Some of my best discussions get cut from a podcast. They are just out of sync with the theme, too loosely constructed or the podcast was just way too long. This was a conversation that I had before the podcast started with John Latham of the Organization Design Studio.
Joe: People think of raising the bar and to continually do that they must shift their vision or change it I think what Kata really looks at is changing the challenge questions. It’s creating an increase through more challenge or from a Systems Thinking perspective more tension (The Need for Tension in Your Organization). It’s not necessarily, that our overall vision is not stagnant, but it’s not as dynamic.
John Latham: My approach to visions has always been almost unreachable visions? It’s always beyond where I’m going to get in this lifetime, I suspect. If I do, then I’ll have to rethink it if I ever get there, but the intermediate goals and what I’m going to accomplish in the next 90 days of the year or whatever, that’s always a moving target? That’s always pressuring. If you had to put numbers on it, we may have a goal to get from 70 to 80 this year. We’d like to be a 100; the vision is perfect, but 70 to 80 is what we’re going to do with this new thing we’re doing. But we keep raising it, and we’re never satisfied with 80, right?
Joe: Well, you learn that you can go do more or raise the bar. The way Mike Rother explains it in a Kata presentation, it’s like going over a hill because here we are on the hill, and then just before we get to the crest of the hill, there’s a downslope on the other side and before we even see the other side, and that’s when we got to put that tension back in and pull it before we go over the top of the hill. We’re just about there and then, uh oh, we need to pull it a little tension in it.
Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results
John: Well, if you go downhill, you got to regain that ground before you can go further? If you can keep raising it and keep going before you start heading down the other side, the better off you are. I mean, a lot of people head down the other side and go, oh no, we’d better change. Well, they have to go back up that distance that they went down. It would be nice to avoid that if you can.
Joe: Yes, but that’s what I’m saying is that’s when effectively you start putting that tension in before you see the slack.
John: I think almost everybody I’ve ever talked to over the years, the senior executives of Baldrige award recipients, the thing they worried about most was that the people would think they’re done, that they’re journey is over. And of course, the old saying is, when you think your quality journey’s over, it is.
Joe: Well, I go back to the sports analogy. Why is it so hard to repeat as a champion?
John: The people that I know who could just keep doing it every year have figured out how to actually be happy and discontented at the exact same time. They’re proud of their accomplishments, and they’re happy, and they’re enjoying what they’re doing every day and yet, at the exact same time, they know they’re not everything they want to be and haven’t done everything, and they’re still working towards it. So, you got to be able to do both of those things I think to be fulfilled and enjoy going after the next.
Joe: I agree with you 100%. There’s got to be that enjoyment of the presence, to be able to experience the future enjoyment.
John: Yes because those accomplishments, once you’ve done them, the joy is fleeting? That’s our number one issue we have with people is that they’re down in these organizations, they don’t have a cognitive map of how they fit into the company. At that, you’re pretty limited on how much you can empower somebody if they don’t understand what they’re doing affects the system, right? Because you can empower them to serve one person, but you can’t let them do too much if they don’t understand. So, you need that understanding, and then you could let them go.
Joe: That’s how I use Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas. In my project work, I expect an organization that takes me on and I say, “Hey give me your canvas or the essence of your canvas, so I can do a good job for you.” Without it, I’m very, very limited.
Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
John: It’s the perfect document to share the context of the business. I mean the only thing it leaves out are some values and cultural dimensions that you can have on another page. But if you add that to it, it is the DNA of the business. It gives us the perspective to help them without messing them up.