Related articles:
- Do I Need to Paint a Picture? – May 2nd, 2007
- Do I Need to Paint a Picture? (part 2) – June 27th, 2008

Change is something the top asks the middle to do to the bottom.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Communication is not the message sent but the message received. But when the receiver reacts opposite to our expectations we tend to blame the receiver. You are right and they are wrong. There is a name for this game;  it’s called "game over".

But hang on – here is the good news: if you to stop being right and start to investigate the choice architecture of your message, there is a great chance for you to improve your communication.

In a recent book called Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, economist Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass Sunstein explore the psychology of our every day decision making and argue that we make poor decisions due to the architecture of how choices are presented to us.

This includes food decisions, investment decisions and all kinds of well-informed decisions (that’s the frightening part!).

Choice Architecture and Door Handles

Below is a excerpt from chapter 5 explaining the core ingredient of their book "Choice Architecture"

"Early in Thaler’s career he was teaching a class on managerial decision making to business school students. Students would sometimes leave class early to go for job interviews (or a golf game) and would try to sneak out of the room as surreptitiously as possible. Unfortunately for them, the only way out of the room was though the double door in front in full view of the entire class (though not directly in Thaler’s line of sight). The doors were equipped large handsome wood handles, vertically mounted with cylindrical pull about two feet in length. When the students came to these doors, they were faced with two competing instincts.
One instinct says that to leave a room you have to push the door. The other instinct says, when faced with large wooden handles that are obviously designed to be grabbed, you pull. It turns out that the latter instinct trumps the former, and every student leaving the room began by pulling on the handle. Alas, the door opened outward."

Further in that chapter the authors continue:
"At one point in the semester, Thaler pointed this out to the class as one embarrassed student was pulling the door handle while trying to escape the classroom. Thereafter, as a student got up to leave, the rest of the class would eagerly wait to see whether the student would push or pull. Amazingly, most still pulled!"

With this example Thaler and Sunstein point out that the doors display bad choice architecture because they violate a simple psychological principle called Stimulus Response Compatibility (SRC). SRC means that you want the signal you receive (the stimulus) to be consistent with the desired action. Flat plates say "push me" and big handles say "pull me". So don’t expect people to push big handles! This is a failure of architecture to accommodate to the basic principles of human psychology.

From Handles to Heamophilia

Saying "red" when you see a red light go on is an example of high compatibility. Having to say "green" when a red light goes on is an example of low compatibility. This has far reaching consequences, even in the medical world. Below is an example that I have experienced multipe times.

Patients with haemophilia A cannot produce a protein known as factor VIII (FVIII) and must get it from somewhere else. KOGENATE® Bayer is a FVIII product that a patient can use instead of natural FVIII. KOGENATE® Bayer is a great product which improves the lives of many haemophilia patients. But it’s also an expensive product, burdening social security with more than 100.000,- Euro per patient per year.

Needless to say: we better don’t waste a drip of this precious and expensive product! Yet, this is precisely where the engineers of Bayer have failed to cater for some SRC into the design of their injection bottles. Have a closer look at the instructions below: the fluid (drawn in black) is in one part and needs to be mixed with the powder in the other part. Movements A to J must be performed a few minutes prior to injection.

To cut a long story short: figure C and D is where it mostly goes wrong – even with well trained nurses, parents and patients. The normal way of using ‘fluid-and-powder’ products is to screw on and inject. That is what the design communicates: "screw and inject". Yet – as you can see in C and D, there need to be two separate pushes (followed by a ‘click’) prior to adding the fluid. The latter is so counter intuitive that I have literally seen thousands Euros being flushed onto the ground before my eyes.

Even trained parents and nurses who are familiar with this product need their full attention or they miss the crucial C and D.

OK for door handles. Not OK for social security.

From Heamophilia to SAP

To me the link with communication in big organizational change projects is obvious: communications are vital and precious for the health of an organization. And expensive too. Nevertheless communication sometimes turns out in the opposite direction. This is mostly due to failed choice architecture and untested stimuls response compatibility. When respondents fill out the wrong details, use the wrong settings or insert their card upside-down, it is easy to call them ’stupid users’ or to tell them RTFM (this stands for "Read The F** Manual").

I still remember the day that the logistics responsible typed the article number in the weight field when we were implementing SAP in a large chemical plant. The automatic interface that we were so proud of automatically blocked all the transports available of our 51 neighbouring plants. We had to write a program to unlock all those transports. And guess what we said: ’stupid user’. However, this did not prevent other users from committing that same mistake.

From SAP to Traffic

Next time you build a survey or a communication, a note or a manual requiring your receivers to fill out something, to use a system or to take an action of any kind, consider how SRC-proof your communication is by testing its usability at full length PRIOR to sending it out.

