Original Caption: "We broke about half of these during our time in the maze."
“There is no set of rules – no matter how detailed, no matter how specific, no matter how carefully monitored and enforced – there is no set of rules that will get us what we need.” This spoken by Barry Schwartz in a TED talk (at 4:30). He nails it, yet again.
We can make rules upon rules, but the fact is that we will NEVER be able to create rules for every situation that arises. And yet for some reason we try to. This happens in government, in the legal system, in our homes and workplaces. The child will always find a loophole, or the employee will find a situation that the rules did not anticipate.
So, what do we do? We have to take a step back. Those rules are to govern people. Maybe we should have self-governed people. No, I am not talking about creating anarchy and I’m not naive enough to think that we could create any society or business or organization without rules. But if we are to pick those who join a company, for example, we should look for self-governed people. Those who have “practical wisdom.”
When hiring or choosing people on a team we look so much at “can they do the job” and less on “will they do the job.” Will they without being cajouled? Will they because they want to, not because they are forced or incentivized to death? Will they because they have a passion? Will they because of who they are – the type of person that jumps in and does a great job? Will they because they naturally want to improve upon what is already there? Will they because they would feel horrible about wasting a companies time, so much so that their conscience would not allow it?
Rules, then become guidelines to help those who want to do well, to do well. They become less about trying to control or catch those who want to take advantage.
There is so much more in this video. He sums up so much of what I have been thinking lately and wraps it all in a perfect little talk.
I am finishing the book COMPLEXITY. Although it’s a fabulous book, it’s not a bed time read.
It’s one of those where you read a few pages and then have to put it down to let it sink in or to write down the flood of inspiration that pops into your mind.
I wanted to share a point we all already know, but one that this book drove home for me.
First, think of a startup. Usually ther are very few rules because they are small enough and they need to be nimble. It is a bit chaotic. But as things start to solidify, rules, processes and policies start to form. Through those efficiencies are created.
But, after a while, the mantra becomes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The problem with this is that it focuses not on what is best, but what will sustain. Soon, those same guidelines are the ones that are holding the company back. They go from chaotic to too structured.
The key is to live between the two. In this area a company is flexible enough that they are able to be nimble and adapt as markets and technologies change, but are structured enough take advantages of efficiencies.
Once we become too structured we become our own worst enemies. Just think of about any government organization, or companies which used to be the latest, greatest thing but could not move when the market changed because they were too structured. (Borders, Blockbuster, Blackberry – see a pattern here? Stay away from the letter “B”.)
I am working with some companies who are in this situation now. They have become too structured and are feeling the uneasiness of being settled. They can’t move quickly and are falling behind. What we are working on is moving them from stagnantly structured to slighty uncomfortable yet agile.
It will take some brave souls to champion this. But if they don’t make the change, they will find themselves being beat up by those who can take advantage of changes rather than being strangled by their internal processes and culture.
So the question for you: Where is your organization? Where are you personally? How can you move out of where to you are into that middle ground?
With Steve Jobs resigning as CEO of Apple, there have been a plethora of posts and articles on it already.
The Wall Street Journal has Steve quotes. There is one I want to point out:
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” [Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998] (HT to SmoothSpan Blog)
This comment came about one year after Jobs came back as the CEO. Notice his emphasis:
People you have
How you’re led
How much you get it
This last point hit me. “How much you get it.” Get what? Here is my take.
Gas allows a car to go, but it does not determine what the car does or how useful it is. Gas can be put in to an AMC Gremlin or into a Maserati. Even more important than both the gas and the type of car is the person who drives it and those who ride in it. They are the ones who make all the decisions of where to go, how to get there and how quickly or slowly they will drive. All of their decisions are based on the type of car they are driving, the others in the car, the amount of time they have and the purpose they have to drive somewhere.
When we focus on the money in the organization, we have focused on the gas. Definitely a major factor, but it only gets us where we want to go. With this view the possibilities are limited, because money is limited.
