by government to curb bad behavior often spawn unforeseen and perhaps worse behavior."  (You can substitute any other system for government and it would still be a truism.)

• And finally, Mike Larson discusses the unintended market consequences of our government's bailout mentality on the broader economy.

Whether or not you agree with their specific assessments is not the point of this post.  Each of these people, in their own way, has just demonstrated that somebody is putting a live round in a gun where they think they are shooting something less-than-lethal.  Every situation mentioned above is a potential suicide standoff about to end in disaster.

This is why understanding systems thinking is so critical in our society right now.  There are a lot of shell games occurring (as witnessed above), yet few people are taking a step back to look at these individual systems from the 50-thousand foot view.  And this is not a specific diss on the Obama administration; these problems have been growing for decades through executive and legislative branches controlled by both parties.

The bottom line?  Pay attention!  You need to clearly understand your inputs (all of them) and the impact each one will have on the outputs of your specific system.  This is the truism of which Joyner spoke.  It applies in business, in churches, in government, in education, in families, in friendships, in phone calls, in text messages, in personal finance, in fitness, in nutrition... you name it:  it's a system.  If you're a player in the system, then you'd better PAY ATTENTION and figure out how it works.

Otherwise, your good intentions may not be less than lethal.

Regulating Corpses

  Every once in a while, a news story crosses my computer screen that makes me simultaneously cringe and chuckle.  For example, New York police ticketed an illegally parked van... numerous times... only to later discover there was a corpse inside.  Um... no wonder he wasn't motivated to move his vehicle.

That happens a lot in corporate America.  We create rules and regulations and penalties and punishments, but rarely do we look inside the van to figure out what is the root cause of the problem.  We address the outputs we observe.  We don't stop and ask WHY the van is illegally parked.  Obviously, not one single ticket issued changed the fact the driver was dead.

This is a systems thinking issue.  Instead of addressing the inputs to the system, we keep trying to change the outputs by repeating the same ill-conceived feedback which falls on deaf (or dead) ears.  I wonder how many cops even thought about LOOKING INSIDE the van.  (Can I hear a rousing chorus of "D'OH"?)

I know a lot of corporate employees who are nervous because there is not enough work to do to keep them looking busy.  I double dog dare them to go through their employee handbook and look for policies which are the equivalent of ticketing a corpse-driven van.  How do you find a corpse-targeted policy?  Here are a few pointers:

• Does it show disrespect or endanger employees or customers?
• Does it ignore the subject matter experts who know the business best?
• Does it demonstrate a laziness with respect to making an effort to invest in building people?
• Does it fail the "rational human thought process" test?
• Will it fail to change anybody's behavior? Will those the policy is imposed upon simply find a workaround or just ignore it?

Once you find these corpse policies, create an intelligent business case for changing them, along with new solutions, and an implementation plan that will get management's attention (i.e., dollars and cents).

Outcome Predicted

Last week, I attempted my first stint with Junior Achievement.  After dealing with c-suites, dysfunctional middle managers, and passive-aggressive cubicle dwellers, you wouldn't think a group of fourth graders would have me spooked, but I have to admit a certain level of nervousness headed into Mrs. Costello's Crestview Elementary classroom.

The curriculum I was given deals with regions and resources and how they interact with our business decisions.  It's very cool, and extremely easy to teach (normally, I loathe "plug and play" lesson plans).  Toward the end of the lesson, I handed out little post-it note flags to each of my students and asked them to think of a business they wanted to start.  Then I asked them to put their initials on the their flags and place them on a map of the U.S. where they wanted their business to be located.  For the most part, it was a relatively uneventful exercise, except for two of the students, whom I will refer to as "Bart" and "Lisa" (not their real names).

As he was walking up to the map, Bart demonstrated his attention to recent current events by proudly informing me he was going to start a bank and then keep everybody's money.  Upon overhearing his plans, Lisa scoffed.  (Side note:  fourth grade girls scoff better than any other class of human beings.)  She turned to Bart, and matter-of-factedly stated, "Fine, then we'll just put your flag here at Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay, because you're just going to wind up in prison anyway."  I didn't have the heart to tell her that Alcatraz was no longer in business as a prison, but I was impressed with her geography skills.

What impressed me most about this exchange was that even in fourth grade, kids are already getting cause-and-effect.  I predict Lisa will go far in life, not because she's an uptight goody-two-shoes, but because she understands that one person's behavioral inputs will create a certain type of output.

Of course, there are constraints to her views on justice.  Our nation is pretty cyclical, and while the Obama administration is moving the pendulum in one direction, eventually things come full circle.  I was reading a blog post last month where the writer was criticizing the works of Ayn Rand, and how harmful they were to our country.  What really got my attention were the two comments left by the same person.  Those comments showed much more insight into cause-and-effect of human behavior.  Overlaid with our perceptions of right and wrong is a concept of balance.

Maybe instead of prematurely sentencing Bart to prison, Lisa should start focusing her energy into allowing Bart means of making the money he desires within boundaries that will keep him out of jail... or maybe not... because another fundamental truth is that fourth grade girls love to get fourth grade boys into trouble.

The System of Survival

A lot of people ask me why I chose systems thinking as the topic for my next book.  What relevance does it have in this current economic environment?  It's a very fair question.  Given what is going on in the economy - at both a macro and micro level - a lot companies are being forced to make some drastic decisions.  But are they good ideas when examined under a "systems thinking" microscope?

Let's take Des-Moines based Principal Financial Group's decision to cut salaries across the board.  To their credit, they decided to cut pay on a sliding scale, with those earning less than $40K will get a 2% cut; those earning between $40K and $100K will lose between 4-7% of their pay.  Those earning more than $100K will lose 10% of their pay.  This decision follows a few rounds of layoffs over the past several years.  On the surface, this looks like an innovative approach so more people can keep their jobs.  After all, we all have to tighten our belts during this prolonged recession, right?

