Essential Dynamics with Derek Hudson

Today the guys talk about People, Path and Purpose and the collaborative journey.

Show Notes

Derek is at derekhudson.ca. 
See full show notes at the Essential Dynamics Wiki.

What is Essential Dynamics with Derek Hudson?

Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!

Reed:

Welcome back to Essential Dynamics. Today, we're going to be talking about a quest because Derek Hudson, my partner in crime here on this podcast, has lot of experience in essential dynamics for businesses and also applying these principles to virtually anything. I'm very intrigued by that, and I also have a lot of questions about the quest. I'm Reid McCollum. I'm your host, and I'm looking forward to talking to Derek.

Reed:

Derek, welcome.

Derek:

Hey, Great to be back.

Reed:

Yes. It is. I'm I'm happy about that too. Derek, in a previous podcast, you were talking about and we talk about frequently, one of the basic elements of essential dynamics is your theory of people, path, and purpose. Is that correct?

Derek:

So just the way I like to refer to it so that we can

Reed:

Yes.

Derek:

Kinda come back to something quite simple is that the three essential elements are people, path, and purpose. And that really sets up what you could call a quest or an adventure.

Reed:

Okay.

Derek:

It's a classic story that you head out into the unknown to save the world or the village or something and defeat the foe and from here to there, there's there's a journey that you take.

Reed:

Okay. So that's your quest. That's the quest. Alright. Now that's where I wanna focus because I am feeling that that is tremendously applicable in my my career, if you will.

Reed:

I'm a dramatist and interested in theater and film and television. And telling a story always requires a quest of some kind, even if it's internal. And I I want to understand it from your perspective a little better. I hadn't thought of businesses going on a quest. It seems to me that companies are more static than dynamic and you're telling me, you're teaching me that they actually have to be dynamic.

Derek:

Sure. There's a there's a few different ways to look at it. I guess maybe looking at how I came up with this application of the quest into the business world. I'm always been interested in business strategy and what I call a business model which is just like a simple way of describing the inputs and outputs in your business. I think that we tend to complicate things a lot.

Derek:

Yes. And if we can just kinda lay things out more simply we get better understanding. So I was looking at what do businesses do and I came across this definition of teams. A group of people working together for a common goal. Sure.

Derek:

And I'm like, okay, like I like that because the working together part of my mind is the system that we create to do work and I've always been interested in process improvements and standardization and policies and you know, change management and incorporation stuff. But none of that makes any sense without the purpose. Right. And so companies spend a lot of time trying to define or communicate their reason for being in a way that resonates with customers or with employees. And as I talked myself through that, I want just a second.

Derek:

Isn't that like the literary device Yes.

Reed:

Of the quest? Yes.

Derek:

So, there's a bunch of ways that could, you know, you can take that but one of them is that if you can find meaning in what you do in your life, whatever stage you're in and whatever you're doing, if you can turn that into a quest, then first of all, recognize there's gonna be opposition because there's no story if no struggle.

Reed:

Right. And I get that. I just am overcoming a career's worth of, I don't know, misapprehension or miss misunderstanding, I guess, that I thought business was kind of the enemy to art. And that all businesses, which I I admit is a bias on my part, a prejudice, all businesses were there to make money. And art, that's not always the case.

Reed:

Certainly, it's not my That

Derek:

means art is is somehow more pure.

Reed:

Yes, I did feel that way. I I don't now, now that I have no money, but I realized that there is something to be said for making it. But I always felt looked down upon or I felt like condescended to by business world. Mhmm. And, you know, socially, I'm talking.

Reed:

Socially, politically, it seemed that art was a poor business choice, if you will, because money is so hard to make. Sure. Therefore, my purpose felt, which was to make art, if you will, my purpose felt, well, inferior to the lawyer, doctor, dentist, politician. It felt like my goals were not as important to society.

Derek:

So interesting comment. And one of the challenges that we have in our modern society is that we do have this one way of keeping score. Yeah. Which is how much money you have.

Reed:

Yeah, I've always felt belittled by that.

Derek:

And it's not a great way of keeping score because the people who win, Yeah. Don't necessarily win.

Reed:

I see. Okay.

Derek:

If you have lots of money and you're not fulfilled, more money is not gonna help. And I mean obviously you can see that. So when you look at a business and you say what it like what is a business, what does it do? Well, know when I talk about business models, really you wanna have a model where you create value and then you exchange it for something else. And I don't think that's any different than an artist.

Reed:

Okay.

Derek:

Some artists are better at creating the value and some are better at getting

Reed:

Well, lot

Reed:

of that, how are they the same? Because I've always felt Well, I'm learning now from you that they are not mutually exclusive.

Derek:

So my thinking for that resulted in creating the ideas in essential dynamics was to understand the business model of an organization.