The capacities of people are unlimited. They have the ability to do amazing things, including working out the money part. If we fail to work with the people as much as we ought, we have a narrow view of the possibilities, and thus can’t “Get It.”
Then why is it we so often default to treating social business initiatives like IT projects? Here is my take: An IT project has clearly defined requirements. We know exactly what needs to be done, how to do it and when the project will be complete. But like economists, rarely are they correct. The perfect path they think they will go down (according to all plans and indications) is rarely the one that reality shows us. Why? People.
Oh, you fickle and emotional beings. People mess up all the best mathematical formulas.
I have watched many programs – not only social business endeavors – totally change course because people get in the way. Many IT professionals have become so frustrated at users that I have seen them become irate because they don’t do what the programmers thought they should do.
And there are others who say that people are important, but when it comes down to it, they focus on that which they can control – and them there people ain’t one of them. So their efforts naturally lean toward that which they can more easily control. It is human nature.
And that is OK, unless it is to the exclusion of people. We must remember to make this a people project with an IT element.
There was a Bar Camp at the E2.0 conference. I led a discussion on where social business projects should live. Should it be IT or HR or Marketing or…? It started off slowly, but turned into a VERY lively discussion as each realized we all had different views and different remedies. There isn’t one path to perfection. It must be decided by the nature of the organization. But one thing was clear: forget the people and you will fail.
Have you seen others focus too heavily on the IT side? What happens? How can we avoid this from happening? What happens if the project is led by IT and they become tool focused? How can you bring the human side into it to dominate? Some good answers are waiting and I would love to hear from others!
The moment I saw this watch I was in love. Not with the watch itself, but with what it taught me the moment I saw it.
The lights around the perimeter reminded me that minutes are not just minutes – they are usually an emotional experience. Take two people, one wears a watch, the other uses their phone for the time. Most people say they tell time differently, but I don’t think so. They both interpret number or hands to mean the same thing. But even more so, that interpretation is then interpreted into, “I have 7 minutes until I am late for my next meeting,” or “We have been waiting for dinner service for 12 minutes so far and only have our drinks.” The minutes are instantly translated into an an experience where we add emotion.
So this watch, with the lights, displayed to me that emotion. As the lights make it around the circle (at about 44 minutes as shown) I instantly know that I have about 15 minutes until the movie starts. And I think the word “ABOUT” is crucial. Many times it is not necessary to know exactly how many minutes are left, only a good estimate because what it means (we are late, or anticipating something) is much more than the exact number of minutes left.
The hour, however, is more logic. We don’t tie emotion to the hour (for the most part). We normally know what the hour is already. To have the hour in lights (as displayed above) didn’t make sense. I would want a logic (hour) and emotional (minute) interface that plays to the way I use and interact with time.
This watch below would be the perfect mix. Normally we ignore the hour, yet the lights give a count-down effect that plays to our emotions.
Watches with hands are all emotions. Analog watches are all logic. Mix them together and you are designing each to why we humans are interested in the time of day.
Many of us assume that facts rule. Although I fall in to this trap like everyone else, it still amazes me how we constantly act against the facts.
We inconvenience ourselves to get to the gas station which is $0.03 cheaper per gallon on our way to dinner where we indulge on an extra dessert. Savings from gas: $0.45. Waste from the dessert you never needed: $6.00.
Why is it that we refuse to pay the extra pennies per gallon so we can save money, but then carelessly spend it many times over in many other ways?
We spend our time and resources so that the endangered spotted owl has an area to call home yet at the same time neglect our families and raising fabulous kids who can have an incredible affect on the world?
Why do we focus on those things which are obviously of less worth according to the facts? The keys here are perspective and emotion. We focus on that which falls within our perspective of life and to that which we are emotionally attached.
