Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Authentic’ Category

When the train is getting ready to pull out of the station, and you know in your heart the destination isn’t right, what do you do? If you still had time to talk to the conductor, would you? What would you say? If your railroad is so proud of getting to the destination on time it cannot not muster the courage to second guess the well-worn time table, is all hope lost?

The trouble with thinking the destination isn’t right is that it’s an opinion. Your opinion may be backed by years of experience, good intuition, and a kind heart, but it’s still an opinion. And the rule with opinions – if there’s one, there are others. And as such, there’s never consensus on the next destination.

But even as the coal is being shoveled into the firebox and the boiler pressure is almost there, there’s still time to take action. If the train hasn’t left the station, there’s still time. Don’t let the building momentum stop you from doing what must be done. Yes, there’s the sunk cost of lining everything up and getting ready to go, but, no, that doesn’t justify a journey down the wrong track. Find the conductor and bend her ear. Be clear, be truthful, and be passionate. Tell her you’re not sure it’s the wrong destination, but you’re sure enough to pull the pressure relieve valve and take some time to think more about what’s about to happen.

No one wants to step in front of a moving train. It’s no fun for anyone, and dangerous for the brave soul standing in the tracks. And it’s a failure of sorts if it comes to that. The best way to prevent a train from heading down the wrong track is candid discussions about the facts and clarity around why the journey should happen. But we need to do a better job at having those tough discussions earlier in the process.

Unfortunately in business today, the foul underbelly of alignment blocks the difficult decisions that should happen. We’ve mapped disagreement to foul play and amoral behavior, and our organizations make it clear that supporting the right answer, right from the get-go, is the right answer. The result is premature alignment and unwarranted alignment without thoughtful, effective debate on the merits. For some reason, it’s no longer okay to disagree.

Difficult discussions are difficult. And prolonging them only makes them more difficult. In fact, that’s sometimes a tactic – push off the tough conversations until the momentum rolls over all intensions to have them.

Hold onto the fact that your company wants the tough conversations to have them. In the short term, things are more stressful, but in the long term thing are more profitable. Remember, though sometimes bureaucracy makes it difficult, you are paid to add your thinking into the mix. And keep in mind you have a valuable perspective that deserves to be valued.

When the train is leaving the station, it’s the easiest time to recognize the tough discussions need to happen but it’s the most difficult time to have them. Earlier in the project it’s easier to have them and far more difficult to recognize they should happen.

Going forward, modify your existing processes to cut through inappropriate momentum building. And better still, use your knowledge of how your organization works to create mechanisms to trigger difficult conversations and prevent premature alignment.

Independence is important; independence is powerful; it’s dangerous; it’s threatening. But, above all, independence is about control.

If you believe it’s a zero-sum-game, independence is adverserial – more for you, less for me. It’s give-and-take without the give – I don’t give you control, and you take it anyway.

If you believe there’s no trust, independence is scary. If you take initiative and demonstrate independence, you’re afraid I’ll repond negatively because you took control.

If you believe there’s no mutual respect, independence is spiteful. You give less control than you could and manipulate to take even less; I take more than the situation calls and politic to secure even more.

If you believe there’s a surplus, independence is empowering – more for you, more for me, more for everyone.

If you believe there’s trust, independence is exilerating. When you take initiative I tell the world you deserve all that control, and more.

If you believe there’s mutual respect, independence is nurturing. I push you to take more control, and you challenge yourself to do just that.

What do you believe?

Alignment is all the rage. The thinking goes: If we’re all pulling in the same direction, we’ll get their faster. There’s truth to that – the boat does go faster with more oars and more backs pulling on them. And as long as the boat’s heading in the right direction, alignment holds water. But here’s the dark side – while we’re all pulling on our own oar, we’re all sitting in the same boat. And when the boat is scuttled by a fast moving storm, we all go down together – in alignment.

Alignment, overdone, is not resilient. One longboat lost at sea doesn’t spell the end of for the clan, unless there’s only one boat. With the remaining boats, the Jarl can continue with trading neighboring clans while the shipwrights turn oaks into a beautiful replacement. Certainly a setback, but the Vikings survived. But more than survival, it’s also an opportunity for the shipwrights to try a new technology and make the new longboat faster than the old one.

