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Monthly Archives: March 2019

Gratitude

March 23, 2019
Dialogue, Feedback
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Gratitude

Joy, for me, is helping folks in ways that they have a need to be helped. So I feel appreciative, moved and thankful when someone takes the time to let me know how my help has made a positive contribution to their lives.

I regularly have folks quietly letting me know about how I’ve made some contribution to their journey. Most recently, Andy Tabberer (@ConsultantMicro on Twitter) has been kind enough to share his experiences, and with his permission, share with you.

In this case, it’s particularly pleasing, both because he’s representative of my primary audience (tech management) and because my chosen style has resonated with him. Here’s his unexpurgated words:

I first heard of Bob Marshall – @flowchainsensei – through Twitter. I cannot remember how exactly, but I guess it was a question, the type of searching question that comes easilyi to Bob, that piqued my interest. Since then, Bob has taken me, indirectly, on a journey of self-improvement through his questioning and prompting on Twitter and through his blog.

Why am I telling you this? Well, a while ago, Bob asked his followers if anything he had tweeted or blogged had been of any use, had anything he’d produced been used to do something good.

This is my reply to that question.

My examples are:

The blog that encouraged me to challenge the status quo in my work was What are Non-Obvious Systemic Constraints?. Among other constraints listed, the ‘Business As Usual’, ‘Mandatory optimism’ and ‘Fear of conflict’ examples really resonated with me. It felt like I was able to hold my company up to the light for the first time and see its true colours.

I felt compelled to reconsider the role of the management team, of which I was a part. Bob’s examples helped me to show others how our company was failing in ways we could not see. It emboldened me to challenge our conventional thinking and our hierarchy and its “remarkable impact on the ability of the organisation to evolve, improve, and raise its effectiveness”.

Bob’s blog also introduced me to Eli Goldratt. After a quick google search, I landed on a review of a graphic novel of the Goal, an easy to read version of Goldratt’s seminal work. It was quickly added to my Christmas list. This book changed my view of the workplace and in particular how bottlenecks impact our productivity. So many of my former colleagues have Bob to thank for being branded bottlenecks, a few of them would even thank him.

Finally, I have Bob to thank for an introduction to Deming. This name kept popping up again and again. I eventually went off in search of material to read – I have Four Days with Deming lined up to read next – and I alighted at the Deming Institute blog. After a little browsing, I settled down to watch the following video by David Lanford -> blog.deming.org/2013/08/attrib. The impact of this video was so profound that it eventually led to a programme of organisation-wide quality goal setting – that I instigated – and, ultimately, my resignation and my decision to move onto pastures new.

I’d like to finish by saying that Bob makesii me think every day. Sometimes I find him frustrating because he answers with a question, never giving advice. This, however, leads me to what I suppose is Bob’s biggest impact on me, which is the path to improvement is forged through questioning. I guess I’ve never encountered anyone who sought only to help others improve rather than dispense self-serving advice designed to reinforce one’s own view of one’s worth or to confirm one’s place in the hierarchy. I’m grateful for that, Bob.

Notes:

i) These questions may seem to come easily, but often they take time, effort and consideration. Not to mention empathy.

ii) I’d be happier to say “invites” rather than “makes” (might be misinterpreted as compulsion or obligation).

In closing, I’d like to thank Andy again, and invite others to contribute their experiences, too.

– Bob

Something’s Gotta Give

March 19, 2019
Culture change, Organisational effectiveness, Product development, Rightshifting, Software development
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Something’s Gotta Give

“The things businesses have to do to make software development successful are well known. And equally well known is the fact that businesses will absolutely not do these things.”

This reality puts us in a bind. We find ourselves in a position where we have to trade off successful development against conforming to organisational norms. We can have one – or the other. It’s not a binary trade-off, we can for example relax some norms and gain some (small) improvements in success. But by and large it’s a zero sum game. At least from the perspective of those folks that find value in everyone conforming to preexisting norms.

I don’t think many business folks realise this trade-off exists. Almost all the business folks I have met over the years seem unaware that their norms are what’s holding back their success in software (and product) development. I put this down to the absence of any real understanding of the fundamentally different nature of collaborative knowledge work (different to their experiences and assumptions).

Some of the Things

By way of illustration, here’s just a few of the things that are necessary for successful software (and product) development, that businesses just won’t do:

De-stressing

Removing stressors (things that create distress) from the workplace. These things include: job insecurity; being directed and controlled; being told where, when and how to work; etc..

