You want the wheels on your car aligned. When the wheels are even a little bit out of alignment, the ride is uncomfortable, the wear on tires and other parts goes up, and the vehicle works less efficiently. When the wheels are critically out of alignment the ride is unbearable, and your safety is at risk.

When things that matter in your business and your life are not in alignment:

Traditional MBA programs are built on that desire; on the belief that the behaviours that constitute good management can be learned and repeated in any context. Those programs suggest, by making management a discipline, that if you get the basic skills down, you can manage a retail business or a bank or a restaurant, each with equal success.

The trouble is, it just isn’t true. But it seems that the desire to create . . . → Read More: A System or A Symphony?]]> Share/Bookmark

There is in the human soul a desire for reproducibility. Not reproduction, (we have that for sure!), but a need to reproduce things, perfectly and repeatably.

Traditional MBA programs are built on that desire; on the belief that the behaviours that constitute good management can be learned and repeated in any context. Those programs suggest, by making management a discipline, that if you get the basic skills down, you can manage a retail business or a bank or a restaurant, each with equal success.

The trouble is, it just isn’t true. But it seems that the desire to create reproducible systems is powerful. A powerful myth.

The E-myth, by Michael Gerber, pushes that message: that the biggest failing of small businesses is that they have no formal systems. The role of these formal systems is to allow the owner to exit themselves from the daily running of the business, to ensure cost-effective workforce-building, and to make expansion (like franchising) possible.

In Lean Manufacturing’s Oversized Claims, in October 2011’s Canadian Business, similar ideas are examined. The article explores the validity of the claim that systems like Six Sigma can consistently and sustainably reduce costs simply on the basis of a perfectly executed system.

In each case there is the underlying assumption that if you could just figure out a perfect system you could do away with people, or at least highly trained, hard to replace, expensive people.

Nonsense.

While I agree that betting the success of your business on recruiting the perfect talent is a strategy guaranteed to produce an early and unhappy end, the opposite is just as deadly.
Systems matter, but people matter more. The “best” systems are nothing more than Platonic ideals, more philosophy than business strategy, and in the case of Lean systems like Six Sigma or Kaizen, are almost religious cults.

I will drive my stake into this territory:

• No production or performance system is universally applicable across every industry or environment without being modified to the point of threatening the integrity of the original system (i.e. is XYZ Pure System still XYZ Pure System after 50% of it has been modified and made conditional?).
• No production or performance system is a perpetual motion machine. That is, it cannot operate well without reasonable talent, and cannot produce remarkable results without remarkable talent. The human talent and buy-in are non-negotiable inputs for success.

What is the right mix of people and systems in a business? 

Simple: it’s the great performance mix. Not the “high performance” kind of performance. The performing art kind of performance.

Every trained actor, musician, and director understands this intuitively. They work with scripts, scores, or chord changes that are meticulously noted systems. The score of a Mahler Symphony is a notated system of an order of complexity that no Six Sigma company in the world can hope to duplicate: tens of thousands of discrete actions, notated in absolutely precise detail. Yet they are pure noise in the hands of the wrong people (and a sublime experience in the hands of great talent).

Note that the reverse is true: the world’s greatest symphony orchestra, asked to perform without score or direction, would produce noise. The system is necessary, but to assume it can every be so perfectly designed as to obviate the need for anything more than minimal talent, is understood to be ludicrous in the performing arts. So why do we perpetuate that myth in business?

Take a page from the performing arts:

1. Create the best system you can. Tailor it precisely to your vision, your audience, your times, your genre (or industry). There is NO one-size-fits-all score or script (well there is, but unless you want your company to be know as the elevator music of your industry, not a good idea). This is the score or script for your performance. Get it right.
2. Invest in talent development. Hiring a superstar is occasionally a good strategy. But not very often. It is more cost-effective, and brings much greater benefits to find people with great raw talent but only just enough experience, and invest in training them. Do it right and they will invest in your performance. The greatest ensembles have been playing together for decades. A healthy symphony orchestra has a turn-over of less than 3%. We can learn from that.
3. Practice, practice, practice. Neither good systems, nor great talent, are any replacement for putting in the hours to get it right. That is another lesson we can learn from the performing arts: it is expected in the process of creating a great performance you are going to make a lot of mistakes. Do it again. And then, when you have it right, do it ten more times. Having a great script and great talent are never enough. Even the very best put in the hours. Musicians, actors, and athletes live with this. Why do people in business think they are exempt?

I help businesses and organizations get the mix right. People and systems working together to produce remarkable results. Check out my website to learn about the different ways I can support your organization.

