WISDOM FROM FRIENDS: BABY STEPS

This is the second of three offerings of wisdom in honor of a New Year and Decade.

 

This insight sprang from our family’s holiday tradition in our family of giving books we think our loved ones will find meaningful and useful. Our daughter gave us a book by Robert Maurer called One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way. It is a short, easy-to-read guide with practical advice on how to begin life’s longest journeys — with the proverbial single step.

 

Maurer is a psychologist and consultant who believes that the Kaizen philosophy of small, continuous improvement help our brains shortcut fear and the “fight or flight” reactions inspired by big change.

 

One of the suggestions we found particularly useful was the idea of “visualizing” your way to positive change. For example, we often hear from people who tell us they want to engage in authentic conversations at work, but are stymied by the traditional organizational cultures that reward manipulation and compliance as a means of getting along and getting ahead. Speaking the truth, especially to those who we see as having “power” over us, feels too risky. Consequently, even though people can see the business benefits of telling the truth with goodwill, owning their own contribution to a problem and raising difficult issues, the fear of doing it keeps them stuck.

 

One of the ways to make the change feel less daunting is to spend only a minute or two each day imagining an authentic conversation with a colleague, peer or supervisor. These mental mini-rehearsals are safe, and kick start the brain into a new habit. In one minute, you can imagine what you might say or do differently in specific situations, and reflect on how outcomes might be different if you do.

 

The next step might be equally small, yet powerfully effective. Think about one small action you could do each day, or even a few times a week, that would inch you along in your desire for authentic conversations. For example, you might vow that at least once a day, you will tell the truth as you know it, with compassion and goodwill, in a situation where you might once have kept silent instead.

 

Maurer says these tiny, incremental steps trick the brain into thinking, “This is such a small change, it’s no big deal. Nothing to be afraid of here.”

 

And it is in these small changes that big transformation slowly unfolds.

SEMCO: A case study in distributing organizational power, Part Three

(Continued from Part 2)

 

Synopsis: Ricardo Semler, inherited his father’s company in 1982. He was 24 years old. After his singular focus on work created a serious health crisis, he decided something had to change. Over several years, he dismantled the hierarchy of his traditional organization to create an adult culture of empowered workers.  Today Semco employees decide when it makes the most sense for them to work and where. They choose their own leaders, define their own schedules, and set their own salaries.




The purpose of work at Semco, Ricardo insists, “is to make workers, whether the working stiff or a senior executive, feel good about life.”

 

Sounds crazy? Here are a few facts about Semco so you can judge for yourself:

• The company that employed 100 employees in 1982 as of 2007 has 3,000 workers


• Semco now represents diverse ventures including manufacturing, mixing equipment, making cooling towers, technology, managing Latin American properties, and environmental consulting.


• It experienced a 900 percent growth in 10 years.


• In Brazil, Semco increased its ranking from 56^th to 4^th in machinery operations.


• It ranks No. 1 in the service industries in which it is active.


• Turnover has been less than 2 percent over 25 years.


• Operating this way has generated a 27 percent growth rate for 25 years, without public investment and in spite of Brazil’s erratic economy.


• The $4 million company Ricardo inherited is now worth more than $220 million

 

Semco is an unparalleled example of how abandoning traditional management strategies and widely distributing organizational power can lead to phenomenal business results — and create meaning and purpose at work.

 

Says Ricardo: “People want to work when work is not the enemy of personal freedom and legitimate self-interest. Our [organizational] ‘architecture’ is really the sum of all the conventional business practices we avoid. The purpose of work is to make workers, whether the working stiff or a senior executive, feel good about life.”

 

Treating his employees like adults, helping them understand the marketplace they live in and trusting them to get results has been a remarkable success formula t Semco.

OF OXEN AND INNOVATION

The principals of scientific management are aimed at efficiency and finding one best way to do something. By its nature this means reductionist thinking, breaking things down, streamlining, making things lean. Efficiency is king.

In his book, The One Best Way, Robert Kanigel writes that Frederick Taylor could be the most influential philosopher of the 20^th century — scientific management has become the water and we are the fish. We have applied these philosophies in education, healthcare, social service systems and our own personal lives. Do you drive to work or the store the same way all the time? Of course! You go the one best way.

The purpose here is not to bash Taylor or efficiency. Both have made significant contributions to our world of work, society and “economies of scale”. The problem is that scientific management was conceived to quash innovation and experimentation – find one best way and repeat it over and over.

In a marketplace owned by the customer, innovation is both longed for and necessary. Innovation by its nature requires expansive acts. It demands experimentation and creative thinking, which means risks will be taken and mistakes will be made. Innovation and creativity demand open access to information, interaction and feedback, the antithesis of what Taylor demanded when he wrote The Principles of Scientific Management: “Under our system, the workman is told just what he is to do and how he is to do it.  Any improvement which he makes upon orders given him is futile to success.”

Even today, that is the message disseminated in many workplaces: Managers figure things out, core workers do as they are told. Managers watch to “make sure” and core workers avoid scrutiny and getting caught in a ‘mistake.’

What gets lost in that dynamic is the benefit of collective thinking. At about the same time Taylor was developing and defending his principles, a man named Francis Galton was conducting research on the other side of the world that supports the power of many minds. In weight-judging competition at the annual show of the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition in Plymouth, people were given the chance to guess the weight of an ox after slaughter and dressing. Those who guessed most successfully received prizes.While no one correctly guessed its exact weight — 1197 pounds — the average of the 800 attempts was only one pound off: 1198 pounds.

Ever so slowly organizations are beginning to wake up to the simple truth illustrated in this study and many since — the collective possesses far greater wisdom than any individual. James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, says three things are necessary to harvest collective wisdom.

1. Organizations need a way to aggregate many individual judgments to produce collective wisdom. One example of is using whole system, large group engagement for deliberating and resolving difficult issues.


2. The group benefits from diversity, which allows people to look at a problem with multiple perspectives. Bringing customers, suppliers, interested third parties and radical thinkers into deliberation processes is a way to achieve maximum diversity


3. People should be encouraged to think for themselves rather than constantly taking cues from each other. Authentic conversations help create a culture of informed collaboration where mistakes are seen as learning experiences and differences are valued.

When many perspectives are valued over the one, rather than imposing one perspective on the many, the organization will begin seeing the fruits of collective wisdom.

AN ADMIRAL SAYS 'AYE, AYE' TO THE SAILORS

One of the best places to start to foster innovation is at the frontline — engaging the people who do the work about the ways they do the work. That sounds too simple to create transformation, but sometimes the simplest actions are the catalysts for powerful results.

A friend recently shared with us a great example of this in a Fast Company article about a Navy admiral, D. Michael Abrashoff. Working with his sailors, Abrashoff transformed his ship, the USS Benfold, from a hierarchical organization where underperforming sailors dreaded their time at sea into a ship with committed sailors and a reputation for being among the best in the Pacific fleet. He used three unconventional tools for the transformation:

1. Dismantle hierarchy


2. Constantly ask his crew “Is there a better way to do this?”


3. Build fun into their work experience

His overarching philosophy when he took command of the Benfold was to shift the crew’s focus from being order takers who constantly looked upward for direction to an organization built on purpose and personal accountability. In the process, he saved the Navy hundreds of thousands of dollars, engendered the commitment and creativity of his crew, and enhanced his career — even though the latter result was something far from his intention.

One of the first things he did was schedule time to interview every member of the crew, making sure to ask: “What would you differently around here if you could?” Their answers not only created a better espirit de corps, it also improved the ship’s combat readiness. He also found out what their lives’ goals are and took steps to help his guys achieve them.

And his ultimate secret ingredient — make sure people were having fun. That’s not always easy to do on a ship that is on the seas for months at a time, but he made it a priority. For example, his supply officer found pumpkins in the Middle East so the crew could have a carving contest. He found an Elvis impersonator to put on a Christmas show.

By focusing on the people who do the work, the ship became one of the most innovative in the fleet. Any organization that is looking for ways to innovate should salute this guy.