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Kristen reveals the Seductive Seven - solutions that don't solve the real problem. "If you don't know how to use the resources you have, more of them won't help." Reed provides an amazingly relevant example of driving on Los Angeles freeways.
Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!
And it's Essential Dynamics. I'm so excited to be the host of this show and be able to play that guitar and and tell people that I am proud to introduce my friend and guru, mister Derek Hudson. Derek, are you there?
Derek:Reed, I'm here. I'm ready to go. I'm really excited about having Kristen Cox back with us.
Reed:Oh, is Kristen with us today? That's great.
Derek:Kristen is with us again today. We we certainly didn't have enough time to cover everything last time, so we're back out of the game. Kristen. If you remember in our previous broadcast with Kristen, she she often referred to me as her best friend. And so I wanna go back and listen to that.
Derek:That one might not survive the edits, but Oh, okay. We know.
Reed:Yeah. We know.
Derek:Yeah. So so, Kristen, welcome back. I I wanna start this one. At the end of last episode, you said that you people could find more information about you and your work by going to stopdecoratingthefish.com. I think that's right.
Derek:Is that right?
Kristen:That's correct.
Derek:So that's kind of a weird website name.
Reed:Unique. It's very unique.
Derek:Maybe you could explain about Although that was fish.
Reed:That was the title of my memoir. I wonder.
Kristen:Well, we are best friends, Reed. So, you know, I named the book after you.
Reed:Thank you
Derek:so much.
Kristen:I know. We're like this. So the it's the title of a book which is a parable and stop decorating fishes, the key point of the parable. But, essentially, let's quit decorating the problem and actually solve it. And that's the essence of the book, that most problems aren't worth solving, but there are a few that are, and we usually miss those.
Derek:And and when you say that, you're talking about business, life, organizations, families, and society?
Kristen:So, you know, the book talks about seductive seven, which are solutions organizations tend to jump to that don't solve the real problem. So it's focused heavily on organizations and, you know, governments and nonprofits, etcetera. But if you look at the essence of the book, it applies to our personal lives as well, which is we have limited time. We have limited attention. We only have so many breaths to take in this life.
Kristen:Where are we gonna focus? And we spend a lot of time in our personal lives as much as in our organizations trying to fix the wrong problem, and we waste a lot of time and energy doing that.
Derek:So so let's put our our worlds together then. Mhmm. So we have this model of the the quest and essential dynamics and and the work that you do. How do you figure out what the right problem is to solve, either in your language or our language?
Kristen:So, you know, there's and I love your language because it simplifies everything. Right? The purpose, the path, the people. So I look at it a few ways. I start with what to stop doing.
Kristen:We're inundated in a society with a solutions industry. Buy a new piece of technology, download a new app, buy a new data system, put out a new strategic plan, reorganize your organization. We're bombarded with that, and we keep chasing what I call the illusion of progress. So first step, stop chasing what we call the seductive seven. But then to find the real problem, I think there's three things.
Kristen:And we touched upon this the last time I was with you, but do we know our our ultimate goal? What are we trying to accomplish? That sounds simple, but I'll tell you most organizations or teams I'm with, there's not clarity on that. And then number two well, I guess two and three. Who's the primary customer?
Kristen:Who's the person we're really trying to serve? And that, again, isn't so clear. I can give you some examples of that. And then what's that person's problem? And the way I think about the problem is the limitation.
Kristen:What's blocking the person from moving forward to take the action that everyone says is so reasonable and would be in their best interest, and they're not doing it? Just giving them more information isn't taking away what's blocking them from moving forward. So when we can get those three things, stop, goal, person I mean, four things and the problem that person's facing, it can anchor us in the right direction.
Derek:So can you give us some examples of the stop part?
Kristen:Yes. So this came from my experience as the budget director for the governor here in Utah for eight years, and there was about a $22,000,000,000 budget. And I would every year, we'd have a lot of budget requests come through, 400, four hundred plus a year, and you'd have to sift through them. And I could start to see these trends. I first called them the fatal four, then it jumped to the seductive seven.