Consensus isn’t the same as alignment, it but it too is in fashion and it too has a dark underbelly. Yes, it creates convergence on a go-forward plan, and, yes, everyone knows the plan and is good with it. But consensus dulls to the lowest common denominator and creates middle-of-the-of-the-road plans devoid of edge, sizzle, and excitement. Consensus reduces diversity of thinking, and, therefore, reduces resilience.

Consensus, unbridled, reduces thinking to a single strain which can be completely wiped out by an unforeseen antibiotic of change. But with consensus in check, many strains of thinking swim about the organization and no one environmental factor can wipe them out. When protected from consensus, diversity of thinking spawns parallel competing mindsets which improve corporate survivability.

Businesses are too complex to predict all possible bacterial and viral attacks. And even if you could, there are just too many too many of them. It’s far too costly for an organization to be robust to all possibilities.

It’s time to acknowledge knowable threats will find you at unpredictable times. And it’s time to evolve into a resilient organization.

From the outside it’s unclear how things happen; but from the inside it’s clear as day. No, it’s not your bulletproof processes; it’s not your top down strategy; and it’s not your operating plans. It’s your people.

At some level everything happens like this:

An idea comes to you that makes little sense, so you drop it. But it comes again, and then again. It visits regularly over the months and each time reveals a bit of its true self. But still, it’s incomplete. So you walk around with it and it eats at you; like a parasite, it gets stronger at your expense. Then, it matures and grows its voice – and it talks to you. It talks all the time; it won’t let you sleep; it pollutes you; it gets in the way; it colors you; and finally you become the human embodiment of the idea.

And then it tips you. With one last push, it creates enough discomfort to roll over the fear of acknowledging its existence, and you set up the meeting.

You call the band and let them know it’s time again to tour. You’ve been through it before and you all know deal. You know your instruments and you know how to harmonize. You know what they can do (because they’ve done it before) and you trust them. You sing them the song of your idea and they listen. Then you ask them to improvise and sing it back, and you listen. The mutual listening moves the idea forward, and you agree to take a run at it.

You ask how it should go. The lead vocalist tells you how it should be sung; the lead guitar works out the fingering; the drummer beats out the rhythm; and the keyboardist grins and says this will be fun. You all know the sheet music and you head back to your silos to make it happen.
In record time, the work gets done and you get back together to review the results. As a group you decide if the track is good enough play in public. If it is, you set up the meeting with a broader audience to let them hear your new music. If it’s not, you head back to the recording studio to amplify what worked and dampen what didn’t. You keep re-recording until your symphony is ready for the critics.

Things happen because artists who want to make a difference band together and make a difference. With no complicated Gantt chart, no master plan, no request for approval, and no additional resources, they make beautiful music where there had been none. As if from thin air, they create something from nothing. But it’s not from thin air; it’s from passion, dedication, trust, and mutual respect.

The business books over-complicate it. Things happen because people make them happen – it’s that simple.

There’s a natural hierarchy to work.  Your job, if you choose to accept it is to climb the ladder of hierarchy rung-by-rung. Here’s how to go about it:

Level 1. Work you can say no to – Say no to it. Say no effectively as you can, but say it. Saying no to level 1 work frees you up for the higher levels.

Level 2. Work you can get someone else to do – Get someone else to do it. Give the work to someone who considers the work a good reach, or a growth opportunity. This isn’t about shirking responsibility, it’s about growing young talent. Maybe you can spend a little time mentoring and the freed up time doing higher level work. Make sure you give away the credit so next time others will ask you for the opportunity to do this type of work for you.

Level 3. Work you’ve done before, but can’t wiggle out of – Do it with flair, style, and efficiency; do it differently than last time, then run away before someone asks you to do it again. Or, do it badly so next time they ask someone else to do it. Depending on the circumstance, either way can work.

Level 4. Work you haven’t done before, but can’t wiggle out of – Come up with a new recipe for this type of work, and do it so well it’s unassailable. This time your contribution is the recipe; next time your contribution is to teach it to someone else. (See level 2.)

