Some simple and straightforward questions that can help to diagnose deeper systemic problems
When it is difficult to find the root causes of issues ask these questions
Has the issue occurred in the past, how long ago, under what circumstances?
What sort of issues are surfacing in your coworkers teams?
Have these issues occurred in the past either in your team or other teams?
How different are the teams where these issues occur/have occurred?
Use "surfacing" techniques to corroborate the analysis throughout the organisation, this involves asking the same questions to a selection of people at different levels, with different lengths of tenure. Quite often colleagues experience the same or similar issues throughout the organisation, when they do these issues are often just symptoms of deeper underlying systemic problems that are ingrained in the organisation's culture or enforced by its processes. Some organisations are limited by too much focus on operations, they tend to be governed by the system archetypes "fixes that fail" or "shifting the burden". Rather than take a longer-term more strategic approach they prefer quick fixes or waiting for the future or getting rid of the problem with outsourcing. These approaches are doomed to fail, find out why in Sea of Systems. I explore these and other systemic techniques in my eBook Sea of Systems, download it at my blog https://systemsthinkingit.blogspot.com.au
About— "gems from the deep" takes a quick dive into the more detailed and involved concepts explored in the eBooks Sea of Systems and Transparent Delivery (forthcoming).
Learn to present a clearer and more certain picture of the future than sticking your wet thumb in the air
It can't last forever
No matter how good the service is and no matter how well the service
appears to be meeting demand, sooner or later the laws of system dynamicswill come into
play and causal loopfeedbackwill catch up with us. Quite simply put: 'it can't last forever'.
In the above services system model acceptable service quality is limited by
capacity, ultimately having an adverse effect on provisioning the service,
for instance, not being able to meet the agreed service level. This is typical of the system archetype limits-to-growth.
How to address it?
Use system dynamics to map-out and model service provisioning
Try to understand and map-out all the systemic influences involved
Consider the dimension of time and see what influence it has on the model(s)
Consider the voice of the customer and involve customers with the model(s)
Statistics don't lie, obtain as much statistical data as possible
Identify trends and patterns of behaviour
Walk-through and live-out the various scenarios learned from the models
Pick one that works
Conclusion
You've heard the saying "there's no silver bullet"? Well, try to get as close as you can, maybe there's no guarantee and maybe it's hard to imagine all the "unforeseeable" circumstances, but when you start to use models in this way you can certainly present a clearer and more certain picture of the future than sticking your wet thumb in the air.
When I started looking at the world through models the penny dropped, the overwhelming feeling was "IT people must know about this". That was in 1994 and I've been banging on about it ever since. The system archetypes are in control and it is very hard to do anything about it, but if we don't try, what does that make us? I talk about this in the conclusion of Sea of Systems "well at least I helped this one".
People are innovative it's their nature to be, but not all organizational cultures are, so in order to harness the
innovative potential of our people we must change our organizations by making real changes to the culture.
The (still) changing role of management
"Still" because I first wrote this article in 2007 and I still find it very relevant 10 years on. Before we turn our attention to enabling innovation and developing that management style, I would like to broadly discuss the definition of management. We should be interested in the changing nature of the role of management as opposed to the textbook definition of what the purpose of management is supposed to be, or indeed what we were once taught in college or have learned in organizations. Here are some views on today’s management with a focus on those factors expedient to change. It is also necessary to consider a broader picture than just limiting focus to the value-chain. The value-chain is one of the causes of dysfunctional management. Too much focus on “creating value” and not enough focus on creating "compassionate" and "rewarding" workplace environments. fix it → cure it It is not so much a question of fixing problems, which is undoubtedly the priority for many managers, it is more a question of curing those problems ― so that they do not come back to haunt our children. spotlight → floodlight Fire-fighting and symptomatic problem management together with reacting quickly to fix business problems to address so called “external market pressures” and decreasing “time-to-market” can lead to detracting from management focus and achieving real results for the whole organization. told to → just do Managers should be nurturing an environment that stimulates the shift from “Told to” to “Just do”, where we have a highly empowered and motivated process team that takes pride in their work, team achievements and performance without being told to. lead & manage → inspire & captivate Let's wake-up to the idea of “Inspiring” and “Captivating” people as opposed to “Leading” and “Managing” them. In some Eastern philosophies there's the idea of the ruler that abdicates his power and leaves the people to just "get on with it" ― he is the most successful ruler, who in return receives love, admiration and devotion from his people. When people are happy and have a good sense of well-being and appreciation they are also more productive. must do → want to Managers should be facilitating the shift from “Must do” to “Want to” in terms of motivation and engagement. Nobody likes to be forced to do anything, and quite frankly why should they be forced? People need a Shared Vision of the future, which they can believe in and agree to before they will genuinely want to contribute. managing → enabling
As a management team we must make the overarching shift from “Managing” to “Enabling”. This can be manifested in various ways, for instance: the manager as coach. It is the role of the manager to "Enable" not to "Manage". This is what we must change and especially in IT, as IT is all about enablement.
