That Very Old Fashioned Idea - 'Truth'

I came across a story today (in an AFCEA Intelligence blog) that relates to an abiding interest: Language, Context, and Meaning. Here it is:

A biker is riding by the zoo, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents. 

The biker jumps off his bike, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.

A reporter has seen the whole scene, and addressing the biker, says - Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life.

- Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger, and acted as I felt right.

- Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist, you know, and tomorrow's papers will have this on the first page. What motorcycle do you ride?

- A Harley Davidson. The journalist leaves.

The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on first page:

BIKER GANG MEMBER ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH

The headline is ‘accurate’, but totally misleading.  Accurate and misleading! The problem is with the representation (or rather misrepresentation) of the data.  Context is lacking, but knowing the context of the event was a zoo wouldn’t really create a more truthful picture. Looking at the wider context of modern journalism and the newspaper industry might give us a little more insight, but not much. 

The problem is that we are all at the mercy of those who create the representations. This is why my skepticism antenna go on full alert when I hear a term like evidence-based. You’re going to have to tell me a whole lot more about why the data was collected, who funded the project, and how the data was gathered. You might need to let me see and explore the data for myself without your contextual spin.

The root of the problem is that we live in the Age of Propaganda. Spin is not limited to politicians, but is rife throughout our culture. Misrepresentation and hype are not the sole province of PR, advertising, marketing, and pseudoscientists, but are endemic in human relationships. In so many of our business – and even personal - communications we have adopted the language of ‘strategy’, ‘tactic’, and ‘technique’.

And so, in our collaborations let’s not just be ‘accurate’, but truthful (if that sounds old fashioned to you, we should talk). Let’s not waste time and effort in playing language games. Let’s challenge doublespeak (“language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words” - source – Wikipedia), hyperbole, manipulative phrasing, important sounding – but meaningless – jargon, bias, euphemisms, and manipulatively emotional allusions that give us credibility by association – whether deserved or not.

The story about the biker could be read as a joke, and as such, it’s a pretty good one. It could also be read as an object lesson for us all. Am I being naïve? Sure, but naivety can open up spaces in which we can freshen up our thinking and conversations; spaces that experience would ignore because they are ‘unrealistic’.

     

One final word: When I did a web search about the joke, it was interesting how different groups had shape-shifted it to fit their own agenda. Instead of just a biker, I saw “republican biker’, a ‘right wing biker’, an Israeli, a US Marine, and Canadian soldier!  

Fascinating Look Into The Connected World

Cisco published the results of a survey back in late September which has only just bubbled up to the surface of my world - The Cisco Connected World Technology Report. Those surveyed were 1,141 college students (age 18-24) and 1,412 employees (age 21-29) from 14 countries: US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, India, China, Japan, and Australia.

Getting Information and News
The largest proportion of college students (45%) say their laptop is their primary way of getting information and news. This is followed by the desktop at 22%. For college students in Spain the Smartphone is the primary source (36%) compared with 10% for the total survey population.

The largest proportion of employees (36%) say that their laptop is their primary way of getting information and news. This is followed by the desktop at 26%. More than 1 in 4 of employees in France get what they want from TV. Only 4% in China use TV as their primary source, compared with 22% in both Japan and Russia.

The Internet as a Necessity
55% of college students say that they could not live without the Internet - it is an integral part of their lives. That number rises to 71% in China, and falls to 30% in Russia.

62% of employees say that they could not live without the Internet.  That rises to 78% in China, and falls to 38% in Russia. The US (73%), Brazil (75%), and the UK (73%) are also high scorers.

Importance of the Internet
32% of college students say that the Internet is as important to them as water, food, air, and shelter. That number rises to 81% if you add students who say that it is not as important, but pretty close. 65% of college students in Brazil, and 64% in China say that the Internet is as important to them as water, etc. Only 13% of French students take that view.

32% of employees also indicate that the Internet is as important to them as water, etc. This rises to 69% for Chinese employees, and falls to 6% for those in the UK.

Most Important Technology in Daily Life
46% of college students say their laptop is most important to them in daily life. That rises to 66% in China, and falls to 24% in Italy. More than one-third of college students in Spain (40%) and the UK (36%) say that their Smartphone is most important in their daily life.