As I mentioned in the last post, stats only go so far – same goes with our personal knowledge. What drives what we do is our perspective and emotions. Think about any bad habit (and we all have at least one). Take smoking. We all know it isn’t good for us, yet those who smoke have a different perspective with an emotional element. Knowledge is great – but perspective and emotion drives action.
Want to change behavior in yourself or others? Focus on perspective and emotion and less on the facts (but always have the facts to back you up in your pocket).
If I could drive home any fundamental point to an organization it is: The way we use social technologies inside of an organization and outside are very different. Why? Because the goals/purposes are completely different. Not that they aren’t related and can’t work together (because they can), but the way in which they operate are different.
What this shows, however, is how they are using it for marketing or connecting the students, not for learning. Outside vs. Inside. Even though they aren’t using social media for learning, they are using it for marketing and college unity. That is great. This is the easy first step. Really, colleges CAN’T avoid this because the market demands it. The market isn’t demanding use on the inside as much because they don’t know what it might look like. AND it has the potential to completely change everything about how higher education functions.
This is what I am looking for. Are there any examples out there?
3) Failures we ignore, don’t talk about and pretend like they don’t happen – like at these conferences. It seems these are the big elephants in the room that we want to avoid. But there is a danger in not sharing our failures. Here we often talk about WHAT E2.0 is. We talk about HOW to do it. Yet we don’t often talk about WHY we failed or succeeded. We see a lot of use cases, but not the analysis to really understand WHY it worked or didn’t.
4) There are failures that are so bit that we can’t do anything but face them. NASA is known for the many incredible things it has done, but it has also had some difficult failures. So much so, that just about everyone – at least every American alive at the time – can remember where they were when they heard about NASA’s failures.
It is odd that we shun failures, yet our culture often times sets us up for failure.
Watch this video and learn more about why MBA’s fail at a certain task, yet kindergarten kids do extremely well.
Why did they do better? They iterated. Fail. Try again. Repeat. (Just like shampoo.) Then we take what works and amplify it. And what didn’t work we dampen it. (link to this video)
Why don’t we like to fail? Because it (unfortunately) cheapens our value in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. But it shouldn’t unless we don’t move on and iterate. But to do that, we have to trust those around us. When we don’t trust, we make rules and try to box people in and control them. Feeling controlled, they don’t want to make mistakes. Instead of focusing on the things that will make us successful, we focus on the issues that are small and – in the end – inconsequential.
When we trust, we allow for more failure. It kind of seems backwards, but it is true.
If we don’t trust, failure will happen less. Then so will learning, innovation and progress.
The currency of any social system is trust. Think about an organization that is going through (or anticipates going through) layoffs. What is the natural human reaction? Because they don’t trust the organization they box themselves in, making sure they do their best to protect themselves and their own teams to the detriment of the whole organization. Having worked with many organizations going through layoffs, it is a consistent reaction that happens in every case.
So, in the spirit of progress, embrace your inner failure. When you make a mistake, celebrate it, iterate and move on.
There are a few E2.0 catastrophic failures (but no one wants to talk about them). More common by far – and the failures we are all accustomed to – are the smaller ones. They can make a big difference if we learn what they are, how to avoid them and what to do if we fall into the trap. The fear of failure is a paralyzing feeling. Let’s not allow it to stop our progression.
Starting tomorrow I will post one E2.0 failure a week. I encourage you to answer these two questions:
1) How can we avoid this situation?
2) Now that the mistake is done, how to we recover?
Please add your opinions, experience and expertise in the comments so we can all learn from each other.
My favorite part of any conference is meeting one-on-one with people or in small groups and letting the conversation take us on a journey. I learn so much from many smart and experienced people. My hope is that we can continue the conversation here.
Attending last year’s Enterprise 2.0 conference was a great experience. I learned a ton, met friends I had never met before in carbon, and left feeling invigorated. But there was a nagging feeling – it was all too perfect.