Reed:

Okay.

Derek:

Okay. And so the business model of an organization

Reed:

And you're speaking of any organization.

Derek:

I'm gonna stick with for profit businesses for now. Alright. Just for simplicity. So, you get some people and you see a need in the market and so you design a system with those people to fulfill that need. Now we're here with Bryn Griffiths, our producer and engineer.

Derek:

Bryn's new to the podcast world because everyone's new to the podcast world and Bryn saw a need.

Reed:

But he's better at it than we are.

Derek:

Absolutely. That's why we're in his studio.

Reed:

I'd interrupt but what's the point? Well, you're so correct.

Reed:

No, I'm just kidding. So,

Derek:

you see an opportunity and then you build a system around it to create value. And then you have to like convince someone that there's enough value you're providing to them that they'll pay you for it somehow. And some of the real really weird business models are where the user of your service isn't paying you. Yes. So, a lot of challenges in government services because the user or the client isn't paying, the signals get lost in terms of what good service is.

Derek:

And so, the government wants something to happen and they're paying you know, agency X money and agency X is providing services to the user and the user's like, this isn't helpful to me.

Reed:

I see.

Derek:

But they can't vote with their money because that's not the way the system's set up. So, a business that can make a connection between the value they provide and someone who will pay them for it is, you know, that's a viable business model and if you're a not for profit, if you're in the arts, you're still doing that.

Reed:

Yeah. I just wanna jump in here because I always remember my dad telling me when I started out in my radio career, he said, you're you're going to have to reinvent yourself about three or four times if you wanna get from here to '65. No. Your purpose is gonna have to change because the world changes all the time. And you know what?

Reed:

He was right, but he was wrong on the number. I've had to reinvent myself more than three or four times. It's probably about eight times. And part of that is is that you do have to generate you have to be your own business guy. Doesn't matter what you're doing.

Reed:

Yep. If you're on you're you know, the podcasting world for me is because the broadcast business has kind of pushed guys of my age away even though I have the experience. So you have to reinvent because you need to have a new purpose. And so everything you're saying is just is is clear as a bell for me.

Derek:

So so let's go to the employee question for a second then I wanna go back to the arts community. Yes. So I had a really interesting conversation years ago with someone from a government program that came to our company. I was at MicroLine then. And they wanted us basically to hire people with no skills or skills that weren't useful into our organization so they could get work experience.

Derek:

So, were Interns? Pardon me? Interns? It's something like that only it was like reemployment or you know, these were like I think probably older people if I recall right. That were working in an industry that was drying up maybe, you know, not unlike Bryn's experience.

Derek:

Yes. So, they wanted us to like, you know, get money from the government to hire these people. But they weren't gonna pay the whole thing and we were running really lean and, you know, it was a challenging business that we were in and we didn't really think that we had that kind of flexibility.

Reed:

Okay.

Derek:

Quality assured systems, you can't have anyone just bashing around your silicon wafers and stuff, right? So, it didn't go anywhere but this person gave me this nugget which was super valuable which I've never forgotten which was when somebody's looking for a job, their focus kind of narrows to the point where all the problems in their life are gonna be resolved if they get a job. Yes. And so, when they talk with someone that desperation comes out and it's like this guy, he could just decide right here on the spot to give me a job and all my problems will be solved.

Reed:

That's right, yes.

Derek:

And so, please, please, please give me a job.

Reed:

So, that's the fulcrum there. Yeah. Everything's on, yeah.

Derek:

And what this guy is saying is what we're trying to teach these people is your employer isn't there to give you a job, they have a problem. A will solve their problem. And if you can solve their problem, you're hired. So, I've given this advice to a lot of young people and it's hard for them but they you know, I think they try to get it and they make the switch and you go into an employer and you say, you know, I see that, you know, you're short of reliable workers. Well, let me tell you about my experience.

Reed:

Yes.

Derek:

You know, and you can talk to my boss or my coach, I never missed a practice, I always showed up. You can depend on me, I'm gonna add value. That attitude, then those kind of people get hired.

Reed:

I see.

Derek:

So, now let's go to the arts for a second.

Reed:

All right.

Derek:

The arts needs money to sustain itself even if you're not for profit. Absolutely. So, it's the same business model. You take, there's a need that people have, what is it?

Reed:

To be entertained, to have Frequently people don't even know what that need is. Right. I mean, the audience we're looking at, they don't know what they want.

Derek:

But there's, you're trying to fill something.

Reed:

Yes.

Derek:

You're trying to get connect with those people and you want somehow to get the resources you need to be able to do that and the next one. Right. So, if you can

Reed:

do that by ticket sales People think we can, I don't know any theater that does?

Derek:

So, how else do you do it then?

