Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Authentic’ Category

Own your ideas, not the drama.

Own your words, not the gossip.

Own your vision, not the dogma.

Own your effort, not the heckling.

Own your vacation, not the email.

Own your behavior, not the strife.

Own your talent, not the cynicism.

Own your deeds, not the rhetoric.

Own your caring, not the criticism.

Own your sincerity, not the hot air.

Own your actions, not the response.

Own your insights, not the rejection.

Own your originality, not the critique.

Own your passion, not the nay saying.

Own your loneliness, not the back story.

Own your health, not the irrational workload.

Own your thinking, not the misunderstanding.

Own your stress level, not the arbitrary due date.

Own your happiness.

The system is big and complex and its output is outside your control. Trying to control these outputs is a depressing proposition, yet we’re routinely judged (and judge ourselves) on outputs.  I think it’s better to focus on system inputs, specifically your inputs to the system.

When the system responds with outputs different than desired, don’t get upset. It’s nothing personal. The system is just doing its job. It digests a smorgasbord of inputs from many agents just like you and does what it does. Certainly it’s alive, but it doesn’t know you. And certainly it doesn’t respond differently because you’re the one providing input. The system doesn’t take its output personally, and neither should you.

When the system’s output is not helpful, instead of feeling badly about yourself, shift your focus from system output to the input you provide it. (Remember, that’s all you have control over.) Did you do what you said you’d do? Were you generous? We’re you thoughtful? We’re you insightful? Did you give it your all or did you hold back? If you’re happy with the answers you should feel happy with yourself. Your input, your behavior, was just as it was supposed to be.  Now is a good time to fall back on the insightful grade school mantra, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.”

If your input was not what you wanted, then it’s time to look inside and ask yourself why. At times like these it’s easy to blame others and outside factors for our behavior. But at times like these  we must own the input, we must own the behavior. Now, owning the behavior doesn’t mean we’ll behave the same way going forward, it just means we own it. In order to improve our future inputs we’ve got to understand why we behaved as we did, and the first step to better future inputs is owning our past behavior.

Now, replace “system” with “person”, and the argument is the same. You are responsible for your input to the person, and they are responsible for their output (their response). When someone’s output is nonlinear and offensive, you’re not responsible for it, they are. Were you kind? Thoughtful? Insightful? If yes, you get what you get, and you don’t get upset. But what if you weren’t? Shouldn’t you feel responsible for their response? In a word, no. You should feel badly about your input – your behavior – and you should apologize. But their output is about them. They, like the system, responded the way they chose. If you want to be critical, be critical of your behavior. Look deeply at why you behaved as you did, and decide how you want to change it. Taking responsibility for their response gets in the way of taking responsibility for your behavior.

With complex systems, by definition it’s impossible to predict their output. (That’s why they’re called complex.) And the only way to understand them is to perturb them with your input and look for patterns in their responses. What that means is your inputs are well intended and ill informed. This is an especially challenging situation for those of us that have been conditioned (or born with the condition) to mis-take responsibility for system outputs. Taking responsibility for unpredictable system outputs is guaranteed frustration and loss of self-esteem. And it’s guaranteed to reduce the quality of your input over time.

When working with new systems in new ways, it’s especially important to take responsibility for your inputs at the expense of taking responsibility for unknowable system outputs. With innovation, we must spend a little and learn a lot. We must figure out how to perturb the system with our inputs and intelligently sift its outputs for patterns of understanding. The only way to do it is to fearlessly take responsibility for our inputs and fearless let the system take responsibility for its output.

We must courageously engineer and own our behavioral plan of attack, and modify it as we learn. And we must learn to let the system be responsible for its own behavior.

They say job satisfaction is important for productivity and quality. The thinking goes something like this: A happy worker is a productive one, and a satisfied worker does good work. This may be true, but it’s not always the best way.

I think we may be better served by a therapeutic dose of job dissatisfaction. Though there are many strains of job satisfaction, the most beneficial one spawns from a healthy dissatisfaction with our success. The tell-tale symptom of dissatisfaction is loneliness, and the invasive bacterium is misunderstanding. When the disease is progressing well, people feel lonely because they’re misunderstood.

Recycled ideas are well understood; company dogma is well understood; ideas that have created success are well understood. In order to be misunderstood, there must be new ideas, ideas that are different. Different ideas don’t fit existing diagnoses and create misunderstanding which festers into loneliness. In contrast, when groupthink is the disease there is no loneliness because there are no new ideas.

For those that believe last year’s ideas are good enough, different ideas are not to be celebrated. But for those that believe otherwise, new ideas are vital, different is to be celebrated, and loneliness is an important precursor to innovation.

Yes, new ideas can grow misunderstanding, but misunderstanding on its own cannot grow loneliness. Loneliness is fueled by caring, and without it the helpful strain of loneliness cannot grow. Caring for a better future, caring for company longevity, caring for a better way – each can create the conditions for loneliness to grow.

