A635.3.3.RB - 50 Reasons Not to Change/The Tribes We Lead

A635.3.3.RB - 50 Reasons Not to Change/The Tribes We Lead

 

 

You don’t have to go far at Boeing to hear the words, “We’ve always done it that way.” or “That’s how we’ve always done it.” or something along those lines. It never fails to irritate me. My response is usually this: “No. That’s not true. It hasn’t always been done this way. If that were true, we’d still be making airplanes out of canvas and glue and just talking about space travel.” To me, that is the biggest cop out of them all. The idea that something can’t be changed because it’s “always” been done or not done, or someone tried that back in 1985 and it was awful, all of that – it’s garbage. Unless a process is absolutely perfect and doesn’t have any negative aspects, no glitches, no “it works great when A, B, and C happen…” 1000% perfect, it can and probably should be changed. And even then, even at 1000% perfect – is that process going to be 1000% perfect a year from now? When rates increase? Decrease? During a recession? During a winning Mariners season? When a company decides that it has reached the pinnacle of profitability and success, that they can rest and let the money roll in, they have absolutely begun their downfall.  There is always going to be someone with bigger and better ideas who wants it more than you. In business, where you stop growing, you usually stay there until you die. I also believe that just because something has been tried before doesn’t mean it can’t be tried again. Change applies to ideologies as well as methodologies. As Godin said in the TED talk, [t]hat what we do for a living now…is find something worth changing, and then assemble tribes that assemble tribes that spread the idea and spread the idea…it becomes something far bigger than ourselves, it becomes a movement. (Godin, 2009) Making excuses or coming up with reasons not to change just puts up roadblocks.

There is another motto that is thrown around Boeing and it is “Beat Airbus!” – now while I am really tired of hearing that, it is moving us in a more innovative and competitive space. It’s pushing us, willingly or unwillingly, to do better, faster, with less, in order to produce an airplane so cool, so cost-effective, that our customers will be tripping over themselves to place orders. (This is for all programs, not just the 787.) After watching Seth Gordin’s TED talk about tribes, this made me realize that by putting this idea out there, this, “Beat Airbus!” motto in our faces and part of every staff meeting, they have inadvertently created this tribe of Boeing employees who are again, willingly or unwillingly, marching to the same beat. I think that every corporate giant has its day, and one day, someone ‘bigger and badder’ will probably take over where Boeing once stood. This is just the cycle of life. Airbus probably has the same or similar motto in its factories and staff meetings: “Beat Boeing! Be the Best!” and they have also created a tribe. Ultimately, the consumer will win this particular battle. Boeing and Airbus are formidable opponents who have both been changing their products and quality standards in an effort to be the one chosen by the airlines. But my point is that creating these tribes, these groups of people brought together by a commonality, helps move ideas forward.

These ideas are not overly complex. “Beat Airbus!” “Beat Boeing!” “Go Team Go!” “Let’s Get Lunch!” The ideas that start the change are usually not big complex ideas that have to have 37 diagrams and 14 Prezi presentations to explain them. This simplicity is part of the success. A change happens because that change is understood. Thinking about what words make an organizational change movement come to life – it’s the small but powerful narrative. Transformation must be both personal to all participants and centrally directed in order to be coherent…everyone involved needs to internalize the change. (Denning, 2011) The “everyone” here becomes your tribe. Your tribe of unique individuals brought together by a central and common idea.

Have I used excuses like the ones in the 50 Reasons Not to Change graphic? Absolutely. I read recently in the leadership blog, Leadership Freak – which I highly recommend, that excuses are an attempt to lower expectations [and] excuse makers are explaining why you should accept lackluster performance. (Rockwell, 2017) I had to think about that for a while. Was I doing that? When I said things like, “But I’m new here so I’m not sure.” Or “I’m not great at math so I could be wrong.” I was basically telling the listener that because I’m new or not great at math that my response or my work should be graded on a curve – don’t expect too much from me folks! I have spent the last few months trying to teach myself not to do that. Not to preface my work or my words with reason to value them less or to accept less from me. On the flip side of that I was also thinking how some excuses can also create tribes. Are the reasons we give ourselves for being part of a tribe also the excuses we use to not conform? When is it noble - truly trying to make a change and when is it just resistance to change – just being stubborn? Friendships, social cliques, or informal teams may be threatened by change…the stronger the group ties, the greater the resistance to change. (Brown, 2011)

