prepared mind

The Covid Roller Coaster

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Wow!

2019 – Everything is (kind of) going accord to plan.

2020 – The world went Covid-crazy.

2021 Q1 and Q2 – “Let’s find the new normal.”

2021 Q3 – Oops! The new normal has been put on hold.

So, here are three opening thoughts to a series we are starting at MindPrep. You can get the full newsletters HERE.

It’s a Wicked World – deal with it

No, this is not a commentary on morality. It’s a commentary on working in a world without precedent. First, some simple explanations.

“Kind” environments have repeating patterns and feedback is accurate and rapid. Therefore, decision making can often improve with added experience. You can learn “the rules of the game” and become an expert by developing expert intuition. Examples of people in this environment range from chess masters to golf professionals to suburban firefighters to business strategists before 2020.

“Wicked” environments exist where the rules of the game are unclear, feedback is spotty at best, and patterns are lacking or not obvious. Expertise-based thinking may be helpful or, more likely, may lead you astray because it is based on a past that is no longer relevant and will likely not return.

Planning and decision making in this environment is anything but routine and intuition must be challenged. This is the environment we are living in right now with the pandemic. The “new normal” is and will be very wicked.

It’s time to think like an explorer.

Throughout history explorers prepared for expeditions by understanding, as best they could, the conditions they were about to face and then went about improving the equipment they would use.

Early explorers to the South Pole knew that they needed warm clothing and lightweight (but strong) sleds, so they focused a lot of their efforts on improving their equipment. Sometimes explorers opted for maximum flexibility because they didn’t know how the conditions would change over time. Blankets can be used for warmth; they can also be used for shade.

The explorers’ reality is a world of known and unknown; and it calls for elegant flexibility.

Consider the most flexible equipment at your disposal – the ability to think and imagine new ways and new things.

Mistakes will be made. Pick yourself up and dust yourself off.  

We’ve spent decades fine tuning our careers and business models. Efficiency was paramount and rewarded. We gave lip service to “innovation,” but punished experiments that didn’t provide rapid ROI.

But now its time to think and act using less time than you want. Wicked worlds keep morphing and doing so in novel ways.

For those of you who know me, you know that I’ve been running workshops for decades built on a simple cycle of Sense, Make Sense, Decide, and Act. I refer to this cycle as the Sense-Response Cycle (SRC) and admonish attendees to “keep up with the pace of change or become irrelevant.” But what was fast in 2019 is normal today. We have to run this cycle uncomfortably fast.

Don’t let perfect get in the way of good-enough progress. All of us will make mistakes. It’s the reality of a wicked world. Deal with them and keep moving. We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves.

Remember, the future favors a prepared mind. And preparing your mind is a never-ending responsibility. You can get our recent MindPrep Newsletters HERE.

Next

The next couple of newsletters will focus on understanding the future and ways of dealing with it.

The Illusion of Explanatory Depth

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I read a lot of non-fiction books. Some I throw away and some stay on my bookshelf. Some stay on my bookshelf because they are good “in general.” Others stay there because of one or two “thought-nuggets.”

The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone (Sloman and Fernbach, 2017) presented a nugget that keeps popping back into my head – the Illusion of Explanatory Depth.

Simply put, the Illusion of Explanatory Depth (IoED) is the phenomenon we experience when we think we know a lot about something because we are familiar with it. We form an opinion based on surface knowledge and don’t dig into our ignorance. We fool ourselves.  

Here’s an example from the experiment described in the book. Assume you didn’t see Q2 until you answered Q1.

  1. On a scale from 1 to 7, how well do you understand how zippers work?
  2. Describe in as much detail as you can all the steps involved in a zipper’s operation.

Silly example, right? Is your ignorance of the detailed working of a zipper really important? What difference does it make?

Now, step into the world of technology and politics and apply the same two-step process. I did, and I scared myself. Here are three examples of current-day issues to test yourself.

