**June 25, 2024** #### #### Links [Transistor](https://share.transistor.fm/s/4796f223) [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/3DBRCVFep0YbYeLPcVVXQv) [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/essential-dynamics-with-derek-hudson/id1542392917) [Podcast Addict](https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/essential-dynamics-with-derek-hudson/3153944) #### Summary - Dave and Derek explore why it is hard to effect real change in organizations. They they talk about how to do it anyway. #### Concepts - [[The System]] - [[Purpose]] - [[Path]] - [[People]] #### Quotes >The work of management is making decisions and setting priorities or parameters for decisions that other people make. >If you're implementing strategy in an organization, you're trying to get people to think differently and make different decisions at the level of their desk, their world. >If you take it back up a level and have everybody understand how the system works and why each of these actions affects the system, or how it drives towards Purpose X and Purpose Y, then they're contributing to the system as opposed to performing a job with a metric. >The simple answer, what we talk about sometimes as the simplicity on the other side of complexity, is if t resonates with the people, then the rest of it isn't as hard. >If they understand that there's a way that's going to be better, you can have instantaneous change. >What we're trying to do is earn the hearts and minds of the people... The way you earn it is a resonance with the purpose and a resonance with the way you work together. >The birdhouse represents clear purpose, processes that get you there, and people that are invested in the purpose and the processes that get you there. Then you have a birdhouse. If you don't do all of that, then you've got a sketch, or a mockup, but you didn't build a birdhouse. #### See also - [[Episode 87 Organization Silos (Business Traditions That Have to Stop Now Part 1)]] - [[Episode 95 You Better Build a Birdhouse]] - [[Simplicity on the other side of complexity - Holmes]] %% # Outtakes >Having the ability to say, "Hey just a second guys, this is not good enough, we need to do better", that's something that people, I think, step into more than they get placed on them. # Episode Ideas - 1. Back to the Birdhouse - I'll have to listen to Episode 95 and see what's still hanging - I know I didn't ever answer Dave's question "Why is it so hard?" - should we try again - I'm not sure we were clear as we could be on the "hire a consultant" or "redo the strategy" situations - you want your business to improve - you take an initiative or hire someone - plans get made, work gets done, reports get issued - but you can't answer the question: how has your organization's capacity to deliver value substantially changed because of this inititiative? - if you can't point out the system improvement that's going to deliver the change, you have not built a birdhouse. - 2. Low hanging fruit - This one can be "low hanging fruit" and "quick wins" - You've solved all the easy problems and are stuck on the hard problems. - Why would you go back to find another easy problem? It's not going to help you move ahead. - The only time I've seen this be even marginally acceptable is when an organization is so stuck that any changes seems impossible. - so what's the problem with Low hanging fruit - distraction: takes away energy from what really needs to be done - illusion of progess, you don't look for other opportunities - unin - ended consequences, you might do more harm than good; if the marginal good is so low - its a lazy mindset - Angela's human constraint - Goldratt said don't let inertia became the constraint - What examples have we seen? - Like Time Oil, when we manage to institute Casual Fridays, just to prove we could make a change - 3. Comfortably stuck - If I say, "is your organization stuck" and you say, "no I'm good, you are probably stuck in inertia - the answer is [[The Call to Adventure]] - renew purpose - shared purpose with the people - find drivers, the source of energy - 4. Why do you put up with that? - is a related concept - we don't like the situation but we don't change it. - I have spent a lot of time with people who tell me what wrong - So why don't they change it - Because it's hard? - But you just spent an hour telling me how hard your life is now. Why don't you do the hard thing to change it? - so we need to figure out how to get more uncomfortable with the hard things we need to change, and more comfortable, or at least more resolved, to do the hard things that will make the change happen.