37% of employees say their laptop is most important to them in daily life. This rises to 51% in China and India, and falls to 15% in Italy (the desktop is more important to students and employees in Italy). In Australia (42%), the US (37%), and the UK (31%), the Smartphone is seen as more important in daily life than the laptop.

Internet vs. Social Activities
College students: What is more important in daily life, the Internet (40%), going out with friends/partying (25%), dating (13%), or music (10%)? Clearly, the Internet. France is the only country where college students place a greater importance on dating (54%) than the Internet (7%).

Internet vs. a Car
64% of college students prefer to have access to the Internet than a car. That number rises to 85% in China and 84% in Japan. In Russia (63%), the US (54%), France (53%) most students would prefer access to a car.

Facebook vs. Social Activities
39% of college students say that spending time with friends is most important on a typical day. 27% of college students, however,  put keeping up to date on Facebook above dating (10%), listening to music (10%), and going to a party (2%). College students in Spain (54%), Brazil (50%), India (45%), and China (41%) give most importance to keeping up to date on Facebook.

Social Media Distractions
43% of college students admit to being distracted or interrupted by social media, IM, phone calls, or a desire to check Facebook 3 or more times in a typical hour. That rises to 54% in Italy and falls to 12% in Japan.

For old baby boomers like me, some of the results can seem mysterious and strange. Some can give rise to concern (e.g. the levels of distraction and putting checking Facebook over dating a real human being), but I'm not going there. It's nearly Christmas, and I'm looking forward to playing with a new iPad and Smartphone (maybe). I'll start worrying about the future of the human race again next year.

Reading 'Steve Jobs'

I wasn’t going to post about Steve Jobs, but one of the things I did over the Thanksgiving holiday was to read SJ’s biography written by Walter Isaacson.  I doubted it could maintain my interest for very long – especially as I was reading it as an e-book which is not my preferred way, and because I never really liked the Job's persona – but it did. It was a compelling read.  Jobs was a complex person who could drive people to fury and despair while also being wonderfully energizing and inspirational. The lives of complex people always make for good reading –at least for me - because they take you onto the battlefield where internal, interpersonal, and external forces engage in a dramatic fight for dominance. 

There is no doubt that Jobs was an arrogant, highly-charged, controlling, and narcissistic perfectionist who could be abusive, even cruel.  According to Isaacson, “The nasty edge to his personality was not necessary.  It hindered him more than it helped him,” although he did get people to do things they never dreamed possible.  Through the force of his will and playing by his own rules (what others called his ‘reality distortion field’) he would make things happen – not by his own ability to invent, but by the attractiveness of his vision,  and his mastery “at putting together ideas, art, and technology in ways that invented the future.”  Here are a few of my takeaways from the book:

Collaboration:  Job’s didn’t organize Apple into semi-autonomous divisions – a mistake made by companies like Sony, AOL, and Time-Warner.  Instead, he closely controlled his teams and “pushed them to work as one cohesive and flexible company" with one profit-and-loss bottom line for them all. He was most fond of face-to-face meetings where ideas could be tossed around, but he was always in ultimate control. His product launches were well known for their presentations, but in everyday meetings, he hated Powerpoint slides.  His argument was that if you needed slides in a meeting, you didn’t know what you were talking about.   

Perfectionism:  SJs adoptive father had taught him the importance of craftsmanship; to drive for perfection even with the look of parts unseen by users e.g., the circuit board.  Jobs not only brought a powerful and engaging vision to the company, but also an obsessive eye for detail. One of his early mentors, Mark Makkula, had persuaded him that people do judge a book by its cover and so he gave a laser-sharp focus to the user experience.  Colors, materials, shapes, and textures needed to convey creativity and professionalism. He might become best known for his contributions to product design.     
Product: Jobs was a product man.  He said many times that he wasn’t interested in profit and wealth per se (although he could be somewhat contradictory on that score).  Profits were good because they enabled you to develop more outstanding products.  He accused John Scully (who was recruited by Jobs in 1983 to be CEO) of putting profit before product.  Macintosh lost to Microsoft,” he said “because Scully insisted on milking all the profits he could get rather than improving the product and making it affordable.” 

