Values guide us

It is endlessly fascinating to me how people and organizations decide to live their values--and I include myself here. How we choose to express ourselves through our work matters. We make a difference in how we choose to show up, whether we like it or not.

We are guided by our values. In the classes I teach, the talks I give, and the clients I work with--to a person--most people do not know their values...and I mean really know them. I will extend that notion to organizations as well. They come up with values, but rarely incorporate them in their ongoing decision making.

IKEA remains in my #PantheonOfInterestingCompanies - a category of posts I'll add to over time - because of how they reckon with their values. The hold tension between both poles - waste and conservation - much like us individuals. And they try, hard (imo), to do the right thing. What attracts me most is their pursuit of elegant problem-solving resulting in learning that is valued and integrated into the company's culture and eventually its products.

Every year, Ikea Group and INGKA Holding (the holding company that controls the majority of Ikea’s retail stores) publishes a research report on how people live in and relate to a specific aspect of their homes. Since 2014 it’s dealt with morning routines, food and kitchens, and disagreements at home. This year, it takes on a more existential tone–dealing with loneliness, belonging, and the effects of living in cities.

Two years ago, the company asked thousands of people about where they felt “most at home.” At the time, 20% of subjects said it wasn’t the space in which they lived. Two years later, they asked again, and found the number has risen by 15% among people who live in cities. In other words, 35% of people who live in cities don’t feel at home in their house or apartment.

“Almost half of Americans (45%) go to their car to have a private moment to themselves,” the company reports in a new survey of 22,000 people in 22 countries."

There is a huge amount of research and theory going back to the early 1900s on changing definitions of home. But what’s fascinating about Ikea’s report is that Ikea, simply by being the largest furniture retailer on earth, has a role to play here. The corporation has more than 400 stores in 25 countries. It reported 936 million visits to its stores last year. One favorite faux-factoid, which, obviously, can’t be verified, claims that 1 in 10 Europeans is conceived on an Ikea bed. We are increasingly renters rather than owners, which makes inexpensive and disposable furniture a necessity. ...the idea of “home” has become less permanent and more transient than ever, and, as a result, we’ve stopped thinking of our homes as “self-expression.”

Full article here.

#ProblemSolving #creativity #sustainability #home #innovation #Values #ethics #learning

Learning Craft

What does it mean to learn Craft?

My career has been focused on two things: building products that would present new user paradigms and cultivating data-driven systems to determine what to do with those products. In the 90s and early 00s, building products was an electric experience because we were reaching and interacting with the first online audience—ever. The internet enabled unprecedented creativity in rethinking and redefining communication, productivity, personal information management, marketing and advertising, and community (to name a few things) as we knew it. Then, we were tasked with figuring out how to drive revenue from those ideas. Data was needed, and a lot of it. Attitudes clashed about innovation, ethics, and basic economics. What information could we ethically maintain and utilize in our systems and for what purpose? How should the “user” be “managed” during a “transaction?” What were the core elements of loyalty, and role would that play? Eventually, the market stabilized. A few products business models rose to the surface. Businesses grew more predictably. Creativity started to decline. Risk taking was discouraged in favor of efficiency, productivity, and scale. The the first conversations of artificial intelligence and machine learning were just getting off the ground.

It was in that climate I decided to move in another direction, earning degrees in applied behavioral science and psychology to gain more perspective on intuitive knowledge and subjective intelligence. The innovative, creative thinking that had laid the foundation for e-commerce, personalization, and communication had begun to spark some ideas about innate human knowledge (subjective intelligence), and the kinds of decision making we engage particularly when we are in under pressure. I wasn’t finding AI to be that creative. Leaders had developed such a heavy dependency on “data-driven decisions” that they stopped relying on other ways of knowing. They denied their own experience and that of others. They ignored insights from other disciplines. When developing core corporate strategy leaders too often asked, “What does the data say?” instead of synthesizing analysis with a grounded value system and seasoned perspective. If the quality of our thinking was potentially declining in favor of being told what to do by machine output—what was our state of mind when we were engineering these solutions? or making big decisions about what these machines would do? My fear was: if AI develops the abilities beyond humans (e.g., playing chess, surgery, law, etc.) how would humans maintain an adequate partnership?

