How to deal with all that complexity and uncertainty

With the world all VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) things can get pretty scary for our teams, clients, competitors, customers… and ourselves.
 
Perception is...
I heard a comedian say ‘perception is nine tenths of the law’; a take on the adage that possession was nine tenths of the law.

But that's how we make our representation of the world... our perceptions. We need a map, a visual sense or a way of connecting some dots to understand what's happening. It gives us something to hold on to and helps reduce fear about unknowns.
 
So where the **** are we?
Author and Director of MIT’s Leadership Centre, Deborah Ancona shares the story of some soldiers lost in the Swiss Alps. Not knowing where they were, things got even more uncertain when it began snowing. Visibility dropped, landmarks were unknown. But later, one of the soldiers found a map in their pocket. Hooray! They worked their way through the map and found themselves out of the snow and clear to safety.
 
It turns out the map was of the Pyrenees, not the Alps! It shows that, as sensemaking elder Karl Weick says, 'any old map will do'. The soldiers had purpose, focus and they were heading somewhere. The map was just a start.
 
Ask these:
So two questions to ask to deal with uncertainty and complexity are:

• What’s going on here?
• Now what should I do?

 These questions help us make meaning about things. You’re more able to pick up on cues and clusters of information when you’re looking to connect some dots Wondering what's going on and what you should do will help.

Map it out
The best way to look at what the story is and what’s going on is to map it out. Do this for yourself on a piece of paper, on a tablet or a whiteboard and most of all... for the people you're working with.
 
This is 'making sense' and it often starts with chaos. Phew! That’s a relief, because we need sense making most when things are a tad crazy. Like VUCA crazy.
 
Sense comes after action
Don’t just sit and wonder or be all talk. Making sense is about action. Think, map and act and then think and map some more.
 
In sense making we are constantly iterating, changing, building, developing, growing and shifting our understanding. Things can’t help but be shaped and shifted when we talk about them.
 
In a VUCA world, things will never be totally ‘right’ or ‘all right’. There will always be more change. Get used to that and keep making sense by mapping it out.

Think. Build. Ship. Tweak.

Forget the days of heading to the CD shop to buy a CD – just stream what you want to listen to via an online service like Spotify.

So how does a business like Spotify get their sh*t together and take on a market, and an industry and revel in the opportunity to disrupt?
 
Henrik Kniberg shined a light on some of the leadership and management insights of Spotify at a conference recently - he's been working as a lean and agile coach.  

Go anti-silo and have squads and tribes
Henrik reckons a minimum viable bureaurcracy is the way to go…to group people into tribes; to have squads of people who collaborate with each other to find the best solution. These groups cut across the organisation. It’s somewhat of an anti silo strategy.

Healthy culture heals broken processes
Don’t try and scale your product or service – rather, descale the organisation. A healthy culture is what will heal broken processes. We’ve all felt the pain of a broken process when we’ve interacted with a business or organisation and things just didn't go well :-(
 
It seems that control is dying but not yet buried. In fact it’s trust that flourishes; it’s more powerful than control. Having autonomy across the organisation means you can move fast. Be agile.

What agility looks like
In Henrik's words, agility looks like this:

• Think it
• Build it
• Ship it
• Tweak it

Don’t you love it?
 
And it's alignment that enables the autonomy. Without people being aligned to the vision, plan and purpose, you’ll create fear, silos, yawn culture, and a host of flow on problems.

Fail fast ... and recover from it
You’ve got to let people make mistakes. To fail fast. But then recover from the failure.

I think too many leaders think they're encouraging failure yet secretly fear failure because it takes so damn long to recover from it – “hmmm, best to not go there at all,” they think.
 
Rather, go there. Fail it fast. But Henrik says limit your ‘blast radiance’ – limit the effect of the fail and how far it impacts around the organisation.

Are we learning anything people?

Leverage the learning from the fail. And further, you’ve got to then share the learning from the fail. Trust and support people.

Contemporary leaders of today have to let go and let their teams make sense of what needs to be done and how to do it. Community is what matters.
 
Move fast, fail fast, limit the blast.
Think. Build. Ship. Tweak.

Do you know what the future of work will look like?

Can you imagine the effects of teaching computers to understand? It's happening now... not just thinking computers but understanding computers. 
 

What will that mean for the future of our work?

At the REMIX Summit in Sydney recently, the focus was on the future and the intersection of technology, culture and entrepreneurship. There will be more freelancing - so how do you hold a culture together in that type of environment?

We'll need to be stronger leaders. 

Fast, small technology is proving to be both an enabler and a disruptor. Look at that 'smart' phone you've got there and what its capable of. 

 

Despite us not being able to exactly predict human behaviour, we've got to remember that work is about us... it's about people... humans.

A great deal of our work is knowledge work and knowledge knows no borders. In the future, you'll see your career as a lattice... not a ladder. Careers, opportunities, jobs, roles and pathways will criss cross and complement; they won't be straight up and down.

