Do We Manage Our ‘Screens’ - Or Do Our Screens Manage Us? - Part 3

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Last time I asked how to manage our screens, so as to avoid a dreadful dumbing down of society?

As always, countermeasures depend on a

1. Clear objective and understanding of the gap, and
2. Good grasp of the situation gained through experience, as well as, reflection

Let me build on my musical example.

What should be happening?

1. Pascal wants to make music that’s enjoyable for both himself and others (forced) to listen to it
2. Pascal wants to build his capability to play the piano

What’s actually happening?

1. Yamaha’s splendid keyboards allow Pascal to create enjoyable music – without the slog of daily practice
2. Pascal’s capability does not grow

Clearly, to meet both objectives – enjoyable music, and greater musical skills – I need more than splendid technology.

I need to find a capable teacher/sensei who will guide me to greater competence through the old, old way, (well described by Dan Coyle in The Talent Code):

Our Learning Recipe (Talent Code):

1. Go slow,
2. Stop and fix (mentor), and
3. Repeat

Which is exactly, what I’ve done. The past year, Jay and I have worked through piano fundamentals & I’m way more capable than I was.

In summary, anchored in the eternal learning paradigm, the talent code, if you will, our screens are a blessing.

They can accelerate our progress in any skill. (For example, I can watch Nat Cole on Youtube performing a tune I’m learning.)

Disconnected from the talent code, they can make us stupid.

Caveat emptor.

Best,

Pascal




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Do We Manage Our ‘Screens’ - Or Do Our Screens Manage Us? - Part 2
Do We Manage Our ‘Screens’ - Or Do Our Screens Manage Us? - Part 1
In Praise of Depth
The Fog of Big Company Disease

The Entire Experience is the Product

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Imagine you’re a car manufacturer, a major sports team, or the loans division of commercial bank.

What’s your product? Why, the automobile, baseball team or commercial loan, one might respond.

But is that all there is to each experience? Driving the car, sitting in the stadium watching the game, using the commercial loan to expand your business?

In fact, these are only part of the story – the most important part, perhaps, but not the whole thing.

Buying a car begins with the initial research and ends when you sell or otherwise dispose of the car.

In order to sit in a stadium with your family watching your team, you may have to order tickets on-line, download the required apps, drive to the stadium, park your car, line up at ticket entry and so on. And then you have to reverse the process to get home.

Likewise, your loan experience begins with the research and loan application experience, and ends somewhere far downstream.

You get the picture. Nowadays, the entire experience is the product. We need to understand the entire customer journey, not just the ‘most important parts’.

We need to understand the customer’s pain points and hassles across the entire journey.

Our car may be the best in its class, but the servicing it is an lengthy expensive nightmare.

We may have a splendid baseball team, but getting the stadium entails walking through dangerous neighborhoods and or maybe getting your car vandalized. And to get into weekend games you have to line-up, in the sun, for 45 minutes.

Our commercial bank may have the flashiest website but customers leave feeling stupid and confused by our jargon and lack of offer clarity.

Lean & Agile thinkers have to learn to think laterally, and to look upstream and downstream. Empathy means walking the customer’s shoes and feeling where the shoe pinches.

Radical collaboration is the new superpower. And the generalist, grounded in the fundamentals of good management, conversant in multiple disciplines and the latest technologies, ready to collaborate radically, and dissolve silos thereby, the new Spiderman… =)

Best regards,

Pascal

Problem Solving and the Worlds of Reflection & Experience

By Pascal Dennis

Good problem solving entails moving fluidly between the worlds of Reflection & Experience.

Go See (genchi genbutsu) is central to the latter. Analytical tools like the famous Q7 Quality Tools are abstractions that exist in the world of Reflection.

Problem solving begins in the world of Experience.

What is actually happening right now? Go See the defect the moment you hear about it.

Or stand in a circle, as Taiichi Ohno suggested, until you see it in real time.

We then move to the world of Reflection to define What Is Actually Happening & What Should Be Happening.

Problem solving, of course, concludes in the world of Experience - otherwise it's just 'academic'.

This pattern -- experience - reflection - experience is central to practical problem solving and to Lean as a whole.

Lean thinkers are comfortable in both worlds.

My mental image: a person with one hand deeply embedded in the ground, and the other reaching for the sky.

Reflect, then get your butt to the gemba.

Reflection without action is lifeless. Action without reflection is aimless.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio