12.02.2009

All in One Day

Here are some headlines from the Financial Times, December 1, 2009:

  • No state guarantee for Dubai World
  • France and Germany under pressure to raise troop numbers in Afghanistan
  • US weighs risk of troop surge
  • China and Russia face Iran pressure
  • Cast adrift as credibility crumbles (Dubai debt woes)
  • Anger levelled at leadership (Dubai debt woes)
  • Danes face dilemma of developed world
What gives here? We are living in the most amazing of times. The convergence of technology, global financial connections, complete intradependency among countries and a (some say it's permanent) shift in the balance of power and influence in the world away from the United States and Europe and towards China, India and the other emerging countries.

All this in just about two years. But not really. This shift has been building up for awhile and yet we have responded to this change as if we did not see it, we continue to be surprised by daily events like Dubai World's debt problem, and we seem to have this latent belief that once all these "one off" events work their way through the system, the world as we know it will return.

It is the world as we "knew" it. It is not coming back. The question to consider is: Are the mental models I hold dear still working in this changed world?

Probably not. Ask yourself "How do I see my mental models, my microcosm of thinking from a different perspective and wake up to the change that is my life, the change that is my business, the change that is the world?"

Asking these questions is a powerful start. This changed world puts an emphasis on more inquiry. Asking questions, suspending judgment, holding steady at times and admitting ignorance when it is so. This is difficult work if you have chosen to lead others. It is also essential work.

Start by reflecting on your daily actions. Do this a couple of times a day. Make some notes in a journal. Notice patterns of behavior that seem to be both consistent and unproductive. Just notice for now. Keep reflecting. Get on the metaphorical balcony and observe yourself, your team, your organization. Watch for patterns, see systems.

Being aware is more important than being smart. A great many very smart people have been caught out by the events of the last two years. And there is a small group of aware people who did not get caught but the events. What did they know? More important, how did they prepare themselves to know?


12.01.2009

London Libraries View the Future

Scenario Planning is often viewed as both a viable process for thinking about strategy and an extreme use of organizational resources. I think these viewpoints are direct decedents of Royal Dutch Shell and its much publicized use of scenarios beginning back in the mid 1970’s. Shell used scenarios to address major systemic issues that the multinational company might face within the next 25 years. Shell also had access to resources that enabled the organization to spend a great deal of time and money on its scenario design. That is a model that does not transfer well to smaller organizations; the same organizations that could also profit from scenario planning.

In late September RedQuadrant turned that time and money concern on its head when it hosted a 1 day scenario planning workshop for 34 members of the London Library community. The group produced four plausible scenarios about the future of London Libraries and they did this work in about eight hours time. Many scenario planning experts would term this an “implausible scenario.”

This team of 34 people pulled this work off because they entered the room that morning having already answered the four critical questions that an individual or a team must address if progress is going to be made on a challenging problem. Those questions are:

1. How do you define the gap between where you are today and where you want to be in the future and what is producing the gap?
2. Are you willing to share your view and your reasoning behind your viewpoint?
3. Are you willing to listen to others’ viewpoints and receive feedback from other people?
4. Are you willing to take action?

Answering these questions is the beginning of scenario work because they get to the heart of scenario planning. Designing plausible futures are an output of scenario planning but the fact is that few if any of these plausible futures come to pass as designed. The real value of scenario planning is revealed in the social interaction that takes place between people. It is here that people discover their mental models and how those models shape what they see, produce limits and constrict action. Peter Drucker refers to this condition as “banging against the glass ceiling.”

The process of designing scenarios is embedded with multiple opportunities for a person’s thinking to be challenged. For the person who is willing and open to exploring her world view, scenario planning is often a liberating change experience. This is a change of professional or personal identity. An identity that is now more open, more curious and more likely to see the world as it is.

The London Library Scenario Planning session did not solve all the challenges the library system faces but participants did leave with a better understanding that the world is an invention made up by people whose only limit is how they see that world. Or how they see the future of libraries.


10.12.2009

John Birks Gillespie

"You only have so many notes and what makes a style is how you get from one to another."

Diz

9.01.2009

What If The Beatles Were The Only Band?

We (I) forget that the world is so large that there is more than enough room for us all and all our ideas. We can get caught up in the game of comparing. I compare myself to you and determine you are better, brighter, stronger or better looking. So I don't move. I freeze. No action taken.

Imagine all those bands that came along after the Beatles broke through the Rock-n-Roll door. Imagine if they thought: "Well, they are the best, all the room on the stage has been taken. There is no room for us."

