Jul 26
A management obsessed with productivity usually has little patience for the quiet time essential to profound creativity.
… Welcome to the If-we-work-hard-enough-long-enough-burn-ourselves-out-enough-we’ll-succeed-through-control Hairball.
… A healthier alternative is the Orbit of trust that allows time – without immediate, concrete evidence of productivity – for the miracle of creativity to occur.
– Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball
Jul 25
Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license.
– Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball
Jul 24
If an organization wishes to benefit from its own creative potential, it must be prepared to value the vagaries of the unmeasurable as well as the certainties of the measurable.
– Gordon MacKenzie, Orbiting the Giant Hairball
Failure has been a word of the moment for the past few years: “too big to fail“, Jim Collin’s How the Mighty Fall, and – I can’t count the British Petroleum headlines on the subject. Today, Seth Godin’s blog talks about the “hierarchy of failure worth following“:
. . . frequency = good all the way to please-don’t!
FAIL OFTEN: Ideas that challenge the status quo. Proposals. Brainstorms. Concepts that open doors.
FAIL FREQUENTLY: Prototypes. Spreadsheets. Sample ads and copy.
FAIL OCCASIONALLY: Working mockups. Playtesting sessions. Board meetings.
FAIL RARELY: Interactions with small groups of actual users and customers.
FAIL NEVER: Keeping promises to your constituents.
I’m reflecting on how this fits into my understanding of organizational and personal failure. Finally, a quote from Michael Jordan:
I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.
Jul 14
The subtitle of this book, A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace, brings this memoir into the realm of organizations. I am, by far, not the first person to discover this book. Originally self-published in 1997, it is now in its 19th printing. Bob Sutton’s frequent mention in speeches, articles, and his blog provided the impetus for me to get a copy.
I was pulled right into MacKenzie’s orbit and read the book in two sittings. The hairball is “that tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, and systems, based on what worked in the past and which can lead to mediocrity in the present.” While not suggesting that any organization can rid itself of that hairball – afterall, we all have boundaries including cash flow and government regulation – he recommends that from time-to-time we extract ourselves from the hairball and tap into our imagination and creativity.
The memoir asks both sides of your brain to engage. His stories are mingled with drawings and diagrams, which inspired my imagination. From an organization development point of view, there are stories about facilitation methods, perspectives on organizational paradox from the viewpoint of the orbit and hairball, and opinions on leadership. He certainly is not boring! And he will challenge your thinking and imagination.
I’ll conclude with a quote from a 1997 interview with MacKenzie in Fast Company about the obstacles to escaping the hairball and getting to orbit:
Attachment to outcome. As soon as you become attached to a specific outcome, you feel compelled to control and manipulate what you’re doing. And in the process you shut yourself off to other possibilities.
I got a call from someone who wanted me to lead a workshop on creativity. He needed to tell his management exactly what tools people would come away with. I told him I didn’t know. I couldn’t give him a promise, because then I’d become attached to an outcome — which would defeat the purpose of any creative workshop.
The power to undo has become firmly established in our lives. We press the backspace key or type “Ctrl+Z” to instantly undo typing mistakes. We press the undo button in the word processor to change our minds about what we want to say or how to say it. If we decide we don’t like a purchase, we take it back to the store. Undo is the power to “make a previous act of no effect.”
I would not want to go back to the days of “white out”. And, I like to be able to return things that don’t fit or exchange them for something more useful. But when we try to transfer the power of undo to our organizations and relationships, our commitments can be conditional; we don’t have to care too much; we don’t have to risk trusting. Indeed, trust may be broken all kinds of ways. A leader offers false praise, gives inconsistent messages, or pretends the elephant in the room doesn’t exist. It can be broken when a customer service representative stonewalls instead of assists or a product fails five minutes after being unboxed.
Yet, no one or thing is perfect. We make mistakes with our clients and employees, families and friends. And, in our relationships and organizations, there is no undo, no power to “make a previous act of no effect.” A reader recently challenged me by commenting that we need to do “our best to finish well, especially when we need to ask for forgiveness … understanding and healing should not go undone–if possible.”
Asking for, and offering, forgiveness is part of rebuilding trust. In my experience, repairing trust is possible, but it can take time and requires a change in behavior. Paul Boese said, “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it enlarges the future.” It enlarges by making it possible for me to again risk commitment, love, and trust, – remembering that the power of undo is limited.
Jul 9
Black Bird and Thunderheads at Sunset
Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people all remark
We have done it ourselves
– Lao-tzu
Jul 8
Back in 1989, before I’d ever heard about the philosophy of Appreciative Inquiry or Good Boss, Bad Boss, I had an experience that began to change my ideas about management.
I knew a manager of a local division of AlliedSignal who wanted to improve the warehouse space in order to increase efficiency. He began by redesigning a part of the space with new lighting, shelving, inventory tags, and order pulling carts. It looked not only well-organized, but appeared beautiful in the midst of a dusty warehouse. He excitedly explained the new system to the employees and returned to his office.
About a week later, the manager called an informal meeting near the redesigned space. He was eager to hear employees report so that he could complete the redesign throughout the facility. He asked, “How do you like it?” He was dismayed to hear multiple people say things like, “It looks nice, but …. It makes it harder to pull orders. We don’t like it. It slows down our work.” He stopped and decided to listen. He asked them to walk him through the processes they used every day: receiving, shelving, pulling orders, and shipping. They showed him how the redesigned space negatively impacted their productivity.
Instead of shrugging and suggesting they “get used to it”, the manager stayed to listen – an unusual behavior at that time and place. Implementing the ideas of those who used the area daily changed not only their productivity, but it began a culture change that lasted throughout the manager’s tenure. By implementing employee ideas, trust was established in a new way. The manager shifted from being the chief in charge to leading by facilitating. And I learned that organizational power sometimes comes not by force, but by actively listening, supporting, and providing resources.
Now, more than 20 years later, there is evidence to support his method and behavior. Opening a space where people can engage their best ideas and discover what works well is still a breath of fresh air. And often the unexpected, the surprise, shows up too.
Jul 6
At our house these days, everyone is enjoying watching and talking about the World Cup Soccer tournament. This afternoon finds four teenage boys gathered around the TV and computer, eating pizza, watching the semi-final game, and throwing a miniature ball around the room. Even Ted, our Manx cat, enjoys getting in on the action.
Some random Organization Development observations about the World Cup:
Rosabeth Moss Kanter adds some thoughts on World Cup Leadership Lessons at her HBR blog. Her conclusion:
The lessons for leaders: Your job is to provide resources and support that build the confidence of players in themselves, each other, the team, and the excellence of the surrounding system. Ethics, fair play, mentoring, smooth transitions, continuity, and collaboration should not be luxuries or lip service; they create the margin of victory.
What organization development lessons have you discovered from the World Cup or other sports?
Jul 1
On the National Mall
My countrymen, … think calmly and well upon this whole subject.
Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste,
to a step which you would never take deliberately,
that object will be frustrated by taking time;
but no good object can be frustrated by it.
– A. Lincoln, from first inaugural address
Friesen Group 