There is a common organisational disease called a “malignant egoma”. This is a swelling of the ego-centre in the executive organ triggered by a deficiency in the humility feedback loop, linked to underdevelopment of the auditory feedback system. The executive organ is partially cut off from the rest of the organisation – often physically as well as functionally. The ego-centre is close to the perception centres – specifically vision – which becomes progressively distorted until a blind-spot develops – this suppresses humility further and accelerates the enlargement of the egoma: i.e. we have a positive feedback loop – a vicious circle. The external manifestation of this disease is a behaviour called “dystrust” – or difficulty in extending trust to others. The unwitting victim becomes progressively deaf, blind and paranoid – often shutting themselves away and communicating via one-way-directives. To communicate with them requires SHOUTING and BIG LETTERS which unfortunately is also the behaviour demonstrated by the victim as their perception of reality becomes more distorted and their lack of humility blocks them from considering themselves as a part of the problem.
“Fulminant egomatosis” is a condition that is easy to identify and to diagnose, just listen for the shouting and observe the fear. It is, however, a difficult one to manage because of the lack of awareness and insight. Many organisations try to manage it by ignoring it – hoping it will resolve itself which is indeed what happens eventually. However, in the interim the health of the organisation deteriorates and many organisations die unaware of the illness that killed them – the organisation meekly accepts its “fate” and it bows its head for the final chop – usually delivered by the Chair of the Board on the recommendation of the Director of Finance.
Some organisations become aware of the condition while they are still alive but only when they are in the terminal stage and are too sick to save – their death is unpleasant to watch – and unfortunately fuels the “they were just unlucky” self-justifying delusion of other organisations who then blindly follow the same path.
Unfortunately the “malignant egoma spores” can spread well before the final merciful act – to infect other organisations. Just as with Dr Ignaz Semmelwis – the infective agents are often carried on the hands of those who perform the organisations post-mortem. The unwitting vectors of this deadly system disease are sometimes the very people b(r)ought into assist the ailing organisation – the management consultants. Often the vectors suffer the same chronic disease and yet are unaware, spreading it like syphilis.
The organisations that are able to resist this disease will survive longest (“built to last”) because they were born with a well developed sense of vision, humility and confidence and are habitually looking for, detecting and defusing the early signs of “malignant egomatosis”. They have a strong cultural immune system and are able to prevent infection and defuse the spores. They are fun places to work.
Some infected organisations are fortunate to have their “ah ha” moment before it is too late and are able to escape the vicious cycle (“good to great”). They may do this by observing the fate of others and learning from it; or by detecting the early symptoms and have the common sense to seek help from someone who knows the importance of hand-washing!
All organisations have the potential to develop a “malignant egoma” so prevention is better than cure. To prevent the disease we have to consciously and actively develop our feedback loops – using all our senses. Bullshit has a characteristic odour! We also have to regularly exercise humility organ to keep it fit and healthy – and the easiest way to do that is to try to do things that we know we are not very good at. We have to be prepared to make plonkers of ourselves and to laugh at ourselves … then get up and try again.
Laughter is the antidote!
Time is an intangible – we can’t touch it, taste it, smell it, hear it or see it – yet we do sense it – and we know it is valuable. A precious commodity we call lifetime. We often treat lifetime as it if were tangible - something that we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch - something like money. We often hear the phrase “time is money” and we say things like ”spending time” and “wasting time” – as if it were money. But time is not money; we cannot save time, we cannot buy time, and we all get the same amount of time per day to use.
Another odd thing about time is that we sense that it moves in one direction – from past to future with now as the transition. This creates an interesting discontinuity: if we look forward from now into the future we perceive an infinite number of possibilities; yet if we look backwards from now into the past we see only one actuality. That is really odd - Now is when Infinity becomes One.
