E-MailYOUR ORGANIZATION HAS MANY DANCE PARTNERS
by Tim Lister, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology Council
The world is far too complicated for humans to get things perfectly right the first time, but humans have a great capacity to tune in, to perfect through feedback, and then to make an adjustment.
In the physical world: Cutter Fellow Lynne Ellyn is my friend and colleague, but we have never danced together. I am an average dancer, having successfully graduated from parental-demanded evening dance classes when I was 13. I like to dance, but my guess is that Lynne is probably a better dancer. I do know that when we have our first dance, it will be less than perfect. Am I leading too suddenly? Can I pick up her signals? But within minutes we'll be fine and have a grand old whirl. You see, something as simple as a waltz must be tuned into and adjusted.
In the intellectual world: When I was a manager, I had the task of approving my employees' expense reports. After a few months of this, I was great at glancing at a report and knowing when something was "not right." I did not know what was wrong immediately, but I knew to inspect more closely, and I was always correct in my "not right" assumption. Tuning in, I would find the needed adjustment.
I am sure that you have had similar experiences as well.
Recommendation
Just about everything in your organization that you assume is static is dynamic. There is no independence; everything is connected to something. Tweak here, find reaction somewhere else. The system begets the system. By the very fact that you deliver a new system, you will change the world that surrounds it and get behaviors that were unseen before.
Look for things that your organization considers static, and see if you can tap into those things to get feedback. My recommendation for the first place to look are your contracts and agreements. By contracts and agreements, I mean any business agreement. Apart from actual contracts, you should include under this banner: service-level agreements, employment terms, requirements documents, and budgets.
Most organizations think of contracts and agreements as static and therefore confront problems on a regular (and predictable) basis. When a contract is signed, people say, "The deal is done" or "We closed the deal." No, the deal has just begun. The deal has just been opened. Will both parties behave as each assumes they will? Will the terms of the deal keep both parties from behaving in a surprising manner? Remember, you are probably dancing with a new partner.
Years ago, a fellow arbitrator said something to me about contracts that went into my permanent memory. He said that every good contract that calls for an ongoing relationship stays in negotiation as long as the relationship is in place. A contract can never actually be final.
Build review on a regular basis into your contracts and agreements. Ask whether this contract is working acceptably for both parties. If you are not getting or giving feedback, you are waiting for a deal breaker to force the interaction. That is too late; you will experience being the recipient of an unpleasant systems dynamic.
If you have not read much about systems dynamics, I wholeheartedly recommend Gerald Weinberg's An Introduction to General Systems Thinking: Silver Anniversary Edition.
-- Tim Lister, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology Council