Goldilocks & New Ways of Working

 

‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ has delighted children & their parents for generations. And no wonder – it’s deeply satisfying story and its core metaphors continue to inform us. Recently, an old friend & I were reflecting on our adventures in the 'New Ways of Working' (NWoW) business, and Goldilocks came up again.

NWoW (Transformation) is a Fun Business

Good people, beautiful places & interesting problems to solve: ‘What’s the best way to help these people lock in this learning? Who are the champions? How do we deal with the blockers?’  Along with the jet lag & long days, you get to experience exotic cultures & the world’s great industries from the inside. It's something like playing chess on multiple chessboards. You start to see common shapes & recurring patterns. And so, teaching executive amounts to telling stories about the different chess boards I’ve experienced and the lessons learned thereby.

Business Transformation Has a 'Goldilocks' zone  

NWoW transformations have a ‘Just Right’ zone or ‘sweet spot’. The company should be neither too successful, nor too desperate.

Too Successful: We helped a fine financial services partner build a kick-ass ‘Protect the Core’ management system over several years. Continuous improvements in Customer Experience, Cost & Morale resulted in solid year-over-year growth.  ‘Bravo,” I said, “now let’s build on your foundation. Let’s innovation our way to new offerings and ignite new Growth.”

But there was little appetite for igniting new Growth.  The Innovator's Dilemma was in full bloom. “If we stay the course we’ll continue to have solid growth & prosperity and we’ll live nice lives. Why should we kill ourselves?”

Could I blame my friends & colleagues for resting on their oars? They had earned their success and were grateful & gracious. The Innovator’s Dilemma was in bloom, but my job is to keep pushing.  So, I talked about black swans, the dangers of complacency, and ‘how the mighty fall’. But I sensed we’d gone a far as we could go. People were happy & wanted to enjoy life. Nothing wrong with that.

Falling Apart:  Companies that are in imminent danger of collapse, and losing major customers through ineptness, malfeasance or bad luck, can scarcely breathe, let alone commit to new initiatives. Absorbing & applying New Ways of Working requires a cool head, steady leadership, and a long-term perspective. Business transformation requires experimentation and the strategic, financial, cultural, and physical space to play. Some call this a 'sandbox', which evokes the happy atmosphere & attitudes conducive to innovation. The best sandboxes are light-hearted, relaxed, somewhat goofy, and evoke a comedy club or children's playground.

I’ve learned to say No to ‘Death’s Door’ engagements.  It’s trench warfare & kills your quality of life.

What Does This Mean for Leaders?  

1) Do not wait until the building is burning. Business system innovation is hard enough in calm water, and almost impossible in a hurricane.

2) Keep trying stuff: Have a few innovation irons in the fire at all times. In this way, the team gets used to tinkering, experimentation and goofing around. 

3) The Light Touch: Aim for a droll and even somewhat goofy environment. "We're always trying stuff, some of it way out there" can be a helpful attitude.  Of course, be diligent & mindful of Cost and rigorous in your experiments.  Clearly define Purpose & Hypothesis and keep your experiments fast & inexpensive. Think carboard & duct tape in the analogue space, and quick & easy social media experiments in Digital space.

4) Your Transformation Team: Seek droll, off center, energetic, optimistic. results-oriented people.  Seek T-shaped individuals (profound knowledge in one area, and a range of interests & capabilities.)

Companies who are pretty good but know they can be better are ‘just right’ for business transformation.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

How to Manage Watchers? Fukuda’s Parable in the Age of AI (part 3)

 

Watchers comprise the bulk of your team & are the key to sustaining your transformation.  If we can turn them into Rowers, we’re in business.  If they morph into ‘Quiet Quitters’, we’re sunk. Here’s part 3 of my series on Fukuda’s Parable, based on the book Andy & Me.

“How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san?”

I quote a revered mentor who once posed this question to a fledgling manager & engineer. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Watchers neither take the oars, nor run away. They sit back & watch, waiting to see how the Rowers make out. Your job as leader is to demonstrate that the new ways of working are fun & rewarding, and to thereby engage the Watchers.

The argument goes something like this: Change is hard, but we have no choice. If we do nothing we’ll soon be obsolete. I’m proposing a Win-Win situation. We want to help you become smarter, more capable, and forever employable. And we want you to do the work that needs doing, and to help us improve.

If the Watchers see the Rowers having fun, getting results, and kicking ass, more & more of them will take an oar. If, by contrast, they see the Rowers having a tough time through lack of visible senior level support, they’ll stay on the sidelines thinking, ‘This too shall pass.’