I've spent the last week talking to quite a few PFG stakeholders throughout the community (employees, former employees, consultants and contractors).  While Principal's communicated output is a lower payroll expense and the supposed saving of thousands of jobs, one has to wonder if they've considered all of the unintended outputs from their decision:

• Company loyalty - Principal's culture is based on a strong system of employee loyalty.  Their organizational culture is very paternalistic with the implied contract being "If you show your unquestioning loyalty to us, we'll take care of you."  Now that implied contract has been broken in the eyes of many, so you can expect a rather large turnover from the employees when the economy improves.
• Productivity - One look at Herzberg's motivational model and it doesn't take a lot to figure out that - while money doesn't motivate - a perceived lack of money can actually destroy motivation and productivity.  There has been considerable grumbling from many employees over this pay cut.  Don't expect major stock rebounds if people are too busy complaining to get their work done.
• Community angst - Principal is considered a thought leader in the community when it comes to human resources and benefits.  On the positive end, they've helped further progressive issues like casual work attire and alternate work schedules.  However, you can bet there are now other companies in town eyeing their own payroll expense because of PFG's actions.  If Des Moines goes into a recessionary tailspin (we've been relatively insulated to this point), it won't be too hard where to point the finger.
• Future recruiting - Iowans have excruciatingly long memories.  After this gets out into the marketplace, good luck recruiting at colleges or from other companies.  People don't want to go to work where money can be taken away.
• Mediocrity survives - Having been in Principal's culture as an employee and as a contractor, I know of many employees and executives who have willfully damaged their bottom line (some brag about it).  To my knowledge, they are still there collecting a (smaller) paycheck.  Meanwhile, the ones who do care about making a difference are left scratching their heads.

Yes, on the surace, it looks like PFG is helping to save jobs and lower costs.  Peel away the onion layers and you have something that really starts to smell bad and make people cry.

And one system's output become's another system's input.  When you look at the big picture of how systems operate, you see how potentially lethal Principal's decision becomes to the economy of Des Moines.  Principal's slogan is that they'll "give you an edge."  I think the double-entendre of this promise will be very apparent in the coming weeks.

For Sale: One Slightly Used Princess

I've always been fascinated by the story of the Princess and the Pea.  Not really the story itself, per se, but that our society has allowed it to perpetuate.  Can we really label this so-called princess a heroine?  Hello!  I'm easily stirred in my sleep, too.  Of course, I'm competing with a wife who wants all the covers and a dog who wants the whole bed.  Hmmm... that must make me a super-hero.  OK, maybe not so much.

I suppose I should back up a little and give some basis for this tirade.  I was reading this story the other night, and it hit me that this lombardic lady has the same problem as many modern cubicle dwellers:  she's great at identifying problems and symptoms but sucks at finding root causes and solutions.  All she knows is that she's had a bad night's sleep.  Only the wicked queen knows the real truth and can solve the problem:  a pea placed under multiple mattresses.  (It would be great to have more wicked queens around our cubicles if they weren't the ones starting the problems in the first place.)

So how do you distinguish between a root cause and a symptom?

• Root causes are more persistent.  Symptoms may come and go.  The process flaws plaguing your customer service may show up as lost sales, complaint spikes, etc.  The symptoms tend to come and go, but the root causes linger.

• Root causes deplete "why" questions.  With symptoms, you can still ask "why" and get answers (assuming you're honest with yourself).  With root causes, when you can no longer as "why" you probably have a cause.

• Root causes are objective.  Symptoms tend to be more subjective.  As I say in my next book, "because in the battle of drama vs. data, data almost always wins."  Root causes can be tracked much more consistently with better data than can symptoms.

• Root causes and excuses are mutually exclusive.  Because of the above reason, I've rarely seen rational and responsible people make excuses when the obvious and evident is staring them in the face.  I have, however, seen people make very lame excuses to cover up symptoms.

So let's get rid of the princesses and start finding those peas under the mattresses ourselves, shall we?

DUH-livery

I'm considering cancelling my subscription to the Des Moines Register.  It really has nothing to do with the constant shrinking in size due to cost cutting measures.  I appreciate the content of the Register.  They've been more than favorable to me as an author and speaker.  And I do like the feel of newspaper in the morning.  It really doesn't have much to do with the fact that there are other outlets available during the day where I can read the paper or get my news.  Nope, this crazy cancellation talk boils down to one thing:  carrier delivery.

Given Iowa's ever-changing climate, I've asked my carrier (MULTIPLE TIMES) to place our paper on one specific spot on our front porch so we simply have to open our door, reach out, and grab it.  She seems to think it's ok to walk half-way up our driveway and fling the paper in the general direction of the door.  Having been a newspaper carrier for almost five years in my youth, I learned the first principle of customer service before my teenage years even began:  give the customer what they want.  Their paper was always consistently placed exactly where they wanted it without fail.  So - naive me - I expect the same level of service.  When I'm up at 5 in the morning at catch her, and kindly remind her where I want the paper, I get a shrug and a week's worth of compliance before the old habits come back.

Now if you were to ask Mike Wagner about this, he'd probably tell you it's a problem with personal branding.  Ask Drew McLellan, he'd build on Mike's issue and tell you there are some marketing lapses with the customers.  Phil Gerbyshak would tag it as a gross customer service blunder.  Victor Aspengren would suggest a corporate culture flaw.  They'd all be right, albeit incomplete.  This is also a systems thinking flaw.  The Register is doing (more or less) everything right until the paper hits output stage.  The last point in the newspaper creation business is delivery, and there's a flaw.  When their output becomes my input, somebody is dropping the ball (or at least clumsily flinging it about five to ten feet out of reach in any one direction).

Let's get this crystal clear:  If the point at which your output becomes somebody' else's input is not delivered according to the precision of the INPUT's point of view, the output system has failed.  I'm sure the reporters, sales people, layout artists, photographers, and editors of the Register would be chagrined to find out that all their hard work is being undermined by one lazy delivery carrier.  They are doing their job to ensure a quality output, but the most critical point in the system - when product meets customer - is being delivered with apathetic sloppiness.  Coke learned this back in the 1980's.  Microsoft is learning it now with Vista.  The hand-off point between systems must be delivered from the perspective of the system receiving the output.

I know, I know... it's a simple concept.  But one that escapes too many businesses and individuals these days.  But if you don't understand it, your customers intuitively do.

