System thinking, authorised decision rights and the advice monster

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Kia Ora,

Everything is connected! This is the main message from the new TV docuseries from Netflix — “Connected”. The journalist Latif Nasser investigates ways in which we are linked to each other and to the universe. Every episode is different and shows the connections from a different perspective. The topics range from poop (yes, 💩), through dust and clouds, to surveillance. We can learn how human and animal health is vital to the planet. We can discover the surprising positive effects of nuclear bombs. And even see how our chaotic and complex world can be simplified to easy statistical numbers.

No, this newsletter is not sponsored by Netflix. I just found it fascinating how close these topics are to the ideas behind system thinking. System thinking treats everything as systems and systems of systems where everything is connected. And these connections create a complex network of relationships which often stay invisible to us. Have you ever experienced introducing a change and after some time you learned that this change had surprising effects? Probably the system that you introduced this change in had some connections between its elements that you had not seen. Oops!

Peter Senge described the 11 laws that govern systems. Here are 3 of them that I invite you to reflect on today:

• Today’s problems come from yesterday’s ‘solutions.’
• Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants.
• Small changes can produce big results…but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious.

The Internet has an endless number of resources on system thinking. One of my best introduction to this topic is the speech by Russell L. Ackoff — click HERE to watch it (it is over 60 minutes long but it’s not only enlightening but also entertaining).

Authorized decision rights

In the last episode of the JOEKUB podcast, we talked to one of my favourite agile person — Daniel Mezick. One of the topics that Daniel introduced us to was “authorized decision rights” and how they impact the agility of organisations. He said, “if you want to change a culture, change how decisions are made, align decision on increasing flow of value”. And how decisions are made in your team, in your department, in your organisation, in your community of practice?

If you’d like to learn more from Daniel Mezick have a listen to our convo with him HERE.

Avoid the advice monster

Last week I had a chance to speak at Agile India 2020. One of my workshops was on Agile Coaching Dojo as a way to create a space for deliberate coaching practice. Our practice focused on avoiding the advice monster. The concept of the advice monster comes from Michael Bungay Stanier and his books — “The Advice Trap” and “The Coaching Habit”.

What you think is the real challenge probably is not the real challenge. And in most of our lives, organizational and beyond, we spend way too much time trying to solve the wrong problem because we think the first challenge is the real challenge. And it just rarely is. However, what happens in us is this need to solve every problem we encounter. This is our inner advice monster in actions! This monster is in everyone and it wakes up as soon as we hear that someone has a challenge. The monster starts shouting all the possible solutions, or the ideas and it wants to give advice no matter what. We need to stay humble and remember that we don’t have all the answers. And our solution is often not the best ways how to approach other people’s challenges.

One of the ways how I’ve been practising taming my advice monster is to choose “question of a day” — one question that I try to ask as many times as possible on the given day. And I count how many times I succeed. If I get under 5, it means I was not trying hard enough. Anywhere between 5 and 10 is a decent score for me. Above 10 is time for celebration 🎉

What questions could you be asking? Try these:

• What is the real challenge here for you?
• What is already working that you could build on?
• How would you like it to be?
• And what could you do next?

Our brains are designed for…

Last week I found this and it made me think. I thought that you may like reflecting on this too.

Have a great life everyone!

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