Principles of Open Ways of Managing

The world has always been complex, even before we understood the concept in the 20th Century, but the level of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) was low enough that simple, linear, stable models were a useful approximation. Not any more, except in small, local, well controlled contexts.

There are no simple patterns, no templates or formulae. Every org, every journey is different. Only the principles are common. Applying them needs learning, experience, expertise. Get help.

ATOM: “Every org follows a different path, which is unpredictable. Experts can’t tell you your future, no matter how much you pay them. They can only help you stay true to the principles. And suggest experiments to try based on your current state.”

 Conventional management clearly works in many thriving orgs.
But the rate of social and technology change is exponentially increasing, which increases VUCA risk.
And the world is more complicated every day.

Complexity can’t be ignored, or simplified. Our old models are simple approximations that worked in a more stable world. Complexity must be managed, which requires new ways of managing and working. In fact, new ways of thinking.

ATOM: “How we managed in the past wasn’t wrong. It just becomes less effective with each passing decade. We are learning how to handle complexity, because we need to. Social expectations are evolving, values are different. We must adapt.”

Most people want to do the best. They are victims of a system that skews their behaviour and limits their capability. Give them what they need to get the job done. Empower them to make decisions and authorise them to do the work. The few exceptions should be managed as exceptions, instead of punishing everybody for the few.

ATOM: “If you treat people like children, you will get childish behaviour. If you want your staff to trust you, you must make the first move to trust them. You don’t need to come up with answers any more: the workers closer to the work know better. Ask them. Get them what they need, remove impediments, and get them expert advice.”

Management can no longer be a structure riding on top of the flow of work, a burden on those producing value. We must get off, get out of the way. The hierarchy should sit under the flow of work, a foundation supporting and enabling it. We need servant managers who let the people doing the work design the work, who come up with resources not answers.

ATOM: “there is value work moving value down the flow to the customer, and there is non-value work supporting that. Which one is management? what management activity impedes or distracts from value work? what non-value work is done by value workers that could be done by management instead?”

You can force manual and clerical workers because the work is individual transactional, you can see and measure it. Knowledge work is a collaborative team effort on invisible product. You can’t see what an individual does or how well they do it. You have to trust and motivate them.

ATOM: “you have no idea how an individual is producing just from observing the work. The other colleagues will tell you if they’re under-performing, but only if they want to. If you managed by imposition instead of invitation, then teams will likely side with each other, and it will be tough to find out what’s really going on”

“When they’re staring at a screen all day, how do you know what they’re doing?  Even if you spied on them how would you know it was quality work? How do you separate out one person’s contribution to the team? What about a great suggestion they share with someone? A voice of wise experience? How do you measure that? It doesn’t matter how hard you whack them, they won’t work better.”

“And they can leave. The knowledge skills are valued and portable. We need them more than they need us.”

“Read Inviting Leadership, Dan Mezick and Mark Sheffield.”

In a complex system, the future is unpredictable, the response to stimulus is unknown, until we experiment. Broadly, every work system is complex, even if local situations can be complicated, simple, or chaotic. We can “dance with the system” and develop an instinct for what it is going to do but we will never know for sure.

ATOM: “It’s very tempting to pretend we know what the operating model will be in two years, or what the perfect org structure is. But we are guessing and in our hearts we know it. Let’s stop pretending, and find out way more carefully towards  what works”.

 in small steps of carefully controlled experiments: small bets. Stop making big high-risk bets on big-bang step-change “transformations”. They mostly don’t work. Improvement should be continual.

ATOM: “What’s our track record for big-bang change? How cynical are staff about another one? Even when we get results, do they stick? And do they need force? It’s universal to suck at transformation projects. And it’s crazy: they’re high risk. The probability of getting it right is pretty close to zero. There is a better, lower-risk way”

Managers should spend more time in the work than at a desk. Manage by walking around. Listen, learn (this is not an incitement to micromanage!) Take impediments and solve them. Find resources. This doesn’t mean just talking to direct reports. The most senior managers should go to the coalface: from carpet to concrete.

ATOM: “Why do we escalate to make decisions about how work is done, when the higher up the hierarchy the less we know about the work? Could the management team map the workflows? How many staff do you not even know their name? We should have an intimate knowledge of what’s happening in the work – it’s the only way we will get a sense of where poor performance comes from, and its how we get to add value to the work instead of getting in its way.”

“If you stop micromanaging, and let staff  design and decide, then what will you do all day?

• Learn about the work.
• Help it happen.
• Get to know people.
• Say thank-you.
• Think and innovate.
• Do non-value work that is currently done by value workers”.

Managers should step out of the dance sometimes and reflect  on how it is working by looking down on the whole system. Managers have the time to think and reflect – they are a primary source of innovation. Good managers play golf.

ATOM: “How’s your calendar? When can you see me next? If it’s weeks away, you might want to consider how you manage. Are you micromanaging? Are you tying value workers up in meetings? Spare time in a calendar is a good indicator of delegation, empowerment, and general getting out of the way. The head of Application Development in IT at an agile bank said to me ‘I love my job: I don’t do anything’ “

Bury scientific management. Only labour can be standardised and measured. Knowledge work can’t: diversity is essential, work is intangible. Which is beside the point: that’s not how we should treat anyone.

