Rethinking Complexity

Your Performance Management System "Meets Expectations"

To: Management
From: A concerned employee

Subject: Performance Management

Well, it’s that time of year again. The leaves are changing color, the kids are back in school in their new shoes, and I’m preparing to meet with my boss to have a year’s worth of behavior summed up in a two-or three-word euphemism that will determine my future income and career potential. Yep, it’s performance appraisal season.

If I’ve had a successful year, the boss will give me a rating of "meets expectations." A rating, I’m told, that should lift my spirits; after all, expectations around here are quite high, and meeting said "high expectations" is no small accomplishment. Then why does it not feel very good? Perhaps we should rename the rating: "Enthusiastically Meets Expectations!" or perhaps "Meets Expectations Unlike They’ve Ever Been Met Before!" Otherwise, call me crazy, but many employees might be tempted to look at "meets expectations" as a mediocre evaluation.

With all due respect, dear management, here’s the deal. This system called "performance management" doesn’t do anything to help performance and is pretty darn unmanageable. I’ve reached a stage in my life where I’d prefer to receive feedback about what I do rather than be graded on a curve. This time of year, we all seem to be focusing more attention on working the system than doing the work the system was designed to measure.

I think it’s high time to evaluate the system that is used to evaluate us. How, I wonder, would the performance appraisal system itself hold up under the scrutiny it imposes on the rest of us?

Kodak's Final Act: An Ode to Theory Z

On Sunday, The Financial Times reported that the recent drop in Eastman Kodak’s share prices may be the final, overt sign that the photography giant is nearing its end.

For a company that spearheaded innovation—in 1885, founder George Eastman invented roll film, which benefited the motion picture industry and inventor Thomas Edison—the only sign that may be left that Rochester, NY, was once the home of something great sits midway down East Avenue where the George Eastman house sits.

In the late 19th century, Eastman sparked up an idea and a patent before dashing to market. A blue-chip, global enterprise once valued at an estimated $200 billion is now a pale contrast of its former self. On Friday, Eastman Kodak shares were valued at an estimated 54 cents per share, losing half of its value in a single day.

So what happened? Kodak competitor Fuji is still profitable and cash flow is healthy.

The answer may be in Kodak’s embedded culture of over-greatness. Over-greatness is a pet name I have given to the phenomenon plaguing Kodak—when a majority of people in an organization are feeling and acting over-inflated to the point of insularity.

Crisis of Power: Exploring Three Different Leadership Stances

Are you Not Enough, Too Much or Enough?

At the 2011 National Training Lab Annual Conference this August, Collins Dobbs, Mary Ann Huckabay, Craig Shchuler, and Yifat Sharabi-Levine asked its participants to answer this question.

I was one of them.

The question was part of an experimental exercise designed to explore different sides of ourselves and the people with whom we interact.

The facilitators posted three statements on the wall in separate areas of the room: Not Enough, Too Much, and Enough. We were then invited to select the statement that resonated with us and go to that area.

Everyone would eventually have a chance to visit each statement. We were then encouraged to embody the statement we chose.

I was fascinated by what resulted.

Seven Pillars of Governance

Every week I see signs that our social institutions and organizations have lost their ability to accomplish key tasks, even as the urgency to do so rises. In fact, the intensity of feelings among different stakeholder groups seems to be a factor contributing to breakdown.

We depend on large organizations, government, and community groups to accomplish large and complex tasks. But they cannot do that if they are paralyzed about the nature of their task and how to gather the resources they need and accomplish it. It is not clear who should decide, how that should be done, and how to keep their focus and get things done without having to face the demands to change course.

This foundation of agreement is called governance, as distinguished from operations and management. We are facing a major crisis as governance structures face challenges to their legitimacy and the governors themselves find it hard to reach agreement. Finding the right thing to do is becoming increasingly difficult as we lack the ability to forecast even the immediate outcomes of our actions. We have to solve the problems of how to govern our institutions and entities if we are to survive as a civilization.

As I view the global questions of legitimacy of nations and super-national entities, I work as a consultant in governance to family businesses and educational institutions. I see similar challenges in defining and carrying out effective governance. If an entity cannot decide what it wants to do, craft a workable design for getting there, and stick to it while prudently changing course when challenges arise, then the best machines and organizations cannot function.  How can they organize human energy to get things done, and balance the different interests of different stakeholder groups who want something from the organization?

To begin the conversation, I want to define seven key considerations that effective governance, whether of a company, a nation or a supra-national alliance, must take into account when they craft their governance process.

A Leadership Challenge, Part 2: Lessons from Action, Surrender, and Vulnerability

The first part of this leadership challenge explored the concept of “unveiling the illusions of the true professional.”

The concept behind the exploration came from Margaret Wheatley's poem "The True Professional," where she challenges the reader to seek a “reliable truth” that will “let the human heart rest.” I would now like to focus on the “action” and “surrender” sections of the same poem.

In "The True Professional," Wheatley wrote: "Action like a sacrament/is the visible form of an invisible spirit/outward manifestation of/an inward power.” Is she saying that a leader's actions should be religiously executed as sacraments are and perhaps driven from within, anchored in values that are or can be operationalized?

In his 1994 book, A Higher Standard of Leadership: Lessons from the Life of Gandhi, Keshavan Nair asserts that “operationalizing values transforms them into action… and ... by operationalizing our values we take personal responsibility and are willing to be held accountable.”

The type of action Wheatley speaks of in her poem is action realized from values as opposed to action based on a reaction to external elements. It is action birthed from within, as Wheatley wrote: "An expressive act is not to achieve a goal outside myself/but to express a conviction/a leading, a truth that is within me."

