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Monitoring And Learning
Courtesy of this Scott Berkun retweet,
I latched onto this Harvard Business School paper abstract:
Even though the paper is laced with impeccable math and densely “irrefutable” logic, the conclusion of “looser monitoring -> more learning -> more creativity & innovation” seems intuitively obvious, doesn’t it?
Assume that the top leaders in your org embrace the idea and sincerely want to put it into action to detach the group from the status quo and propel it toward excellence. Well, fuggedaboutit. The scores of mediocre middle managers within the institution who do the monitoring will instantaneously switch into passive-aggressive mode and thwart any attempt to institute the policy. They’ll do this because it will most likely expose the fact that they are not only suppressing creativity and innovation where the rubber hits the road, but they are not adding much value to the operation themselves. How do I know this? Because that’s what I’d feel culturally forced to do. But not you, right?
Fierce Protection
Delicious, just delicious. Pitches from Fred Brooks, Scott Berkun, Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister, and Steve McConnell all in one place: the Construx (McConnell’s company) Software Executive Summit. You can download them from here: Summit Materials.
Here’s a snapshot of one of Fred Brooks’s slides that struck me as paradoxical:
So…. who’s the “we” that Fred is addressing here and what’s the paradox? I’m pretty sure that Fred is addressing managers, right? The paradox is that he’s admonishing managers to protect great designers from…… managers. WTF?
But wait, I think I get it now. Fred is telling PHOR managers to “fiercely” protect designers from Bozo Managers (but in a non-offensive and politically correct way, of course). Alas, the fact that this slide appears at all in Fred’s deck implies that PHORs are rare and BMs are plentiful, no?
How do you interpret this slide?
Accept And Continue, Or Accept And Change
If you’ve acquired a “bad rep” in a group, regardless of whether you think it’s deserved, it doesn’t matter how you present issues, problems, ideas, or solution options to anyone who perceives you as a “bad” person. Your ideas could have the potential to increase the group’s material or spiritual wealth, but……… fuggedabout getting any help from the “good” people. The “good” people are, by definition, those in positions of power who control the resources of production.
Once you understand the key principle of bad_rep == no_help, the first thing to do is get over any frustration and angst that you have from being “unfairly” adorned (how dare they!) with a scarlet letter. It’s out of your control, bozeltine. The next thing to do is to decide whether:
- to continue on being authentic, reinforcing your “bad rep” perception (if so-be-it) and knowing full well the consequences of your M.O.
- to attempt to force yourself into something you’re not. You know, morph into a “good” person so that the “bad rep” perception slowly dissolves in the minds of other “good” people.
I recommend continuing on and doing your thang as only you can do. You see, once your “bad rep” image gets burned into the UCB of one or more “good” people, it can never be erased. That’s because…… and here comes the usual acronym-laden rant that you may have been waiting for…… “good” BMs, CGH’s, SCOLs and BOOGLs are hoarders. They can add images and perceptions to their UCBs, but since they’re infallible, they are incapable of periodically re-assessing its truthiness and cleaning house. Like the Hotel California, “stuff can check in but it can never leave“.
I hate people who think in terms of “us and them”. You know, people like me. – Bulldozer00
Late Breaking News: After I wrote and queued up this vitriolic post, I discovered that one of my heroes, Scott Berkun, wrote a similar, but much more elegant, less offensive, and insightful one. Check it out here: “How To Keep Your Mouth Shut“, and be sure to watch the classic video snippet he points you to. It’s arguably the best caricature of a BM ever created.
Ego To Talent Ratio
In Scott Berkun‘s “Managing Breakthrough Projects” video, Scott concocts a metric called the Ego-To-Talent ratio (ETTR). Here’s my highly unscientific and speculative curve that plots ETTR versus position on the company org chart.
See that bozo on the chart? That’s me. Where are you?
Innovation Types
In the beginning of Scott Berkun’s delightful and entertaining “Managing Breakthrough Projects” video, Scott talks about two supposed types of innovation: product and process. He (rightly) poo-pooze away process innovation as not being innovative at all. Remember the business process re-engineering craze of the 90′s, anyone? Sick-sigma? Oh, I forgot that sick-sigma works. So, I’m sorry if I offended all you esteemed, variously colored belt holders out there.