A Cheesy Excuse

"When you're up to your ass in alligators, sometimes it's hard to remember you're supposed to be draining the swamp" - Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit

Last night, my church held the first annual "Ultimate Grilled Cheese Throw Down" where we had a competition to determine the best grilled cheese sandwich.  My "Hellfire Damnation" tied for second place (I'm claiming religious persecution because of the name).  After the competition, the griddles were opened up to all to create whatever combination they desired.  Who knew that brie, chocolate chips, and basil could taste good together?  Don't ask, OK?

The highlight of my evening came when I was sitting next to our pastor's wife.  She was eating her grilled cheese sandwich, laden with a mixture of condiments and meats.  She paused and commented to me that something wasn't right; something was missing.  That's right, folks:  in her desire to accessorize, she forgot to put cheese on her grilled cheese sandwich.  (And she also made the mistake of noting her error sitting next to a blogger who finds application in EVERYTHING.)

How often do we do that with our accomplishments?  We get so caught up in all of the minutiae, that we forget the main purpose of what we need to do.  Often, I will start my projects with one simple question (which could have multiple answers):  "This project will be successful when _____________."  Then I will pull this statement out when people want to throw tons of condiments on my project plan.  It keeps us focused and on track.

Think about your accomplishments.  Your projects.  Your relationships.  Your operations.  Your life.  Are you forgetting the cheese?  I hope not!

Tim's Hellfire Damnation Sandwich Recipe:

• Bread:  Jalapeno Cheese Bread from Uncle Wendell's Bakery
• Cheese:  Shullsburg Extra Spicy Hot Pepper Jack
• Mango Peach Salsa

Preheat griddle or pan to 375 degrees.  Cut bread approximately 1/4" thick.  Slice pepper jack approximately 3/16" thick.  Thinly layer the salsa on one slice of bread.  Butter outsides of bread (works best if butter is room temperature).  Grill until golden brown and cheese is all gooey-melty (technical grilled cheese terminology).

Do You Like Green Eggs and Bear?

It seems a Japanese Zoo is having a hard time keeping the algae out of the polar bears' water, so even the bears have "gone green."  It's not the first time this has happened.  A Singapore zoo experienced a similar event which hit the news about four years ago.

Do you like green eggs and bear?
For those things, I do not care.
I do not like green eggs and bear
I do not like them anywhere!

Do you like the in a zoo?
With green water full of goo?
Do you like green in the water
Coloring seals and an otter?

I do not like them in a zoo
I do not like them smeared with goo
I do not like green eggs and bear
I do not like them anywhere.

But what about your company?  What's covering your department or team right now and discoloring it?  Is it a bad manager?  Is it antiquated procedures?  Is it bureaucracy?  Is it unfit equipment or software?  Is it dysfunctional competition?  Any of these things can be toxic if left unchecked.

Unless you look at what is causing things to turn green (i.e., getting at the root cause), you're probably going to deal with a lot of algae-covered bears.

You Can't Get There From Here

We've all seen the signs from stores.  The ones that intuitively and implicitly say, "Go away, kid.  You bother me."  Often, companies, departments, and individuals do not even realize they are communicating to their customers their desire to keep them away.  Let's face it... taking out the driveway and putting in road-closed signs to force customers to find a different entrance is a little obvious.

• What about creating policies which force customers (internal or external) to jump through nearly impossible hoops?
• What about rewarding your call center staff for getting customers off the phone quickly rather than happily?
• What about offering rebates instead of just putting the item on sale?
• What about hiring a sloppy Gen-Y slacker or a prim-and-proper ice queen as your receptionist?
• What about holding up potential job candidates in mountains of red tape instead of making a decision one way or the other so they can get on with their lives?

The first step to fixing these roadblocks is identifying them.  Ask a friend or trusted colleague to "play pretend" customer for you and give you their impressions.  Ask a head hunter to pretend to be a job seeker with your organization.  Seek out objective counsel who can tell you what is wrong when customers enter YOUR system.  How easy is it for them?

Trust me on this one:  you can't seize your accomplishments if you are preventing your customers from seizing theirs.

Renewable Synergy

It's been fascinating watching the Democratic National Convention this week.  Because I like to remain objective, I switch among channels to get different views and commentary.  What is even more interesting, though, are the commercials shown on each of the stations.  A common theme running across party lines and ideologies is renewable fuel sources.  Regardless of Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative, it appears that we agree as Americans that our dependence on foreign oil is at a critical tipping point.  And since wind, solar, and biofuels are all renewable sources of power, it's to our advantage to look to them for the future.

What about the renewable energy on our teams at work?  Be they project teams or departments or task forces, how do the team members feel about showing up?  Watch the body language as people file into the room for your next meeting.  Are people showing up on time, bouncing in, talking animatedly about the work they are doing?  Are they building relationships and bridges with each other and with those outside the team who can be beneficial?  Or do they come in late, complaining, and dragging each other down?  Is there sniping and back-biting and sarcasm?  Are they building walls and spiteful alliances?

Both sets of team behaviors are renewable... whether a positive or negative culture has set in on your team, the energy driving it is contageous and easily permeable to those around your team.  So, if it's a negative culture, what can you do to turn things around?

• Bring food - I know, I know, it sounds simple.  Food is an amazing uplifter, especially if people see you have gone out of your way for them.  There's something about sharing a meal or snack that makes people open up in a positive way.  After all, there's a reason why Jesus had the Last Supper rather than the Last Board Meeting.
• Weed out the herd - if there is somebody who is negatively toxic, see what you can do to remove them from the rest.  Chances are good their negative vibes are contributing to your downward tailspin.  If coaching would improve the behavior, try that first; however, if they are chronically negative, you're better off dumping them.
• Code of conduct - ask the team to develop a code of behavior for what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior in meetings.  Allow them to define the consequence for breaking the code of conduct (a coin jar that can go for something positive like a team outing or a local charity is the most common).  It's important to let the team both define and police the behavior to prevent yourself from becoming the "bad cop" parental figure.
• Divide and conquer - have one-on-one meetings with people to discuss issues and ideas outside of the team setting.  This allows you to begin building the relationships and connecting in a positive fashion.  It also allows you to provide an constructive feedback in private (save the praise for the public forum; most people like being praised in front of their peers).

Making a concerted effort like this should have a positive, renewable impact on your team's energy level.  Think of it as putting a solar-powered wind turbine on your team's culture and relationships... and their accomplishments.

