A642.9.3.RB - The Innovation Experience

A642.9.3.RB - The Innovation Experience

Reflect on the entirety of this learning experience.

Identify the three elements that had the largest influence on your perspective on innovation.

            I think that innovating and the ideation process are much harder than I had initially thought. Having been part of process improvements and new process implementations I knew that innovation and change in general are not easy things but the whole creative thinking process that I’ve been accustomed to is just so much more within the innovation process. To narrow it down to three elements that had the largest influence on my perspective, I’d go with: building a bigger brain, Christensen’s disruptive innovation, and ideation skills.

Define the elements and why they are important.

            The first element is building a bigger brain. McKeown describes this as [e]ven a creative genius cannot have all the best solutions to all of the world’s problems. Everyone has something to offer to the process of innovation. (2014). I love this idea. It gives what has always made sense to me a name and a process within itself. Bringing a room full of the right people together to solve a problem collectively just makes the most sense. One person doesn’t build an airplane, it takes many people with many different backgrounds and skill sets to design, program, finance, support, and construct one single airplane. All of these people coming together to solve problems around this airplane just makes sense. Building a better brain isn’t just about involving more people. It can also be about developing the creative skills of people who become involved. (2014). I love that the innovation isn’t limited to just the product but can also be a part of the development of the product.

            The second element is Christensen’s disruptive innovation and how it actually has a place in the improvement of processes and products. Understanding the room for disruption is useful whether you are trying to disrupt an existing situation (to your advantage) or defending an existing situation (to your advantage) (McKeown, 2014). I relate to this by comparing it to the idea of Devil’s Advocate in a problem solving collaboration. By bringing productive dissent into a problem solving situation, we make sure that the entire room isn’t just agreeing to get out of the room. By bringing in the disruptor role, we check our ideas against realities and regulations; zooming out to make sure that we’re solving the right problems and not just building something cool because it’s…well…cool. Disruptive innovation makes sure that our resources and support is going to the right project and that the subsequent innovation is effective and meaningful to the organization for which it was created.

            The third element is ideation skills. Idea generating skills are crucial to an organization’s success. They are the stepping stones to decisions and support. Implemented well, these ideas are transformed into improved business performance (Canfield & Smith, 2011). The basis of any good innovation – or organizational change is the thought that goes into it. Generating ideas; brainstorming with colleagues helps to narrow the thoughts into ideas that will spawn the next new thing. This also flows into effective creative thinking skills. Effective process improvement is all about generating lots of good ideas about possible solutions, choosing and confirming the best, and implementing decisions that improve the target processes. Effective creative thinking skills are all about generating lots of good ideas about possible new products and services to add to the company revenues and profit. (2011).

Discuss how you will use them in the future.

            I will have an opportunity to use all of the above elements in the very near future. I was traveling for business this week as part of the newly formed supply chain culture council. We are a group of about 15 people from all levels: executive leadership, management, salary employee, and hourly employee. We are working toward coming up with and marketing our council to help educate and train our co-workers on the different cultures and tolerance at work and in life. We are in the process of building that bigger brain by bringing in all different people to develop a charter and structure for our council. In our meeting this week, I tried to implement productive disruptive innovation by asking questions and asking validation on some of the charter elements. We are all going to be constantly using our ideation and creative thinking skills to make this council effective, meaningful, productive, and different than other groups who have tried something similar. Culture takes generations to evolve and it’s not something we can just break down and infiltrate with new ideas overnight. Our ability to generate ideas is going to help us get our message out in a way that will be effective to as many people as possible.

References

Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.

McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom. Pearson Education Limited.

A642.8.3.RB - How dangerous are Lean Start-ups?

A642.8.3.RB - How dangerous are Lean Start-ups?

The implications of lean startups and why they can be so disruptive to well-established, older, industry giants.

            Traditional start-ups generally include coming up with a business plan and pitching it to a bank or sponsor for financial backing. The life-span of a start-up is usually not very long, the exception are those start-ups that succeed. Recently, new “lean” start-ups have become more and more common. Blank describes these lean start-ups as a methodology [that] favors experimentation over elaborate planning, customer feedback over intuition, and iterative design over traditional “big design up front” development (2013). When I look at this and how it could impact my organization, I think about a mouse (lean start-up) and an elephant (big companies like Boeing). The mouse is small and agile, it can get into spaces that an elephant can’t. It takes the elephant more time to move and maneuver. However, once the elephant gets moving, it can go fast and will trample the mouse that happens to get in the elephant’s path.

            The agility and flexibility of the lean start-up companies can be a benefit because it allows for the company to change the focus of a project. One of the critical differences is that while existing companies execute a business model, start-ups look for one. This distinction is at the heart of the lean start-up approach. It shapes the lean definition of a start-up: a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model (Blank, 2013). Instead of telling the public what it needs, a lean start-up looks for solutions they can come up with for problems they’ve found. If a lean start-up wants to get into the basket-weaving industry but upon talking to potential users of these baskets find out that what’s actually needed is wire baskets because they are less susceptible to rodents and mold issues – then they figure out how to manufacture the wire baskets instead. A traditional start-up would have already come up with a supplier of materials, a five-year business plan, and secured orders for their baskets. If the consumer changed their minds and wanted a wire basket at that point, the traditional start-up would have to scrap their plan and start over – or find new consumers. Although the methodology is just a few years old, its concepts—such as “minimum viable product” and “pivoting”—have quickly taken root in the start-up world, and business schools have already begun adapting their curricula to teach them (2013).

Identify in detail, the elements that provide a unique competitive position and how to combat such an adversary.

            One of the elements of a unique competitive position is timing. Being ahead of the main players allows you to shape the market for your idea…timing cannot be so early that it will not work... [o]r too late to capture attention (McKeown, 2014). Another element is effective creative thinking. These skills are all about generating good ideas about possible new products and services that add to company revenues and profit (Canfield & Smith, 2011).  Another element is to have solid funding for a product. In order to do that, a start-up needs to remove as much risk and the known unknowns of the investment. It’s also important that a start-up be aware of and have a plan for disrupters. [This plan] often requires an industry-defying approach to doing business and an extraordinary commitment to ensuring that customers gain the benefits they’re seeking (Mount, 2013).