If that had happened we have no Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beach Boys, Elton John, and my favorite, Jethro Tull. But that didn't happen.

It didn't happen because in every case, those other bands said something like: "The Beatles got through the door. It can be done. Let's go." And go they all did.

They also got on stage because there are no limits to the number of stages we can play on and more importantly there are no limits on stage building.

Well there are two limits:

1) Choosing to forget that one person can change the world.
2) Choosing to lack faith in myself.

Yep. Those two will do it. Those two will kill anything. Those two will snuff out all stage building and all the music.

The Beatles are not the only band because all those other bands were committed to changing the world with their music and they believed.

Have a little faith


We Are All In This Together

The health care debate in the United States is a debate of excess. The excess is the money spent on health care vs. the outcome. We are grossly out of shape in our country. We are too fat. Nearly one-third of Americans are clinically obese.

We are arguing about the wrong issue. We need to be debating health and fitness. Stop by your local school one day. It doesn't matter which school; any school between elementry and high school will do. Look at the students. Count how many of them are "over weight." Do you own data collection. How many over weights do you get for each 100 students.

Now check it out at your work. Do the same count. Now just stand on a street corner and do the same research. We are too fat.

Now find where fitness is located in the health care debate. Look hard. You will have to look hard to find any consistent fitness recommendations. What there is to this aspect of the debate comes and goes. That's because this "logical" element of health care lacks organized advocacy.

On the health care side we have insurance companies, doctors, health care providers and the ever present lawyers. They all have more at stake in keeping the system working the same and that does not include fitness.

But why should health fitness be a legislated policy? Being fit and healthy is a personal choice. The truth is we are an over-weight society because we have chosen to be fat. And the culture supports fat over fitness. Just watch the TV advertisements.

I read a comment the other day that went like this: Buy a computer game called "Go Outside and Play." Great advice kids. Take us parents with you.


8.27.2009

Ted Kennedy as Role Model

I admit it: I have little regard for elected officials. So much time and energy is wasted by these people as they underachieve in pursuit of pleasing their local constituents and work to be re-elected. Or so it seems to me. So many wicked problems need tending: health care, 20,000 people dying each day in developing countries, wars, near wars and here at home, a lamentable education system. Where are these people when we need them?

I come by this viewpoint because I'm really lame at politics. Admitting I'm lame means I can either get better at it or dismiss it and those who practice it. Most of the time I chose the latter and proclaim that I'm taking the high road of noble work vs. the dirty work of politicking.

I have not had a client in the last 10 years that has not struggled with the office or organizational politics that is part of the currency of getting work done. Most of us are not very good at politics. This incompetence is different than those who are good at getting what they want at the expense of others. This is often called politics but it is not even close. This is self-serving narcissism and eventually it will get one professional killed.

The politics that I need to be better at and the politics that my clients need to be better at is now being reviewed in just about every devotion to Ted Kennedy and his accomplishments as a Senator after his passing this week. In today's New York Times, Adam Clymer lays it bare for all to see. As does David Brooks and Gail Collins in yesterday's NYT. Both pieces tell of a man who understood from his earliest days that the way to get work done, to make progress on difficult issues and to achieve effective legislation required a sense of the politics of those involved and the importance of building relationships that sustained under pressure. The kind of pressure that always comes up when different agendas need to find common ground.

It is beautiful to read of this man's ability to build close relationships with Republican Senators like Orin Hatch and even former President George Bush. We have been living through a time of such division in our political system and that division has worked its way down to our local communities. While all this was going on, back in Washington DC there was Ted Kennedy, working every day and some nights to find common ground among diverse opinions for the sake of crafting legislation that worked for the majority.

That work was not glamorous. It required studying the issues in great detail, being informed, listening to opposing views and working both sides of the Senate until something good happened while (and this is important) never being concerned if he would be given credit for the outcome.

Ted Kennedy's lasting legacy will be that he legislated better then any Senator of his time. If we want to be more competent at the politics of work and of life, Ted Kennedy is about as fine a role model as we could find.

Thanks Senator Kennedy.

7.27.2009

A Slice of Life

I have played golf regularly for 45 years. And I have regularly produced the same results for 45 years. Last week after another mediocre two rounds of golf, I actually gave some thought to this endless plateau of mediocrity. I was surprised by two insights:


The first was that I never thought about how long I’ve been accepting this poor performance. The second insight was how comfortable I was with playing golf (an activity I love) so poorly.


