Archive for April, 2010
We Trusted You!
Watching the US Senate Congressional hearings this week, I almost felt as if I were at the cinema watching a fictional drama. One of those movies where the villains were conspiring to wreak global havoc and the world was rescued by a heroic figure that brought it to light. I wish it were fiction, but alas, there were no heroes, and in fact, there may have been some villains indeed, and many of us can attest to the havoc wrought on the global economy. Sadly, the villains were people who had the trust of many and that trust was abused. While this issue seems to cut across multiple arenas of betrayed trust, be they elected, ordained, or contracted, they all manifest tribal behavior. This behavior has a broad range of nuances, but a common gene is present, the gene that creates hubris and disrespect for those they were supposed to serve and protect. This betrayal of trust will bring on anger and wrath that will swing the hammer of cynicism and regulation, and that is a shameful consequence. It is a saddening consequence for the overwhelming numbers of good, principled, decent, serving individuals, be they legislators, priests, automakers, or bankers.
But the hearings this week were with the top of the Goldman Sachs house, and the anger it has unleashed has only begun to unfold. What we witnessed was tribal behavior, one with its own language, heroes, culture, and their own paradigms of what is right or wrong. I won’t use the word values because that word is often aligned with positive and ethical behavior, and it does not seem to fit what we observed. Tribal behavior is fascinating, particularly, if you can be a spectator rather than a participant. It is almost inescapable in organizations where cultures that emerged are shaped by organizational or functional objectives, recognition, rewards, and a sense of entity that breeds an entitled behavior. These inescapable affinities are so powerful that they can create intellectual inbreeding, powerful paradigms, and degenerative “we versus them behaviors.” When really bad, winners display hubris and disrespect for others, and losers retreat into denial, protectiveness, or nostalgia. Scary, isn’t it?
Maybe we’re at the cusp of a new era. Historically, sea changes can start just like what we may be witnessing. Some are called revolutions because the rate of change accelerates from the gradual movement from one set of parameters and behaviors to another. The current economic parameters are undeniably multipolar and there is the juxtaposed coexistence of strength and fragility. A thread unraveling in Greece or Spain can tug hard at our pessimism and constrain our appetite for opportunities. Overlay that multi-polarity and interconnected fragility with contempt and mistrust of those who should be trusted to advise and guide our investments, a retreat into investment shrinkage is not hard to imagine.
Years ago, Warren Buffett warned us that the complex instruments that had no value, but derived their price from other instruments and risk analyses, would eventually bring catastrophe, even without disreputable actions. The Goldman Sachs hearings demonstrated legally scripted double-speak, tribal arrogance, and a belief that anything goes, as long as cleverness trumps all. What was not evident was any sense of social responsibility or remorse for undeniable harm done. History has not treated such behaviors with forgiveness.
As we look ahead, what about our organizations?
• Do our customers trust us?
• Do we earn that trust?
• How do we make decisions that have social or societal consequences?
• How do we strike a balance between principles and profits, growth and damage, today and tomorrow, or financial rewards and ethical responsibilities?
• Are our values clear to our employees, customers, and communities? Would an impartial observer conclude likewise?
• How much regulation have we earned? At what cost?
Thoughts?
How Did You Get So Ubiquitous?
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” – Winston Churchill, House of Commons, August 20, 1940. Many recognized this as the timeless phrase describing the valiant effort by the British Royal Air Force Fighter Command during August 18th, 1940. It has come to represent the Battle of Britain and lives among the legendary victories, Agincourt, Trafalgar, and Waterloo. The Battle of Britain was very different, strategically, tactically, and operationally. The Battle of Britain developed a fascinating strategic application that becomes ever more relevant, Strategic Ubiquity.
