Employing Differences, Episode 132: Do we need a new system?

Paul: 0:08

Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Karen: 0:14

I'm Karen Gimnig

Paul: 0:15

And I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:17

Each episode, we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is, do we need a new system?

Paul: 0:25

So, a question that I often get asked by my coaching or consulting clients is about,"How do we install a new system for blah?" "Blah" might might be learning and development, it might be feedback, it might be decision making, it might be disaster preparedness. Oftentimes, when we are working together as a group, we think about systems – by which we might mean policies or procedures or rules or ways of working – these things that structure the interactions between us. And we think about those, rightfully so, in terms of "Are we getting the results that we want to be getting in some particular area? And if not, what new system could we put in place that might help us with that?" And what Karen and I want to explore together today is this idea of when do we need to do that? When we notice that we're not getting something that we want to be getting, when should we consider putting some new system or policy or procedure in place? When should we not? And what kinds of things should we be looking for those systems to do for us?

Karen: 1:34

Yeah, I think there's a lot of reason that it's really tempting to build a new system, that doesn't actually predict success, either way. A lot of that's about how a new system, for a lot of us, is a relatively easy thing. If I have the authority to do it, I can just sit here and write a new system and say, "This is what everybody has to do." I don't need a big collaborative process. I don't need a lot of agreement if it's hierarchical. And maybe even if I'm in a more collaborative – not hierarchical system – I can build that new piece. I can draft it, I can make a lot of progress, and it will just fix everything. Which is such a comforting thing, because I have control – not in a bad way – but I have the ability to get that thing done without a lot of messiness, without a lot of complexity, and it just will solve it. And when that's true, it's a lovely and wonderful thing. However, I think that story is so enticing, that we often tell it to ourselves when it isn't true. And so this is the piece we're wanting to explore. When is that a true story? And when are we kidding ourselves that some amount of work – even hours and hours or weeks of work putting in a new system – is likely to solve the problem that we're seeing.

Paul: 2:58

I think when we're kidding ourselves is largely when there are humans involved. And I think that's just because human interactions and human systems are so much more complex than we have a tendency to realize. So I had a great example that popped up this week. I had a client reach out and this is a financial company. They do a lot with numbers and they really like to measure things, because that's very relevant in their space. And so I got a question about, "Hey, we are thinking about implementing this new system for measuring the performance of our employees in these different domains. And here is this plan for how we could do this." It is very much read – like you were talking about – as someone saw a problem, they came up with a thing that they thought would work, and they said, "Great, let's roll this out." And most of my commentary on it was to the point of, "I think that you are neglecting all of the other factors at play in terms of actual team performance." One of the things that it assumed was that the performance of a team was equal to the sum of all of the individual performances of the people who made up that team. And when you say it like that, you start to realize, "Oh, well, no, that's not actually true." But those assumptions were baked into this whole thing. We actually know that there are way more factors that influence how a team performs than just the individual performance of the people that make it up. It's way more about the interactions between them, which are very which are very difficult to notice if you just look at the individual pieces. But at the same time, you could see exactly how this would be super easy for the person who came up with this to implement and have a feeling that they were doing something about this overall problem of inadequate performance. As we dug in a little bit more, what I came to discover was that the problem they're trying to solve was that the managers used to manage specific functions, so they understood the actual technical skills within that domain. But now they were managing across functions, so they were managing people who had skills they didn't understand. That was actually the problem they were trying to solve. So we could actually work with it. But what happened was, we just took this assumption of, "I can write this thing down, it seems nice and simple. I'm sure we'll address the problem that we have."