Level 5. Work that scares others – Figure out why it scares them; break it into small bites; and take the smallest first bite (so others can’t see the failure).  If it works, take a bigger bite; if it doesn’t, take a different smallest bite.  Repeat, as needed. Next time, since you’ve done it before, treat it like level 3 work. Better still, treat it like level 2.

Level 6. Work that scares you – Figure out why it scares you, then follow the steps for level 5.

Level 7. Work no one knows to ask you to do – You know your subject matter better than anyone, so figure out the right work and give it a try.  This flavor is difficult because it comes at the expense of work you’re already signed up to do and no one is asking you to do it. But you should have the time because you followed the guidance in the previous levels.

Level 8. Work that obsoletes the very thing that made your company successful – This is rarified air – no place for the novice. Ultimately, someone will do this work, and it might as well be you.  At least you’ll be able to manage the disruption on your own terms.

In the end, your task, if you choose to accept it, is to migrate toward the work that obsoletes yourself. For only then can you start back at level 1 on the ladder of your own making.

When you want to recognize people for their wonderful work, dollar-for-dollar, the best value on the planet is pizza.

Research shows monetary rewards aren’t all that rewarding, and the thinking carries with pizza – you can buy bargain brand, wood-fired, free-range, vegan, or designer, the power of pizza is independent of pedigree. The power of pizza is about the forethought and intention to make the celebration happen. You must realize that people made the extra effort; you must decide you want to tell them you appreciate their work; you must figure out the leaders of the folks that did the work so you can let them know their people did a great job and that you’re buying them pizza; you must schedule the venue (the venue doesn’t actually matter); send out the invitation; order the pizza; and host the celebration.   With pizza, you spend your time on behalf of their behavior, and that’s special.

Here are the rules of pizza:

Rule 1 – Buy 50% more pizza than is reasonable.  They didn’t skimp on their effort, so don’t skimp on the pizza.  When you buy extra pizza, you tell people they matter; you tell them they’re worth it; you tell them that no one will go hungry on your watch.  One good outcome – they take the extra pizza back to the office, their coworkers smell it, and ask where they got it.  Now, they get to tell the story of how, out of the blue, they were invited to a pizza party to recognize their excellent performance.  But the best possible outcome is the extra pizza is taken home and given to the kids. The kids get pizza, and the proud parent gets to tell the story of their special lunch.  Leftover pizza has real power.

Rule 2 – Buy a small salad.  For those that want to celebrate yet watch their waste line, salad says you thought of them.  But don’t buy a big salad because even the most vigilant salad-eaters celebrate with pizza. (See rule 1.)

Rule 3 – There is a natural hierarchy of drinks, and higher is better.  At the top are beer and wine (no need to explain); next is fully caffeinated, full calorie soda; next is diet soda; next is flavored seltzer (it’s the bubbles that matter).  If you’re considering anything less than seltzer, don’t.

Rule 4 – Keep the agenda simple.  Here’s a good template: 1. Thank you for your amazing work.  2. What kind of pizza do you want?

Rule 5 – Use pizza sparingly. It’s power is inversely proportional to frequency.

People don’t want compensation for their extra special work, they want recognition.  And pizza could be the purest form of recognition – simple, straightforward, and tangible.

In reality, pizza has nothing to do with pizza, and has everything to do with honest, heartfelt recognition of exceptional work.

Image credit – Jeff Kubina.

I’ve had some great teachers in my life, and I’m grateful for them.  They taught me their hard-earned secrets, their simple secrets.  Though each had their own special gifts, they all gave them in the same way – they asked the simplest questions.

Today’s world is complex – everything interacts with everything else; and today’s pace is blistering – it’s tough to make time to understand what’s really going on.  To battle the complexity and pace, force yourself to come up with the simplest questions.  Here are some of my favorites:

For new products:

• Who will buy it?
• What must it do?
• What should it cost?

For new technologies:

• What problem are you trying to solve?
• How will you know you solved it?
• What work hasn’t been done before?