One last insight I had while watching this video was that yes, tribes are formed because of things are in need of change. Sometimes though, tribes fight hard for what they believe in and still lose. I wonder if that has to do with who the tribe is fighting for and what they are fighting against. There was a group of women last year who marched in cities all over the world for women’s rights, they went by the name Nasty Women, and were a tribe who rallied against misogyny. With calls for solidarity, they fought for LGBTQ rights, education, racial equality, reproductive health care, and, yes, a woman in the White House. (Gray, 2016) Their methods were criticized and heralded alike. The people who considered themselves “Nasty Women” were responding to a statement made [d]uring the final moments of the third and final presidential debate, Donald Trump interrupted Clinton as she was answering a question about social security. “Such a nasty woman,” he muttered into his microphone. (Gray, 2016) This sparked such outrage because so many women could relate to being dismissed with comments like this. I don’t want to get on my soapbox about this but these people absolutely formed a tribe – even wore little pink “vagina” hats during their marches in solidarity. But in the end, it didn’t really change anything. Clinton was not elected and women are still fighting for respect and equality. I don’t know why the election ended that way. The time was ripe for a real change. Maybe it was mostly about the connection. Godin talked about pirates: [T]hey've got their own flag. They've got the eye patches. You can tell when you're running into someone in a tribe. And it turns out that it's tribes…that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will, but because they wanted to connect. (Godin, 2009)

 

 

 

References:

 

Brown, D. R.(2011). An experiential approach to organizational development (Eighth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

 

Denning, S.(2011).The leader’s guide to storytelling, mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

 

Godin, S. (2009). The tribes we lead. Ted.com. https://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead

 

Gray, E. (2016). How ‘Nasty Woman’ became a viral call for solidarity. Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nasty-woman-became-a-call-of-solidarity-for-women-voters_us_5808f6a8e4b02444efa20c92

 

Rockwell, D.(2017).How to confront excuse makers.Leadership Freak.  https://leadershipfreak.blog/2017/04/11/how-to-confront-excuse-makers/

 

A635.2.3.RB - How Companies Can Make Better Decisions

A635.2.3.RB - How Companies Can Make Better Decisions

 

The Marcia Blenko video was very interesting. I agreed with her approach to decision effectiveness – an issue that can literally stop a company in its tracks. I have worked in organizations where decisions were made entirely at a corporate level and driven down through the ranks. A lot of retail places are run that way – as an employee you have to conform to new norms or you’ll most likely be disciplined or just fired. In the companies I have worked for in manufacturing there seems to be an acceptable amount of push-back from the employees when a new directive is passed down. The decision for some change is made but the employees had no say in it so they are initially resistant. I understand that not all decisions need to go through the entire organization for buy-in – that would be ridiculous and nothing would ever be decided. However, the day-to-day things that Blenko mentioned should have some buy-in from the employees because it is something that seems more tangible to them than some of the more lofty corporate goals. The day-to-day things are things that matter to them on a more personal level. Blenko says that it shouldn’t be surprising that companies where it’s easier to make decisions and get things done are better places for employees to work. (Blenko, 2010) One issue is that some companies are so big and have built up so many layers of bureaucratic approvals and signatures that even the seemingly easy decisions take on a slow and dreary life of their own. Back to employee engagement; when employees feel as though their voices have been taken into account – even if the ultimate decision is not what they wanted – they are more willing to accept the outcome. I think it must be human nature to want to be a part of decisions that affect us instead of allowing things to happen to us.

 

Some of the impediments Blenko discusses have to do with the organizational chart and understanding who really makes the decisions in the company – it can be ambiguous if the people on the org chart are there in name alone and really don’t make any decisions that matter. She also discussed leadership behaviors and making sure that the right talent is in place for making those critical decisions. When the CEO of a company is merely a figurehead and the real decision making is two layers under that individual – what are we paying them for? I used to think that being seen and known by senior leadership and directors was good for my career – it certainly doesn’t hurt – but it doesn’t matter in most cases. In most cases, finance makes the final decisions about lay-offs, raises, promotions, and budget allocation for the year. I have a feeling that they are the organizations who secretly, or not so secretly, hold the key decisions in their hands regardless of what the director promises.

One of the things we had to do as final assembly industrial engineers (IE) is schedule the work for each build. We went down to a shorter build and now have only a few days between each jet. In the 787 program we have to move jobs from one position to another because of engineering changes or new requirements – I can’t get into deep detail on this but we have to make these changes quickly and a lot of times it’s the same change on every single jet. We have a process where we initiate a work transfer which has to have four signatures to be processed and then about four more for acceptance. Personally, I had over 25 work changes for every jet – we couldn’t get a permanent change because it wasn’t exactly the same process as the Everett 787 build. (This is a whole other bone of contention that I won’t get into here but does have to do with a critical decision failure.) I have a few days to get the schedule loaded in the systems so that parts can be allocated to the position when the mechanics need them. Having to go through all of these signatures usually meant that those jobs were late getting scheduled. God forbid if a key signer was out of office and their back-up had to sign! I’m no longer an IE but I swear last week I still had job transfers I’d initiated back in MARCH of this year just now clearing. The airplane it was supposed to be moved to has been in the hands of the customer for a month now. The work got done but we had to expedite parts and create non-conformance reports on the scheduling.  That process is held hostage by a system where not everyone has the same sense of urgency. No one wants to make the decision to change that process because they don’t understand the time it takes out of our day to baby-sit these changes. I’m not in that department anymore but I swear if I’m ever in a position to make changes like that – I will. Time wasters like that cost way too much money and hold back innovation that could make us more competitive.

