Fast Times with Heisenberg, Gretzky, and Carroll

Ever hear of Werner Heisenberg? Unless you are one of those people (confessed addict here) that is curious about lots of stuff, in this case quantum mechanics, you may not really care. Quantum mechanics has to do with the behaviors of the really small, what some physicists look at. What is really interesting about Heisenberg is a principle about measurement he developed, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. He says that the more you want to know about a particular attribute like position (where it is), the less precision you will have about another attribute like velocity (how fast it’s going in a particular direction). I’ve believed for a long time that it is true about bigger things than the subatomic. It is true about what we measure and evaluate in our business performance. Stay with me, this may help.

One example is akin to the example above. The overwhelming majority of business data that I’ve been exposed to focuses on where performance has been, say position. That is important since we need to know what our demonstrated capability to perform is. The more we know about position, the less we can say about how fast it is moving in a particular direction, velocity. Our performance has a velocity, and depending on what aspect of velocity, a very specific direction. The velocity going forward is not usually the trend; it can sometimes require a little more calculus than algebra.

In fact, performance has multiple directions; the most obvious are cost, time, and quality. We can say with complete certainty that they move at different velocities (it’s a safe bet). The really important point is that we seldom, if ever, look at the velocities for decision making. Agile people and entities do. They also keep that part a secret (it’s called competitive advantage).  If you follow sports, you may have heard the quote by the hockey great, Wayne Gretzky, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.” Since Wayne has to manage his own velocity he needs to manage it to where he needs to be, at the puck. Applies to our businesses, doesn’t it? Performance decisions only affect the future, where stuff is going, not the past (unless you’re a good book cook).

I’ve spent the better part of the last two years on this topic and it has fundamentally changed my lenses to evaluate performance, capability, metrics, dashboards, product development, voice of the customer, innovation, competition, negotiation, human resources, … ad infinitum. Looking at the world through that different lens and feeding it through a different dashboard also changes our insight into where the ugly risks are and where to invest resources and time on improvement strategies. Additionally, the velocity lens redefines the applicability of gaming theory and network analysis in business decision making. These are really cool beans.

No reminder needed that the world of leading and managing enterprises is fraught with ever faster changes.

• Do we know how fast?
• When we execute the changes we’re deciding to make today, will we end up where the puck is going?
• Do our project controls and toll gates enable or constrain our ability to respond to an ever moving puck? Do scope creep, change orders, restarts, and rework sound more like the rule than the exception?

“The faster I go, the behinder I get”. “You have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are. If you want to get anywhere, you’ll have to run much faster.” “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”  Lewis Carroll

So, where are we going?