Kristen:That people just thought if I implement this solution, my problem will be solved, and it became just ubiquitous. A colleague who works in the private sector saw the same trends, and so we wrote the book. The idea that, you know, if I just had more money, you know, more resources, and I say, look. You don't know how to use the resources you have, more of them won't help. But there's a lot that goes into that.
Kristen:If I just had new technology, more data, another reorg, more strategy, you know, new plan, there's seven of these. The last one I'll talk about on its own. We wanna stop doing those. Those are tools. They're tactics, but they by themselves never solve the problem.
Kristen:The last of the seductive stuff, and I think it's really fundamental. It's about more blaming, which is essentially, I can't make a difference because someone or something else is preventing me from doing so. The federal government, politicians, my boss, my spouse, my community, someone out there is blocking me from making progress. And I think that's such a cancer in our lives because we overlook what we have stewardship over, and we overlook what we can impact, which is usually quite a lot, much more than we give ourselves credit for. So that's just a fundamental piece that you know?
Kristen:Yeah. I do it except the federal government won't change this law. Focus on the controllables. And so yeah.
Derek:So, Kristen, I gotta tell you, the first time I saw the seductive seven
Kristen:Mhmm.
Derek:I think was the first time I ever was forced to confront the idea that accountability equals blaming. Mhmm. Because let's get this straight. I'm an accountant. I'm a I'm a chartered accountant.
Derek:I'm a certified no. What am I? I'm a, yeah, chartered public accountant now. Mhmm. They changed the names in the Canada.
Derek:And so the the basis of my profession is accountability.
Kristen:Uh-huh. And
Derek:then I just wanna know, did you come up with the word blame?
Kristen:Yeah. And it's not that, you know, we certainly need to account for what we've done. But if I'm looking you know, I've this is from Deming. A poorly designed system will beat a good person every time. And so if your managers will blame their people or the federal government and you know, as soon as we're looking outside to someone else to solve our problems, we're in a losing proposition.
Kristen:It's an unwinnable game because you put all your power on somebody else. So So yeah.
Derek:So so accountability in terms of here's your money. Here's the result. Now account to me as to whether you got the result for the money you gave me. But that's the foundation of my profession.
Kristen:Yeah. And and that's great. Account for it. But if people let's say you're in a in a government organization, and this happens all the time. You the legislature, let's say they're conservative, and they're saying costs are too high.
Kristen:We're gonna cut your budget by 5%. You're not being accountable. You're spending too much on in state travel, yada yada. What questions they're not asking, which are, I think, more relevant, or what are what are the causes of cost? And the causes of cost usually show up in quality issues, you know, long lead times, things like that.
Kristen:And when we blame people for things they don't know or don't know how to do it or reset a system that's like, in accounting, if I'm looking at government performance and accounting, they're two different worlds. You know, I need to understand the causes of cost, which don't show up in spreadsheets. Yep. So if I can't if I'm gonna blame people and they don't even have the tools or the vocabulary to make changes, I can account for it. That's great.
Kristen:But it doesn't get to the heart of the issue. What's wrong? Why did they spend too much? Or no. I'm not saying we don't look at fraud or people who are outward lying, but I think most people are good.
Kristen:And the accounting's on the back end. What I wanna understand is what caused those results, you know, not a year later.
Derek:Well, I think there's a lot of power in someone thinking about trying to improve a system, thinking about accountability, and then saying to themselves, am I trying to push the focus on the responsibility of others when there's something that I or our organization needs to get right? Well, think that's
Kristen:oh, sorry, Derek. There's something that I wanna talk about kinda how I define the problem for the customer because this may get to this accountability piece of it. So I was on a panel about health care a while ago, and they were talking about trying to get low income people to eat healthier. So, you know, people suggested you could put how many calories were in the fast food on a menu or, you know, give them, like, a $50 incentive at the end of the month if they, you know, went to the gym or whatever. And those are all incentives, and the assumption is we're pushing all of all of the responsibility on the person and on the system.