Under the genius of Air Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding, the RAF Fighter Command overcame overwhelming odds against the behemoth German air forces. Dowding did so through technology, stealth, organization, managing awareness, resource dispatching, and mostly agility. I will leave the details to those willing to invest in further reading as many hundreds of books abound. The principle of Strategic Ubiquity manifested the ability to “be everywhere” with much fewer resources than thought possible. The strategy also generated a world class pull system for delivering aircraft long before the Japanese could spell Deming or develop what we apply as Lean. Again, this is a different tickler for the curious. This strategy incorporated leveraging the agile integration of cross-functionality and achieved measurable synergy, one plus one equals three; even more for the curious …
At this time in military history, great powers (military or commercial) relied on quantity, power, and mass as a strategic hammer with which to overcome the opposition. More, everywhere as deployed resources, that could battle it out until consumption won out or size scared the opposition into submission. RAF Fighter Command under Dowding harnessed the power of more information, deployed to the right people, specific to the purpose of the specific people, and in time to act. It was “predict and prevent” rather than “detect and correct.” Downing’s resources, his “chicks”, always feigned to be too few, but were able to be where they were needed, when needed, with as close to real time data and awareness as then unimaginable. The few, through agility, were able to execute against the many. The strategy did not completely lift Clausewitz’s “fog of war”, but did much to see through it. It was not a software thing, it was a process thing. It was an agile thing…
Strategic Ubiquity is something very doable. With the right focus, discipline, and follow-though, the leverage created by technology can be game changing. There is a way to think about it, plan it, deploy it, measure it, and sustain it.
Agility is much more than an athletic term and ubiquity is more than being everywhere. Strategic Ubiquity is about being at the frontiers where and when the business battles are fought, not everywhere where battles may be fought. A few (300) agile Spartans along with a few thousand supporting Greek city-states in the Second Persian War picked the straits of Thermopylae for good reason. Agility put the right resources with the right focus, discipline, follow through and technology to achieve a strategic objective of delay. It was not Strategic Ubiquity circa 550 BC, but Dowding’s Fighter Command made it happen in the summer of 1940.
Today’s dynamic business environment demands capability on multiple fronts and challenges how to plan, build capability, and then have sufficient agility to win. It’s harder and too expensive to be big enough to be everywhere. Garrisons, be they business or military are places where waste is born and bred.
‘Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.’ Sun Tzu
The Roads to Nothing or Zero
Mayan Calendar
Zero is interesting since, strictly speaking, there is nothing that actually is nothing. Just because we can’t see it or have the means to measure or detect it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Zero seems like a simple concept, in retrospect, but we often don’t believe that it can exist. Over the years, I’ve encountered incredible walls to surmount in discussions about getting to zero. Stay with me just a little longer.
Zero is, in fact, achievable when we put some tangible qualifiers, like money, patent leather shoes, polio, or Betamax tapes. Those are easy … there are two types of zero that are often hard to conceive, believe, or achieve in the workplace. They are zero defects and zero harm. It’s not because they are impossible or improbable, but because we might be one of those who believe that people are just not good enough to be able to do it. Yet, we can immediately reach zero when conceiving whether or not we can be capable of zero defects or zero harm. In other words, “I have zero chance of achieving zero because, just because.” We can accept some degree, perhaps small, or level of the undesirable as “that’s the way it is,” or “it’s never been done before,” or “we tried that once and failed,” or “whenever you have people working, some things are just unavoidable.” We may have paradigms of acceptability that blind us to possibilities.
Yet, some do achieve zero. Can they sustain zero? Perhaps it is achievable with focus, discipline, and follow-through. Is it worth it? What are the consequences of defects and harm? What do our values say about what we can tolerate a little and what we consider intolerable?
So, where is zero in our paradigms? Is it achievable? I’ve heard from some wearing the yoke of unhealthy practices, be they smoking, alcoholism, or too many supersized heart stoppers with a side of fries, that they believe that the chances of getting to zero are so small, that trying is just a waste of time. What would we say to them if they are dear ones?
What if our processes were wearing the yoke of unhealthy practices? Is trying just a waste of time? If our product or service creates failure for our customer, would we say, “that’s the way it is,” or “it’s never been done before,” or “we tried that once and failed,” or “whenever you have people working, some things are just unavoidable?” Would we say the same to the family of someone who was hurt or destroyed in our workplace?
So, should we take the road to zero? Consider where the road to nothing goes.
Thoughts?
Is it Clean or Clear?
It is impossible to avoid shock and pain at the news of the recent disasters, currently the floods in Rio de Janeiro, claiming the lives of over 200 and the coal mine explosion in West Virginia, claiming the lives of upwards of 25 miners. The first catastrophe, greatly influenced by the forces of nature devastating ramshackle infrastructure much like the Haiti earthquake, and the second brought about completely by the choices and behaviors of men. While the first claimed a much larger number of lives, the second dominates airtime, and in one respect, justifiably so. I have learned from two of the global masters that Safety comes from choice, not chance. Claiming that something is inherently unsafe as a means to accept or tolerate risk borne by others in an economic venture challenges all levels of integrity and ethical choices.