            It’s impossible to plan for every single disrupter or challenge to each start-up but creative thinking, being flexible, and understanding the consumer’s true needs go a long way in paving the way to a promising future for a business.

References

Blank, S. (2013). Why lean start-ups change everything. Harvard Business Review.91.5.65-72

Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.

McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom. Pearson Education Limited.

Mount, M. (2013). Kiva the Disruptor. Harvard Business Revies.90.12.74-80.

A642.7.3.RB - Leading through Disruptive Times

A642.7.3.RB - Leading through Disruptive Times

Reflect on the relationship between innovation and disruptive innovation from the perspective of leadership.

What would you do to help navigate your organization through each of these situations?

            Innovation and disruptive innovation can almost be synonymous. Innovation itself is a disruption of the status quo. Disruptive innovation is less a single event than a process that plays out over time, sometimes quickly and completely, but other times slowly and incompletely (Wessel, 2012). Either way, something changes. Something about how we do business today will change. Innovation and disruptive innovation are ways that we try to control the changes so that we can see what’s coming.

            Navigating through either one, innovation or disruptive innovation, would be complex and take well thought out strategies. For innovation, something that came out of a controlled environment like a workshop, I would navigate the changes by using creative thinking strategies such as Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. As I discussed last week, the six hats are: White Hat (Neutral/objective), Yellow Hat (Optimism/values/benefits), Black Hat (Judgement/Devil’s advocate), Green Hat (Possibilities/alternatives/new ideas), Red Hat (Feelings/hunches/intuition), and Blue Hat (Managing the thinking process/the control hat) (Canfield & Smith, 2011). This thinking strategy would allow the group to see the idea through the different lenses of the thinking hats. It enables discussion and collaboration. For disruptive innovation, which seems almost more aggressive, the thinking strategy would be just as important because when organizations look to disrupt their own products in an effort to beat the competition. According to Wessel, there are three things to do: identify the strengths of your disrupter’s business model; identify your own relative advantages; evaluate the conditions that would help or hinder the disrupter from co-opting your current advantages in the future (2012).

Now, consider the likelihood of both occurring at the same time; would this change the way you navigated or lead the organization through these scenarios?

            The likelihood of both innovation and disruptive innovation happening at the same time are actually more likely in my organization than not. This would change some of the ways I navigated or lead the organization through the scenarios. With the many organizations working their own innovation projects, we are all impacted when a disrupter hits. For example, in the tooling organization I worked in, our main innovation project was based on alloys and finding better ways to make tooling to build airplanes. We were all working and focused on our own projects when the lithium ion battery fires happened in the 787 program. We were all suddenly on the task of finding a way to fix this issue. Granted, that is more of a safety innovation but it changed the way we built the 787 and especially how we install and contain the batteries. The necessity for innovation in this case was the disrupter – as will all safety concerns. This makes me think that disrupter innovations aren’t always about new business but sometimes about saving an existing business. If we weren’t able to find a solution to the 787 battery issue, that program would have been a huge and costly aerospace failure for Boeing. [S]ome radical innovations have very little impact on the success of the people who made them work. It is also often the case that relatively small innovations have a hugely disruptive impact (McKeown, 2014).

References

Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.

McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom. Pearson Education Limited.

Wessel, M. & Christenson, C.M. (2012) Surviving disruption, Harvard Business Review.12.10. 56-64.

A642.6.3.RB - Practicing Creative Thinking Skills

A642.6.3.RB - Practicing Creative Thinking Skills

Reflect on the accumulated readings and exercises from this module:

Identify five strategies that can help you lead innovation projects.

The five strategies I think will help me lead innovation projects are:

·         Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats

·         DARPA’s Ambitious goals

·         DARPA’s Temporary project teams

·         DARPA’s Independence

·         Rie’s build-measure-learn wheel

Include in your discussion the reason these five elements are important and how you would apply them from your current position.

            Canfield and Smith explain that the Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats strategy consists of six types of thinking that we use subconsciously every day: White Hat (Neutral/objective), Yellow Hat (Optimism/values/benefits), Black Hat (Judgement/Devil’s advocate), Green Hat (Possibilities/alternatives/new ideas), Red Hat (Feelings/hunches/intuition), and Blue Hat (Managing the thinking process/the control hat). (2011) These six hats are important because when we are trying to come up with innovative ideas and think in a creative way, we need to access all six of these “hats” in an effort to give a sort of litmus test to each idea. The six hats allow us to compartmentalize each of our kinds of thinking so that we may examine them systematically. I could apply this in my current position on a daily basis when looking for ways for Boeing to save money on inventory and our restocking strategies. We sometimes think that inventory management isn’t about innovating but with the science of logistics changing, supply chain and inventory management has new opportunities too. Being able to look at new ideas through the lens of each hat would be extremely helpful.

            DARPA’s ambitious goals are important to innovation because we wouldn’t innovate anything without purposely pushing the boundaries of what we know into what we don’t know. When we have a problem that cannot be solved by the tools we have – we make new tools. Those tools wouldn’t be created without the need and the ambitious goals that are required for innovation to happen.  The presence of an urgent need for an application creates focus and inspires greater genius (Dugan & Kaigham, 2013). These big ideas and ambitious goals are exactly what Boeing is grown from. We face ambitious ideas from our leadership all the time. Tight schedules and budgets given to solve problems that at first seem impossible. This forces us to be creative and think outside the box for solutions.

            DARPA’s temporary project teams are important from the advantage of having subject matter experts from different backgrounds and experience come together with each other to collaborate. They are given a limited time to work together which – similar to the ambitious goals strategy forces new ideas to come out of necessity. Their intensity, sharp focus, and finite time frame make them attractive to the highest-caliber talent, and the nature of the challenge inspires unusual levels of collaboration. In other words, the projects get great people to tackle great problems with other great people (Dugan & Kaigham, 2013). The temporary project teams are something that we use in our organization regularly. We bring people together from the different areas because we each hold a piece of the puzzle. Separately, we only hold a little piece, but put together and given limits to time and budget, we figure out how to fit our pieces together in a new and innovative way in order to solve process issues and improve existing methods.

