Imagine two individuals standing on the same side of the same river but with some distance in between them. And one is standing at a point where the river is calm and gentle whereas the other is standing at a point where the river is wild and fast. Now what will happen when the two will call each other only to consult one another how to cross this river? Do you think they will agree on the way to get across? Probably not. Yet I see this happening every day in organisations. Individuals and groups in direct opposition when discussing solutions whilst they are facing a different problem. They share the same goal: reaching the other side. But they are looking at different parts of the river, requiring them to think differently. Now some would argue that it's simply a matter of reaching agreement on what the problem is. But sometimes we think we agree but we don't. Or we can't agree. Why is that?
First there are a couple of constraints that need to be understood by both. Recognizing these five may increase your options to reach that shared goal:
1. The premature solution
We try so hard to focus on solutions that often we forget to analyze the problem sufficiently, causing us to limit our data gathering, use familiar ways that we know how to solve, and finally, narrow too soon. This can also be 'the single-solution dogma'. We have found a solution to the problem as we see it. Can we accept that there might be several solutions instead of one?
2. The forgotten principle
Problems often reoccur. While this doesn't call for repeating a solution, it's not uncommon that organisations have thought of a principle to guide them each time a problem of similar nature occurs. But principles tend to be forgotten or understood differently over time, whilst they can help us agree that multiple solutions could fit.
3. The policy straitjacket
Organisations often seek efficiency and control by standardisation. If similar problems are addressed in the same way, policies are in place, then people know how to act and we can predict the outcome. But while standardizing manufacturing processes makes perfectly sense, it doesn't make any sense in problem-solving. It limits the use of common sense and may deny us better solutions for different contexts in which the same problem can occur.
4. The improbable testimony
You are looking at the problem but you fail to see it as the other does. Of course! You are looking at it from a different angle. Denying someone's perception of the problem is more harmful than the problem itself. It causes distrust and closes doors for further dialogue and collaboration.
5. The Babylon effect
Christian or not, we all know the story. In ancient Babylon, the Babylonians were building a tower to reach to heaven to sit next to God and rule the world. In the biblical story, God placed confusion of speech upon the builders so they could no longer communicate and complete their work. Are we really speaking the same language?
In fact, there are many more constraints to mention that can cause us to disagree on a solution, or worse, make us settle for a less optimal consensus. But the ones mentioned here are some within your direct span of control. Recognize these and you are half way there!
Posts tonen met het label common sense. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label common sense. Alle posts tonen
dinsdag 23 april 2013
donderdag 10 januari 2013
Bullshit Management
Today I would like to share my book review of Bullshit Management: Return to the essence of organisations by Jos Verveen (The Hague, Academic Service, 2011). Why more than a year after publishing? Well, the simple answer is that I have just recently started this blog, but I really feel this book deserves your attention.
Bullshit Management busts the ubiquitous myth that investing in management pays off. It reads unfettered criticism, disputing any proof of a scientific blue print for success, even questioning well-established theories of Taylor and Mayo. Moreover: due to all these models, methods and terminologies, more and more organisation are losing sight of their essence. This book calls for abandonment of management and urges organisations to take matters into own hands again. While products and services prove distinctive quality of organisations, the best way to organize is unprecedented for as well. According to Verveen, you would anyhow not need a management book for that.
Paradoxically, whereas the writer critically questions the usefulness of models, theories, systems, structures and terminologies, his book went management book besteller in The Netherlands. To my knowledge there is no English edition yet, so my Anglo-Saxon followers unfortunately have to settle for this post, for now.
The Essence of an Organisation
I recently came across the following Tweets:
"Business is about creating value. Making money is just a pleasant sideproduct."
"Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done."
These are just two posts of many that I have seen and read, instigating critical review of management as a concept. Verveen builds his case around experiences he has gathered during his former career as business consultant. In his book, he claims that business management is characterised by continuous efficiency reviews whilst overlooking the essence of an organisation, which does not equal 'managing'.
"The essence of an organisation stands far from the goal of business management which is profit maximisation by increasing the productivity. The essence has therefore also nothing to do with finding an optimal strategy to obtain high productivity. Neither does the essence equal the effort of designing the organisation in the most efficient way to implement that strategy. An organisation has not originated, grown and survived due to management, but only by holding on to its core essence. Each step away from this essence opens the door for building an organisational 'house of cards' which needs management, a lot of management, to keep it straight. A house increasingly filled with people questioning themselves what it exactly is they are doing there."
A Vicious Circle
Recent U.S. gun control debates somewhat got me drawing a parallel between gun lobbyists and management disciples. They both claim to have the solution for a problem what according to others is the root problem in itself. And both advocate for even more of it when the soup hits the fan. Of course the impact of guns cannot be compared with that of management, though in the wrong hands, both can have dramatic social consequences.
If not already by the title of this post, then surely at this point in the text I must have upset some business school graduates. For some, management is a religion. But let me just ask those readers the following then:
According to you, what motivates people to work?
Certainly not management, right?
