HSD 3 {HSD 1 revisited*}

A friend has been nibbling away at me over the last few years to review our HSD Certification course. (As I write the acronym it occurs to me that it sounds like a disease. 😜 )

HSD is far from a disease - it's a means to a cure. It stands for Human Systems Dynamics and provides a perspective on organizations and all the interactions and related ups and downs that occur when groups of two or more humans try to accomplish something.

You know: CHAOS. (The most recent elections in the U.S. and about Brexit might come to mind.)

Wouldn't it be wonderful if someone could provide some insight and practical suggestions to deal with this kind of mess? The mess being a complex system that has unforeseen and unintended consequences? Like... oh, LIFE in general?

Well, Glenda Eoyang and the HSD Institute can, and do!

And since my lovely and talented partner, Vickie Gray, and I have dealt with many messy organizations with complex problems throughout our consulting days, Human Systems Dynamics seemed very worth learning about. So we did, by taking the HSD Certification course from Glenda in 2010.

As well as being a rewarding, insightful, and revealing learning experience we got to work with a cohort of classmates with years of organizational experience and insight on the related problems and challenges they had tackled.

One of the kindred consultant spirits in the group was F., and it was his idea to review the course, share experiences and new learning, and discuss questions since six years has passed.

So F. has been poking at me and trying to set aside time in his busy practice for us to talk. Today was our first solid crack at opening our class binders and walking through the materials. 

I thought it would be useful to capture our thoughts and insights here as we go forward.

To set the stage I'm borrowing the Simple Rules that the Institute established for their course:

• Teach and learn in every action
• Search for the true and the useful
• Give and get value for value
• Attend to the part, the whole and the greater whole
• Engage in joyful practice
• Share the HSD story

Just the concept to even have Simple Rules to follow as part of the initial conditions for group behaviour was one of the first lessons. I'm sure we'll come back to this later.

Stay tuned for more!

{* My first blog post on HSD was in 2010.}

Team Tips – 19 {Ask, and ye might receive.}

Back when I was a kid my parents made me have a bath every Saturday evening - whether I needed it or not. I'm not kidding! Imagine. 

So here's a blog post whether anyone needs it or not.

There's no evidence that anyone reads any of my posts, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - in this case. Maybe Google Analytics forgot about me, and didn't check to see if someone has been peeking. Maybe the feature that allows comments at the bottom isn't working, or is too complicated for people to bother, or requires a secret handshake and the root of minus one for identification.  Maybe there are so many people trying to tell me that they live just for my posts that they are swamping the internet. Or have died waiting.

It was been a while since my last article, (Me Mum is fine, by the way, in spite of all previous indications to the contrary): some 23 months and 13 days ago if you like hard data.

So for all you billions of fans out there, here's a poke to say I'm still here, still kicking, still training and consulting and helping people be their best. When they really want the help, that is.

I've made lots of offers with few takers. If we're talking evidence, the data that there have been few takers seems to reinforce the human condition that we all love to forge ahead independently without asking for help because that's the err, umm, adult? thing to do. Our mature egos balk at looking like, or admitting, there might be something we don't already know, or are proficient at, or with which we could use some assistance.

Of course, how do we know help is available, or that the helper really knows something we don't, or can actually explain it so we can learn something, or might actually be useful and not waste our time when we are busy struggling? How do we even know what we don't know?

Welllllll - we don't. Unless we ASK.

Asking for help - about anything - is still one of the best kept secrets for success in the world.

That's why it is the “secret sauce” in the Core Protocols. Why it is the primary behaviour to learn to develop and to be part of a great team.

And you don't have to wait for Saturday evenings to do it. It works anytime, all the time.

Team Tips – 18 {A little cheese with that WHINE?}

Got a phone call from “me Mum” the other day. She was sad. The reality of having to finally put the family home up for sale had just hit her.

After telling me how she felt, she apologized to me for “whining”.

I was struck that at her 95 years of age, having dealt with WW2 in England, emigrating to Canada with a newborn (me), having no friends or family in this part of her world, etc., etc. that this was the first time I could recall her “whining” (as she put it).

It made me think of all the stuff I see in Twitter, and on Fussbook, and in the news where folks are continually, relentlessly, indiscriminately moaning and complaining and fussing and wailing about the latest pin prick in their lives. That's what I call WHINING!

And my reaction to all that stuff is: Ya want a little cheese with that whine?

