FLESHY COGS

This week's Times reveals that 1 in 3 of us are bored at work. This occupational ennui is apparently due to the simplification and automation brought about by technology. Ironic that the deployment of technology itself is actually very interesting and stimulating (speaking as an engineer).
I wonder if the problem wouldn't be eased if those involved were considered not just as fleshy cogs in the machine, but as people with a need for challenge and meaning.
Henry Ford complained that he got a whole person when all he wanted was a pair of hands - that was a loooooong time ago.

GIRL TEACHES DAD A LESSON

Emmanuel Gobillot, writing in the Engineering Management journal of the IET, describes how paying his daughter to clean her room backfired when after a while she declared that it just wasn't worth it. Here is an example of an economic incentive destroying moral and social obligation.

DARK BUSINESS

...and on the subject of physics as a metaphor for organisations (or maybe the other way around), Dave Snowden suggests that just as Dark Matter accounts for most of the Universe, so invisibles account for most of an organisation. Thanks to Johnnie Moore for this one.

I wonder if the sub-conscious is another example of the subtle unseen supporting tangible, gross manifestation?

UNCERTAIN ABOUT HEISENBERG

Yesterday I used improv to do some team coaching. The directors had said they wanted to observe. I didn't give them the chance and involved them before they knew what was happening. I'm pretty sure their non-participation and observation would have changed things for the others. I thought this reflected Heisenberg's principle, but apparently it's the 'Observer Effect'.

IT AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE

Gerry Robinson sorting out Rotherham hospital made compulsive viewing last night. The sight of the Chief Exec realising that talking to people works is both uplifting and depressing. Does a senior manager have to wait til his 50s to get it? Overall the programme tells me that the NHS can be turned around... but not through processes, strategies and metrics, or even rocket science. Rather, people, people and people.

and another thing - Gerry doesn't just think, he clearly feels too...

GOD AND THE DEVIL

This may be an old one but I like it - thanks to Johnnie Moore

God created the truth. The Devil took a look at it and said, "That's great,
I shall organise that and call it... religion"

TRY MORE - WANT LESS

After a 5 month blog silence, time to tap the keys again.

My objective this year - and hopefully for years to come is to try more and want less. Now that might sound contradictory - it certainly does to me - so let me try to explain...
By trying more I don't mean trying harder, I mean trying different things. And by wanting less I mean being less attached to the outcomes. The reason for this shift is that I've become aware that wanting stuff to happen doesn't necessarily mean it will (excuse me if you got there a few decades ago - everyone at their own pace). When it does...fantastic. When it doesn't...depressing. The swinging around between these polarities (the onset of Bipolar disorder?) really isn't much fun - in fact it's draining, so I'm going to do less of it.

METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING...

I'm getting to like metaphors. I seem to have been using them unwittingly since I could speak. Now I'm using them consciously in my work, or rather using other people's. A client of mine uses Grovian Metaphor to get spectacular results with clients that feel their progress is blocked. A friend uses them to paint corporate strategy. Why are they so powerful?
My guess is that by using a container to hold the meaning for another concept, that's one less concept to worry about. Metaphors seem to be an antidote to diversity (did you spot it?), a unifying factor; maybe that's why?

LOTS OF POTS

2 days back I presented a Graphic Facilitation workshop with my good friend Julian Burton to a group of Power Engineers. A good session and not without its sticking points. At one point the discussion seized up and I intervened with this (true) anecdote:

2 pottery classes are asked to make pots. One is asked to make the best pot possible; the other to make as many as possible. At the end of the exercise, the one asked to make the most has indeed made a lot of pots. And surprise, surpise, it's also made the best.

Why this story was pertinent to the session is not significant but what the story demonstrates is profound and works at a number of levels - I'll leave you to figure them out...

THE FREEDOM BALANCE

Tomorrow I'm going to be presenting Graphic Facilitation to a group of senior engineers from the Electricity Industry. There's a lot to say and I can't say it all. It occurred to me that the balance between the freedom of saying nothing and the structure of saying everything is critical. It seems to involve the same elements as Open Space... get the freedom/structure balance right and some magic happens. I'll bear Voltaire in mind: the secret of being a bore is to tell everything