Deep dives, or long drags

by Kent Aitken

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The idea that problems are increasingly complex is incredibly common. It's taken as a truism. If that's the case, why haven’t we reorganized our institutions to deal with it?

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A quick story. In March I was at a Tamarack conference on community engagement, and I was struck by the design details of the event.

There were no panels, no real keynote speakers, and no “big names” as hooks. Most of the conference programming was led and delivered by three experts from Tamarack. It was more like a curriculum than a conference; they clearly spent a lot of time deciding on what participants needed to learn and preparing sessions to get it across. It came with a textbook-length package of tools and further reading. To some extent this is a luxury of small events, but I’ve seen it done well with 300 people, too.

This is what we’d expect of that organization; Tamarack's business is designing and facilitating collective learning and decision-making processes. Their President, Paul Born, used an example about being approached to facilitate the development of a homelessness reduction strategy in one community. The process he designed was a 2.5 day session with the key actors in the ecosystem, including senior leaders from government, NGOs, and business. He considered it the minimum amount of time required to work through the issue, have participants meaningfully reflect, and to build commitment to action.

At this point I’d like to contrast this with what I’d consider the standard approaches. Conference panels that work more like back-to-back short presentations, often without trained moderators, that barely scratch the surface of an issue. A universal meeting format of presenting an issue followed by discussion and decision, 20 minutes tops. A premium on brevity and simplicity in written materials.

Our group knowledge transfer and decision-making systems are, unequivocally, not designed for complexity.

I suspect that the common reaction to the idea of getting the 100 most influential people in a system to work through an issue for 2.5 days would be that it’d be impossible. That’s way too much time. Which is exactly what facilitators, designers, and consultants hear. “Can you help us do this?” “Yes, and it’ll take X amount of time.” “That’s too much, it has to be a half day max.”

We give lip service to the idea of complexity, but we certainly don’t behave like we appreciate it. If a given issue is complex, then it requires a deep dive and sustained attention. But if every issue brief is two pages, it’s hard to tell the difference between those that should be two pages and those that should be a book.

At which point I’m sure someone will tell me to be practical. Executives don’t have time to explore issues for 2.5 days or read long briefings. And of course I agree, but it’s exactly the problem*.

And here’s the result: instead of deep dives, we do long drags. It’s when you find a four-month project creeping into 18-month territory, and one more month doesn’t seem like much of a big deal. It’s when you realize that you have to scramble to bring stakeholders to the table that you hadn’t originally identified. It’s when you’re sending just one more briefing up, or having just one more meeting, to work out an issue with a proposal. It’s why everyone is comfortable with the oxymoronic word “reconfirm.”

This is very different from, say, agile software development. In that case, the complexity and constant iteration is scoped, planned, and designed for. But for these long drags you underestimate the amount of time and effort required, and uncover and resolve issues as much by accident as by system.

Complexity is a defining feature of the digital era, and we are not adjusting our governance structures to manage it. Just the opposite, in some ways: as authority and information became distributed and hyperconnected, the pressure towards centralized decision-making and message control became stronger. Governments have grown by orders of magnitude since we developed our conceptions of accountability, and we’ve increasingly realized that the sharp lines between issue areas are more porous than we once thought, making them effectively much broader. If your portfolio is health, it’s also education, social security, and the economy.

What hasn’t grown is the time, tools, or resources to deal with boundaryless problems with many stakeholders: everything from the most intractable policy problems to building user-centred digital services. You need deep dives, the time to do things right, and people empowered to test ideas and work across organizational lines.

To do it, governments will need to either free up senior leadership from day-to-day issues, or push authority further down the chain**. If they aren’t willing to - which is, admittedly, a reasonable position - then the appropriate conclusion is to revise expectations downwards: for the ability to solve wicked problems, collaborate between jurisdictions, or rework internal systems to create more coherent public-facing services.

I may be naive for thinking that this system can be changed, but we’re all naive if we think we can get better at dealing with complex problems if it stays the same.

*Every project lists senior executive commitment as a success factor, which is a resource that doesn't scale up with complexity. At which point it's worth noting that executives tend to overestimate the success of corporate initiatives, and underestimate the scope of organizational problems; executives are already spread more thinly than they think.

**I'd consider the Codefest events that brought internal and external communities together to develop the Web Experience Toolkit to be a shining example of both designing an event to make progress on complex work and of working-level employees having the authority to lead it.

