Lockdown learning: #7 Trial and error

 

A short series of 2 minute observations…

What have you got up to in the ‘free’ time that you have had in lockdown because you are not seeing people, going shopping, travelling or eating or drinking out? Maybe you have used it do some DIY, go cycling, do jigsaws or crafts or maybe you have indulged in baking.

In our house baking has taken the biscuit (!) as activity of choice and there has been a lot of experimentation.  We have seen different breads, blueberry & almond, and banana cakes, cookies and soft amaretti biscuits amongst other things. The latter particularly caught my attention.

These soft Amaretti are a mixture of ground almond, sugar, liqueur, salt and egg whites .They are mixed and then baked at a low temperature to produce a fantastic taste and texture.

Yet how did anyone come up with this recipe?

At first, it must have seemed an odd thing to do with valuable ingredients. Why mix pulverised nuts with just the egg white and then both salt and sugar? Then you decide to heat it up – for too long or with too much heat. When a black mess or a bucket of goo appears you then must throw it away. Your friends will think you are slightly mad, especially when, having done this,… you repeat the process, ruin more good food and create more mess.

It is daft. It provokes the same sort of mirth that  Bob Newhart generated in his sketch about  Walter Raleigh telephoning Queen Elizabeth I to explain the value of tobacco or the ridicule that must have provoked Thomas Edison’s famous quote that, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”.

and yet… without someone trying to do something new and failing – again and again  – we would never have got soft Amaretti. It needed  curiosity,  creativity, an understanding of  the ingredients and then persistence (bucket loads) …until it worked.

From the outside this wasteful trial and error looks foolish but it is essential. All technical progress happens like this.

We can use recipes (like businesses use strategy) – to derisk things. We can systematically track and test to improve productivity and enhance understanding. But fundamentally progress belongs to those who are prepared to try it.

From outside, it looks like a waste of money and time – especially if it takes many repeated attempts. But without it there is no progress. Indeed you go backwards when others do and undermine your product or methods.

Covid-19 has encouraged many people try new things – at work, at home, with friends, for others, for fun, to help or to grow.  From it trial and error becomes test and learn.

If you haven’t, I am sure there is still opportunity.

If you have, the challenge is to make best use of the learning in the future…

Lockdown learning: #6 Present presence

A short series of 2 minute observations…

I know that we have had great weather this spring. After a wet winter we have had weeks with lots of sunshine. I have spent more time in the garden than I have for many years and it shows (!)  but perhaps nowhere more than in the plants in the pots by the back door.

We planted pansies at the start of the lockdown and these have brought huge amounts of colour every week. We have done better with them than we ever normally do and it is not just the weather, it is the way that they get deadheaded every other day… something which in a normal year never happens. They are being nurtured three times a week. It shows – in a marvellous array of colour that clearly will carry on as long as we carry on our snipping.

We couldn’t do this without being here all the time and having the space in the day to do it.  I am sure that we are not alone in doing well with plants.

Having worked as a consultant for a large part of my working life I am much more used to changing projects, clients and locations than being in one place. I like the variety and challenge. Yet this spring has been an opportunity to enjoy the impact of small, consistent, tending action in helping to generate this spectacular display and  I have learned afresh the value of this.

Impact can be achieved by the decisive big steps but often the most lasting results are the result of persistent and constant small steps that maintain, adapt or support. This mirrors bringing up children (quantity vs quality time),  the benefits of proper maintenance of your database,  shelf stock checks, regular blogging (oops!), daily clearing your inbox, not taking shortcuts when entering data, leading team effectively and many other tasks.

Our presence makes big impact – not by doing big things but by repeatedly and consistently doing ‘small’ things effectively.  The end results can be spectacular even when there is no major move or grand plan – just a  simple action done well.

We can only do this by being there, paying attention and following a discipline.

Growth and flourishing comes from the repetition of this sequence in many areas, especially the operational, relational, natural and nutritional. Full benefit and value cannot be obtained from these without this.

It is too easy to lose sight of this in our multi-tasking, variety driven, interrupted lives. We are often not present even when we are there. We miss the internal and external benefits of having a singular focus on something.

Attention, frequency and consistency of focus leads to growth,  flourishing, and a certain pleasure.

Hence why my pansies are doing better now than ever before.

 

Lockdown learning: #5 Activity, output & outcomes

A short series of 2 minute observations…

I have a very easy lockdown situation tainted with only some frustrations. Shopping for food takes a lot longer (queues  and multiple trips to find missing items); there is more cooking  and drink-making than normal and zoom fatigue sometimes seems a high price to keep up with people.. to name a few.