The Geometry of Organizational Environmentalism

It's been an interesting education recently.  In anticipation of my next project, I've been ramping up on "green" corporate issues and "sustainability."  For a systems thinker, seeing how social, environmental and economic facets interact is fascinating stuff to say the least.  Whether or not one believes in global warming or climate change, this simply points to being a good planetary steward of the resources we have to ensure they will be around for multiple generations.

What also intrigues me about many organizations' approach to being green is the philosophy of executives and managers.  In organizations, executives create strategies which they expect their underlings to execute.  Strategies generally create a mix of projects and operational process tactics.  Instead of INTEGRATING green sustainable philosophies INTO these projects and processes, most executives keep them separate, running in parallel.  OK, for those of you who endured high school geometry, what is the number one rule of parallel lines?

(No peeking.)

Yup:  PARALLEL LINES NEVER CROSS.

We've seen this "parallel lines" principle played out organizationally numerous times.  When IT was first created in the early computer days, they were "those computer people" with whom nobody could communicate.  When project management was all the rage, executives created project offices to keep the project managers out of everybody's way.  When Six Sigma and Lean were the flavor du jour, these same executives kept "business running as usual" while those process improvement people earned their blackbelts.

So now we have environmentalism and sustainability facing our organizations.  And executives are keeping these initiatives at arm's length of the other strategic activities.

Unless organizations (and the executives who run them) learn that these kinds of critical iniatives must be A PART OF of the rest of the organization instead of separate from it, they will continue to suffer.  And when these executives don't see the kind of ROI results they expect, they'll blame the initiative.  It becomes a vicious cycle of failure... all because our corporate leaders need remedial geometry.

Extra Cheese With a Side of Irritation

Aren't we all creatures of habit to a certain degree?  The route from my house to Drake University is fairly well set.  Most of the streets have at least two lanes each direction to facilitate passing; however, there's a short stretch where there's only one lane of traffic in each direction.  Usually it's not an issue, nor is it any annoyance... until the other day.  The Pizza Hut delivery guy decided he would park his car on this residential stretch of no-passing, amusingly right under a No Parking sign, rather than pulling into the driveway.  Evidently, Pizza Hut doesn't believe in training their drivers to obey basic street signs.

Don't get me wrong:  I actually like Pizza Hut and their products.  And this delivery guy was simply trying to do his job (probably for minimum wage).  He simply wanted to serve his customers by getting them their pizza as quickly as possible.  His system was set.  The inputs were his car, a hot pizza, and the route to the customer's front door (among other things).  The output was a safely delivered pizza and a collection of funds.  The feedback loop was a satisfied customer with a happy tummy.

But part of his UNINTENDED feedback loop was an already irritable driver who was in a bit of a hurry.  And this driver had a camera and a blog.  And he's already been doing a lot of thinking about how systems all fit together, and how we can't just pay attention to our own systems - we have to look at how achieving our outputs affect others.

What about you?  The readers of this blog are mostly professionals who are striving to do great things for their customers.  But - in your quest to "seize the accomplishment" are you inadvertently hindering somebody else's system from reaching a desired output.  Let me ask you this:  how many times have you been called on the carpet "just for doing your job"?  How many times have you lived out the "no good deed goes unpunished" saying?  I'm not saying we shouldn't go above and beyond, and I'm certainly not advocating merely staying inside our comfort zones so we never get in trouble.  (For me, "in trouble" is more of a perpetual state than an occasional discrete event.)  All I'm asking you to do is to think about the systems around you, and how your quest for excellence may be adversely impacting somebody else who is trying to do the same.

Then our outputs can be delivered hot, fresh, and irritation-free.

What's The Opposite of "Not Sucking"?

Just when I thought I'd heard Barbara Walters ask every interview question imaginable, she proved me wrong.  A few months after husband Kurt Cobain's 1994 suicide, Courtney Love was interviewed by Walters.  While the interview was very telling (drugs, sex, etc. ... all of the charming traits you'd expect from Ms. Love), Barbara FINALLY got around to asking her about her musical abilities.  "We don't suck," was Courtney's eloquent response, which prompted the follow-up question... "What's the opposite of 'not sucking'?"

Courtney Love and Barbara Walters aside, what about you and your accomplishments?  In project management and business analysis alike, we talk about success criteria; in other words, what does a successful solution look like, act like, feel like, function like?  But the opposite of "not sucking" is... well... sucking.  It's failure.  Do we take the time to define what failure looks like so we can avoid it?

Think about your current accomplishments.  What are you trying to avoid?  What are you attempting to miss?  What would make you slap your head in disbelief?  How could you drop the ball?  What will derail you?  Who wants to see you fail?  The polite term for this thinking is "risk management" or "test planning."  We try to achieve success, but do we know what failure looks like so we can avoid it?  To do so, to ask these tough questions can really keep you out of the a deep ... um... Hole.

Stymied By Timing

I recently fired our dog groomer.  It really had nothing to do with their quality.  As a matter of fact, Zorro looked excellent every time he came out.  Their prices had stayed constant, so we continued to get the value for our money.  The problem was time... or lack thereof.  They were such a good dog groomer demand for their services grew to the point where appointments needed to be made four months in advance.  They were unwilling to add groomers or expand, so scheduling became the critical issue for deciding to use one of the big pet store chains in town.

On a related note, I was reading the blog of one of my former students.  She was venting about a visit from a neighbor which could not have been more poorly timed (at least from her perspective).  Before I give you the link to go read this post, there's one thing you need to know about Beth, which makes her biting wit all the funnier:  Beth is one of the most professional, organized, put-together, poised, articulate, pleasant, and personable people I've ever met.  So her momentary rant about being perceived as the "white trash neighbors" is all the more hilarious, given what you now know about the woman behind the blog.

What do these stories have in common?  Simple.  Bad timing.  In your work systems, inputs may be banging at the door to be processed.  If you're not ready for them, those inputs may leave (soured customer relationships) or they may throw a wrench into your system anyway (neighborly visitor's perceptions).  Either way, you need to work at getting your inputs into your system when your system is ready for them (controllable inputs) or have your system ready for the inputs on demand (visiting neighbors).  Tom Vander Well recently posted some great thoughts on this very topic on the Iowabiz blog.  Think about the inputs to your work systems.  Are you ready for them?  Do you need to be?

