The question you should be asking is, “Can I do one small thing tomorrow to make things a little bit better?” And the answer is almost always yes.
Daniel Pink
Category: Learning
Predictions: “in about 15 years” | “within the next 10 years” | “25 years from now”
Imagine that the year is 2032.
What do you foresee?
What dramatic change has occurred?
How has your daily life change?
You are almost certainly wrong. We like to think that we can see the next 10, 15 even 20 years, but the reality is that we are very poor at it.
In 1955 we predicted: “Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years.” Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
As I child I would watch Tomorrow’s World and marvel at the impending future that it outlined. Here’s one from 1969 imagining the Office of the Future (there are two articles in this clip, the Office of the Future is in the first couple of minutes):
Even then we imagined robots doing our bidding even if it was one that looked more like a teasmaid than R2D2.
It’s interesting to see how many of these functional predictions happened, but in completely different ways – look out for the huge camera that fulfils the purpose many people use a mobile phone camera for today.
This wasn’t really “tomorrow’s” world being shown many of the functions shown that have been revolutionised took another 20 to 30 years to become mainstream. Many of the functions still aren’t mainstream and i’m not sure we would want them if they were.
How about this one outlining “Cassette Navigation” from 1971:
The use of GPS based navigation systems is second nature to most of us, but that was only possible when the GPS network was completed in 1994 and even then it didn’t become mainstream until the mid-2000’s when the likes of Garmin, TomTom and Magellan created the market. Whilst GPS based SatNav systems do a functionally similar thing to the Cassette Navigation system their implementation is completely different and I doubt that anyone seeing the Cassette Navigation system imagined a future SatNav system. Again, this wasn’t “tomorrow’s” world, this was a problem that wouldn’t be solved for another 25 years.
In 2010 Jerry Zucker said: “It’s Moore’s Law, everything will be obsolete in 10 years – I’ll be obsolete in 10 years!” in reference to the iPad. It’s nearly the end of 2017 and I don’t see the iPad, or Jerry Zucker, being obsolete in the next couple of years.
Whilst we are terrible at predicting the longer term future it is fortunately for us most things progress along predictable pathways most of the time.
Within IT we are currently telling ourselves that we are living in a world of unparalleled and rapidly expanding automation, but we’ve been in that would since the invention of the Spinning Jenny in 1764, and arguably for millennia before that. What we are seeing now is the next step in the pathway that has been running for over 250 years.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to imagine a future, or even try to predict it, we just need to be careful how much trust we place in our ability to predict.
I suspect that science fiction writers and film makers have done a better job than many of us deeply embedded in today’s technology. Minority Reports, which was 15 years old in 2017, was apparently a quite a good predictor of a number of technologies. I’m still waiting for my flying car though.
“I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.” Albert Einstein
Office Speak: Industrialise (Industrialisation)
Sometimes words take on a meaning within a subculture that is different to the meaning in the general population.
Industrialise has a widely used meaning.
I live in the UK which is an industrialised nation, arguable it’s a post industrial country, but either way the meaning is the same and it’s the dictionary meaning:
Industrialise: develop industries in (a country or region) on a wide scale.
This meaning of the word is widely used and understandable.
To Industrialise is the process of creating Industry, the noun from which we get the verb is industry.
That’s not what it means in my Office Speak subculture 🙂
In Office Speak Industrialise is used for the process of taking something that is being developed through the various organisational processes that will allow it to be built in a repeatable way.
We need to industrialise the process for shoe lace tying.
We need to industrialise the way that we support light-sabre maker XI.
In my particular sector this use of the word feels like an overstatement. When you think about repeat-ability in the context of a word like industrialisation your perhaps imagining run-rates like those of a car manufacturer or a mobile phone manufacturer – hundreds of thousands and millions of units. In our context you’d be completely wrong. I work in a segment of the IT business where repeating something a few thousands times would be regarded as a large run, doing something in the tens of thousands being massive.
So why do we use the word? I’m not sure I know, but I suspect it’s got something to do with one of the ways in which we use the word industrial. When we talk about something having an industrial design we tend to mean that it is robust, sturdy, reliable, those kind of a things. In that context industrial is the noun that we then turn into a verb to create the word industrialise, by which I think we mean something like:
Industrialise: To make robust, sturdy, reliable.
