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Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!
Welcome to Essential Dynamics. I'm Derek Hudson, host of the Essential Dynamics podcast, and I've developed the Essential Dynamics framework to help us figure out how to accomplish more in the organizations and endeavors that we do as people. And on the podcast, we discuss these things and learn more about it through deep conversations with interesting people, and I'm happy to bring back doctor Jason Daniels. Thanks for coming back, Jason.
Jason:Thanks for having me back.
Derek:Hey. That was a great conversation last time. I feel like there is so many threads that I wanted to pull on. And one of the things I wanted to say is, oh, this and this and this and this and this all fit Essential Dynamics this way, but I'm not I'm not gonna do that. The the listener can piece those together himself or herself.
Derek:But what I would like to do is is just kinda illustrate one situation, one factor that impacts organizations, and then we're we're gonna parallel it to human psychology. Sure. Because, like, the the we're in in the individual people or an organism and groups of people you can think of as an organism. So an organization like a company or a team or people on a project or something like that, they're working together and problems get in the way and you solve the problems. And we're trying to produce an output, and there are things that limit the production of the output.
Derek:And so we refer to the theory of constraints, which is an established body of work where in any complex system, there's one limiting factor that's limits more than the other ones. That's the one you have to pay attention to, what we call the constraint. And if you can get more flow through that constraint, you get more output. And any other improvement you make in the system doesn't make it through. So doctor Goldratt, who came up with this, as he learned about it, realized that it's a management's job, the leadership of an organization's job to find that constraint and to give it more capacity or remove it.
Derek:And when they do that, then a new constraint pops up someplace else that has just a little bit more capacity, and you deal with that one. And, eventually, the constraint of the organization, if you think about it this way, is the capacity that leadership has to pay attention to things. Because anything they pay attention to can work can get better, but they can't pay attention to everything. And I've read I've read some of your work on attention and distraction. And we live in a world today where more than ever before, everything's coming at you.
Derek:You don't have to even try to have all kinds of things distract you away from what you're trying to do. And I think it's similar in organizations. And I've seen it in all kinds of different ways. Like, number one, you don't know what to pay attention to, or a leadership team may know that there's a particular issue that they do need to pay attention to, but it's a hard one. So maybe they could pay attention to something else like a rebrand or an acquisition or, you know, renovating the head office.
Derek:And so we really have a capacity or we have a tendency to avoid paying attention to the right things and then find it really hard to pay attention to them once even when we figure it out. And I don't know if it's that different for organizations than people. And I've thought a lot about the organization side, but I'm interested in just your reaction to that thought based on where you're coming from.
Jason:Yeah. No. I think I think there's a lot of synergy between kind of the the ideas that you talk about between the organizational and the the individual. I I think with attention, I mean, think one of the things to understand about about human processing, and I think I mean, organizations are made up of humans. So even if it's an organization, there's there's processing.
Jason:This can take place in there. Is we are cognitive economizers. We we tend to, all things being equal, try to follow the path of least resistance. That's kind of the natural tendency that that we we have as humans. And so when it comes to attention, lots of times, it's it's almost like the what's the the phrase?
Jason:The the tail wagging the dog sometimes where we got stuff coming at us. And and a lot of times, what we will kinda naturally tend towards is what's what's the the thing that requires the least amount of of effort currently right now, and and kinda there's a tendency to follow that that that process. And and and that in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. I I think there's there's a lot of benefits to being able to automate certain types of processes. So if we think about learning any basic skill, like learning to drive, for example, you know, at first, it takes a lot of cognitive energy, but then we automate it.
Jason:Right? Even to the point where sometimes I'll get in my car at work and pull into my garage at home and realize I have no recollection of the the drive at all. I mean, that's the power of of the the system to kinda run on autopilot there. The the problem comes again when when something requires me to actually engage in or invest that that energy, like, cognitive energy to be able to to problem solve. Like, driving down the road and then, like, today, suddenly, there's a snowstorm.
Jason:Like, automation's not gonna work very well. I need to actually allocate the attention to that. So part of it comes to, like, motivation. And and so there's there's, like, all sorts of theories of motivation. But one of the ones I find most useful in in in terms of, like, understanding, like, attention allocation is expectancy and the value theory.
Jason:And and the idea with that one is the two fact I mean, and then, again, this is overly simplistic. But the basic idea is if you understand motivation from the the sense of how how likely is success, you know, if if I engage in this behavior is the one factor. And the other one is how much value do I place in this particular action or the outcome of this. If either of those are zero, then motivation's gonna be zero. And so to understand, you know, how much effort somebody puts in from this particular perspective, we need to understand both the likelihood that I feel like I'm gonna be successful and how much I've actually value success in this endeavor.