Sometimes a simple awareness of what/who your inputs are and how they behave and what motivates them can be a huge step forward to designing processes that help you seize the accomplishment.

A Little Green

Last night, my wife and I attended a talk by Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods."  It was a very interesting lecture on our society's nature deficit disorder.  With my generation, we had the run of the neighborhood.  Every summer day, we'd take off after breakfast, show up for lunch, and then we'd be off again.  There were woods and creeks and hedges and paths and cornfields to explore.  Sometimes, the exploration would take place in my own backyard, but more often than not, it would take place wherever my bicycle and my legs could take me.  He talked about how we hold our kids under "house arrest" and prevent them from experiencing the same level of nature we enjoyed as children.  It was a powerful talk, which made me sad that my children aren't getting the same childhood I enjoyed.

Some of you may be thinking, "Oh great, Tim's gone all environmental on us.  Next he'll be chaining himself to a tree."  (Wishful thinking on your part.)  What really impressed me about Mr. Louv's talk is how much of a systems thinker he is.  This guy gets it when it comes to looking at the results he wants and then backing into the inputs which will get him there.  Whether he's talking about social change or behavioral modification, he impressed me with his deep understanding of cause-and-effect.  For example, he said his goal was not to villify video games.  Yeah, sounds odd for a guy trying to get kids outside, doesn't it?  His reason was simple:  if you make video games the bad guy, then kids will just want to play them more.  Like I said, he understands human behavior.  But even more, he understands the system and how it works.

While his book and talk were directed at getting kids outdoors, what about us cubicle-dwelling big kids?  How often do you schedule a meeting outdoors?  When is the last time you stepped away from you desk to walk around outside and clear your head?  Where was your "special place" when you were a kid?  Can you find a new one and create a healthy second childhood?  Thanks to IowaGoGreen.com for bringing Mr. Louv to Des Moines.

Sandbagging Your Efforts

Last week, I needed to drop off a manuscript and some pictures with my publisher in Des Moines' East Village.  Just one little problem:  the building was two blocks from the Des Moines River, which happened to be at capacity and about to spill over its banks.  I went to the front door of the building... sandbagged shut.  I went to the side door.  Same story.  Finally, at the back door, I found an entrance that - while sandbagged - was passable.

I've been thinking a lot about systems the past year.  Our organizations are systems.  Our office politics situations are systems.  Our lives are systems.  Our projects are systems.  Our relationships are systems.  Just about everything we do can be broken down into identifiable inputs, transformations, outputs, and feedback loops.  So, if everything is a system, what are we doing to protect our systems from unwanted inputs?  And in the process, are we preventing desirable inputs from entering?

The Floods of 2008 have prompted my systems thinking even more.  When you look at the levees that have broken and the lives that have been devastated, you have to wonder how much was preventable.  But then again, it's a "500-year flood" (which in Iowa terms means we'll have another one around 2023).  Here's the paradox.  Is it worth it to prevent what happened?  In our efforts to prevent another flood like this, are we going to spend too much money and create other unforeseeable problems.  (Granted, that's an easy question for me to ask given that my basement never even took on a drop of water.)

OK, let's bring it back to our organizations.  One employee does something management doesn't like.  So management creates a new policy.  Everybody else who needs to be productive and get work done finds a way around the policy so they can continue to be productive and get work done.  So management creates another policy.  And employees create more work-arounds.  Vicious circle... right?  I just wonder how much our 4-inch binders containing company policies are like river levees.  Do they eventually break because what's naturally supposed to happen is going to happen anyway?  After all, employees bent on breaking the rules are going to break the rules.

Just some ponderings on a night thinking outweighs sleeping.

Save Your Own Rain Forest

A recent end-of-year second-grade field trip to the Des Moines Botanical Center yielded some interesting facts about rain forests I'd never thought about before.  (By the way, taking time to engage the volunteers at places like this can be very educational, as they are a vastly untapped wealth of knowledge.)

Each rain forest has four major layers:

• Emergent layer - a few trees exceeding 125 feet (40 meters) in height serve as an overstory home to some winged creatures and a few monkeys.  Must be able to withstand heat and wind
• Canopy layer - continuous foliage of trees in the in 90-125 feet (30-40 meter) range serve as home to as much as 50 percent of the species that can be found on earth (plants and animals)
• Understory - all life between the canopy and the forest floor receiving only about 5% of sunlight but serving as home to many more types of animals
• Forest floor - receiving only 2% of sunlight, this area serves as a sort of compost heap to feed the rest of the rain forest.

What amazed me is the amount of interdependency among the layers and among the different species within each layer.  There's so much diversity that no one species can dominate the others; in fact, they depend on each other for survival.

What about your organization?  Are you valuing those in other departments?  Are you recognizing how your outputs provide their inputs (and vice versa)?  Are your executives forming a symbiotic relationship with front-line staff?  Are support functions like IT really helping the organization or are they trying to take it over?  We give a lot of lip service to "adding value" but do we spend much time really defining what adding value looks like as the life blood of those who use our organizational outputs?

Ask yourself this:

1. Who are YOUR customers?  What do they NEED from you to survive?  How can you provide it better?
2. Who are YOUR suppliers (internal and external)?  What do you NEED from them?  Have you communicated this to them and helped them be successful?
3. What relationships with other "species" and "layers" haven't you identified yet?  Who is paying attention to your processes and your outputs?

By all means, let's save the rain forests in our own companies as well... before they become an endangered species.

Do These Quarterly Measures Make Me Look Fat?

"Only hot guys wait for their wives in places like this."

The text message from my wife was intended to salvage my ego as she went for her THIRD trip to the Ann Taylor dressing room.  And of course, there was a line.  A long line.  She actually made me stand in this line once to save her place while she went on the hunt of an article of clothing.  The women on either side of me weren't sure what to think of this bearish-looking bald guy standing in line to the women's dressing room.  Shannon feigned apologetic just well enough to keep me in the store to do whatever bidding she deemed necessary.