Dissent in Public Organizations

by Kent Aitken

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Last week Nick and I delved into the long-term arc of communities and the people that comprise them. I was thinking about how public servants of a certain stripe will spend their careers navigating tension between short- versus long-term results, their intuition versus their instructions, and even different tenets of the Values and Ethics Code versus each other (see: Tricksters, Hackers, and Schemers). Nick explored the arc of the #W2P community in particular, summing up and offering theories how such communities evolve (see: The Gentrification of #W2P).

It’s important for a couple reasons. It’s partially because #W2P, even from my biased perspective, was significant in the Government of Canada. The community was tightly coupled with the learning curve into digital, and particularly social, communication. Many “members” of the community are now involved in transformation and innovation projects. (Ryan Androsoff started a wiki to map the community timeline - I encourage you to visit and contribute.)

But mainly? I just think that public organizations really, really need a healthy culture of challenge. Now more than ever.

In defence of challenge

When talking about challenge, I’m referring both to organizations systematically fostering dialogue and deliberation, as well as individuals being willing to step up when they feel something is awry - the tricksters referenced last week. But, first a quick word on that latter option.

At it’s worst, this could be seen as a rationalization for questioning others’ experience or judgment, justifying roguish behaviour. Perhaps anyone who thinks in trickster terms isn’t actually a prime candidate for public service - we all know the rules of the game we’ve signed up for. But that all depends on the interpretation of those (and many other) rules and a philosophy of public service (try Dwight Waldo’s Twelve Ethical Obligations of public servants for an alternate take). Over the last few years the Values and Ethics Code and The Ethics of Dissent have been common topics on CPSRenewal. This is not taken lightly.

And truthfully, the "rules of the game" are often somewhat uncertain. The relationship between elected officials and the public service is explicit, but the relationship between members of the public service is murkier. It seems as though the rule of “fearless advice, loyal implementation” is applied throughout organizations, exapting the political-bureaucratic rule to a different context.

Why challenge is needed

Public servants' ethical obligations (to stewardship, respect for democracy, respect for people, and integrity) always require a culture that welcomes challenge. But the "now, more than ever" part is because our governance algorithms are better suited to some decisions than others. For the most part, everything gets the same treatment. The organizational structure for, say, policy advice is largely identical to that for process improvements, administrivia, communications, and manufacturing.

I’d argue that it’s often borderline unfair to ask people to make decisions under these parameters, expecting an authoritative direction in areas where there’s no experience, best practices, or precedence (see: Innovation and Rigour). For instance, I wrote a few months ago that essentially everyone - in and out of government - is only beginning to climb the learning curve for online collaboration (see: The Promise of Online Collaboration). In this view, few if any people are experts, and we'd be crazy to think that anyone would singlehandedly have the expertise to solve something truly complex that had never been tackled before.

We see symptoms like this: in any large organization, people often talk of “picking their battles,” the logic of which is uncomfortable. It’s essentially shorthand for “I believe we’re about to make the wrong decision, but I’m choosing not to say anything because I think things are such that saying anything will make everything worse off in the long run.” I think public servants in particular have a duty to avoid or mitigate such dilemmas.

This is where the challenge culture is required. We often hear that the pace and complexity of the world is increasing (the Clerk of the Privy Council’s speech yesterday is an example), and that we must be agile and responsive. I think there’s a compelling case that where a decision is characterized by complexity, novelty, and a diverse range of stakeholders, we might want to consider trading speed for diligence (see: What We Lost in the Fire We Gain in the Flood). In some cases, the appropriate role for government may be the slow, deliberative space. A space where challenge is welcomed, and we are cautious and intentional in how we manage power dynamics and systemic biases.

Or, as Rosemary O’Leary put it in The Ethics of Dissent

“Some [moments of dissent] are canaries in the coal mine telling us that something is awry… [employees willing to challenge assumptions]  just may become creative assets to public organizations if their dissent is listened to and channeled appropriately. 

That can happen is public organizations strive for a culture that accepts, welcomes, and encourages candid dialogue and debate. Cultivating a questioning attitude that encourages a diversity of views and encourages staff members to challenge the assumptions and actions of the organization is important.”

Risk Aversion in Hierarchies

by Kent Aitken

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This is essentially a two-year delayed corollary to Where Good Ideas Go to Die, about the nature of hierarchies and how they influence decision making. I'm not suggesting that either model is an ironclad rule - they're simplifications with much room for exceptions, but hopefully worth considering as food for thought.

