Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!
And we're back, and welcome to Essential Dynamics, another podcast episode. I'm your host, Reed McColm. Well, your guest host now because, I wanted to talk to the regular host, mister Derek Hudson, about some things on that he's learned this year in essential dynamics. So I have returned to the microphone to find out a little bit more. Derek, are you there?
Derek:Hey, Reed. Thanks for stepping in and, taking over so, so adeptly. I'm I'm happy to be at your, at your service today on, on the Essential Dynamics podcast.
Reed:Yes. I am I'm looking forward to it because we have a lot to discuss. First of all, I've been, I've been following your season this year, and you've talked to a lot of very interesting people. And, I I I want to know what you've learned in general. What what do you think you've had this year that that stands out as, particular lessons of the central dynamics and for you?
Derek:Well, one of the things that I that I really wanna talk about today is, is is how you go from perhaps being stuck to moving forward along the lines of, all kinds of interesting things that are that our guests have shared. And, you know, like, most recently, Marvin Washington was on, and he talked about having a life plan. A few episodes before that, my partner, Anne McTaggart, and I talked about an organization have a business model or which is really like a life plan for your business. And when when you have those things, you have the ability to look at your business and see how you're doing. But a lot of times, we don't think of things that way.
Derek:We just, you know, we get up and we go and we do stuff every day. And we get we get into the thick of it. And from time to time, we might have some unsettling feelings like, you know, there might be there might be something more to this. We might there might be a different approach.
Reed:Is that what you mean by being stuck?
Derek:Yeah. Yeah. I I think so. Now, you know, if you go back, like way back, my consulting practice, I call it unconstrained now. Originally, when I started it years ago, it was unconstrained CFO.
Derek:And I I find it very interesting that thirteen years after I started my my business, the the consultancy called Unconstrained helps people get unconstrained, helps people get unstuck. And so one of the things one of the ways to start that process, I guess, is to say, well, like, what is what is being stuck, and and how do how does it feel?
Reed:What is being stuck? How does it feel? I'm talking from a business perspective.
Derek:Yeah. Yeah. So I think I think one of the ways to look at it is that if you're a leader in an organization, your job typically isn't to just, like, do the work. It's to it's to solve the problems, get in they get in the way of other people doing the work. And Okay.
Derek:When, when you're good at that, then you solve problems. You can solve easy problems. You can solve hard problems. But you get to the point where there are problems that you can't solve. And then that's kind of where you stay.
Derek:Because the easy ones come and go, and the hard ones are are persistent. They they stay with you. Sometimes that's because you don't you can't see them. And so you might kind of stall out and not recognize that there are, there's a higher level problem that you could take on if you appreciated what it was.
Reed:We often say consider your quest on this show, or, at least we have since the beginning. And and, I'm wondering if that is also a, a gate to understanding what the main problems are. I wonder if we're always on the same page, especially in business. What if you come up with a disagreement? What if your employees do not see the same quest you do?
Derek:Okay. So so, Reid, I have this I have this cheat sheet in front of me of, top 10 ways we can feel stuck.
Reed:Yes.
Derek:And I don't I don't wanna be really, structured today, but that's on the list.
Reed:Okay.
Derek:Good. It is that we we don't agree on the problem or we don't agree on the purpose.
Reed:How do you get how do you get agreement?
Derek:How do you get
Reed:agreement between two people, let alone ten, fifteen?
Derek:Well well, I would say that, however you do it, and it's not easy, there is so much power in aligning everyone's efforts to to the purpose, or as as we describe sometimes, purpose x and purpose y. If you get all that out there, then a lot of other stuff can get taken care of. But if you're not in agreement on the purpose, then you like, by definition, you're stuck.
Reed:Okay. So that's a core problem.
Derek:So so that's so that's, that's something that you wanna that you definitely wanna take on. And so what happens with organizations is over time, they may drift from their original purpose, or the environment may change, and the original purpose may be less relevant. But organizations, have ways of, self sustaining. Like, you know, they just keep going. And so you go, and you go, and you go, and things are done out of habit.
