Do the Right Thing: Listen

It has been my experience that most people operate from a position of positive intent. "No mother's child was ever born evil." I don't remember exactly where I heard that, but it says a lot. Everyone hopes to improve their situation, but everyone sees a different road to that end because everyone has lived a different set of experiences. You may see another's actions and behaviors and determine that that person bad/wrong/evil/stupid/etc., but the problem is that you are viewing their actions through the lens of your experience. By labeling that person as an adversary, you block the ability to effectively exchange information that may lead to understanding on both parts. The whole Red/Blue Left/Right thing is driving me crazy...everyone is talking and no one is listening...both sides are guilty. The only way we as a society are going to reach a better outcome is for everyone to start listening. Listening leads to understanding, which hopefully leads to better outcomes for all.

Why the rant? I am trying to get my hands around blogs and why they are so compelling. I think it is because good blogs are a conversation and a conversation is based on listening not talking. This goes to my point that we are all looking for better outcomes for ourselves, and blogs have emerged as a way to meet that end.

Borders

Borders and trust are inversly proportional. Borders are the points on a network (think system) where feedback is restricted or controlled. When feedback (information flow) is limited, trust is limited. Therefore as the feedback within a system is increased, borders are eliminated and trust is increased. As trust increases, productivity increases.

(...not particularly coherent, just wanted to capture the idea for future use.)

2 Statements

A boundry exists between a system and it's external environment. How we behave at the boundry is significant.

1. When the boundry condition is fear it leads to building fences typified by confrontation, driven by a short-term view, focusing on existing patterns, resulting in conservative agendas. Process improvement is seen as the best way to move forward. There is a belief that competition is the underlying paradigm. Rules and plan are relied on to promote growth.

2. When the boundry condition is wonder it leads to building bridges typified by conversation, driven by a long-term view, focusing on new patterns, resulting in progressive agendas. Disruptive change is seen as the best way to move forward. There is a belief that cooperation is the underlying paradigm. Emergence is relied on to promote development.

Which system would you want to be a part of? It all begins with how you approach the boundry (the unknown), with fear or wonder!

-Lee

Boundry Conditions

Boundries define systems and sub-systems. The boundry is the interface between what is part of the system and what is part of the environment. Events that occur at the boundry are significant in defining the nature of the system. One could say that since everything is part of one greater system, what is the point of looking at sub-systems? I contend that it is critical to consider sub-systems because the manner in which system components (individual, organizations, etc.) view themselves influences how they make decisions. Decisions are "always" made to maximize the benefit accrued to the system. If I see myself as the system and everything and everyone else as part of the outside environment, I will make decisions that maximize my benefit only, without concern for the outside environment.
If I see my family as the systemand everything and everyone else as part of the outside environment, ...
If I see my organization as the system...
If I see my country as the system...
If I see the world as the system...
Of course most people do not consciously go through the process of thinking about systems, but if you look at their decisions, it is a proxy for how they see their world. If you logically look at this you might ask why wouldn't everyone want to maxmize the benefit for the most people? The answer is in timing: the smaller the system, the faster the feedback loop, thus the quicker the gratification. Unfortunately the quick gratification does not always lead the the best long term ooutcome.

Now as systems practitioners, how do we get people to look past short term gratification and embrace the longer term benefit? The answer is increased human interaction. Build the network. By increasing the connection between people we come to better empathize with their situation and make their needs our own. We internalize externalities. In doing this we see ourselves as part of the larger system and are therefore willing to wait for the greater benefit that accrues to the larger system. The simplest way to do this is through dialogue, simple conversation. Our jobs as practitioners is to facilitate the conversation. The rest will emerge.

my glossary of organizational terms

Vision - An idealized image of what you want the future to look like; The preferred future state of the organization
Guiding Principles - The fundamental shared beliefs of the organization; Values; The "right" way to do things
Mission - Vision plus Guiding Principles
Strategy - The part of an organization's plan to achieve its mission that remains consistent even while other parts of the plan are changing, (a change in strategy means a change in the game; ALL tactics must be re-evaluated)
Goal - The measure of how the strategy fulfills the mission
Tactics - The set of projects and ongoing operational processes that support the strategy
Objective - The measure of how the tactics fulfill the strategy
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Lee

STIP (system theory in practice)

System Theory in practice within organizations looks like a conversation between functions and between levels, where barriers to communication have been eliminated and individual/functional agendas have been set aside, in order to serve the greater good. For this to happen, there needs to be a common, shared vision of the "greater good". The role of the leader is to host the vision and facilitate the conversation.