Do not give the Grumblers a platform – that just distracts the Watchers. It’s best to either ignore Grumblers or to apply the methods of Steve Jobs or Jack Welch, which I described last time.

Quiet Quitters

Gallup polls since the pandemic suggest that quiet quitting is a growing phenomenon, especially among Gen Z. ‘I’ll do exactly what the job requires & no more.’ They won’t stay late, show up early or show up to non-mandatory meetings. Are all Watchers, quiet quitters? Not in my experience. That said, I know senior leaders are keen on Agentic AI at least in part because of frustration with quiet quitters. Other leaders respond to ‘quiet quitting’ with a tit-for-tat approach called ‘quiet firing’.  In other words, we’ll give you less & less responsibility and attention till you go away.

Engaging the Watchers

I am of the ‘everyone-deserves-a-chance’ school of leadership. The leader must lay out a Win-Win scenario and invite people to take an oar. Leaders must be storytellers & orators and must embody the organization’s core Values. Develop a management system that makes visible ‘What Should Be Happening’ versus ‘What is Actually Happening.’ Embed cultural ‘nudges’ in your operating rhythms including Strategy deployment & execution cycles, leader Obeya (Control Tower) meetings, management walks, and daily team huddles. Your Root Cause Problem Solving & Innovation processes are also an excellent source of such tacit knowledge.

Get Results Fast

Prove that ‘this stuff actually works’ with quick wins on thorny problems. I advise my mentees to create stages, forums, and ‘shows’ wherein your stars can shine. These can be Shark Tanks, Innovation Councils, Pitch Competitions, Problem Solving Fairs, and the like. The point is to create momentum by showcasing quick wins and thereby to turn Watchers into Rowers.

Be tough, be fair. Set up a Win-Win and give everybody a chance. If there are Watchers or quiet quitters still refuse to engage, that’s on them.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

The Leadership Challenge, part 2 – What’s in it for Them?

How will you motivate your team, Pascal-san? 

A cherished mentor asked me this question decades ago. I was a young engineer & manager trying to absorb the legendary Toyota Production System. A lot has happened since those days, but his wisdom still informs me. The leader’s job one today is ambidexterity. How will we both protect the core business, and ignite new Growth? These entail very different mindsets and ways of working. How do we motivate our team members to make such extraordinary efforts?

How will you motivate your team, Pascal-san? 

Ambidexterity entails the ability to both 1) Protect the core business with the proven methods of OpEx/Lean, and 2) Ignite new Growth using Digital methods. It’s an immense challenge, and I’ve described blockers in earlier blogs. So, how do leaders motivate team members to take it on?  Here’s how I would answer the question.

We’re asking you all to help us transform our business. Why? Because it's a big challenge and we can't do it without you.

It's a big ask - life is hard nowadays and many of us are just hanging on, doing our best in a sea of seemingly endless change & turmoil. So, why should you put your backs to the wheel, why should you go the extra mile to help this organization get to the next level, and prosper in the long term? Bluntly stated, what’s in it for you?

First, the bad news.  I cannot guarantee that your jobs will not change.  And it’s likely some positions will be eliminated. As ever, we will do everything within our power to maintain employment stability.

If your job disappears, you’ll have every opportunity to apply for the new jobs we create. If you chose to seek other opportunities, or to retire, we'll be fair & generous.

Regardless, all of you will have the opportunity to grow and to learn. We’re going to invest in you so that you’re multi-skilled & invaluable to our organization.  We’re going to strengthen your capabilities in Operational Excellence and give you the opportunity to learn cutting-edge Innovation skills.

Why? Because we want you to help us continually improve our processes, and to share your innovation ideas so that we can continue to surprise our competitors and delight both existing and new customers.

You’ll have the opportunity to learn by doing through bootcamps, hackathons, our Shark Tank program and other interesting channels. We want you to become ‘employable for life’. We hope you choose to stay with us.

What about AI, you ask? Isn't it going to obsolesce the human & take our jobs?

I believe AI is going to be a tremendous enabler for us. I believe the teams of the future will comprise both people and AI agents, the latter doing specific tasks that free up people for higher level work, especially oversight to ensure our AI agents don't hallucinate and destroy value. But AI will never replace people. AI without acumen equals garbage at the speed of light. We will always need capable, committed people, and that's why we want to invest in you.

So, what's in it for you? Fun, growth, opportunity and being a part of kick-ass team in a kick-ass organization committed to doing the right thing, in the right way.

Best wishes,

Pascal