The Singing Bowl

I had heard about “singing bowls,” and I had heard singing bowls sing, but I had never made a singing bowl sing.

Yes, I had set bowls vibrating with a strike of a wooden mallet.  (I like the idea of releasing the sound as I pull the mallet away from the bowl rather than beating the sound out of the bowl.  Perhaps this is just a particular mindset but, then again, what isn’t?)

I had not, however, made a bowl sing by running the mallet around the rim.  Until recently…

The storekeeper gathered her inventory of singing bowls and laid them out on the counter in front of me.

With aplomb, she picked up a bowl, “released” its sound with a light strike of the mallet and then began to circle the mallet around the rim with a light but knowing touch.  In a few moments, the sound began to transform, and soon we both enjoyed the multiphonic sounds that emerged: strong, rich, vibrant, and distinctly different from the tones released by the mallet’s initial touch.

With a bowl resting on my outstretched palm, I began to mimic what I had just observed.

Not much happened after the initial tonal release.  No magical harmonic transformation, just a scratchy, raspy sound.

What I lacked at that point was the touch, the feel, the inexpressible tacit knowledge gained through experience and reflection.

Second attempt.  Third attempt.  Increased focus.  Again.  My surroundings began to fall away.  I felt the bowl’s vibrations transmitted up my arm and throughout my body.  Suddenly I was connected to the bowl in a new and different way: palm (left), bowl, mallet, hand (right), body, earth, all.

One circuit.

I try again, but I am no longer keeping track of my failed efforts, I am more keenly focused on my incremental improvements and the still-tentative but nevertheless instantaneous and deepening feedback system that I am discovering in union with the bowl.

We have begun working together, the bowl and I.

And then we sang.

A diaphanous column of multiphonic sounds, a nearly palpable tonal equivalent of a lightsaber extending without end, rose from the joined body/bowl instrument as energetic vibrations filled and then seemed to emanate from my body.

Soon, my conscious mind began to analyze everything I have just tried to describe to you in rather poetic terms, and the tones stopped.

Practice.  Focus on the moment. Drop off thought.

“You picked that up quickly,” observed the proprietor, who had given me space, time, and encouragement to experiment, discover, learn.

I’m not sure what I picked up beyond this: I cannot make a bowl sing, but the two of us can sing together.

Learn. Do. Teach. Lead.

–Erik

Carpe Diem? Not Really.

Robin Williams, in the character of English teacher John Keating, popularized the phrase, “carpe diem,” in the 1989 movie, The Dead Poets Society, when he said, “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”

Popular culture took it from there.

The dead poet whom Keating likely had in mind was the Roman poet, Horace, who admonishes, “seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future” (Odes 1:11).

Don’t you love context?

I’m not sure how much trust we should place in the future–a lot, a little, or none at all.  Of this, however, I am more certain: the present moment will not last.  It’s gone already.  We cannot “seize” it if by that we mean anything like “to take hold of” or “to take possession of.”

The day–or moment–we attempt to seize as though it were ours for the taking is impermanent and without substance, in a state of continuous collapse yielding to the next nano-moment.

This astonishing benefit attends such wave-like flux: the potential to take a new action in the next moment, free from any limitations, real or imagined, to which we, through habit of thought and action, tend to invest undue weight.

Or, change is possible.

No, change is all there is.  Ever.  In markets.  In customers.  In products and services.  In science and technology.  In knowledge.  In ourselves.

This can be a liberating awareness.

Applied to the development of knowledge, skills, and abilities in the workplace, such thinking can help to diminish the perceived permanence of the past while simultaneously enabling new action in the next moment.

Thus, when coaching others we can realistically ask for a demonstration of new knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the near term: the next report, the next customer interaction, the next phone call, the next presentation, the next hammer strike, etc.

Most workplace tasks require an amalgamation and satisfactory execution of many individual skills, each of which is learned and practiced.   We can improve our coaching effectiveness by precisely pin-pointing and sequencing job skills.  Such chunking (small bits) and sequencing (first things first) facilitates learning, skill acquisition, rapid demonstration and refinement, and shaping.

As a coach, we instruct, show, ask for a demonstration, and then observe.  Based on our observation, we can immediately recognize and praise the new or improved performance and, if necessary, provide additional feedback and practice opportunities.  This can create deeply engaging and effective interactions, and it’s the only way we can hope to know that the information we communicated was received, properly understood, and sufficient to enable the desired performance.

