Change the changes

Een praatplaat uit 2000 over:

• de cirkel Bewust Bekwaam → Onbewust Bekwaam → Onbewust Onbekwaam → Bewust Onbekwaam → Bewust Bekwaam → …; in het Engels You Know That You Know → You Don’t Know That You Know → You Don’t Know That You Don’t Know → You Know That You Don’t Know → You Know That You Know → …
• leiderschap, team building en kampioenen;
• de fundamentele—en voor velen confronterende—vraag die je elk ander teamlid kan stellen:

  Wil jij mij helpen beter te worden dan dat jij bent?

Wat mij triggerde om deze plaat weer boven water te halen was Dan Roam’s artikel Seeing What We Don’t Know.

You are here

If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up somewhere else.

—Yogi Berra

If you don’t know where you are going, any path will take you there.

—Alice in Wonderland

Vision, Strategy, Execution

• Change the Changes
• State of Flow
• Explore & Innovate
• Increasing Returns
  • Positive Feedback
  • Self-reinforcement
  • Attracts Staff and Business and Wealth
  • Captures & Cultivates Collective Knowledge & Intelligence

Vision

• Architectural Principles (5-10 year view)
• Take Risks
• Lead the Pack
• Show Direction

Strategy

• Informatiebeleid (2-5 year view)
• Mergers & Acquisitions

Execution

• Planning (1-2 year view)
• Process
• Goals & Milestones
• Short, iterative processes; driving a car

Flow Spiral

Goal is to spiral yourself to ever higher states of consciousness, to self-unfold, to realize your full potential—as an individual, as an organization, and as a society—by taking many small steps rather than a few big ones. Small steps are less painful.

YDKTYK: State of Flow

• You Don’t Know That You Know
• Process feels “effortless”
• On the edge between Chaos and Order (Chaordic State)
• Best place to be
• Optimal balance between Effort & Comfort
• Danger of “switching” to YDKTYDK Comfort State

YDKTYDK: Extreme Discomfort & Death

• You Don’t Know That You Don’t Know
• Comfortably Numb
• Cruise Control
• Danger Zone!!!
• Self-affirmative; more secure; less risk
• Do the things you’ve so often done already
• Over-structured (bureaucracy)
• Further strengthen Comfortable Numb State: Equilibrium or Complete Order: R.I.P.
• Outsmarted or Outpaced
• Wake-up call by competition
• Glide into total Chaos & Panic (“brandjes blussen”: R.I.P.
• Discomfort to the Extreme
• Best way out: Transition to YKTYDK State

YKTYDK: Therapy, Rehabilitation and Revalidation

• You Know That You Don’t Know
• Train, Coach, Facilitate [often by External Consultants]
• Effort Required! Investment in Time & Material
• How? Many small steps
  • Avoid getting swamped, panic; c.f. your first driving lesson
  • Too large a change will increase resistance; Try to avoid by taking many small steps rather than one big step
  • Loosing weight: not 10 kg in a year, but 1 kg every month: short result-driven iterations
  • Focus on Genot Gemak Gewin
  • Be aware of Affect, Behavior, Cognition (Gevoel, Gedrag, Gedachten)
    • Identify typical patterns of ABC
    • Understand how these unwanted patterns emerged from the past
    • Describe the complete ABC chain (this is time intensive)
    • Create a break-through strategy to address the issue
    • Practice new ABC over and over again (therapy)
    • Changing Affect is hardest because of emotional resistance
  • Focus on positive feedback, increasing returns
• Transition to YKTYK State

YKTYK: Repeat, over and over again

• You Know That You Know
• Effort still required
• Exercise, Execute, over and over again, until you get into a State of Flow again

State of Flow: Flow = Team + Process

• Charter: have a common direction and still remain individual distinct
  • Avoids Not Invented Here Syndrome
• Objective
  • Change (better still: Change the Changes)
  • Do New Things
• Threat: internal competition and envy
• Key Strengths
  • Diversity: Total is much much more than the sum of its parts!
  • Symbiosis: State of Living Together or Cooperative Relationship
  • Fully Interlocking
• Killing Teams:
  • Envy
  • Reject others
  • Feel victimized by others
  • Feel dependent on others
• Killer Teams:
  • Cultivate Diversity
    • Therefore advance faster
    • Are Constantly Getting Better in Getting Better
  • Values the others
  • Admires the others
  • Compliments the others (be/ask about specifics)
  • Emphasize the Importance of Contribution of Others to Your Performance
  • Survive Disasters
  • Fully Respect other Team Members
  • Are Committed
  • Give Good Feedback
  • Are Involved
  • Take many small steps, rather than a few big ones
• Topper
  • Wins the Golden Medals
  • Creates Positive Attention for the Whole Team
  • Feels Responsible for His Effect on Whole Team
• Individual Team Members
  • Search Teams
  • Want Team to Thrive & Survive
  • Make others competent
  • Ask: “Will you help me become better than you are?”
  • Train in Skills they don’t already have
  • Excels in some Specific Areas
  • Know that they’ll die if the team dies
• Process
  • Process is most interesting, not the goal itself
  • Explore!!!
  • The Pleasure is in the Climbing, You’re Only at the Top for a Short Time
  • Software Process Improvement is a process in itself
  • Results (goals & milestones met) are the byproducts of process

All this is recursive, fractal

• Remember that Process Improvement is a Process in Itself