 

The four measurements that Blenko uses to gauge the effectiveness of a company’s decision making are: quality, speed, yield, and effort. I think that all four of those things are very important in determining the effectiveness of a company’s decision making – in my example above alone speed is the one thing that keeps that process from being effective. The work gets done with the same quality, yield, and effort even if the “official” change request isn’t approved because our main job is to get airplanes out of the doors. Anything that keeps us from doing that that isn’t a safety or quality issue doesn’t really matter. (Well, I’m sure it matters to someone but ultimately, we have to get the jet out.) Quality, speed, yield, and effort are very reasonable things to measure the effectiveness of decision making but are there any other factors that could be included? I want to say that the human factor is always important but I’m not quite sure how to fit that in those four things other than to say that the human factor impacts all four. So I’m not sure if that’s a fifth element to this or that it’s an implied factor in each of the existing four elements.

 

I have always thought that it was extremely important to include as many levels of employees as possible when making big decisions. As I said before, even if the result is not what they wanted, any maybe even if the decision has in reality already been made, people need to feel as though they have some input when change is coming. We spend most of our day in these organizations and we feel an ownership to the work we do. Wouldn’t it make sense to at least talk to some of the people who drive the machine forward when trying to change that machine a bit? A corporate culture must achieve goals as well as satisfy the needs of the members if the organization is to be effective. (Brown, 2011) I also know that in an organization the size of Boeing, or GM, or Apple – that getting each and every person’s input is unrealistic and time consuming – mostly just unrealistic. And this means that we have to make sure that the people speaking on our behalf understand what impact their decision making will have on the workforce. Cultures helps members fill in the blanks between formal directives and how work is actually done. (Brown, 2011) I don’t think that is unreasonable or unrealistic to expect senior leadership to listen and ask questions of the people who actually do the work. As for what I can take away from this video that I can use immediately in my career? I can make sure that when I’m an advocate for my work and changes that may impact it that I’m talking to the people who truly make the decisions and that I speak succinctly about the true needs of the organization and not just my personal preference. I have always learned that when presenting to the executive level of management, the presentation needs to answer just a few specific questions: What’s in it for them? How much does it cost? What is the ROI?  Now I know that it also matters that the person who is getting this information can actually make the final call on the request.

 

References:

 

Blenko, M. (2010) How companies can make better decisions. Harvard Business Review. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbxpg6D4Hk8

 

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organizational development (Eighth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

 

A635.1.3.RB - 21st Century Enlightenment

A635.1.3.RB - 21st Century Enlightenment

 

 

Matthew Taylor’s talk is titled the 21^st Century Enlightenment because – simply put – it is a talk about looking forward to the foreseeable future. He mentions the initial “enlightenment” period but only as a means to show where we came from in an effort to explain where it is he thinks we should be going. He’s talking about time and change; understanding who we are as humans and what we could be. He’s hoping that now, in the 2^nd decade (almost the third) of the 21^st Century, is the time to shake off the dust of what we’ve come to think of as our pursuit of happiness and of progress and think of it differently. 

 

Taylor is absolutely right to say that “to live differently, you have to think differently.” (Taylor, 2010)  He mentions that we are very bad at predicting what will make us happy and even worse at describing what made us happy in the past. (Taylor, 2010) We make these predictions and assumptions based on thinking that is relatively unchanged for the last fifty or sixty years. Post WWII was all about getting everyone back on their feet, living in the suburbs with a yard, a wife, and 2.5 children. Women went back to being housewives and men went off to conquer the working world. That mindset is still there – it’s under every “honey” and “sweetheart” heard around the watercooler. It’s quieter and less aggressive for the most part but it is still lurking, that old thinking, behind closed boardrooms and bedrooms. We all have to think differently; get rid of archaic and outdated ideals when it comes to what we need to feel satisfied and happy. We have to almost free-float for a while to figure out what it is that we truly should value in the upcoming decades. This 21^st Century hasn’t been very enlightening thus far.