Later, she explained that women's clothing sizes are so inconsistent across clothing makers that it makes it difficult to decide which size to select... hence, the multiple dressing room trips.  An eight in one shop might be a six in another and it could be a twelve somewhere else.  Hmmmmph.  Sounds like some drug-induced new math to me.  We men have it easy.  Waist:  36 inches... which means in other shops... ummm... 36 inches.  Inseam:  34 inches... which translates in other brands... to... uh... (wait, don't tell me) 34 inches.

In our quest to seize the accomplishment, we try to "sell" our ideas with numbers.  Bad numbers.  Irrelevant numbers.  Silly numbers.  But do we think about what we're trying to accomplish with these numbers.  In systems thinking, we talk about feedback loops.  What are the measures telling us about changing the inputs to get better outputs?  Franke James posted a brilliant visual essay about the "real poop on social change" which gets at the heart of this very issue.  Numbers that build awareness aren't enough; numbers have to motivate behavioral changes.  Unfortunately, I don't see the women's clothing industry taking pity on a middle-aged "shopping buddy" husband.  Darn.

My buddy Bob is actually my hero when it comes to interpreting data.  When his wife asked him if "these pants made her look fat," Bob looked her straight in the eye and responded, "No, but your thighs do."  (Bob is miraculously still breathing through both nostrils.)  Still, there may be some wisdom to this as we look at our feedback loops to make changes to our organizational systems.

You Had Me At Below

Have you ever had that "fight or flight" moment at the workplace?  How about that "gotcha" opportunity with a colleague, where you can nail his hide to the wall once and for all?  What about that "irrefutable argument" that nobody would dare to debate?  Or my personal favorite... the "I told you so" dance?

Well, they deserve it, don't they?

Probably (at least in our minds they do).

But...

Think about the downstream impacts of this discussion you're about to have.  You might be winning the battle just to lose the war.  Think about what's going to happen BELOW the surface of your impending conversation.  What might be going through the other person's mind?  What kind of day might they be having?  What other projects or issues are weighing on them?

A former client and current friend told me that his job as an executive forces him to constantly assess these issues when having difficult conversations.  As a matter of fact, it was a discussion we were having recently that inspired this post.  His current role puts him in the position of having challenging talks all the time.  However, he has to weigh the present with the future (i.e., those "downstream impacts" I mentioned earlier).  What kind of relationship will he need to have with that person in the future?  I was reading a story in the paper this morning about Sharon Stone.  For her 50th birthday in March, she performed some spiritual house cleaning and removed all of the relationships that she did not deem beneficial to her.  That may be a little extreme.

Remember:  The outputs from today's conversation may be unwitting inputs to tomorrow's conversation.  Let's just think about what may be working below the surface when our relationships are running as smoothly as they could be, OK?

Saving the Environment

It's Earth Day!

With the emphasis on the environment, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the systems model.  We all know the components:  inputs are transformed into outputs, feedback tells us how good the outputs are, yada, yada, yada.  But what about the environment in which the system operates?

Recently, I was talking to a Six Sigma convert, passionately rabid about his craft.  He was, however, discouraged that he could not gain traction within his organization.  All of the Six Sigma projects seemed insignificant in the grander scheme of things going on.  Then I asked him the $64,000 question:  What are the executives doing?  His response included a lot of feet-shuffling, hemming, and hawing.  Then, I asked him about the culture of the organization, how receptive it was to a major shift in approach.  Again, more waffling.  His problem wasn't one of process; it was a problem of environment.

Many years ago, I did a project (wrote about it several months ago).  One of the large "big box" employers in town was considering putting everybody underneath VP in the same size and style of work station.  From a dollars and cents perspective, this project was a winner!  The company, who shuffled departments and individuals frequently, would have saved millions.  But they did not consider the environment.  From a company culture view, level and position (and the furniture which came with it) were similar to the caste system of eastern countries.  There was such environmental outcry because the people - the stakeholders - were so deadset against it; their identity was tied to their furniture.

So before you jump up and start to tackle the world, you might want to consider whether the world can tackle you first.  Think about the people involved, the corporate culture, your suppliers and customers, the technology available, the economy, and all of the other elements out in the environment.  You may know your inputs and outputs, but your environment can change everything on a dime.

Happy Earth Day!

Cause and Defect

Being the parent of younger children means that I am exposed to the best of children's literature at all of my kids' different stages and reading levels.  Both of my daughters have enjoyed the "If you give" books by Laura Joffe Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond.  With titles like "If you give a moose a muffin" or "If you give a pig a pancake" as well as one of my favorites, "If you give a mouse a cookie," each book follows a series of events that take the reader all the way back to the beginning events of the book.  For example, if you give a moose a muffin, he'll want some jam to go with it.  The jam reminds the moose of something, which leads to another activity, directing the moose elsewhere.  Finally, the logic ends up that if you give the moose some jam, he'll want a muffin to go with it.  It's a fun reading romp which demonstrates cause-and-effect to young minds... provided those young minds don't mind going in a complete circle.

But is it really only young minds that can benefit from this?  I started thinking about what would happen if Laura Joffe Numeroff and Felicia Bond worked in the corporate world.  Perhaps the book, "If you give an executive a status report" would result:

If you give an executive a status report, he'll want some supporting data to go with it.

When you give him the supporting data, he'll probably doubt your credibility.  He'll hire a team of high-priced consultants to conduct their own study.

The consultants will spend months (and hundreds of thousands of dollars) interviewing staff and second guessing the value of your work.

They will ask you to document their findings for them and run other menial errands.

Even though it's not necessary, they will attempt to validate their value by recommending a major reorganization to the executive.

This will remind him that he needs to play golf with the other executives on his floor to sell the idea of the reorganization.

He may invite you to go along and caddy for him.

He will ask you to fish his balls out of the water and get drinks and cigars for all of his fellow-executives.

As a reward for your faithful service, the executive will put you in charge of the reorganization.  He will want to see timelines and estimates.

Seeing the timelines and estimates will prompt him to ask you for some supporting data.

And chances are, when he sees the supporting data, he'll want you to give him a status report.

Nah, I doubt they'd ever write a children's book for us big people.  It just wouldn't be believable enough.

Buck Naked and Wet

The attached is one of my favorite short films from Pixar.  After you watch it, tell me this:

1. What do you generally do when you fall flat on your face in failure?
2. What lessons have you learned from your greatest failures?
3. Who's your "jackalope" to provide you with advice and encouragement during these times?