These questions both excited and terrified me. And if I’m being honest, they still do. We get offended at the thought of losing jobs to machines, yet we have an ever-increasing reliance on them.

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Where are the people living and working with Craft?

As each wave of technology passes over us, we go through phases of emotions. There was an infectious enthusiasm that took over when the iPhone, iPod and iPad launched. iPhone adoption was unprecedented and the iPod changed how we listen to music almost over night. There is a lot of anxiety and deep fear about technology replacing humans at work. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is quickly and seamlessly becoming involved in every aspect of our lives. It assists us in our schedules, helps us through our days, finds us a mate, keeps track of us while driving, remembers our fitness levels, and it answers questions as our partner in getting things done. It has shown up as a servant (AskJeeves) and now it shows up as a virtual assistant (typically female) keeping track of our behaviors. Artificial intelligence is the GPS for our lives. This slow “invasion” of our human experience shapes our expectations of what role technology could and should be in our lives.

As data advances more and more into our lives and decision making, however, it’s important to remind ourselves that we have the capability to chart our own course. AI (for now) is there to enhance our abilities and experiences. This knowledge can, quite literally, confirm we are on the right path. If we change our direction, our GPS can respond to us with an alternate route, another series of choices. “I’ll remember the grocery list; I’ll get this ready for you; You like these items, maybe you’ll like these recipes; I’ll make this reservation; I see you’re out of this item, I’ll buy this thing. No problem, you changed your mind; I’ll send it back, no worries.” Slowly, we are training an other, more efficient version of our presence to anticipate and help us manage our life.

People who live and work with Craft—engage in the struggle for individual agency in a world telling us to fit in. They use their work as a medium for personal expression and they know something that top analytic minds still need to learn: how to solve the problems when no predetermined plan, no template, and no quick fix will save the day. They cultivate, inhabit, and maintain a state of mind capable of holding paradoxical tensions:

• Subjective reasoning: the ability to arrive at a conclusion based on intuition and/or experience. Craftsman are analytical, and they also reason.

• Flexible purposefulness: The ability to have an over-arching view and remain flexible enough to allow for adaptations as the experience unfolds.

• Cognitive emotions: The ability to be involved emotionally to one’s work, and also very thoughtful and perceptive.

Craftsmen take risk. Their very character influences the outcome of their work. They display a level of insight in their respective mediums due to a deep fascination with the idiosyncrasies and nuances of their medium that borders obsession. They subject their humanity to the market’s scrutiny, demanding exponential growth and scale as a primary value. While craftsmen are very adaptable in terms of their improvisational problem solving, they are unwavering in their values and ethical boundaries.

It is here we can benefit from learning to think with Craft. We must learn to understand ourselves on a fundamental level. We need profound insight, not just annual feedback. We need work that is worthwhile, not a mere transaction. When we lack true alignment with the work we were meant to do, we live our lives 6-degrees off course. We ameliorate versus resolve problems, failing to gain and therefore missing the opportunity for the kind of proximity needed true, creative solutions.

Craftsmanship is a set of principles that apply to the modern world—to us as potential craftsmen. We can learn about ourselves through our approach to life and work. I’ve experienced this myself, and I’ve witnessed it in my clients.

It is my hope that my work about living and working with Craft can help us navigate this period of change, where the pull for ever more data requires us to dig deeper into ourselves for knowledge and insight, giving us new ways to think about the problems we are confronting. These themes remind us that there are multiple forms of knowledge innate in each of us—but we must mine it and synthesize it in order to more deeply understand it.

NEXT

Mental Models: The Power of Reframing Problems Through Inversion

An approach to problem-solving that starts with imagining worst-case scenarios – and then using those scenarios as the basis for developing solutions.

How might this apply to great teams and cultures?
One of the methods used in creative ideation sessions is reverse thinking. Instead of following the ‘normal, logical’ direction of a challenge, you turn it around (or an important element in the challenge) and look for opposite ideas.