For new business models:

• Why are you holding onto your decrepit business model?

For problems:

• Can you draw a picture of it on one page?
• Can you make it come and go?

For decisions:

• What is the minimum viable test?
• Why not test three or four options at the same time?

For people issues:

• Are you okay?
• How can I help you?

For most any situation:

• Why?

These questions are powerful because they cut through the noise, but their power couples them to fear and embarrassment – fear that if you ask you’ll embarrass someone.  These questions have the power to make it clear that all the activity and hype is nothing more than a big cloud of dust heading off in the wrong direction. And because of that, it’s scary to ask these questions.

It doesn’t matter if you steal these questions directly (you have my permission), twist them to make them your own, or come up with new ones altogether.  What matters is you spend the time to make them simple and you summon the courage to ask.

Image credit — Montecruz Foto.

Things are cyclic, but there seems to be no end to the crusade of continuous improvement. (Does anyone remember how the Crusades turned out?) If only to take the edge off, there needs to be an injection of absurdity.

There’s no pressure with absurdity – no one expects an absurd idea to work.  If you ask for an innovative idea, you’ll likely get no response because there’s pressure from the expectation the innovative idea must be successful. And if you do get a response, you’ll likely get served a plain burrito of incremental improvement garnished with sour cream and guacamole to trick your eye and doused in hot sauce to trick your palate. If you ask for an absurd idea, you get laughter and something you’ve never heard before.

When drowning in the sea of standard work, it takes powerful mojo to save your soul.  And the absurdity jetpack is the only thing I know with enough go to launch yourself to the uncharted oasis of new thinking.  Immense force is needed because continuous improvement has serious mass – black hole mass. Like with light, a new idea gets pulled over the event horizon into the darkness of incremental thinking.  But absurdity doesn’t care.  It’s so far from the center lean’s pull is no match.

But to understand absurdity’s superpower is to understand what makes things absurd.  Things are declared absurd when they cut against the grain of our success.  It’s too scary to look into the bright sun of our experiences, so instead of questioning their validity and applicability, the idea is deemed absurd.  But what if the rules have changed and the fundamentals of last year’s success no longer apply?  What if the absurd idea actually fits with the new normal?  In a strange Copernican switch, holding onto to what worked becomes absurd.

Absurd ideas sometimes don’t pan out.  But sometimes they do.  When someone laughs at your idea, take note – you may be on to something.  Consider the laughter an artifact of misunderstanding, and consider the misunderstanding a leading indicator of the opportunity to reset customer expectations.  And if someone calls your idea absurd, give them a big hug of thanks, and get busy figuring out how to build a new business around it.

Every day is a meeting-to-meeting sprint with no time for some of the favorite fundamentals like the bathroom and food.  Though crazy, it’s the norm and no longer considered crazy.   But it is crazy.  When you’re too busy to answer emails that’s one thing, but when you’re too busy to realize answering email isn’t progress, that’s a problem.

Our in-boxes are full; our plates are full; our calendars are full. But our souls are empty.

You’re clear on what must get done over the next 48 hours, but the pace is too fast to know why the work is important in the first place. (One of the fastest way to complete a task is to deem it unimportant and don’t do it – all of the done with none of the work.) But it’s worse.  It’s too fast to do the work no one is asking you to do, and it’s too fast to do the work you were born to do.

We have confused activity with progress; and with all the activity, we’ve forgotten what it feels like to think.  We need a retreat.

The perfect retreat eliminates distractions and gives people time to think.  After a nice Sunday flight into Boston, it’s a calm two hour coach ride to rural New Hampshire. (Done right, a coach is soothing.)  After pickup it’s a fifteen minute drive to a remote trail head.  With a pack on your back, it’s a five minute walk to a big, remote cabin.  No cell service, no power, no interruptions.

As you enter the cabin, you unload all your electronics into bin (Yes, your smart phone goes in the bin.) which is locked away for the remainder of the retreat.  You race to get the best bunk, drop your gear, and share a meal with your fellow over achievers. (Y es, the non-disclosures are signed so you can actually talk to each other.)

