Writing

Yesterday I saw a tweet from a campaigner on a social issue that said ‘Silence is complicity’. I recognised the passionate sentiment. I felt the fierce anger that not everyone has joined in on your personal quest to change the world. I know the despair that others don’t have the urgency that you have and the frustration that much of what passes for inaction in our world is at least apathy, if not complicity.

However, I would hope a social campaigner had a little more love and compassion about the challenges of speaking up. These are not ideal times. For many watching, your passionate quest is beyond their personal capacity which is devoted almost entirely to survival. Is someone’s focus on their own needs first complicity? Yes, there may never be ideal times to tackle Monsters at the Gates, but each person must choose their own cause and actions. Purpose, engagement and sacrifice cannot be imposed. They demand agency.

We need too a recognition that if the obligation lies on everyone to speak up about everything all the time we lose the effectiveness of voice. Too many voices too often is not persuasion, it is chatter. I can add my voice, but will it drown out one more important and less well heard? Our partisan and angry world is an outcome of lots of voice and the ability for people to choose their own bubbles. The other importance of love and compassion in those advocating for change is to recognise that we achieve far more with engendering connection, engagement and enthusiasm than by fostering othering and guilt.

So much has passed this year that calls for change, that guilt is an easier response, especially for those with the love and compassion to notice. As my life returns slowly to a Covid normal, I look at the wider world and have all kinds of feelings of guilt. People are suffering unnecessarily. Can we do more? Yes. Should we do more now? Now that is a question that varies with time and circumstances. We should have the compassion to accept in ourselves and others that people will make the choices which make their best contributions to the world.

Nobody improved the world with guilt. For now, I will remain silent on that issue as with so many others. I will bide my time to make a mark. If that makes me complicit in a long list of evils, then that is how it must be. I will still hold out hope for change, love for others and keep a little compassion for myself.

We easily lose sight of what is work. As our days fill with messages we can feel like we are working but the real progress escapes us. Make sure you are advancing the work that needs to be done.

Demanding Attention

In the ancient days of the 1980s and 1990s the artefacts of a busy day was memos. In this millenium, work has been defined by email which has become for many a form of workflow, even the only form of workflow. Inbox Zero advocates have driven people to see productivity in moving everything that comes in by email to out. In this process we handed our productivity to the service of others.

Now our days are filled with the relentless ping of chat. Across multiple channels, solutions, devices, our days can feel productive as we ping our responses back to updates, queries and discussions. These synchronous demands consume our attention and our time. Instead of conversations, they can become blizzards of tactical directions. Like memos and emails beforehand, chat feels like work. However, chat may not always be the most productive choice.

What is the goal?

Much productive work is either asynchronous or much more deeply engaged. We create best in iterative asynchronous loops that allow time for reflection, inspiration and experimentation. We achieve deeper understanding and solve problems in rich and long conversations that have the time and bandwith to get to the heart of issues, under the surface status. We help others by taking the time to really understand their needs and desires through conversation and collaboration. This is the work that creates sustainable value. This is the work that changes the trajectory of outcomes, businesses and lives.

Time and attention is required to move beyond chat to conversation and collaboration. Continuous chat can be a distraction from the real work that we need to do together to create the future. Make sure you haven’t confused the tool of work with the result. Make sure you allow enough time and space in your day to be truly productive.

Perhaps is a new and sudden way of being.

Like satisfaction not yet begun or some other kind
of kindness:

a more gentle one?

Adam Clay, Start This Record Over

Back in the middle of lockdown I wrote a post about the challenges and benefits of Starting Again. I read it again this morning. I realise now I missed an even larger point. Perhaps because I was stuck. Perhaps because starting again felt unrealistic when we were all stopped, I failed to point out:

We are always starting again.

Every day, every hour, every meeting, every call and every message is a chance to start again. Most likely, whatever history we are carrying into that moment is not even on the mind of others. People are busy, distracted by the own challenges and issues and juggling their own priorities. They aren’t holding your history with the reverence that you might like.