ATOM: “This isn’t some hippy bullshit. This is how we maximise productivity of knowledge workers. It’s proven to work: love not force.”

Work isn’t about greed any more, Friedmanism is dead. Shareholder capitalism is giving way to stakeholder capitalism.

Climate change is only the most extreme example of how we must all take into account the wellbeing of staff, customers, and society in general when we work, if we are to have a sustainable economy.

ATOM: “Read the signs. Our customer base has growing expectations of social responsibility.  This is how we keep and grow customers.  And how we look our kids in the eye.”

Components interact together in ways which are invisible..until you mess with them. “A recent study in HBR showed half of all teams are not on the org chart.”* All change will have unintended consequences. Be humble and cautious.

*https://hbr.org/insider/2019/05/the-insider-your-companys-best-teams-might-not-be-on-the-org-chart?referral=03551

ATOM: “This is observably true.  Look at every attempt at change in the past.”

Any improvement will go backward before it goes forward for multiple reasons:

We seldom design the change right. We must adjust.

We seldom implement the change right. We must debug.

A new way requires practice. We never do it best first time. [England’s Law: it takes three iterations of anything new to n0t suck]

There are always knock-on effects, unintended consequences. The system must also adjust.

Do less to do more. Create headroom. Stop starting and start finishing. Stop flogging the horse. Maximise the work not done. Don’t go faster, do less. We can only do three.

Maximum throughput does not come at maximum utilisation (fact). It’s usually around 80% (guess).

When people resist change its really important to consider the possibility that they may be right. Don’t just bulldoze, that’s violent arrogance.

Listen to the arguments. Design an experiment to test, with minimum blast radius. Create proof points.

The leaders and managers should be servants of the flow of value not masters. The masters are those who have mastered the work.

The higher in the management hierarchy, the more removed from the work, the less qualified to make decisions about it. Empower the masters (Shu-Ha-Ri) and practitioners to design the work. They know it best.

There is value work, and there is supporting non-value work.

The purpose of work is to deliver value to the customer. So non-value work should get out of the way of value flow.

Most management is non-value work. Get out of the way. Test that everything you do, and that you require others to do, increases the flow of value, not impedes it.

“Engagement” is too weak a word. “Empowerment” is good but still implies something given that can be taken back. Say “freedom”: set the workers free to do better. (See also №3,4,5).

While “losing control” is one of the biggest fears in management, “having control” is one of the biggest illusions. – Bjarte Bogsnes‏

You will always be busy with urgent work. If you don’t ruthlessly ring-fence time to improve work, you’ll never do the important work of making the future better. You’ll be battling the same old urgent crap in the same old way next year. We must prioritise improvement over doing. 20% of work bandwidth is a good rule of thumb.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of done. Minimum viable product. Meet the customer need, deliver the value. Near enough is not good enough but good enough is near enough. Accept imperfection, wabisabi. Navigate ambiguity.  Don’t be technically fastidious: technology has to be near perfect, people and process don’t.  Copper is just as good as gold unless you are building for ever – almost nothing we build in business will last for long.

We don’t know until we do. We will fail. Not only must we tolerate failure, we must embrace it, welcome it.

Failure is a normal part of work. The path to success is through failure. We get to easy through hard. Success is found under a pile of failure.

Failure is an asset if and only if we squeeze the learnings from it. If we don’t learn, failure is a cost.

If failure is not welcomed and rewarded, even incompetent failure, then it will be hidden and we will not derive value.

If failure is part of normal work, expect it, plan for it.

Do many small steps. Iterate, increment, experiment, explore.

Fail fast, early, small, and often. Minimise the blast radius.

Expect human error. If you’re not designing work systems to prevent human error, you have fragile systems. When somebody makes a mistake, thank them for finding the weakness in your system that makes human error possible, and  reward them for telling us about it so that we can benefit from the error.

As Drucker said, a business exists to create a customer: stakeholder capitalism. The Friedmanist idea that a business exists to enrich the shareholder – shareholder capitalism – is stone dead; greed is not good.  More generally, an organisation exists to create more value together than we can apart. And that value is measured by all stakeholders: not just shareholders, also customers, staff, partners, suppliers, families, society, and our environment.

 

for products, or for systems of work. It’s great if you can, but we need to let go of that expectation. It comes as a relief to many managers. Push problem solving and decision making as close to the work as possible. This is considered the “edge” in conventional hierarchy, but actually it is the centre of value flow, where people know most about how things work and what will work.

See also №16 and 27.

A good work system achieves extraordinary things with ordinary people.

Treasure your exceptional personnel but don’t depend on them, nor overwork them.

If your expectation is that professionalism means work is immaculately planned and flawlessly executed, then you are going to be disappointed.

Pros exhibit human systems adaptability. They roll cool and smooth.

With sufficient transparency of information, and in non-chaotic situations where we have time to agree (consent not consensus), then the managers should cease commanding.

There are new ways of managing that do not require command and control.

See also №16 and 24.