Reed:

Grants, scholarships, sponsorships, whatever, wherever you can catch the money from. I mean, some sort of corporate support. So it's

Derek:

still kind of some kind of value transfer though, right? Government we need arts in our community to have a vibrant community.

Reed:

Yes, this government does. I've been in other countries where that's not true.

Derek:

Sure. Or a big corporation says we wanna hire people to this city and for them to wanna come work here there has to be something to do and so we need a strong arts community so we're gonna put up a facility or pay for gaming something like so that people can have that experience. Any way you look at it, you're conveying, you're trying to create value and trying to convey value. And so if you look at the concept of essential dynamics, part of that purpose somewhere, I don't know if it's always the case, but generally is you wanna create value for someone that cares enough about it so that some way you can get the resources that you need.

Reed:

So are you trying through this podcast and your philosophy of essential dynamics, are you trying to redefine value or trying to open our eyes as to what value is?

Derek:

So there's been a lot of work on that that that's way beyond, you know, my ability and and the work that I've done. But understanding how value is created and who cares about it is important part of this process.

Reed:

Is essential as

Derek:

we Is essential. The way I came up to where I am now is you have to have a purpose and the weird thing about that is then it becomes something that can you can separate from the economic system. And you can talk about raising children caring for society's ills or something like that. Sure, you

Reed:

can apply it more broadly.

Derek:

It's more broadly applicable but clearly, if you have a purpose and you create an organisation and you build it up to get that purpose but you don't No one cares. No one will give you money, whether that's grants or paying customers, then that's not a viable operation.

Reed:

So Derek, you've earlier talked about purpose, path and people. This has been basic for us in our discussions. Purpose, path, and people, but I get the purpose and path, frequently, mixed together. If if we use the word quest, doesn't the word quest imply both? Yeah.

Reed:

Separate purpose and path.

Derek:

Sure. Sure. So, I hope we do this a lot, you know, get back to popular culture and, you know, things that people understand. So, the purpose was Frodo destroy the ring. Right.

Derek:

Okay. It takes three books and 1,700 pages And many hours of video. For him to for him to destroy the ring. Yeah. While we're on that though, you know I talk about purpose x and purpose y.

Derek:

Frodo's purpose x, destroy the ring. What was his purpose y?

Reed:

Keep his friends safe.

Derek:

That's exactly where I would go. And so he's standing there in the movie anyway, he's standing there on the shore in front of the boat looking at the ring And tempted by it. Thinking about his friends and going how do I do both of these things? Yeah. He's like the only way I can do this is to get out of here because I can't take them to mortar with me because I won't survive.

Reed:

Right.

Derek:

Purpose x, purpose y. It's pretty cool.

Reed:

It is. It's very cool. Okay. But that separates from the path. The path is the actual journey.

Derek:

The path is the journey. And so you know, I think I said this in a in an earlier discussion. You can't solve a purpose problem by working on the path. Can't If you're not clear on your purpose, no work at refining your processes is gonna help. And so I've been in a lot of complex organizations and those organizations have been in complex systems.

Derek:

And it's easy to lose sight of the purpose and try and improve the system. That's wasteful. I see. Because the system only has relevance with respect to how it's moving.

Reed:

One of these days, Derek, we're gonna get into I really wanna get into what happens when you have people who are opposed or may not even know that they're opposed to the purpose x. When they have a purpose y that's hidden and destructive.

Derek:

Well, that's that's very interesting. And, you know, one of the places I would go is, you know, this chart of six things, three elements times two. Yeah. In any kind of room you're in, there is multiple charts.

Reed:

Yeah. So we're being very basic.

Derek:

In fact, literally I did this for a client. I think it was even this week and I had the rows and the columns and I listed all the players and then I'm like, what's their purpose x? What's their purpose y? What's their driver? What's their constraint?

Derek:

Is there overlap? So, life is complicated. Yeah. But even just laying that out, like for example, for me if I'm an employer and we say in our organisation we have purpose x and purpose y. You have an employee who says I don't buy into any of that.

Derek:

That's an easy decision at that point. Once it's all clear. Yeah, you say, you know, it's not gonna work well for you or me to

Reed:

Well, yeah, but you have to get through that demystification process. Right. Derek, where can they where can someone go to see this written out for them?

Derek:

Well, there's a little bit. I'm still working on it but it would all I have that would be found at derek hudson dot c a.

Reed:

Okay.

Derek:

And Derek is d e r e k.

Reed:

Okay. And that's derekhudson, one word, dot c a. Is that right?

Derek:

That's correct.

Reed:

Okay. And then we'll find some of the elements of Essential Dynamics there. And I'm certainly going to go look because I want to understand these things better, but I hope some things have become demystified or clearer through our conversations here on Essential Dynamics. I'm Reed McCollum. Thank you for listening, and consider your quest.