Dry Stone Walls, Holons and Organisations

Recently Ive been walking in the Derbyshire Dales. Even though I live in Yorkshire, it's one of my favourite parts of the country. The weather was kind and the scenery - even though spring hadn't yet sprung, stunning.  One of the things that characterises the Dales are the dry stone walls.  It's easy to forget they are not a natural feature of the landscape - they are man-made, but they just seem 'right' and add to the landscape as much as any natural rocky outcrop or waterfall.

Reflecting on my weekend, the concept of holons came to mind.  A holon is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. In a dry stone wall each stone is an individual, has its own identity and, at the same time, is part of a larger whole. To exist as a wall, the stones must conform to a structure that has rules. To survive, the wall must continue to meet the intended purpose. Within the larger structure, smaller systems and structures exist. Each stone has a relationship with each adjacent stone and with the rest of the wall. There is no bonding agent other than the relationship between the stones. The careful placement of the stones, keeps them together and creates the wall. Building the wall in this way, enables it to flex and move with its environment. Building a wall requires craft and an awareness of the landscape where the structure will be built. The wall needs to be carefully maintained; rebuilding a wall requires far more resources than maintaining one.

Holons exist in organisations too.  The organisation is an entity on its own, but existing within it are functions, departments and teams.  And of course a team is a group of individuals organised to deliver purpose.  Sometimes though, as with dry some walls we see the landscape but not the individual stone. Yet without each stone there would be no wall.  

When building a wall it is said that once you pick up a stone you can't put it down again until it has been placed in exactly the right spot. The builder evaluates each stone carefully to assess its value for a particular purpose and then handles it respectfully to realise its potential.  That sounds like talent management and succession planning to me. Whatever the size and shape, no matter how big or small, each stone plays an integral role in becoming something bigger. 

Imagine your organisation as a dry stone wall, what would that be like?

If you'd like to know more about the art of dry stone walling, the Derbyshire Branch of the Dry Stone Walling Association would be happy to help I'm sure (other Branches are available) .  If you'd like to know more about how developing individuals can add value to your organisational landscape, contact us.

The Gorilla in the Room

I’m sure that you've come across the elephant in the room – the thing that everyone sees but cannot (or dares not) talk about.  But what about the Gorilla in the room?

Research by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris demonstrated why, when focusing on something specific, we tend not to notice other things going on around us.  In their research on selective attention, 2 groups of students pass a basketball as they bob and weave around each other. With all the movement, counting the number of passes is difficult and requires a lot of concentration.  Try it out for yourself Test of Selective Attention before reading on.

You can also learn more about perception and focus in Dan’s TEDx presentation on Seeing The World As It Isn't.

Now you’re back, I hope I didn't give the game away in the title of the blog.  Around only 1 in 8 people will see the gorilla. It may seem strange or even implausible that someone in a gorilla suit goes unnoticed, but the research shows that the level of focus needed to achieve a particular result, gives rise to some unintended and unwanted consequences.

In a related experiment, Trafton Drew found that 83% of radiologists missed a matchbook sized picture of a gorilla when they were examining medical slides for cancer nodules.  They only saw what they what they were expecting to see and disregarded anything that didn't fit their reality.

In the current business reality of austerity, it’s not that hard to get fixated on cutting costs for example.  With total focus on one thing, it’s easy to lose the bigger picture, or miss out on opportunities for innovation.  That’s one thing that Steve Jobs apart. As well as being fanatical about detail, he could also see the bigger picture.

One unintended consequence of a cost driven focus is the impact on employee engagement.  Management is reduced to completing tasks without considering their effectiveness or contribution to the organisation’s purpose. Staff feel increasingly under-valued and stress levels increase. Have you ever tried squeezing play dough?  The harder you squeeze the more it slips through your fingers.

I’ll leave you with a question.  How is selective attention impacting on you and your business?  Where is your focus at present and what might you be missing?

Is there a gorilla in your room?

Thanks to my friend Ann Herrmann at Herrmann International (www.hbdi.com www.hbdi.co.uk) for bringing this to my attention. 

From a Negative to a Positive

Don't you love digital photography? Take as many photos as you like, edit them, upload them, email them, even print them. And if you don't like them, delete them. Everyone is a photographer now, but I feel something has gone missing.

I went to a small exhibition recently where the photographer had used a 100 year old box camera, made the plates herself and could only take 6 photos because that was all she could carry. Each photo could take up to one hour to take and there was no second chance, so the composition had to be spot on first time.  Then there was the developing.

At a recent client meeting the subject of developing negatives came up.  It made me think about the art of photography and in particular developing prints in the dark room.  Developing photographs, like people, is an art.  It takes time, the right mix of ingredients along with the patience and expertise of the photographer.

And it needs time and patience. As the image develops, the fine detail and contrasts slowly emerge. Too soon or too long and the photograph never achieves its potential. It's a difficult balance, a bit like developing people. Too fast people burn out, too slow and they fade away.