Stressors serve to negatively impact cognitive function (amongst other things). See also: Amygdala hijack.

Trusting

Placing trust in the folks actually doing the work. We might refer to this as a Theory-Y posture.

Experimenting

Finding out through disciplined and systematic experimentation what works and what doesn’t. See: the Toyota Improvement Kata.

Being Human

Embracing what it means to be human; seeing employees as infinitely different, fully-rounded human beings with a broad range emotions, needs and foibles (as opposed to e.g. interchangeable cogs in a machine).

Intrinsic Discipline

Relying on intrinsic motivation to encourage and support a disciplined approach to work.

Meaningful Dialogue

Talking about what’s happening, the common purpose, and what the problems are.

Eschewing Numbers

Realising the limitations with numbers, dashboards, KPIs and the like and finding other ways to know whether things are moving in the “right direction”.

Prioritising Interpersonal Relationships

In collaborative knowledge work (especially teamwork), it’s the quality of the interpersonal relationships that’s by far the greatest factor in success.

Summary

If your organisation needs to see more success in its software (and product) development efforts, then something’s gotta give. Specifically, some of its prevailing norms, assumption and beliefs have gotta give. And given that these norms come as a self-reinforcing memeplex (a.k.a. the Analytic Mindset), a piecemeal approach is highly unlikely to afford much in the way of progress.

– Bob

Hearts over Diamonds Preface

March 8, 2019
Culture change, Dialogue, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Rightshifting, Therapy
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Hearts over Diamonds Preface

In case you’re undecided as to whether my recently published book on Organisational Psychotherapy will be worth some of your hard-earned spons, here’s the text of the preface to the current edition (full book available in various ebook formats via Leanpub and in paperback via Lulu.

Will This Book be Worth Your Time?

To my knowledge, this is the first book ever written about Organisational Psychotherapy. Thanks for taking the time to have a look. This is a short book. And intentionally so. It’s not that Organisational Psychotherapy is a shallow domain. But this book just lays down the basics. Understanding of the deeper aspects and nuances best emerges during practice, I find.

This book aims to inform three distinct groups of people:

  • Senior managers and executives who might find advantage in hiring and engaging with an Organisational Psychotherapist.
  • Folks who might have an interest in becoming Organisational Psychotherapists themselves, either within their organisations or as e.g. freelancers.
  • Folks within organisations who might find themselves involved in some way in their organisation’s engagement with one or more organisational psychotherapists.

We’re all busy people, so I guess you may be curious, or even a little concerned, as to whether this book will provide a good return on the time you might spend reading it. I’ve tried to arrange things so that you can quickly answer that question.

I intend this book to be easy to understand, and to that end I’ve used as much plain English as I can muster. I guess some folks find the whole idea of Organisational Psychotherapy somewhat intimi‐ dating, and fear the ideas here will “go over their heads”. Let me reassure you that I’ve tried to make this book common-sensical, friendly and down-to-earth.

Foundational

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

~ Rumi

In writing this book, I’ve set out to define the emerging discipline – or field – of Organisational Psychotherapy.

In a nutshell, Organisational Psychotherapy is a response to the growing realisation in business circles that it’s the collective mindset of an organisation (often mistakenly referred-to as culture) that determines an organisation’s overall effectiveness, productivity and degree of success. By “collective mindset” I mean the beliefs, assumptions and attitudes that an organisation as a whole holds in common about work and how the world of work should work.

Roots

Organisational Psychotherapy leverages over a hundred years of research and experience in the field of personal psychotherapy, a field which has evolved from its roots in the Middle East in the ninth century, and later, in the West, through the works of Wilhelm Wundt (1879) and Sigmund Freud (1896). Research and experience which, in large part, can usefully be repurposed from the individual psyche to the collective psyche (i.e. the organisation).

In my career of over thirty years in the software business, I’ve run the whole gamut of approaches in search of organisational effectiveness, in search of approaches that actually work. It’s been a long and tortuous journey in many respects, but I have come to believe, absolutely, that success resides mostly in the relationships between people working together, in the web of informal customer- supplier relationships within and between businesses. And I’ve come to believe that organisational effectiveness mostly comes from the assumptions all these folks hold in common.

Given that, I ask the question:

“What kind of intervention could help organisations and their people with uncovering their existing, collectively-held, beliefs, assumptions and attitudes? With discussing those, seeing the connection with their business and personal problems and challenges, and doing something about that?”