Sure, there's lots one can complain about, and no shortage of bad news. The talking heads are paid to provide it, lay on the drama, get the audience worked up, introduce a little anxiety, move us to DefCon 3.

But seriously folks. How about a little perspective? A little dose of proportion? See - now I'm whining!!

We live in a world of abundance. In spite of all humanities mistakes we're still here on this amazing space ship. The sun appearing every day is cause for celebration.

And there are tools in the Core Protocols to recognize the problems and see what can be done with them (like Perfection Game.) Of course it's a lot easier to point out the concerns than to figure out a remedy or solution, and many times we would just rather complain.

That's also where the Core Commitments help too. For example:
 1. I commit to engage when present .... (b) To always seek effective help.
 3. I will use teams, especially when undertaking difficult tasks.
 4. I will speak always and only when I believe it will improve the general results/effort ratio.
 5. I will offer and accept only rational, results-oriented behavior and communication.
 8. I will seek to move forward toward a particular goal, by biasing my behavior toward action.

So - surprise, surprise - we CAN make choices. We can choose to complain, AND choose to do whatever we can about it.

And I figure if me Mum can get on with it, then I'd better too!

Team Tips - 17 {A word with you}

At first I didn't see this post as a "Team Tip". But of course learning is important for any team, and that's what I'm getting at here.

Here's my Best Business Books list.

• “Best” because I learned something important, and thought the author(s) explained it well.
• “Business” because I recommend these books to business associates for help with concerns in the workplace; however, they really apply to humans doing anything, anywhere.
• “Books” because most of them are books (they are all “learnings” but “learnings” doesn't have alliteration with “best” and “business”).

I was tempted to list them in some order of importance. But that is clearly in the eye of the beholder, so what you find useful isn't necessarily what I enjoyed.

Nonetheless, the critical few are “The Art of Possibility”, “Closing the Me-You Gap”, “7 Habits”, and “Software for Your Head”. And that's a reasonable order for increasing degree of difficulty, and volume and richness of concepts.

What is fun to do is to look for the similarities in fundamentals expressed in each - our essential stardust.

If you don't expect to read them all, I've added some of the concepts that were important to me from each to help you choose.

Please let me know of any you would add to this list.

Abrashoff - It's Your Ship

• how do you promote individual initiative and responsibility on a US Navy ship that is capable of starting World War 3?

Ackoff - Systems Thinking (YouTube)

• look for any of the lectures by Dr. Russel Ackoff on YouTube to understand the fundamentals of looking at entities as systems to avoid attempting to sub-optimize the various parts, and missing the interactions as the critical element

Collins - Good to Great

• insights from comparing very successful companies to their mediocre counterparts, determining the leadership, thought, and action that made a difference

Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

• what does it mean to truly be effective; i.e. work on the right things at the right time, and understand all of the roles in our lives and what is important for each?

Goldsmith - What got you here won't get you there

• from one of the foremost business coaches the insight that all the things that have made us successful so far aren't enough to guarantee our rise to the next level, and in fact might get in our way

Gray* - Creating Time

• how to use the Core Protocols from McCarthy Technologies to find more time than we thought we had for any endeavour

Gray* - Closing the Me-You Gap

• how to use the Core Protocols from McCarthy Technologies to build trust with others

Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow

• explains the two systems of how we think - system 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional, system 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical; however, both can lead us astray due to evolutionary forces, and poor understanding of their operation

McCarthy & McCarthy - Software for Your Head

• starting from the typical human faults we encounter in the software industry, this book reveals the anti-patterns and provides the positive alternative patterns (Core Protocols) that let us interact optimally with others in any endeavour to fully realize our potential

Ries - The Lean Startup

• applying the total quality management principles from the Toyota Production System (and similar sources) to any business startup, we are shown in solid detail how to proceed systematically with any venture in any situation where high uncertainty exists

Stone, Patton, Heen - Difficult Conversations

• how to frame the conversation with someone about a very difficult topic in order to reach a successful conclusion (at least to the conversation)

Zander & Zander - The Art of Possibility

• “It's all invented” - in other words, the systems we deal with every day aren't the final or necessarily the best answer, allowing us to find new possibilities at every turn in all we do

Again: please let me know of any you would add to this list.

[* Vickie Gray is my sweetheart and partner in all things]

Effort vs. Results on a Great Team

There's another interesting and important exchange underway in the Core Protocols Group forum (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/TheCoreProtocols). This one is about the relative merits of effort versus results.