According to self-professed process innovators, the process innovations they conjure up reduce the time and/or cost of making a product or performing a service without, and here’s the rub, sacrificing quality. Actually, most of the process improvement gurus that I’ve been exposed to don’t ever mention the word “quality”. They promise to reduce time to market (via some newfangled glorious tool or methodology) or cost (via, duh, outsourcing). Some of these snake oil salesmen dudes actually profess that they can increase quality while decreasing time and cost.
The difference between a terrorist and a methodologist is that you can negotiate with a terrorist – Unknown
Most process improvement initiatives that I’ve been, uh, lucky(?) to be a part of didn’t improve anything. That’s because the “improvements” weren’t developed by those closest to the work. You know, those interchangeable, fungible people who actually understand what processes and methods need to be done to ensure high quality. All that these highly esteemed, title-holding, mini-Hitlers did was saddle the value makers and service providers down with extra steps and paperwork and impressive looking checklists that took away productive time formerly used to make products and provide services. Process Innovation is a high-minded, overblown way of saying process improvement. Process improvement is a high-minded, overblown way of saying “kill the goose that laid the golden egg before it lays another one“.
Man, I Love This Guy
I’m not gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but I love Scott Berkun. I’ve spoken about him before, and it’s time to speak about him again. Scott’s got a new book out titled “Confessions Of A Public Speaker“. Like all of his other work, it’s a funny and insightful page turner.
It’s incredibly hard to be original, but everyone has the innate capability to be authentic. Scott is authentic. Check out this quote from the new book:
“In the interest of transparency and satisfying your curiosity, I average 25–30 lectures a year. Sometimes I’m paid as much as $8,000, depending on the situation. Maybe one-third are paid only in travel expenses or small fees, since they’re selfpromotional or for causes I’d like to help. Roughly 40% of my income is from book royalties and the rest from speaking and workshop fees. So far, I average around $100,000 a year, less than I made at Microsoft. However, I work fewer hours, am free from the 9 to 5 life, and have complete independence, which is worth infinitely more. I limit travel to once or twice a month, which means I turn away many gigs; I’d prefer to have more time than money, since you can never earn more time.”
Do you think many people have the cajones to expose that amount of detail about how much money they make? I don’t. Maybe I don’t because I feel guilty that I’m an overpaid and underperforming slacker. Scott follows up that trench coat opener with:
“I also think it would be good if salaries were made public, which is why I offered my fees and income. If more people did this, the overpaid and underpaid would be visible and more likely to be corrected. Or, total anarchy would ensue and civilization would end. Either way, it would be fun to watch.”
LOL! I love that idea and I would sign up to it any day. Then I, and everyone else, especially the corpocrats that run the show, would have a reference point of relativity for determining whether or not they’re overpaid.
There’s at least one company that I know of that operates this way – Semco. I know this because CEO Ricardo Semler said so in his book “Maverick“. How about you and your company? Would you try it out? Why not? If the result turned out to be FUBAR, you could always revert back to the same-old same-old and do what everybody else in the moo-herd does.
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. – Albert Einstein
Some Of My Heroes
“We’re just two wild and crazy guys” – Yortuk and Georg Festrunk
Unlike the quote above, Joe Walsh’s “I’m just an ordinary average guy” fits me to a tee. In spite of this, I’d like to think that I’m open to new ideas and thinking. At the moment, here are some of my favorite, inspirational, weird, and forward looking (but pragmatic) thinkers:
- Seth Godin
- Hugh MacLeod
- Clay Shirky
- Chris Guillebeau
- Leo BaBauta
- Paul Graham
- Scott Berkun
- Tony Hseih
- Ricardo Semler
- Joel Spolsky
Check out what one or more of these whack jobs have to say if you’re yearning to explore and discover new opportunities that may crack the concrete in your brain and challenge your same-old, same-old mental models of the world. If you think there is an “edge” to my blarticle posting style, then you should give all the credit to those dudes.
Who are your favorite thinkers, visionaries, and potential status-quo busters? What, you don’t have any? Why not?
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