The sessions and keynotes were all about how great this was and how successful everyone had been. But I knew those were not the full stories. Having worked on Social Business for a few years, I had made my share of mistakes and had made a partial living off of fixing the mistakes of others and I learned a ton from these experiences. Why should a conference be any different? Why can’t we learn from each others’ mistakes? Was there a huge fear of failure?
So, when the call for presenters went out, I decided to talk about failures. I had some I could share, and I was sure I could find others so it didn’t turn into a “Kevin Failure Show.” I was wrong. As I started compiling stories I realized that there were very few who were willing to talk about their failures. But I had to go forward and the only failures I knew where my own or were from organizations I had worked with – and I didn’t feel like I could rat them out.
My first thought was, “I don’t have THAT many failures I could share!” Wrong again. It was amazing how many times I had failed. Not catastrophically, but even in small and simple ways.
My sweet wife was concerned. “Will it look like you are a total failure? Will they understand that you are really good at what you do?” I assured her it would be just fine. But this meant I had to be very open and transparent about my mistakes. This really is not an easy thing to do (mentally).
While creating the content for the session I learned that all of us make very few huge failures, but instead we make many small ones, quickly learn and adjust and turn them into wins. And the more I thought about it, the more mistakes I could name off. Soon, there were so many that I had to figure out which went into the presentation, and which I would merely mention and not explain.
The day of the presentation came. I was scheduled for the first time slot immediately after the keynotes. Arriving a bit early, I set up as I watched attendees pour in to this huge room. Susan Scrupski (queen of the Social Business Council) came up and said, “Have you seen the line to get in?” I had to go see this. She was right and it was long. By the time everyone had filed in, this large room was full.
I mention this only to point out that the reason they were there was not because of me, but because of the topic of failure – there were many others that felt the same way I did – a nice validation of my thoughts, but now the pressure was on (I didn’t want a live failure of a presentation on failure!). They wanted to learn from the mistakes of others so they would not repeat it.
In another post I will go over the content, but there are a couple things I did in the session that were kind of fun. The day before, during the workshops, I made the above video, and that is how I started it off. Immediately after it was silent, everyone waiting for me to start. I stood there, quietly for a moment, and then said, “Hi. I’m Kevin and I have failed.” A few giggles followed. I had planted four others in the audience who, in turn, stood up and introduced themselves and said the same thing. It was a Fail Flashmob or an FA meeting (Failures Anonymous). Then I went on to talk about the nature of failure, followed by examples of failure and how they could be overcome.
Time was running out and I had MANY more in the hopper (just in case time went long). I didn’t expect to explain most of them, but just use as examples. Later others told me that as I blew through the last 20 or so, they personally recognized each one and realized that we fail all the time, but we recover.
At the very end I issued two challenges to the audience. The first was to share their failures and not be afraid to talk about them. The second was to join me in discussing them after the conference has ended.
And so I invite you as well. Each week I will post an Enterprise 2.0 failure on this blog and encourage you to answer these two questions: 1) how can we avoid it and 2) if it still happens, how can we correct it? I have enough for a half year’s worth and by the time that comes around, we’ll all probably have that many more again.
The response after the session and for the next three days was wonderfully overwhelming. Thank you to everyone who tweeted during the session, blogged (Nigel Danson, Steve Radick, Cecil Dijoux) and wrote articles (SearchCRM, CMSWire, IT Knowledge Exchange), came up and talked to me about it and referred to the session in subsequent sessions. I wish I could thank you all individually. I am truly humbled by the response.
So please join us. The more perspectives we get each week, the more we can learn from each other and be better we will be at what we all love to do. I hope to learn from you next Tuesday with the first failure! (I promise the posts won’t be nearly as long 😉
The shoe laces on my shoes just broke. I bought the shoes two months ago, so they should have been fine. When I finally found the time, I went into Kohl’s where I bought them and was looking around for shoe laces, thinking they might give me an extra pair. I asked an associate and they said they don’t carry laces. But they would just trade shoes – no questions asked. I was amazed. So, I found another pair and exchanged them. Easy.
