Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Positivity’ Category

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.

If you don’t feel lonely, you’ve succumbed to group-think. No, it’s worse – you’ve stopped thinking altogether. If you don’t feel lonely you’re doing it wrong.

Mainstream follows mainstream – they don’t know why, they just do. In truth, mainstream likes to be lead by the nose because it’s easy, because they can get through the week without caring. But not caring is not right.

But when you care, when you really care, when you care so much it hurts, you’ve got it right. Loneliness hurts because you see habitual mistakes on the horizon; it hurts because you see bureaucracy trump thinking; it hurts because you see hierarchy squelch creativity. Put simply – it hurts because you care enough to look and you’re smart enough to see.

But take comfort in your loneliness. Though sometimes it feels they want to poke your eyes out, deep down companies want you to see. Sure, they’re afraid of the ruckus, but they want you to wrestle with the familiar. Yes, they won’t sanction your detectiveness, but they want you to investigate the crime scene. Absolutely – though with plausible deniability – they want your inner Nostradamus to conger the future.

Every-day-all-day loneliness is too much, but a low dose is good. 100% loneliness festers into anger, but now-and-again loneliness is healthy.

Take stock in your loneliness – it’s a sign your brain is turned on. And it’s a sign you care.

Know what’s new in the new design. To do that, ask for a reuse analysis and divvy up newness into three buckets – new to your company, new to your industry, new to world. If the buckets are too big, jettison some newness, and if there’s something in the new-to-world bucket, be careful.

Create test protocols (how you’ll test) and minimum acceptance criteria (specification limits) before doing design work. It’s a great way to create clarity.

Build first – build the crudest possible prototype to expose the unfamiliar, and use the learning to shape the next prototypes and to focus analyses. Do this until you run out of time.

Cost and function are joined at the hip, so measure engineering on both.

Have a healthy dissatisfaction for success. Recognize success, yes, but also recognize it’s fleeting. Someone will obsolete your success, and it should be you.

To get an engineering team to believe in themselves, you must believe in them. To believe in them, you must believe in yourself.

Whether it’s innovation, creativity, continuous improvement, or discontinuous improvement, it’s all about cultural change, and cultural change is about change in behavior.

With the police state approach, detailed processes are created and enforced; rules are created and monitored; and training is dealt out and attendance taken. Yes, behavior is changed, but it’s fleeting. Take your eye off the process, old behavior slips through the fence; look the other way from the rules, old behavior clips the barbed wire and climbs over the wall. To squelch old behavior with the police state approach, gulag energy must be consistently applied.

To squelch is one thing, but to create lasting behavior change is another altogether. But as different as they are, there’s a blurry line of justice that flips innocent to guilty. And to walk the line you’ve got to know where it is:

• Apply force, yes, but only enough to prevent backsliding – like a human ratchet. Push much harder and heels dig in.
• The only thing slower than going slow is going too fast. (Remember, you’re asking people to change the why of their behavior.) Go slow to go fast.
• Set direction and stay the course, unless there’s good reason to change. And when the team comes to you with a reason, deem it a good one, and the cornerstone of trust is laid. (This is a game of trust, not control.)

But there are some mantras to maximize:

• Over emphasize the positive and overlook the negative.
• Praise in public.
• Don’t talk, do.

The first two stand on their own, but the third deserves reinforcement.

This isn’t about your words, it’s about your behavior. And that’s good because you have full authority over your behavior. Demonstrate the new behavior so everyone knows what it looks like. Lead the way with your actions. Show them how it’s done. For lasting change, change your behavior.

Even if changing your behavior influences only one person, you’re on your way. The best prison riots start with a single punch.

Today’s answer to everything is process and tools. Define the desired outcome; create the process; create the tools.  Problem solved.

But if the desired outcome is lasting change, deterministic processes and static tools won’t get us there.  Lasting change comes from people and their behavior.

Going forward, instead of creating process, create an environment of trust so people will investigate the unfamiliar; and instead of creating tools, create time – time for people to prototype the unfamiliar.