  • Cryptocurrency (e.g., Bitcoin) will become a de facto global currency in the next five years. Yes, or no? If yes, you should invest in it now.
    • Explain the assumptions behind cryptocurrency and how it works.  
  • Critical Race Theory (CRT) should be taught in high school. Yes, or no?
    • What, specifically, is CRT? What are the facts underpinning CRT?
  • We have the best healthcare system in the world. Yes, or no?
    • Can you explain the major components of the system, how they work together, and the “weak link” in the system?

We live in a country (world?) where opinion is more powerful than knowledge, politics rules over science, and the fear of “micro-aggressions” blocks learning.

According to Sloman, “The knowledge illusion occurs because we live in a community of knowledge and fail to distinguish the knowledge that is in our heads from the knowledge outside of it.” To put this in the vernacular, as Bill Welter says, “Don’t confuse me with the facts – I’ve already made up my mind.”

Digging deeply into your Illusion of Explanatory Depth is an opportunity to study your ignorance and then plan to learn about those things that are important to you and your organization. Either that, or General Artificial Intelligence will run your life in ten years.

Hmmm ………, what’s general AI?

Open the pod doors, HAL.  

If you want to see recent issues of MindPrep, you can find them here

QUESTION ZERO

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Last year Oliver Cummings and I created a free mini class for managers who are called upon to implement big-picture, organizational strategy. We approached this challenge by asking ten questions that had to be successfully answered if they were to succeed.

Then we realized that there is almost always the “unasked” question, which we refer to as Question Zero. It’s in the back (or front) of every manager’s mind but it often goes unasked and unanswered.

Ready? Here it is.

How will I make the time to implement the strategy?

You have to make time – you will never “find” it.

Now, I already know what you’re thinking. “He just doesn’t understand. I have to do my day job AND take on this new task.”

Sorry, but, as they say, “I’ve been there and done that.” So, let me be blunt – you will make time or you will have more problems than you want. You can’t keep adding items to your “to-do” list. Something has to drop off and it’s up to you.

Want to see the other ten questions we asked? Go visit the mini-course. You can fine it HERE. Sign up, watch a couple of videos, take the quiz and get going. Time’s a-wasting.

Good Thinking – 8 – Build Your T-Shaped Skills

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T-shaped Skills

Years ago, I read The Wellspring of Knowledge (Dorothy Leonard-Barton, 1995), and was influenced by her description of T-shaped skills.

The vertical part of the T denotes the deep knowledge we have about our job. The horizontal part of the T denotes the other skills we need in order to connect with others in the workforce and society.

Look at your skill set. Are you a generalist who needs a specialty to build upon? Are you a specialist who needs broader skills in order to interact with more of the organization?

Society needs people with good T-shaped skills. Experts who can’t talk with others in their organization are useless. Generalists with no area of expertise will soon be replaced by early artificial intelligence apps.

It’s the crossbar of the T that keeps you connected. List those areas in which you need enough knowledge to converses with people outside your department. (Personal confession: ignorance of finance hurt my early career.)

Pay Attention!

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Attend to What Is or May Be Out There in Front of You

By Oliver Cummings

Letting your fingers thrum on a moving tractor tire tread can have a hypnotic effect.

Dad would let me ride on the tractor with him while he was mowing the pasture. Standing on the running board of the tractor and letting my arm hang over the fender, the lugs on the rear tire would bump my fingers over and over in a repetitive rhythm as the wheel turned.

Occasionally, when I was off in a mental someplace else, Dad would “manage” to hit a fresh cow-pie with that wheel and since I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings, I would get a handful of cow manure.

He’d laugh (though I wouldn’t) and stop the tractor so I could get off and clean my hand in the fresh mown grass until we passed the pond again, where he’d stop so I could wash up.

Point of the Story

Don’t get lulled (by that “right now good feeling” of success or things going right) into not watching where you are going.

Sensing your environment, attending to what is or may be out there in front of you is critical to not winding up with an unwanted outcome in your business.

As I wrote this, the thought came to me that it may sound out of step with our current reality.