            DARPA’s Independence is important because when too many organizations and regulatory departments are involved, innovation can be delayed and hung up by red-tape and the overkill of “too many chefs” involved. By charter, DARPA has autonomy in selecting and running projects. Such independence allows the organization to move fast and take bold risks and helps it persuade the best and brightest to join (Dugan & Kaigham, 2013). This independence doesn’t happen as often as would be preferred in our organization. The realities of finance and schedule seem to choke some of the creative thinking into emergent thinking – putting out fires instead of being able to stop the fire in the first place. This independence is important and I could use more autonomy in my role. Currently, we are tasked with learning our new roles using old methodology. Once we learn the old way, we need the independence to bring our inventory management processes into the 21^st century.

            Ries’ build-measure-learn wheel is important to innovation because it helps move from the unknown value of a new idea to the known value of a successful organization, helping a new idea adapt until it can thrive long term (McKeown, 2014). I think that the Rie’s build-measure-learn tool is another litmus test of new technology and innovation. It allows you to keep the feedback loop of the build-measure-learn tool going so that we can innovate faster than the problems can develop. I think this is a very important tool for my organization to become more proactive and less reactive. It would help us learn to think about problems that need solving from a “how do we fix this” to “how do we avoid this in the first place” kind of mindset.

What does this tell you about the process innovation?

            All of this tells me that the process innovation is complicated and needs boundaries to break through, limits to force creative thinking, and the autonomy to make mistakes and try again. The process innovation is complicated but very necessary. When I think about what my childhood was like compared to how kids are growing up today, I think about the innovations that have created a need for children to know their letters and numbers and even simple math and how to read before kindergarten. I also think that with innovation comes new problems to solve. The better we get at thinking creatively about those problems the better we will get at avoiding these new problems altogether.  

References

Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.

Dugan, R,E, & Kaigham, J. G. (2013) Special forces innovation: How DARPA attacks problems. Harvard Business Review.91.10.74-84.

McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom. Pearson Education Limited.

A642.5.3.RB - Making Smart Groups

A642.5.3.RB - Making Smart Groups

Reflect on the Sunstein and Hastie article.

Can these concepts help promote innovation within an organization?

Sunstein and Hastie make the point that when a group of people is brought together to solve a problem, something happens to the individual within the dynamics of the group. People tend to listen to the leader of the group for direction and approval, they concur with a popular idea even if they don’t fully agree, and [t]hey focus on what everybody knows already—and thus don’t take into account critical information that only one or a few people have (Sunstein & Hastie, 2014). The individual is taken out by the larger voice of the group.

Sunstein and Hastie suggest the following six concepts to help avoid this group-think situation:

·         Silence the leader – once the leader of a group has given their opinion, it can sway the entire energy of the group.

·         “Prime” critical thinking – provide a thought-provoking environment for critical and creative thinking to take place. When a leader structures the activity around information disclosure, they open the path for an open minded conversation.

·         Reward group success – structuring groups with rewarding group success and identification with the group’s success is more likely to ensure that people will say what they know.

·         Assign roles – when everyone knows what each expertise each person brings to the table, this information can be tapped into for group success.

·         Appoint a devil’s advocate – if everyone agrees on something without debate or dissent, then that decision is only half of the potential decision. Even if a group comes to the same consensus after discussion, it still makes the understanding of the solution more robust and therefore more meaningful. Assigning someone to ask productive dissenting questions is imperative to good group decision making.

·         Establish contrarian teams – this goes back to debate as well, Sunstein and Hastie describe having “Red teams” those that try to defeat the primary team in a simulated mission, and those that construct the strongest possible case against a proposal or a plan. This allows for a broader understanding of what they are trying to accomplish.

All six of these concepts lean to the idea that we should ensure that groups aggregate the information their members actually have and don’t let faulty informational signals and reputational pressures get in the way (2014).

How do they compare and contrast with the other readings from this module?

            The six concepts above can all work in tandem with the other readings from this module. It’s all been about creating innovative thinking skills and making a smarter team by giving their problem solving processes structure and guidance. Whether Canfield and Smith’s mind mapping or 6-3-5 brainstorming ideas or and of the strategies hat McKeown described are used, they are all about structuring our creative thinking skills around better problem solving and successful innovation.

            For example, the concept of silencing the leader can be seen in the brainstorming techniques from Canfield & Smith. In their 6-3-5 brainstorming, there are groups of people who have to come up with three ideas in five minutes. This removes the leader from the equation and allows the smaller groups to have their own conversation and brainstorm.

            The mind-mapping is an example of “priming” the creative thinking by having a leader start with the group’s established goals in the center and allowing the group to go up to the board and start relating individual ideas and solutions to that overall goal. While the leader is involved, their role is less commanding and more about guiding the group.

Can they be combined into a process that can be used to promote innovation across the entire organization?

            The concepts that Sunstein and Hastie discussed in their article, McKeown’s strategies, and Canfield & Smith’s creative thinking techniques should all be used together in a meaningful way to promote innovation across an entire organization. Naturally enough, people learn from one another; the problem is that groups often go wrong when some members receive incorrect signals from other members (Sunstein & Hastie, 2014). In every organization resides many different personalities and backgrounds, life experiences and passions. As leaders, utilizing the techniques, strategies, and concepts we’ve learned this week allows us a plethora of ways to pull genius out of groups. It’s when these ideas aren’t used that there are wasteful processes put in place and a disgruntled workforce that has to contend with the fallout from poorly thought out solutions to problems.

References

Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.

McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom. Pearson Education Limited.

Sunstein, C.R. & Hastie, R. (2014). Making dumb groups smarter. Harvard Business Review. 92.12.91-98.

A642.4.3.RB - The End of Innovation

A642.4.3.RB - The End of Innovation

Robert Gordon talks about the Death of Innovation and the End of Growth.

Reflect on this presentation and compare and contrast it to your experience and the readings from this module.