There’s more! Looking for success in your small business? Read my Small Business blog at Small Business Fundamentals (www.smbfundamentals.com).

The next time you are onboarding a new recruit, here’s a little improvisation I would like you to undertake. The rules:

Business Fundamentals.

Rules.

Each of these disciplines have rules at the heart of them.

So why do I find myself constantly going back there to think and act out of the box? Isn’t getting out of the box, out of the rut, all about breaking the old rules?

No. This is a complete failure of insight. We are not boxed by rules. We are boxed by habits, instincts, and unexamined emotions. One prejudice creates a prison of a box more . . . → Read More: Back to the Middle to Get Outside]]> Share/Bookmark

Information theory. Physics. Classical music & jazz. Monastic orders. The sciences of the brain and cognition. Statistics and probability.

Business Fundamentals.

Rules.

Each of these disciplines have rules at the heart of them.

So why do I find myself constantly going back there to think and act out of the box? Isn’t getting out of the box, out of the rut, all about breaking the old rules?

No. This is a complete failure of insight. We are not boxed by rules. We are boxed by habits, instincts, and unexamined emotions. One prejudice creates a prison of a box more secure than all the laws of physics combined.

Despite the popular conception that the ‘box’ is the world of rules, order and structure, it is the opposite. The box is our emotions, instincts, and habits… all the stuff we are supposed to ‘get in touch with’ to get out of the box. It is a box of comfort. The box is not really a box at all. It is a groove, a deep groove of habits of thought and actions, made deep by our going over the same ground again and again.

The best way to get out of the box is a reality check. A real-ity check: a return to the world prior to, and impervious to, our assumptions and prejudices.

This is why even a cursory understanding of the laws of thermodynamics or probability trumps ‘common sense’. This is why learning to read a statement of cash flows is more valuable than reading one more woowoo pop psychology The Secret of Blah Blah Blah Success book. This is why understanding that you multiply two unrelated probabilities (for example the probability that you will have an opening for an employee next month, and the probability that some great talent will walk through your door looking for a job), that you don’t add them, is more valuable than clinging to the law of attraction. It is why understanding the Pareto distribution is more powerful and freeing than $1000′s in inspirational speakers.

The next time someone says: “we need think outside the box,” notice what happens next. If it is some kind of pseudo-brainstorm group-think  exercise, or even worse, the not-laws of The Secret, then all you are going to get is new layers of crud built on old layers of crud. In a weird MC Escher-like journey you will think you are making forward progress, when you will only find yourself exactly back where you started… less the energy you had when you started (check out the laws of thermodynamics for why that happens).

On the other hand, if the “getting out of the box” exercise begins with someone reaching for a giant scraper, to scrape away the layers of unexamined assumptions and habits, while saying something like “Let’s get back to fundamentals and rebuild,” then you know you have a hope of getting out of that box.

 Want to improve your communication with employees, partners, and customers? I help organizations improve communication through leadership & management-level workshops & coaching. Check out my website to learn about the different ways I can support your organization.

There’s more! Looking for success in your small business? Read my Small Business blog at Small Business Fundamentals (www.smbfundamentals.com).

Too shy to leave a comment? That’s cool. +1′s and tweets are appreciated too!

In music we keep going back to the fundamentals over and over again. You keep practicing all the time. Inspiration and creativity matter, but if you are a professional, it is your chops that really matter. No one expects to get it right the first time. You make mistakes, but you keep practicing until you don’t make mistakes any more. Yes originality . . . → Read More: Play it Again. And Again. And Again.]]> Share/Bookmark

Ideas are easy. Consistency is hard.

I think that one of the reasons I return to that epigram so often is because of my music training. The business world has much to learn from the musical world.

In music we keep going back to the fundamentals over and over again. You keep practicing all the time. Inspiration and creativity matter, but if you are a professional, it is your chops that really matter. No one expects to get it right the first time. You make mistakes, but you keep practicing until you don’t make mistakes any more. Yes originality matters, but at least in the worlds of jazz and classical music, you won’t get a lick if you can’t perform.

I heard an interview with Paul Simon a few weeks ago. Simon made a comment about having some great material in his head for another recording, but he had put it all on hold because he was on tour now. The interviewer asked, clearly perplexed, if that meant he just stopped writing, if he just put his creativity on hold. Simon response was that he was a professional. He didn’t sit around waiting for inspiration. He had a job to do, and when it came time to write, he would write.

Paul Simon has, among a crazy wealth of other abilities, solid writing chops. It is his craft, and he practices it.

That’s the way it is. So close your copy of 10 New Laws of Success I Just Discovered or any book with the words new, secret, laws, or success in the title, and start acting like a musician.