And according to you, what makes people engage to dreams bigger than their own?
I suspect few would answer 'management' here as well.
Lastly, according to you, what keeps people focused on creating value?
Precisely.
Yet with any sign that motivation, purpose or focus is lacking, we immediately seek to gain control by management. The irony is that management distracts people further from what should give them motivation, purpose or focus, perpetually clouding the essence of the organisation. A vicious circle indeed.
Return to The Essence
The solution this book offers to break the circle is quite obviously to seek that essence again. To stop organising work around peripherals and to start organising it around that what truly matters, what we feel will create value. His case continues even deeper by arguing that management and its goals, productivity and profitability, have poisoned our economies, and some businesses may find that there is actually no value in what they produce.
Verveen envisions a society that revolves around an economy with equal distribution of scarce resources in which true enterpreneurs and professionals bring genuine value while following their actual talents (see also The War for Talent Hoax). A Dutch politician has recently disputed that the current crisis could be solved with economical growth, arguing that economical growth is in fact the cause of this crisis. Maybe the crisis will lead us to a world closer to Verveen's vision...
My lessons learnt from this book: There is no blue print for success, but hard work, common sense and the ambition to bring genuine value will likely give you a head start on your competition.
For those (Dutch readers) who have read it, feel free to leave your review in the comments below. For the others, you can find Jos Verveen (@josverveen) on Twitter and ask him personally to publish an English translation.
Bullshit Management busts the ubiquitous myth that investing in management pays off. It reads unfettered criticism, disputing any proof of a scientific blue print for success, even questioning well-established theories of Taylor and Mayo. Moreover: due to all these models, methods and terminologies, more and more organisation are losing sight of their essence. This book calls for abandonment of management and urges organisations to take matters into own hands again. While products and services prove distinctive quality of organisations, the best way to organize is unprecedented for as well. According to Verveen, you would anyhow not need a management book for that.
Paradoxically, whereas the writer critically questions the usefulness of models, theories, systems, structures and terminologies, his book went management book besteller in The Netherlands. To my knowledge there is no English edition yet, so my Anglo-Saxon followers unfortunately have to settle for this post, for now.
The Essence of an Organisation
I recently came across the following Tweets:
"Business is about creating value. Making money is just a pleasant sideproduct."
"Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done."
These are just two posts of many that I have seen and read, instigating critical review of management as a concept. Verveen builds his case around experiences he has gathered during his former career as business consultant. In his book, he claims that business management is characterised by continuous efficiency reviews whilst overlooking the essence of an organisation, which does not equal 'managing'.
"The essence of an organisation stands far from the goal of business management which is profit maximisation by increasing the productivity. The essence has therefore also nothing to do with finding an optimal strategy to obtain high productivity. Neither does the essence equal the effort of designing the organisation in the most efficient way to implement that strategy. An organisation has not originated, grown and survived due to management, but only by holding on to its core essence. Each step away from this essence opens the door for building an organisational 'house of cards' which needs management, a lot of management, to keep it straight. A house increasingly filled with people questioning themselves what it exactly is they are doing there."
A Vicious Circle
Recent U.S. gun control debates somewhat got me drawing a parallel between gun lobbyists and management disciples. They both claim to have the solution for a problem what according to others is the root problem in itself. And both advocate for even more of it when the soup hits the fan. Of course the impact of guns cannot be compared with that of management, though in the wrong hands, both can have dramatic social consequences.
If not already by the title of this post, then surely at this point in the text I must have upset some business school graduates. For some, management is a religion. But let me just ask those readers the following then:
According to you, what motivates people to work?
Certainly not management, right?
And according to you, what makes people engage to dreams bigger than their own?
I suspect few would answer 'management' here as well.
Lastly, according to you, what keeps people focused on creating value?
Precisely.
Yet with any sign that motivation, purpose or focus is lacking, we immediately seek to gain control by management. The irony is that management distracts people further from what should give them motivation, purpose or focus, perpetually clouding the essence of the organisation. A vicious circle indeed.
Return to The Essence
The solution this book offers to break the circle is quite obviously to seek that essence again. To stop organising work around peripherals and to start organising it around that what truly matters, what we feel will create value. His case continues even deeper by arguing that management and its goals, productivity and profitability, have poisoned our economies, and some businesses may find that there is actually no value in what they produce.
Verveen envisions a society that revolves around an economy with equal distribution of scarce resources in which true enterpreneurs and professionals bring genuine value while following their actual talents (see also The War for Talent Hoax). A Dutch politician has recently disputed that the current crisis could be solved with economical growth, arguing that economical growth is in fact the cause of this crisis. Maybe the crisis will lead us to a world closer to Verveen's vision...
My lessons learnt from this book: There is no blue print for success, but hard work, common sense and the ambition to bring genuine value will likely give you a head start on your competition.