            Robert Gordon paints a scary picture of what the future of innovation looks like. [M]aybe economic growth is almost over. There are four headwinds that are just hitting the American economy in the face. They're demographics, education, debt and inequality. (Gordon, 2013). Gordon says we need to offset these headwinds with innovation. A lot of innovation. This TED Talk was 5 years ago though. In five years, it seems that our economy is coming out of the pain of the recession of 2008-9. We have a booming aerospace industry, auto makers are improving safety features and fuel efficiencies on their vehicles, giving us the ability to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

            The readings from this week’s modules emphasize the ability of people to innovate by using creative thinking skills. [E]ffective problem solving will have you more efficiently identify and modify the causes of a process to generate the results you prefer. (Canfield & Smith, 2011). The innovations we need for our future are getting harder and harder to see – as in, they are less tangible and less obvious to everyone. We have to think harder and be more creative than past inventors. They helped us with solid stepping stones of inventions but the next generation of inventions won’t be as obvious. Innovation is fundamentally fast productive learning and implementing. Fast productive learning will happen best when it honors how the brain likes to learn. (2011).

In your opinion, what fallacies do you see in this presentation? Can you match what we have achieved?

            I think that some of the fallacies in his presentation form around Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. According to the website Simply Psychology, Maslow stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behavior. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on. (McLeod, 2017). In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, we were able to achieve so much because before the onset of electricity and the internal combustion engine, we were limited in what we could accomplish. Gordon’s examples included the historical facts that if you wanted to read in 1875 at night, you needed to have an oil or a gas lamp. They created pollution, they created odors, they were hard to control, the light was dim, and they were a fire hazard. He also mentioned that women, back in the late 19th century, spent two days a week doing the laundry. They did it on a scrub board. Then they had to hang the clothes out to dry. Then they had to bring them in. The whole thing took two days out of the seven-day week, and finally, the only source of heat in most homes was a big fireplace in the kitchen that was used for cooking and heating. The bedrooms were cold. They were unheated. But by 1929, certainly by 1950, we had central heating everywhere. (Gordon, 2013). The need for physical survival is part of the first levels of the hierarchy – basic needs. This includes a warm place to live and sleep, food and security. (2017).

            In general, people were still struggling with the first two levels of the hierarchy and once electricity and other technological advancements were made, once we were able to have warm and secure homes, refrigerated foods, and electrically washed clothes, we were able to kind of take a look around and realize that we had come a long way since we had to cart the whole family into town on a horse and buggy. We don’t need to invent the car anymore, we just have to improve on it to the point where we aren’t relying on oil or other pollutants. We don’t need to invent electricity anymore, we just need to find an alternative power source that doesn’t need coal to run it. We are in the place where we are looking at being able to reach the third level of the hierarchy, self-actualization. (2017). We are looking at what was invented and how to make them cleaner, leaner, and readily accessible to everyone. Disruptive innovation doesn’t always need to be very new…each level of the innovation pyramid offers new opportunities[.] (McKeown, 2014)

            My point is that we are not failing to innovate. Gordon assumes that the innovations and inventions need to be as tangible as they were 100+ years ago. I think that we are just on the next level of the hierarchy. Things that will change our lives for the better aren’t going to be huge skyscrapers and noisy engines. They will be things that aren’t always tangible. Medicinal innovations will be on a nanoscopic level rather than microscopic. The way we travel will become cleaner and faster.

            Gordon said that [t]he problem we face is that all these great inventions, we have to match them in the future[.] I completely agree with that – we have to match and surpass those of the past. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the innovations of the past. But I don’t think that we’re incapable of climbing up that pyramid of needs and finding new and better inventions in the future. New generation brings new insight into the whole system rather than simply a part of the system…something like 0.24% of new ideas have that capacity to deliver a new generation of an existing system. (McKeown, 2014). I do think that we need to figure out how to not be as reliant on the things that Mother Nature can just take away from us with a forceful shove. Maybe that’s the problem we need to work on – that this generation needs to solve.

References

Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.

Gordon, R. (2013). Death of innovation and the end of growth. Retrieved from: https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_gordon_the_death_of_innovation_the_end_of_growth

McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom. Pearson Education Limited.

McLeod, S. (2017). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from:   https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

A642.3.3.RB - Lessons Learned

A642.3.3.RB - Lessons Learned

Given the innovative individuals you have read about in this week's readings

Detail three lessons learned and how they impact your view of innovation and leadership.

One of the things Steve Ells, the CEO of Chipotle said about culture was a very interesting lesson. When asked if the more traditional fast-food chains started changing their practices to compete with Chipotle’s success, would he see that as a good thing overall…[o]r would he view it as a threat? “It’s a joke,” he replies. “You know those guys, right? They can’t change. The culture is just too ingrained. Which bodes very well for Chipotle.” (Safian, 2014). He said…the culture is too ingrained…they can’t change. Think about certain companies who have created not only a brand but a cultural icon: McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and even Hostess when they took Twinkies off the shelf. New Coke was a serious misstep, McDonalds is known for fast food – not gourmet burgers and salads. I honestly thought some of my friends were going to start a “Bring Back the Twinkie” revolution! As a culture, we get so used to certain things, we like knowing that there are some things we can always count on. But when a brand gets so ingrained into a cultural norm that it can’t change – innovation is a hard thing to find motivation for. I think there is a fine line between a strong brand and a cultural icon. Being able to innovate means that company can grow. Without growth, the company runs the risk of stagnating.

Another lesson is from Jennifer Aaker at Stanford University, she challenges the very notion that a pursuit of happiness is what drives us most…that people’s satisfaction with life is higher, and of greater duration, when meaning–rather than happiness–is their primary motivation. (Safian, 2014). I think this is somewhat idealistic – not everyone can afford to wait until they are in love with what they do. However, my interpretation of this idea is that you have to find something that you are passionate about in order to motivate yourself. If your passion is collating documents and taking notes in a meeting then lucky you – corporate America is waiting for you! But if your passion is following Phish around the world, you have to find a way to fund that passion – and that is how you motivate yourself to get up every morning to work a job that you aren’t in love with. You find what you are passionate about, what makes you happy, and you work to feed that passion and that job becomes something you do to make you happy. I have a friend of mine who never finished college but is this prodigy programmer who at 30 years old, sold his company to Disney and came on to work there as some senior manager with a title he called “ridiculous.” He’s recently left Disney and has joined a league of programmers that far surpasses my limits of understanding. He is happy and fulfilled, he writes fantasy/fiction on his off time. He has a great family and they live in a nice house overlooking the San Diego valley. He loves what he does, he knows so much about his industry but is constantly scouring this industry for new things, new ideas, and new trends. He was fortunate to find his passions early. Not everyone is, but knowing that the search for what makes us happy – satisfied with our lives – is what will help motivate us helps.

