Could the discovery experience of travel, work at work

The promises and rewards of travel are many : exploration, discovery, insight, learning, life-changing experiences. We are invited to show up, not knowing much about a country or culture, encouraged to tour, learn, listen, sample, test and experience.

Could more leaders in more businesses encourage the joys of discovery at work, like travel does for us?

Are there fears that all that discovering will take/waste a lot of time?

That it won’t really deliver any benefits?

Or that it isn’t needed: at work we just do what we do, same as yesterday, last week or last year.

Newer ways of thinking and working include doing things like deliberate discovery. It’s invited, welcomed and expected. I’m not suggesting it switches to all, full-on discovery, 100% of the time. It’s not an all or nothing thing.

It’s about some. Allowing some time for discovery. Some budget. Some opportunity. Some guidance or coaching so that your team knows how to discover, explore and unearth.

Otherwise, one day you’ll wonder where all the good people went to, why they left. They’ll go where there are opportunities for a better ‘adventure’.

Find some red tape and eliminate it

Working with a government agency recently, we spent time on a ‘Red Tape Reduction’ session.

Red tape: those needless, time consuming activities.

Ask your customers and they'll have likely been frustrated or annoyed with something about your systems or how they interact with your product, business or people.

'Red tape'? It's thought to be based on the old practice of binding government documents with... red tape.

Frustration with red tape also comes from within the organisation too, from complicated or broken systems, time wasting forms, clunky websites.

Agreeing to go through a Red Tape Reduction session is a great thing to do! For many organisations this isn’t easy:

1. To agree to do it

2. To commit to being there in the session, identifying red tape, and then

3. To actually change things to remove the problem points.

That's because it’s way more exciting (and more rewarded via KPIs & targets) to work on new things, make new stuff and create new services.

What if at your next team meeting you just identified something that’s riddled with red tape and decided to eliminate the messy complications? You’d make things better for your customers, your colleagues ... and you.

Do you A3

Working with teams, building their sensemaking and problem-solving skills, I’ll often ask them, ‘Do you A3?’

So ... do YOU A3?

🔲 Yes

🔲 No

🔲 Kind of

If yes, you’re an A3 thinking kind of person, you’d know how powerful this way of thinking and working is. It’s great for problem solving, communicating, collaborating, presenting and working. (And hey, share more of your thinking like this. Help others understand what is gained when you can see what’s going on).

If you’re a no, you can start now. I have a task for you below.

If you’re a 'kind of', is that because you’ve heard of it but don’t use it, or something else?

A3 thinking (using A3 sized paper) is a thing. With foundations from Toyota, lean manufacturing and the lean product development process great Al Ward, A3 pages are being created, prepared and shared around the world right now to communicate and make sense of some of the most challenging and complex things.

A task for you: get 1 piece of A3 paper and write on it, some of the things you’re currently working on. Keep the page this week, add to it, make notes. Share it with others, use it to explain stuff, see how it helps yours and other people’s thinking.

Currents, turbulence and disturbed air flows

We often expect things to be smooth and uninterrupted. I heard a driver shout ‘get out of my way’ to a fellow road user this morning.

It’s a complaint of our time, always expecting a clear path. But not every cruise can be on calm seas; not every flight is entirely smooth. Weather patterns clash and collide and we travel through so much airspace that we’re bound to encounter different situations.

This is most certainly the case in our diverse workplaces and communities. It happens in teams, in projects … even in meetings. We have a rich mix of styles, types, modes, preferences and behaviours. All colliding. And we need to be able to make progress with them, not against them.

What’s going on in your team or project may not be permanent. It may just be a passing current, passing weather, a ripple or ruffle from something else. Don’t be too quick to smooth it.

In becoming better facilitators of processes and people, we can learn how to go with currents. Just like a rip in the ocean or at a surf beach, fighting it is tiring, pointless, dangerous. Going with it usually takes you to another exit point, another way of exploring it, solving it and surviving it.

Degree of Difficulty

There could be a degree of difficulty.

Trying new things, working in new ways or joining new teams can present challenges. Not everything is easy, simple, clear or certain to ‘go our way’. Any time you’re working with or on something new, there could be a degree of difficulty with it.

Yes, just like athletes in diving, skating, skiing - and many other sports - there’s a grade or tariff in a technical skill.

As the world of work keeps changing, your role may change, the system may change, the leader may change, customers change. And with every change, there could be some challenge and difficulty.

Rather than resisting, blocking, denying or ignoring the new, try it. Practice it, try it out, and again. No great skill, insight or learning came from persistent resistance.

New ways of doing things are new to some of us because we haven’t done things like this, in this way, using this system/process/app/tool/method before. As we try to think and do things in new ways, be kind to those experiencing these degrees of difficulty.

We've all been there. Don’t push people down the ramp. Let them take it step by step.