In a digital world, there's still space for the personal touch.

Remembering Alice Pyne

Last Saturday following a six-year battle, 17 year old Alice Pyne succumbed to cancer. Over the last 2 years, Alice inspired thousands of people by documenting her story in a blog and in particular her bucket list. It wasn’t a list full of completely unachievable things –although she still had dreams. One dream was going to Kenya (she got to Kent - ya), but it was also a list of things that she could achieve, like enter her dog Mabel in a show and buy a static caravan for her charity.

One of her dreams is that everyone creates their own bucket list and it got me thinking. I thought bucket lists were about big things and they are. But they are also about the small but no less significant things, silly things even. It’s about momentum, starting small and maybe even staying small, but always moving on and having fun along the way.

So Alice, here’s the first item on my bucket list – tell people about your dream and invite others to start theirs. Buckets are for filling, start filling one today.

The Power of Teamwork

Yesterday, Team GB exceeded their Beijing Olympics medal haul and by the end of the London Games, will have reached their highest total in the modern Olympic era.  Not only that but on a per capita basis, Team GB would head the medal table.

There are many reasons for this success, not least the years of hard training and sacrifice by the athletes, the coaches, medics, nutritionists, psychologists, engineers, and all the other backroom men and women that make Team GB. 

Yet there is another group of people that athletes from around the world have paid tribute to for contributing to their success – the spectators.

The designers of the Olympic Stadium engineered it to amplify the crowd.  They recognised how the roar of the crowd would help build the atmosphere, urging the athletes on.  And it worked.  The spectators are definitely Team GB’s 12^th man. The athletes themselves, spurred on by the crowd go faster, higher, further and cite the crowd as a key contributor to their performance.

So, who are the 12^th men and women for your organisation? 

Who are the people that help build the atmosphere, that are passionate about what you are trying to achieve?

Who offers their unconditional support, shares your highs and lows, attaches no blame, asks only that you do your best?

The track cycling team have exemplified the science and business of winning.  Their planning organisation, innovation and execution are a testament to teamwork.  But even they can’t engineer the support they received over this last week.  Those levels of support have to be earned.  The crowd has to see the passion and determination, as well as the skill and ability.

Who is your sporting hero? What is it that gives them that level of recognition in your eyes?  What are the qualities that take them beyond technical ability?

How can you take those qualities into the workplace?

What do you need to do to harness the power of the 12^th man?

Dream Your Way to Success

 Mohammad Ali was probably the greatest boxer ever, but did you know that his pre-fight predictions were uncannily accurate, somewhere around 80% in fact.  How did he do it?

In an interview, Ali described his preparations.  Ali would research the opponent and devise a strategy to beat him.  Once the strategy had been developed, Ali would go to bed and dream the fight exactly to his strategy.  Once he had ‘seen’ the fight play out in his dream, he’d go to the gym and train for the dream.

That’s a powerful story and one that demonstrates the importance of having a clearly articulated dream or vision. Such was the strength of Ali’s vision that more often than not ,it came to fruition exactly as he had seen and planned it.

Along with his powerful vision, Ali was a very positive thinker.  Everything he said, thought and did affirmed his deeply held beliefs.  He was once quoted as saying “It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”

Dream yourself to the success your heart desires.

A Climate for Change

Over the last 60 years or so carbon dioxide (CO²) levels have risen more sharply and consistently than at any time over the previous 650,000 years.  Whilst there are many reasons for the rise and fall of CO² levels, there is only one factor that can account for the current and unprecedented rise in CO² in the atmosphere – human activity.

250 years from its inception, the industrial revolution continues to spread across the globe and when you see the abject poverty that millions of people live in, who can deny them the opportunities that industrialisation creates?  But is an 18^th century business mode, one that we should be still using today?

Energy drives industry and we are still a carbon based society.  Everything we do takes resources out, increasing CO² levels.  Whilst politicians and scientists argue there is no doubt that without action, the whole world faces a man-made, natural catastrophe.

The more advanced industrial nations have got better and taking less out but what is being put back?

I am reminded of the book “The Man Who Planted Trees” by Jean Giono.  The story is about a shepherd named Elzéard Bouffier who commits his entire life to cultivating a forest to restore the natural beauty of a ruined landscape.  Over a 40-year period Elzéard achieves his goal through planting by hand thousand of acorns, beech and other nuts one by one.  He receives no reward or recognition other than the personal satisfaction of seeing the forest grow.

Organisational Leaders are constantly looking for greater outputs.  They want more engagement, raised productivity. They want more out, but what are they putting back? 

At a recent networking event, the symbiotic relationship between trees and people was highlighted to me.  Trees absorb CO² and give out oxygen – the air that we breathe.  As we breathe, we give back CO² to the trees.  

The same is true for effective leadership.  It’s vital to give as well as to receive.  So what can you do today to give something back? Seeking out a balance between giving and receiving brings harmony, increases your value and the worth of those people with whom you have a brief or a long-term relationship.