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. I'm the host of Essential Dynamics podcast. Today, I've got Dave Kane with me. Dave's my colleague at Unconstrained.
Derek:Dave, good morning. How are you?
Dave:I'm good. Thanks, Derek. How are you doing?
Derek:It's good. It's good to be back with you. Essential dynamics is a framework that we've been developing to help us think through tricky situations, both, in our personal lives, in our organizations, in society. We tend to focus on on our businesses in in the podcast. Dave, last time we talked about being comfortably stuck.
Derek:Where where did we end up or where are we where do we need to go? I know you've been thinking about this.
Dave:Yeah. You do you leave something with me for a period of time, and I'll keep chewing on it a little bit. So I think last time we talked about this company is doing fine and that they built up this inertia, so we called it sort of comfortably stuck. And and I was asking you a little bit about, well, how do we break that and how do we get out of it? We've kinda talked about, you know, connecting with the customers and and sort of focusing on the value and how do we keep improving the value.
Dave:But then we kinda keyed off on what's renewing the organization's purpose or sort of refocusing on that and the purpose x and purpose y, and, you sort of grab this dynamic tension piece. So we we went off on a tangent talking about the dynamic tension and how important that is at keeping companies moving and finding, that drive.
Derek:So I wanna thank you for But I think there's gotta be more thank you for that insight. Okay. That was cool.
Dave:Gotta be more I can draw out of you on. Okay. Okay. How do I get uncomfortably stuck? How do I if it's not about solving the big problem or chewing past the the thing holding me back, it's just I'm, I'm okay.
Dave:How do I break it? Because so many companies, you know, we don't have to go to the extreme. Not everybody's in a quagmire, but there are so many companies out there that which is sort of they're they're doing okay. There's a little bit of growth, but it's not urgent. It's not on the top of their mind.
Dave:So what little things can we do or change to to sort of reinvigorate and break the inertia?
Derek:Break the inertia, reinvigorate, wake people up a little bit. So one of the ideas that we've talked about a lot was, well, let's just look at what we do in this context of an epic quest. Let's, let's like take that to a really high level and say, what are we doing here that's valuable in the world? We so we could, we could go with that, and I think there's two ways to do that. One is that you actually are doing something that's super valuable in the world, maybe in a very small part of the world, and you're not giving yourself enough credit.
Derek:If you think about how our economy works, people pay for things that bring them value. And if people don't find value, then, you know, the, the revenue is not there, companies don't survive, and so there's, a natural selection of, having organizations that are producing some value somehow. So some of those are like really important purposes. You may, you may be in the pharmaceutical and you're providing life saving medications to people. I happen to take a couple of those myself.
Derek:I'm really quite grateful that people do that. I, I've mentioned on the show before, I like my dentist, but I really, really like my optometrist. Because without the corrective lenses that I wear, I, I would be almost a non functional human. And so that, that, you know, that there's a lot of meaning to me. I've also said that I could never be an optometrist because, that what I see of what they do sounds, just seems very repetitive.
Derek:On the other hand, if your mission is to provide sight to the blind, If you see yourself as providing that, that tremendous improvement in people's quality of life, you that's something you can rally around and maybe re refresh your, your interest in it just by focusing on the great, noble purpose. There's other businesses and organizations that, you know, can't quite get that lofty. And so then the question is, you know, can you still reinvigorate an organization around why it's there? And I think you can, but I'm interested in your thoughts. Like, do you wanna explore that?
Dave:Well, I do because, there is, you know, a certain segment of of the companies that are, yes, on this noble purpose, and and they see it and that's what drives them, for sure. But what about the others that are just somewhere in the supply chain? What about the ones who who don't anchor their their everyday on on how am I contributing at the big picture? It's it's they're part of the process. How do we break them free?
Derek:That's a that's a great way to put it, Damon. So I have, I think two initial thoughts. One of them is that I believe that being involved in excellence is invigorating and empowering, and, being involved in mediocrity is soul sucking.
Dave:Been there.
Derek:And so whatever we do, let's do it really well. Like let's make a product that, you know, maybe it's functional, but it's also beautiful or, it's, it's of the, you know, the various high quality, it lasts a long time. Or let's create a customer experience where people say, you know, I went in and I just got my shoes repaired, but I felt so much better when I left because I was treated with such respect. And so all of the activities that we do could be done with a little more polish, little more love, little more of a quest for excellence, and I think that that feeds on itself.
Dave:So it's is that a culture thing are you talking about? Sort of it just creating that culture of it, or it's an innovation thing, or or where are you going?
Derek:I think I think it's, I think it's all of those things, and it's also a systems or a process thing. If you think about, like, the total quality management, approach, which, you know, gets down to statistical process control and in my mind, kind of gets, gets a little boring. The purpose of that is so that you consistently always give great products to your customer. Why would you settle for anything less? And so, so there's a, there's an aspirational part of it that you could put in your purpose, there's a responsibility to the customer that you could see, there's a culture, there's an expectation that we have of our our team that we work with that, we're all gonna strive for this, this level of, of excellence and of quality.
Derek:I don't think there's a way to have a great organization that doesn't have that as part of its culture. And, and it can't be part of its culture if it's not part of its systems and its processes. Because the culture wouldn't, wouldn't stand up to, not walking, not walking the talk or the aspirations. So when you, when you think about things that are just of high quality or an experience that's of high quality, that makes their lives better even if it's something that's, that's quite simple and, you know, maybe not life altering. But it's so I think there's something to that.
Derek:Mhmm. No.
Dave:I agree. And and the way I sort of hear it or see it is, you know, it's the leader's role to facilitate that and to to get it going. They don't need to dominate it, and they don't need to be the center point of of everything flowing through them in order to get that piece. Is it as simple, I wonder, as, you know, setting ambitious goals or setting the expectation of here's where we're gonna take our customer service or customer experience or here's how we're going to improve the value? Is it that leadership role of goal setting?
Dave:Is it of encouraging innovation and taking away the failure to fear so people try things that are different? Are there sort of simple tricks that you've used before?
Derek:Well, I I don't know about tricks, but yes, there's I think it's all of those things. I and just one thing comes to mind and it's, I think it's a trivial enough example, that it illustrates how broad, this thinking can be. I was a brand new chief financial officer, of of a not a very large company, but I was, I was learning my job. And, outside of my office where the one of the accounting clerks was, was sitting, there was I heard I overheard a conversation, and someone's expense report had an error or was late or something like that. And I was, I was not very comfortable with, the tone of the conversation and and the disrespect that was shown the employee.
Derek:Although, it wasn't something that ever one would ever, like, write up or anything like that. I just I just I didn't think that was how I wanted things to operate. And then and then the controller, who's in the next office, chimed in and, and it was served in support of the accounting clerk's attitude. They're both older than me. I've been there a week or two, and, I'm not, I don't think much of an authoritarian authoritative leader, but here's the situation.
Derek:So I called him in my office right then, I said, hey, can we talk? And I said, that's not the experience I want people to have when they come back here in our little corner. That's not gonna happen again. And, it never did. And so that was just like one little, you know, moment of truth where we said, that's not the experience we're giving our customers.
Dave:Yep.
Derek:And, our customers could be lowly employees with $200 expense reports. They could be huge multinational clients that we have, but that's where there's a standard at which we're gonna operate. So is that leadership? I think so. Is it culture?
Derek:Well, it became culture. Was it a lofty goal? Never, that would never be written in any strategy plan for the company or even for the finance group, but that's just the way we wanted it to be. And I think that when you treat people well inside, when you treat people well outside, when you don't stand for shoddy workmanship of any kind, there's self reinforcement that goes on there and that's, that's something that allows people to feel good about the work they do, feel that they're part of something. And to our I think from our conversation last week, because you can never really get there, to answer the question with, no, we're good, it just doesn't really work.
Derek:Mhmm. Our, you know, our customers can always expect more of us and we can deliver better. And so I think I think that just that aspect of excellence, it can be strategy. You can build it into specifications. You can put it into contracts with clients, but it's also culture.
Derek:And leaders have the opportunity to be, a means of communicating that, but also an example. And, you need to walk the talk on that. So that's one idea. The other one I have, which isn't unrelated, but it's a different focus is, what if we do a boring thing, we can't see the quest in it. It's so deep in the supply chain that we can't really see the impacts, you know, up and down the line, but here we are together working on it.
Dave:I think that's, that's far more common than, than you think, right? Yeah. Because if you've, if you've, you know, you weren't the one that that built up the business, but you're taking it on to continue to run it, or you've been hired into the job of,
Derek:Yeah. And you're and you're you're just there and you're in the middle of it.
Dave:Well The quest doesn't dominate you quite as much.
Derek:And, and I, I really think you can use some imagination and create that. But you can also just look around to the left and the right and see the people you're with, and say, okay, so we're a team. What does that mean to us? And, and how are we going to operate to bring out the best in each other? And so, there, that creates, all kinds of opportunity because people have, you know, they grow and develop in their capacity.
Derek:They have crises in their lives. There's, there are challenges with, with customers or with disruptions, and then, the team has to come together. And, and I think if, you can kind of encourage each other to take it to the next level in many ways, and that's, that's a way to get, moving from being complacent and comfortable to being a little bit more ambitious.
Dave:Yeah. I think, you know, within a systems conversation type way of looking at it, it's important because so often when you're viewed as stuck, you're looking at the leader to sort of, like, to to make the difference, to make the charge, and to push us out of it. But from the system's point of view, if you can get it out of everything focusing through that leader to make that difference and have the system move it or the people within the system being able to understand and action it, I think you have a much greater chance of of just sort of breaking free because it's not a single person pushing, it's the system making the change, and it's everybody understanding and contributing into it. It's that that to me I mean, having not been in as many sort of high leadership roles where we've been stuck, that to me might be the way to approach it is it's not just one. It's it's bigger.
Derek:Well, if, if everyone identifies with the, the goal or purpose of the organization, and then you can help them see what's going on and also hear what they have to say, then, yeah, you're you've got way more potential for doing better with lots of eyes, lots of hands, united working on stuff. So, so we talked about the high purpose, we've talked about excellence, we've talked about teamwork. I think you're adding another element to that when you talk about the system. So you can build a system that has feedback loops, that demand attention to improving. And you can build
Dave:So how so? What would you put in? Like what's an example?
Derek:So I learned from a very experienced board member, a great term that I really liked. And he was, I don't know that he was in the military, but he was fascinated by the military and he was a honorary regimental commander or something. And he had great connections in the military. And, he used to talk about having a hot wash up And the hot wash up is that the, fighter pilots come back to the base after a scramble. And while the engines are still hot and the planes are are gonna be, you know, taken care of, refueled and cleaned up and set for the next mission, the team gets around the chalkboard and goes over the mission.
Derek:And, says, you know, what, what happened that you didn't expect? One went well. Next time, what are we going to do? And they like on the spot as a habit, nobody takes a shower, nobody, leaves until they have, you know, completely debriefed the mission. And so you can build that into all different kinds of places in a system where you do something and you get the feedback and you action the feedback.
Derek:And, and I think if you real if you realistically get accurate feedback, and you're honest about responding to that, then you can't, you can't stay in one place.
Dave:Okay. So through this, we've kinda talked about, you know, you're you're setting that culture, you're setting a lot of goals, you're bringing in this immediate feedback, and then the other piece, building a birdhouse, is then you gotta go do something about it. And I think when you stretch with those three pieces together, that's how you can, I think, start to break out of this comfortably stock bin?
Derek:Well, building the birdhouse means that you accomplish something that changes the organization.
Dave:So which is a different concept than this, but it makes a lot of sense for if if you're in this state of inertia or, you know, steady state of I'm fine, it's making that change to the value system or making change that's significant.
Derek:That's right. And so, you know, we we dumped all over low hanging fruit, a couple episodes ago. So let's not, you know, have the illusion of progress and have initiatives that don't mean anything. But on the other hand, success, is contagious. And so if we can, find a, find a place that we want to improve and we do the improvement and we make sure everyone sees it and it gets then they can get confidence that, other things can improve as well.
Dave:Well, that success is is contagious is is great. It's almost as though, you're building momentum. You're just trying to get things momentum is such a a big piece of of why companies sort of plateau and that inertia sets in. And I think, like you start to say, even these small wins, you start to build that momentum, it can become self reinforcing and and get the organization to a place where it is changing and evolving and innovating and, staying nimble.
Derek:Yeah. So and I and I think, I think I wanna go into that self reinforcing thing a little bit more, but we probably don't have time, for for this episode. So let's let's put that in the parking lot, and then and then just try and try and recap this idea of of breaking the inertia, getting unstuck. One more thought from a systems view is that, and we've talked about this a lot, in your system, there's one place that can't keep up with the rest. And so we we talk about the constraint, we also use the term leverage point.
Derek:So if you wanna get unstuck, find the critical point and put your attention there. That's when the breakthrough was really gonna make a difference. And it may not be as hard as you think now that you understand the system. That's probably more on senior leadership than someone in the middle of an organization, because it might be very hard for you to actually see what's happening. And and and that's, that's a concern for sure.
Derek:But speaking to senior leaders, that's one of your responsibilities is to help everyone see what's happening in the system. And then, focus your attention on what you think is gonna make the most impact. So I guess that's, maybe a last point that I'd I'd make Dave is, that there's when we're talking about getting unstuck and we have these ideas, I'll I'll put two things out there that are a little bit different, put them together. One is, let's focus our efforts on where we think we can have the highest impact, and then let's have enough of a dose to make a difference. Like like, let's do enough, to kind of break through some of that inertia.
Derek:So you pick the right thing to focus on, and then you pump enough energy into it to, to have an impact, and, that might break the log jam. Mhmm.
Dave:No. I agree. And and even, kind of thinking in these organizations that, you know, they're fine even going through the process of understanding that, because, yes, change is hard, and sometimes making that big enough change isn't something they want to take on, but organizations that haven't even gone through the process of of thinking about that and having it in their back pocket, I think also become then at higher risk. Because, if you know where these key leverage points are, maybe you don't have the resources or the desire to do it today. But when the world changes on you, you're gonna wanna do something a little quicker.
Dave:And so I think even from a planning point of view of if you recognize where your company's at and you're not sure you're gonna be able to make that big change, go through the process and understand what these leverage points are and have everything ready, and then possibly something will push you to do it, or you will get your own initiative and momentum to do it yourself. Absolutely. But not doing anything and not being ready is risky to me.
Derek:Yeah. Absolutely. And and then the other thing is is if you can see the leverage point, you can say, well, first of all, this isn't as complex as I thought.
Dave:Mhmm.
Derek:And second, we we call it a leverage point for a reason that you can apply a little bit of effort for maximum result. That's what we're looking for. And so we tried this thing, well, that wasn't the leverage point. That sucked up a lot of energy and accomplished nothing. Let's find something where we feel if we put enough time and attention in, it'll move a mountain, and then let's put enough time and attention in.
Derek:And, and, don't don't quit too soon. But once once you see the potential, that's, I guess, that's another way to get unstuck is to say, holy smokes, we didn't realize, that we have one simple thing that we could do that would crack things open? And you're not gonna see that if you don't look for it. Yep. No.
Dave:I think that makes that makes good sense.
Derek:So so Dave, any, unsatisfied questions in this, in this line of questioning about, getting off of the the the comfortably stuck coach.
Dave:Not not really. I'm I'm curious to sort of explore that momentum and the self reinforcing and and how do you get the snowball rolling, or just how do you benefit from it? So that's something I think we can talk about another day. But on this one, no, it's it's hard. Like, there's a reason so many organizations are kind of in this position to varying degrees.
Dave:There's our economy and our productivity is in this state to varying degrees. So it's not easy to fix, and it does take, you know, a bit of that that that sort of leadership or the team or just the desire to keep improving and pushing things forward? And then like you say, just little bits at a time.
Derek:Well, last thing I guess I'd say to top this off is if we have a sense of accountability, if we have a sense of stewardship to a customer, to an investor, to ourselves, to our team, just to goodness and quality in general, we tend to do more than we would do without a sense of responsibility. So, if you're if you're comfortable, it may be because you don't understand your responsibility or the potential of what's within your stewardship.
Dave:Right.
Derek:So, for all of us, take a little bit of a look in, take a look little bit of a look out, and then say, yeah. Yeah. We can do better, and we've got some ideas about where to start. So I think that's where we should, park this one. Yeah.
Derek:Dave, thanks for the thanks for the line of questioning. Dave and I are at Unconstrained. Brynn Griffiths is in the studio helping us sound good. And for everyone, till next time, consider your quest.