Capability Development

Have you ever let the absence of something block your passion?

I think back to situations when I had little in material resources but was able to accomplish so much. My passion was greater than my need for "things". It is troubling that as we begin to have more resources and capabilities such as money, people or tools, we begin to view these as prerequisites to success.

Think back to a situation where you had little in the way of resources but you had a truck load of passion! Did the lack of resources deter you from accomplishing your goal? As a matter of fact, that lack of resources did something that is far more powerful. That lack of resources became a constraint that forced you to be more innovative in accomplishing your goal. Could it be we've allowed the abundance of resources to dilute our creativity and innovation? Is that inability to gain the resources we "need" become an excuse for not trying, for not innovating? Are innovation and creativity being sacrificed at the alter of need?

For fun I perform in an alternative rock band and we do all original music. It is interesting that all of the music we create is done so within the confines of our 8 note music system. We've been writing new material for years and not once has any of us said, "if we only had a few more notes, then we could make it big!". Should we stop trying to create new music because we can't have more notes? No! Those 8 notes represent constraints much like those we find in our day to day work. With sufficient passion these constraints become the fuel for innovation. We have to push our creativity to the extreme to continue to create something new out of the same 8 notes every other musician has.

What are your constraints? How can they be used to fuel the fire rather than an excuse for not trying? Are you going to let a lack of something snuff out your passion? Are you going to sit around and lament, "if I just had...."?

It is a tired old phrase. It creates great frustration. It strikes terror in our hearts. It is the phrase "we must do more with less". It is increasingly heard in tough economic times. Is this a phrase you have heard in the past few months?

Lean times often finds that our ranks have been thinned but, the work has not been thinned. Time to pick up more duties! Time to become more valuable! Do you become more valuable? Are you able to sustain the level of output and quality you are known for when your duties increase? Doing more with less often:

• Results in reduced quality because of insufficient skills and reduced focus.
• Increases stress because of a lack of skills. Employees may fear others believe they are not competent.
• Morale is diminished which effects teammates similarly.
• Throughput across the organization is reduced.

Rather than doing more with less, we should reevaluate our strategy, goals, and activities. Identify what can be done with excellence, what puts our company into a stronger position, and what will ignite passion for our employees.

This clarity becomes a guiding light for the organization and employees. Having a clarity of purpose allows employees to evaluate their activities in light of what is most important for the organization. This clarity will provide:

• Laser focus across the organization for meeting goals.
• Employees can make good decisions about appropriate work activities.
• Employees believe they can make a difference.
• Employees identify activities of no value and eliminate them.
• Teamwork improves because employees have a sense of purpose.
• Customer satisfaction is increased.

Doing the right thing inspires passion. Doing the right thing eliminates waste. Doing the right thing breaks through all barriers. Doing the right thing is should be the norm and there is no better time than now to reassess goals and make sure we are doing more of the right with less.

Are you slowly killing yourself at work? I don't mean working an abundance of hours to the point of exhaustion. I do mean working in an environment where you are depressed, stressed about work, worried about the economy, worried about your continued employment, and a multitude of other workplace stresses that impacts your emotional well-being. These stresses are real and prevalent in the current economic climate.

I'm finishing a book called Emotional Intelligence and one chapter that made an impression on me, the book is a must read, is about the impact our emotional state has upon physical health. The author provides studies that show emotional well-being has a measurable impact on our health. Positive emotional health increases our physical well-being.

If we believe that our emotional health will impact our physical health then would you agree that emotional health impacts our ability to do our job and our value to the company? The book Happy Hour Is 9 To 5 shows that companies that focus on their most important resource, their people, routinely have higher revenue than those that do not. Take a look at this quote:

"According to Denison Consulting, unhappy companies in their study had an average annual sales growth of 0.1% from 1996–2004. Happy companies grew their sales by 15.1% in the same period."

15% increase in sales? Can you think of any investment in your organization that can provide that potential rate of return?

Emotional health is an important factor in your physical well-being and can help your company's bottom line. Here are just a few benefits of focusing on employee well-being:

• Energy - Employees have increased energy when they are not depressed or stressed.
• Innovation - Employees are more willing to "think outside the box" and are less concerned about the consequences of failure.
• Teamwork - Employees reach out to each other and build a stronger network that they can tap into.
• Recruitment - The success and excitement of of an organization that focuses on well-being is contagious and attracts talent.
• Adaptive - Employees are more resilient to change, embrace the fact that change does occur, and take hold of new opportunities presented by change.

We all have the ability to influence the well-being of ourselves and our peers. Stop a moment and reflect upon what you can do to improve your emotional health. Think about the ability you have in improving the well-being of your colleagues.

Life is fraught with challenges and does not necessarily follow the course we would like. What we do have control over is our response and how we react to those challenges.

This will not be a normal Capability Development post. It concerns an event that recently took place that I would like to share.