We have all had the moment. You are following up on the last conversation and the other party gives you a blank stare. Your critical opportunity has gone from their mind. Your offence has been forgotten. Whatever the significance to you, time has made it insignificant to others.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Heraclitus

The flowing river of time washes away a lot. We have the chance to deepen connection, share more context, start on a better foot, be better prepared, make amends, to build anew, to improve and to grow. We get to try again, try harder, stop or change course. We learn and grow. So do our colleagues and counterparts.

We can use that onrush of renewal to make today special and different. We can reinvent, recreate and renew. Take the opportunity of starting again or it too will be washed away.

Leave me awhile and I will recover
In darkness and in night.
It was too soon for me to discover growth in the light.

Mabel Dodge Luhan, False Start

Remote work can interrupt the flow of work. Invest time and effort in understanding the barriers and blockages to productivity in distributed work.

In Kaizen and Lean productivity, there is a concept called Gemba, the place the work is done. These productivity disciplines exhort people seeking better performance to understand exactly how and where work is done. We may not fully understand the work with out experience of its locations, ebbs and flows.

Disrupted Flow

While remote work has many advantages, one disadvantage is an inability to observe the work in action and to see the frustrations. One of those frustrations is an interruption to the flow of work.

Working from home in a pandemic means interruptions are part of the course of our work. Deliveries arrive on the own timing. Parents need to look after children’s learning, meals and more. Tech support is self-service.

We also find that work can’t flow as easily because casual workplace conversations need to be scheduled as meetings. We have lost a flow of timely communication which chat can only partially replace. My experience has been that when a project is in flight, this flow of conversation finds a way, but if there are interruptions, distractions or delays, restarting the flow of communication & work takes huge effort. We have little shared time and context to found the flow of work.

Manage Flow

Managing the flow of work through interruptions and lack of communication takes effort. This will not ‘just happen’.

Teams need to think carefully about scheduling of meetings and events to allow time for uninterrupted work. Handoffs need to be worked on to ensure that they are effective and foster productive flow. Teams need to consider activities that are causing wait and delay for others to expedite effectiveness for everyone. We all need to be realistic about the life experiences that wrap around and through our work.

Teams need to create as much communication as they can to replace the informal discussions in the workplace. That discussion needs to be more than just chat and involve rich conversations and collaborations to solve the problems of work and share deep context.

The flow of our work influences our productivity. That flow also shapes our experience of frustrations and fatigue. delivering the workplace of the future requires us all to manage flow regardless of physical location.

Our purpose is in our work. Purpose is not an abstraction or an idea. Purpose is an impact you have on others and arises in the specific context of that work. The place to go looking to develop purpose or to put it into action is in that context and for benefit of a specific group of others.

The ronin of Japanese history were samurai who had lost their feudal masters. Without their place in a hierarchical society built around loyalty and respect, they existed in disgrace and wandered seeking work. Deprived of a feudal context, ronin lost their purpose.

Discussing writing blogposts on Twitter, Andrew Jacobs made the interesting comment that unpublished draft were like ronin – purpose without context.

Purpose but no context.

— Andrew Jacobs (@AndrewJacobsLnD) November 29, 2020

That comment feels true of my many unpublished drafts. They didn’t make it to publication because something was lacking, usually a clear point and impact of the post but often the right environment for the post to be received. While time can solve one or other of these issues by chance, creating that match of purpose and context usually takes effort.

Much discussion of purpose at work is equally devoid of context. So many organisational purpose statements don’t describe the specific benefits to a group of people or even much guidance as to the work that bringfs that benefit about. Like a contextless draft, these corporate purpose statements roam from organisation to organisation in search of a work and in search of a master.

Employee engagement is specific not abstract. It exists for one employee at a time in the context of their work. If you want to influence engagement through a sense of purpose, you need to be specific enough to enable employees to discover the benefits of their work for the organisation, its clients and community.

I say discover advisedly. Purpose comes from within to benefit others. Purpose cannot be generalised or imposed. Each person will find significance in their work. The role of organisational leaders to help that discovery and alignment around shared benefits.

Posters aren’t a path to purpose. At best they are contextless drafts for employees. Without context we don’t understand or value the messages. The value of purpose for employees, organisations and their clients comes from the conversations in the work that bring meaningful context.