Intuition: “I never rely on market research,” said Jobs.  What was important was an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer.  His talent was for imaginative leaps rather than  extensive information gathering and mental processing.  He didn’t believe in giving customers what they wanted.  What resonated with him was Henry Ford’s view that if had asked customer’s what kind of car they wanted they would have said a faster horse.

Simplicity: He had been a student of Zen Buddhism, and he loved the Zen gardens in Kyoto.  Zen minimalism led him to aggressively cut out anything from a product that was non-essential, even though this could be extremely challenging for Apple engineers.  But the simplicity he was after came from understanding and conquering the complexities, not ignoring them.  Simplicity is very hard work.

Breadth: Jobs wasn’t narrow in his interests. Religion, art, music, design and technology all played a part in shaping his vision. He said, “I like living at the intersection of humanities and technology.“

Focus: When he returned to Apple – 10 years after being pushed out – Jobs cut 70% of Apple products.  In one meeting he drew a box on a whiteboard and divided it into four quadrants.  He labeled the two columns Consumer and Pro, and the two rows Desktop and Portable.   He wanted one great product in each quadrant, nothing more.

Continuous Innovation:  Jobs was not a person to stand still. He admired artists like Bob Dylan and Picasso who were always re-inventing themselves.  One of his rules was never be afraid to cannibalize yourself. Tim Cook (current Apple CEO) said, “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will . . . So even though an iPhone might cannibalize sales of an iPod, or an iPad might cannibalize sales of a laptop, that did not deter him.”

Integration & Unity: Jobs wanted a tightly packaged of hardware and software.  Rather than creating an open system, he decided on a closed system that would provide a seamless and simple user experience.  It was a risk, but it paid off:

“Even with a small market share, Apple was able to maintain a huge profit margin while other computer makers were commoditized. In 2010, for example, Apple had just 7% of the revenue in the personal computer market, but it grabbed 35% of the operating profit.

More significantly, in the early 2000s Job’s insistence on end-to-end integration gave Apple an advantage in developing a digital hub strategy, which allowed your desktop computer to link seamlessly with a variety of portable devices.”

Today, when it seems that a decision can’t be made without a metric, I admire Steve Jobs for his imagination, courage and tenacity.  In other words, his daring leadership.

With whom am I working, please? Person or process?

Many commentators talk about the shocking levels of worker disengagement.  According to the results of one Gallup survey published earlier this year only about 27 percent of workers worldwide are satisfied with their jobs.

There are, of course, many factors contributing to this phenomenon, but I want to highlight something that has been on my mind for some time.  I am concerned that our work cultures (and our wider cultures, for that matter) have become technique and process-obsessed. When I go to a restaurant, I am very aware that I am being absorbed into a well crafted process for greeting, sitting, and serving me.  When a salesperson calls me, I can hear the clanking of the process he or she is following, and the techniques most likely to be employed to get me to ‘Yes’.   I am fully aware of the value business processes bring to efficient operations, but when technique and process become all-pervasive in our interactions with one another we’re in trouble.

Let me back up. By process, I mean a sequence of steps/procedures taken to achieve a defined result.  By technique, I mean a specific method, routine or skill for accomplishing a task.  Technique and process are closely interlinked – a technique can be part of a process or a technique can be made up of processes. From now on, I’ll talk about processes and techniques as PTs.

The problem with PTs in our interactions is how reductive and alienating they can be. PTs are all about ‘ends and means’ so that in a PT pervasive culture we can easily feel that we are being manipulated as a means to someone else’s end. You don’t interact with me as a person, but as a means to your end.  I only become of value if I help you meet your goal. I seek to be known as an individual and relate to you; you seek to apply calculated, routine, and predictable procedures – devoid of context - that you think will lead to your desired outcome.  

In a PT world, understanding of complexity is a distant second to application of pre-programmed thinking and actions. These types of interactions are, of course, alienating and dehumanizing, and unfortunately management has become synonymous with PTs.  To try and escape engaging with real people, we have only succeeded in destroying emotional engagement and breeding cynicism.

In managing complexity and getting the very best from our people, we are increasingly dependent on collaborative relationships.  Process and technique will always be important to getting work done, but let’s take a more sophisticated and mindful view about where they add value and where they undermine its creation.

Get the Collaboration Passion!