Practice your Craft

Business is an art and a craft. Practice it. Learn the fundamental rules of finance, social sciences/psychology, operations & logistics, communication and information theory. Understand the real laws of cause and effect that are the constants of your world much as the laws of acoustics, theory, and rhythm are the constants of a musician’s world. Study, study, study.

Then then practice. Practice, practice, practice. There are no shortcuts, no magical ‘laws’, no real silver bullets. The 10,000 hours that Gladwell writes about in Outliers won’t be ignored. Honour them or you will get nowhere.

Do you have to love what you do? Of course. Who wants to do something for ten thousand hours that they don’t love? But if you want to excel at it, if you want to make a living at it, it becomes a labour of love. The love must come first, but the system, the labour, the practice cannot be ignored. And if you want to be successful as a business owner, it is the practice of business that you must focus on. Not what got you into the business: baking or sales or mechanics or construction. The business itself is now your craft.

In music school, I spent 1,000’s of hours in study cubicles and Wenger practice studios. In the cubicles we were mastering the theoretical fundamentals of our art. In the tiny practice modules we were all practicing the performance of that art. And in the middle of all those hours, what struck me was not how hard I was working, it was what I heard when I took a break in the common area: the sounds of pianos, voices, trombones, trumpets, violins, double basses, percussion… heard faintly through the almost-soundproof doors of the other Wenger studios. The same scales, the same passages, the same failures and triumphs over and over and over again. The relentless patterns of the search for mastery.

I just don’t hear enough of that in the world of business.

 Want to improve your communication with employees, partners, and customers? I help organizations improve communication through leadership & management-level workshops & coaching. Check out my website to learn about the different ways I can support your organization.

There’s more! Looking for success in your small business? Read my Small Business blog at Small Business Fundamentals (www.smbfundamentals.com).

Too shy to leave a comment? That’s cool. +1′s and tweets are appreciated too!

Image by Clarita

Begin:

A group of participants sit in a circle. The facilitator starts the circle by saying a word (‘blue’). Without pausing the person on the left repeats the word, then free-associates another word in response (‘blue … sky’). The next person on the left repeats the pattern starting with the last word (‘sky … clouds’).

Start Again:

When the group has become comfortable with this process, the next layer is introduced. Everyone in the group, at the same time, sets up a 4-beat rhythm: 1) slap your hands on your thighs 2) clap your . . . → Read More: Play it Again… Eight to the Bar!]]> Share/Bookmark

Image by Clarita

Begin:

A group of participants sit in a circle. The facilitator starts the circle by saying a word (‘blue’). Without pausing the person on the left repeats the word, then free-associates another word in response (‘blue … sky’). The next person on the left repeats the pattern starting with the last word (‘sky … clouds’).

Start Again:

When the group has become comfortable with this process, the next layer is introduced. Everyone in the group, at the same time, sets up a 4-beat rhythm: 1) slap your hands on your thighs 2) clap your hands 3) snap your right hand fingers 4) snap your left hand fingers. Do this until everyone has the pattern down and the group is able to maintain a constant rhythm.

One More Time:

Both of the previous activities are challenging enough, but now the fun really begins. Do it again, only this time do both things together.

While the group is keeping the slap-clap-snap-snap rhythm, the free-association circle starts again. Now with each right hand snap you repeat your neighbour’s word, and with each left hand snap you say your new word, passing it on to the next person to your left. It sounds like this “slap…clap…blue…sky…slap…clap…sky…clouds’ with a ‘snap’ accompanying each word. (You can reverse the direction of the circle, it doesn’t matter).

The objective of this warm-up game (Clap Snap Free Association) is to develop the ability to speed our verbal responses in situations where ‘fast and uncensored’ creativity are of the essence.

While this game does not have the deep built-in life or business lessons of some of the others, I still value it as a warm-up exercise for 3 reasons:

1. It is physical. This game could be a very ‘wordy’. But because of the physical rhythm, and the pressure to come up with words ‘on the beat’, people throw their whole bodies into it. You might not think so from the description, but watch a group trying to really do this right and you’ll be amazed at how much body English people throw at this!
2. It super-charges spontaneity. Without the rhythm, the brain can fudge the ‘don’t think’ command. With our analytical facilities restrained in that rhythmic straight-jacket, we have to blurt out whatever comes first, or nothing! One of the reasons brainstorming sessions are not as effective as they could be is because we tend to dumb-down our contributions based on the censor in our heads, and on the social fear of saying the wrong thing. There is nothing like this game to kick the stuffing out of both of those limitations!
3. It builds empathy. One of my favourite messages in my workshops is the reminder that if we are feeling a little uncomfortable, that is not a bad thing. Take the memory of how difficult this is, and how you felt stretched and challenged, back to your next staff meeting, or family dinner table, or classroom. As adult professionals it has sometimes been too long since we did not feel in charge or in control. [pullthis] Mastery is a good thing, but forgetting the challenges of being a learner is not.