As with all these discussions – in this forum or any other medium – a lot of the debate revolves around the meaning, and the implications, of the words used. For example, from Peter A.:

I think we're getting caught up on multiple interpretations of "effort". On the one hand effort refers to "the number of hours spent doing something", which is how it's being used in the results/effort ratio. On the other hand, I think the article is primarily using effort in the sense of "applied oneself diligently against a defined standard with realtime feedback" (i.e. Deliberate practice). While more is better in some sense here, the key point is that this kind of practice is a good thing vs. not practicing or ineffective practice.

and:

... there are multiple interpretations of what "results" mean. If results include the ability of the individual/team to produce more/better output in the future at less cost, the strategy/math for optimizing results/effort is different than if you only value output for the current time interval.

The “article” referred to above is The words that could unlock your child (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13128701) which has the punch line

This reveals a radical new approach to the way we engage with children - that we should praise effort, never talent; that we should teach kids to see challenges as learning opportunities rather than threats; and that we should emphasize how abilities can be transformed.

and even a comment left on behalf of Einstein!: 

This from Einstein:

"I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas."

Since my operating slogan is “It's not about effort – it's about results”, I can't avoid weighing in on this issue.


Let's set aside the unanswered questions from the article about how we encourage children versus adults, and whether or not we praise talent, or ability, or hard work, etc., and the words we choose in each situation, and with each personality – all complex adaptive systems!


My slogan is to make the point that in any enterprise, effort that doesn't finally produce a satisfactory result isn't truly effective and hence worthwhile. We can't get distracted by claims of hard work, and even true hard work, if it doesn't deliver. And please note I added the word “finally” to cover the obvious examples of practicing, failing, recovering, trying again which are all necessary efforts for most of us to build skills and competence to achieve a goal.


The real point is that effort all by itself with no achievement except fatigue is not a valuable  commodity. At least in the exercise gym fatigue is an indicator of potential muscle development. 


Nonetheless, when did you last go to the store to buy “effort”?

Well, Mr. Reeves, our company employees worked night and day to design, fabricate, and ship this product. We didn't actually get it operational, but we worked really hard at it. How many would you like?

Jeez, boss, I was here till midnight working on that analysis for you and I know you needed the answer for that important client sale this morning. Although I didn't get it done, I really worked hard at it.

You know I haven't taken a vacation in 3 years!

It is certainly NOT that effort isn't required. We don't go to the “Results Tree” and pick results off the low hanging branches. But if we praise effort without results, or in place of the required results, then we are not being smart. At the worst we are deluding ourselves that somehow hard work (and what is truly hard?) is an acceptable alternative to an actual achievement. (Scan all the news reporting from the United Nations, and governments in general, to see examples.)


And if we are in business, and only concentrating on effort, then there will definitely be a final result and that will be failure.

Software for Your Head 4

Finishing the project team kickoff meeting story from Software for Your Head by Jim & Michele McCarthy.

(from page 8):

Well, hell, if he did all that, you would consider him to be all the way checked in. Hmmm. What’s more, you think maybe, just maybe, that scenario might just do the trick for the whole damn team. Tell you what, you’d bet your bottom dollar that his teammates will at least respond with their fullest, focused attention. That’s just what people do whenever someone reveals himself a bit. If he’s talking and acting with just the least little bit of enlightenment, something new, they’re going to listen up and watch closely. As long as the person says what he says and does what he does with thoughtfulness and truth. But if it is true, you’d predict that the team, just by witnessing a more honest, genuinely new engagement level, will then be much more likely to act on questions of shared vision (which, you remind yourself, is the top-level symptom). At least, you figure, they’ll be more likely to act on things they care about, anyway, and that would be all to the good. Moreover, everybody who watched this thing unfold from just one person will have been really informed, and maybe even inspired, by the difference made by his acceptance of personal accountability for how he has been spending his own life. Really, not only for his own results, but for the results of all.

You half listen to the team struggling to cram everything in the agenda in the last few minutes. Maybe the others would also begin to experiment with the new power they are seeing and feeling (and there is tremendous power in accepting individual responsibility for achieving results together). If your guidance would help one or more of them to engage more deeply, and not to waste any time and never to do anything dumb on purpose, why, you’d have made a huge difference. Hell, the dumb quota can always be met by doing things you thought were smart to begin with. You don’t have to do anything dumb on purpose to meet the quota.