Derek:And then at some point you realize, just a second here, why are we doing this?
Reed:Mhmm.
Derek:And that, so consider your quest is a great way of saying, just a second here. If we're doing something hard, it must be something that's, you know, epic, it's for a purpose. And so, what's that purpose? And can we restate or rediscover that rediscover that purpose? The other thing while we're on the topic of purpose, and I I put it down as a separate thing, is that is that we might be clear on one purpose, but we have that second purpose, that complimentary purpose, the purpose y to the purpose x, that's not been explored or not been stated.
Derek:And, there's some
Reed:Why is that? Why do we not have why is it so often unspoken?
Derek:Well well, I I think for a few reasons, one is that we're kinda conditioned that, you know, an organization should have a mission.
Reed:Mhmm.
Derek:And so they're like, there's, like, there's one purpose. And, you know, what I've discovered in, in, you know, thinking about essential dynamics is, the real challenge is when you have complementary purposes that you can't accomplish at the same time, but you have to accomplish both of them. And and there's a lot of create creative tension there that can create an awesome business
Reed:or an awesome organization.
Derek:Well, you know, the one that I've referred to a number of times on the podcast is just a conversation I had with my daughter when she was a young university student, and she told me that I wasn't a good parent. She didn't say that. What she said was that she thought, as a child, that my job as a parent was to help her be happy.
Reed:Uh-huh.
Derek:And she didn't think I did that good of a job, mostly because we had rules, and she had to do chores. Mhmm. But she said, I she realized later on, as a young university student, that my purpose was or or or our purpose, Tamara and I, our purpose was that she'd be happy as an adult. And she didn't think we had done a bad job at that. It just wasn't fun to be a child who was preparing
Reed:to be an adult, I guess.
Derek:Fair fair enough, because adulting is, you know, it's hard. Yeah. So so if you have, at the same time, you're trying to accomplish, you know, reinforce the child, support the child, love the child in the moment, and put the child through hard hard experiences, and teach them discipline so they can be productive as an adult. That's be a great parent. But it's but it's not that easy.
Derek:And the same same in a business. Like, I I was thinking about two examples that I can think of. Organizations that I've been involved with, and it's interesting that both were not for profit organizations. And they were large, like hundreds of employees. And one of them was a not for profit business that didn't appreciate that it was a business.
Derek:And so they kind
Reed:of think it was. If you've got employees, what do you think you are?
Derek:Well, but they thought that they were this, you know, sort of gift to the world. Oh. And that the business would take care of itself if they just stuck to the altruistic mission that they had. And it was a it was a good mission. The other organization was a not for profit that, focused on the business and forgot the mission.
Derek:And so then, you know, as a business, you're looking for revenue here, you're looking for revenue there, and, they they lost their way as a result, and that organization no longer exists.
Reed:Yeah.
Derek:But you can't I mean, you can't you have to have both of those. And and if you're a for profit organization, so, yes, you're a business. Yes. You need to make money. But if you don't have a soul, right?
Derek:If there's not some purpose you can rally employees behind, then you're buying people's time and attention in a series of transactions that it's gonna be exhausting to keep up on. Whereas, you and I both been involved in organizations and projects where people are in it for the purpose, and the rest of it just kinda takes care of itself. Right?
Reed:Yes. Yes.
Derek:Yeah. So so there's a bunch of stuff around being stuck that relates to being unclear about a purpose, being unclear about, you know, your complimentary purpose. And and the and the interesting thing about that is, if you think about it, unless you can define what you're trying to do, then you can't say you're having progress, so you must be stuck.
Reed:Yeah.
Derek:Because you can only progress towards some kind of goal.
Reed:Derek, how do you know you're stuck? Some some organizations that I'm thinking of in my head are, or even my career. I feel like I didn't know I was stuck for years. And I only in retrospect do I go back and go, oh, I should've I should've moved on earlier.
Derek:Yeah. Yeah.
