Are you having the Real Conversation – nothing changes without it

Prefer to watch on video rather than read?  Click here for the video, 4 minutes, with captions.

You’re in a work conversation, and you’re just not getting through.  And it matters.  It needs to get through. 

So you regroup and go again.  Because you’re not someone who gives up easily.  And you get the same result, they either

• Agree, but you know they’re not going to do anything about it
• Explain in detail the situation which makes it so it’s not really a problem
• Suggest that it definitely be brought up at the future ‘strategy day’

And the numerous other approaches, none of which give you any movement forward.  You’re frustrated.  Maybe doubting yourself.

The Coordination System – the unfashionable necessity that will make your organisation work

Prefer to watch on video rather than read? Click here – 5 mins, with captions.

Unhappy people, putting out fires and feeling like we’re not getting anywhere.  We often look for so-called ‘bigger’ solutions – to talk about purpose, strategy, systems.  And sometimes that’s spot on.

But more often than not, there’s a more powerful, yet very unfashionable component of every organisation at every level that needs to be working for anything to…well…work!

And that’s Coordination.  I’ll explain…

No Discord at Work – Lessons from Jerry

The show Seinfeld was known to be a reasonably harmonious set, a ‘lack of discord’.  When Jerry Seinfeld was asked a few weeks ago why he thought that was the case by life-maximiser Tim Ferriss on his podcast , he gave an answer that was startling in its simplicity:

Tim: To what would you attribute that lack of discord?

Jerry: I don’t like discord.

You probably don’t like it either, right?  But what do you actually do?

Jerry continued:

Jerry: I don’t like it, and I am fearless in rooting it out and solving it.  And if anyone’s having a problem, I’m going to walk right up to them and go “Is there a problem?  Let’s talk about this”.  Because I cannot stand that kind of turmoil.

Genuine Buy-In – the power of CAPI

Prefer to watch on video rather than read?  Click here, it’s 4 mins, with captions.

My work with organisations often involves getting groups together so they can see their work situation, make decisions on what needs to change and put these into action.    Which means at some point in the preparation, we are going to be asking “right, so who do we need to have in the room”?

That’s where I lean one of the brilliant concepts of Dr. Ichak Adizes, called CAPI.

The Weekly One-on-One – the simple thing that makes you a better leader

Prefer to watch on video than read?  Click here to do so, it’s 4 mins with captions.

There’s a thing that you can do to become a better leader that it is so simple, it’s difficult for many to believe it can make so much difference.

That thing is the weekly one-on-one. 

The best descriptions of the importance of this and some guidelines come from Manager Tools, founded by Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne 15 years ago.  Originally a podcast, it’s now a consultancy, training company and there’s a book.    They call the one-on-one the ‘O3’, and they have it as one of their cornerstones of good leadership.

They’re not wrong.

The Resource Bargain – The Root Cause of Organisational Pain

Prefer to watch on video rather than read?  Click here – video is 6 mins, with captions.

The world of work is chaotic and filled with anxiety.  We can track most of that back to one source – to the one thing that is rarely done well in most organisations – the Resource Bargain.

The term the ‘Resource Bargain’ comes from Stafford Beer (1926-2002), legend in systems thinking and the creator of the Viable System Model (VSM), one of the best ways to diagnose and change organisations (or any system) so they work better.

Improve Performance – Use Limits Not Targets

(Prefer to watch on video than read?  Then just click here – 5 mins, with captions.  Previous videos here BTW).

It’s very standard to set some targets when performance is in need.  Often smoke-screened by calling them KPIs (forgetting what the ‘I’ stands for).  Maybe even ‘aggressive targets’.

Yet…they don’t always get the hoped-for result, for a simple reason – targets aren’t how things work in the real world!

The Conventional Way

Here’s how we’d typically do it.  Take this graph, with Performance on the vertical and Time on the horizontal, with the horizontatal dotted target line.  And let’s assume higher is better.

What We Really Need – It’s Not Leadership

Prefer to watch rather than read?  Click here to watch me go through this on video – 5 mins, and with captions if you need no sound.

The stupid ‘manager and leader’ thing came up again on LinkedIn this week.  This time it was in the form of this:

…as always – leaders are cool, managers are the worst.

Thinking of an ERP? You got to know when to hold ‘em.

Prefer to watch rather than read?  Just click here to watch the video – 5 mins, with captions.

The ubiquitous ERP – technically “Enterprise Resource Planning”, the technology system that in theory connects up all of your stuff so the magic can happen…and in reality, the cause of significant pain and ongoing justifications throughout many organisations.

Here’s what you need to know if you’re anywhere near one of these – it’s not too late.

Introducing Gerry Fish

This is actually a story about Gerry Fish – a fictional character in one of the brilliant Eli Goldratt’s last books called Necessary But Not Sufficient.

I would make this compulsory reading for anyone involved in deciding about ERPs…particularly CEOs.  From Goldratt’s description,  I reckon Gerry would look like this:

Leading in Dissent – more lessons from Captain Hanks

Prefer to watch rather than read? Click here to watch the video, 5 mins, with captions. 
(Previous videos here BTW)

Like I did in my article and video on Radical Competence, this week I again break down a scene from a movie starring Tom Hanks.  This time it’s Saving Private Ryan, with our mate Tom playing Captain John Miller.  To get the full effect, it’s really best to watch the video, the article doesn’t really do it justice.

What you’ll see is an example of handling what we might call justified dissent – Captain John Miller and his soldiers have stormed the beach at Normandy in World War II, and he is given their next mission – select a small group of your people and find a Private Ryan.  The mission exists as Private Ryan’s three brothers had all been killed in action, and the US had passed the ‘sole-survivor’ policy which required that in situations such as these, the surviving sibling be brought home.  As you might expect, this is not exactly the mission the soldiers signed up for, and not all are happy.