Got Assumptions?

One of the best tips I ever got came from journalism school.

The tip involved assumption-making and it was offered in the form of a question-and-answer.

Do you know what happens when you make assumptions? The journalism professor asked my undergraduate, database research class. The first three letters of the word "assumption," that's what you make of yourself.

He was right. I just didn't realize how much.

As a no-nonsense journalist-in-training, I was taught not to take things sources told me at face value. I was taught to always maintain a certain level of distrust in dealing with people. This would allow me to continue questioning everything to shreds until I reached the objective truth through information and fact gathering.

Looking back, I can't help but wonder why I didn't extend that piece of advice to my personal and professional life as well? It might have spared me years of self-inflicted anguish and grief over trivialities. Live and learn, I suppose.

Shocking the System

I tuned into CNN this morning the way I typically do before breakfast when a quotation on the screen immediately grabbed my attention: "shock to the system."

The quote belonged to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman who was discussing how he believes that a third-party, presidential candidate could deliver the systemic jolt—the "shock to the system"—America needs to make the country a global leader once again.

Friedman's quote struck me more than his theory did. Having only caught the tail end of his interview, I decided to research his "shock to the system" theory further after breakfast, like any good [former] journalist would do.

I found that Friedman's been kicking the idea of national shock therapy around for some time. He's pushing it harder now that he's in the midst of promoting a new book—That Used to Be Us with co-author Michael Mandelbaum—which formally birthed the "shock to the system" quote.

A review of the book published today by the British newspaper The Independent noted that "few could fundamentally disagree with the authors' diagnosis. The U.S. has a political system generating only small responses to big problems. American schoolchildren have fallen behind and the country risks falling behind in innovation. Meanwhile, it is perilously dependent on deficit funding from China and oil from the Middle East."

But, according to the review, Friedman and Mandelbaum's prescriptions to fix the U.S. system "range from the already consensus to the hopelessly naive."

Rethinking Change: Why change is simpler than you think... or is it?

I smiled with delight after having welcomed five new teaching staffers to our University Professional Development Center community. At the same time, I could not help reflecting on the courage required to begin the process of adding these five new people.

Was it really that difficult to expand our class offerings? Was it that surprising that we needed to respond to the business community at large to fill a “gap”?  Our community needed more business courses with a “humanistic spirit,” so how was this a challenge if the need was there?

Starting a process of change may seem overbearing, but often the work is not so exhaustive—au contraire, it becomes the tie that binds us.

Then, I wondered: Is it the system that fails us or do we fail to be a system? Blame is a lovely yet blinding reality as we live our lives. So which is it:  Do systems fail or do we fail to organize systemically to address issues? If we do actually fail, why is it that we opt out of being the very solution to the issues at hand that plague companies, families and communities?

In the case of University Professional Development Center, did we need an off-the-shelf system from days of organizational change? If so, how many would we need to study prior to making our initiative happen?

A Leadership Challenge, Part 1: Unveiling the Illusions of the True Professional

Writer Margaret Wheatley's poem, "The True Professional," isn't entirely original and she lets everyone know this.

It's a "found poem," Wheatley explained on her website. All of the lines of "The True Professional" are phrases "found" in Parker J. Palmer’s book The Active Life.

After taking these lines, Wheatley "played with them and extended them beyond Parker’s original prose" as a tribute to the author for "the profound influence he’s had on my work."

According to Palmer, a true professional, or leader, “is a person whose action points beyond his or herself to that underlying reality, that hidden wholeness, on which we all can rely.” Wheatley constructed her poem around this definition.

In my view, Wheatley's poem provokes inquiry and critical reflection for all leaders.

Using Palmer's words, Wheatley wrote: "The true professional is one/who does not obscure grace/with illusions of technical prowess,/the true professional is one/who strips away all illusions to reveal a reliable truth/a reliable truth in which/the human heart can rest. Unveil the illusions/unveil the illusions that masquerade/the illusions that masquerade/as reality and reveal the reality/behind the masks."

In part one of this leadership challenge, I would like to focus on Wheatley’s call to “unveil the illusions.” Many of us might have been schooled and socialized to believe that true professionalism lies in our technical prowess—our ability to deliver results, to perform, to contribute to the bottom line—to make profit. Have we focused way too much and too long on the ends and given little attention to the means? Do we only define the means within the boundaries of leader-making—pushing, commmanding, controlling, manipulating and even coercing others to do things in order to produce results?

Why Can’t People on the Front Lines Talk to Each Other?

Recently as I was listening to a critique of the work done in response to the latest natural disaster when the following comment was made: “We need to get the first responders to talk to each other.”

On the surface, this may sound like a reasonable request and something that we should expect from a group of people dedicated to helping others during emergencies. Yet if we look at this request systemically, we can see that much work is needed to enable people to work together and coordinate their efforts—whether it's in response to a natural disaster, coordinating care of patients in hospitals, or managing just about any complex organizational effort.

For many years, we focused on training people well, providing good policies and incentives, and relying on mangers to provide the direction and supervision to ensure that the work was done as expected. In many organizational situations, those support mechanisms are no longer enough.  We cannot assume that well-trained people dedicated to doing their best work can address the growing complexity of multiple systems and the resulting—often conflicting—needs that arise.

Workers today need to do more than their jobs. They need to understand the dynamics of the systems within which they work. They need to know enough about the work of others to recognize the intersections of their work and the larger system. They need to understand not only their priorities, but the priorities of others with whom they interact and those that define the organizational system. If people don’t see and understand the system and its dynamics, they don’t know how to interact.