So, how does that insight help us make a choice? Well, suppose we have decided what we want in the future and are now trying to make a choice of what to do next; to plan our route to our future desired goal. Looking from now forwards presents us with a very large number of paths to choose from, none of which we can be sure will lead us safely to where we want to get to. So what happens? We may become paralysed by indecision; we may debate and argue about which path to take; we may boldly step out on a plausible path with hope and courage; or we may just guess and stumble on with blind faith. Which we choose seems more a reflection of our personality than a rational strategy. So let us try something else – let us project ourselves into the future to the place where we want to be; and then let us look backwards in time from the future to the present. Now we see a single path that led to where we are; and by unpicking that path we can see that each step of it had a set of necessary and sufficient pre-conditions which, with the addition of time, moved us forward along the path. Hindsight is much clearer than foresight and each of us has a lifetime’s worth of hindsight to reflect on; and the cumulative hindsight of history to draw on. This is not an exerise in fantasy; we already have what we need.
To make our choice we start with the outcome we want and ask the question “What are the immediately preceeding necessary and sufficient conditions?” Then for each condition we ask the question “Does that condition already exist?” If so then we stop – we need go no further on this side branch; and if not then we repeat the Two Questions and we keep going until we have linked our goal back to pre-conditions that exist. All the pre-conditions in the map we have drawn are necessary but we do not yet have all of them. Some are only dependent on pre-conditions that exist - these are the important ones because they tell us exactly what to focus on doing next. Our choice is now obvious and simple – though the action may not be easy. No one said the journey would be easy!
Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a better result might be called practice, perseverence, persistence, even patience; it might also be called futility or even madness. We know that sometimes persistence pays off, and sometimes it doesn’t, so how do we know which is which? Very often this problem is disguised – for example when we want a better outcome of a process. It is easy to assign blame for poor outcomes to people because of the cause-and-effect chain that you can trace back from an obvious mistake – but it is always valid to do this? Suppose I repeat the same actions and occasionally get a poor outcome - checking for the mistake and when it happens tracing the audit trail back to the action of a specific person is of little value in this case because it doesn’t expose the true root cause. Outcomes are usually the result of cumulative actions and it is difficult or impossible to separate out the contributions. So, the only rational way to improve outcome is to improve every part of the process proactively. And if there is a bad apple in the barrel it is much easier to spot when the rest of the apples are good than when all the apples are a bit bruised.
Doh! What a non-question! Good design is obvious. But is it? Bad design is certainly obvious because it trips you up, it does something you do not expect or doesn’t do something that you do expect – you become consciously aware of bad design and it is a niggle because bad design is effort wasting, time wasting and money wasting. Bad design generates niggles and toxic emotional waste swamps. So what was your feeling when you first saw an iPhone, or an iPod, or used iTunes or touched an iPad? Was it was “Wow!” That is the first impact of good design – you notice the difference immediately. However, after that it becomes gradually invisible because the old niggle goes away, and before long you are taking the good design for granted because there is nothing to consciously remind you of it. Your expectation has changed – what previosuly delighted now only satifies. Good design is an invisible nugget. So here is something to try – look around you now and identify all the examples of good and bad design that you can see. What differentiates the two? For a niggle free existence you will have to actively seek out good design by looking for what is there but not making itself obvious. Refocus from what doesn’t work to what does work and learn to understand how and why it works. You may find it a humbling experience!!
When you are approaching the checkout in the supermarket how do you decide which queue to join? Is it the shortest? Is it the one with the fewest number of full trollies? Is it the one that is staffed by the most competent looking operative? Or is it the new-fangled computerised one that technophobes like me avoid like the plague? If your goal is to get out of the shop as quickly as possible then this is an important yet tricky decision. Once you have committed to a specific queue then you are bound by the social norms to stick it out.
Technically speaking the queue to join is not the shortest one, or the one with the where there are the smallest number of individual items that need to be scanned, or the one with the fastest operative – it is the queue with the smallest load – the product of the total number of items and cycle time of the operative. Hence the quick mental calculation of length of queue * average size of trollies * speed of operative. Even then it can go wrong if someone throws a spanner in – such as picking up the only item on the shelf with a missing barcode – triggering the need to call a “supervisor”!