You imagine that a newly awakened team member would see a whole bunch of things, maybe all at once; the problem is not a case of a team without a shared vision, a case of just another stupid project, or another example of bad management or poor leadership. No, when he thinks it all the way through, he’ll see that the trouble is not “too few people,” or “not enough time,” or some other cockamamie story about how the mediocrity was out of his control. The crux of the thing is that he, personally, has been accepting less than he wants, and less than he deserves. What’s more, he has been doing so without making any genuine creative effort to get what he requires to efficiently create what he wants. He’ll see that the problem is his own lack of integrity and his shallow engagement. The problem is rooted somewhere near his deficient caring about his own life. To persist as it has, the problem requires his repression of passion, it mandates that he fail to accept his own wisdom, and it seduces him into daily acts of cowardice that promulgate rather than abolish the general foolishness of which he is such an important part.

But should just this one person truly check in, you think, the whole team will be moved to a better ground. Even if team members backslide, and all do,they won’t forget this vivid instance of accountable behavior and the simple, unambiguous actions that supported it.

One self-respecting person, you reflect, with even a modest degree of personal engagement, is all it takes to start this team on the path toward much greater achievement. No permission is required for the pursuit of greatness, no consensus to improve your own results. All the orgs and re-orgs in the whole damn corporate universe, all the resources consumed and processes proceeding can’t stop one honest person from making sure he spends his time wisely. And that’s all that is needed to get the ball rolling.

Why not believe, you think. Pretend. OK. So from this one moment of surpassing individual and dawning team clarity, this whole group will quicken, will revive. Of course, team members will need some new supportive structures; they’ll require whatever information there is about highly effective connection and collaboration. In particular, they’ll damn well want more moments of clarity, and will be willing to adopt whatever practices create just the right conditions for genuine checking in.

They can’t hold it, probably. And would they spread it around? You have a spike of unease, but then you reassure yourself that the team you are envisioning would of course look for any behavior patterns that would achieve its goals. If there weren’t any, team members would just figure a way to create them. And put them in a book.

But first, one of them must check all the way in. Just one. Who? All this, after one of them has decided that his life, time, and creative output really do matter. But not before.

Interrupting your reverie, your nascent vision, the meeting suddenly stops as people scatter and depart, ceasing to meet rather than finishing their work. Finishing is way different from ceasing, you muse. As you gather yourself, one of the team newbies, together with the team’s most infamous cynic, approach you. You bet they want your take on things. Your help.

So that's the kickoff meeting that we've all been to, and all have wished was better.

What have you done in this situation? Thoughts? Comments?

Leadership 8

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away... er... at least a long time ago, not so far away, in this blog actually, we were writing about Leadership.

The closing entry, before we launched into a discussion on Management, asked you to submit your stories on Leadership.

I asked you to let me know by Comment on this blog the answer to “Who do you perceive as a leader and why?”.

Luke Schubert of Adelaide, Southern Australia commented with his examples of great leadership. I have chosen his entry to post now, after a summer hiatus from this blog, to get back to the Leadership question, and start with some popular examples of what people consider Leadership.

Luke's reply was also the most significant one received. I can say that with total assurance because it was the ONLY one. :) That is an indication that:

• Leadership is an uncertain, undefinable thing, or
• good, lasting, examples are hard to find, or
• many are not brave enough to voice an opinion, or
• there are very few who follow this blog!

Here are Luke's comments from last February:

“One of my favourite leaders is Vaclav Havel, poet, dissident and then president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Some quotes:

"We introduced a new model of behavior: don't get involved in diffuse general ideological polemics with the center, to whom numerous concrete causes are always being sacrificed; fight "only" for those concrete causes, and be prepared to fight for them unswervingly, to the end. In other words, don't get mixed up in backroom wheeling and dealing, but play an open game." - from Disturbing the Peace

"Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance." - Letter to the downthrown Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek (August 1969)

(both sourced from Wikiquote http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel)”

Luke continued with thoughts on charities, probably in reaction to my appeal to help support the leadership actions taken by the Deep Griha Society in India. (www.deepgriha.org)

“Two of my favourite charities are Kiva (one of the founders, Matt Flannery, is a software developer who's created a P2P lending charity with explosive growth) and AcumenFund (led by Jacqueline Novogratz) which has been investing in building developments in Pakistan, amongst other things. And then there's Forge (www.forgenow.org) which was much discussed on blogs recently after its founder went public with just how much financial trouble it was in ...”