Repeat-ability is another, but smaller, part of the meaning.
I’ve always been fascinated by the genesis of words and their meaning in subcultures. Many businesses have a subculture of words that take on specific meanings within that organisation. In my own particular organisations we have existing words that take on new meanings, like industrialise, we have specific words that take on meanings for which there is already a commonly used word, we even have completely new words with new meanings. That’s the joy of communicating, you never quite know what you are saying.
“Money and time spent for training will be ineffective unless…
Money and time spent for training will be ineffective unless inhibitors to good work are removed.
W. Edwards Deming
“Wow, when did I become so impatient?”
The other day I was listening to a podcast in my car via my iPhone connected to the Bluetooth enabled in-car entertainment system.
I quite regularly listen to podcasts and audiobooks. It’s great way of filling the time with valuable input.
This particular podcast was very interesting, the interviewer was talking with a woman about some of the struggles and delights in her life. Most people would regard this woman as highly successful and yet by pealing back a few of the layers it was clear that not everything in her life had been plain sailing despite the outward appearance.
The interviewer wrapped up with a helpful end of podcast summary and then is happen – silence.
I looked down at my in-car entertainment system screen to see that the podcast file still had another 3 minutes to run, but the content had finished!
“That’s fine” I thought to myself “I can press the next-track button on my steering-wheel.” So I did, but nothing happened!
This occasionally happens in my car. It’s normally with the podcast application, but also happens with other. My iPhone is quite happily playing, but the controls aren’t working.
I looked back at my screen 2:50.
Like many modern entertainment systems there are different ways of achieving the same thing, so I tried those in the vain attempt that one of them would recognise my desire to move on to the next podcast.
I looked back at my screen 2:40.
I was on the motorway by now and the thought of reaching over for my iPhone flashed through my mind. I knew that if I could just press in the right place on the screen it would take me to the next podcast.
It was about now that I started coming to my senses.
I looked back at my screen 2:35.
Time to start talking to myself:
“What am I thinking? What priority am I putting on these few minutes?
“Why does the silence bother me so much? Another podcast will be along in just a short while, relax and enjoy this precious moment. Look at all of those people desperate to speed past you on this road so that they can get there just a few moments earlier.”
I looked back at my screen 2:33.
“Why would you even think of reaching for your phone? It’s such a dangerous thing to do, imagine if you’d been in an accident just because you wanted to get to the next podcast. Would the risk be worth the reward? Of course not.
“Wow, when did become so impatient?”
I looked back at my screen 2:31.
I reached over and turned off my in-car entertainment system.
Concept of the Day: The Tragedy of the Commons
I like concepts that have a history and this one dates back to 1833 and an economist called William Forster Lloyd.
The concept refers to a hypothetical situation where unregulated grazing on common land could create a situation where an individual herder, acting in their own interest and within their rights, could result in overgrazing. The overgrazing would then result in a tragedy for the group of people who use that common.
(In the UK Common Land, the commons, is land that is available for use by the Commoners for a particular activity. Livestock grazing was, and still is, a regular use for common land. The origins of common land go back to medieval time and thus some land has been grazed by Commoners for hundreds of years.)
Over the years the commons has become a metaphor for many situations where a resource is shared.
A great technology example of the tragedy of the commons is email SPAM. The actions of a few people significantly degrades the value of the email utility for the majority and results in a cost to everyone who uses it.
In the UK there’s been a lot of news coverage recently about the overuse of antibiotics, particularly people going in to their doctors and demanding medication even though they are of no value to their condition. The actions of these individuals has contributed to the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria which is highly likely to result in the common value of antibiotics being destroyed for the majority.
There are so many business situations where the tragedy applies. I’ve seen many teams fail to be effective because an individual was optimising their activities to the detriment of the group.
Put simply, the tragedy of the commons applies to those situations where people’s personal short term interests are at odds with the longer-term interests of the group. I’m sure you can think of many, many more examples?
Concept of the Day: Fundamental Attribution Error
I’ve written a few times about our many biases, this is another one along the same lines. This one is slightly more complicated to understand, but once you do I hope it will challenge how you interact with people and how you respond to situations.
