The Shark and the Goldfish Positive Ways to Thrive During Waves of Change by Jon Gordon_5 ppt

Necessary Condition Thinking 75Surface the Hidden Assumptions Let’s examine one of the examples: “We must reduce our costs in order to get higher profits.” In the 1980s and the first hal

Trang 1

Necessary Condition Thinking 75

Surface the Hidden Assumptions

Let’s examine one of the examples: “We must reduce our costs in order

to get higher profits.” In the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, thisseemed to be the cardinal rule of industry In fact, many of you mighteven say that it is still the main focus of your companies The most sought-after executives were those who “trimmed the fat” by “right sizing” theircompanies into lower cost structures Many of these companies learnedthe hard way that this approach led to very short-term improvements inprofitability, and long-term deterioration of morale, productivity, andprofitability Let’s see if we can uncover the key assumptions that led us

to believe that this was the way to improve the profitability of ourenterprises, and then challenge ourselves to find alternatives to thismethodology We do this by asking questions that point directly to theassumptions that lurk beneath the arrow

• Why do we believe that we must reduce our costs in order to gethigher profits?

• Why do we believe that we cannot get higher profits unless wereduce our costs?

Our answers to these questions uncover some of the key assumptionsthat were used to form the necessary condition relationship between costreduction and higher profits In this example, the assumptions might include:

Figure 5.7

SL1019ch05frame Page 75 Friday, June 23, 2006 9:31 AM

Trang 2

76 Thinking for a Change

• Because our ability to sell more volume is limited (In order toachieve higher profits, we must reduce our costs, because our ability

to sell more volume is limited.)

• Because our products are already selling at the maximum pricethe market will pay (The reason we must reduce our costs in order

to achieve higher profits is that our products are already selling atthe maximum price the market will pay.)

• Because there is a tremendous amount of fat in our system thatcannot be put to productive use (We must reduce our costs inorder to achieve higher profits because there is a tremendousamount of fat in our system that cannot be put to productive use.)When assumptions are visible, we can test both their validity andnecessity

• Are we really selling our products and/or services for the highestprice possible? Perhaps there are market segments that would place

a higher value on what we sell Have we looked for such a segment?

• Is our market really limited? Have we ignored capabilities of ourorganization that would be of value in the marketplace?

• Do we really have too much fat in the system? If we trimmed theso-called fat, will we limit our ability to be flexible and responsive

to our markets?

Brainstorm Alternatives

Now that we have uncovered and challenged several assumptions, wemay find one or more to be invalid We may also find one or moreassumptions that we’d like to cause to become invalid In any case, wehave a tremendous opportunity The previous boundaries within which

we attempted to achieve our objective have been broadened, and we arefree to explore new solutions The next step, therefore, is to brainstormalternative solutions We refer to these alternatives as “injections.” If we

“inject” the alternative solution into the environment, the necessary dition would no longer be required in order to achieve the objective.Finding injections means asking more questions:

con-• How can we achieve our objective without the necessary conditionattached to it?

• What, if we implemented it, would enable us to render the keyassumptions invalid or irrelevant?

Trang 3

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need

ideas in order to conceive

Nicolas Malegranche, 1674

Let’s try this approach in our quest to unlock the paradigm of costreduction as a necessary condition to higher profits List as many ideasyou can

• How can we achieve higher profits without reducing costs?

• What, if we implemented it, would enable us to sell more volume?Unlimited volume?

• What, if we implemented it, would enable us to sell our productsfor higher prices?

• What, if we implemented it, would result in a highly productivesystem? What, if we implemented it, would transform the fat intomuscle?

As you can see, focusing on the assumptions — what are they andhow might we make them invalid — provides us with a key to opportu-nities to which we were previously blinded

The Reference Environment Method: Getting Unstuck

What if you are unable to surface the assumptions? What do you do ifyour only answers to the questions designed to uncover the assumptionsare “Well, because!” or “I don’t know,” or “Because that’s just the way it is!”What do you do when you find yourself coming up with the sameold solutions (that haven’t worked yet) as you attempt to brainstor malternatives? What if you can’t generate any alternatives?

Use your life experience and imagination to come up with analogies,

or reference environments Try to think of an environment, or a situation,

in which the objective or something like it exists and the necessarycondition does not Once you have that environment or situation in mind,ask yourself the following questions:

• Why can that environment have the objective without the necessarycondition?

• Why doesn’t that environment need the necessary condition toachieve the objective?