While the moment of performance is fast and fleeting, the force of habit is old and often powerful, obtaining its greatest power from our own ignorance of the next new moment, the one that not only welcomes change, but is change itself.  We may need many “next new moments” to practice new skills and progress from skill acquisition to mastery.

Seize the day?  Not really.  More like “be present in the moment, aware.”

As author and motivational speaker Harvey Mackay recently wrote, “Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new end.”

Learn. Do. Teach. Lead.

–Erik
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Coaching

San Francisco Giants World-Series-winning manager Bruce Bochy understands coaching and shares his perspective in Bloomberg Businessweek (“Hard Choices,” Nov,-15-21, 2010).

“Like any job, the more you learn the better manager you become,” he says, reflecting on his own development as a major-league sports manager.

In the United States, at least since Green Bay Packers Head Coach Vince Lombardi, professional sports coaches have provided motivation and inspiration, and some might say, wisdom, to broad audiences through speeches and books.  Consider the following:

• Vince Lombardi, What it Takes to Be #1: Vince Lombardi on Leadership
• Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski), Leading with the Heart
  Phil Jackson, Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior
• Lou Holtz, Winning Every Day: The Game Plan for Success
• Jim Tressel, The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life

These coaches/authors and scores like them know what it takes to win and can communicate their messages effectively.  Moreover, they elicit commitment, motivation, and great effort from individuals, and sculpt that effort into championship team performance.

It is not surprising that leaders and managers who learn, do, teach, and lead a coaching mentality gain a competitive advantage.

Bruce Bochy captures the essence of coaching when he says, “My job is to put [my team members] in a position where they can succeed.”

What if a work-group leader were to adopt this view–I mean deep in the heart–and earnestly put it into practice? What would change?  What would be needed? What would happen?

Learn.  Do.  Teach.  Lead.

–Erik

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What is “Excellence”?

What is “excellence”?  We use the word frequently, but what do we mean?  Tom Peters and Robert Waterman went “In Search of Excellence,” and the word entered, or re-entered,  business vernacular with vigor.

We are interested to learn what “excellence” means to you.

Please take a few minutes to respond to brief survey that explores which words or phrases most closely define, describe, or contribute to “excellence in the workplace.”

Please go to http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22B7SWR4Q9Y

We will share results and continue the conversation in a later posting.

Thank you for your time and interest.

Fractals and Performance

Benoît B. Mandelbrot, the father of fractals, known for describing the eponymous Mandelbrot Set, died Friday, October 14, 2010, at age 85.

It’s likely you have seen computer-generated fractal art, a testimony to the widespread cultural influence and popularization of Mandelbrot’s mathematical and geometric insights.  Or perhaps you have made sophisticated use of fractals in computer science, cartography, geology, human physiology, or other fields, or benefited from such application.  And we have all seen fractals occurring in nature.  We just might not have known it.

Mandelbrot famously said:

Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones,
coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth,
nor does lightning travel in a straight line.*

This made me think of other things that aren’t smooth and don’t travel in a straight line such as human development–in individuals, work groups, organizations, and societies.

While perhaps not truly a fractal (I am not a mathematician), the “S-curve” appearing in Figure 1 is not really as smooth as it looks (which may be all it has in common with fractals).

 

Figure 1. "S" Curve

The curve represents improved performance over time.  It looks smooth, but it’s not.  A closer examination of the curve (overlaid) shows a fractal-like stair-step (Figure 2).

 

Figure 2. S Curve, Detail

This highly stylized stair-step representation of performance improvement over time reveals “shaping” at work.  Pin-pointed actions.  Small steps.  Near-term goals.  Frequent feedback.  Continuous improvement.  Nearly unlimited opportunities for curiosity, inquiry, discovery, application, observation, modification, and implementation.  It bears the stamp of Plan-Do-Study-Act; of Learn-Do-Teach-Lead.  It plots the path from competence (do the job), efficiency (do the job better), proficiency (do the job/teach the job), mastery (do the job differently), and innovation (do a different job).

Our simple model, of course, can be applied at any level of granularity to represent steps within a skill, skills within a task, tasks within a job, jobs within a project or team, projects within a mission, and on, up and down the scale.

Fractals help us see, and when we turn our fractalized gaze toward talent management, we can see so many opportunities for growth.

Learn.  Do.  Teach.  Lead.  Fractalize.

–Erik
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* Mandelbrot, B.B. (1982). The Fractal Geometry of Nature. W.H. Freeman and Company.

The Price of Gold: 2.9013

2.9013

No, this is not the U.S. postal zip code for Beverly Hills, California, 90210, it’s the price of gold, 2.9013.