When loneliness is the symptom, the prognosis is good. The loneliness means the organization has new ideas; it means the ideas are so good people are willing to endure personal suffering to make them a reality; and, most importantly, it means people care deeply about the company and its long term success.

I urge you to keep your eye out for the markers that define the helpful strain of loneliness. And when you spot it, I hope you will care enough to dig in a little. I urge you think of this loneliness as the genes of a potentially game-changing idea.  When ideas are powerful enough to grow loneliness, they’re powerful enough to move from evolutionary into revolutionary.

How long will it take? The short answer – same as last time. How long do we want it to take? That’s a different question altogether.

If the last project took a year, so will the next one. Even if you want it to take six months, it will take a year. Unless, there’s a good reason it will be different. (And no, the simple fact you want it to take six months is not a good enough reason in itself.)

Some good reasons it will take longer than last time: more work, more newness, less reuse, more risk, and fewer resources. Some good reasons why it will go faster: less work, less newness, more reuse, less risk, more resources. Seems pretty tight and buttoned-up, but things aren’t that straight forward.

With resources, the core resources are usually under control.  It’s the shared resources that are the problem. With resources under their control (core resources) project teams typically do a good job – assign dedicated resources and get out of the way. Shared resources are named that way because they support multiple projects, and this is the problem. Shared resources create coupling among projects, and when one project runs long, resource backlogs ripple through the other projects. And it gets worse. The projects backlogged by the initial ripple splash back and reflect ripples back at each other. Understand the shared resources, and you understand a fundamental dynamic of all your projects.

Plain and simple – work content governs project timelines. And going forward I propose we never again ask “How long will it take?” and instead ask “How is the work content different than last time?” To estimate how long it will take, set up a short face-to-face meeting with the person who did it last time, and ask them how long it will take. Write it down, because that’s the best estimate of how long it will take.

It may be the best estimate, but it may not be a good one. The problem is uncertainty around newness. Two important questions to calibrate uncertainty: 1) How big of a stretch are you asking for? and 2) How much do you know about how you’ll get there? The first question drives focus, but it’s not always a good predictor of uncertainty.  Even seemingly small stretches can create huge problems. (A project that requires a 0.01% increase in the speed of light will be a long one.) What matters is if you can get there.

To start, use your best judgment to estimate the uncertainty, but as quickly as you can, put together a rude and crude experimental plan to reduce it. As fast as you can execute the experimental plan, and let the test results tell you if you can get there. If you can’t get there on the bench, you can’t get there, and you should work on a different project until you can.

The best way to understand how long a project will take is to understand the work content. And the most important work content to understand is the new work content. Choose several of your best people and ask them to run fast and focused experiments around the newness. Then, instead of asking them how long it will take, look at the test results and decide for yourself.

This week my son made a difficult choice – he chose between two things he loves.

The easy choice was to say yes to both, but in reality, there was not enough time. And in reality, the easy yes was a masquerade. It was really a slow, painful no with rippling consequences to his future. The tough choice did not come immediately and it did not come easy. But in the end, he was ready to make it because he saw things not as he wanted them to be, but as they were.

Once he decided he was going to choose, he had to decide which to choose. A tough choice made tougher because one is mainstream and the other on the fringe. It was clear there were far more overt repercussions with a no to the mainstream. Simply put, the powerful mainstream would not understand. But to his credit, he recognized the mainstream cares about itself, not him. Also, it was clear the fringe accepts him for him. So he sat himself in the future, figured out what was best for the soon-to-be him, and chose the fringe.

Once he decided which to chose, he had to decide how to choose. The easy choice was to slink quietly into the fringe never to be seen again. This was another masquerade. It was really an opportunity to self-devalue his decision and a setup for never ending ridicule over the remainder of his high school career. Instead, he made the tough choice to speak truth to the mainstream authority – face-to-face.

He got up early and met the coach in his office. The gist of the meeting – I’m sad, but this is my choice and why I’m choosing.

To the coach’s great credit, though disappointed, he understood and thanked Ethan for meeting face-to-face. And though emotionally wobbly after the meeting, because he declared his choice and was validated, he stood taller. And once validated by the head of the mainstream, there was no room for ridicule.

This week my son showed me what courage is. And he taught me an important lesson – tough decisions are tough, but we’re better off for making them.

I’m proud of him.

It’s easy to get caught up in what others think. (I fall into that trap myself.) And it’s often unclear when it happens. But what is clear: it’s not good for anyone.

It’s hard to be authentic, especially with the Fraternity of Team Players running the show, because, as you know, to become a member their bylaws demand you take their secret oath:

I [state your name] do solemnly swear to agree with everyone, even if I think differently. And in the name of groupthink, I will bury my original ideas so we can all get along. And when stupid decisions are made, I will do my best to overlook fundamentals and go along for the ride. And if I cannot hold my tongue, I pledge to l leave the meeting lest I utter something that makes sense. And above all, in order to preserve our founding fathers’ externally-validated sense of self, I will feign ignorance and salute consensus.