Purpose is in the work. Leaders need to start there and bring valuable conversations to light to provide employees with richer context on their work and help them find their purpose.

Only then can the ronin of the corporate world stop roaming.

Trust is reciprocal. Loyalty is reciprocal. Love, concern, generosity and goodwill are best when they are reciprocated. Human relationships power our lives and their run in two directions. With rights and responsibilities come obligations. Reciprocity is critical in community, in work and in life. Never forget that to receive, it is best to first give.

Wherever I roam in the future of work, I keep coming back to a few concepts. Concepts like:

• Psychological safety from Amy Edmonson
• PKM as Seek, Sense, Share from Harold Jarche
• Push vs Pull from John Hagel and John Seely-Brown
• Edgar Schein’s work on Organisational culture
• Working Out Loud
• Wirearchy from Jon Husband

All these concepts involve the concept of connection in networks and in particular the potential for reciprocity in relationships. I am a big fan of the potential of Wirearchy’s working definition of:

a dynamic two-way flow of  power and authority, based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology

When we start to focus on the two-way flow we are drawn into a focus on human relationships and the critical role of reciprocity. We reduce othering and the mystery of the people with whom we are working. It is very hard to see people as widgets in a machine or the enemy when you understand them, their work and their context personally and, importantly, they understand yours.

In the work I have done in social collaboration, fostering reciprocity in organisations can play a catalytic role. Reciprocity doesn’t have to be mutual accountabilities leading to mutual trust, though that is the high water mark. Reciprocity begins when people begin to share context and information. Connection and transparency are foundations for reciprocity. Human nature kicks when a sharing of information about problems, needs or challenges occur. People want to help solve those challenges even if it is not their role or responsibility. Dynamic informal responsibilities and authorities to act are the result.

Wirearchies fix hierarchies. Turning flows around in your organisation and shifting from unidirectional to reciprocal will enable your leaders and your people to learn, to share, to solve challenges and to react more quickly to the market. Employee engagement is not an abstract loyalty to an organisational brand. Employee engagement exists in two-way relationships. Real employee engagement is based in a reciprocity of give and take and the sense that shared goals exist, people are respect and valued and each person can contribute and get work done purposefully. That demands a reciprocal give and take.

The change is within us. We bring that to the world and liminality is that process of revelation. What we do with our change is up to us.

Be the Change

Let me start with a quote so common as to have become a platitude about change:

Be the change you want to see in the world

commonly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

One of the dangers of platitudes is that we stop considering them. We take them at first glance and know their meaning from overuse. Everywhere I look I see people going ‘yada, yada, if you become the change, blah, blah’. Let’s look more closely for a minute at the first word. That first word is ‘be’, not ‘become’. We are the change already. Our challenge is to live it. The resonance of the quote is that we have power in change, if we acknowledge what’s already within.

The Limen Within

I was asked a powerful question on yesterday’s post on liminal spaces. The question paraphrased was “Is the liminal space external to us?’ You can already guess my answer.

We are that space. The sense of transition, transformation and unease comes from within. When you look at lists of liminal spaces they are so diverse that it is hard to find a common element. The commonality are that they are places of reflection and movement. They are places that give us pause to reflect. The transformation of the limen is a psychological call to agency.

In that reflection we are likely to discover the changes that have already happened in us without noticing. We are the change before we even know it. Liminality manifests from within. In our busyness, we are the last to know.

Liminality, like our personal purpose, creeps up on us as we go about life, until we must rush to catch up with our own new being. We have an inkling before we know in the form of yearning. We make efforts to reconcile our external reality to our inner feelings, even ones we fail to fully understand. Self-sabotage is the outcome of doubt, not the cause. Anger, fear, hesitancy and procrastination are the outcome of reluctance to move forward, not the cause. Surprising success is the outcome of blithe confidence, much to our chagrin. Impressive competence is the outcome of newly won capability. All we need do is put it into the world.

