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101

You Don’t Get It

July 11, 2023
101, Article, Business, Culture change, haiku, Quintessence, Self-organisation, Systems thinking
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You Don’t Get It

Listen up, folks! There’s a whole lot of you out there in the business world who just don’t get it. You’re missing the point, and it’s costing you. Big time.

Unheard truths echo,
In business, losses follow,
Insight, hard to swallow.

Culture Rocks

First up, let’s talk about culture. Not the kind you find in a yogurt, but the kind that permeates every corner of your organization. Culture isn’t just about casual Fridays or the company picnic. It’s about shared values, beliefs, and attitudes. It’s the glue that holds your team together and drives them towards a common goal. Ignore it at your peril.

Culture’s silent pulse,
Invisible yet potent,
Shapes the firm’s heartbeat.

It’s the System, Stupid

Next, you need to understand how the work works. It’s not enough to just do your job. You need to understand the processes, the systems, the mechanics of how things get done. That’s how you find efficiencies, eliminate waste, and improve productivity.

Work’s rhythm, unseen,
In its flow, wisdom gleaned,
In details, truth’s gleaned.

Auftragstaktik

Ever heard of Auftragstaktik? It’s a German military term that means “mission command.” In business, it’s about moving decision-making real close to the front line. It’s about empowering your people to make decisions and take action. It’s about trust and accountability. It’s about getting out of the way and letting your people do what they do best. Some call this self-organising teams, but it’s more, much more, than that.

Auftragstaktik reigns,
Decisions like scattered grains,
Empowerment gains.

Find the Demand

Next: product-market fit. It’s not just a buzzword. It’s about finding the sweet spot where your product meets a market need. If you’re not there, you’re just throwing your time and money into the wind.

Product-market fit,
In the sweet spot, we commit,
Success, bit by bit.

Radical Pivots

And then there’s the pivot. Not the kind you do in basketball, but the kind that can save your business. Markets change. Customers change. If you’re not willing to change with them and go where the demand is, you’re going to rapidly become irrelevant. And out of business.

Pivot, change your stance,
In market’s fickle dance,
Adaptance is chance.

Wake Up!

So wake up, folks! Pay attention to these things. They’re not just buzzwords. They’re the keys to success in business. And if you don’t get that, well, you’re just not getting it.

Awake, heed these words,
Not mere buzz, but success’ birds,
Ignorance affords.

Further Reading

Gerber, M. E. (1995). The E-Myth revisited: Why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it. HarperBusiness.
Winget, L. (2008). People are idiots and I can prove it!: The 10 ways you are sabotaging yourself and how you can overcome them. Gotham Books.
Winget, L. (2007). It’s called work for a reason!: Your success is your own damn fault. Gotham Books.
Bungay, S. (2011). The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps Between Plans, Actions and Results. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

A Cook’s Tour

August 8, 2021
101, Article, Guides
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A Cook’s Tour

With over 650 posts on this blog, I hardly expect readers to have seen every post here. Nor, I expect, will you have time or inclination to read everything. Accordingly, I’ve put together a brief summary, with some links to key posts on various long-running themes.

In no particular order:

Antimatter Principle

Do you have worries over engagement (of staff) and with keeping those people who regularly go the extra mile for you? Are you trying to create and sustain an environment where joy, passion and discretionary effort are palpable, ever-present and to-the-max?

I propose the Antimatter Principle, “attending to folks’ needs”, as an effective, psychology-led and nonviolent means to creating an environment where relationships between people can thrive and flourish. And as the basis for a coherent approach to the engineering of products, too.

The Folks That Matter™️

The Folks That Matter™ updates the idea of stakeholders, and their needs. And promotes the question of “who actually matters?”, and how to decide. Related: The Cost of Focus.

Product Development

The theory and practice of product development, and in particular software product development, has been a major focus of mine for more than thirty years. FlowChain is an whole-organisation approach for product development. Subsidiary ideas include Prod•gnosis, Flow•gnosis and Product Aikido.

Rightshifting

Shifting organisations towards being more effective was the focus of my work when I started blogging (circa 2009). I’ve written much on the topic since. One entry point into this topic is “The Rightshifting Ethos“.

The Marshall Model

The Marshall Model emerged from my work with organisational effectiveness (cf Rightshifting). the model provides a formal model for organisational effectiveness – a model also useful for interventionists (consultants, enterprise coaches and the like) akin to the Drefus Model of Skills Acquisition.

Organisational Psychotherapy

What is the prime determinant of organisational effectiveness, productivity, quality of life at work, profitability, and success?