But something else showed up during my self-inflicted golf lobotomy: I was sick of it.


I decided that I either needed to change and get better or get out of the game. What I was specifically tired of doing was slicing my driver off the tee. Aside from all the problems it produces for scoring well, a slice is considered a weak golf shot. I’ve always viewed golf as both a game and a metaphor for my life and now I found myself looking at my game and my life through this “slice” framework and I did not like what I saw.


Something needed to change and so I set about to do just that. In one day I changed my grip, my stance, my ball position at address and my swing plane. Most golfers are both inflexible and superstitious about each of these elements of the golf shot and to change just one is often a trial of patience and discipline. My decision to change “everything” was a bit liberating and it also put me on tilt because I was having a difficult time remembering what I was doing; what was the priority and how to do it all?


There was also something else I experienced; being a beginner. I was almost back to square 1 and while it was hard (still is after playing my first round with all this new golf swing stuff) it was very refreshing and I felt light.


Most all my work with my clients is fundamentally about changing their “golf swing.” I realized that it has been some time since I had a major change project of my own on the line like my clients do. I do need to change my golf game and get better and all these changes to my swing are a challenge but it’s just golf and I’m still only destine to play with my chucklehead friends on the weekend. So the change edge here is both real and not significant to real impact.


What this golf lobotomy really highlighted was how I’ve settled in to my work and lost contact with the edge. I’ve been playing smaller then my aspirations. What I see is that my work needs the same overhaul as my golf swing. Otherwise I’ll continue to play weak and hit my shots due right into the rough. I’ll keep you posted.

5.21.2009

Purpose is a Good Place to Start

Changing something by choice and design is different than change that is mandated by another. Organizations make decisions to change some aspect of structures, processes or systems all the time. Those changes are declared by a leader and the organization then sets about to implement the change. Most of these efforts fall short of the intended outcome but we can take that issue up later.

Personal choice to make a change is a powerful starting point for a person. But it is only the start. As mentioned yesterday, the challenge of change is that the rewards are in the future and the hard work is immediate. The gap between these two elements frame the challenge. Our ability to cross that gap defines and reflects much about who we are in the moment.

Purpose for change is a useful conversation to engage. As I write this entry, it is almost the middle of 2009 and in reviewing my goals for the year, I see that I'm hitting some and missing others. Mostly I feel like I am more in response to events than I am designing and producing outcomes. My tendency is to lose contact with the big picture when the events of today become turbulent. If the first part of 2009 has been anything; it is has been turbulent. In all of this chaos, I see that I've not so much lost my way as I have been exposed for not having a more clearly defined purpose. Without a clear purpose, I have been seduced by "other" events. Then boom, the time slips away and impact is lost.


I believe a focused purpose leads to big results. I realized a few weeks ago that I was attempting to do too much, be too much and sought too much. Too much of anything is a move away from focus. I think that the economic turbulence is a perfect opportunity for clarifying purpose. It is essential to determine what aspects of my life, how I spend my time and energy, needs to be eliminated now?


So in re-addressing my purpose, I have started to eliminate projects, type of work, and activities that do not support impact and distract me from my purpose. As a consultant to individuals and organizations, my usefulness is to reflect, integrate and facilitate the best change practices and processes for my clients that build their community. Relationships are central and everything else is derivative.

Before you get moving too far down your change path, get clear on your purpose. What is your purpose for being here? Who benefits from you being on purpose? What are the consequences to you and others when you lose your way? These are questions that need to be addressed and answered. Much has been written in the last year about how we have lost our way, that our priorities have been lost, our values mixed up. That could be so. Getting back on track starts with being clear about my purpose.

5.20.2009

Why Changing is a Challenging

Changing anything is difficult for several reasons. A reason: the reward we seek is in the future, sometimes way out in the future and what we have to do and experience (discomfort, frustration, work and daily persistence) must start immediately. We are not a society of delayed gratification so for most of us, changing something about ourselves starts as a challenge within a challenge.

Another reason: We are giving up something we know well when we change. Generally we don't resist the change (it usually makes logical sense to us), we are resisting loss. The stepping from the known into the unknown.

Another reason: We have a pretty good idea that this step into the unknown must be permanent if we are to achieve the coveted change. Permanent; that is like forever, for all time. When we fully understand that time concept, it is not logical, it becomes emotional. Permanent loss is not something we think, it is something we feel. It can cause much resistance, denial, anger and pain.