Eileen Fisher is committed to continually fine-tuning the culture of her business. “We have purpose programs for our leaders. We’re looking at getting participation from all of our employees. We’re setting up a learning lab. I really believe that business is going to have to think this way.” (Safian, 2014). This commitment to fine-tuning the culture of her business – despite being financially successful – shows that it takes more than financial success to actually feel like success for some leaders. We all measure success differently and for Fisher, it’s about being constantly changing and looking for new ways to ground her staff and bring them not only cash bonuses but peace of mind. Speaking from a point of innovation, motivated employees who have that autonomy and room to think about their contribution from many angles, starts with a leadership culture that is supportive.

Discuss your innovative skills and detail three ways you can make a "useful" contribution to your organization

My innovative skills are that I listen, and I can see the big picture as well as the smaller steps needed to get there. In my organization, making a useful contribution means being productive and keeping parts coming in to support production. The ways my innovative skills can help me with this are when suppliers need help getting parts to us on time, I listen to their concerns and try to help them problem solve to a mutually beneficial outcome. I also listen to my customers and take their concerns to the suppliers so we can try to mitigate any revisions or new schedules before it becomes a problem. My ability to try and see the big picture as well as how each part of the build is impacted by issues can help production prioritize and problem solve in a meaningful way.

References:

Safian, R. (2014) Generation flux’s secret weapon. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/3035975/find-your-mission

A642.2.3.RB - Organizing for Innovation

A642.2.3.RB - Organizing for Innovation

Reflect on how your organization organizes around innovation.

What formal and informal processes exist?

At Boeing in general, there are too many formal and informal processes to really analyze in one paper! However, in my organization within an organization, supply chain, we have a few formal process and informal process I can look at here.

            Formal: Procurement Orders (PO): We have a very formal process for creating and releasing demand for a part per PO. We have to make sure that the part is a Boeing approved part, it has to be on an active contract, and it has to have a connection to an airplane (Like a line # or non-conformance record.). If the part request doesn’t meet this criteria we reject it and ask for more information. This usually involves getting engineering to come up with an alternative solution.

            Formal: Visiting a supplier: We don’t just decide to go and visit a supplier because we have nothing better to do. We do regular visits to talk about performance and quality, this requires official notification and a formal plan of action which we share with the supplier. We have the same process for each supplier so that we are comparing them all evenly and have a better idea of their overall performance and possible process improvements.

            Formal: Accepting gifts or gratuity from suppliers: We have a very strict set of rules around accepting any kinds of gifts from suppliers. This also falls into our ethics rules. They vary by country but in general, we just don’t unless it is considered a cultural desecration.

            Informal: We usually notify the material management folks when we place a PO that is super-hot or a management-watch item. We’ll give them a heads up on any kind of anomaly as well. It’s an informal process that helps another organization so it makes for better relations between us.

            Informal: We don’t place POs or release parts that we down manage. Everyone supports a specific commodity and supplier. Sometimes a supplier can support different commodities. We will reach out to the “owning” analyst to work with them before just picking from their inventory. It’s good communication.

            Informal: We all work to certain performance metrics but our managers all have a 7:30am meeting on shortages so we all just know to work those things first. It’s not a rule – but it sure helps our managers which means they won’t come around later panicked about something that turns out to be nothing.

How effective are they?

            I would say that our informal and formal processes are fairly effective. Most of the people use them and the informal and formal alike gets passed down through standard and tribal knowledge. As long as people think about who their actions impact (warehouses, other analysts, suppliers) then these processes are effective. I think these processes are both in constant evolution because our organization is so big, even just the supply chain, that it takes a while for the information to spread. We also have some “old timers” in the materials management world who are not afraid of sending an email in all caps to let us and all of our managers know when we mess up.

What else can be done to leverage the effectiveness of the innovation process?

            I firmly believe that it has to start with building a culture of collaboration. You can have Bob and Frank being all innovative in a little lab all day long but when they come out of the lab to implement the innovation, they have no input from anyone else and their innovation will either fail because it isn’t the right fix or will not be accepted simply because no one besides Bob and Frank have any ownership over it.

            Furthermore, if you pull in a bunch of the right people – people from all impacted groups – to come up with an innovative solution it doesn’t mean success either. If these people have not come from a culture of collaboration and coordination, there will just be a bunch of individuals in a room with individual agendas.

            A culture of collaboration must be established through the entire organization in order to leverage the effectiveness of the innovation process.  

Why is usefulness such an important part of innovation?

            To be useful, every new idea must become part of an existing web of ideas and people. Human systems shape the way that ideas are accepted, used or rejected. (McKeown, 2014) This is the first real mention of how important usefulness is to innovation in our text. Usefulness of an innovation is as important as collaboration – and I think even stems from collaboration. If a group of people are collaborating to find an innovative solution to a problem, it has to be useful to the people who will be implementing the solution.

            In our factory, leadership wanted to cross-train people so that they could be used in other areas of the factory in order to balance the work load. People in the pre-join areas of the build had one day where only three of the seven people had actual work on the jet. All seven people were eventually cross-trained to help in the part of the build that included attaching the landing gear. This helped reduce the flow of that position by an entire shift which enabled them to help bring more work back into their area to speed up the overall build. The solution was useful on several levels. Cross-training people to help in other areas when their areas were slow helped speed up the entire process. It also created back-ups for some of the labor loss issues.  

List 3 examples of innovation that did not work.

             

            In general, I’ve been a part of many projects that did not last past implementation. But I have also been part of projects that are still in use. The difference was all in how useful they were to the people in the factory. A senior manager wanted to have big cubes made of whiteboards that would have the daily tasks and metrics along with any notices or whatever – an all-in-one bulletin board of sorts. Our Moonshine shop built about 20 of these gigantic cubes (they were roughly four feet wide x four sides, and about 6ft tall) at a huge cost, and rolled out to the different work stations. The kicker was that these cubes were to be maintained by the employees and reported out to the leadership – for the leadership’s information. None of the employees who filled this out every day actually used the cubes. These cubes came from a Lean idea and pushed out by one senior manager who thought it was a brilliant idea. The cubes were only useful to him. Once he left, we helped the factory break down the cubes and we rolled back out the real time electronic TV screens that they actually used.