Kohl’s trusted me that I, as a consumer would make the right decision and not abuse the system. Guess where I am going back next time. A similar circumstance happened at Costco. I will go back to these two stores forever because of the trust they place in their customer. And because of their trust they will have this family of 10 visiting their store.
Why do we make rules? In this video I talk about consistency. But very often it is because we lack trust. Take a look at any person or organization and often you can tell how much they trust the people they serve by the number of rules they make. A jail has MANY rules – and probably for a good reason. But what about our workplaces? Do they need to be filled with so many rules?
I often hear people complaining about the rules, trying to find ways around them and, in general, being less productive – the very opposite of why the rule was made in the first place.
What would happen if we trusted more? Would we get burned or would we realize that there are hidden benefits to trust? I bet on the latter.
TEXT
Why do we make rules? When I talk about rules I mean laws, company policies or procedures, sports rules, chore charts for our kids or anything like it.First, you have to have a goal. Unless you have a goal there are no need for rules. You can do whatever you want and get whatever result you get! Just ask the Cheshire Cat.
But let’s assume we do have a goal – we make rules based off of two factors: trust and consistency. This video, is about Trust.
(TRUST) Why do we put up railings on balconies? It’s because we don’t trust that someone won’t accidentally look too far over the edge.
Every day we make trust judgements. And it’s only natural to have few rules for those we trust, and more rules for those we don’t. While it’s important we make these judgements, sometimes we can get a little carried away.
I saw an email recently where a company reminded its knowledge worker employees that they were not allowed to come in to work late, leave early nor take unplanned time off unless it was previously approved by a manager. If they didn’t follow the rules, they may face company discipline, up to and including dismissal.
There is a big contradiction in life here – For 12 years up through high school we were reprimanded if we were late or left early or didn’t show up for class. Then in college we were told we are an adult and could do whatever we wanted to. But now that we are in the work force, we go back to grade school rules. Why is that?
Guidelines like these are important if they are working a shift and production depended upon them. I get that. But most people are knowledge workers now. The models are really very different.
But it isn’t just an 8-5 work time issue. It’s also applies to sick and vacation time, internet policies, lunch breaks, social media restrictions and a host of other company policies.
I once worked at a company which gave everyone three weeks of vacation, but we were the only ones who would keep track of it. And we could come in when we wanted to and leave when we wanted to. If we wanted to watch a movie in the middle of the day, go for it. As long as the work gets done and we worked hard – that’s what matters.
Although we never turned in our daily hours, sick or vacation days, I didn’t know anyone who took advantage it. Simply put, they didn’t abuse the system. In fact, I haven’t worked with a group who worked harder.
On the other hand, with all the restrictions in some companies, I hear employees often wasting time trying to find ways to get around or stretch the rules or complaining about them. In the end, this makes them less productive – the very opposite of what all those rules are trying to accomplish.
Without the right level of trust from employers, employees often hold back and don’t give their all. But, it goes the other way, too. Employees need to give a healthy level of trust their employers. There must be a good balance between the two.
Wisely letting go is actually liberating. If you make too many rules with your kids, for example, you wind up spending all your time as an enforcer rather than actually enjoying them.
My philosophy? Stop wasting time and making rules that, in the end, really don’t matter. This allows you to give your attention to the things that are most important. Trust your employees, focus on what will make you successful and let the small stuff take care of itself.
Will they make mistakes. Sure, just like you do, I do, we all do. In fact we need to give them that latitude and be OK with it. What they do next will show their trustworthiness.
And if they’re not trustworthy, they need to leave. But that also means you need to trust. It initially might be a scary thing to do, but I bet you’ll find that on many levels, the payback is huge.
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I once heard a story of a newlywed couple going to marriage counseling. He complained that she didn’t trust him with the other women in the office. After a little probing the councilor discovered this was his second marriage, she used to be his secretary and she had good reason to not trust him. Ouch.