Geeking Out With Troy

I know I said I was going to learn how to say "no" more often, but this was an offer I couldn't refuse (even without Mafia influence).  Troy Worman, blog geek extraordinaire and all around awesome guy, has just started a new blog called www.processgeek.com and invited me to contribute on occasion.  I just put up my first post this morning.

Why am I doing this?  Well, if one is truly to Carpe Factum, one has to be able to define the "factum" that one wants to "carpe."  In other words, it's all well and good to say you want to seize the accomplishment, but if you can't design what the accomplishment looks like, it's going to be awfully slippery to try and seize it.  The past few years, I've been finding myself wearing a "business analyst" hat with my clients as much as (if not more than) my project manager's hat, and I've found that I really enjoy playing that role.

Since my next book deals with systems thinking and process improvement, Troy's timing and invitiation were perfect.  Plus, I like being part of a collaborative writing effort, as you may have noticed on Office-Politics and Iowabiz.

Dear Santa

Dear Santa...

Because of your age and my size, we'll skip the whole "sitting on the lap thing" and just cut to the letter.

I've been a very moderately tolerably good boy this year.  My list is going to be pretty simple:  equilibrium.  Let me explain, Santa.  I've been doing a lot of research about systems thinking for my next book, and I'm finding that balance is sort of a crock.  Balance is what we try to do... equilibrium is what we try to achieve.  It's because we're so out of balance in our lives that we can't attain equilibrium; we keep swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction.  So, given that clarification, here's what I'd like, Santa, for my family this year:

• Relationships - maintain the positive relationships in our lives, heal the ones that need a little nudge, bring us new ones that will be mutually beneficial, and remove those harmful ones that cannot be salvaged.
• Health - keep us healthy enough that we can get through all of life's challenges without much difficulty, but a couple of small bumps to make us grateful for our health.
• Finances - continue to give us enough to meet our needs and help others, but not so much that we lose sight of what's really important in life.
• Priorities - let us manage the time bank we're given with grace and style, focusing on the important relationships and tasks, and having the time to recharge our batteries appropriately.
• Outlook - I tell my clients and students that "if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right" so help us see fun in the otherwise mundane, and if there is absolutely no fun to be found (or made), get us the heck away from it.
• Ambition - let us stretch for what we can and should attain, be appropriately content with what we have attained, and avoid complacency with what should never be good enough.

That ought to do it, big guy.  This has been a year where I've really seen what equilibrium looks like, and I've really liked it.

We'll leave milk and cookies by the tree (try not to leave crumbs, or the wife will make me vacuum them up).

Fly safe,

Tim

P.S.  Of course, a spot on the New York Times Best Seller List and/or a new Harley would be highly appreciated, but certainly not required.

On Outlets And Inputs

I've been staying in a lot of hotel rooms lately... some very respectable chains... Marriott, Holiday Inn, etc.  But I've noticed a common thread among all of them that is bugging the heck out of me... not enough electrical outlets in strategically placed locations throughout the room.

Why?  Are they afraid we might use too much electricity if they give us more outlets?  Do they think we'll create a fire hazard?  What's next?  A lump of coal per room per night?  I have a cell phone to charge.  A laptop to use.  A CPAP to sleep with.  I NEED POWER!

Do we find ourselves doing the same thing to our customers?  Are we giving them the right kinds of inputs at the right time in the right quantities?  Sometimes we think we are providing great customer service, only to find out we've totally missed the mark.  Another example that comes readily to mind is my (new) Ford Escape.  I've never been one to think of a car as much more than transportation from point A to point B.  However, there are some features to this vehicle that I'm seriously missing from my Jeep:  automatic headlights, compass, outside thermometer reading.  However, it has a moon roof and a six-CD stereo.  I'm sure the fine folks at Ford thought they were adding value to me with these delightful features (snicker, chuckle).  Here's a thought:  ASK them what they really want and when they want it.

Any supply chain manager knows that the best way of managing the chain is to ensure that your outputs coordinate (timing and quantity-wise) with the next guy's inputs.... and so on and so forth.  If Marriott's output is a comfortable hotel room for their guests, then they can start by asking my needs for inputs... more electrical outlets.

Now, if you don't mind, I need to find an outlet before my laptop battery dies.  Good night!

Breaking And Centering

"The difficult is that which can be done immediately; the impossible that which takes a little longer." -George Santayana

I'm finding that expectations are a tricky thing in life.  In project management, we say that 90% of a project manager's job is communication.  What we don't tell them is the small print:  90% of that communication is expectation setting (and resetting).

This year has been about career transitions for me.  While I'm not opposed to sitting in a cubicle and doing a client's bidding, I find myself more energized by actively working with people and organizations in a focused environment to seize their accomplishments.  This comes through coaching and speaking engagements.  To make this change, there have had to be trade-offs, but they've been worthwhile and I've expected them.  But sometimes the unexpected comes busting through, and I have to learn how to integrate that into an existing set of expectations.  As my wife keeps reminding me, "winging it is a life skill."

I was chatting with a few people last night after my presentation in Green Bay.  They had worked for an insurance company who was going through a reorganization/merger.  They said that many of them had waited for over a year to see if they had a "box" on the organizational chart.  Some of those who were informed that they had a box were now wondering if it had all been worth it.  Some who had been released early had received an invitation to reinvent themselves.  The unexpected had broken in, and rather than react to it, they found a place for it and embraced it.

Jeanette, a new elementary teacher whose blog is entitled A Piece of My Mind, wrote a beautiful piece last month about expectations.  I was fascinated in how she differentiated between the expectations she set for herself (and the detours to that) vs. the unmet expectations she had of others.  It's a good read and will leave you thinking.  Whether of ourselves or of others, we do own our own expectations.  It's how we react to and integrate the UNEXPECTED that really differentiates us.  Often, we have our own road blocks and perceptions that prevent us from seeing the unexpected in the first place.

What do you do when the unexpected occurs?

And Just Where Do You Think You're Going?

"He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place it leads to.  It is the means that determine the ends."  -Henry Emerson Fosdick

I'm getting ready for a few days of business travel, and I'm developing those butterflies in my stomach.  It's not so much nervousness about flying, but I am just excited about the unknown... what lies ahead... what people will I meet... what experiences will I gain?