            The examples of the innovations that didn’t work in my organization all have stories like the one above. The idea was pushed from leadership and thrust upon the employees as this amazing innovative approach to flow management and parts accountability. Other examples include a set of colored blocks we were supposed to use to assign pallets of raw material to the machine they belonged to when I worked in tooling. We color-coded the machine, and then the blocks. The blocks also had numbers on them so the operator could tell what pallet to work next on their machine. This wasn’t a complete failure but when the shop’s work load reduced to very few pallets, I stopped using the process because it didn’t matter anymore. It wasn’t useful. The way the machine shop worked changed and the blocks didn’t make sense anymore. My manager (who had also come up with the blocks when he was an industrial engineer) insisted I use the blocks regardless and even put my lack of use of the blocks on my performance review. Needless to say, once that manager left to another group – the blocks disappeared. They were not useful anymore.

            I also know that we have innovations in our personal lives that don’t always work out. A few years ago, my husband was looking for a way to make his truck more fuel efficient and he read about an innovative solution that was a kind of hydro-powered device that you build and then put in your vehicle’s engine (or something like that) and it will be more fuel efficient. He bought the kit and proceeded to obsessively build this thing again and again for about two weeks. When he was finally done, he placed it in the engine (or something like that) and it worked for about 15 minutes before the water in it evaporated and the case cracked. That innovative solution became an interesting conversational piece that sat on the mantel like so many other knick-knacks.

            Another example (and one I just couldn’t help but add to this list) is probably the weirdest thing I saw on the many lists out there on Google (I remember the New Coke debacle and Crystal Pepsi – but this was new to me): Gerber Singles for adults. (With flavors like Beef Burgundy and Mediterranean Vegetables) It was released in 1974 and was basically baby food for grown-ups. This innovative take on portable food seemed like a legit idea until people realized that they’d rather not have their steak have the texture of…well…baby food. [C]onsumers showed they’d clearly rather spend a few more minutes preparing food they had to chew than scoop unsavory-looking mush into their faces from a jar. (CBInsights, 2017)

            While these last two examples weren’t part of my organization, the story is the same. When something isn’t useful or meaningful – or just plain doesn’t work – it has to get put on a shelf as a learning moment. I think failed innovations are also the doorway to the successful ones. We have to understand what doesn’t work just as much as we need to understand what does.

References:

Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.

CBInsights. (2017). When corporate innovation goes bad — the 110 biggest product failures of all time. https://www.cbinsights.com/research/corporate-innovation-product-fails/

Eadicicco, L., Peckham, M., Pullen, J.P., and Fitzpatrick, A. (2017). The 20 most successful technology failures of all time. http://time.com/4704250/most-successful-technology-tech-failures-gadgets-flops-bombs-fails/

McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom. Pearson Education Limited.

A642.1.4.RB - Assignment: Your Creative Genius

A642.1.4.RB - Assignment: Your Creative Genius

Create a Reflection Blog (RB) that discusses the top five creative talents that you have and how you use them and then list the top five creative talents that you wish you had and what they would do for you.

I have never really thought about my “top five creative talents” so this is not an easy assignment. After giving it some thought though, this is what I came up with:

1.      I am good at editing and putting my thoughts in writing.

2.      I am good at looking at something from a different perspective.

3.      I am good at creative problem solving and deduction.

4.      I am goof at seeing the beauty in everyday things.

5.      I am good at networking and bringing people together. (Not matchmaking – but knowing who can help who. I’m terrible at matchmaking.)  

The top five creative talents I wish I had are even more difficult figure out but this is what I came up with:

1.      I wish I was able to be more strategic in my career

2.      I wish I could stop editing myself – stop holding back my ideas

3.      I wish I was more disciplined.

4.      I wish I could pick up abstract ideas faster

5.      I wish I was a better public speaker

1) Show the creative skills you currently are aware of. Be certain to discuss: the object of each skill in terms of how you use it; the challenges it creates for you; the context you use it in and how you define success. Do this for all the creative skills you are currently aware of.

I am good at editing and putting my thoughts in writing.

            The object of this skill is effective communication. I try to make sure that when I write something, my intention, tone, and words get my message across effectively and in a meaningful way. The challenges this creates for me is understanding my audience. In order to be an effective communicator, I need to know who I’m communicating with and what they need from me. The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work but I try to do my best at communicating effectively any time I set out to write something. I define success when the person or entity I’m trying to communicate effectively with is satisfied with the information I have given them.

I am good at looking at something from a different perspective.

            The object of this skill is effective problem solving. Before I start trying to solve a problem, I try to imagine all sides of the issue. I try to think about all of the people impacted by the problem and how they would see success in problem solving. The challenges this creates for me is how to solve problems in a way where the most good is done while not alienating everyone who didn’t get what they wanted. Obviously, you can’t please everyone and I don’t see myself as a people pleaser. Instead, I just try to understand everyone’s perspective and come up with the solution that makes the most sense to the biggest stakeholder. For example, when a supplier is going to be late on a shipment, if this is something that doesn’t occur often, I work with them to make sure that they don’t get a negative rating on their key performance indicators. A negative rating could result in them not being able to bid on future business. Now, if the supplier is consistently late on shipment or shipping bad parts, then I will be less likely to help them because we clearly need to see their poor performance so we can either help them recover or – and after all else has failed – find a new supplier.  The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work but it does help when dealing with family matters and even when talking with friends. I define success when the problem can be seen from all perspectives and everyone becomes engaged in the problem solving process.  

I am good at creative deduction.

            The object of this skill is also effective problem solving – but also in effective problem defining. The challenges this creates for me is making sure that I understand fully what the problem is versus what everyone else thinks the problem is. This is something that I’ve practiced with Lean techniques like Ishikawa diagrams or just drilling down with the Five Why practice. The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work. When a forklift driver continuously pokes the forks of his vehicle through wooden crates full of expensive airplane parts, we need to find out why this keeps happening instead of just assuming the forklift driver is inept. It gives the problem the benefit of the doubt when you drill into it to find out why something happens. Poor training? Faulty forks? Poorly marked crate? It’s important to not only solve problems effectively but to solve the right problem. I define success when the right problem is solved – and people stop poking holes in wooden crates.  

I am good at seeing the beauty in everyday things.