Thank you, Luke for your response!

The great thing about blogs is that it is never too late to

• find new and interesting ones,
• backtrack through old entries,
• add comments and thoughts.

Accordingly, if you have some examples of Leadership, some thoughts, or questions about previous blogs posted here, please submit them - night or day.

Thanks!

Management 9

Q: So you always manage to divert from my question to make your own point, or to ask me a question in reply.

A: And what's wrong with that? :)

Q: Stop kidding around! The question on the table is “How does a Manager get to know about all the management stuff we have talked about”?
By the way – where have you been?

A: Now who's digressing? But thanks for asking. I've been taking a little R&R with my sweetie and recovering from a strained back – this property management stuff is hard on a desk jockey.
Back to your question:
The fact that you have to ask is an example of an issue we see regularly. Management Training just doesn't seem to be a standard item in organizations any more.

Q: For sure! I think our budget for all training has been cut back considerably over the years.

A: I'm afraid so. Things like training, coaching, consulting regularly get cut back in, or out of, budgets whenever spending is constrained. Unfortunately, there is always someone with a sharp pencil, or spreadsheet, that can make a name for themselves by finding short term savings.

Q: Yeah; but the argument always is that we need to focus on our core business, our “core competencies”, and these extras get cut.

A: Well; that's just one more aspect of short term thinking. Training, coaching, and consulting build core competencies and provide efficiencies and effectiveness to make the business more profitable. Cutting these things out once saves money – once, in this budget. That's just poor planning, staffing, and controlling.

Q: Hey! I remember those items – they're part of the management activities list. So you are saying those cuts are poor management?

A: They are unless all other options for immediate cost savings have been exhausted, like capturing the salary of the one-time-savings hero.
It really comes down to how do Managers make these decisions. And typically cutting training, coaching, consulting look like good decisions because the longer term isn't considered, or the return on investing in these items isn't known or seems to be too hard to figure out.

Q: Are you on your soapbox again?

A: Probably; but it is relevant. How does an organization prepare and develop for the future without training, coaching, and consulting? If the machinery isn't oiled today, it won't run tomorrow.
Managers get to know the fundamentals of their jobs through being taught, and then doing. The path to lots of good decisions is littered with lots of bad. Remember that the goal to start with is simply make more good ones than the others.

Q: I'm hearing that training is the start, and the doing part – including making mistakes – is next.

A: Right, just like most things. Management can be taught; good management takes practice; really good management requires great people skills that not everyone has.
So once the initial training is done, and mistakes are being made, then coaching can make a huge difference in tuning skills and adapting from lessons learned.

Q: OK; training is clear, but I'm not familiar with this “coaching” idea. You mean like a sports team coach?

A: Perhaps a better analogy is a personal fitness trainer. Only a business coach is your personal business skills trainer. And, of course, one of the business skills is management.

Q: Neat; so a coach works with you on a regular basis?

A: As often as you wish, usually on a weekly or bi-monthly basis. That way issues that the coach can help with are current, the mistakes made and lessons learned are fresh, and an effective flow is maintained for progress. The best are certified as coaches, have solid personal experience and background in the area, and so can be extremely valuable and focused on their client – you! :)

Q: And what do I get out of this?

A: Well, anything you wish. Imagine that any time you had a question about your management role, situations with employees, tough decisions, the “office politics” stuff, etc. you could reach an expert with suggestions, approaches, reminders, etc.

Q: Sounds like a real time management support life line!

A: Yeah! Cool, eh?
Why don't you, for next time, do a little research on Business Coaching. A great place to start is adaptivecoach.wordpress.com

Q: Jeez; homework again?

A: Yup. :)

Leadership 7

A quick update on the inaugural event of Friends of Deep Griha, Canada, held at Central United Church, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia last week:

• about twice as many attendees at the pot-luck lunch as expected (nothing like food to get people's attention)
• a lot more money collected than imagined, with the result that
• 270 toddlers will have nutritional supplements of eggs and milk for a whole month in Deep Griha's care!

It is astonishing how a little goes a long way, and how directly one can make a difference not just in one child's life but in a lot of lives.

Thanks to all who attended, and the even larger number who contributed!

*************************************************************************************
And now back to our sponsor.... :)
Please comment with your stories about leaders you have experienced, as suggested in Leadership Article 6.
If you have had trouble getting through the security screens, infrared sensors, and bulky, imposing guards to post a comment, please try again. Thanks!