What’s the point of this, why bother …. Oh, It’s going to be the hard way!
There is a hard way and there’s an easy way, though the easy way may take years to master. For example an eight stone black belt can easily throw someone twice as big. She knows the leverage point at which to push with modest force and once sixteen stone starts moving with gravity it moves very quickly. She trained and practiced for years to become a black belt; it’s unlikely a novice will achieve the same result.
Similarly leaders and managers can deliver huge business results providing they push the right levers.
In living systems for example a team, an organisation or a joint venture there is a hierarchy of levers. At the lower end the elements then the interactions and then purpose at the top.
The elements include the players, actors, people. Change a few people round and it doesn’t really change the system; your brightest star may light things up for a while though in my experience the system will soon pull them down to the common level. There is an exception to this, read on.
The next level up in terms of systems levers are the interactions between the elements. Interactions include: rules of the game, policies and procedures, how people are recruited, developed and retained, the relationships and conversations, the social norms. Modifying interactions can have a significant effect on the system.
At the top end of this simple systems hierarchy is purpose or goals or vision. A change in purpose changes the system profoundly. Let me try and explain this with an example:
A football team has eleven players on the pitch. Change a few players and it might make a difference to a match though less so over the season. A substitute may score with their first kick and win the game though over a few years of say five tournaments I suspect the difference will be marginal. In fact you can change all eleven players and it’s still a football team, the system has not changed. Any football fan will tell of a highly rated star player, who cost a fortune in transfer fees and wages, who fell short of expectations then got transferred to another team (system) and recaptured their mojo.
If we then look at the interactions at the football club; the culture, how players are recruited and developed from an early age, the academy, the way they are managed, the policies or rules of the club, the team ethic, relationships and conversations on an off the pitch – changes at this level can significantly impact the system and its results. I am thinking Barcelona Total Football. Though even at this level it’s still football.
At the purpose level if you change the goal from winning the Champions League to winning the Cricket World Cup you totally change the system. Everything changes, the players, the pitch the facilities, how the players are recruited and developed, the rules of the game. Everything.
A change in purpose changes the system profoundly; this is the leader’s most powerful lever for change. If people in the system, team or organisation are wondering “what’s the point of this” or worse “why bother” then it’s going to be the hard way. To what extent are you applying your levers?
Years ago I was involved in an organisational change programme where some middle managers were thought to be blocking progress (a seemingly common dynamic). The leader got all middle managers in a room, over one hundred people, and explained how the old way compared to a game of football. ‘We are now playing the game of cricket’, he went on to say, ‘and can you imagine how disruptive to our game of cricket it is to have footballers running back and forth across the wicket. It’s ridiculous. Football is a fine and honourable game and if you really want to continue playing football then join a football team, this is now a cricket team’. The Company had changed its purpose and that had changed everything.
There is an exception to this hierarchy. The leader of the team or the Board of directors of an organisation are ‘elements’ (lowest system level) though they can change the purpose (highest level) so have huge leverage. That is where I work as that is where I can make the biggest difference – helping leaders get clear on purpose and then moving that purpose outwards so that everyone and everything is ‘on’ purpose. That’s the easy way, ‘on purpose’, though the changes to interactions and elements can take years so be wary of novices promising quick turnarounds. Also becoming a systems black belt takes years to master, twenty years in and I think I have started.