Are you completely passive in this process though? Not at all – you can ensure all your purchases have barcodes and you can influence the cycle time of the operative. Observe what they are doing – picking up each item in turn, finding the bar code, and turning the item so that the bar code can be scanned by the computer. To shorten the cycle time all you have to do is make the work for the operative as easy as possible by placing each item on the moving belt in the correct orientation and spaced so that the speed of the belt delivers the items at the same rate that the operative can scan. This sounds counter-intuitive but it works! It is rather like the variable speed limits on some motorways – by slowing down you get there faster because the flow is smoother – there is less “turbulence” created.
There are two flaws in this counter-intuitive strategy though – the people in the queue behind you may start “tutting” because they believe you are playing childish games and slowing the process down (which is incorrect but we are all brainwashed to copy other people’s behaviour and to ostacise any “social deviants”). The other flaw is that, if you are shopping alone you cannot stream the items for optimal scanning and pack your scanned purchases into your reusable shopping bag! So, you may only be able to use this trick when accompanied by a trained stooge and have access to a fast getaway car! Of course you might get even more radical – and offer to stream the shopping for the person in front while they pack their scanned items. But that would mean that we work together to achieve a common goal – to reduce the (life)time we all spend waiting in the shopping queue. This way you don’t need a stooge or a getaway car. Everyone wins. What everyone? How is that possible?
Imagine you are a hospital doctor. Some patients die. But how many is too many before you or your hospital are labelled killers? If you check out the BBC page http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10729380 you will see there Michael Blastland inviting you to try his deadly “Go Figure Chance Calculator.” It turns out that though innocent of any failing, bad luck might convict you all the same.
Several comments have been posted by readers. Here’s mine..
Statistics should simply serve as a guide as to where to concentrate your search for poor practice, and by separating special from common cause variation – signals from noise – good statistical analysis will properly identify “outliers” that are highly likely to be genuine ones. Sadly, few people realize that there are 3 main kinds of statistics depending on whether it’s for research purposes, or for improvement, or to rank & judge? Traditionally, academic institutions have been almost exclusively interested in the first type, whilst organisations use mainly just the 3rd type – occasionally for retrospective study employing academic institutions to use the 1st type.
Interestingly, last week’s White Paper aimed at “Liberating the NHS” sets up the possibility for clinicians (with the support of those few managers who know about it) to make their commissioning decisions using the 2nd type: IMPROVEMENT STATISTICS which uses thinking that originated with Walter Shewhart in the 1920s and has more recently been popularised as an approach called Six Sigma – that separates signal from noise using real time data available in the same time scale that decision-making occurs.
Six Sigma unfortunately has a downside – it can make improvement statistics the preserve of experts alone, but there is now some software called BaseLine© – that aims to make measurement inexpensive, uncomplicated and attractive to the non-statistician, and is designed to make working with real-time data very easy to do. Based upon simple Run Charts and an easy-to-use control chart that helps identify and systemic shifts in performance, it’s an aid to both diagnosis and future monitoring, and is available free via www.valuesystemdesign.com. It’s so easy to use that even patients are now using BaseLine© to monitor their own medical data over time – helping them to take charge of their own care, and changing the kind of conversation they have with their GP – sometimes radically.
Using improvement statistics means that judgments can be made about the system – in real time – instead of just about the people who work in the system. Chance is used to diagnose what’s happened and what’s happening, and to prognose what is likely to happen. It becomes virtually impossible for chance to label anyone a killer – unless they really are one. Had improvement statistics been in common usage, in all probability at least 200 of Harold Shipman’s victims would have been spared his premature intervention.
