Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Authentic’ Category

We’re too busy. All of us. Too busy. And we better get used to it: too busy is the rule. But how to make too busy feel good? How to make yourself feel good? How to make the work better?

Pretend there is abundance; plenty for all; assume an abundance mindset.

There’s a subtle but powerful shift with the abundance mindset. Here’s the transition:

me to we

talk to listen

verify to trust

fear to confidence

comply to embrace

compete to collaborate

next month to next week

can’t to could, could to can

no to maybe, maybe to how

The abundance mindset is not about doing more; it’s about what we do and how we do. With the abundance mindset everyone feels better, our choices are better, and our work is better.

Lincoln said “Happiness is a choice.” I think it’s the same with abundance. We’ll always be too busy, but, if we choose, there will always be an abundance of thoughtfulness, caring, and mutual respect.

It’s a little-know fact that you can disagree and still be a team player. (Really, it’s true.) It’s okay to disagree, but it should be done effectively. (Disagreement is not argument.) And disagreement can be a great source for learning. I learn most deeply from smart people I disagree with.

As a self-declared smart person, I hold my thinking in high regard. (To advance a cause confidence in your thinking is needed.) However, like with most things, there should be balance: confidence in your thinking tempered with healthy self-examination and respect for others’ thinking. There are a lot of smart people out there, people with different life experience, training, and education. Just the folks to learn from. (Different is not inferior or incorrect, it’s just different.)

It’s a struggle to get the balance right. Hold fast? Give a little ground? Change your thinking altogether? There’s no right answer, just the conviction that it’s best to move toward balance.

Trust and mutual respect are keys to our migration toward balance. Trust helps us start deep dialog. It feels safe to initiate when there’s confidence the disagreement comes from a thoughtful, unselfish place.  Mutual respect keeps the dialog going – no low blows, just shared thoughts, experiences, and data.

With trust and mutual respect, healthy disagreement has time to blossom into fuller, deeper understanding – a credit to you and the important people in your life.

If you know your shit, you have an obligation to behave that way:

Do – don’t ask.

Say, “I don’t know.”

Wear the clothes you want.

Tread water with Fear until she drowns.

Walk softly – leave your big stick at home.

Ask people what they think – let them teach you.

Kick Consensus in the balls – he certainly deserves it.

Be kind to those who should know – teach, don’t preach.

Hug the bullies – they cannot hurt you, you know too much.

Work with talented new folks – piss and ginger is a winning combination.

In short, use your powers for good – you have an obligation to yourself, your family, and society.

Sometimes we engineers know the answer before the question, sometimes we know the question’s wrong before it’s asked, and sometimes we’re just plain pig-headed. And if we band together, there’s no hope of changing how things are done. None. So, how to bring new thinking to the engineering community? In three words: WHAT, WHY, HOW.

WHY – Don’t start with WHAT. If you do, we’ll shut down. You don’t know the answer, we do. And you should let us tell you. Start with WHY. Give us the context, give us the problem, give us the business fundamentals, give us the WHY. Let us ask questions. Let us probe. Let us understand it from all our angles. Don’t bother moving on. You can’t. We need to kick the tires to make sure we understand WHY. (It does not matter if you understand WHY. We need understand it for ourselves, in our framework, so we can come up with a solution.)

WHAT – For God’s sake don’t ask HOW – it’s too soon. If you do, we’ll shut down. You don’t know the answer, we do. And, if you know what’s good for you, you should let us tell you. It’s WHAT time. Share your WHAT, give us your rationale, explain how your WHAT follows logically from your WHY, then let us ask questions. We’ll probe like hell and deconstruct your WHY-WHAT mapping and come up with our own, one that makes sense to us, one that fits our framework. (Don’t worry, off-line we’ll test the validity of our framework, though we won’t tell you we’re doing it.) We’ll tell you when our WHY-WHAT map holds water.

HOW – Don’t ask us WHEN! Why are you in such a hurry to do it wrong?! And for sanity’s sake, don’t share your HOW. You’re out of your element. You’ve got no right. Your HOW is not welcome here. HOW is our domain – exclusively. ASK US HOW. Listen. Ask us to explain our WHAT-HOW mapping. Let us come up with nothing (that’s best). Let us struggle. Probe on our map, push on it, come up with your own, one that fits your framework. Then, and only then, share how your HOW fits (or doesn’t) with ours. Let us compare our mapping with yours. Let us probe, let us question, let us contrast. (You’ve already succeeded because we no longer see ours versus yours, we simply see multiple HOWs for consideration.) We’ll come up with new HOWs, hybrid HOWs, all sorts of HOWs and give you the strengths and weaknesses of each. And if your HOW is best we’ll recommend it, though we won’t see it as yours because, thankfully, it has become ours. And we’ll move heaven and earth to make it happen. Engineering has new thinking.

Whether it’s my favorite new thinking (product simplification) or any other, the WHY, WHAT, HOW process works. It works because it’s respectful of our logic, of our nature. It fits us.

Though not as powerful a real Vulcan mind meld, WHY, WHAT, HOW is strong enough to carry the day.

Inspiring work is art.

Inspiring work is rare.

Inspiring work is scary.

Inspiring work is thrilling.

Inspiring work is the reward.

Inspiring work is life changing.

Inspiring work is easy to recognize.