Karen: 5:42

I think what you're pointing to is how important it is to get clear about what is the problem we're hoping to solve? Because I think we can start out from this place of,"Something's not working, so let's fix the system." If instead, we can pause and say,"So something's not working. What is it that's really not working?" Not just what's the outcome, that's not exactly what we want, but what might be feeding into that. Really understanding the complexity of the problem, so that we don't just sort of try to fix one piece. And I see this a lot. The example I see over and over again is communities that I work with where, "We're using consensus, and it's just not working. People are blocking, we're not able to make decisions. So clearly, consensus is not a good process, and we should adopt Sociocracy instead." Which is another very egalitarian decision-making system. And what I find is that very routinely, when communities do that – for one thing, they spend a lot of time energy deciding to make that change, and then making the change and then training on it – and they have all the same problems. Because the problems that they had were about being able to give authentic feedback and and hearing each other well, and using facilitation methods that decrease the hierarchy in the room and balance the voices, and various things about people feeling really heard. If those are your problems, your decision making system isn't the answer. And so there is that sense of,"So let's get clear about what is it really, that's not working?" And so in that case, if you've got people blocking, let's get curious about why they're blocking. What's causing that? Or if you're leaving meetings angry at each other, let's get curious about why we're leaving meetings angry at each other. And one of the reasons we don't want to give that answer is because this is so much messier and harder than just writing a new system.

Paul: 7:46

The other thing that that happens around that is that any time we implement some new system, there will be unintended consequences. Things that we could not foresee. I think we get surprised by those, and I think that's that's a challenge. But that isn't to say that we should always reject the notion of installing a new system, changing procedures, changing ways that we do things. Because we do have a tendency to, under-emphasize the role that the environment plays in human decision-making and action and things like that. I think what's useful to think about is, "What are the small nudges that we can actually put in place that are going to help us to do more of the things that we want to do?" I have another client who was asking me recently about feedback systems. This is a big thing in that organization, where they want to make sure that people are getting the information that they need in order to learn and grow and develop, because they're really trying to take their staff to the next level. They're doing stuff they haven't been doing before and they need people to learn and grow. And so I got asked, "What do you recommend for installing a system for getting feedback to people?" And I said, "Well, I can tell you what I don't recommend, which is creating a system that pushes tons of information at people all the time." Because I've seen organizations try to do that, where they build the thing that is great in one person's head. It's super easy to see how we would implement it. It's standardized, so it's efficient to administer things like that. And it doesn't actually produce the behavioral changes that they're looking for. Because what happens is that people don't get the information they need at the time they need it. They get information that somebody else thinks they need at a time that's convenient to them. They get all kinds of information that's not relevant to what they're doing. And it can be pretty overwhelming, pretty invasive, there's a lot of different things. So I said is, "What you really want is for people to be pulling information to them when they need it." You want people to live in that space of curiosity, to understand that they're expected to ask for feedback about things. That they need to broadcast what it is that they're working on and trying to get better. And so what is it that we can do to foster that? So that we have more of a pull-based system. And what we ended up talking about was – I was talking with the CEO of this organization – actually starting with the CEO and the CEO's team modeling that behavior. So being very explicit about, "I'm working on this thing," and going to their direct reports and saying, "I'm working on this thing, I'm going to be asking you for feedback over the next few months about how I'm doing on it." So that's a system in the sense that it is a way of working. But it's but it's also one that provides the nudges that we actually need to change the behaviors that we're looking for the organization. And it doesn't require a giant contract with an IT department, this, that, and the other thing to build out to do that whole thing.