A map is not the Territory but it is a very useful model because it provides a sense of perspective; the bigger picture; where you are; and what you would need to do to get from A to B. A map can also provide the the fine detail, they way-points on your journey, and what to expect to see along the way. I remember the first computer programs that would find a route from A to B for me and present it as a printed recipe for the journey; how far it was and best of all how long it would take – so I knew when to set off to be confident I could arrive on time. Of course, there could always be unexpected holdups along the way but it was a big step forward. The problem came when I accidently took a wrong turn, which is easy in unfamiliar surroundings with only a list of instructions to go by. If I came off the intended track I would get lost – so I still needed the map as a backup. Now we have Google Maps and we can see what we will actually see on the way – before we leave home! And with SatNav we get this map-reading done for us in real time so if we choose to, are forced to, or accidentially take a wrong turn it can get us back-on-track. The days of heated debate between the map reader and the map needer have gone and it seems the only need we have for a map now is as a backup if the SatNav breaks down. (This did happen to me once, I didn’t have a map in the car and the only information I had was the postcode of my destination. I was pressed for time so I drove around randomly until I passed a shop that sold SatNavs and bought a new/spare one – entered the postcode and arrived at my intended destination just in time!).
So is the map dead? Not at all – the value of a map in providing a sense of perspective, context and location is just as necessary as ever. And there are many sorts of maps apart from the static, structural, geographical maps ones we are used to. The really exciting maps are the dynamic ones – the functional maps. These are maps that show how things are working and flowing, not just where they are. Imagine if your SatNav had both a static map and was able to access a real time dynamic map of traffic flow. Just think how much more useful it would be? However, to achieve that implies that each person on the road would have to contribute both their position and their intended destination to a central system. Air traffic control (ATC) systems have done this for years for a very good reason: aeroplanes full of passengers are perishable goods – they can’t land anywhere they like and they can’t stay up there waiting to land for ever. You can’t afford traffic jams with aeroplanes – so every pilot has to file a flight plan and will only be given ATC clearance to take off if their destination is capable of offering them a landing slot in an acceptable time frame – i.e. before the passengers run ot of patience or the plane runs out of fuel! Static maps will always be needed to provide us with a sense of perspective – and dynamic maps will revolutionise the way that we do everything – but only if we are prepared to act collectively and share our data. We want to see the wood, the trees and even the breeze through the leaves!
Later in his career, the famous artist William Heath-Robinson (1872-1944) created works of great ingenuity that showed complex inventions that were created to solve real everyday problems. The genius of his work was that his held-together-with-string contraptions looked comically plausible and this genre of harmless mad-inventorism has endured, for example as the eccentric Wallace and Grommet characters. The problem arises when this seat-of-the-pants incremental invent-patch-and-fix approach is applied to real systems – in particular a healthcare system. You end up with the same result – a Heath-Robinson contraption that is held together with Red Tape. The complex bureaucracy both holds the system together and clogs up the working – and everyone knows it. It is not harmless though – it is expensive, slow and lethal. How then do we remove the Red Tape to allow the machine to work more quickly, more safely and more affordably without the whole contraption falling apart? A good first step would be to stop adding yet more Red Tape. A sensible next step would be to learn how to make the Red Tap redundant before removing it. However, if we knew how to do that already we would not have let the Red Tapeworms infest our healthcare system in the first place!
What insight, knowledge and skill we are missing? Where do we need to look to find the skills we lack? Who knows how to safely elimiate Red Tapeworms and, more importantly, how to teach us? How long will it take us to learn and apply the knowledge? Why might we justify continuing as we are? Why might we want to maintain the status quo? That is an interesting question – why might we ignore the symptoms and not seek advice? What are we scared of?
Have you ever have the experience of trying to work on a common challenge with a team member and it just feels like you are on different planets? You are using the same language yet are not communicating – they go off at apparently random tangents while you are trying to get a decision; they deluge you with detail when you ask about the big picture; you get upset when their cold logic threatens to damage team unity. The list is endless. If you experience this sort of confusion and frustration then you may be experiencing a personality clash – or to be more accurate a pyschological type mismatch.