Workplaces will need to be more attractive experiences that bring people together, evolving into vibrant 24/7 precincts that aren't just about work. 

Pass me my bathrobe please!

 

One of the Remix Summit speakers suggested the 'hotel experience' would come to workplaces, where we feel welcome at work, where we are less of an employee and more of a guest. 

 

What does the future of work mean for leaders leading in these environments that are uncertain, changing and complex? 

Leaders will need to be sense makers... everyday.

At the heart of it, leaders will need to make quicker and clearer sense of things, for themselves, the people they lead and for others they interact with. They'll need to engage across even more diverse interests and cultures and they'll need to be aligning and realigning their teams to the strategic shifts that become constant and frequent. 

For some more detailed reading pleasure, CEDA the Committee for Economic Development here in Australia released their Australia's Future Workforce Report today and you can get hold of it here. 

How will you keep adapting for the future of work? How will you keep the team connected, the culture thriving, the workplace adapting and the competition afraid of your bold responses?

In a quote from the Remix Summit:

The work of the future will be at the edges of what we know.

Keep looking, learning and pushing the edges of your work. You're gonna need it for the future. 

Blue-Sky Thinking, Strategy & Story

Blue sky thinking is up there, out there, up ahead….
 
We can’t see it yet but we have many ideas, possibilities, hopes. Blue sky thinking isn’t cliché; it’s thinking where there are no preconceptions and no limitations by current beliefs.
 
When you put blue sky thinking to work – at work, at home, or anywhere else in your life or community – see it as three stages or steps, not just the singular step of thinking.
 
See it as:

1. Thinking
2. Strategy
3. Story

 
Once you’ve done the ‘out there’ thinking, convert it to action and create the strategy that will reinforce and bring the thinking to life.
 
Yet many organisations stop at this point.
 
‘We’ve got the strategy; see this spreadsheet and these tables and documents; that’s the strategy’
 
Not so fast. I think you need to push on and create something else: the story that spreads the image and vision of those possibilities that you’re working towards.
 
Make the thinking and strategy more tangible, possible, visible and real – after all, those on the team who will be enacting the strategy may not have had the benefit of weeks (or months or years) of discussions, debates and conversations that you and the team have had in creating it.
 
Go beyond the the blue sky thinking; translate it to the strategy… and then go further and craft the storythat will bring the thinking to life, down on the ground where great work is getting done.
 
An example: 
A current project I’m working with a senior leader on is helping the team visualise ‘what good looks like’. The team has plenty of challenging work ahead of them. A visual map, strategy and story will bring their blue sky thinking to life, bringing it closer and making it more possible, attainable and less abstract.
 
The bottom line is:
it’s helps people make sense of it all, connecting dots and seeing where they are on the path to reaching the blue sky.

The best meeting : 10 minutes, no water bottles, no chairs, no tables

At a client workplace this morning I saw a group of colleagues heading off to their Monday morning meeting. They were all carrying note pads and pens and water bottles full to the brim. Into the meeting room they walked, they shut the door, sat down and they got into two hours of ..... yawn. 

I'm working with them to help them become quicker collaborators, clearer communicators and faster problem solvers. 

The first thing we will 'delete' (before we create or add to a 'do' list) is their lengthy Monday morning meeting. 

Starting tomorrow they'll be having a daily stand up, or a huddle; a quick (5 - 15 mins) standing meeting that reports on what each individual is working on and if there are any impediments to them getting that done today.

They'll meet again the next day, same type of meeting. And the day after, and every working day onward. 

This 'stand up' approach to meetings is efficient, quick, clear, focused, progressive and helps get stuff done. 

It's a no nonsense, no blah-blah and no bullish*t approach to producing outcomes and getting over hurdles. 

Borrowed from the worlds of agile and scrum and highly effective in software development, the daily stand up answers three questions and everyone reports in on them, quickly: 

1. What did I accomplish yesterday?
2. What will I do today?
3. What obstacles are impeding my progress?

A team in financial services I helped set up these meetings got started, but then they started shifting the time of the meetings to 10am and midday and then sometimes it didn't happen. 

The key is same time, every day, no matter who is or isn't there. The meetings get people used to communicating frequently, face to face and clearly. 

It's so great to see a team get some momentum with this approach. They're relieved at the time they're saving; they're motivated by the progress they can see they're making. 

And the team leader can see quickly which areas need their input and leadership to unblock or remove impediments. 

You don't need a meeting room. Stand up in your working area. 

Try it at home. Have a daily stand up meeting at home to work out what's happening today and what obstacles are in the way. 

There's so much more to read and learn about stand ups. Start with this awesome piece from Jason Yip on Martin Fowler's website and you'll find plenty of insights, learning and tips on how to make it more than just about standing up. 

Your team's culture and collaborative effectiveness can change. This is one strong way to impact and lead that change. 

Will you stand up?