Imagine you are sat in an update meeting and you are going through the list of actions from the previous meeting with the assembled team. You get to an action that John is supposed to have progressed and you ask him how he has got. John looks at you surprised, “Was that my action?” He says. You continue to go down the list until you come to another action that John is supposed to have completed. This time John looks a bit embarrassed and says that he hasn’t had chance to look at it whilst writing something into his notebook. The very next action is another one for John, again, no progress, this time he looks down and taps something into his smartphone.
How do you feel about John? Why do you think he hasn’t made progress on his actions?
Your response to John probably demonstrates fundamental attribution error.
Let me explain.
Attribution is what we do when we project a perspective or characteristic onto someone. Put simply, there are two classes of attribution.
Dispositional Attribution is the class of attributes that make up someones character, the internal characteristics; they are lazy, they are disorganised, they have no focus, they are arrogant.
Situation Attribution is the class of attributes that relate to the situation, the external characteristics; they are in too busy, they are having a bad day, they aren’t well.
Then there’s the Fundamental Error part, this is where our biases come in.
It turns out that when attributing a perspective or characteristic onto someone else we tend towards Dispositional Attribution. In our scenario we are most likely to characterise John as lazy or disorganised. We then have a tendency to use that attribution for future interactions with people – “There’s no point in giving actions to John because he’s too disorganised.”
Here’s the really interesting part though. When we assess our own performance in a situation we tend towards Situational Attribution. Now imagine you are John; what’s your reason for not doing you actions? It won’t be because you are lazy, it won’t be because you are disorganised. Your reasoning for your own behaviour will be because you didn’t get a good night’s sleep, or because you are too busy, or even because you are just having a bad day.
The way that we judge others is radically different, even opposed, to how we judge ourselves.
The chances are that neither Dispositional or Situational factors will be wholly responsible most of the time.
So next time you are in a situation and find yourself assessing people’s motives, attributing, it might help to ask yourself which side of the spectrum you are on. Perhaps there are situational factors that you hadn’t thought of?
Here’s a video that’s probably clearer than my ramblings:
“If everything is important, then…
“If everything is important, then nothing is.”
Patrick Lencioni
Office Speak: Skate to where the puck is going to be
Imagine that you are sitting in your team meeting and you are in mid flow pontificating about your favourite subject, but you have a problem, you know that at the end of this sentence you have nothing left to say. There’s a real danger that you are going to fall off the cliff and into a dark void of silence. You need something to say and you need it soon. Fortunately you have a stock of cliches ready for this very occasion. Which one will you use? Which of the many are you going to leap to? Are any of them appropriate to this meeting? You flash through the memory cards in your head and settle on an old favourite:
“We need to skate to where the puck is going to be.”
And with that you conclude.
The team nod in agreement as your timely words, everyone apart from the young graduate who has just joined the team. She looks at you blankly:
“I’m sorry, but what does that mean.”
You open your mouth to explain and then realise that you don’t have a sensible explanation. You’ve used this term so many times before, but you’ve never really thought about what it really means, you can’t even remember where you first heard it. You’ve heard it used so many times that it’s become embedded in your psyche.
The reality is, this cliche is a quote:
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.
As you may have already guessed, it’s an ice hockey reference. Wayne Gretsky was apparently quite good at it, not that I would know, I’m trusting Wikipedia.
The basic idea of the quote is that if you are going to intercept a puck your only hope is to go to where it is going to be by the time you get there. There’s no point in trying to intercept it by going to where it has already been.
The term is regularly used in the technology arena to describe the plans of organisations and their latest innovations. Steve Jobs used the term to describe the approach at Apple:
“There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been. And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple.”
Quotes from Steve Jobs tend to hit management-speak over-use in no time at all. Every manager dreams of being Steve Jobs after all.
How often the term is relevant in day-to-day business is debatable. There are times when it is very appropriate, but all too often it’s just being used as a filler and not got any authentic meaning.
The blog was brought to you by the word “puck” and the letter “w”.
Concept of the Day: Campbell’s Law
Campbell’s law is defined by the following quote from Donald T. Campbell:
“The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”
In other words: the higher the stakes associated with a measure, the more likely it is that the measure is corrupt and in so doing that the system being measured becomes corrupt.
If you put high stakes against a school exam the more likely it is that people teach to get a high pass mark and in so doing teaching become corrupt.