Jason:So if, again, if I'm looking at any one particular situation, how much attention do I put it into something? Well, part of it has to do with how much do I value the outcomes. And on the other one, how successful do I think I'm gonna be? And if either of those waver at all, then then that might actually impact might actually impact how much attention I actually am willing to invest in a particular process.
Derek:Okay. I gotta stop you there.
Jason:K.
Derek:I I wrote down, like, 20 words. So so because this is it is the same in organizations. It's just harder.
Jason:Yeah.
Derek:Because it's people times people times people. So orders of magnitude harder. Right? Yeah. But you talked about engaging, investing, motivation, cognitive energy, effort.
Derek:Yeah. So so paying attention, maybe not all the time, but the kind of attention that we want we want to pay is there's a cost to it.
Jason:It is.
Derek:It takes effort. Yeah. And and and so if we wanna direct our attention, put it that way, if we wanna direct our attention to something really important, then that that requires us to invest more than the default.
Jason:Yes. Right.
Derek:Exactly. You you said we're cognitive economizers. So if we don't have to invest anything, then we can our attention can go wherever, and it's not work. And we we kinda like that. Yeah.
Derek:But if there's something that's worthwhile and we wanna accomplish it, then we have to turn away from that, which requires focused effort.
Jason:Yeah.
Derek:100%. So and then you said, but we all we do this calculation. I'm accountant, so this is this is helpful to me. And this this calculation is the likelihood of success and then the extent that of six success we're gonna have. This is the opposite of the risk matrix that you look at where it's the probability of failure and the impact of failure.
Derek:Right. The same formula. Right? Yeah. And so if you can convince yourself that I'm likely to succeed or I'm likely enough to succeed at something that I value enough, then I can justify directing the attention to it.
Jason:Exactly. Yeah.
Derek:That's that's
Jason:that's the in a nutshell, that's the premise. Yeah.
Derek:Right. So if I'm a leader of an organization, then there's maybe two things I gotta think about. One is what do I put my attention on? And the other is what do I want people in the organization to put their attention on? I don't know if I'm gonna get to both of these, but we'll just go back to the leader as a individual.
Derek:They have to put their attention on the thing that they think is gonna have the most value
Jason:Yeah.
Derek:Or the most value for the least cost or the most likelihood that it's gonna turn out okay. And those are all hard things when you're talking about moving in an organization in a direction that it hasn't gone before.
Jason:Yeah.
Derek:And I remember I don't think I don't think I have the quotation. No. Actually, I do know who said it. It was Andy Grove, who was one of the founders of Intel. And he was critical of businesses that there's a hard thing they need to do, and they they don't understand it.
Derek:They don't know what to do. And it looks really hard, so they go do something to look like they're busy, like, making acquisition.
Jason:Yeah.
Derek:Right? And so you do something that looks like it's progress, but deep down, you know there's another thing that's progress that's harder and maybe not even as likely to succeed and this little calculation kicks out. Well, don't do that.
Jason:Yes.
Derek:And then there's the leaders who just by habit, but but, you know, maybe growing up as an entrepreneur where you have to solve all the problems, they don't direct any attention. It's all reactive.
Jason:Yeah.
Derek:You you you go into work, the phone starts ringing, people come to your office, customer calls, whatever, and then you just do the thing that that requires. And you go home and you spend a lot of energy all day, but you didn't invest any in directing your attention. Yeah. And so that's I guess that's psychology because that's one person. And so it's this is completely portable to one person if they're the if they're the leader of a part of an organization.
Derek:Organization is they are cognitive economizers. There's gotta be something that's gonna get them out of their chair and get them going on a particular task if if it's necessary. We'll we'll quickly do the calculation and get ourselves out of it if we can. Is that what you're saying?
Jason:Yeah. I think a lot of times we do. Right? We'll we'll look at that and say, okay. If again, if I don't if I don't value the process again, like, if I'm not a leader, but I'm an employee and I've got the tasks to do, typically, again, how much effort am I gonna put into that particular task?
Jason:A lot of that is defined by how much, again, how much value am I gonna be successful. And value, I mean, comes in many different forms. I mean, value could be I don't get fired, so I need to do this particular task. If I'm a leader of an organization, I think the same calculation dynamics apply, but, again, it might be a different in terms of how I define value and and all those kinds of things. But I think from a psychological perspective, the basic premise is is is essentially the same is we often, again, get stuck in this this rut of trying to extend, again, the least amount of resources that we that we can to be able to get what we want.