            The object of this skill is about balance. Working in a high stress environment, it is important to find balance wherever you can. Seeing the beauty in a small gesture of kindness or in the color of the sky when I’m in the middle of a tense teleconference helps change the tone of the moment. The challenges this creates for me is just remembering to look for the small things that make me smile. The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work – but it’s beneficial in my life in general as well. I define success when I am able to take a deep breath and reset in the middle of a tense or stressful situation. When I am able to find and appreciate that balance – that is success.   

I am good at networking and bringing people together. (Not matchmaking – but knowing who can help who. I’m terrible at matchmaking.)  

            The object of this skill is about helping people. The challenges this creates for me is really just that my help is accepted. I try to build bridges between people so they can connect and work together. The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work – but it’s beneficial in my life in general as well. I define success when I have put people together in a mutually beneficial way and they are able to work through their problems together.

2) Do the same for all of the creative skills you would like to have but feel you are lacking.

I wish I was able to be more strategic in my career.

            The object of this skill would be about seeing opportunities for development and promotion. The challenges this would create for me are that I don’t think I’m ready for the next level of my job but I wish I was. I’m not confident that I know enough to be successful. The context I would use this creative skill is at work. I would define success when I am promoted and jump into the next level of this role with confidence.  

I wish I could stop editing myself – stop holding back my ideas

            The object of this skill would be about being more confident in my ideas and what I have to offer. I tend to edit myself when I’m in a room of peers – not as much as I used to, with age comes (sometimes poorly timed) wisdom! The challenges this would create for me are my lack of self-confidence. I don’t know that my experience or knowledge of my role are sufficient enough to allow my ideas to be relevant.  The context I would use this creative skill is at work. I would define success when I am confident that I would be making a meaningful contribution.

I wish I was more disciplined.

            The object of this skill would be about just what it sounds like – being more disciplined. I procrastinate and worry about things so long that when I actually get to doing the thing I’ve been procrastinating and worrying about, I’m in a super time crunch. I like to think that I work best under pressure but I don’t think I’ve really given myself any other option. The challenges this would create for me are that I have no respect for my own authority! I have the best intentions and plans but when I don’t follow through on those plans – there are no repercussions. (Except the whole last minute thing.) The context I would use this creative skill is in every aspect of my life. I would define success when I am able to set a schedule for myself and respect myself enough to follow through. I think big things could happen for me if I just applied myself more. (Oh my gosh, I just sounded exactly like my parents all through high school. Wow. I get it now! Ha!)   

I wish I could pick up abstract ideas faster

            The object of this skill would be about learning my job faster. I always feel like it takes me so much longer to understand some of the processes and tasks that I’m asked to do. The challenges this would create for me are that I need to understand why I’m doing something in order for me to understand how to do it. I worked with a guy once who said, “Tell me how to score points and I’ll tell you how I’m going to play the game.” I don’t understand how to score the points all the time. I ask for the help but I wish I could just pick these things up faster. The context I would use this creative skill is at work. I would define success when I am able to learn new processes faster and more completely.

I wish I was a better public speaker

            The object of this skill would be about effective communication again. I’m not terrible at public speaking but I wish I was better. The challenges this would create for me are not huge but they would be having the practice and opportunity to try. The context I would use this creative skill is at work. I would define success when I am more natural at public speaking.   

References:

Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.

McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom. Pearson Education Limited.

A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

In this video, Prof. Baba Shiv of Stanford University speaks to the importance of emotion in decision making, particularly as related to confidence. After watching this video, reflect on two situations; one, in which you were extremely confident of the outcome and what your attitude was towards the subject; and second, a situation in which you were less confident or not so confident of the outcome. Based on this module's readings and this video write a reflection blog detailing the situations above and describing the role emotion played in decision making. Include what emotional reactions you experienced for each scenario.

I am not a confident person. I second guess myself at every turn. I’m not unexperienced or incapable, I’m just not confident. This stems from times when I was overly confident, “John Wayne-ed” something and it blew up in my face. I should not just “wing it” – that rarely works out well. So, I’ve had trouble navigating between completely self-confident to the point of arrogance and just not wanting to say anything for fear that I’m wrong – that I don’t have the data or experience and just stay quiet. This has been a problem in my career at Boeing because while I’ve been at this company almost 7 years – which is normally enough time to feel confident in most daily decisions at any other job – I’ve changed positions within Boeing almost yearly since 2013 so I always feel like the new kid. Like I don’t have over 40 years of life experience or nearly 30 years of work experience – at least 15 years of actual supply chain experience. I act like I just walked in off the street and like I don’t have any authority at all to make any bigger decision than what I’m having for lunch. This is probably not really what you want this reflection assignment to be about but it is what this week’s lesson on emotion in decision making – confidence – has made me reflect on.

The last time I felt completely confident about a job was when I was the vendor managed inventory coordinator for an electrical equipment company and it ended with the whole “world series of warehouse baseball” situation that I’ve written about before – the job where I felt like I was untouchable and my decisions as a leader were infallible. I was so very very wrong and the fallout from that experience still haunts me almost 11 years later. My attitude toward my position and the confidence I had then was misplaced. I was young and had no leadership experience except that of the leaders I followed. Most of them were old school bosses who knew how to bark but not how to lead. I thought I needed to bark too and barking got results and these results built up my confidence. Until it didn’t. Today, I have small bouts of confidence that happen when I am completely sure about the data and I don’t bark about things. I ask questions and I listen. When I do have those moments of clarity and confidence, I feel good about things. Last year I was in charge of scheduling the work for b-deck on the 787 build. This area is where the water tanks are stored in the belly of the airplane and there are many tubes and connections that have to be made between potable water systems and then again many connections with the waste water systems. Because that part of the build was highly susceptible to customer choices, the build plan varied weekly. When leadership wanted to try and lean out our build process, they started to look at what they called bar chart (schedule) effectivity. The numbers needed to be above 85% and mine were sometimes 44% and sometimes 98% - it just depended on what jet we were building and for whom we were building it. Leadership saw one of my bar chart schedules and it was at 38% effectivity. They immediately wanted to cut my team from 14 to 7. And in normal circumstances, I can understand why – the numbers on that one build showed that we didn’t need all of those people. But I had to explain to them that my build was unique and that the effectivity changed every week. If they took half my team, they would be setting them up for failure when we had another big complex build. I gathered all of my averages, my examples and was fairly confident that I was doing the right thing. I engaged with my build team and asked the mechanics for data to help build my case to keep as many of the team together as possible. No one would be losing their jobs regardless but the team would have been severed in half. We fought the good fight with leadership all the way up to the director of the program. I explained the situation over and over again and became very confident in the data and what was needed to be successful. It wasn’t a popular fight – I was often at odds with my own lead and manager but I believed that what I was doing was right. In the end, we lost three people to other teams but we kept most of the core people on the team together. I didn’t feel confident in myself but I knew that the issue was important and meaningful enough to act more confident than I felt – but not arrogant. It takes me longer now – to gain confidence with things like that. I don’t trust myself when I feel overly confident – it makes me check myself and double check. Like when you leave the house and check a couple of times to make sure you didn’t forget anything. That’s the relationship I have with confidence in making decisions at work. I have to keep checking my pockets to make sure I have everything I need for the day.