Trang 4

Use your answers to surface the assumptions of the necessary conditionrelationship that you are trying to understand and challenge

• What does this tell me about the necessary condition relationshipthat you are examining?

• What assumptions are missing from that environment that arepresent in yours?

• What does that environment have that your environment doesn’t?

Let’s try this method with another of our examples

Let’s see if we can generate new ways to become

phys-ically fit without the hard work of including exercise in

our fitness regimen Can you imagine any environment

in which something analogous to physical fitness is

achieved without exercising? Here are some that I’ve

imagined:

An animal, such as a deer , in the for est I don’t

picture a deer working out on a treadmill, or grimacing

while lifting weights, yet most deer I’ve seen seem pretty

fit They are lean, fast, and graceful Why? What’s different

about the deer’s environment?

• Most deer don’t have access to junk food The forest provides themwith the nutrition they need

• Deer seem to be preprogrammed to wander around and run inthe forest Thus, they get the exercise they need simply by livingand doing what they’re naturally programmed to do

Asking, what do these differences tell me about exercise as a necessarycondition to fitness? led me to the following: I need to exercise in order

to become physically fit because my life-style does not naturally providethe exercise my body needs Understanding this assumption helps mebrainstorm more alternatives, such as these that some of my students havesuggested:

• Get a job that incorporates physical activity, such as postal carrier,construction worker, or bicycle courier

• Join the military

• Move to the forest

Figure 5.8

Trang 5

Subliminal lear ning Thinking about animals that don’t need to work

at exercising in order to be fit led me to thinking in general about achievinggoals without working at them This led me to the subject of subliminallearning — the ads say that you can simply play the tape while you’re

language while they sleep, and I can’t become physically fit if I don’texercise?

• Because you must be awake to exercise your body

• Because you can’t sleep while you’re exercising your body

The assumption that this train of thought led to was, We must exercise

in order to become physically fit, because exercise is the only way in which

we can put our bodies to work Utilizing the subliminal learning analogy,students have offered the following injections:

• Develop a machine that exercises you while you sleep

• Develop a medication to stimulate the nervous system and muscles

so the brain will think the body is exercising

• While exercising, read or listen to something so mentally engrossingthat you’re almost unaware of the fact that you’re exercising

• Meditate while exercising, so that you’re not aware that you’reexercising

The purpose of the examples is not to get into a debate about thepracticality of any of the ideas, or even the exactness (or lack thereof) ofthe analogies Rather, I share them to illustrate this method as a meansfor opening up your thinking and unlocking some of your paradigms Iwant to encourage you to be bold and creative as you use this approach

My experience is that out of bold, creative ideas, come quite practicaland usable ideas Just as professional photographers often shoot manyrolls of film in order to get just a few great shots, it is helpful for us togenerate lots and lots of ideas, in order to find the one or the few that

we actually want to implement Have fun with it! Allow yourself to go

on the thinking journey to generate as many ideas as you possibly can.Don’t block yourself from writing down an idea just because it seemsimpractical Writing it down frees you to generate and write down thenext one, and the one after that, and the one after that

Trang 6

Skill Builder: For the Next Couple of Weeks, Be Aware

of Your Use of Necessary Condition Thinking

• Choose one instance each day (from your conversations, from

your newspaper, TV news program, or other sources), anddiagram it as you’ve seen in this chapter

• Write down the key assumptions that form the bond between

the objective and its perceived necessary condition

• Brainstorm ideas which, if implemented, would negate the key

assumptions Be creative!

• If you hesitate to write down an idea because it’s crazy or

because it’s not implementable, write it down anyway And thenlook for the assumptions that caused you to believe so!

Trang 7

Part Two

Trang 8

Georges Bernanos, 1955This afternoon, I observed a group of middle managers talk about changingthe culture of their plant They began their discussion with a decision tohold a series of small group meetings with the employees and then began

to plan the agenda for those meetings “We’ll start by letting them knowwhat the productivity trend is, and that the plant won’t last if the trendcontinues… We’ll let them know that labor is the largest component of OE(operating expense), and show them how much of the OE is overtime We’lltell them that we don’t have time to let the changes just happen little bylittle, that we need to make it happen now…” I found their discussionfascinating, because I knew that they had not spent any time before thissession to clarify what the plant’s culture was going to be once it waschanged They had not spent any time determining the specific changes

in behavior they expected to see (their own as well as the employees’).And, even though they were deciding what they were going to say inthese small group meetings, they had not spent any time contemplatingwhat they expected any of these small groups of people to do once themeetings were over At this point, what do you think were the odds thatthe small group meetings would bring their plant closer to a changed,improved culture?