For those (Dutch readers) who have read it, feel free to leave your review in the comments below. For the others, you can find Jos Verveen (@josverveen) on Twitter and ask him personally to publish an English translation.
vrijdag 7 december 2012
The Thing With Common Sense
Whatever definition you use for common sense, it usually refers to particular knowledge attributes which most people already have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have. A regularly used statement for common sense is: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
But what if everyone around you shares a belief which you don't? Does it make your opinion less true? Shouldn't you be acting on your thoughts then? Before science hit us with its truth, people thought the earth was flat. The possibility of falling of the edge of the world was common sense at the time. Thinking differently would have exposed you to mockery at the least, but more likely to facing the inquisition for blasphemy. Even to this day, your life can be in danger in some places where your beliefs, be it religious, ideological or simply political, are a minority.
How can you tell that common sense makes sense?
I don't think you can! Common sense is not always based on facts. Actually, it navigates quite often between science, pseudoscience or just popular belief. Between realism and idealism.
Why do we use it so rigorously?
Sharing beliefs gives us a sense of significance, comfort and security. The more we share, the more it takes refuge in our social DNA, as fundamental patterns of our behaviour.
Is that a bad thing?
Jein (this is a portmanteau of the German equivalent for 'yes' and 'no'). Many of our daily choices are made on our built-in automatic pilot, also known as our conscience or ethical compass. At times when you turn indecisive, a quick check with the majority opinion or what your peers are doing, can ease your passage through life. But that is also a pitfall. The use or at least the overuse of common sense seems to have two side effects you might consider as negative:
A low appetite for risk, causing us to rely on other people’s knowledge – or what we think they know - instead of evoking exploratory behaviour.
It involves past thoughts. Thoughts take time to manifest into the physical world. What is creating our reality today is in large a result of the thoughts we have been thinking or sharing with others a while ago.
Is there a way to practice common sense in forward decision-making for an unknown reality?
Of course. As I said, common sense navigates between realism and idealism, meaning that there are still individuals or collective thinkers who will continue moving beyond the frontiers of common reality or immediate possibilities, mostly for the better of society. They do not see common sense as a constant but rather as a variable in a complex formula. In fact, without this continuous challenge of what we think to know, we would not have evolved as a human race.
Where can I find these forward thinkers?
These individuals can be found in various parts of our community. They can be scientists, teachers, entrepreneurs, CEO’s or politicians. Even as a parent you may find yourself in a role where you will have to prepare your child not only for today’s reality but the future one as well.
What unites these people?
LEADERSHIP. Common sense can become a dangerous instrument if not in the hands of people who are fearless enough to challenge the status quo. Or when applied in a scientific manner without counterbalancing opposing views. A fearless leader will ask questions like these:
The Ultimate Question Being:
How do I ensure that our common sense can answer tomorrow’s questions?
What does your common sense tell you?
But what if everyone around you shares a belief which you don't? Does it make your opinion less true? Shouldn't you be acting on your thoughts then? Before science hit us with its truth, people thought the earth was flat. The possibility of falling of the edge of the world was common sense at the time. Thinking differently would have exposed you to mockery at the least, but more likely to facing the inquisition for blasphemy. Even to this day, your life can be in danger in some places where your beliefs, be it religious, ideological or simply political, are a minority.
How can you tell that common sense makes sense?
I don't think you can! Common sense is not always based on facts. Actually, it navigates quite often between science, pseudoscience or just popular belief. Between realism and idealism.
Why do we use it so rigorously?
Sharing beliefs gives us a sense of significance, comfort and security. The more we share, the more it takes refuge in our social DNA, as fundamental patterns of our behaviour.
Is that a bad thing?
Jein (this is a portmanteau of the German equivalent for 'yes' and 'no'). Many of our daily choices are made on our built-in automatic pilot, also known as our conscience or ethical compass. At times when you turn indecisive, a quick check with the majority opinion or what your peers are doing, can ease your passage through life. But that is also a pitfall. The use or at least the overuse of common sense seems to have two side effects you might consider as negative:
A low appetite for risk, causing us to rely on other people’s knowledge – or what we think they know - instead of evoking exploratory behaviour.
It involves past thoughts. Thoughts take time to manifest into the physical world. What is creating our reality today is in large a result of the thoughts we have been thinking or sharing with others a while ago.
Is there a way to practice common sense in forward decision-making for an unknown reality?
Where can I find these forward thinkers?
These individuals can be found in various parts of our community. They can be scientists, teachers, entrepreneurs, CEO’s or politicians. Even as a parent you may find yourself in a role where you will have to prepare your child not only for today’s reality but the future one as well.
What unites these people?
LEADERSHIP. Common sense can become a dangerous instrument if not in the hands of people who are fearless enough to challenge the status quo. Or when applied in a scientific manner without counterbalancing opposing views. A fearless leader will ask questions like these:
- How common is our common sense?
- Why has it become common?
- When did something else stop being common?
- Is there a minority belief? And if so, what is it?
- Do these opposing opinions need to be brought together?
- Etc.
The Ultimate Question Being:
How do I ensure that our common sense can answer tomorrow’s questions?
What does your common sense tell you?
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