Through good fortune I have observed the difference between safety by declaration, posters, slogans and damage control mouthpieces; and safety as a core value, a non-negotiable principle, and the manifestation in daily life through work, planning, preparation, constancy of purpose, and consequences. Two organizations, Bechtel and BHP-Billiton live and breathe what we could all emulate and perpetuate. They share many like practices, rules, gear, training, science… all important. What they share that is essential is that it starts at the top of the house, runs down and across the house, and returns to the top of the house.
These two, perhaps among many, treat safety as a probiotic, not an antibiotic. Bechtel and BHPB put the living organisms of safety into the daily diet for the workplace and into the feasts that ensue at the celebrations of lives extended. Should a death occur at a Bechtel site, be it employee, contractor, customer or visitor, the phone at the site leadership rings with none other than the Chairman, Riley Bechtel on the other end. There is nothing more important than the integrity with which human life is respected. There cannot be business success without human safety.
Contrast that behavior with the recent disaster in West Virginia, the one in Utah a few years back, and the frightening records of poor safety citations coming to light, followed by obfuscation strategies that delay responsiveness on the part of the alleged perpetrators. The absence of enforceable regulation is unfortunate, apparently essential in the face of the choices and behaviors by those who have the calling to choose, and those that have the power to legislate, but only watch.
For many of us, most of us, these mining disasters have little to do with our businesses, our communities, and our lives. They are in fact, not in our back yard. But, they do speak to our business principles and what we allow to be tolerable, acceptable, or sufficiently infrequent. Except when we turn on the light switch, for that sends a demand signal that rings a bell to pull more coal out of the ground. We do share a connection, every day. What should we do?
There cannot be clean coal without a clear conscience.
Thoughts?
Related Links
http://tridentleverage.com/blog/?p=106
http://tridentleverage.com/blog/?p=362
http://tridentleverage.com/blog/?p=92
Seneca, Darwin, And The Flying Dinosaurs
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin. It is very specific about who or what survives, yet the more significant message is the meaning that “if you are not responsive to change, you will not survive.” There is ample anthropological evidence providing insights into how the differences we see between peoples may have evolved. It becomes more fascinating when I see birds that share a common ancestor with dinosaurs. Much of the same applies to organizations, governments, cities, businesses, religions, and even management systems. Management systems contain the DNA and resources that define how an organization operates with the intent of thriving and surviving to thrive another day.
A stroll through business publications and historical data depicts behaviors that resemble evolutionary changes. Three important observations come to mind, interestingly evolutionary and fraught with nonlinearities:
- Survival comes from responsiveness to changing requirements
- Extinction comes from decay or disruption
- Decay makes us more susceptible to disruption
Responsiveness connotes action. Something around us changes and we change to take advantage of it or don’t change quickly enough and we become victims of it. We can’t always control what may be changing, nor can we predict them all. But we can always make a safe bet, that is, change is coming, always coming. Are we going to survive the changes? Can we increase our chances of surviving?
“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity” Seneca, mid-1st century AD.
I really like the way Seneca frames change as an opportunity. We have virtual evidence that change is afoot across incalculable dimensions. How we communicate and are connected or marginalized is different and accelerating in morphing. The winners and losers as measured by financial indicators display a huge transformation from economies that harvested resources and converted them in to durables (steel, coal, wood products, and automotive) to one that delivers service and convenience on a virtual plane. Who would have dreamed 50 years ago that giants like Microsoft and Apple would be major players while some giants, perhaps too rigid to adapt, became extinct or were devoured by a competitor or another hungry species?
I’m fascinated because the emergent behemoths have figured out how to redefine how convenience is delivered and value is created. Value has always been created by creating convenience, but the virtual world redefined what is possible. The world Thomas Friedman describes in “The World is Flat” is one where the interconnected web strips away some of the advantages the big and strong hoarded. As the early giants created a generation of convenience on the shoulders of the Industrial Revolution, the rigidity of the delivery systems, consumption of materials, and business management systems evolved into big and strong. Dinosaurs were big and strong too.
The last two years certainly met the standard of being a disruption, a mini ice age from a cataclysmic event. But the decay that preceded and followed it may likely claim more for the museums. Are we going to be lucky? If we’re good, how long does good last?
“There is opportunity in every storm”