A central feature of large organizations is delegated authority: establishing a mandate and structure within which officers can exercise authority on behalf of the organization. For instance, one might have authority to spend money on certain things, up to a limit, without additional approvals.

That said, not much "big" stuff is left to delegated authority. It may be for reasons of accountability or importance, or because "big" stuff either impacts different parts of the organization or requires cooperation for implementation. So many proposals get approved at each level, then continue up the chain of command.

However, refusals are almost always left to delegated authority. That is, if a level of management decides that a proposal should go no further, it stops. The level above does not necessarily hear about it. So a given level of management makes very few final "go" decisions on behalf of the organization compared to the number of "stop" decisions. For instance, an executive will know every employee's proposed training plan, but not what was struck off the plan by the level of management below.

False positives (poor ideas that get recommended) get caught by the system, by a higher layer of management. False negatives (good ideas that get stopped) don't.

Accordingly, false positives result in feedback for the person who recommended approval. That is, proposing an idea up the chain of command and getting a “no” provides information on which to base future proposals. Those who are too risk-tolerant will get reined in. However, false negatives get no such feedback. Managers who are too risk-adverse, wrongly making “stop” decisions on behalf of their organizations, will remain so. This also means that senior executives will systemically underestimate the level of risk aversion in their organizations.

Alternatively, instead of it being different managers' styles, it could be individual managers who propose too much in some areas and too little in others. A manager could be risk-adverse on communications but overly ambitious on staffing requests. The latter would get corrected, the former would go unchecked.

I'm sure that when a decision-maker is uncertain, they'll often check in with their management. But given the scale of organizations, the desire to minimize demands on senior executives' time, and the sheer volume of proposals moving on a given day, there's room for error. In a large enough organization, over enough time, tiny breakdown rates still mean a lot of breakdowns. Small asymmetries in the forces influencing decisions add up.

Idealism and Pragmatism for Organizations

by Kent Aitken

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Chelsea recently walked through some considerations about loosening hierarchy, and put a question to her "renewal-minded" audience about how every change impacts each person differently. So for several weeks I've been thinking about the difference between the theoretical ideal and the practical ideal for an organization. I commented on Chelsea's blog that it's possible that the goal should be a system that we all know is sub-optimal, but that is more reliable for more people. A rowboat's less effective than a speedboat, but much harder to break, easier to learn, and easier to repair.

The Best and the Best Possible

This leads back to questions I left hanging in my post about the changing demographics of public service, possibly leading to a different approach to problems and solutions (see: Lego, Millenials, and the Perimeter of Ignorance). Is that idea actually characteristic of the majority of people in an organization? Like the flat hierarchies that Chelsea explored, what's the impact on everyone involved? It's very likely that my anecdotal evidence, that people could work in such environments, is based on a biased sample.

I started imagining a graph with potential on the vertical axis and feasibility on the horizontal. Perhaps many organizational systems that would be speedboats - incredibly effective for their intended purpose - sacrifice too much feasibility and so are unreliable, expensive, or overly demanding on people.

Two Alternatives

Organizational pragmatism seems like a reasonable position, but I see alternatives.

One, I frequently think that we go too far sacrificing principles for outcomes, ignoring - even if we think we're being perfectly pragmatic - the long-term impacts, and how we're sending signals about what is important. I wrote back-to-back posts about the pragmatic and principled approaches, applied to the idea of hiring a generation of demanding, impatient employees:

• An Argument for Renewal, Part I
• An Argument for Renewal, Part II

Saying "I know this isn't right, but it's what we have to do for right now" is a dangerous road that gets walked too often.

Two, the rowboat-speedboat analogy is loaded - it implies that the effective system is expensive, complex, and involves many moving parts. It could instead be like a flock of starlings - a complex whole based on individually very manageable principles. The graph could be flipped on its head, and feasibility doesn't necessarily have to decrease as potential increases.

The organizational system that requires every employee to behave differently? That's a speedboat. It doesn't have to be like that.

When Parameters Are The Problem

by Kent Aitken

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My post from last week was hurried and unfinished - there are caveats and implications left hanging. I'll get back to it next week (see: Millenials, Lego, and the Perimeter of Ignorance).

I recently ran across a business article about aligning your strategy with your environment. The hook was a cartoon of a man yelling "Why won't this gigantic square peg fit in this round hole?!" 

Standare fare, age-old advice.

Of course we should make sure that our strategies make sense in the context of our organizations' priorities, processes, and environment. Of course.