Rightshifting attributes these benefits to the things people, collectively believe about how organisations should work. Organisational Psychotherapy provides a means to “shift” the organisation’s mindset, its collective beliefs, assumptions and tropes, to a more healthy and effective place. One more aligned with the organisation’s desired results.

Emotioneering

Emotioneering presents an engineering approach to creating the emotional responses we wish to evoke in our customers and markets (and more broadly, in all the Folks That Matter™).

I hope this Cook’s tour helps you find you way around the various themes on this blog.

Do share any thoughts you might have which others might find useful.

– Bob

OP 101

September 27, 2019
101, Culture change, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy
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OP 101

This post attempts to set down the fundamental of OP – Organisational Psychotherapy. (For the details, or a lengthy tour through the subject, there’s a whole passel of other posts on this blog, plus my recent book “Hearts over Diamonds”).

Tl;Dr

The operational effectiveness of any knowledge work organisation is a function of its collective assumptions and beliefs about work. Significant improvements to organisational effectiveness requires a fundamental shift in these assumptions and beliefs. Organisational Psychotherapy makes this shift both feasible and economic.

The Basic Premise

The basic premise of Organisational Psychotherapy is that the effectiveness of any and all knowledge work organisations is a function of the collective mindset of the organisation. For significant improvements in the effectiveness of the organisation, the collective mindset has to undergo a step-change.

E = ƒ(Collective mindset)

Collective Mindset

In Organisational Psychotherapy, “collective mindset” (a.k.a. collective or shared memeplex) we mean “the set of assumptions and beliefs held in common by more-or-less everyone in the organisation”. Assumptions and beliefs concerning work, and how work should work (i.e. how work should be organised, directed and managed).

This set of assumptions and beliefs held in common are rarely held consciously, more often existing below the level of consciousness of the organisation and its individuals, both.

Culture

We often call the manifestation of the collective mindset the “culture” of the organisation – the typical behaviours and actions of individuals and groups driven, subconsciously, by their underlying, commonly-held, assumptions and beliefs.

The Performance Challenge

Many organisation may be happy with – or at least resigned to – their status quo. These organisations do not seek to understand the roots of organisational effectiveness. For the fewer number of organisations that do seek to improve their effectiveness, questions such as “what makes for increased effectiveness” and “what could we do to improve our effectiveness as an organisation” begin to surface.

The challenge, then, for this latter group of organisations, is to find some levers to pull, levers by which to affect the organisation’s effectiveness in the desired direction(s).

Some yet fewer number of organisations may come to understand the connection between their collective mindset and their effectiveness – current and aspirational. For these organisations, the challenge becomes:

“How can we shift our collective assumptions and beliefs in a direction – or directions – that support our aspirations for e.g. improved effectiveness?”

Organisational Psychotherapy

So to the main focus of this 101 unit:

How might those organisations that see the connection between their collective assumptions and beliefs, and their effectiveness, go about shifting those assumption and beliefs?

For individuals faces with this challenge in their daily lives (“How might I as a person go about having a happier or more productive life? How might I shift my assumptions about relationships, people, myself, etc. to see that come about?”), psychotherapy is one option they may consider, and thence embark upon.

So it is with organisations. Asking themselves the question:

“How might I as an organisation go about having a happier or more productive life, see improved effectiveness, performance, greater success?”

leads to the challenging question:

“How might I/we shift my/our collective assumptions and beliefs about relationships, people, myself/ourself, etc. to see that come about?”

At this point, Organisational Psychotherapy is one option the organisation may consider, and embark upon.

The Bottom Line

Until recently, organisations have not had the option of Organisational Psychotherapy. Even now it’s an option little known and still in its infancy. So organisations have been constrained to other options, such as tackling the above question “How might I/we shift my/our collective assumptions and beliefs about relationships, people, myself, etc.” from within their own resources, or with the aid of e.g. external consultants. Not being well-versed in the fields of Organisational Psychotherapy, psychology, sociology, group dynamics, etc., this path can consume much time and attention, many resources, inflate business and reputational risks, and generate high levels of waste and stress. Witness: the huge number of business books on organisational change, Digital Transformation, and so on.

Organisational Psychotherapists offers a degree of competency in these fields (psychology, sociology, group dynamics, therapy enabling reflection and leading to possible shifts in assumptions and beliefs, etc.) not natively present in most organisations. This competency eases the path to the kind of change (or shift) they seek, saving time (time is money), missteps, reducing the risks, and lowering stress levels for all involved.

A Request

Whether you have found this explanation of the fundamentals of Organisational Psychotherapy useful or useless, I would be delighted and thankful to hear your comments and questions.

– Bob