----------------------------
Lee

Adaptable Organizations

Guiding principles for building and organization capable of rapid adaption:

• Frictionless Information Flow; up, down and across; A function of technology and culture: Driven by "information Pull"
• Decentralize operational Decisions; The How? decisions
• Clear vectors from the executive function
• Reward Learning
• Modular structure; Plug & Play Architecture; Focus on the interfaces not the objects
• Dialogue as the primary means of communication; Listening is essential

[K -- Lee

Trust: A Systems view

There is a reinforcing causal loop between trust, transparency and productivity.

      +                     +
      --->Trust -------->Productivity------
      |                                                     |
      |                                                     |
      |--------Transparency<-------------- |
                                            +
Of course the metric for "productivity" in this sense may be the subject of much debate, but I mean it in the sense that you are doing better, you are more effective and more efficient. So the loop says, if you increase your transparency ( as an individual or an organization) you generate increased trust among your stakeholders and increased trust increases your ability to perform, which in turn leads to an increased willingness to be transparent...   On the other hand the more you tend to obscure the situation (decrease transparency) the less trust you will engender, leading to reduced productivity since it now takes extra work to obtain trusted information (sign-off, approvals, verifications, etc.) and as your performance goes down so does your willingness to share that information.

Emergence

"Emergence is a characteristic arises as output of a system, that could not have been predicted from an analysis of the individual parts which comprise the system. "

This is why the study of systems is important. When something good happens, everyone wants the credit. In a linear thinking world each component piece of the system sees their contribution as the "key to success", when in reality the success was most likely emergent and could not have happened without the interaction between the constituent parts. Conversely when something bad happens, everyone wants to lay the blame elsewhere. Again the reality is that the unintended consequence probably was an emergent quality resulting from the interaction between parts of the system.

Only by studying the interactions between all parts of a system (system thinking) can a true understanding of the causality for success or failure be achieved.

Externalities

Internalization of externalities is an essential ingredient in making the change to a "sustainability" mindset. What does that mean? Previously I talked about "individual utility" vs. "community utility". Maybe a better way to express it is the distinction between "internal utility" vs. "external utility". We "internalize externalities" by providing more and better information about the externalities. This is typically done via guilt, which immediately develops resistance. It is better to bring in externalities by showing how the externality can increase internal utility.

Consumer Responsibility

A sustainable future is placed squarely on the shoulders of the consumer. The consumer ultimately makes the decisions that drive what and how products are produced. Given that, producers need to consider what the consumer looks at when making a purchasing decision. The consumer's first consideration is individual utility, WIIFM. The consumer's second consideration is community utility, "What is in it for the environment and those around me. If two products are comparable on the first consideration of individual utility, producers can create competitive advantage by delivering products that A) have superior environmental/societal qualities; and B) provide information to the consumer about these qualities.
In the current environment, not many producers are providing essential information about environmental and societal impacts of their products. Therefore it is incumbent on the consumer to push harder for that information.

First Post, First Blog

Into the fray, it is time to join the party. This journal will be my musings about business, general management practice, organizations and how they work, systems thinking, etc.
Systems
A system is a group of things that are interdependent on each other. In essence everything is a system. The problem is that almost any system is too complicated to fully understand by any individual. In order to keep from being overwhelmed, we create simplified comceptual models of systems. These conceptual models are sometimes referred to as Mental Models. Through our experiences each of us develop unique mental models to understand the systems around us. Since each of us have a unique set of experiences, each of us have a different perceprion of the world around us. This leads to different opinions, and the common conviction that your own is correct, when in fact no one's mental model is "correct" since no mental model is an exhaustive portrayal of reality.