We can be the change, because we are already there and our challenge is to reconcile the world to that change. Liminal spaces are our place for this recognition and where the transformation begins. The other side of a boundary or threshold we can appear anew and start the work. We will not share our change with the world unless we do the work. Seeing what we are is the start. Where we go from there is only up to us.

This year has been a masterclass in liminal spaces. I set out to explore boundaries in 2020. Instead I have spent most of the year in several – physical, emotional, personal and organisational. The test of these thresholds will be the transformation to come. That change will require personal effort.

Liminal spaces are thresholds between worlds. Normally we pass through them without much thought. In a normal year, we are in constant transit through foyers, elevators, doorways, airports, staircases, corridors, and quiet empty spaces in the early hours of the morning. We don’t give these moment much attention but they are places of transformation and change. We enter as one life and leave as a part of another.

In 2020, lockdowns, algorithmic bubbles, virtual communities and the general disruption and hiatus of a pandemic has trapped us in the liminal zones – physically, emotionally and in our personal and organisational relationships. We have been given time to experience the uncertain and transforming spaces that sit in between. For many, this has been a source of frustration and fatigue. For others liminality is an opportunity for transformation, whether by choice or the demands of a fast changing world.

For those who understand that the difference between risk and opportunity is execution, 2020 has proven to be an extraordinary year of change. I have seen organisations take dramatic steps in thinking about the future of work, their digital processes and how they can deliver for and engage their customers. Many of these organisations are now rethinking strategy in light of a new appreciation of what can be done when the liminal phase is over. The butterflies that blossom from 2020’s hibernation will be extraordinary. Time in a liminal space can be productive and transformative.

However, nothing changes if we do not do the work to translate our risks and opportunities into change and better ways of doing things. Almost my first post of the pandemic was about the power of personal agency. That agency still offers us the promise of new worlds the other side of our current liminality. We will be dealing with the consequences of 2020 for years to come. The best way to manage those changes is to lead them.

This poem by Malena Mörling absolutely broke me tonight — pic.twitter.com/WjzS4tgPUd

— Devin Gael Kelly (@themoneyiowe) November 19, 2020

When the world feels too big, do something small

— Simon Terry (@simongterry) November 16, 2020

Acorns grow into oaks.

From little things big things grow.

Actions accumulate.

2020 feels like five years already and there are still months to go. One reason it has been a year of fatigue is the sense that there has been so much to process all the time. We are dealing with a feeling of cognitive load.

We started the year with monsters at the gates and we have dealt with a global pandemic and its losses, economic and social shocks in many and varied ways. Adaptability places a constant burden on our thinking. We need to remain alert to signals, to query the need for change, to decide and to act responsively.

For many our work has moved home. For others work has stopped entirely. Both bring new thoughts and attentions to our daily efforts. Finding space for presence and escape from this load can be well nigh impossible. Even our vacations are so circumscribed by anxieties and locational limits we just are us at home, working a little less.

Our experience of the year has then been overlaid with a gradual and at times dramatic loss of function in global political discourse. We have had to pay attention to the grandstanding, extraordinary behaviour, authoritarianism, populism, incompetence and lies in many corners of the globe. Worrying about the future of our society has at times been the lesser demand in 2020.

This cognitive load has real consequences. All the extra thinking, stress and concern helps explain our fatigue and the perception of the slow pace of the year. It help explains the anger. It is also a source of errors and failings. This morning I slept through an alarm. Yesterday I missed the start of a critical meeting. Things get missed. Messages are unanswered lost in the rush, the worry and the thinking.

The human brain is designed to filter out irrelevant details and focus our attention on the key risks that our ancient ancestors faced on the African savannah – sudden changes, occasional threats, the rise and fall of scarcity and abundance. We just aren’t built for a relentless overabundance of anxiety and inputs.

There’s no imminent change to our circumstances and these pressures. We will need self-care and community care to manage these challenges through the balance of this difficult year. We can all take steps to manage this cognitive load:

• find time for presence
• find time to create space
• Make decisions to filter out some noise
• focus on purposeful action over anxiety
• reduce the load on others with simple communication and clear actions
• reduce the noise for others
• support people through their cognitive load
• create community to provide comfort and counsel