How might this apply to great products?
For instance,  when designing a chair, you can list the assumptions of a chair (it needs to have legs)  and think its opposite (no legs?!) to trigger additional ideas: what if chairs were hanging from the ceiling? or be built as part of the table? or….

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OVERVIEW

The concept of Inversion is often interpreted in two different ways, both are valuable to consider.

The first is the idea of considering the opposite. In particular, envision the negative things that could happen in life. The Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus regularly conducted an exercise known as a premeditatio malorum, which translates to a “premeditation of evils.”

The second is the idea of working with the end in mind. German mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi was famous for some work on elliptic functions that eludes me. Jacobi often solved difficult problems by following a simple strategy: “man muss immer umkehren” (or loosely translated, “invert, always invert.”).

Both approaches look at the end result uniquely. Considering an opposite asks you to hold your ideal result loosely, and to consider the opposite of your desired result. Working with the end in mind assumes you are keeping the same goal but approaching the solution from a different direction, by backing into it.

Very few problems can be solved directly. The most wicked, intractable problems must be dealt with indirectly. As such, the Inversion model is one of the most powerful mental models in our toolkit as human beings.

If you are always inverting a problem, like the way you play with a Rubik’s cube, you experience them from multiple perspectives. Multiple vantage points challenges your certainty. It can shake your beliefs.

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EXAMPLES

Let’s start with the positive-negative notion. When I coach clients, I get many people at major points of transition in their lives and careers. Some are facing big promotions, others are considering leaving their jobs for a second chapter.

Often I’ll ask: what is it you want? Seems like a simple enough question, but it’s really hard to answer. Specifically, what do you really want to happen?

Many people have a very hard time imagining the life, career, or outcome we want because we’ve been conditioned for such long periods of our life (at home, in school, at work) to think a certain way or to embrace a certain idea of success.

However, when asked to consider what would guarantee our unhappiness…and few are at a lack of words.

Let’s move on to the positive-negative notion. I teach an EMBA class called Managing Innovation. Most people take the class to learn how to improve and manage innovation in their organizations.

The course is guided by the central question: What can be done to foster innovation? The answers are pretty standard: engage small teams, enable autonomy, consider the tension of deliberate and emergent strategies, etc. And, by the way, implementing any one of those things in a culture that doesn’t naturally gravitate toward those qualities is really hard. 

But if we invert the problem to: How do we avoid becoming traditional or unoriginal? we consider all the things we can do to discourage innovation: reduce feedback loops, increase top-down decision making, enable homogeneous thinking, foster resistance to risk. Generally speaking, we would want to avoid these things, right?

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Application

Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? If we were to follow our own council we would have to take our own advice: “Just stop doing these things and do less of these other things instead.” Behavior change of any kind is no small thing.

Moving indirectly gains more ground than directly. 

Thinking forward/backward or negative/positive about a problem results in some action, you can also think of adding vs. subtracting.

Despite our best intentions, thinking forward increases the odds that you’ll cause harm (through unintended consequences). For example, drugs designed eradicate one disease might also have adverse effects, become harmful if overused, or cause antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

Thinking backward, call it subtractive avoidance or inversion, you are less likely to cause harm. Inverting the problem won’t always solve it, but it will help you avoid trouble and thinking through some of the undesirable and unintended consequences. You can think of it as the avoiding negativity filter. It’s not sexy but it’s a very easy way to improve.

So what does this mean in practice?

Thinking about what you don’t want isn’t necessarily inspiring, but it does bring clarity and can aid decision making to a problem or question that brings nothing but overwhelm. Many of the smartest people in history have done this naturally.

Inversion helps improve understanding of the problem on which you are focused. By using this method, you are forcing yourself toward doing the work of having an opinion that considers multiple perspectives.

The key takeaway: Spend less time trying seeking the right answer and more time avoiding the wrong answer. Avoiding loss is an easier starting point than seeking gain.

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Inversion is part of the network of mental models for good humaning. It contributes to creative thinking and problem solving. Alongside technical skills, people who can master a range of subjective skills are better able to influence, deal with ambiguity, bounce back from setbacks, think creatively, and manage themselves successfully in their pursuit of mastery. Learn more about the 25 Skills.