Kristen:So imagine if you're a single mom, three kids, Baltimore City, living in a food desert, you're working two jobs, and the idea that a $50 incentive or calories on the fast food is gonna solve that person's problem is nonsense. So what's going on in the system? Yeah. It's nonsense. So what I'm always interested in is the push and pull of the system.
Kristen:What's blocking the person, like a challenge or a friction point, or what's inertia that keeps pulling him back in? An inmate coming out of the prison, you put them back to their same old habits, family life triggers friends, and we're shocked that they recedivate. The inertia of their old habits just pulls them in. So in TOC, we talk about removing the limitation, which is the friction points or the inertia. And if we can't think about those, the system that's reinforcing those behaviors, we're pushing accountability in the wrong place.
Derek:So in essential dynamics, we talk about those limitations and inertia constraints. Mhmm. And that's well studied and, you know, you're one of the voices I follow. What's I think what's missing from that conversation is what are the what are the natural drivers?
Kristen:Yes.
Derek:What what what can happen in a person's life or a person's family even if you're a single mom with kids? Mhmm. Where it would be natural to, you know, have a healthier lifestyle. And you you gotta have both because if you don't remove the barriers, then you'll just have a higher energy collision. Mhmm.
Derek:But if there's no if there's no driver, then you won't even bump into the all of the constraints because the
Reed:But, Derek, doesn't that go to personal like, you can't change a person unless they want to. You can't they can't change a person. It's it's they it's personal desire or willingness to go. I think the governments know, even if they're well intentioned, $50 a month is not gonna get me to the gym. I I mean, how do you improve upon what I have now?
Reed:But I just I I I am really appreciating what you're saying, Christian, but I also feel like government, it may not be the answer because they have a bureaucracy built in, and it seems to be a constraint in of itself.
Kristen:Yeah. And they're usually you know, I absolutely agree, and that's why I'm, like, focused on the controllable. So government or a nonprofit or private sector, and this is why that blaming thing is so big, is, you know, you can't force somebody to change their mind. I've tried it with my kids, my Vulcan mind tricks. It doesn't work.
Kristen:But, you know, I can't but the question is back to myself. What what are the controllables? And if I remove friction points I was doing a workshop with another state on diversity inclusion, such a big topic. We narrowed, narrowed, narrowed, and, you know, educational disparities for this population. And the typical thing is just hire more career counselors, you know, market to them, educate them about their concepts.
Kristen:And when you talk to the folks in the community and you said, what's the real limitation here, the friction point? They said, look. You've got a lot of folks in this one state. Their parents are immigrants, and they're working to meat processing plants or, you know, very manual labor jobs, not making a lot of money. So these students, they work, and their money goes to the household.
Kristen:They don't have money for tuition or even moving out. So if you can't find a way to help these kids earn money while getting credit for postsecondary, you're not removing the conflict. The organization, we perpetuate what's easy for us. But in TOC and diagnosis, we're trying to subordinate the system to the customer. So that may force the organization to come up against its policy constraints or any obstacles that the organization is putting in the way of that individual, those bureaucratic loopholes.
Kristen:How do we remove policy friction points? What kind of dosage or intensity of intervention do we need to help overcome the inertia that's pulling them back in? So we have to really own our part of contributing to the problem the person's facing.
Reed:You know, Kristen, that I spent a couple of decades in working in film and television, primarily television, trying to make a mark, I suppose. And I would come home on the Los Angeles Freeways from a studio every night and no and I really wondered why we were all so angry on this on the freeways. It it was it was a lot I thought about it a long time because it was one of the input the catalysts for me to make a change in my life. But what I came to the conclusion was we were all racing just to get ahead of the next guy, and then we win. We were creating games in our head.
Reed:If I get to my exit by in fifteen minutes, I win. If I you know, I as if, boy, I I shave two minutes off my time, therefore, I have a good evening. I I I didn't think that was really living. It was but it was a an effort on the on the on the part of, I think, everyone there
Kristen:Mhmm.
Reed:To just adapt to our situation. It always felt like a hustle. I'm always hustling the other guy, and I never felt like I was working with the other guy
Kristen:Mhmm.