Reed:Because I was just making things do. Every day was to get through the day. And and there are organizations like that all over the place that don't know that they you can be stuck for years. And
Derek:You absolutely could. And and there's there's kinda two two of the things on my list that that fit that. They're they're kind of opposites. Well, which is appropriate for essential dynamics. Right?
Derek:Because we deal with dynamic forces a lot. So one of them is that we're in this kind of codependent dysfunctional situation, where Okay. The the negative stuff is self reinforcing. Okay. And, you know, I I had a conversation, and there's probably there's probably two or maybe three conversations I've had in the past while, where I've had someone, you know, kind of unload, you know, maybe vent, maybe complain, you could use those words, about how bad things were in their organization.
Derek:And in at least one particular case, the person who's telling me this was, the owner.
Reed:Oh my.
Derek:Okay? And, this wasn't going right with their employees, and this wasn't going right. And, you know, it's a safe space. So we're like, you know, you're meeting with an unconstrained guide. We're having this conversation.
Derek:It's an appropriate conversation. But but I said, at one point, well, if it's so bad, like, why do you put up with it?
Reed:And it's momentum, isn't it?
Derek:That's like you're you're the owner. Like, you don't have to have those employees. You don't have to have those customers. You don't have to do like, you can choose there's a lot of choices you have, and somehow our our focus kinda narrows. And like you say, you get you get up every day, and you do the thing that's in front of you that day.
Derek:And then at the end of the day, you're not happy. So there so there's this negative negative loop that we get in, and and we can't see a way out of it.
Reed:But don't a lot of people, and I mean millions of millions upon millions of people get used to the bad day, get used to being stuck, and, and have no faith that whatever is different will be better.
Derek:Hey. Hey, Reid. There there's oh, man. There's so much in what you said there. And and and we keep bouncing back and forth between the personal and the business, and that's totally appropriate, for for the this conversation, but I'm gonna go back to the business.
Derek:I I have said that, the three principles, underlying principles, essential dynamics are natural law, agency, and abundance. And it's about episode 25 or something like that. It's a while back there, but by natural law, I mean that there's cause and effect. And that if you can understand natural laws, you can invoke an effect by figuring out what thing causes it, and it's consistent somehow.
Reed:Yes. Okay.
Derek:The second thing is agency, that we can then make a choice. And we can do this thing, or we can do that thing. And the third thing is abundance, which is the idea that your choices could make things better. And so we don't have to put up with situations that are negative, but we get used to it. And and so I'm gonna bounce to another, thing that I've, I I wrote down, is that the solution is hard.
Derek:We're stuck because the solution is hard. I was in a conversation with someone. Again, I was hearing about the bad things that were going on in the organization. I said, well, what do you think should be done? There was a pretty clear answer.
Derek:And it's like, well, why don't you do that? And the answer was because it's hard.
Reed:Yeah.
Derek:Yeah. And and I I'm like, what You've just told me how hard your life is.
Reed:Right. Don't have to go through it.
Derek:Yeah. Yeah. I have a I have a story about that, and I I don't know if I've shared on the podcast. I might have. I've shared this story recently.
Derek:So last summer, I was, mountain climbing.
Reed:So Yes.
Derek:So this is a we're on a a scramble. So this is nontechnical. So we don't have climate control. We don't have harnesses. We don't have ropes.
Derek:We don't need them. But I had this really unsettled feeling for a couple of days before we, went on this scramble that I just couldn't shake. And and we start up this particular slope, and this is the Rocky Mountains. So the the Rocky Mountains are they have a lot of rocks on them, and the rocks aren't all attached.
Reed:I heard that. Yeah. Right?
Derek:Yeah. So so we have this year this series of little cliffs and loose rock, and the and the thing is is when you're on loose rock, you slide sometimes, and there might be a little cliff below you, or it might be a big cliff. And of course, when you're going up, if you climb up a little cliff and it's free climbing and it's not hard, sand holds there, once you get up, you're above that particular cliff. And so we did one little pitch. It might've been 10 feet.
Derek:Now I'm above this. All I can see is tricky stuff, every direction. And I don't want to be where I am, and I don't want to keep going. And, one of the guys that I was one of the guys that I was with was, trying to find, like, a better way, maybe up and maybe down, but he had to cross these tricky spots as he did that.
Reed:Sure.
Derek:And I'm kind of evaluating the risk of doing one, and then another one, and another one, and at some point you might slip. And I knew if I went back down the same way, that I'd be on solid ground pretty quick, but I also had to go down that way. And I wasn't happy about that either. And so the guy that I was right next to is a young young guy, he's a big guy, and he said, I'm not sure that you'll be able to reach that one foothold, but I know I can, so I'll go first, and then I'll talk you through it. So he went down.
Derek:I went down forty five seconds. I'm sure it was all it took to get down there, and then I was totally solid. So above it, I was stuck, and then everything I could do was hard. But I did one hard thing, and then it was good. And I had a great day after that.
Derek:And and it didn't include continuing to go up either, by the way.
Reed:That's that's great.
Derek:So so You know how I one of the things one of the things yes. I know you do. Yes.
Reed:One of
Derek:the things that keeps us stuck then, is when we get a clear idea of what we have to do to get out of it, and it looks hard. And so one of the things that we could learn from that is, let's embrace the hardness of being stuck to the point where we're not we're not gonna put up with it anymore. And I would say that that is, in a in a organization that's probably harder to work through than as an individual.
Reed:That's profound. That's, that it is possible more possible probably for an individual to change than it is an organization just because we have so many collective drones.
Derek:Yeah. Yeah. And and so many people can, like, drag it down and say no.
Reed:Yeah. And because because they're safe on that ledge, they they see danger everywhere else. But I know I'm safe here.
Derek:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As fun as that is to know you're not gonna spend the night there.
Derek:Like, I was okay for a little while. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And and so those and and that's, of course, related to the why we put up with things, is because I I can I know the hard that I'm dealing with, and the hard that I gotta work through?
Derek:I that I'm worried about that. So I'll stay with the hard that I know. Yeah.
Reed:Okay. So we've dealt a little bit about, getting unstuck. I feel like the time is just sniffing by. I wonder if you would allow me to come back another time, and, and we can talk further about this because I'm not done.
Derek:Yeah. I I I'm not either, and I and I know let me let me just see if there's a couple more one more that I can oh, yes. There's one that I wanna cover on this one, and then let's go let's let's let's pick this up in a in a bit here. One of the other reasons that organizations get stuck is because they forget that the people they work with are individuals, are real people.
Reed:Yeah.
Derek:And they and they treat them like objects. And so so therefore, you make an assumption that you can redraw something on an organization chart, or set up a policy, or declare some strategy, or something like that. And then people will just, like, automatically respond in exactly the way you want. When in reality, all those all those people in that organization each have their own set of, like, personal objectives, and their own standards, and their own habits, and their own ways of doing things. And it's super inconvenient.
Derek:Super inconvenient to have people like that in your organization.
Reed:That's why you want them all to stop being individuals?
Derek:Yeah. It's just easier if you can say, from now on, people will do it this way. Okay. And I think one of the things the pandemic has showed us is if you let people go home and work from home, they can surprise you. And then when you try and bring them back,
Reed:They surprise you again.
Derek:That's tricky, right?
Reed:Of course it is.
Derek:Of course. It's tricky. And so it's just this, you know, real inconvenience that these people that where you want their brilliance and their professionalism and their creativity, they come with a human spirit as well. And, and so that's a that's a interesting, way to think that you're stuck is because you've got everything figured out but the people. Yeah.
Derek:And, you've got everything figured out but the people.
Reed:Man. Derek, it's always a pleasure talking to you. I have so enjoyed coming back into the studio with you. I I really appreciate it. Derek, where can they find you?
Derek:So yeah. Find me at getunconstrained.com.
Reed:Good.
Derek:And, also, when you're on the podcast, check out the the links to the show notes. That'll put you on the essential dynamics wiki, and there's, lots of material there.
Reed:Folks listening at home and in your cars and, in your businesses, consider your quest.