Transforming IT by enabling innovation ― a case study
The subject was an IT department functioning as an internal service unit and type II service provider, which was suffering badly from a "poor business perception" ― does it sound familiar? The primary mode of working was "keep the lights on" and they were experiencing staff retention problems, top IT specialists were leaving for industry leaders like IBM and HP. The business perception of IT was at best "reactive" and there were many complaints about "lack of innovation" and "poor business contribution". The IT unit was very much under scrutiny and in the line of fire, there were rumors circulating about possible outsourcing and morale was low. The previous IT management had been closed in the basement, quite literally, focused mainly on operations. This was partly due to under-investment over a five year period, which preceded a merger with another organization. As a result significant systemic barriers had been erected over the years, which led to serious communication and cooperation breakdowns between the IT engineering, IT operations and IT support teams. Another hitch had manifested itself into the organizational culture, IT was supposed to "come up with all the ideas", and as a result there were no ideas. Business people were complaining about the innovative contribution of IT and indeed were themselves coming up with ideas, but neither the Business nor IT did anything with them. It was an "innovation stalemate", innovation existed but it was not leveraged and mainly due to the prevailing organizational culture. It almost seemed like the harder people tried, the worse things became. The result was that people had a feeling they were working flat-out and yet nothing much was getting done. This situation is unsustainable and will invariably lead to burn-out of certain individuals whom are trying hard to contribute, but keep hitting systemic barriers that prevent them from moving forward.
It's very hard to put a finger on it
Innovative potential
The first thing that struck me about the situation was that innovative ideas were to be found everywhere throughout the Business and IT, they just weren't being leveraged. IT people were either too proud or had their heads in the sand, quite often a "lack of resources" or "security" were cited as the "problem" and Business people were too busy complaining and pointing the finger at IT. It was a vicious circle that had become entrenched over a number of years, becoming strongly ingrained with emotions, misunderstandings and incorrect assumptions. We began mapping out the many systemic barriers and influences that existed, then seemed to be quite obvious to anyone who was observing the situation from the outside in.
On completing the systemic picture it was possible to develop a number of initiatives that specifically addressed each of the barriers that had been inhibiting or preventing innovation from becoming reality.
When making real changes to an organization always use the Deming cycle
of Plan Do Check Act.
An annual cycle is ideal: Q1 = Plan, Q2 = Do, Q3 = Check, Q4 = Act.
Get it embedded into the culture it perfectly complements systems thinking and introduces change without the need for crisis.
It was important to focus on making real changes to the organizational culture by introducing "participative initiatives" that bridged the divide between teams in IT and between IT and the Business. Some specific examples of how we removed the barriers:
By facilitating an IT end-user forum to capture Business ideas and introducing a governance model and cycle that allowed the Business to prioritize their ideas for further working-out and potential fast-tracking
Bringing decentralized IT teams together with monthly meetings and forming communities of practice
Holding regular off-site brainstorming and creative sessions for IT management
Inaugurating an award ceremony for "IT Professional" & "Innovation of the Year" (the prize was a laptop - something tangible)
Introducing a "team coach" to support IT management in achieving a mental-shift in thinking
Making it clear that it was safe to experiment by establishing a "creative-space" on team meetings and by holding regular "lessons-to-learn" sessions
Publicizing creative efforts and new innovations and openly rewarding people for their contributions
These were simple steps and yet the results were incredible, after one year it was a totally different organization and out-of-the-basement for good.