Another reason: Getting across the "goal line" takes longer then most of us think. A common fail point of change is people's grossly underestimating the time and effort it will take to make the change. We stop too soon. Often we stop within sight of the goal.

So in the face of these reasons why change is challenging, how can we navigate the process? That is the next post.

3.30.2009

What Changes When IT Changes? (The Prologue)

I've been away. While away I've been paying attention to all the fuss in the economy and to my own responss to that fuss. I read the Financial Times every day because it is a great newspaper. It is proving its worth now as it covers the complexities of the recession. The depth and width of change that is happening everyday is breath stealing.

All this change is Burning Platform of Change (BPC). It is the change that is forced on a person or a company or an industry or a country or a planet when events on the ground gives one no other options. It's either death by fire or you take your chances jumping from the high platform into ocean turbulence.

While this activity is change, it is rarely the type of change we seek. It never occurs at the right time or at a pace that we can absorb. BPC comes at us like water shot from a fire hose and surviving is our primary strategy. As this global recession rolls forward, we are witnesses destruction as many entities do not survive and the people associated with them suffer real loss. It's been said that people do not fear change, they fear loss. There is a great deal of both moving through lives today.

This creative destruction is being forced on us by large structural and process failure in organizations and governments. Most of us are moving through these occurances with a "response strategy." We are working to make the most out of the pieces that are left after the descruction has hit us. This response strategy is useful in the short-term but it has no legs to carry us for the long-run.

This is one of the great historical moments in modern history. We are living each day of this long moment when the order of so many structures and processes are being trashed and tossed aside.

To be replaced by what?

The answer to this question lives in the act of creating. Creating new structures and process demands change but it is change by design, not BPC. I'll explore this change by design over the next few days because while it is the best type of change, it is also the most difficult to pull off. Having a strategy to execute that change is helpful. Stay tuned.




2.17.2009

Patty Stonesifer and Adaptive Leadership

Patty Stonesifer shares her leadership growth experiences during her time as leader of the Gates Foundation. Her interview with Bridgestar is a nice experienced based road map for how to deal with wicked problems.

This turbulent time is the result of many factors but one aspect that has avoided scrutiny is the specific failings of global leaders to see the future and find the courage to make difficult decisions.

The work of Ron Heifetz and his Adaptive Leadership frameworks are essential leadership competencies for these times. We all must step up our competency to lead. Turbulence is now a way of organizational life and knowing how to make progress in these conditions is the leadership moment of truth.

A Development Strategy for a Lifetime

I am a collector of structures and processes that hold the possibility of self-development, organizational improvement and dare I say global health. My collection of structures and processes includes approaches that most would agree are proven. Six Sigma, Systems Thinking and Model I/Model II to name a few. At the other end of the development spectrum, there are processes like Encounter and Community Building, Dialogue and even some straight ahead yelling and screaming.

I reject stuff that will not hold up across broad groups, different organizations or at the individual level. As a collector I feel free to cherry pick these approaches for strengths while leaving behind the non-useful parts. I then attempt to put these pieces together new forms of development and test them on myself. If they show promise, I share them with others.


This approach to development is a bit edgy at times but it can be rich in discovery. At the same time, I am always seeking simplicity. I’m looking for the development equivalent of Danish design: clean, simple, and highly functional. I discovered just such an approach and wouldn’t you know it, I found it living with the Buddhists. Seems we can count on Eastern wisdom to give us simplicity and challenge all wrapped together.


Here is a Buddhist approach to self-development, organizational improvement and global health in five simple but not-so-easy-to-implement steps:


  1. Confess My Faults
  2. Approach What I Find Repulsive
  3. Help Those I Think I Cannot Help
  4. Anything I Am Attached To, Let It Go
  5. Go Places That Scare Me


In my next few entries, I’ll talk about what I have learned about myself while practicing this development strategy. For now, consider how these five “interventions” might play out for you. Oh and these things often make me crazy.

1.29.2009

Happy Birthday Kind Of Blue

Fifty years ago Miles Davis released Kind of Blue. Thank you Miles.

Managing the Work Avoidance

Congress is in the middle of passing its latest bailout package. Watching their process is so hard. We are only a few days into President Obama's term and we are seeing quickly the limited reach he has to lead from the front. His mandate from the people doesn't have enough currency to effect congressional behavior. By many accounts, this 825 billion dollar package is not finally tuned to address the needs of the moment. Rather it represents an amalgamation of special local politcal projects that are more about paving the way for congressional re-elections then the good of the order today.