Memorize that number.

2.9013 is statistically significant and scientifically grounded.

2.9013 is the “Losada Line” named for positive psychologist Marcial Losada, PhD, who discerned a critical “positive/negative” ratio and it’s relationship to success in business.

“Based on Losada’s extensive mathematical modeling, 2.9013 is the ratio of positive to negative interactions necessary to make a corporate team successful,” writes Shawn Anchor in his 2010 book, The Happiness Advantage (Crown Business).

Dip blow this ratio, fall below the Losada Line, and you risk (read guarantee) diminished performance–personally, within teams, and across organizations.

2.9013 is a measure of health and more: living and working above the line predicts increased happiness, and increased happiness, says Anchor, yields improved success.  (Success follows happiness, asserts Anchor, in a self-described Copernican reorientation of the common belief that happiness follows success.)

Positive messages from work-group leaders to members must trend above the nearly 3-to-1 ratio if the work group is to have any chance of success.

Many companies and work groups suffer below, and some, far below, 2.9013.

Now, the 2.9013:1 ratio does not mean that one negative communication or interaction is necessary to counter-balance every third positive communication, it simply sets the point below which one dare not fall.

It seems remarkably low to me and, thus, highly attainable.

Feedback–immediate, certain, and positive–is a powerful force in modifying behavior, inducing feelings of happiness and well-being, and affecting success.  Unfortunately, of nearly equal potency is feedback of the opposite sort: immediate, certain, and negative.

Negative feedback gets results.  This is why negativity is so widely, wildly, and recklessly wielded by managers, co-workers, customers, and even partners in a vain attempt to get results.

If we understood the Losada Line and the power of recognition, reward, and positive reinforcement, we would never consciously use negative management methods (which is not to be construed as avoiding necessary and sometimes difficult conversations).

Consider the two well-established behavioral and performance paths shown in Figures 1 and 2, below.

 

Figure 1. Impact of Negative Intervention

 

 

Figure 2. Impact of Positive Intervention

 

The trend lines tell the story, and, frankly, go a long way toward explaining why managers use, continue to use, or intensify negative intervention with work-group members and others.

The answer to the adoption, use, and persistence of management techniques that are bound to fail lies in the short-lived improvement response shown in figure 1.  For many managers, this is good news.  Things get better, even if goal performance is not achieved.  Just look at the trend line (and, please, ignore for now where the trend line ends up).  It goes up after the application of negative intervention, and often goes up quickly.  (“Get this done now or you’re fired!” delivered with enough threat of force usually gets a prompt response.)  This fact *positively* reinforces the manager’s *negative* methods, and such reinforcement–immediate, certain, and positive–is enough to dupe the unaware and unskilled manager.

Why does this negative management style persist, when a predictable performance decline is certain?  Because, at just the moment of a decline in performance, the adroit-but-misguided manager delivers yet another dose of negative stimulus, perhaps with practiced aplomb, which once again gets a predictable, though perhaps diminished,  positive uptick in performance.

This manager is blind and deluded, but without alternatives, negative intervention may be the only management practice that gets results.  Worse yet, such behavior may also receive praise from the boss because, again, things get better.  Any positive reinforcement of negative management techniques–including neglect–reinforces them, and strong, overt reinforcement quickly entrenches the behavior.

Things may get better, but only in the short term.  Now take a look at the end of the trend line where performance has eroded to a point below the original, unacceptable starting point.

Success is now impossible, time is lost, good-will, eroded; trust, broken; money, wasted; staff, lost; and business, if it remains, is in decline.

Compare this scenario to the familiar and desirable S-curve of continuous improvement that ultimately exceeds goal and elicits extra, discretionary behaviors:  How can I grow?  What else do you need?  How can I help?  I have an idea!

Gold!

And the price of gold these days?

2.9013

Cheap.

But when engagement, encouragement, and positive interactions are frequent, focused, and genuine, they are priceless.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, there is an upper boundary to the Losada Zone.

11.6345

See how close you can get.

Today.

Learn.  Do.  Teach.  Lead.

What is your experience with the Losada Line (whether you knew it by that name or not)?