With the Systemic Barriers removed the Participative Initiatives acted as focal points for Sources of Innovation throughout the organization, providing conduits through which innovation was able to permeate and flow through the Organizational Culture.
Expected & unexpected benefits
Improved innovation and creativity leading to a measurable contribution improvement for internal-customers (Business)
Improved levels of cooperation, collaboration and interest throughout IT
Improved leadership skills of IT managers and team leaders (unexpected)
Reduced number of unresolved incidents (unexpected)
Reduced number of escalated issues (unexpected)
Improved IT employee retention and stabilization
A marked improvement in IT employee motivation and willingness to contribute
Improved time-to-market capability due to product development optimization (unexpected)
Increased productivity throughout IT (unexpected)
Lesson learned
People are innovative it's their nature to be, but not all organizations and organizational cultures are, so in order to leverage the innovative potential of our people we must change our organizations by making real changes to the culture.
Developing the innovative IT management style
The sources of innovation have changed radically over the past two decades, today innovation can appear from almost anywhere. In order to take advantage of this huge potential our organizations and management approaches must change.
Our organizations must become more receptive and the old and sometimes very subtle systemic hurdles must be removed. We must find a way to make innovation flow, so removing old obstacles is really a prerequisite.
Time to rethink innovation
When we think of innovation we tend to think of the same old things, and those are the same old things that quite often prevent innovation from becoming reality.
For instance, how should we assess an IT manager's innovative leadership potential? Many people would ask to see a vision, "Show me your vision for innovation". Followed by building an understanding of their ability to explain the vision and its subsequent translation into operational and strategic objectives.
This is a typical and traditional approach to assessing innovative potential. But do vision and clearly defined objectives have anything to do with innovative potential?
I don't believe they do and moreover, if anything vision is one of the biggest inhibitors of innovation. Why would we want to predetermine something that is intrinsically indeterminable? Already we begin to see the subtle systemic intricacies that can thwart attempts to enable innovation.
People tend to link vision with innovation, but that has nothing to do with innovative leadership potential nor ability. That is what we have been taught by our organizational cultures and environments but it isn't true.
It is time to rethink innovation and what it really means Today.
Innovation the power of the people
Today a successful innovative manager is defined as someone who can apply the appropriate leverage to innovation for the benefit of the greater good.
It does not mean that the manager is an "innovator", and perhaps far from it, it means that the person can identify and appropriately leverage innovation - from wherever it originates - either within or external to his or her organization.
We all know that the "real" sources of innovation have changed radically over the past two decades, they are no longer within the exclusive realm of special development teams, neither innovative strategies, nor R&D. The paradigm that the boss comes up with all the ideas is also history.
Innovation is something that belongs to People, so the best cutting-edge innovative IT managers should also be the best leaders of People.
Effective IT leaders must be able to identify and apply the appropriate leverage to innovation, they should no longer live with the misconception that they are in some way "leading" the innovative process, even less to implement strategies and visions to "manage" and "develop" innovation.
After all what is innovation really about, ego, or progress?
Innovation belongs to the People of our organizations, and not just to management and specialist groups.
Are your IT managers enabling innovation?
The questions we can ask IT leaders to determine whether they might have innovative leadership potential and abilities may include the following themes:
Ability to identify, acknowledge and use innovation regardless of where it originates
Ability to unambiguously position the value of innovation within the frame of achieving operational objectives
Ability to clearly position innovation in terms of strategic, customer, and financial contributions
Ability to identify and remove systemic organizational hurdles that often prevent innovation
Ability to support risk taking and encouraging experimentation throughout the organization, both in Business and IT
Ethos of not using failure as a means to punish, but as a means to learn as a whole organization
Ability to share and publicize creative and innovative endeavors throughout the organization
Ability to openly reward and encourage innovation for instance by inaugurating and holding an award ceremony
The objective for innovative IT managers
The objective should be to embed and strengthen the "innovation mindset" and allow it to flow through the organizational culture.
There are some key concepts that support this kind of innovative culture and they start with team learning, shared visions, mental models, personal masteryandsystems thinking. Together they form the foundation of the learning organization, an organization that continuously learns and adapts in the flux that is our world.
