You Don't Know His Story

It was Bike 2 Work Week. Despite this salient and relatively unknown fact, I was honked at twice for biking in a traffic lane during my commute this week.

In one, I was commuting south on Albert St. (Regina, SK) on my bicycle after work. I only have to go on Albert for a short segment, but it's to go over a bridge. It's a narrow two lanes going south and no shoulder.

As an individual trying to be as safe as possible, I wear a helmet and a bright, reflective vest. I also bike right in the traffic lane. It's the safest thing I can do, and the law. When a vehicle comes up on me, I'm pretty sure the message is that I'm owning the lane, that they're not going to "squeeze" by me and that I'm predictable. I'm going to follow vehicle traffic laws. That's just the way I like it.

On this day, however, I was startled by a red SUV that drove by me really tight and honked for a full second as they pulled level with me. Ironically, they had a bike rack on the back of their vehicle. It scared me and immediately flooded me with adrenaline. For starters, it was loud. It was also close and the driver was clearly being aggressive.

While I've reminded myself a hundred times that there's no rational reason to engage in a debate with drivers, my first, instinctual reaction was to fight back. I want to yell, "it's my lane!" or "it's the law!." Perhaps a little more appropriate for the venue, I could have shown how long my middle finger was. I'm an even-keeled, objective guy, but this was one of those interesting sensations where the space between stimulus and response was nearly non-existent. To my credit, I stayed cool. I envy the cyclist that can smile and wave at that point. The driver kept going (his point, apparently, had been made). It took me 15 seconds to right-size my thoughts and be more objective about the situation.

That's a good recovery, I think. While 15 seconds is still too long, it's not the same as steaming about it for the entire bike ride, or going home and being short with my wife and kids. I was able to fairly effectively roll with someone else's bad day and not let it affect mine. I'm writing about it to tell you what cooled me off after 15 seconds. I said "You don't know his story."

I don't know if he was rushing because he's just found out water is leaking into his basement, or that his long-lost father said he'd be at the mall cell-phone kiosk at exactly 5:38, or if a cyclist once stole his grandmother's purse. Perhaps he didn't mean to honk. His hand slipped at a very inopportune time, or his poodle chose that time to put its paws on the steering wheel. Sure, I can assume he's an a**hole, but that's the thing that will ruin MY day. No thanks.

The image above is pulled from the Ministry of Transportation in Ontario. A very good site for appropriate cycling techniques.

Just... around... the corner

There's a school of management thought that says that if you push hard enough, if you just get over this particular hurdle, things will get better or will get back to normal. Right now, though, there's some particular, special, urgent needs that require that we burn the midnight oil.

In my experience, it rarely gets back to the way it was, in fact, the "special" needs will likely just keep coming. The pace of work incrementally accelerates, it never goes back. The way the organization is functioning establishes a new normal, and the culture of the organization is incapable of reversing course without a lot of hard work.

I was contacted by a headhunter today. As this was the first time I've ever been targeted (because of my title, I think), my interest was piqued. Turns out, one of our Saskatchewan crown corporations needs a director that they can insert in an office that is under siege and under-staffed. In fairness, they are being very transparent in what challenges they face, and I appreciate that. However, the description also enthusiastically presents the promised land that is sure to come, if only they could get this one critical position to put in some hard work...

Yeah. Just around the corner, I'm confident the culture will change. Never mind that working like mad was encouraged and reinforced yesterday. Today we're done the project.

Hey, I'm all for changing culture. I think it's the right fight, but we can't just say we want it. We have to live it. I'm yet to be convinced that the best path to get there is to talk about how we're going to get strategic while we burn the midnight oil.

The "Yes and" Rule

This is an improv rule with tons of value for everyday life. As I understand it, one of the fundamental rules for onstage interaction in improv is always agreeing with the premises others start. Instead of proposing a change in the plot that will take the story where you think it should go, you respond with "Yes and." You layer your ideas on top of ideas that are already there. This rule leads you down a path none of you anticipated or could have come up with alone. It also results in great humour.

We can benefit from accepting other's ideas and premises as we go through life, as well. If we're operating from a paradigm of trying to drive out our pre-determined outcome or we need to be in control, it's hard to say "Yes and." Rather, we filter the opinion or advice to fit our intended plan. Filtering, of course, means we just keep the pieces that align with our perspective. We discard the information that doesn't conform. That's unfortunate. We say "no" or "instead, how about..." instead of incorporating diverse perspectives and ideas.

As a supervisor, I typically have a notion of the recommendation I am expecting. With my desired outcome in tow, it feels unnatural to employ the "yes and" when something different is proposed. When I have employed this rule, we've discovered solutions that always surprise me and are better than anything I'd envisioned.

I'd like to propose that we establish a covenant between you and me right now. We agree to say "yes and" between us and with others when we're seeking a solution. I know it will result in some profound solutions. I think it might result in some humour, too.

The false comfort of attendance

There's a pattern I want to try and put my thumb on.

This pattern, as best as I can see, comes out of a deeply ingrained cultural need to show support. The task of actually being helpful takes a back seat. It doesn't seem to matter what actually happens. It's about smiling and nodding when a stakeholder is talking about their needs, not about addressing them.

The utility of this behaviour is evident. Stakeholders feel understood. You don't have to say no. When you're meeting face to face, everybody is friendly. There's no tension.

However, I have some frustrations:

1) Stakeholders are placated by activity that doesn't do what they actually need.
2) People in positions to make real things happen invest their time and energy in the superficial.

Please don't read that I'm against understanding your public. That's not it. Of course you should understand them. What I`m saying is that after you have that continual process underway, you should get on with responding.

What's happening too often is that people are absovling themselves of the real effort because they're good at relationship building. They can bounce from one warm and fuzzy meeting to the next, leaving a trail of impossible expectations in their wake.

Stakeholders are complicit too. They need to ask questions that go deeper than "Do you feel me?" How about, "What will you do? When will you do it? Are you committing the necessary resources?"

I'd like to think that by naming this behaviour, I can focus a more appropriate amount of my effort behind the scenes for real results. It may mean the meetings are a little less comfortable. I hope I can deliberately choose the long-term outcomes, even if it means a little less immediate gratification.

Two rules for innovation

1) Biggest mistake this year (as voted by your colleagues) wins a paid trip to Mexico
2) Intentional mistakes are not allowed

These rules are easy to implement. Spread over your workforce, the cost of the initiative approaches zero. The communication of the rules is simple. Within a day or two, a staff of thousands would know them by heart.

These rules are hard to say out loud if you're in a position to make this commitment. The rules feel risky. They feel like you're not being accountable... at least on the surface. You are flying in the face of a culture that values minimizing risk.

But really, what would happen? I think:

• A signal is transmitted - leadership is committed to change
• Individuals pursue the incentive
• Some fail. One lucky SOB really fails
• Some succeed. Some of the results can only be described as revolutionary.
• Most efforts fizzle, but we learn from them
• The organization benefits from thousands of employees choosing to apply discretionary effort

While it feels risky, the results actually seem pretty solid. I think economists would look at the incentive and the statistical probabilities for success and say it's a no-brainer. More likely, you hurt your business if you don't do it.

The challenge is to step away from the emotional reaction and go with the effort that produces results.

The Wisdom of Crowds

I'm trying to be a voracious reader. More realistically, I'm a persistent reader. I stick with it, page by page, until I finish.

This dogged determination has paid off with the completion of "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki. The concept he brought to life had considerable real-world applications and he examined some very important implications. I wish I could capture what Surowiecki so expertly describes and download it into the brains of my colleagues. In short, it has the potential to revolutionize the way we work.

TWoC does an excellent job of describing the reasons and manner in which a group of people can make consistently better judgements than individuals, even so-called experts in the field. Please think about that for a second. For most challenges, with the right conditions and framework, a collection of average minds is always more trustworthy than the one mind that is a focused expert on a particular issue. The crowd won't always be right, but they will be more often than the individual. When we're all looking at a loose set of variables and don't know what's next, statistically you should go with the crowd's wisdom, not the guy that looks confident.

The implications of this are enormous. We get caught up in status, appearances, experience or some other social signal and defer judgement to the individual we're confident will make the best choice. We're wrong. We're placing confidence in the wrong source. Surowiecki acknowledges in his afterword that, even after writing the book, he still felt anxious entrusting a crowd to make the right call. The conventional wisdom that's been burned into us has a powerful pull.

This illogical, gut feeling that makes us hesitate instead of openly inviting diverse opinion on matters of significance is a clue as to why we're stagnating. If you agree with the book, it still takes a "mind over emotion" persistence to put it into practice. That's hard work, and I'm not talking hours at your desk, I'm talking introspection.

My posts lately all seem to fall into a common pattern:

• name an issue
• ask if it's a problem
• if yes, summon the courage to change behaviour.

Are you deferring significant issues to an indivdual? Do they have the information to make good decisions? Do you have greater access to diverse perspective? Are you part of the crowd that could do better? Are you the individual that's convinced you know best? What happens if you engage some diverse perspective?

I don't know about you, but I get a little nervous when I ask these questions.

Instant capitulation vs. dying on the hill

We rarely seem to find a happy medium between these extreme choices in the workplace. Traditional behaviour dictates that you capitulate to your autocratic boss the moment they've stated their desire or intention. Doing anything but their plan will label you as a problem. You're essentially raising your hand and announcing that you are not a team player... for their game, anyway.

This roll-over response is well ingrained. When you consider the career challenges of later baby-boomers and Gen-Xers, it's even understandable. To paraphrase Linda Duxbury, when you're lucky enough to have a seat on the crowded bus, you don't complain about the rip in the seat. Well, the world has changed. There's now room on the bus, and an empty one comes in another 10 minutes. The power dynamic has shifted more in your favour.

Aside from this, instantly capitulating to your boss' ill-formed idea has never been in the best interest of what you're trying to accomplish. You're not safe anymore to just let someone else define your work and your direction. You'll still feel safe, sure. The problem is, that safe stance is very similar to the one taken by people who put bolts on cars. They feel completely justified saying "you get to run this how you want, even if I disagree," until the day they no longer have a job. Please don't accept that role.

Here's the simple first step. Become a student of the Instant Capitulation vs. Dying on the Hill continuum. Objectively examine your behaviour in the context of this scale. Do you like where you're at?

Step two, try something that isn't so much instant capitulation. Don't go all the way to Dying on the Hill. Make a small shift.

Here's some behaviours to think about:

• Don't tell anyone, just turn off your email for a morning. Re-engage at 11:45 and see if you can clear your inbox by noon.
• Propose an amendment to the specific wording your boss gave you for a letter.
• Push back on a deadline by saying "I've cleared Friday so that I can get my files under control," or "that task will have to wait until after my coaching session with Tom."
• Allow all your calls to go to voicemail. Set one hour aside to deal with them all.
• Unilaterally schedule a meeting in your boss' calendar called "Establishing Performance Expectations with (insert your name here)"

In my experience, establishing the way YOU want to work allows you to benefit from the roll-over response. No one else is spending as much time thinking about processes and what it takes to be effective. Rather than engage with you in a rational discussion about why you are doing this (which would be immensely helpful), they'll do their own capitulation.

Once again, I'm advising something that doesn't particularly feel good for the ego, but it should be just about right for your soul and your sanity.