John Abele co-founded Boston Scientific in 1979.  When I was thinking about passion for collaboration, he was the guy who came to mind. This video is of a talk he gave to TEDMED back in 2009. A wonderful way to spend 18 minutes. If you've seen it before, watch it again! Vimeo.com/12049487

A Culture of Appreciation: From' What' to 'Why' Questions

I recently picked up a report called Organizing Work for Innovation and Growth: Experiences and Efforts in Ten Companies. It was published by VINNOVA (the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems) in October 2009. The focus question for the report is: How do companies work in practice to create organizational conditions that promote innovation, competitiveness, and growth? 

One of the chapters is called Creating cultures of appreciation: Organizational innovation through employee well-being by Tony Ghaye and Ewa Gunnarsson.  One of the key messages in the chapter is that to create a culture of innovation we need to ask appreciative (positive) questions. In the view of the authors, we shouldn’t be surprised if questions beginning with ‘Why’ tend to lead to deficit-based (fault-finding) conversations, and by changing the conversations we can change the actions.  ‘Why’ questions tend to be associated with critical thinking which can be detrimental to innovation. ‘What’ questions tend to be more appreciative (and reflective) in nature. Both critical and appreciative questions are needed, of course, but the weight has tended to be on the critical side.

Ghaye and Gunnarsson give 8 examples of the kinds of questions that can promote a culture of appreciation:

1.       What is giving you most joy and satisfaction in your work right now?

2.       What were you doing recently, in managing your time that enabled you to use your strengths?

3.       What actions were you taking when you were successful at prioritizing those things that you are really good at doing?

4.       What was happening when you found yourself thinking, that really worked well?

5.       What did someone say, or do, to make you feel that your professional experience was greatly appreciated?

6.       What did you do that prompted a colleague to say, ’thank you. It’s nice to be respected’?

7.       What were you doing that prompted a colleague to say, ‘It’s great working here. It’s nice to be valued’?

8.       What did you do that enabled a colleague to say, ‘That’s different. I hadn’t thought of that.’

The questions we ask are instrumental in focusing our attention onto assets or deficits

These particular questions are mostly geared to individual appreciation and reflection, but their true value would emerge when they promote appreciation and reflection in a team.

Will Digital Natives Be Technologically Literate?

Yesterday, a headline on one of my iGoogle pages caught my attention: Main Street to Silicon Valley: We don’t even understand PDFs. The post was written by Jessica Stillman on gigaom.com, November 2, 2011. 

The post highlights the results of a poll commissioned by the software firm Nitro coinciding with release of their latest Pro PDF reader. It found that 45.7 percent of a representative sample of Americans are either only somewhat familiar with PDfs or are not familiar with them at all.  According to Nitro, this means, “Don’t assume, train.”  Nitro was shocked by the result, and so was I.  Are we as technologically sophisticated as we like to think?

We all live in information bubbles, and in this very complex and pay-attention-to-me world we only have the capacity to live our lives in a relatively small number of bubbles without being overwhelmed.  Through my work in virtual teaming and collaboration, one of the core information bubbles that forms part of my reality is the technology information bubble, but that is not the case for everyone.  Unfortunately, many of us assume that everyone else shares our bubbles (especially if we are passionate about them, as most tech-enthusiasts are).

This got me thinking about the question: Would greater knowledge about PDFs have made the 45.7 percent more technologically literate? And, what is technological literacy, anyway?

One of the assumptions I encounter a lot is that when the new generation enters the corporate arena there will be few - if any - issues with using the latest and greatest technologies to get work done   (technology use for digital natives is as natural as breathing air).  You just have to look around you to see youngsters everywhere texting and social networking.  My four year old grandchild – who can’t read yet – has no problem downloading TV shows to my iPad.  And so, the evidence supporting technological literacy is right before our eyes; or is it?

It seems to me that being skilled in the functionalities of new technologies (e.g., texting or instant messaging, downloading or sharing) or understanding what a PDF is doesn’t actually mean that much.  The critical question is: Does this this person have the competencies to employ the power of appropriate technologies – independently and with others – to create, access, analyze, process and communicate information and ideas – for improved problem-solving, decision making, and innovating?  

If we just think of technological literacy in terms of skill in the use of tools and functionalities or understanding of technological lingo we’re missing the bigger picture and potential.  Given my view of technological literacy, I’m not convinced digital natives will be as far along as some people might think.