Trang 9

The group’s facilitator finally spoke up Suggesting that they wereputting the cart before the horse, he challenged them to clarify what theywanted to happen as a result of these meetings before working on thecontent and flow of the meetings They spent the rest of their time doingjust that Tomorrow, they will use the transition tree to create the agendafor the small group meetings that will be but one part of the process tocreate and sustain improvement in both the plant’s culture and productivity

We live in a very action-oriented society We don’t feel productive unlesswe’re doing something Our plans, agendas, outlines, and process flowdiagrams are filled with “do” items First we’ll do this, then we’ll do that, andthen we’ll do item number three on the list What’s missing from this equation?

We forget that for every action there’s at least one reaction We forget that,when we have a plan that contains steps that must be performed in a specificsequence, there are reasons for sequencing the steps In other words, eachstep is (or at least should be) an action that is meant to create a reaction —

a new condition Let’s call this new condition C1 (Figure 6.1) By combiningcondition C1 with the next planned action, yet another new condition (C2)

is created Of course, condition C2 is meant to bring us closer to the objective

of the plan Until condition C1 exists in reality, that next step is a waste oftime We typically go wrong in two aspects We don’t verbalize the objectives

of our actions (let alone our action plans), and we don’t clarify what weexpect to happen from each step Either of these mistakes will give us prettygood odds of either not achieving our objectives, or of taking more timethan necessary to achieve our objectives

The Process

The transition tree is a sufficient cause diagram used for creating actionplans The transition tree contains four types of entities, as illustrated in

Figure 6.2:

A The injections are actions These are the specific things that are

to be done in order to carry out the plan

B Entities that exist in the present reality are always entries to thetree The current situation should be taken into account whendeveloping any action plan

C Entities that will exist in the future are the results (effects) of thecombination of implementing the actions and the presence of thecurrent and future conditions that are captured with it by and-connectors

D The objectives of the action plan are achieved as a result of theconditions created by implementing the actions

Trang 10

Transition Tree 85

Envision a manufacturing process Every manufacturing process startswith at least one material that has been purchased from an outside source.Every step of the way, that material goes through transitions — a resource(person and/or machine) does something specific to that material, chang-ing it to a state that is closer to its finished form From that state, the nextresource performs a specific step in the process that will change it a bitmore, moving it still closer to its finished form And so on until thecompany has a finished, salable product You will use the transition tree

to design the process that will create the necessary transitions from theconditions present in the current reality to the different conditions youdesire at some point in the future With the transition tree, you will definethe specific steps (actions) that will transform your current reality (rawmaterials) into a specific future reality (objectives) You will also verbalize

Figure 6.1

Trang 11

what the transitions themselves will be — the intermediate states that will

be created along the way

The transition tree is the tool to use when you need to create an action

or implementation plan, and you already have some ideas in mind relative

to what you’re actually going to do The objective is something you know

is within reach You may even have already determined some of theactions that you are going to take in order to reach the objective, yet it’snot a “no brainer” objective You sense that it would be really beneficial

to sit down and do some planning so you can be confi dent that byexecuting the plan, the objectives will be achieved in a way that doesn’tcreate unwanted side effects (Figure 6.3) Of course, there are times when

Figure 6.2

Trang 12

Transition Tree 87

we are assigned a task or have an objective that we want or need toachieve and we simply have no clue on just what to do to achieve it Insuch cases, use the prerequisite tree (see Chapter 10) before the transitiontree The prerequisite tree will guide you through verbalizing and address-ing the obstacles to reaching your objective and turn what seems almostimpossible into a series of reachable milestones

Some situations in which I use transition trees are when I am

• Designing the flow of a speech, seminar, or workshop

• Planning a meeting with a client or a prospect

• Preplanning a meeting, telephone call, or conversation for tionally charged issues

emo-• Deciding on the specific actions that will be taken to implementstrategic plans

The general steps of the transition tree process are:

1 Establish the scope of the transition tree

2 Using sufficient cause thinking, link the initial action to the tives

objec-3 Seek and block undesirable consequences

4 Implement the plan!

After I go through each of these steps in detail, I will provide sometransition tree examples Do you have any plans that you need to makeright now? Of those, are there any you should think through before you

Figure 6.3

Định dạng
Số trang	25
Dung lượng	698,21 KB