My perception is that - as a society - we don't just let ourselves go ... we don't release ourselves to the possibilities nearly enough.  I know I'm guilty of trying to cram a lot into a schedule without leaving enough wiggle-room for "what if" and "I wonder" ... that's what is so cool about business trips.  I was at a dinner party the other night where I referred to business trips as "sanctioned running away from home."  I'm throwing my backpack over my shoulder and setting off for parts unknown.  OK, so maybe Green Bay and Raleigh-Durham don't count as being that glamorous... but it's still an adventure.

So bring it on... we'll see where it leads.

Who Wrote That Autobiography, Anyway?

One of the benefits of being married to a high school teacher is that I get to be on the front line for the "teenagers say the darnedest things" recap at the end of the day.  My all-time favorite story was when my wife was teaching a unit on the Renaissance period in preparation of starting Romeo and Juliet.  Her students were assigned to do a presentation on some aspect of the period... the food, the fashion, the art, the science.  Two freshmen girls were doing their presentation on Renaissance art, sharing various works on their PowerPoint, the artist, when they were created, and any other contextual information.  They arrived at a specific slide in their presentation and delivered the following quote:  "This is a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci.  We don't know who painted it because the book didn't say."

Um... yeah....

I tell my clients and my students alike that it's generally equally important for them to know HOW to find the answers as it is to answer.  Maybe it's the Zen in me, but I've always to believed the journey to be on the same plane as the destination.  This applies to project management, to office politics, to leadership, to creativity... you name it.  It doesn't surprise me that students do worse on open-book exams; they don't think about how to think.  They don't care about looking for answers before the test, because they assume they can think about the search when they're under the gun.  And then they realize it doesn't work that way... all too late.  I relished a recent post by blogger Stephen Simmonds:

I really appreciate being able to find answers.  I find before me niggling little questions all the time, in all aspects of life and knowledge.  But on another level, it's about integration - of knowledge, of facts, and understanding.  For the first time in my life, I can find out most of what I want to know; I can fill in all the little gaps that have been outstanding for ages.

Beautifully put, Stephen.  In the quest to Carpe Factum, we sometimes forget to think.  We don't find the answers because the "book didn't say."  There are a alot of times when we're called upon to SEARCH for the answers.  When the book doesn't say what the answers are, that's the time to close the book and look everywhere else... including inside ourselves.  And as Stephen points out, it goes beyond just looking for answers, life is about integrating all of the questions into something that makes sense for us. 

Where can you shift the emphasis from the answers themselves to the search for the answers?

Confusement Park

I've become desensitized and cynical in my "old age" so I'm always amused when a news story can grab my attention and rattle me up a little bit.  It seems there is an amusement park in Sacramento that has opened a new ride called The Screamer.  Here's the kicker:  the neighbors complained about the screams from those riding it, so the park owners have imposed a scream ban on the riders.  If you let out a peep, you get kicked off the ride.  No.  Seriously.  You can read Aaron Davis' article for yourself here.

Here's the other irony:  the neighbors' complaints and the ensuing publicity have created such a buzz about the ride that the amusement park is doing better than ever.

OK, don't laugh out loud or I'll make you get off the blog.  This is a tremendous backfire on so many levels.  Who has ever heard of building an amusement park ride called the Screamer and not allowing people to scream?  How silly the neighbors must feel that their complaints about the neighborhood menace have made that same nuisance a celebrity.

Of course, who ever heard of providing employees with motivational trinkets that only served to demoralize them?  Who ever heard of implementing a policy to bring order to a department which only created more chaos?  Who ever heard of setting up customer service guidelines which drove customers to the competition because they were so mad?  Gee... those things NEVER happen (please note the intense sarcasm in that last sentence; it's intentional).

Our projects.  Our processes.  Our people.  Our products.  They all operate on simple laws of cause-and-effect.  The outcomes (behaviors, customer satisfaction, deadlines, deliverables) are driven by the inputs.  When professionals learn how to make decisions and implement accomplishments with an eye beyond the bottom line, that's when we go beyond simply getting things done to true Carpe Factum.

Now everybody all together... just for those great folks in Sacramento... repeat after me:

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

A Swing and A Prayer

When I studied in the Mexican Yucatan for a term as an undergrad, we had the opportunity to sleep in hammocks in our room.  (For those of you who have never taken a siesta on a hand-woven Mayan hammock, you don't know what you're missing.)  I shared a room with two other rambunctious students named Dan and Casey.  Our hammocks were arranged in a Z formation between two of the walls, and as luck would have it, I occupied the middle hammock.

Dan and Casey, while both wonderful guys, loved to play "pirate ship takeover" - a game where they would see if they could knock somebody out of their hammock by simply ramming them or jumping into another's hammock and forcibly throwing the occupant out.  Casey was the undisputed champion of our room, simply because of his size.  He was a big guy with a strong athletic build, so no matter how much resistance Dan and I put up, he could knock us out of our hammock in 2-3 attempts.

One evening we were all peacefully swinging in our hammocks, and I could see the look creeping onto Casey's face that said, "Avast ye matey, I'm gonna ram you starboard."  I thought quickly.  Resistance was futile; I always wound up kissing the concrete floor.  When takeover looked imminent, I quickly changed the rhythm of my swing as he was preparing to jump over in his attempt to knock me out.  By conforming to his swing pattern, I easily flipped a guy who had consistently won over my hammock multiple times, and he ended up kissing the concrete.  I smiled innocently at him and went back to reading my book.  That ended his hammock pirate career.

How often in business do we attempt to fight against corporate systems in futility?  Ann Michael has an amazing post about our feeble attempts to fit everything into either-or categories.  Instead of swinging against your corporate adversaries, maybe the best way to "win" is to see where you can conform.  It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing.  Nobody has a rule that says that either-or is the only way to go.  I always enjoy the look on a colleague's face when I agree with them unexpectedly.  In looking for points of commonality, it sometimes makes it easier to win over on the points where we do differ, and it lends credibility to our arguments.  As Stephen Covey says, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

Where can you change your professional rhythm to unexpectedly flip your corporate pirates?  Ahoy!!