Who really thinks there are many among us who have a “right now good feeling of things going right?”

We are in the midst of a global pandemic and experiencing the most serious economic downturn in the U.S. since the 1930’s, with thousands of small businesses out of business permanently or limping along on the hope that things will come back soon enough to keep them in business.

Still, I think the message is relevant for at least two key reasons:

  1. There are segments of the economy that are comfortably growing, pandemic be damned – and managers in those organizations could, in addition to thanking their lucky stars, feel that feeling of comfort.
  2. When (not if) the economy comes back critical manager jobs will become more plentiful and the need to fill them quickly more urgent; but here is the “look where you are going” catch:

Much of the manager’s pre-pandemic job qualifications will still be requirements, but significant change is afoot in many, maybe most, businesses. Managers and those who want to be managers must adapt to new realities, from leading virtual working teams, to managing in sometimes significantly different physical spaces and overseeing different procedures, to creating a new culture of trust in a wary workforce.

Are you in an organization going through significant strategy shifts? Get a pragmatic, structured way to help you respond as a middle manager: Click on the link below.

HOW TO MANAGE YOUR UNIT TO MAKE STRATEGY REAL: A Guidebook for Managers Facing Changing Strategies to Position Their Unit to Thrive

on www.Amazon.com.

Act and Intercept Your (Unknown) Future

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This is a continuation of our posts about preparing for the future. It offers three questions about executing the decisions you will make to meet your future.

Today is yesterday’s future. What did you learn?

Let me be blunt — we, collectively, are terrible at executing projects. Lots of reasons, lots of excuses, but not a lot of well executed projects. And one of our big shortcomings is our unwillingness to learn from the results of the programs and projects we launch to get to the future.

We plan, we execute, we make mistakes, and then when the project if “finally finished” we drop it and get on to the next. No organizational learning takes place.

Sound familiar? I think it might. I’ve been involved with organizations for over fifty years and I have yet to hear any leader brag that projects in their unit/company/team are always on time, on budget and deliver full-scope, quality outcomes. Never.

Why is this so important? Because the pattern will persist.

If we want a better future we need to get better at today’s decision, actions, and projects. We need to learn from our successes and failure and then DO something.

Do you have the capabilities you need?

Here’s a question: Will the capabilities that got you and your team to today get you to tomorrow?

Here’s the answer: NO

Sure, some of today’s capabilities will be needed and will be useful. But others will be obsolete. And still others will be needed, but absent.

Develop your vision of the future and work backwards. What must you be able to do to make the future real?

And note that knowledge, although important, is not enough. For example, I know a lot about sinus surgery; but you would not want me operating on your nose. You may know a lot about how other companies have used “big data,” but that does not mean you are capable of important data-based decisions.

If we want a better future we need to build capabilities that will be needed to get us there. Learning should be future-oriented.

What took you so long to act?

All of us have four overarching responsibilities as we try to intercept our future.

We need to sense the signals of tomorrow. We need to make sense of these signals. We need to decide on a course of action. And we need to act on these decisions. These four responsibilities depict a cycle, as shown in the graphic above.

This cycle, the Sense-Response Cycle, has to run at least as fast as your industry is evolving. If not, you become irrelevant. And that means that each responsibility has to be performed at the pace of industry evolution. Bottom line? You have to be good at executing each of the responsibilities.

Look at your weaknesses and get better. Either that, or become irrelevant. It’s your choice.

Coming in 2021

The Future is Coming: Don’t be Taken by Surprise — A new course coming in 2021

We will launch a pilot in January. Like our recently competed pilot, The Pragmatic Strategist, this course will be a high-tech / high-touch hybrid of reading, videos, group discussions (via Zoom) and workbook exercises. I’ll announce the topics and details soon.

Reach out if you want to get on our list for the pilot or if you’d like a copy of our recent whitepaper describing the context and focus of the course. The pilot is not free, but the discount is significant.

Learn from the past - deal with today - prepare for the future.

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