Reed:To get there. I love your quote. If you don't have if you don't know how to use the resources you have, it won't help to have more of them. And and I always thought in LA, especially, I encountered, and I'm not sure everybody does, but I did, this feeling that if I had more money, I would solve my problems.
Kristen:Mhmm. Yeah.
Reed:And and the amount of money I have equates to how smart I am.
Kristen:Yeah. That seems like a really hard mountain to climb. It just never be the top. You can't get there.
Derek:You can't you cannot get there. So so, Kristin, you've talked a little bit about policy friction or policy constraints. Mhmm. And then and then, Reid, you talked about the game. Mhmm.
Derek:And the LA Freeway game is to beat the next guy. And when I when I put those two together, I'm thinking of, you know, how we started last week and Chris was talking about mindsets. And isn't mindset the way we set up the the game and the rules of the game? Mhmm. And then we play the game as if it was real life, but most of the time, it's not real life.
Kristen:It's not. Yeah.
Derek:And so we have limitations that are artificial limitations. We have goals that aren't real, you know, real goals. That's not really what we want. And then then we play by the rules of, you know, whatever game we set up. And so if people who think about these things can help people put things in different a different context, a different perspective, then we can change the game that we're playing.
Derek:Maybe maybe to the point where we're not actually playing a game, we're actually living life. But if not, let's get the game to approximate something that adds, you know, real value to people, whether it's in an organization and or in our families.
Kristen:I think that's really important. I my my experience and this is true for myself. Right? Like, all these things I say, don't always live them. I'm striving to live them.
Kristen:You know, I fall short a lot. But I think there's these rules that regulate our organizations, our systems, ourselves, and they're very implicit. And those are the ones that usually have much greater impact on how we live or how we perform at work than the explicit policy book. I mean, you know, what organization says to a new child welfare investigator, hey. We're gonna throw you into this chaos.
Kristen:We're gonna throw you cases every day. You're not gonna have time to breathe, and it's gonna be chaos. Like, who who explicitly makes that a rule? And yet Yeah. That's how it works.
Kristen:So I think I always talk about making the invisible visible and the implicit explicit. What's really governing or regulating these rules, Derek, that I love how you talked about that's driving how we play the game? I read this example as perfect. And sometimes those assumptions are unexamined. And I always say the reason why I like the goal is because it's just a yardstick to tell us if what we're doing is working or not.
Kristen:It's not to punish. It's not to blame or anything like that. It's just set something that's really uncomfortable that we don't know how to achieve yet, And then let's see if we can change the rules of the game to get there. And if we're not, we can go back and question again. There's a great quote by Einstein.
Kristen:I use it a lot, but I love it. We can't solve problems at the same level of understanding we had when they were created. And so, yeah, we just keep playing in the same rules, the same boundaries of the system instead of actually creating new boundaries and new rules.
Derek:I recently saw that quote paraphrase. I don't think was paraphrased. It was independently derived, and the guy said we can't fix the system Mhmm. With the system that we're in. Yeah.
Derek:And it's Yeah. It's certainly true to
Kristen:our you're talking about. Yeah. Those are the rules of the game.
Reed:Yeah. You know, Derek, could we please have Kristen on a third time? I want to ask her how we make that change, and I think that's a longer conversation. Is that is that possible? Please, mister mister Hudson, please.
Derek:You know you know, Kristen's she's doing us a favor, and she's super important and super busy. But, Kristen, would you come back?
Kristen:And we're all super important and, of course.
Reed:Thank you so much. Kristen, you are just a joy. I really appreciate talking to you, and I I have to tell you, I, along with our listeners, wish this was your show. Kristen, where can people find you if they need to get in touch?
Kristen:Very active on LinkedIn along with Derek, and then stop decorating the fish.com.
Reed:That's great. Derek, if people want to get in touch with you, heaven knows why, would you please tell us how you can be found?
Derek:DerekHudson.ca is a great way to find me.
Reed:Oh, I'm glad. Listen. This has been a great day. I'm very grateful for for our guest, Christian Cox, and, of course, our guru, Derek Hudson. Bryn Griffiths, our engineer in the studio.
Reed:I'm Reed McCollum saying consider your quest.