The first day is all about recognizing the discomfort that comes with no distractions and your natural tendency to create distraction to sooth your discomfort.  The objective is to help you remember what if feels like to have more than 30 seconds of uninterrupted time.  Then, once you remember, it’s time to actually think.

There are no video conferencing capabilities (or electricity) in the cabin, so all work is done the old-fashioned way – face-to-face.  The objective is to help you remember the depth, complexity, and meaning that come when working with actual faces.  Yes, there’s good facilitated discussion, but the topics aren’t as important as remembering how to share and trust.

There is ritualistic work of cooking, cleaning, splitting the wood, and stoking the fire.  The objective is to remember what it feels like to connect the mind to the body and to connect with others.  And, there’s a group hike every day to remember what it feels like to be grounded in the natural world.  (Sometimes we forget the business world is actually part of the natural world.)

After the rituals and hikes have done their magic, the right discussions start to emerge, and deep contemplation dances with deep conversation.  Though there’s a formal agenda, no matter.  With the group’s awaking, the right agenda emerges.

At the end of the retreat, there’s immense sadness.  This is a sign of importance and deep learning.  And after the hugs and tears, there’s a spontaneous commitment to do it next year.  With eyes dried, it’s off the bus station and then to the airport.

You don’t have to wait for the perfect retreat to start your journey.  Start your practice by carving out an hour a day and set a recurring meeting with yourself and turn off your email. And start by asking yourself why.  Those two tricks will set you on your way.

And if you’re interested in a real retreat, let me know.

There’s a lot buzz around reinvention and innovation. There are countless articles on tools and best practices; many books on the best organizational structure, and plenty on roles and responsibilities.   There’s so much stuff that it’s tough to define what’s missing, even when what’s missing is the most important part. Whether its creativity, innovation, or doing new, the most important and missing element is your behavior.

Two simple rules to live by: 1) Look inside. 2) Then, change your behavior.

To improve innovation, people typically look to nouns for the answers – meeting rooms, work spaces, bean bag chairs, and tools, tools, tools.  But the answer isn’t nouns, the answer is verbs.  Verbs are action words, things you do, behaviors.  And there are two behaviors that make the difference: 1.) Take new action. 2) Speak new ideas.

To take new action, you’ve got to be perceptive, perceptive about what’s blocking you from taking new action.  The biggest blocker of new action is anxiety, and you must learn what anxiety feels like.  Thought the brain makes anxiety, it’s easiest to perceive anxiety in the body.  For me, anxiety manifests as a cold sinking feeling in my chest.  When I recognize the coldness, I know I’m anxious.  Your task is to figure out your anxiety’s telltale heart.

To learn what anxiety feels like, you’ve got to slow down enough to actually feel.  The easiest way for overbooked high performers to make time to slow down is to schedule a recurring meeting with yourself.  Schedule a recurring 15 minute meeting (Daily is best.) in a quiet place.  No laptop, no cell phone, no paper, no pencil, no headphones – just you and quiet sitting together.  Do this for a week and you’ll learn what anxiety feels like.

To take new action, you’ve got to be receptive, receptive to the anxiety.  You’ll naturally judge anxiety as bad, but that’s got to change.  Anxiety isn’t bad, it’s just unpleasant.  And in this case, anxiety is an indicator of importance.  When you block yourself from taking an important action, you create anxiety. So when you feel anxiety, be receptive – it’s your body telling you the yet-to-be-taken action is important.

After receptive, it’s time to be introspective.  Look inside, turn toward your anxiety, and understand why the task is important.  Typically it’s important because it threatens the status quo. Maybe it would dismantle your business model, or maybe it will unglue the foundation of your company, or maybe something smaller yet threatening.  Once you understand its importance, it’s time to use the importance as the forcing function to start the task first thing tomorrow morning.

The second magic behavior is to speak new ideas.  To speak new ideas, you’ve got to be perceptive to the reason you self censor.  Before you can un-censor, you’ve got to be aware you self censor.  It’s time to get in touch with your unsaid ideas.  Now that you no longer need the 15 minute meeting for taking new action, change the agenda to speaking new ideas. Again, no laptop, cell phone, and headphones, but this time it’s you and quiet figuring out what if feels like right before you self-censor.