To learn more about how an improv workshop can take the blah-blah-blah out of your next retreat or management seminar, contact Clemens at clemens@clemensrettich.com. Improv takes great team-building and management strategies, and makes them real and unforgettable.

One person holding two tennis balls (or something similar) stands in the center. The center person tosses one of the balls out to a person in the circle and that person tosses the ball to another person in the circle a few positions to their left. That person tosses the ball back to the center person, who then tosses the ball out again to someone just to the left of last player and the whole pattern starts again, moving around the circle in a triangular pattern.

When the confidence of the . . . → Read More: Forget the Shoulda’s!]]> Share/Bookmark

A group of people stand in a circle.

One person holding two tennis balls (or something similar) stands in the center. The center person tosses one of the balls out to a person in the circle and that person tosses the ball to another person in the circle a few positions to their left. That person tosses the ball back to the center person, who then tosses the ball out again to someone just to the left of last player and the whole pattern starts again, moving around the circle in a triangular pattern.

When the confidence of the group grows, the center person tosses one ball to one person in the circle, waits a beat and then tosses the other ball to someone just to the left of the first person. Now the balls move around the circle and back to the center in a series of overlapping triangles.

With one ball...

The main object of the game is to see how many times the group can keep those balls going around before one is dropped.

When the group hits a real ‘groove’ the sound of the balls being caught and tossed in a relaxed but steady rhythm is remarkable.

Inevitably someone drops a ball. Someone isn’t watching, or someone throws to the ‘wrong’ person. Sometimes someone gets hit in the side of the head! This is a much more difficult game than it sounds. Dropping the ball is not the big problem however. The big problem comes next: when someone, in explaining why they just dropped the ball (literally!) they start a sentence something like “I thought that…” or “You were supposed to…” or “You should have…” etc.

That’s when I stop the game and have that wonderful teachable moment.

This game is a great expression of teamwork. First, while there is a leader, once the balls are in the air, the whole thing takes on a life and rhythm of its own. Second, while there are some rules and some general predictability, that’s it. Even when everyone is doing their best, things happen, and balls get dropped. Life happens.

The heart of this teachable moment is this: deal with what is rather than what should be.

As those balls go around the circle, each person has to be aware and focused. The ball is thrown a ‘few’ positions to the left around the circle. Not 2 positions, not 3, a ‘few’. That means you can’t depend on Joe throwing to Sue standing beside you every time just because he did it the last few times. Its not that predictable. And sometimes, especially when there are two balls going around, people make mistakes. Sometimes they throw the ball back to the person in the center right away, rather than to the left. Sometimes the ball goes to the left twice. When those things happen, it is remarkable how often the first thing out of the mouth of the person who dropped the ball (or got hit by it!) says something like “You should have…” or “That was supposed to…”

They have forgotten the main objective. Yes there are rules, but this game is not about the rules. The main objective is to see how many times the group can keep those balls going around the circle. To do that successfully, every team member will do their best to stick to the basic rules, but more importantly, they have to keep the balls going despite errors and lapses.

Sound familiar?

This game does do a wonderful job of making concrete two important team behaviours:

1. Being present and dealing with what is. Any well-run business or project has some form of plan, or at the very least, priorities and objectives. But once you get going all kinds of un-expected events occur, both good and bad. The success of the business depends as much on our ability to deal with what actually happens, as on the quality of the original plan. In fact in my experience, the ability to make quick tactical changes in response to the unexpected is more important than good planning skills.

2. Keeping the focus on the main objective, not on the ‘failures’ of teammates. Everyone makes mistakes, and it is the leader’s job to monitor, coach, correct, etc. When the rest of us get distracted in ‘correcting’ our team-mate’s failures, we risk losing sight of the big picture. Furthermore it introduces blame into the picture. When we blame, not only do we lose sight of the balls that need to be kept in the air, we now have conflict. And unless the leader brings the focus back to the larger objective immediately, we all know where that goes.

By the way, if you are wondering how successful most teams are at this game the first time out, few ever complete even one full circle. Another lesson: great teamwork is harder than it looks. It takes practice.

Want to take the blah-blah-blah out of your next retreat or management seminar? To learn how an improv workshop with me can do that,contact me at clemens@clemensrettich.com. Improv takes great communication and management strategies,and makes them real and unforgettable.