 

I would also agree that we need to individually examine what we think is right and wrong and why we think that way. Do individuals who are against same-sex marriages fundamentally believe that two men or two women don’t have the right to love each other and mix their lives together legally and/or in the sight of God? Or did they just grow up in an intolerant household or neighborhood where effeminate boys were called “queers” and no one wants to be one of those. Different is bad. Strange is different and therefore bad. Do any of us really know where our fundamental belief system comes from? Have we really given it much thought? And if we’re all just getting by on a belief system that we were given instead of one we invested thought and intellect to – is it really our values that we’re upholding? I have a friend who has converted to Judaism because she was trying to find faith and understanding in this world. I happen to know that she grew up in a staunchly religious household. The religion she was raised in valued men over women. Women weren’t allowed to preach or wear their hair short, they had to wear dresses to church and it was stifling to her as she got older. She went on to get bio-chemistry degrees, teaching degrees, and was an ER RN for many years. As she grew into an intellectual, she found her personal values no longer matched those of her church. She wanted change so she had to think differently about what gave her comfort. She had to let go of old and deeply ingrained ideals and free-float for a while in order to be able to find where she felt her soul find solace. She had to be brave and get uncomfortable to find her true core values. Change is hard in the same way that it’s hard to finish a marathon. Yes, it requires significant effort. But the fact that it requires effort doesn’t negate the fact that most people who commit to a change initiative will eventually succeed. (Tasler, 2017)

 

Fundamental disagreements move an organization forward. Change helps an organization move toward the future. It’s painful, its work, and it is rarely popular to shake up the status quo. But change is essential for an organization. It is vital to think differently just when you think you have every little thing figured out. Organizations stay fresh by shaking things up. Sometimes it doesn’t go well and they have to start again, but once they are on the path to change, all it takes is the right momentum, leadership, and collaboration of teams to make things you never thought possible happen. Organizations exist in a changing environment and, therefore, must have the capacity to adapt. (Brown, 2011) At one of the organizations I worked for, they started removing all of the trash cans, you know, the ugly brownish-gray metal things, for these tiny metal/mesh containers that sit on the desk top and are not much bigger than a pencil holder. We all laughed at this – how ridiculous! Shenanigans! Then we realized that this was our new reality. People started hoarding the few metal trashcans left – locking them up so the custodial staff wouldn’t confiscate them on the off-shift. People were not cool with this. Fast forward a couple of years later and the norm is that everyone has these little trash “cups” on their desks and dumps/sorts them out every day into recycle bins. I’m not sure how much money this has saved the company over time but it has established a new expectation and new norms have risen up with this new policy. (Woe is he who leaves banana peels in his trash cup-thing overnight!) This change was something that really didn’t impact anyone’s value systems – it was merely about ISO compliance and saving money. This is a silly example but it came to mind because at the time it was a major issue.

Entropy is a principle of physics according to which everything that is organized will break down or run down unless it is maintained. (Brown, 2011) Change is what we use to combat entropy. We shake things up so they stay relevant and fresh. In a marriage, when things are stale, a couple will take a vacation or change their routine in an effort to avoid entropy. The same goes for organizations. I will say though that in my last organization, they took this battle against entropy to new and frustrating lengths. Change came so fast and furious that it took on an ambiguous and confusing life of its own. Management didn’t even know what the expectations were at one point and none of us could grasp one concept before a new and more complex concept was thrown at us in a haphazard way. The worst part is that our job performance reviews were measured on our success or failures with these concepts and how we complied with them. How can you comply with something you don’t understand? You ask questions, you collaborate with people who seem like they might have it figured out, and you keep trying to do what is asked of you. Unless no one has it figured out and the changes break down the already fragile ecosystem of the team until no one talks to anyone else, morale is at an all-time low, and labor loss is at an all-time high. As leaders…we need to be aware that our team members are not entering change situations with a blank slate. Two decades of hearing about mythical failure rates has planted the seeds of bias against success in our minds. And every time we say “change is hard” we water those seeds. (Tasler, 2017)

My point is that change and thinking differently is absolutely how we find the enlightenment going forward. But we have to be thoughtful about how we think and how we go about this change and not just rush headlong into change just for the sake of changing. The idea is to THINK differently before we DO differently to make sure we’ll be doing the right thing. We have to look at ideas and new concepts from all perspectives, not just our personal vault of opinions and judgements. [W]e could remind ourselves and our teams that we have been learning new skills and adapting to new environments literally since the day we squirmed out of the womb. Adaptation is the rule of human existence, not the exception. (Tasler, 2017) It’s a scary proposition to look over that cliff and trust that your chute will open. But if you don’t take that leap, you’ll never know.  And if you do take that leap – enlightenment is possible.

 

 

References:

 

Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organizational development (Eighth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

 

Tasler, N. (2017). Stop using the excuse “Organizational Change Is Hard”. Harvard Business Review. HBR.org. https://hbr.org/2017/07/stop-using-the-excuse-organizational-change-is-hard

 

Taylor, M. (2010). RSA ANIMATE: 21st century enlightenment. The RSA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo