Essential Dynamics with Derek Hudson

Reed McColm chats with long time friend Derek Hudson about what is Essential Dynamics?

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:

Hi. This is Reed McColm with Derek Hudson. You're listening to Essential Dynamics, which is an interesting thought to me because I that's what I wanna talk about, Derek. And I wanna talk about why you came up with the title Essential Dynamics. I wanna know what is essential and what is dynamic and why that applies to business and how you came up with this idea for a podcast anyway.

Reed:

What do you think?

Derek:

Was that a question, Reid?

Reed:

Yeah. It was it was an open ended question. Okay. Perhaps I should be a little more specific.

Derek:

Well, I wanna talk about that's why we're here. I wanna talk about all that stuff.

Reed:

Yeah. How did you come up with

Derek:

Essential Dynamics? So the name came after the concept for sure. And after I decided that there were three elements and we had to consider two forces, I called it the three elements two forces model. And it just didn't It didn't slip off

Reed:

the tongue.

Derek:

It did not slip off the tongue, it did not resonate at all. And I worked and I worked and I tried a bunch of things and what's interesting to me is that there are three essential elements and then there are dynamic forces. But when I talk about essential dynamics, you know is essential a modifier for the word dynamics? Yeah. It kind of is and you know I would say another way of thinking about it is essential dynamics means that dynamic forces are essential in our lives.

Derek:

And you and I both know the quotation, there must needs be opposition in all things. Yes. So part of this podcast is an opportunity to talk about why things are hard. Okay. And that started out with a business mindset but it applies to other endeavors in our life as Okay.

Reed:

So wait, you're saying that opposition is hard and opposition is necessary, I meant to say?

Derek:

Opposition is necessary, yes. And so I'm gonna go I'm gonna try and pick off answers to your questions here. You said, what is essential? Yeah. Okay.

Derek:

So I talk about three essential elements. And really to set that up, we just have to think about the things that we do, human endeavor as people working together to accomplish a purpose. And that sounds maybe a little bit like business school, but if you step back a little bit, it's really about an adventure. It's about a quest. It's about you take some unlikely group of people and they have to accomplish some difficult thing and they have to go on a journey to get there.

Reed:

Okay. Now you're talking my language, is creative or dramatist. And I'm I'm thinking everybody has to have a quest. That sounds that sounds very much like the rule of of what good writing is.

Derek:

Absolutely. But I think it's the rule of good living too. And so to go back to opposition, is there a story if there's no opposition?

Reed:

Something to overcome.

Derek:

Yeah. Some challenge.

Reed:

Okay. Yeah. I think villains are as necessary as heroes. Sure.

Derek:

I mean there's always has to be the dark side. Right?

Reed:

Sure. Sure.

Derek:

And and so one of the things that I find interesting is that that we're so surprised when life is hard.

Reed:

As if we expect it to go easily.

Derek:

And we set out to do something and then it's hard and then we're like, I've been robbed. Yeah. So here's an example of this. Know I've been a scout leader Sure. For many years.

Reed:

And loved it.

Derek:

I've taken these boys on this bike trip from Jasper to Banff. And such a long ways and there's steep hills.

Reed:

Yeah. So there's some of

Derek:

the boys that didn't play team sports or they weren't naturally adventurous outside.

Reed:

These are my people.

Derek:

Yes. And so they're riding a bike up the first steep hill and their legs start to hurt. Yes. And they get off their bike and they're like, my legs Yeah, exactly. My legs hurt.

Derek:

There's something wrong. And I'm like, no, what you have to learn is that's the way you're gonna feel all day. And at the end of the day, you're it's gonna be the best day of your life.

Reed:

Yeah. And so But it's gonna

Reed:

be hard every second getting there.

Derek:

There's something in essential dynamics which the dynamic thing is really the engineering concept of opposing forces.

Reed:

Uh-huh.

Derek:

That that's what makes life full and meaningful. And so that that's how where I start with this is a really technical business approach. Strategic forces and stuff. And then I land to something which has way more or broader applicability, but still super relevant to the work I do as a consultant and

Reed:

helping You're accountant and you're talking about a quest. That's to me contradiction in terms.

Derek:

So I have a I have a friend, good friend, Jim. Hi, Jim. Who said to me years ago, he said, I just figured it out. He says, accountants aren't boring. They're just bored.

Derek:

And so so like I'll I guess I'll get personal again. My experience starting out to into the world of accounting was working as a junior auditor for Pricewaterhouse.

Reed:

Yes.

Derek:

That is terribly boring work. I do not handle tedium well.

Reed:

Okay.

Derek:

I'm an idea guy, right? Yeah.

Reed:

But you became an accountant. So, I mean it was

Derek:

the mid eighties I had to do something that that's where the jobs were. But my quest, if you wanna put it that way, was to learn everything I could about business while I was in these companies and I could ask anybody any question they had to answer me. I love that. So, that changed the game completely Yes. From does this bank statement reconcile?

Reed:

Yes, it does.

Derek:

Well, sometimes it didn't, Reed, I have to say.

Reed:

Well, if you were checking my bank account, I'm sure that would be the case.

Derek:

I think I saw this poster in accounts office once and it was accounts receivable aren't, cash flow doesn't, balance sheets don't.

Reed:

Well, that's more akin to my experience.

Derek:

Yeah. So you can cut out the accounting humor from this but anyway. Well, what I Where are we? Go ahead, Reid. Well, just was fun.

Reed:

I I am intrigued by the idea that everybody has to have a quest. Do they have to be aware of it? Do they have to be aware they're on a quest?

Derek:

Well well, you know, like we're in multiple stages of quests in our lives but the thing is is if you can turn it into a quest, what you're working on, then you can identify the elements and then you've got some visibility into the experience that you're having and you can make choices.

Reed:

Okay. How do you do that? Do you have a goal list and say, today in my job, want to feel better about making widgets. I keep coming back to that because I think of it as something very tedious.

Derek:

You know, and and we're gonna get a lot of calls from the widget makers out there.

Reed:

I am. I

Derek:

think we're just told the story

Reed:

of how he knows people who love making widgets and that kind of thrills me because I wouldn't, that would not work for me. I would not like to be on an assembly line where I did the same thing every day for my career.

Derek:

And I'm the same which is how I got you know, into this business is that the idea of knowing what the day is gonna be like, just like you know, why bother?

Reed:

I understand.

Derek:

I'm very grateful for my dentist and my optometrist.

Reed:

Yes.

Derek:

Because I could not do those jobs. So anyway, going back to the question of of making things a quest. Well, so the essential elements of a quest are three things and I talked about it. In code, people working together for a common purpose is a definition of a team these days. We talked about We didn't talk about it but you kind of alluded to the fact when you get into literature and the creative arts, we're talking about a hero's journey.

Reed:

Mhmm. Right.

Derek:

And so I just broke that out down into three things. There's the people and the purpose And the journey is the path to get there. So in an organization, the purpose is the purpose of the organization or the project that you're on. The mission statement. You've got you've got the people that are working on it and then path is really just like the systems

Reed:

you How we get there.

Derek:

So that might be an assembly line or a project management system or an order entry and fulfillment system. That's all part of the path. And one of the things that I think is really important is that you are able to distinguish those elements from each other. Because you can't solve a people problem by working on the systems. Oh.

Derek:

And you can't solve a purpose problem by working on the people. Okay. And so if we can if we can even if we just say what's my purpose here in this particular part of my life or this part of the company or the project I'm working on? And then say, okay, so what are what are the aspects of the the people and what what about the path?

Reed:

But all the people have a purpose. I mean, I don't wanna get into into the alliteration thing, but all the people you are your employees, if you will, have individual and sometimes conflicting purposes that they bring to the workplace.

Derek:

So, Reed, now you're setting me up because that's where the dynamic forces come in.

Reed:

I see.

Derek:

So, know, are you familiar with the yin and yang symbols?

Reed:

Sure, sure.

Derek:

You know, the sort of overlapping teardrop things?

Reed:

Yeah.

Derek:

The first time I really I think appreciate that was when I was living in Korea Forty Years ago. Yeah. And the red and blue version of that is on the Korean flag of the Republic Of

Reed:

Korea. Oh, okay.

Derek:

And so the idea there is that these forces may be opposing but they're also complementary.

Reed:

And necessary to each

Derek:

other. Necessary to each other. And so when I look at people, path and purpose, I recognize that each of those three have dynamic elements to it. And on the people side, if I was to go there first which I usually don't do but you brought it up, the the natural tension and dynamic conflict there is between the individual and the group. Mhmm.

Derek:

So the way we get stuff done in society is we specialize, we trade, we cooperate, we compete. But we do it in multiples of people, but everyone's still an individual. So as an individual, you kind of give up some of your sovereignty, some of your autonomy because you don't wanna perform surgery on yourself and you don't wanna work in assembly line. But someone else needs to so you can have your widgets.

Reed:

Right.

Derek:

And so there's always this tension in an organization, in a family, in a relationship between what someone needs as an individual to be like true to themself and then how they contribute to the team or the other way around. What do we need from those people and how do we give them what they need?

Reed:

What comes first, purpose, path

Derek:

or people? I like to start with a purpose.

Reed:

Okay.

Derek:

And in my mind the purpose, the dynamic forces on the purpose aren't necessarily like light side and dark side of the force not necessarily good and evil, but but the fact that there are multiple purposes. So you talked earlier about like the company mission statement or whatever. So the stated statement might be a purpose, but it's not the only one. So in the way I like to to illustrate that or the way to refer to it is that purpose is purpose x. And that might be easy to figure out.

Derek:

Sometimes organizations have no idea and so let's let's figure out what purpose x is. But my question is well what's purpose y?

Reed:

Meaning they have contradictory yin and yang purposes?

Derek:

Yin and yang might be the way to go. So, I'll tell you a story about my daughter. Mhmm. So she was a young university student living away from home, not very far from home. Borrowing our car constantly get close enough but not you know, but living away from home.

Derek:

And she came to me one day and she said, dad, she said, you know, I've been thinking. And when I was a kid, I used to think that your responsibility as my parents was to make sure that I was happy. That I had a happy childhood. And she said, I didn't think you did that good of a job. But she said, now that I'm older and I I realize that what you're trying to do is make sure that I was a happy and productive adult and you didn't do that bad.

Derek:

So, that was a remarkable conversation. I remember all the words, I don't exactly remember even where we had it. Yeah. First of all, was like ten years earlier than I thought we would it.

Reed:

Well, that was mature.

Derek:

So she is very mature. But the other thing is that that's Amina lays it out. Purpose x, happy child. Yes. Purpose y, happy adult.

Reed:

And they're sometimes contradictory.

Derek:

They're not opposing No. But you can't necessarily satisfy both in the moment. Hey dad, can I go and play with my friends? No, actually you need to do your chores and your homework. That is not a happy child.

Derek:

Right. However, a child that learns how to deal with that over eighteen years is a great employee, probably manages their life well and ends up being a happy and productive adult. Purpose x, purpose y. This is the thing that I earlier alluded to in the sense that you once you hear this, you can't unlearn it.

Reed:

I see. Okay. I appreciate that that there's I always appreciate yin and yang because I think everybody needs a little push and pull, if you will, as in the doctor Doolittle sense to push me, pull you is always living in my in my living room. But I think we're going to be talking a lot about purpose, path, and people and purpose x and and purpose y throughout our conversations. It seems like these are, as you said in your title, essential.

Reed:

And I really do wanna talk about the quest and things. I wanna I'm still interested. How did you even though you had a lot of time to think about it, how did you come up with this distillation of your philosophies?

Derek:

So I'm gonna answer that in two ways and I might have time to do one of them. And that is, like how did I do it? Not the what's going on in my brain, but like how I approached it. It's interesting. I walk for exercise and I bike.

Derek:

Okay. And when I bike I don't think, watch out for obstacles. Right. But when I walk I think and I talk to myself, there's an ongoing conversation in my head. So that was source of a lot of it.

Derek:

Phase two is blank piece of paper scribbling stuff out and then phase three is I start to type and outline and things like that. But this process iterated many times. And there were a couple two or three moments where I was able to kinda come back after you know, pouring my head into it for a bit with a slightly different angle and boom. So if I if I could just jump ahead to the dynamic elements relating to the path or the system, in my mind those are things that advance you towards your goal and things that hold you back.

Reed:

I

Derek:

see. Drivers and constraints. And that's where I started. I've been a student of the theory of constraints for twenty years. There's a guy and a book and a institute and I went Tel Aviv to study this stuff.

Derek:

The constraints theory is very powerful, but I think it's better when you have another side to it. Which is what drives you and then what's hold you back. So there's that dynamic tension. So now we have two purposes. We have drivers and constraints and then we have the individual and the group.

Derek:

And so those are the six six parts of essential dynamics. Three essential elements, people, path and purpose. And then each of those has a yin and a yang. And you know I could write it on a three by five card at six points, but it's so interesting when you apply it to situation after situation after situation. And when I turned that mechanical thing into the quest Yes.

Derek:

Then boom, it became alive. Because then I'm now I'm watching movies and reading books, fiction, literature going, Frodo had a purpose x and a purpose y.

Reed:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've you've uncovered the secret to good writing. And from my vantage point of fiction, you've You've uncovered the secret of watching a movie and saying, oh, I know what I know what the contradictions are here. So I think in like the reason

Derek:

I wanna have this podcast is because I'm sitting here with a storyteller and accountant turned business consultant.

Reed:

Yes.

Derek:

I think we can learn from each other and put in front of people things that they can do to help their organizations and their lives and probably be entertaining at the same time.

Reed:

Oh heavens. Derek, if anybody had told us forty years ago when we were in junior high school that we'd be helpful to each other, I would not have like bleeped them.

Derek:

Don't think Yeah. That's fair. So, you know, I just wanna go to junior high school for a sec because I think this is fascinating to me. We're sitting here at the studio of Bryn Griffiths, Mighty Mouth Productions.

Reed:

That's right, our engineer.

Derek:

When I was left junior high, in high school, anytime after someone had said, did you know someone who was really young and knew what they were gonna be when they grew up? And I only had two names, Reid McComb who was gonna be an actor and Brynn Griffith who was gonna be a radio announcer. I had no idea what I was gonna be. And here you guys have done that and now we've managed to take all that stuff and put it together in a room in 2020.

Reed:

And here I am, I'm sitting over here with my feet

Reed:

up listening to you two guys absolutely nailed this thing today. It's, it's been fun to listen to, and you're absolutely right. If there's not a protagonist and an antagonist or a proton and a neutron, you've got nothing.

Derek:

Yeah. There's got and

Reed:

there's gotta be a little conflict for there to be sparks. Right?

Derek:

Yeah. So why are we so surprised when we have conflict? When we feel like we've been robbed somehow when it doesn't go our way.

Reed:

So should we seek it?

Derek:

Well, we can talk about that another time.

Reed:

Alright. Alright. I appreciate that. Derek, where can somebody find you on the web?

Derek:

So it's pretty easy. It's derek hudson dot c a. And Derek is spelled? D e r e k.

Reed:

Okay. Hudson, that's just one word, derek hudson dot c a.

Derek:

That's right.

Reed:

Okay. Well, look that up and find out a little bit more about us and about our podcast. This is Essential Dynamics. I'm Reid McCollum and delighted to be talking to Derek Hudson and our engineer is Bryn Griffiths. And until our next podcast, consider your quest.