As a final thought I could easily link this idea to the communication articles I have written before. Whenever I talk about communication I tend to use the metaphor of traffic and this one fits in pretty well; If communication would be a mission to bring a vehicle (i.e. your message) from point A to point B, then you want this vehicle to be equipped with an SRC button. SRC will avoid your vehicle from going in the opposite direction when you accelerate.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Friedrich Nietzsche

How can we un-learn management science and get back to the common-sense of teamwork? Switch-off all the rules, check-lists and scorecards we have been spoon-fed in our management education? A scenario for disaster you may think? Quite the opposite as I witnessed yesterday.

Dull libraries on leadership, knowledge management and communication came to action right in front of me.  It all happened as the musicians performed their scores at the rehearsal of the prestigious B’rock ensemble.

So…?

In this rehearsal B’rock gathered for the forthcoming ‘Adieu to the pleasures’ performance. Nothing spectacular about this rehearsal you may think, except from a management point-of-view.

As a management consultant I spend most of my time between shopfloor, project cockpit and boardroom. When you travel that path long enough you will find that management speak and lengthy checklists melt down to their essence.  For example: ‘always remember the 3 C’s: communication, communication, communication‘. Damned if you do – damned if you don’t.

I was curious to find out how the musicians were going to pull it off, given their limited time, budget and different nationalities involved (sounds like a real project, doesn’t it?). Almost immediately I was struck by their effortless communication. So I took my camera and captured what the 3 C’s look like from a B’rock perspective. Have a look…

1. Tuning

This is the first part of any teamwork of musicians – be it a rehearsal or a real concert. They tune their instruments and make sure everyone is on the same wavelength BEFORE they start playing. Have a look at the video below. These musicians are saying: hey this is my bottom line – what is yours?

In management speak: they are setting up a service level agreement (SLA). And they do it BEFORE they start to play. There is a lesson in there: an SLA is negotiated upfront to create a common understanding about services, priorities and responsibilities.

Tuning is not a quick-fix for a troubled relationship in the middle of the play: the relationship is tuned upfront. And yes: that makes an awkward and unusual sound.

2. Feedback

Once the instruments are tuned, the ensemble is ready to kick off. For the first time they play the scores that each musician has carefully prepared at home. For the first time they hear how they sound within the group. Have a look at the fragment below to see how that works.

You will note that the ‘project leader’ behind the harpsichord defines the context and shapes the meaning of the piece they are performing (at 00′:30"). Although every musician knows the scores and plays outstanding as an individual, they now feed-back to one another how they can make teamwork happen (as of 01′:30"). Note that during the break one of the musicians revealed to me that the most important instrument during a rehearsal is actually a musician’s pencil!

There you are: outstanding performers rely on each other in order to adapt their scores for the benefit of team performance. In this setting it would be absurd if they didn’t. Yet, where I come from I see most of the good performers touting their horn so loud that the team performance suffers.

The musician later added: ‘you feel when it’s your turn to say something‘. And that’s exactly what it felt like: this was no feedback as we know it; what I witnessed was feed-forward. Not as a task or an obligation, but rather as a game bringing the performance forward.

3. Performing

This is when the communication rubber meets the road. After individual preparation, tuning of the instruments and adapting the scores for team performance it is time to give it a go. I invite you to look at the below fragment twice: once with the sound on and once with the sound off.

There are two things that you can see clearer when the sound is off. First, the musicians don’t stop communicating when they perform. Continuously they look up from their scores to exchange cues. Second, as a result of this exchange you can actually see the resonance among the musicians.

Although they are all playing their individual score you can see that they are in resonance. One of the musicians saw this resonance as a growing process as he reported: ‘during the intense days of rehearsing you kind of grow into the performance’.

The Moral

Preparation, tuning, adaptation and continuous exchange of cues results in good performance. The moral of this story isn’t hard to fetch – but it may be hard to swallow for those of us who have their MBA education tattooed all over. This rehearsal reframes the question: why does management education exist? None of these musicians has ever studied, examined or attended a course in communication, teamwork or feedback.

Think of what we said last week about barefoot running: your company is not broken by default – just like your feet are just fine the way they are. Once you go barefoot your body automatically adjusts. Effortless.  In terms of management education B’rock musicians go barefoot. And they go a long way.

By the way …

This goes without saying that B’rock is a project-based organization (in management speak): the performance at hand determines the staffing, their level of commitment and … their leadership style.

In case you wonder how I got into that setting in the first place… well … together with B’rock and other top-notch musical ensembles we are discovering Arts-based Learning. I’m quite proud to be scouting learning methods and workshop possibilities in this exclusive and (until now) closed setting. A bizar experience … that’s why the initiative is called BizzArts.

Below you can see B’rock performing Vivaldi ‘for real’.

No doubt about it: Belgian finest Baroque can only be performed when excellence & passion are mixed with barefoot empowerment. And now you have a witness.
____________
Related articles:
- Music and Leadership – July 20th, 2008
- Music and Management Consulting – September 27th, 2008

If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.

