One of the favorite thought-provoking talks to my heart and my mind is Russell Ackoff's masterpiece From Mechanistic To Social Systemic Thinking
(Also, the article version of the talk)
Worth mentioning, I've watched this video more times than I can remember to count. Every single time (literally not metaphorically) I come out with either something I did not notice before, a deeper understanding of something I previously came across, or (the best one) a much much larger understanding of a collective of points together forming a picture of *awe* usually leaving me speechless for days!
The most recent one was the part on the distinction between knowledge (how) vs. understanding (why), and how they relate to analysis vs. synthesis. It brought to mind the advice of just start, start somewhere, then keep zooming in and zooming out. They will feed into each other, strengthening your steps in either direction.
The larger picture of the benefits of integrating both approaches (they're not competing), i.e. how much value we gain when we keep going all the way up, then take such understanding and dive all the way down, back and forth several times. It's fascinating how much we may learn and produce by adopting this way, both effectively and efficiently.
It started to give me a better definition of my job as a manager and leader. Where I may better be spending my time and effort, and where/how to effectively delegate and get out of the way of managers/team-members/domain-experts to do what they know better than anyone else!
We all know (and think we understand) Simon Sinek's "start with the why" or Steven Covey's "start with the end in mind" or Eli Goldratt's "strategy and tactics tree" or the amazing Deming's "constancy of purpose" and many others.. Yet, I claim we never knew or thought deeply about how to go about it. What does it truly mean to start with why? What is the essence of these statements above and what is required to do it in practice?
(or at least this is myself, so I don't speak for everyone ☺️)
I believe Ackoff's lecture brought attention to such a struggle and provided a guide to a promising starting point!
The #1 job of a leader is to *keep finding* the answer to such a question. Why do we exist?
Then work with their team to draw the mapping between strategies-and-operations (as one entity) to the answer of that question (as the other entity).
I say "keep finding" as this will always be an ongoing effort. The answer will keep evolving as we understand more, as we do several back-and-forth traversals across the knowledge-understanding realms. Equally important, the answer will keep evolving as we study the feedback from the outcomes of the actions and operations across all dimensions, time (i.e. daily, quarterly, annually, ...) and space (team, department, function, org, market, country, sector, economy, ...).
The beauty I started to notice is the one more distinction between the "Why" question (i.e. understanding), and all other questions "what, how, ..." combined.
Bear with me :)
If:
The answer to the "why" is achieved by zooming out, by studying the containing super-system within which our current system (product, team, role) exists as a sub-system, so that we can understand how our existence serves the purpose of the super-system. Which then can be taken inwards into each of the components of our system acting as the purpose for which all these components (departments, functions of the company, processes, metrics, teams, individuals members) should serve and contribute to making it happen.
Then:
It means, the why, the purpose of our existence, is not something to create. It's not something to come up with. It's actually something to discover!
The purpose of our existence as a company, a product, a team, a role, or a service, already exists. It's out there, waiting to be uncovered! If we don't keep working on discovering it and clearly understanding it, someone else will do (either consciously or by a chance) then provide a better value to our own consumers.
(Notice that I borrowed Deming's broader term of a "consumer" rather than a "customer". I loved Deming's definition of a consumer as anyone or any entity which consumes what we produce. It leads to the realization that we are all consumers as much as we are producers. Hence, emphasizing the nature of our interdependence and subsequently the appreciation of the systems view).
What we (as one team) need to come up with is not the purpose (the why), but the means (the what and the how) by which we believe we can fulfill such a purpose, such a need, such a gap, or such an opportunity, in order to delight our consumers!
In other words, what a team needs to come up with is the strategy, the plan, the execution and the daily operations. Quality then becomes the ongoing refinement of the "what and how" as the understanding unfolds and evolves.
If we, the leaders, do not provide clarity on the why, on the purpose, on the reason for our existence, and if we do not or cannot provide such a clarity to the rest of the organization and across all levels, then we have failed them already before we even start.
Of course, I'm not saying it's an easy task nor saying it's the only aspect of the leader's role. It definitely requires navigating a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty. But we should be clear on the top priority of leadership's role. It is to keep working at uncovering such an understanding, then make sure we are able to communicate it clearly to the organization and develope the mechanisms of propagating the communication with equal clarity across all levels.
All of the cascading strategies, goals, objectives, and metrics should be derived from there.
The same approach should also be propagated everywhere in the organization. Each department, function, team, and individual are all sub-systems to a super-system within which they operate and serve its purpose, which itself serves the purpose of its containing super-system, .. all the way to the top, all the way to the most outer circle, say the CEO, the whole company, the board, investors, the whole industry, or even the whole economy.
Alright, let’s take a break now. This was an attempt to let raw thoughts come out and keep it flowing. It was more like speaking out my mind, thinking aloud with myself (and now with the world), hopefully to trigger an insight we can build on. Then refine, rinse and repeat.
I hope you were able to make it till here :) and that any of the above unedited, unfiltered, raw reflections made any sense to you.
I'm always curious, what resonated with you the most? What does not sit well with you? What blind spots must be still there? What seemed to make sense or a good direction?