Jason:And, again, I think if we look over and over and over again, a lot especially a lot of the work that I do in digital media, that's really where the problem lies is that, you know, the digital media allows for that escape from from supposed effort. Right? Allows us to escape those kinds of things. And, again, attention, a 100% like that. Right?
Jason:I can distract myself, you know, if I'm feeling uncomfortable, all those kinds of things. I I I can find shortcuts for for processing. All those things are available, you know, via digital media. But, again, it's not the only medium, but but definitely that they could see the total peril in that as well.
Derek:Okay. That's very helpful. So so one of the roles that I play is I act as a guide to leaders of businesses. And I use the term guide very carefully. But in in this context, if I wanna guide a leader to do the most impactful thing in their organization, we have to figure out what that is.
Derek:What's the leverage point in the organization that's the most valuable change that you could make to increase the flow of value in your organization? And so that's why I developed Essential Dynamics so we can have that conversation. Yeah. But as a as a guide in the conversation, I'm trying to help the leaders see that so that when they do the calculation of expectancy and value, they say that's that's worth me committing to.
Jason:Right.
Derek:I I'm very I'm not likely to be able to pick what it is they should focus on because they know their business better than I do. But I can I can help them see their business in perhaps a different way and then identify the leave leverage point? But then through a conversation, I can help them recognize the value of attacking that leisure point, pouring their attention and focus into that as opposed to a bunch of other things that they're more comfortable doing. For sure. That sounds a lot like what a therapist would do to a person.
Derek:With I didn't say do to a person, that's not what I mean. Do with a person.
Jason:Yep. And and, essentially, I mean, it kinda works out the same thing. Right? Okay. You have this goal.
Jason:Okay. Like, how are gonna accomplish the goal? How much effort are gonna put into the goal? And I think, and, again, going back to I like to work with kids a lot because I I find with if you're good from the individual level, that this often is a barrier for adults in terms of change life change is I could change. I know the path how I can change, but the effort to make that change is more than the cost of or at least in in my own internal calculations of actually just living with it and not doing anything.
Jason:And so, like, even that's fine. It's not not therapeutic, but I find in in my own life sometimes, like, I'll I'll have a project that I wanna work on at home, and I don't exactly know how it's gonna work out. And I sit and I stew and I think about it, and I I come up with plans and all the reasons why it won't work and all the things I'm worried about. And then after a year, I finally just, you know, jump into it, and it's, like, ten minute project that I that I get done that I've been sitting stewing about. And so the same type of thing.
Jason:Right? Like, okay. So here's here's what you need to do. Sometimes you just need to take that first step. But, again, going through that whole process of, you know, just something we talked about last time, normalizing this idea of effort, right, that that good things, important things are probably gonna require effort.
Jason:And so coming down to how much you value that that change and and how much effort are you willing to put into that particular change. So And going back to what I saying, this is why I like working with kids a lot time because I find often kids are a little bit more willing to or at least they don't have the capacity. They don't put it that way. They don't have the capacity to escape and avoid like many adults do.
Derek:Which is something that you learn over time, I guess.
Jason:Yeah.
Derek:Yeah. Okay. So I wanna go a couple directions before we wrap here, and one of them is, I think it's easier than I thought it would be. How does a leader use these principles in an organization? Well, the same way that the guide uses them with the leader is you have to help people understand.
Derek:Here's the system we're working in. Here's the leverage point, which we feel is gonna have the highest impact. Here's all the value that's gonna come from that, and we know you can put in the effort. Yeah. Like and and, you know, if people can see their way of participating in that and they can see the value and they're confident that that is the leverage point, then they're way more willing to kinda step in and and do the work.
Derek:And I've seen that many times. If it's not clear that that intervention is gonna make a difference, or if the perceived cost is too high, or if they don't really care about the outcome, then, you know, motivational speeches or whatever isn't gonna make a difference.
Jason:Yeah. Absolutely. And I would add to that. If if they think that whatever they do is pointless anyway, that it's not actually going to change anything, I think that also sometimes gets in there as well in terms of change. Like, yeah, I could put in this effort, and I value it, but it's gonna fail regardless.
Jason:So
Derek:It's not we tried that a million times and nothing happened, and I and and so now you'll get malicious compliance or passive resistance, and it won't work. And that'll be a bit of a fulfilling prophecy because people aren't putting in the effort that would be required to make it work anyway. Yeah. I just wanna introduce to listeners another little concept that I I use in Essential Dynamics. It's quite it's quite natural.
Derek:It resonates, so we've been bouncing around a lot today. So I just wanna name it. And that is that I believe that there are four flows in an organization as you're trying to get stuff done, and you've referred to value a bunch of times. So value flow is when you do the thing that the organization is set up to do. And, and so you're accomplishing you know, the customers are getting the product.