Dale Carnegie

“Be the change you want to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi
 
Every year, thousands of runners are injured due to leg and foot pain. In response, athletic-shoe companies have invested fortunes into high-tech cushioning, arch support, and shock absorbers. But despite these efforts, as many as six out of 10 runners get injured every year.
 
A great fiction story…or not?
In his latest book Born to Run, Christopher McDougall describes an epic adventure that began with one simple question: ‘Why does my foot hurt?‘ In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.
 
Born to Run is a compelling story, a page turner full of incredible adventures and a cast of characters worthy of Dickens. So as a reader you may think you are reading a great fiction story. Until … you go surfing on the web and you find out that every fact and character of the book is real.
 
BFT
Barefoot Ted (BFT), for example is one of those amazing characters that have helped McDougall to the flip the question: If shoes are not the solution, could they possibly be the problem?
 
Barefoot Ted is a phenomenon. On his website he describes himself as “committed to re-discovering our primordial human potential”. And boy, is he committed! For more than a decade, BFT is being the change he wants to see in the world.
 
He does not ‘fight’ the old paradigm. Rather he:
- is evidence of the new paradigm
- embraces every positive evidence he can find;
- builds a community of fans and has devoted his whole existence to barefoot running;
 
BFT as an Organizational Change Practitioner
And there is more. BFT has interesting things to share about paradigm shifts and how they occur. Insights that are highly relevant to us a organizational change practitioners implementing SAP.
 
As you can imagine barefoot running is a hot topic in runner’s circles and far beyond because shoe companies and just about half of the medical world’s advice is at stake: barefoot running rocks the status quo.

Slowly but surely, there are shoe companies that have adapted to the virtues of barefoot running: the Vibram FiveFingers is a good example. Barefoot running goes mainstream.

Trojan Horse
Pondering over this evolution here’s what BFT says about barefoot running going mainstream:
“I still think that barefoot is best, but barefoot is free…, and I always knew that the only way barefooting was going to become a true, mainstream hit was that there was going to have to be a product…something people could buy. And the VFF is that product…, or from my perspective, Trojan Horse.



The Vibram Fivefinger is a foot glove. No support, no real cushioning. Yet, it is a thing I can buy. A solution that can be purchased. Consumer cultures feel comfortable with it. But what is its real message? It seems the real message of the VFF is that your foot is just fine AS IT IS! That regaining strength and range of motion in your foot is a worthy goal. That you are not broken by default.”
 
SAP is the FiveFingers of Business Process Reengineering
Implementing SAP is also like a Trojan Horse. People think it’s just a software rollout and that all other things will stay the same. … NOT! People wake up in a new world where the system allows or disallows certain things. People have access to different information. As a consequence, people will start working differently – breaking holes into silo’s and getting grips on input and output.
 
As a matter of fact, SAP is the FiveFingers of Business Process Reengineering (BPR). Like barefoot running, process reengineering is common sense and getting back to basics. BPR suffers the same flaw as barefoot running: it’s free.
 
SAP is the enabler of BPR and nowadays we see lots of organizations implementing SAP ‘because everybody does it’. Like FiveFingers it is a solution that can be purchased. And the real message is the same: your company is not broken by default. SAP is not ‘fixing’ a broken company – just like your foot is just fine the way it is. But SAP makes you run differently (i.e. on on your bare business processes) and therefore BPR becomes way more obvious.

I even like the analogy in the abbreviations: What FiveFingers is to BFR (BareFoot Running), SAP is to BPR (Business Process Reengineering)
BPR = BFR!
 
Thanks BFT (BareFoot Ted) – for this great insight!

You can’t milk a cow with your hands in your pants.

Admiral Freebee

You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Good training equals good sex. That’s right, there are no spelling mistakes in the previous sentence and you are still reading a business-related blog. Below you will find a one-minute interview (don’t worry: no explicit language) with Marc Vermeulen that was recorded during the bi-annual VOV-beurs for training & development.

In 60 seconds he tells us what good sex and good training have in common: they both come in three distinct but essential parts: the foreplay, the intercourse and the ‘afterplay’. In other words: good training events run the full training & development cycle.

I like this metaphor a lot because it puts the training issue in a very sharp perspective. For example, as a training manager you could ask yourself the following questions:

- How many times did I not engage with participants last year? (equals: "no foreplay – just sex")

- How many times did I deliver a standard of-the-shelf training last year? (equals: "boring sex")

- How many times did I force people to go to a training over the past year? (equals: "abuse")

- How many times did I deliver a training when the real need was leadership? (equals: "sex in response to a need for love")

- How many times did I let people fill out evaluation sheets and then do nothing with it? (equals: "call you later – yeah right…")

Your imagination may be richer than mine so I’m pretty sure you can think of more lively questions to complete this list.

Just remember: Thinking more about sex at work may actually result in better training.