Inspiring work is difficult to recognize.

Inspiring work is an acknowledgment of self.

Inspiring work’s magnitude is proportional to the fear.

Focus, focus, focus. Measure, measure, measure. We draw organizational boxes, control volumes, and measure ins and outs. Cost, quality, delivery.

Control volumes? Open a Ziploc bag and pour water in it. The bag is the control volume and the water is the organizational ooze. Feel free to swim around in the bag, but don’t slip through it because you’ll cross an interface. You’ll get counted.

Organizational control volumes are important. They define our teams and how we optimize (within the control volumes).  We optimize locally. But there’s more than one bag in our organizations.

The red team designs new products. They wear red shirts, red pants, and red hats. They do red things. We measure them on product function. The blue team makes products. They wear blue and do blue things. We measure them on product cost. Both are highly optimized within their bags, yet the system is suboptimal. Nothing crosses the interface – no information, no knowledge, no nothing. All we have is red and blue. What we need is purple.

We need people with enough courage to look up one level, put on a blue shirt and red pants, and optimize at the system level. We need people with enough credibility to swap their red hat for blue and pass information across the interface. We need trusted people to put on a purple jumpsuit and take responsibility for the interface.

Purple behavior cuts across the fabric of our metrics and control volumes, which makes it difficult and lonely. But, thankfully some are willing to be purple. And why do they do it?  Because they know customers see only one color – purple.

We live in the country. Trees and wildlife all around. Can’t see our neighbors. A great place to be if you like the outdoors. We have two dogs – Abe and Lola.

The dilemma: How to let the dogs run around outside but prevent them from running off into the wilderness? The technological solution: an electric dog fence, an underground wire around the perimeter, a receiver hung on the dogs’ collars, and little white flags to designate the safe zone. The rules are straightforward and clear: 1. Stay within the perimeter and it’s happy happy: strut around, bark at smells and sounds, and guard the perimeter against the invading UPS truck. 2. Go outside the perimeter and all hell breaks loose: a nasty jolt from the collar, tail between the legs, and general disorientation. All is well.

But it’s not purely a technological system. There are dogs involved – thinking beings. They must understand the rules, they need training, and they must live within the system day-to-day. No matter what the situation, even if not covered in the training, they must stay within the perimeter or pay the price.

The people world has a similar dilemma: How to give the right amount of freedom and set the right limits. Boundaries are established, though not as formally or as simply as the flags; we live within the perimeter day-to-day or face consequences, though shock collars should not be used; and the thinking beings are more important than technology.

And, there is no right way to place the white flags – perimeters can be too big or too small; there is no right consequence level – the jolt can be too severe or too muted; and there is no perfect training – too much or too little. However, there must always be respect for the thinking beings.

One day I was in the yard with Abe and his new, high powered collar intended to stop his socializing, when a deer crossed the driveway about 50 meters outside the perimeter. Without hesitation, without consideration of consequence, he broke ranks and exploded though the perimeter – right through without a yelp, flinch, or twitch. He was in the moment, he did what he was made to do, he lived up to his genetics, he was all dog, he was himself. It was beautiful to watch him tear down the driveway.

As I watched the chase I thought about the power of his singular focus blasting him through without even a yelp. Then the realization – I never fixed the break in the wire – the fence was off. Flags without sting, though Abe did not know it.

The sting would not have prevented the chase, but would it have prevented the next one? I hope not. Perimeters can be too tight and consequences too severe, preventing us from being in the moment, doing what we’re made to do, living up to our genetics, and depriving us from experiencing our full selves.

Maybe I won’t fix the fence – flags without sting seems about right.

You’re sitting in a big meeting discussing an issue, and consensus is nowhere to be found. There are two camps and you’re in neither. And the big kahuna has marked her territory – you know where she stands. Frustrated by the lack of consensus she looks you in the eye and asks, “What do you think?” What do you do? Do you tell her what you really think or do you tell her what she wants to hear? More and more, it’s the latter. We’ve become too conflict averse. We’re so conditioned to avoid conflict we don’t even consider saying what we think. We go right to what they want to hear. Sad.

I argue it’s best to be authentic at all costs – tell them what you think and why. This approach does not minimize stress in the short term, like the next several days after the meeting. But it’s the least stressful over the long haul. First, once the kahuna calms herself and thinks about what you said, she’ll be happy you gave her the truth. You educated her. Even if she does not end up agreeing with your thinking, you gave her a broader perspective, a more complete view of the situation. She’s smart. She’ll see what you did for her. She’ll come around. Second, and more importantly, you’ve been true to yourself – no internal stress whatsoever. You’ve been authentic. You’ve been you.

You’re most effective when you’re you. You’re comfortable, you’re genuine, and you’re believable. And you’re stressed as hell when you pretend. Not believable. Faking doesn’t feel good, and it’s hard. It’s like wearing shoes that are two sizes too small – they’re not yours, and they hurt. You’re hobbled by them. People see the wincing as you shuffle through your day. They see the tension in your body. They know something is not right and they judge your words accordingly. Bad.

It takes big balls to be authentic. There are negative consequences. Some get pissed when you tell it like it is. So be it. And clear, focused thinking can be threatening. So be it. But the positives outweigh the negatives. Your organization is better for your thinking, and, most importantly you get to be you. Priceless.