Carl Jung described a theory of psychological types that was later developed into the Myers-Briggs Type Indictator (MBTI). This extensively validated method classifies people into sixteen broad groups based on four dimensions that are indicated by a letter code. It is important to appreciate that there are no good/bad types or right/wrong types – each describes a mode of thinking: a model of how we gather information, make decisions and act on those decisions. Everyone uses all the modes of thinking to some degree – we just prefer some more than others and so we get more practice with them. The purpose of MBTI is not to “correct” someone elses psychologcial type – it is to gain a conscious and shared awareness of the effect of psychological types on interpersonal and team dynamics. For example, some tasks and challenges suit some psychological types better than others – they resonate – and when this happens these tasks are achieved more easily and with greater satisfaction. “One’s meat is another’s poison” sums the idea up. Just having insight into this dynamic is helpful because it offers new options to avoid frustrating, futile and wasteful conflict. So if you are curious find out your MBTI – you can do it on line in a few minutes (for example http://www.personalitytest.net/types/index.htm) and with that knowledge you can learn what your psychological type implies. Mine is INFJ …
Have you ever had the uncomfortable experience of joining a new group of people and discovering that your usual modus operandi does not seem to fit? Have you ever experienced the pain of a behavioural expectation mismatch – a clash of culture? What do we do when that happens? Do we keep quiet, listen and try to work out the expected behaviours by observing others and then mimic their behaviour to fit in? Do we hold our ground, stay true to our norms and habits and challenge the group? Do we just shrug, leave and not return?
The other side of this common experience is the effect on the group of a person who does not match the behavioural norms of the group. Are they regarded as a threat or an opportunity? Usually a threat. But a threat to whom? It depends. And it primarily depends on the emotional state of the chief, chair or boss of the group – the person who holds the social power. We are social animals and we have evolved over millions of years to be hard-wired to tune in to the emotional state of the pack leader – because it is a proven survival strategy!
If the chief is in a negative emotional state then the group will be too and a newcomer expressing a positive emotional outlook will create an emotional tension. People prefer leaders who broadcast a positive emotional state because it makes them feel happier; and leaders are attracted by power – so in this situation the chief will perceive a challenge to the balance of power and will react by putting the happy newcomer firmly in their place in the pecking order. The group observe the mauling and learn that a positive emotional attitude is an unsuccessful strategy to gain favour with the chief - and so the status quo is maintained. The toxic emotional waste swamp gets a bit deeper, the sides get a bit more slippery, and the emotional crocodiles who lurk in the murk get a tasty snack. Yum yum – that’ll teach you to be happy around here!
If the chief has a uniformly positive emotional approach then the group will echo that and a newcomer expressing a negative emotional state creates a different tension. The whole group makes it clear that this negative behaviour is unwelcome – they don’t want someone spoiling their cosy emotional oasis! And the status quo is maintained again. Unfortunately, the only difference between this and the previous example is that this only-happy-people-allowed-here group is drowning in treacle rather than turds. It is still an emotional swamp and the outcome is the same – you get stuck in it.
This either-or model is not the most successful long-term strategy because it does not foster learning – it maintains the status quo – tough-minded or touch-feely – pessimistic or optimistic – but not realistic. Effective learning only happens when the status quo is challenged in a way that respects both the power and authority of the chief and of the group – and the safest way to do that is to turn to reality for feedback and to provide the challenge to the group. To do this in practice requires a combination of confidence and humility by both the chief and the group: the humilty to reject complacency and to face up to reality and the confidence to employ what is discovered to keep moving on, to keep learning, to keep improving. Reality will provide both positive and negative feedback (“Nuggets” and “Niggles”) and the future will hold both positive and negative challenges (“Nice-Ifs” and “No-Nos”). Effective leaders know this and are able to maintain the creative tension – for those of us who are learning to be more effective leaders perhaps our route out of our Toxic Emotional Waste Swamps are drawn on our 4N charts?
