Snake oil and silver bullets — reflecting on the latest greatest fix…
I’m sharing my story for four reasons:
i) to help me reflect and learn
ii) to share my lessons to help you
iii) to connect and learn alongside people who want to solve problems more effectively though increased knowledge and enhanced critical thinking
iv) to be honest and open about my experiences, good and bad (to lead by example to cultivate a culture of learning)
I was struggling recently with which new Agile approach, coaching technique, story on innovative organisation design etc… that I should us to drive my education. If I’m honest, I was questioning what value I would get from yet more education. And when does it end? Or when will I have a solution?
I’ve learnt a lot over the past 18 months or so and usually have a new book, article or presentation which my most recent research and insights have uncovered. I make it purposeful by reflecting on my work experiences to drive my journey of discovery rather than research for its own sake.
I am a member of a team whose remit is to support the organisation in ‘landing’ the new ways of working. We try to be role models by ‘trying out’ new ways of working and also use the data from observing the efforts of teams in the wider organisation to ‘test and learn’ and improve our approach.
So I’ve been reflecting on why I might be struggling and what I can learn from this.
Reflecting on why I didn’t know which direction to take, I was first reminded of the danger of silver bullets. Silver bullets are a short-hand for reminding us that there is no perfect solution that solves all problems.
This was a term that I learned early on in my career — it referred to the dangers when buying package solutions from IT vendors which promised to be the answer to your dreams.
I’m going to provide a few examples of what I’ve been exploring recently to bring my ‘struggle’ to life a little.
I recently came across the Xscale Alliance that a colleague of mine mentioned. This appears to be a response to the challenge of how we scale Agile for large organisations and bridges the gap from the Agile Manifesto. Making Agile work across a large organisation is a certainly a very real problem and one that many people are exploring. Jonathan Smart has some valuable insights which he shares on this topic. Here’s one example if you’d like to read further.
I was also developing an interest in approaches to organisation design that explicitly utilise the talents of the members of the organisation to help the organisation in achieving its purpose. This is an area which seems intuitively more powerful. Helping people find how to apply their strengths in pursuit of organisational goals and removing the politics (providing psychological safety) has got to be a win-win.
I came across the Agile onion recently which illustrates this very effectively:
(Simon Powers share his helpful observations on this here)
It is my opinion that the focus on mindset will be more effective and moves the debate away from Agile as an, increasingly poorly defined, end in itself.
(as an aside, there is not an Agile mindset from a psychology perspective. Thanks to Justin Ukrainski who did the research to prove this point. However, it is still a useful concept!)
I attended a presentation recently when Andrew Holm shared his story on how he ‘fixed’ his failing engineering company where competition was always able undercut the company’s costs. He had taken a journey where he had tried all the traditional fixes (e.g. Lean). However, all of these approaches had a short-lived impact so he had come up with a radically new approach (you can read more about this here). The main message I took away was that you need to design an ecosystem that recognizes people’s natural behaviours and ensured this would drive organisation success. I’ll apologize in advance for providing a VERY brief summary of a rather complex but profound story.
(this very brief paper is a good introduction to this idea).
So where should I go next?
I was conflicted in what I should pursue next and why.
Having spent a long time exploring, I wanted to finally reach a destination; I wanted some rules that I could follow which would apply universally. As I mentioned earlier, I enjoy researching for a specific purpose so was feeling that I needed to have found an answer, rather than ongoing open-ended research.
I was falling into the trap of seeking a silver bullet even though I knew there was no such thing.
What was my answer?
Sadly, I haven’t worked out how to resolve this dilemma. However, I have taken advantage of this pause to consolidate my thinking and I will use this to guide me as I progress.
There is no silver bullet but there are some more enduring truths that are more powerful than all of the techniques and tools. The Agile Onion is a useful reminder of this and points me back in the direction of mindset.
Principles and values are also more enduring so it is useful to establish and develop these as a strong foundation. These are more likely to provide some universal truths than a new set of tools or techniques. I joined a professional network a few months ago. There values which are (most importantly) reflected in the behaviours of their leadership continue to be the reason that I work with them. The values of HiveMind can be found a few pages down from the top. These are summarised nicely with a quote from Epitectus, the Greek philosopher:
The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best
(I will openly admit that I hadn’t heard of Epitectus until I heards this quote!)
This leads me nicely to my next plans -I’m going to take a breather and read some philosophy.
My colleague, Afi, recently suggested that I would appreciate some philosophy and suggested reading Plato’s Republic.
I have no background in philosophy so it’s brand new territory but I’m trying it out to see if it resonates with me.
My only other advice to myself is to continue learning and finding direction from being ‘in the work’. I will continue to try out new ideas, reflect and learn.
Deming is one of the greatest business philosophers and he recognized the value of Plan, Do, Check, Act. And this has been taken forward as good Agile practice of testing and learning or operating quick feedback loops. This is one principle which has real power. Maybe it is the silver bullet ;-)
Has this helped you?
Do you have similar struggles? How have you resolved them and do you have any advice for me or other readers?
If so, please add comments. Or you can join the conversation on LinkedIn.