 

–Erik
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The Road to Wisdom

The Road to Wisdom? — Well, it’s plain
and simple to express:

Err
and err
and err again,

but less
and less
and less.  (Piet Hein, 1905-1996, The Road to Wisdom)

The efficient and insightful poetry of Piet Hein (which he called grooks) can sometimes help us find the crucial point, of which very point he says:

I’d like to know
what this whole show
is all about
before it’s out.  (Piet Hein, I’d Like)

Oh, to have the prescient sagacity to know, to be able to look ahead, even a little, with certainty when we create and cultivate a Learn-Do-Teach-Lead workplace.  To be able to look ahead, like timing toast:

There’s an art of knowing when.
Never try to guess.
Toast until it smokes and then
twenty seconds less.  (Piet Hein, Timing Toast)

Of course!

What does it take, for example, to create an environment in which it is actually possible “to err, and err, and err again, but less, and less, and less?”

What does it take?  To make an effort.

Our so-called limitations, I believe,
apply to faculties we don’t apply.
We don’t discover what we can’t achieve
until we make an effort not to try.  (Piet Hein, Making an Effort)

And having begun, how long do we persist as work-group leaders and members engage in  the sometimes messy and not-always-linear business of task-at-hand learning, of doing a job all the while looking for opportunities for improvement and innovation, of teaching and freely dispersing knowledge and attitude, and of leading one’s self and others in these same exercises?

Put up in a place
where it’s easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T.T.T.

When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it’s well to remember that
Things Take Time.  (Piet Hein, T.T.T.)

Yes.  Things Take Time.  Yet, in my experience, once embarked on the LDTL path, time and motion accelerate.  Action increasingly supplants inaction, and the cycle of action/learning quickens.  Curiosity and learning breed engagement and quicken thought.  Teaching flows naturally as personal growth manifests.  Leadership is a thing done, recognized, and welcomed, not a thing studied and discussed.  People grow. Culture shifts.

These thoughts may seem like impossibilities, but

‘Impossibilities’ are good
not to attach that label to;
since, correctly understood,
if we wanted to, we would
be able to be able to.  (Piet Hein, Wanting to Be Able To)

Imagine, if we wanted to, we would be able to be able to learn, to do, to teach, and to lead.  To introduce these practices into the workplace ourselves by modeling the LDTL attitude, vision, and practice and by engaging just one other work-group member.

Yes, you will run into problems, because

Problems worthy
of attack
prove their worth
by hitting back.  (Piet Hein, Problems)

Perfect time to be brave in the face of adversity.  Learn.  Do.  Teach.  Lead.

To be brave is to behave
bravely when your heart is faint.
So you can be really brave
only when you really ain’t.  (Piet Hein, Brave)

And, of course, now is the time because

Living is
a thing you do
now or never -
which do you?

If not now, then when?  If not you, then who?

Learn.  Do.  Teach.  Lead.

With a bow to Piet Hein.

–Erik

Deming’s 14 Points

Offered as a refresher: Deming’s 14 points.*

How are we doing?

1. Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to create jobs.
2. Adopt a new philosophy.  We are in a new economic age.  Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.  Eliminate the need for inspection on mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag.  Instead, minimize total cost.  Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever, the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership.  The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job.  Supervision of management is in need of an overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
9. Break down barriers between departments.  People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team to foresee problems in production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity.  Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and productivity belong to the system and thus are beyond the power of the work force.
11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor.  Substitute leadership.
    b. Eliminate management by objective.  Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals.  Substitute leadership.
12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his (sic) right to pride of workmanship.  The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
    b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride in workmanship.  This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating of management by objective.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.  The transformation is everybody’s job.

* From Covert, Jack, and Todd Sattersten.  2009.  The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. New York: Penguin Group, 160.

Work Groups

Work groups are the fundamental building blocks of organizations.

Work groups comprise a work-group leader and work-group members.  Rensis Likert introduced the “linking pin” concept: an individual with overlapping work-group membership (New Patterns of Management. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961).

This simple construct–the work group–is the locus of Learn-Do-Teach-Lead (LDTL) theory and practice.

Within the work group, LTDL practice can start immediately with little or no cost or risk.  A work-group leader can initiate the effort through purposeful interactions with a work-group member.  The promise of rapid impact is high.

I seek to awaken within all work-group members an awareness that learning, growth, and development are individual responsibilities which, once accepted by each work-group member, tend to flourish in an environment that uses improving the task-at-hand as the primary motivator, provides easy access to readily available learning resources, calls upon guidance from those with experience and insight, and recognizes and rewards a “Learn-Do-Teach-Lead” leadership practice.

Work Groups Cross Boundaries

Work groups overlap across formal organizational boundaries.  The  figure, below, shows a simple supply chain overlaid with the work process elements (obtain, enhance, deliver).