I live on Lake Norman in Duluth, Georgia which has a typical migrating population of Canadian geese. In late spring of this year, we saw that a goose had become entangled in a nylon "wire" on a property across the inlet from our home.

Racing across the way, we found that the goose had repeatedly wrapped the nylon around his wing. It was wound so tightly that we used wire cutters to remove the wire. The wing was badly damaged and probably broken.

Over the next month we realized the goose would be unable to fly. We endearingly named him Gimp Goose.

We wondered what would happen when the urge to migrate called out. Since geese mate for life, what would happen between the mating pair? During early summer the flock left for their summer home. They left, including Gimp Goose's mate. Gimp Goose, unable to follow, became a permanent resident of Lake Norman.

Throughout the summer Gimp Goose lived a solitary existence with no other Canadian Geese in sight. Gimp Goose tried to hang with the six white ducks that live here, but they never quite "bonded".

Jump to the second week of December. My wife just happened to be out in the yard when she heard a flock of geese honking as they began to land in the lake. The migrant geese were returning to their winter home. One of the geese took a beeline to Gimp Goose. Gimp Goose took a beeline to her. They both began to croon, began to sway their necks, swam to each other, and continued dancing and honking. They did this for almost fifteen minutes.

After a long summer, she was back. Gimp Goose's mate was back. It has been three days since they reunited and they have been inseparable.

In the grand scheme of things this is a inconsequential event but for us, it has become a touching Christmas story.

Here's to reuniting with someone you care for during this Holiday Season!

Part of my job involves helping teams identify potential improvements in the way they do work. A lot of focus revolves around eliminating waste, implementing more productive practices, and increasing collaboration in an effort to increase stakeholder value. This, in turn, causes changes in the way work is accomplished. Change is difficult for most organizations. Recognizing this we often create a "program" and rally everyone around the program to implement change and this can sometimes lead us into trouble.

How about this example:
We've identified the silver bullet that will solve our ills. It will be difficult to implement, will take years, and will be impacting to everyone. We will support you, we will provide training, we will provide mentoring, we will provide celebrations. This is one of our top goals." All the stars align, communication is provided, and in a flurry of activity begin to spend more time implementing the silver bullet and less time focusing on what is truly important.

Sound familiar?

You might call this the big rock approach to change and it can create all manner of dysfunctional behavior. The worst of which is an alignment of all employees around the silver bullet with such force that they lose sight of the primary goal of the company. Too often the big rock becomes the goal.

I suggest using the big rock to help set the "fence posts". (Setting the fence posts is a phrase a colleague of mine likes to use when speaking about phase or iteration goals.) Use the big rock to drive the overall road map and create a course of action. Have those impacted by change to help define and move the small rocks. Move each small rock one at a time; each accomplishing an incremental goal; each contributing to the completion of the big rock goals. At some point, the team looks back at all of the completed small rocks and, drum roll, they've accomplished the goals of the big rock.

Focus on the small rocks to eliminate the risk that everyone will become overly focused on the big rock. Move enough small rocks and the big rock goal will be met.

Plan around the big rocks but execute by moving the small rocks.

Photo by: Randen L Pederson

Do you find yourself in an organization that is functionally aligned? Where each “function” has a specific role? Where your ability to be the best you can be at your function is valued higher than ensuring project success? Welcome to a union shop.

My definition of a union shop is one in which each employee has a well defined role and their behaviors are driven by a reward system that is functionally focused. Indeed, it is considered bad form for a person to step outside the “bounds” of their job function. “No, you can’t do that… Your job is to deliver the light bulb, not screw it in.”

Have you experienced the behaviors associated with functional alignment? You find a business analyst spending entirely too much time creating “perfect” requirements, and we all know that perfect requirements stand the test of time and need not change. Any examples of analysis paralysis where too much time is spent crafting a perfect design, a design that takes much more time than if we had just implemented and tested multiple solutions to prove the best design?

The union shop mentality is prevalent in software development organizations that follow the waterfall methodology. It is this waterfall heritage that makes it so very difficult to transition to a more iterative software development practice. Implementing the mechanics of an iterative development methodology is one thing, changing the behaviors of software development practitioners is something entirely different and much more difficult. Changing those behaviors require focus on:

• A reward system where team success is valued more than individual success.
• Success of the project is valued higher than perfectly executing a particular function.
• Patience to recognize that change is difficult and must be supported with training, mentoring, listening, and constant communication.
• Mistakes will be made and should be expected, so plan for it, accept it, and do not allow mistakes to knock you off the goal.
• Celebrate each success.
• Use every opportunity to show the business that the team’s focus is on providing market value.

Union shops provide an organizational structure that tends to focus more on functional success than market value. Break down the functional walls, build teams focused on delivering market value, allow your employees to swarm around a challenge and decide for themselves how best to meet the need. Support them and set them free.