It’s not okay that the fraternity requires you check your self at the door. We need to redefine what it means to be a team player. We need to rewrite the bylaws.

I want to propose a new oath:

I [state your name] do solemnly swear to think for myself at all costs. And I swear to respect the thoughts and feelings of others, and learn through disagreement. I pledge to explain myself clearly, and back up my thoughts with data. I pledge to stand up to the loudest voice and quiet it with rational, thoughtful discussion. I vow to bring my whole self to all that I do, and to give my unique perspective so we can better see things as they are. And above all, I vow to be true to myself.

Before you’re true to your company, be true to yourself. It’s best for you, and them.

Separation of church and state, yes; separation of team player and self, no.

Meeting agendas are a good idea. They make clear what will happen and they’re time bound. (At least good ones.) They look forward in time and shape what will happen.

Meeting agendas are created by the organizer so others follow. It’s strange to think about, but from thin air, the organizer congers magic words on a page that shape direction. The agenda sets the agenda and it’s followed. But in truth, agendas are followed because we choose to follow.

But I want to introduce another schema – the work sets the agenda. In this parallel universe, we don’t choose to follow an agenda; we choose to do work so powerful it sets the agenda – work so dense its gravitational field pulls the organization toward it.

I can hear the moans and groans – we can’t choose the work we do. But you can – if your work is good enough. If your work is brighter than the sun, it’s undeniable and, like the sun, cannot be ignored.

I can hear the next round of moans – we can’t do work that good. But you can – if you think you can and you try. (The only way to guarantee you can’t is not to try.)

And the last round of groans – we’ll get fired if we fail. If you’ll get fired for trying to reinvent your universe, you’re working at the wrong place anyway.

If you like to follow agendas, follow them. But if you don’t, do celestial work, and set them.

Some thoughts on vacation:

Take fewer longer vacations at the expense of shorter ones.

Work hard, but on something else.

On route to your destination, throw your cell phone from a moving vehicle.

Forget about your work so you can do it better when you return.

Don’t check in at work – that undoes all the relaxation.

Vacation with kids, and take your cues from them.

As a subject matter expert (SME), you have more power than you think, and certainly more than you demonstrate.

As an SME, you have special knowledge. Looking back, you know what worked, what didn’t, and why; looking forward, you know what should work, what shouldn’t, and why.  There’s power in your special knowledge, but you underestimate it and don’t use it to move the needle.

As an SME, without your special knowledge there are no new products, no new technologies, and no new markets. Without it, it’s same-old, same-old until the competition outguns you. It’s time you realize your importance and behave that way.

As an SME, when you and your SME friends gang together, your company must listen. Your gang knows it all. From the system-level stuff to the most detailed detail, you know it. Remember, you invented the technology that powers your products. It’s time you behave that way.

As an SME, with your power comes responsibility – you have an obligation to use your power for good. Figure out what the technology wants, and do that; do the sustainable thing; do the thing that creates jobs; do what’s good for the economy; sit yourself in the future, look back, and do what you think is right.

As an SME, I’m calling you out. I trust you, now it’s time to trust yourself. And it’s time for you to behave that way.

Some ideas are so powerful they change you. More precisely, some ideas are so powerful you change your beliefs to fit them.

These powerful ideas come in two strains: those that already align with your beliefs and those that contradict.

The first strain works subtly. While you think on the idea, your beliefs test it for safety. (They work in the background without your knowledge.) And if the idea passes the sniff test, and your beliefs feel safe, they let the subconscious sniffing morph into conscious realization – the idea fits your beliefs. The result: You now better understand your beliefs and you blossom, grow, and amplify yourself.

The second strain is subtle as a train wreck – a full frontal assault on your beliefs. This strain contradicts our beliefs and creates an emotional response – fear, anger, stress. And because these ideas threaten our beliefs, our beliefs reject them for safety’s sake. It’s like an autoimmune system for ideas.

But this autoimmune system has a back door. While it rejects most of the idea, for unknown reasons it passes a wisp to our belief system for sniffing. Like a vaccine, it wants to strengthen our beliefs against the strain. And in most cases, it works. But in rare cases, through deep introspection, our beliefs self-mutate and align with the previously contradicting idea. The result: You change yourself fundamentally.

Truth is, ideas are not about ideas; ideas are about beliefs. Our beliefs give life to ideas, or kill them. But we give ideas too much responsibility, and take too little. Truth is, we can change what we think and feel about ideas.

More powerfully, we can change what we think and feel about our beliefs, but only if we believe we can.

There are only three things you can do:

1. Do what you’re told. This is fine once in a while, but not fine if you’re also told how.

2. Do what you’re not told. This is the normal state of things – good leaders let good people choose.

3. Do what you’re told not to. This is rarified air, but don’t rule it out.