The answer I’ve arrived at is Organisational Psychotherapy. And so, when I’m working with clients these days, Organisational Psychotherapy is my default mode of practice.

But this book does not attempt to make the case for my beliefs. It’s not going to try to persuade you to see things my way. Organisational Psychotherapy may pique your interest, but I’m pretty sure you’ll stick with what you already believe.

So, if you have an open mind, or generally share my perspective already, this book may serve you in getting deeper into the practicalities and benefits of Organisational Psychotherapy, whether that’s as:

  • a decision-maker sponsoring an intervention
  • a potential recruit to the ranks of organisational psychotherapists
  • an individual participating in an Organisational Psychotherapy intervention in your organisation

Relationships Govern Dialogue

A central tenet of Organisational Psychotherapy is that it’s the quality of the relationships within and across an organisation that moderates the organisation’s capacity for meaningful dialogue. As we shall see in more detail later, fragmented and fractious relation‐ ships impair an organisation’s ability to surface, discuss and recon‐ sider its shared beliefs.

Effective Organisational Psychotherapy needs a certain capacity for skilful dialogue within and across an organisation. Absent this capacity, folks have a slow, laborious and uncomfortable time trying to surface and discuss their commonly-held beliefs and assumptions.

In practice, then, any Organisational Psychotherapy, in its early stages at least, must attend to improving relationships in the workplace, and thus the capacity for meaningful dialogue. This helps the organisation have more open and productive dialogues – should it wish to – about its core beliefs and implicit assumptions, about its ambitions and goals, about the quality of its relationships and dialogues, and about its strategies for success. I wholeheartedly believe that:

People are NOT our greatest asset. In collaborative knowledge work particularly, it’s the relationships BETWEEN people that are our greatest asset.

Whether and how the organisation might wish to develop those relationships and dialogues in pursuit of its goals is a matter for the organisation itself. Without Organisational Psychotherapy, I’ve rarely seen such dialogues emerge and thrive.

The Goal

Improving relationships in the workplace, and thereby helping the emergence of productive dialogues, are the means to an end, rather than the end itself. The goal of all Organisational Psychotherapy interventions is to support the client organisation in its journey towards being more – more like the organisation it needs to be. Closer to its own, ever-evolving definition of its ideal self.

We’ll explore what that means in later chapters.

References

Lencioni, P. (2012). The Advantage: Why organizational health trumps everything else in business. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Patterson, K. (2012). Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high. Place of publication not identified: McGraw Hill.

Schein, E. H. (2014). Humble Inquiry: The gentle art of asking instead of telling. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Red Lines

March 5, 2019
Culture change, Management, Software development
1 Comment

Red Lines

There’s been a lot of talk about Theresa May’s “Red Lines” in the media recently.

Every organisation I’ve ever known has had their own Red Lines – ideas, principles, practices and policies which are deemed unacceptable, beyond the pale. Many of these latter would make the organisation markedly more effective, efficient or profitable, yet are ruled out.

Here’s a list of such ideas, in roughly increasing order of benefit and unacceptability both:

Transparency of salaries
Attending to folks’ needs
Nonviolence
Restorative justice (vs Retributive justice)
Self-organising / self-managing teams
No estimates
No projects
No tools
No software
Defect prevention (ZeeDee) approach to Quality (vs Testing / Inspection)
Employees choosing their own tools, languages and development hardware
Employees designing / owning their own physical workspace(s)
(colour schemes, lighting, furniture, floor plans, drinks machines, games etc.) 
Employees choosing their own ways of working (methods, processes)
Organising to optimise Flow (vs costs)
Employees choosing their own working locations (office, cafe, remote, etc.)
Employees choosing their own working hours (incl. hours per day / week)
Employees forming their own teams
Employees guiding their own training and career, skills development
Employees hiring their own peers (and coaches)
Paramountcy of interpersonal relationships and social skills (vs tech skills)
Organisational Psychotherapy
Teams appointing their direct managers
Teams appointing their senior managers
“Open book” financials
Employees choosing their own salaries and terms of employment
Teams awarding themselves their own bonuses
No managers (alternatives to control hierarchies)
Fellowship (No positional leadership)
Do nothing that is not play

Where does your organisation draw its red lines – and how much more effective could it be if it redrew them?

– Bob