Karen: 11:01

Yeah. So I think there are cases where a new system is a very good idea. If people are coming to you and saying, "You know, this is taking five steps, and only two of them actually make a difference. I feel like I'm wasting my time." If you can look at that and gosh, they're right, yeah, three of them are out of date and not really necessary. Or, you know, we're using ancient technology. I'm in one group that's using a 30 year old listserv as their primary communication tool. They keep sending out messages saying,"Delete the email reply chain from your email," which still almost no one does. I could go for a new system. There are reasons it's not happening. But yeah, we could look at that. There are reasons that there's actually something about the system itself, that's making things more difficult, more challenging, unnecessarily cumbersome, those kinds of things. And it's not about trying to get somebody to do something that they wouldn't otherwise do. It's just about making it easier. Or another signal that that might be happen is if people are constantly bypassing this system. I'd get curious about what that's about, but there's a chance that it's because the system itself is too cumbersome. And so working with them to say, "Okay, so what kind of system would work for you?" Or this is the thing like you put the sidewalks in after people have forged the path. What are people actually doing? Okay, let's make that formally the system. And maybe we dress it up a little bit to make it smoother or easier to access, things like that. What I don't think a change in system is likely to change is anything that's to do with relationships or emotions. or conflict. Things where people are frustrated – beyond the frustration of it's harder than it should be – in that interpersonal. "I'm not feeling heard. I think somebody's trying to control me." If it's anything about,"The hierarchy here doesn't understand us. And they keep trying to force us to do things that we don't think we should have to do." If there's anything touching any of that. Or the feedback example of "It's really uncomfortable to tell my boss what I think about their work." I mean, that's that deeply emotional space. There may be systems that we can think of that will support it, but adopting the system by itself isn't what's going to make the difference. And so in your example, okay, so we adopt a system, I'm going to tell everybody, "We're going start at the top of the food chain, and everybody's going to reach down for feedback." Well, that's only going to work if you engage also with what makes that uncomfortable. How do we track that relational emotional communication kind of energy around it? Then it's got a chance of succeeding. But that's kind of the line I'm looking for is if you're expecting that,"Well, if I just create this fabulous Google form that feeds a spreadsheet, everybody will fill it out authentically, with great information." Yeah, I'm betting that that doesn't actually solve your problem that people aren't giving good feedback. So just getting clear about what's the real source of the problem. And I think more often than we like to admit, not always for sure, but more often than we like to admit, the real problem is that messy, complex, uncomfortable, vulnerable relationship stuff that we now have been talking about for 132 episodes. And when you're in that space, changing the system is unlikely to help.

Paul: 14:44

There's two things in what you said that I really want to point out. One is, how do we create systems or how do we improve systems that make the thing we want people to do easier? That smooth the path? Because those are systems that actually help us. They take it from five steps down to three. We're already kind of doing this thing, this helps us do it more. And I think that's the other piece of it is how do we use it to enhance what is already present? When we try to install a system – to go back to this idea of feedback – of going,"Okay, we're just gonna layer on on this whole thing that is kind of counter to the way we're already working, to the way we're interacting. It doesn't build on any of the things we already have." It would be lovely if that worked. But I think it works way better if we start with where we are now, and ask, "How can we add to what we have? How can we take the ways we are already working together and leverage those in a different and new way to get a slightly different and better result?" So I think the systems we're most likely to have success with are ones that build on and enhance existing ways of working – existing relationships, relational capacities – that leverage those. That are not lightyears away from where we are now, but are sort of adjacent to where we are, and nudge us more in the direction that we want to be going. So then as we start to work with them, we can start to see the unintended consequences, we can start to address those, we can start to make small nudges that are going to move us in that direction that we want to be going. Rather than having this big bang, we drew it up on paper, and it looks good, let's hope it all works.

Karen: 16:37

Yeah. So I think overall, the trend that we're seeing is, if your brain is saying, "I'll just build a new system, and it will fix it," it's a good idea to hit the pause button, and ask yourself a few questions. What is the "it" I'm trying to fix? And what really is the "it" that I'm trying to fix? And is it actually systemic? Is it a case of it's too many steps or the steps are too complicated or something's not as accessible as it needs to be? Is it one of those kinds of things? Or is it fundamentally a relationship, emotional work kind of space? And if it's that, then maybe think, if I'm going to do a systemic shift, I better be thinking about it in those frames and working with other people and that kind of peice with it. So what's the problem I'm trying to solve? And then what are the smallest nudges I can use to move in that direction? Do I really need a whole system shift or do I need to tweak here or tweak there or to add a skill builder somewhere or to have an open communication. Would something like that nudge us in the direction we want to go in a more integral kind of way so that we can find those unintended consequences and respond to them? And then just really paying attention to is this one of those vulnerable, mucky, messy relationship kind of spaces, where we really can't escape that kind of work if we want to fix it, and track those directions when we need to. And I'll add one little piece here, which is I'm pretty sure we did an episode or two about transitions and making transitions and how to support that. And all of that now applies. If you're deciding that, yes, we need a new system, then all of that transition stuff applies and we can put a link to that in the show notes as well.

Paul: 18:27

Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 18:32

And I'm Karen Gimnig. And this has been Employing Differences.