Eagerly looking forward to building up on top of (not despite of) our different perspectives!
(Also, the article version of the talk)
Worth mentioning, I've watched this video more times than I can remember to count. Every single time (literally not metaphorically) I come out with either something I did not notice before, a deeper understanding of something I previously came across, or (the best one) a much much larger understanding of a collective of points together forming a picture of *awe* usually leaving me speechless for days!
The most recent one was the part on the distinction between knowledge (how) vs. understanding (why), and how they relate to analysis vs. synthesis. It brought to mind the advice of just start, start somewhere, then keep zooming in and zooming out. They will feed into each other, strengthening your steps in either direction.
The larger picture of the benefits of integrating both approaches (they're not competing), i.e. how much value we gain when we keep going all the way up, then take such understanding and dive all the way down, back and forth several times. It's fascinating how much we may learn and produce by adopting this way, both effectively and efficiently.
It started to give me a better definition of my job as a manager and leader. Where I may better be spending my time and effort, and where/how to effectively delegate and get out of the way of managers/team-members/domain-experts to do what they know better than anyone else!
We all know (and think we understand) Simon Sinek's "start with the why" or Steven Covey's "start with the end in mind" or Eli Goldratt's "strategy and tactics tree" or the amazing Deming's "constancy of purpose" and many others.. Yet, I claim we never knew or thought deeply about how to go about it. What does it truly mean to start with why? What is the essence of these statements above and what is required to do it in practice?
(or at least this is myself, so I don't speak for everyone ☺️)
I believe Ackoff's lecture brought attention to such a struggle and provided a guide to a promising starting point!
The #1 job of a leader is to *keep finding* the answer to such a question. Why do we exist?
Then work with their team to draw the mapping between strategies-and-operations (as one entity) to the answer of that question (as the other entity).
I say "keep finding" as this will always be an ongoing effort. The answer will keep evolving as we understand more, as we do several back-and-forth traversals across the knowledge-understanding realms. Equally important, the answer will keep evolving as we study the feedback from the outcomes of the actions and operations across all dimensions, time (i.e. daily, quarterly, annually, ...) and space (team, department, function, org, market, country, sector, economy, ...).
The beauty I started to notice is the one more distinction between the "Why" question (i.e. understanding), and all other questions "what, how, ..." combined.
Bear with me :)
If:
The answer to the "why" is achieved by zooming out, by studying the containing super-system within which our current system (product, team, role) exists as a sub-system, so that we can understand how our existence serves the purpose of the super-system. Which then can be taken inwards into each of the components of our system acting as the purpose for which all these components (departments, functions of the company, processes, metrics, teams, individuals members) should serve and contribute to making it happen.
Then:
It means, the why, the purpose of our existence, is not something to create. It's not something to come up with. It's actually something to discover!
The purpose of our existence as a company, a product, a team, a role, or a service, already exists. It's out there, waiting to be uncovered! If we don't keep working on discovering it and clearly understanding it, someone else will do (either consciously or by a chance) then provide a better value to our own consumers.
(Notice that I borrowed Deming's broader term of a "consumer" rather than a "customer". I loved Deming's definition of a consumer as anyone or any entity which consumes what we produce. It leads to the realization that we are all consumers as much as we are producers. Hence, emphasizing the nature of our interdependence and subsequently the appreciation of the systems view).
What we (as one team) need to come up with is not the purpose (the why), but the means (the what and the how) by which we believe we can fulfill such a purpose, such a need, such a gap, or such an opportunity, in order to delight our consumers!
In other words, what a team needs to come up with is the strategy, the plan, the execution and the daily operations. Quality then becomes the ongoing refinement of the "what and how" as the understanding unfolds and evolves.
If we, the leaders, do not provide clarity on the why, on the purpose, on the reason for our existence, and if we do not or cannot provide such a clarity to the rest of the organization and across all levels, then we have failed them already before we even start.
Of course, I'm not saying it's an easy task nor saying it's the only aspect of the leader's role. It definitely requires navigating a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty. But we should be clear on the top priority of leadership's role. It is to keep working at uncovering such an understanding, then make sure we are able to communicate it clearly to the organization and develope the mechanisms of propagating the communication with equal clarity across all levels.
All of the cascading strategies, goals, objectives, and metrics should be derived from there.
The same approach should also be propagated everywhere in the organization. Each department, function, team, and individual are all sub-systems to a super-system within which they operate and serve its purpose, which itself serves the purpose of its containing super-system, .. all the way to the top, all the way to the most outer circle, say the CEO, the whole company, the board, investors, the whole industry, or even the whole economy.
Alright, let’s take a break now. This was an attempt to let raw thoughts come out and keep it flowing. It was more like speaking out my mind, thinking aloud with myself (and now with the world), hopefully to trigger an insight we can build on. Then refine, rinse and repeat.
I hope you were able to make it till here :) and that any of the above unedited, unfiltered, raw reflections made any sense to you.
I'm always curious, what resonated with you the most? What does not sit well with you? What blind spots must be still there? What seemed to make sense or a good direction?
Eagerly looking forward to building up on top of (not despite of) our different perspectives!