There will always be more work than time – no choice there. But, you can choose your mindset. You can choose to be overwhelmed; you can complain; and you can feel bad for yourself. You can also choose to invert it – you only work on vital projects because less important ones aren’t worth your time. Inverted, work is prioritized to make best use of your valuable time. When there’s too much work you can whine and complain, or you can value yourself – your choice

Most of us don’t choose what we work on, and sometimes it’s work we’ve done before. You can choose to look at as mind numbing tedium, or you can flip it. You can look at it as an opportunity to do your work a better way; to try a more effective approach; to invent something new. With repeat work you can dull it down or try to shine – your choice.

Sometimes we’re asked to do new and challenging work. You can choose to be afraid; you can make excuses; and you can call in sick for the next month. Or you can twist it to your advantage and see it as an opportunity to stretch. With challenging work you can stunt yourself or grow – your choice.

Negativity repels and positivity attracts – it’s time for you to choose.

You might be a superhero if…

• Using just dirt, rocks, and sticks, you can bring to life a product that makes life better for society.

• Using just your mind, you can radically simplify the factory by changing the product itself.

• Using your analytical skills, you can increase product function in ways that reinvent your industry.

• Using your knowledge of physics, you can solve a longstanding manufacturing problem by making a product insensitive to variation.

• Using your knowledge of Design for Manufacturing and Assembly, you can reduce product cost by 50%.

• Using your knowledge of materials, you can eliminate a fundamental factory bottleneck by changing what the product is made from.

• Using your curiosity and creativity, you can invent and commercialize a product that creates a new industry.

• Using your superpowers, you think you can fix a country’s economy one company at a time.

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.

Not Invented Here (NIH) is ever-present and misunderstood.

An operational definition of NIH: Group 1 creates new thinking that falls within the official domain of Group 2. When presented with the new thinking, Group 2 rejects it.

It is said Group 2 rejects new thinking because they’re threatened.   But that’s too high level to be helpful.  To get at the root of it, we need to dig.

First, some NIH:

• Your new thinking is out of alignment with my priorities. Even if I spend a lot of time to understand it, I’m afraid I’ll fail. I reject your new thinking.
• Your new thinking is out of alignment with responsibility.  (That thinking should come from me.) If I adopt your new thinking, I’ll look stupid, and I’m afraid I’ll fail. I reject your new thinking.
• Your new thinking is out of alignment with my knowledge. I’m afraid I’ll fail. I reject your new thinking.
• Your new thinking is out of alignment with how I do things. I’m afraid I’ll fail.  I reject your new thinking.

Now, some non-NIH :

• My priorities are out of alignment with your new thinking. Though I already have several good ideas that I don’t have time for, can you give me more details so together we can combine the best elements?
• My responsibility is out of alignment with your new thinking, but your new thinking is good. Can you give me more details so together we can investigate possibilities?
• My knowledge is out of alignment with your new thinking. Can you give me more details so we can learn together?
• My way of doing things is out of alignment with your new thinking. Can you give me more details so together we can rethink things?

The key to NIH reduction is to create alignment. With your new thinking not yet fully formed, ask Group 2 for their input. Better yet, ask for their help. Tell them what you don’t know, tell them what you have wrong, tell them how they have a better perspective because it’s their domain, and ask them to help improve it.  (All this is best done informally and off-line, at least to start.)

One little-known fact about NIH – it’s pronoun sensitive. Take care to replace I, you, and yours with we.

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.

The more work I do with innovation, the more I believe mindset is the most important thing.  Here’s what I believe:

Doing new doesn’t take a lot of time; it’s getting your mind ready that takes time.

Engineers must get over their fear of doing new.

Without a problem there can be no newness.

Problem definition is the most important part of problem solving.

If you believe it can work or it can’t, you’re right.

Activity is different from progress.

Thinking is progress.

In short, I believe state-of-the-art is limited by state-of-mind.