If you put high stakes against a business measure the more likely it is that people manage to the measure, or even falsify the measure, and in so doing corrupt the business.
There are numerous places where you can see this being worked out historically; the more important question, though, is where is this happening today?
What effect does it have if you stop people’s benefits if they don’t fill out a defined number of job applications?
What effect does it have if you pay a traffic warden on the basis of the number of fines they manage to issue?
What effect does it have if you fine rail operators for late trains?
What effect does it have if you pay doctors on the basis of the number of appointments they complete?
I’m sure there are many, many more.
This little video does a really nice job of explaining Campbell’s Law:
Office Speak: Sunsetting
The other day I received an email along the lines of:
On the first of the month after next we will be sunsetting the whatamI4 system.
I knew what it meant, but it struck me as a strange phrase to use.
I suppose I ought to explain what it meant for those of you who don’t understand the meaning. I’ll replace the word sunsetting with something else to see if that helps:
On the first of the month after next we will be turning off the whatamI4 system
That’s right sunsetting = turning off.
Sunsetting with 10 characters = turning off with 10 characters.
Sunsetting with 3 syllables = turning off with 3 syllables.
I suppose that’s my question, why not just say that it’s being turned off.
Returning to the original sentence, why not say:
On the first of the month after next whatamI4 will be turned off.
There you go, that’s shorter and simpler than either of the previous ones.
Or even:
whatamI4 will be turned off on the first of the month after next
I prefer this because it gives a much better call to action.
I’m not objecting to sunsetting it just feels like redundant complexity.
Perhaps I’m not being entirely fair though. There is a picture being drawn here and there is a difference between turning off and sunsetting. The term sunsetting is trying to communicate that the light is drawing in on a the application and that it’s time to move over to something else. Turning something off happens quite quickly, even instantaneously; sunsetting may happen over an extended period.
It’s not a word I hear people use in normal life though – it’s office speak.
Axiom: 4-to-1 – Compliment-to-Criticism Ratio
Is there a correct compliment to criticism ratio?
I’ve carried around the ratio of 4-to-1 for a long while now, but never really investigated it’s origins, or whether it has any basis in fact.
It’s an axiom and hence feels about right, but is it too simplistic? Why 4-to-1? So off I went to do a bit of research.
It turns out that the axiom has an interesting history. I’m going to keep it short, Wikipedia has a longer chronology.
Our brief history begins in 2005 when Marcial Losada and Barbara Fredrickson publish a paper in American Psychologist called “Positive effect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing” in which they outlined that the ratio of positive to negative affect was exactly 2.9013.
So not 4-to-1, ah well.
Barbara Fredrickson went on to write a book in 2009 titled: Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life. In the book she wrote:
“Just as zero degrees Celsius is a special number in thermodynamics, the 3-to-1 positivity ratio may well be a magic number in human psychology.”
The idea of a positivity ratio became popular and entered mainstream thinking, taking on names like the Losada ratio, the Losada line and the Critical Positivity Ratio. I’m not sure when I picked up the idea of a positivity ratio, but I suspect it would be around the 2009, 2010 time-frame.
Then in 2013 Nick Brown, a graduate student, became suspicious of the maths in the study. Working with Alan Sokai and Harris Friedman, Nick Brown reanalysed the data in the original study and found “numerous fundamental conceptual and mathematical errors”. This the claimed ratio completely invalid leading to a formal retraction of the mathematical elements of the study including the critical positivity ratio of 2.9013-to-1.
So not only did I get the wrong ratio, it turns out that the ratio is mathematically invalid anyway.
This is where axioms get interesting, scientifically the idea of a 3-to-1 ratio of positivity is rubbish, but there’s something about it that keeps the idea living on. Instinctively we feel that it takes a bucket load more positivity to counteract a small amount of negativity. We know that we hear a criticism much louder than a compliment.
We only have to think about it a little while, though, to realise that a ratio is a massive over simplification of far more sophisticated interactions. As we interact with people, one criticism can be nothing like another one. Imagine the difference between a criticism from a friend and one from a stranger, they are very different. The same is also true for compliments. Thinking on a different dimension, we know that a whole mountain of compliments about triviality is not going to outweigh a character impacting criticism.
Perhaps, worst of all, though, is no feedback at all?
Graham Chastney 