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!!