But maybe? Sometimes the square peg is what's actually needed, and it's really the round hole that needs a change. And altering the peg to fit the nonsensical hole perpetuates and legitimizes a poor system and leaves people in the dark about the fact that they need to rethink things.

The Creative Yes

There's a risk to pitching square pegs. The idea could get shut down completely.

The hybrid position might be highlighting the system's shortcomings through the proposal or business case. Typically, two to three options are on offer. Perhaps the new practice should be providing both round peg options that fit current parameters, and square ones that require changing parameters and redefining - more accurately - the problem.

And slowly, the parameters might change.

Through the Looking Glass: How Google Glass Could Radically Change Your Organization

by Nick Charney

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A couple of weeks ago I read an article in Rolling Stone entitled "The Future of Movies: How Will Google Glass Change Filmmaking?". While it was obviously focused on the how Glass will impact the film industry, reading it sparked an idea about how organizations could lever Glass to better understand their day-to-day operations.


The idea is simple

1. Grab a junior employee, a low level executive, a mid level executive and the head of the agency; ensure they are all a part of the same reporting structure;
2. Equip each one with Google Glass;
3. Have them film their entire work day on a day where they typically interact with one another; 
4. Sit them all in a room together as all four videos simultaneously in a split screen; and
5. Engage them in an honest and professionally facilitated conversation as the movies roll. 

What might you see? Perfect alignment? Fodder for a revamp of Yes, Minister? Or something in between? 

In fairness, it likely varies from organization to organization. That said, I get the sense that information asymmetries is likely to be a key finding of any such experimentation. 

What do you think? 

Is your organization courageous, desperate, or driven enough to peer through looking glass?

And if so, what do you think they would find?

 

Where Good Ideas Go To Die

by Kent Aitken

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A year ago, I wrote a post about how and why good ideas face resistance (see: Renewal and Resistance). Today we still can't swing a good idea without hitting a Clay Layer*, and I thought that it was about time to revisit it.

The Clay Layer is this amorphous, eternal layer in the middle of organizations "through which no light shall pass,” and to which no one admits being a part of. It is where communications and good ideas go to die. People send ideas on journeys down or up the chain, seemingly with all the supplies needed, but never hear word from the destination.

Here's how it works: The President of an organization has a Great Idea. They instruct their lieutenants, the VPs, to make it happen. The VPs turn to the directors, who tell the managers, who tell the supervisors, who implement it with their employees.

Except they don't.

This Machine

In some organizations the Clay Layer may actually be a management layer. In others, it could be people, policies, or processes. But my contention was that it is more so a mathematical inevitability.

Hierarchies and ideas just don't get along. If there is anything less than unconditional support for a given idea, every layer in an organization represents an opportunity for support to break down. Worse, the chance for resistance, or non-support, at each layer compounds, multiplied by each additional layer.

So, the chance of meaningful implementation of that President's Great Idea is equal to:

Where x is the chance of support and y is the number of nodes in a hierarchy. It's y-1 because presumably, the President has 100% support for the idea.

Expanding this example, with 6 nodes (a President as node 1 and an employee as node 6), and a 85% (dare I say high?) chance of support for an idea:

0.85*0.85*0.85*0.85*0.85* = .44

So, 85% of the people in this organization would individually, if they ever heard about it,support the President's idea. But when the machine manufacturing it is a hierarchy, it has less than a fifty-fifty shot at success.

Or:

The Solution

The Clay Layer isn't a management layer, it's a function of the organizational system. So if there is a shred of truth in this, the approach seems clear as we try to get Great Ideas' success rates as close as possible to 100%:

• Minimize y: reduce the number of layers involved by flattening organizations
• Maximize x: ensure high rates of support for ideas through compelling presentation, cultural norms, and sheer persistence and reinforcement of key ideas

But there's an unfortunate corollary to our equation. The President will systematically underestimate how much they need to reinforce ideas (maximize x), because progress reporting has the same flaw: any inaccuracies in reporting compound at each level of the hierarchy. And every node has an incentive to overstate their level of support, and the level of success.

So, one has to disrupt the features of hierarchies. If the President receives feedback from multiple levels, they can better understand the implementation of their ideas, and adjust their approach if needed. Likewise, if the President can directly engage multiple levels and empower them in the implementation, the assumptions on which this equation rest dissolve.



*Nick has written about the Clay Layer at least once before. 

Actually, for that matter he also wrote a post called Where Good Ideas Go To Live And/Or Die.