In effect Congress in passing this package, has effectively avoided the real work by reverting to the customs and practices of old. Today a reporter on NPR's Morning Edition said that after President Obama visited the congress to get both bi-partisian support and a more specific focus on the spending, he was over-heard to say "Old habits die hard."

I believe it is this work of changing old habits that will be President Obama's biggest challenge and his hardest work. And it looks like it starts just up the street with his former collegues in Congress. When a leader is unable to solve a problem on his or her own using proven strategies, it's a clear indication that the problem is wicked in nature. The common strategy that followers employ when facing a difficult situation is to avoid the issue and return to old work using old strategies.

Solving the financial crisis is a true wicked problem and it will require more and different approaches then have been used in the past. Most of these different approaches are unknown and have not yet been created. Mr. Obama's challenge is to wake congress up to the difficult reality they face now and do the hard work of inventing new solutions to a new kind of problem. If he is not able to do that, he will fall victim to the congressional strategy (which is implied and never spoken) of seducing the President with his own power-of-the-presidency and effectively give back to him the problem they were elected to solve.

As of today it looks as if Congress is leading this dance. Leadership in turbulant times is difficult.

1.27.2009

John, Ted and Dad

Just heard that John Updike passed away. He was my dad's favorite writer. He wrote a wonderful essay on Ted Williams, when Williams passed away. Ted Williams was my father's favorite ballplayer. I lost my father a few years back.

This is for you dad.

Good Morning from John Thain

72,500 jobs were cut yesteday in the world economy according to the Financial Times. But John Thain, the resently "fired" CEO of Merrill Lynch found a way to top that news. He said it was a mistake to pay 1.2 million dollars to remodel his office last year.

A mistake?

A mistake usually involves an apology somewhere in the conversation. But not from John. For him it was just an issue of bad timing.

I wonder if his fall is waking him up. This situation is evidence that the Burning Platform of Change is a lousy change strategy. By the time you realize there is a fire, the only option left to you is survival. All other options are history.


1.23.2009

Go Places That Scare You

Buddhist advise: Go places that scare you.

Well that shouldn't be too hard these days. A sample from today's Financial Times includes word that Microsoft is laying off 5000 people, the banking sector is still in deep trouble, the stock market was off again and Spain estimates 100,000 jobs in its tourism industry are at risk. No, finding scary places is the easy part.

But as is usually the case, the Buddhist wisdom is not about lost jobs and poor performing banking sectors. It is about the inner workings of us humans. This advise is meant to encourage us to move towards those experiences, people and opportunities that scare us the most. Why would anyone do this? Because we are either growing or dying; there is no middle ground. And real growth always has an edge to it; some aspect that scares us.

For me, the edge is always about connecting to people. I tell myself that I hate to network. I tell myself I'm no good at small talk and not great at promoting myself and my work. Yet connecting to other people is an essential action to growing my business. I believe that to do my part to help revive our economy, our country and our sense of self, I need to visit those places that scare me.

I'll let you know how it works out.




1.19.2009

Mr. Obama Begins

This blog begins when Mr. Obama begins. The timing is a coincidence. I'm like so many who are wondering what this change will bring. I'm looking forward to the inauguration but I'm more looking forward to Wednesday, January 21, 2009. This is the day that the new president will come face to face with some of the most difficult challenges this country has ever confronted.

No matter what he thinks, no matter what we hope and not matter what the country and the world need, he is likely to have a difficult time in the coming weeks and months. Progress will be hard and the achievements will be slow. This is not because he is unqualified; I believe he is the most qualified man for this job at this time in our history. I believe he will struggle for a time because of the wickedness of the problems he faces. Wicked problems that are likely to get more complex and harder as he attempts to solve them.

It is the very nature of wicked problems that they get more difficult before the are resolved. President Obama will eventually make progress on these challenges and he will do it with our help but it will take time. More time then any of us would like and more time then some of us can afford.

How can we help? First we need to give him that time to do his job. Second, we will need to have patience. The third way we can help is to get out and help other people solve their problems. Sometimes we will be compensated for that help and other time we need not be. Getting into action, helping create impact and being of service will help our mood and our moral and it will generate momentum. We need to be the generators of good news and millions of acts of good work. We are in this together, we will need to stay together to get out and move forward.

Welcome President Obama. We are here to do our part.

Rick Torseth