References:

Shiv, B (2011). Brain research at Stanford: Decision making. Retrieved from:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKfl4owWKc

A632.8.3.RB - Reflections on the Cynefin Framework

A632.8.3.RB - Reflections on the Cynefin Framework

Create a reflection blog based on critically thinking about how the Cynefin Framework can benefit your decision-making. Consider the chart on page 7 of the HBR article A Leader's Framework for Decision Making and discuss decision-making in multiple contexts; include two specific examples of decisions in multiple contexts that you have made. Detail the considerations from the various contexts that influenced your decision.  Critically assess the Cynefin Framework and describe 5 ways it can provide an improved context for decision making.

Last year, I had the responsibility of scheduling the build for the horizontal stabilizer (hstab) of the new 787-10. We had many meetings where we discussed the applications of the test flight equipment and how they would be installing in the aft section of the new jet. We had to make decisions in multiple contexts because we had to build the hstab as well as include the test flight team so coordinating those two aspects was important. Each team came with its own set of priorities and complexities. The sequencing of each operation in the build had to be strategic to both teams. I know nothing about building an airplane, I’ve never physically built an airplane outside of the snap together 1:200 models I have all over my cubicle (and my co-worker’s cubicles). I had to rely on the mechanics and the test flight mechanics to tell me what they needed and how their work could be laid out intelligently. Not only did we have to get this done fairly quickly, but I needed to be able to explain the schedule to leadership so I needed to understand the build. I brought together the team leaders and the lead mechanics to open up the discussion. One of the things I encouraged was some dissent. I think that a good discussion has an open forum for questions and some dissent – otherwise it’s just a lecture. I still couldn’t build an airplane but I could speak intelligently to some of the issues we encountered and why we made the decisions we did to resolve the issues. Dissent and formal debate are valuable communication assets in complex contexts because they encourage the emergence of well-forged patterns and ideas. A “ritual dissent” approach, for instance, puts parallel teams to work on the same problem in a large group meeting environment.

(Boone & Snowden, 2015)

The Cynefin Framework can provide an improved context for decision making five ways: Simple and complicated contexts assume an ordered universe, where cause-and-effect relationships are perceptible, and right answers can be determined based on the facts. (Boone & Snowden, 2015) In an average week, we can assume that we will have to eat, we will have to sleep, and we will probably have to put gas in our cars. When our stomachs growl and we start feeling “hangry” we know that we should stop and eat something, when we get grumpy and foggy we know that we should take a nap or go to bed (Even if the Grey’s Anatomy episode ended on a cliff-hanger.). When the little low-fuel indicator light goes off in the car we know that we should fill the tank soon. We can make good decisions based on facts and the cause-and-effect relationship is easily readable.  

Complex and chaotic contexts are unordered—there is no immediately apparent relationship between cause and effect, and the way forward is determined based on emerging patterns. The ordered world is the world of fact-based management; the unordered world represents pattern-based management. (Boone & Snowden, 2015) I recently started having weird pains in my arms. It didn’t seem work related and it didn’t seem related to anything physical I was doing either. It was a deep ache in my forearms and it would come and go without any understandable pattern. I finally went to the doctor because it was starting to worry me. It became all encompassing. My doctor asked me questions about my personal life and about work and I couldn’t understand how those things would have anything to do with my arms hurting. She finally told me that I was experiencing the effects of stress. She said that I mentioned heart flutters and migraines which combined with what I had told her about work and school and my arms hurting all pointed to stress. I had an EKG run on my heart and it was fine, blood tests came out fine too. It was just me not handling the stresses going on around me well. In the weeks following this determination, I’ve been able to make better decisions about taking breaks and eating better. I stop to take deep breaths when I feel myself getting stressed out and try to handle one thing at a time (I’m not a great multitask-er – that’s an important thing to know about yourself!). I able to see the patterns of my pain and what I’m doing and am able to offset it with relaxation techniques and medication.

The very nature of the fifth context—disorder—makes it particularly difficult to recognize when one is in it. Here, multiple perspectives jostle for prominence, factional leaders argue with one another, and cacophony rules. The way out of this realm is to break down the situation into constituent parts and assign each to one of the other four realms. (Boone & Snowden, 2015) I feel like I exist in the fifth context all the time. But understanding the disorder and how it impacts us and our decision making helps us work through it better. The best example I can think of right this moment is how I feel when I have hundreds of reschedules (time consuming but easy data entry work) and six people are instant messaging me about this part being damaged, and where is their report, and do I know when I’ll get to the grief records, and could I come to a meeting about the root cause analysis of something or another and my email won’t stop pinging and I just sit there watching all of this happen while wishing I could just shut down my computer and go hide in a dark conference room for the rest of the day. It’s chaotic and stressful and I hate it. So, I usually start with the immediate concerns. I respond to emails that aren’t emergent and flag them for later, answer the instant messages the best I can, and start working one chunk of reschedules at a time. I slowly maneuver through the tasks the best I can. (I usually get up and “do a lap” around the cubicles to gather my thoughts. I know now that doing that is assigning the individual parts of my chaos into each of the four quadrants of the Cynefin Framework and working them in order of importance and complexity.

References:

Boone, D., & J. Snowden, M. (2015, December 07). A Leaders Framework for Decision Making. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making