Derek:So that's value flow. Another one that's related, we don't have to talk about much today is resource flow, which is, you know, and for a company, it's like cash. Like, if I if I convey the value, just do I get paid for it? And then do I have the cash to take care of my own needs and, you know, keep the system moving? And and then there's information flow, which is, you know, how is it going and downstream?
Derek:Can you feed that back upstream? You know, faster, slower, hotter, colder. Good job. Not a good job. We need more.
Derek:All that kind of information stuff. That's a different flow, and I think there's value to that. But then the last flow I like to talk about is is energy flow and particularly, like, human energy flow. So what you did for for me today is you said, here's some simple math. We have the value, and we have the energy.
Derek:And if someone can get inside their head that the value is worth the energy, they'll do it. And if if they're not, they won't. And then I'll add to that in the context of a flow is that that is a self reinforcing system that when you do the thing that produces the value and you know it's valuable, then you get the energy to go back in and do it again. So for example, you're a teacher. I've had that experience this year.
Derek:You talked about teaching to a blank screen compared to being in a class with real humans, seeing the light go on. And you say, this is why I do this, and you can go back the next day and do it again because the energy flow loop is pretty tight, and it's efficient. So is that energy flow value flow thing I'm I'm forcing this on, but I think that's what you're describing to me.
Jason:Yeah. Different words, but exactly the same process in terms of how we make those kinds of decisions about where we allocate our attentional resources and all of sudden. Like, in psychology, we we often talk about executive function, which is the part of that whole attention system where we where we do that that allocation. Right? Like, we're we're attending to information.
Jason:We're attending stuff all the time. How much, you know, how much do I do I allocate here versus here? You know, ignoring information, all those tenses. Again, that's we tell the executive function, you you call it I can't remember what you called it. Whatever it was.
Derek:Information flow. Yeah. But but I'm I'm saying, you guys stole executive function from us.
Jason:True. Yes.
Derek:And then and then we take energy flow motivation, and we took it from the psychologist and put it in the whole organization. But it's we're just working with people here, so it's all gonna it's the same stuff. So I think I think we can we landed on the same page on this one.
Jason:Yeah. Absolutely.
Derek:And so I'm gonna say, you said we use our executive function to allocate our attentional resources, and that's the job of a leadership of an organization. More than anything else is where do we put our time and attention? Let's design a system that optimizes that, and then we know where to put our time and attention. And I don't think that's done very well in organizations. And we also know that when we look at our own lives, we're like, you know, every day I could have done that better.
Derek:There's always opportunity for improvement. There's also some amazing things we accomplish because of the times when we do hard things. Right?
Jason:Yeah. Yeah. And I would say yeah. I mean, the other thing to kinda add on, and I I think you kind of alluded to this, and I think it's important. And it's one of the pieces that's often missed in this whole process is the the ref I mean, again, we we would refer to, like, ref reflective practice or or evaluation where we we do the thing, and then we circle back and actually have that that I mean, if it's, again, from a psychological perspective, that internal kind of reflection on how did that go, what could I improve, how could I do that better, which I think, unfortunately, sometimes is one of the steps that's often missed at an individual level that we just keep, especially if you're, you know, reactive kind of mode where you're just reacting to stuff rather than, like like, an improvement or a formative kind of a process where we're actually trying to improve something, which that reflection is absolutely critical for that.
Derek:No. I agree. That's very strong. And one of the ways I look at that is you can't see the system from inside the system. So a refractive practice is actually stepping out and observing.
Derek:And often, that requires, like, something else, like an outside observer to ask you questions. So, again, I'm a guide to a business leader. You can talk to a therapist. You can have a coach that says, well, let's watch the tape and see how you perform. That's stepping outside and looking at the system for feedback.
Derek:Right?
Jason:Yep. Absolutely.
Derek:Yeah. Awesome. Wow. I was trying to think if I've had a psychologist on the show before because I wanted one on early. And so thank you so much.
Derek:I I'm probably just gonna save up my questions and have you come back, Jason.
Jason:Anytime. Anytime.
Derek:So so remind us of your book and its website.
Jason:The book that I have is called Beyond the Screen, Resilient Kids in a Digital World. And it's, again, it's a short read, but it's it's geared for parents and others who maybe are worried about kids' digital habits and development in general. And that is available either on Amazon or on my website, beyondthescreen.ca, with dashes in between each of the words.
Derek:Awesome. Jason, thanks so much again. You've taught me and taught our listeners, and I'm gonna really work hard on using my executive function to allocate my attentional resources better and don't do dumb things. And until next time, everyone, use those that executive function to consider your quest.