In your meeting, remember back to a brainstorming session when you had a crazy idea, but decided to bury it.  Get in touch with what your body felt like as you stopped yourself from speaking your crazy idea.  That’s the feeling you want to be aware of because it’s a leading indicator of your self censoring behavior.

Next, it’s time to be receptive, receptive to the idea that just as you choose to self censor, you can choose to stop your self censorship, and receptive to the idea that there’s a deep reason for your behavior.

Now, it’s on to introspective.  When you have a crazy idea, why do you keep your mouth shut?  Turn toward the behavior and you may see you self censor because you don’t want to be judged.  If you utter a crazy idea, you may be afraid you’ll be judged as crazy or incompetent.  Likely, you’re afraid saying your idea out loud will change something – what other people think of you.

There are a couple important notions to help you battle your fear of judgment. First, you are not your ideas.  You can have wild ideas and be highly competent, highly valued, and a good person.  Second, other people’s judgment is about them, not you. They are threatened by your idea, and instead of looking inside, they protect themselves by trying to knock you down.

There’s a lot of nuance and complexity around creativity and innovation, but it doesn’t have to be that way.  Really, it comes down to four things: own your behavior, look inside, take new action, and speak new ideas.  It’s that simple.

You’re busier than ever, and almost every day you’re asked to do more. And usually it’s more with less – must improve efficiency so you can do more of what you already do.  We want you to take this on, but don’t drop anything.

Improving your efficiency is good, and it’s healthy to challenge yourself to do more, but there’s a whole other side to things – a non-efficiency-based approach, where instead of asking how can you do more things, it’s about how you can do things that matter more.

And from this non-efficiency-based framework, the question “What aren’t you doing?” opens a worm hole to a new universe, and in this universe meaning matters.  In this universe “What aren’t you doing?” is really “What aren’t you doing that is truly meaningful to you?”

[But before I’m accused of piling on the work, even if it’s meaningful work, I’ll give you an idea to free up time do more things that matter. First, change your email settings to off-line mode so no new messages pop on your screen and interrupt you. In the morning manually send and receive your email and answer email for 30 minutes; do the same in the afternoon. This will force you to triage your email and force you to limit your time. This will probably free up at least an hour a day.]

Now we’ll step through a process to figure out the most important thing you’re not doing.

Here is a link to a template to help you with the process —  Template – What Aren’t You Doing.

The first step is to acknowledge there are important things you’re not doing and make a list. They can be anything – a crazy project, a deeper relationship, personal development, an adventure, or something else.

To make the list, ask these questions:

I always wanted to ____________.

I always wished I could __________.

Write down your answers.  Now run the acid test to make sure these things are actually meaningful. Ask yourself:

When I think of doing this thing, do I feel uncomfortable or or a little scared?

If they don’t make you a little uncomfortable, they’re not meaningful.  Go back to the top and start over.  For the ones that make you uncomfortable, choose the most important, enter it in the template, and move to the next step.

In the second step you acknowledge there’s something in the way. Ask yourself:

I can’t do my most meaningful thing because _______________.

Usually it’s about time, money, lack of company support, goes against the norm, or it’s too crazy. On the template write down your top two or three answers.

In the third step you transform from an external focus to an internal one, and acknowledge what’s in the way is you. (For the next questions you must temporarily suspend reality and your very real day-to-day constraints and responsibilities.) Ask yourself:

If I started my most meaningful thing tomorrow I would feel uncomfortable that ____________.

Write down a couple answers, then ask:

The reason I would feel uncomfortable about my most  meaningful thing is because I __________. (Must be something about you.) 

Write down one or two. Some example reasons: you think your past experiences predict the future; you’re afraid to succeed; you don’t like what people will think about you; or the meaningful stuff contradicts your sense of self.

Spend an hour a week on this exercise until you understand the reasons you’re not doing your most meaningful thing. Then, spend an hour a week figuring out how to overcome your reasons for not doing. Then, spend an hour a week, or more, doing your most meaningful thing.