I find it easy to keep busy but I have noticed that my activity is not as productive. I am sure that most organisations are also finding this – with the need to social distance; new and sometimes more complicated logistics;  additional staff being needed for tasks like door control or equipment cleaning and in many cases fewer customers. Generally things are more difficult.

Output has suffered.

Sometimes it can be even worse. A friend of ours is a travel agent. They are fantastically busy, they are producing lots of outputs but the outcome is negative for the business – a lot less money for the business as they secure refunds for their customers. In their case output is still high but…

Outcomes have suffered.

This linkage, activity~output~outcome is very important both for people and organisations and  yet is infrequently evaluated.

If you are like me, too often you simply take it for granted. We get carried away and assume that there is a stable relationship between activity and outcome.  Yet our lockdown brings this relationship into sharp relief. In ‘normal’ times, we often carry on with an activity without really looking at how much and what quality of output it is producing and certainly the dimensions and value of the outcome. Yet this full linkage is fundamental for genuine productivity.

Those people and organisations that can work out how best to make this linkage work under the current conditions are the ones who will prosper.

Ironically it is the non-profits who explicitly look at this when hunting for a better grasp of the impact of what they are doing. Yet it is just as valuable for others, both individuals and organisations. Too many common proxies for outcomes (profit, sales or orders in companies; jobs, facebook friends or net wealth for individuals) are actually poor substitutes for desired outcomes and doing the actual analysis.

Thinking what are really good measures and keeping track of them is very valuable.

I’d like to say I am on top of this… but nailing those outcomes is especially difficult. Deciding what they are is tough enough – it is even tougher to decide what they should be.

Lockdown learning: #4 Activity isn’t purpose


A short series of 2 minute observations…

I can get easily bored and so quite a full diary is great – things to do and goals to aim for. So in Lockdown week ten I should be a bit frustrated.

I am definitely missing many of the things that I normally do and people that I see but the enforced stop has brought benefits and not just the absence of traffic outside the house.

It is giving me time to practice reflecting.

Although I did a lot of this as a student – often with others, late into the night  – as a solo pursuit it is a skill that I seem to have developed with age. I find that it drives me to ask the question ‘why?’ –  I challenge my assumptions and it turns everyday experiences sometimes into fascinating events.

With my diary suffering a whiteout I have been reflecting on whether my pre-lockdown busyness was a good thing…

… and too often I get busy because I like activities. They are fun, they feed relationships, create valuable practical outcomes. Sometimes they also reward with the experience of ‘flow’ ( “…being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.” (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi))

I get all this (except for the playing jazz bit!) but the outcome, on reflection, is that it is too easy to get absorbed in activity with low value. It distracts from other concerns. but too often it squeezes the important what and how out and buries them under the mundane. Real priorities get too little time.

It needs a predisposition to screen things and be more focused on what is really worthwhile… but  what are the good things to be done?

This hinges on my purposes in life. Busy can cloud purpose unless we are very clear about it. Yet ‘worthwhile’ activities are only those that advance that purpose both in what they are and how they are done. A tough test.

It is purpose that creates the meaning not the activity. The tendency is to think that ‘flow’ and an actioned ‘to do’ list  deliver value but I don’t think so . A look at my diary suggests more focus is needed.

Especially so, if like me , you don’t think purpose can be created but only discovered. Maybe time to look at the three moral domains of the Greeks – truth, goodness and beauty rather than fun, distraction and absorption.

Lockdown learning: #3 Impossible possibilities

 

 

 

 

A short series of 2 minute observations…

I am amazed when I reflect on how much we have changed in only eight weeks and all that we are now doing differently …and digitally.

GP’s are performing diagnoses over the telephone, cards are replacing cash and home delivery is reaching lots of new households (especially the oldest ones); photographs have become proof-of-delivery for parcels or tyres; home working as a norm for many white collar workers; much more teaching online; even studying 17m medical records in situ to analyse Covid-19 risks.

I bet that many organisations are completely rethinking their digital strategy and some have done it already: my PT has a completely new and integrated platform for her virtual classes – promoting, booking, billing and executing – in less than two months!

There have been amazing changes.

No doubt, some will disappear when the necessity goes away but many will stay and continue to develop in this new direction as people now see them as actually a better way of doing things.

Now I like to engage people in the process of change, allowing involvement and choice to produce commitment. This approach boosts understanding of the issue and the way forward; it helps people feel they own a bit of it and it helps to make implementation easier and more effective.  It works.

Yet I doubt that the jump we have seen this Spring would have happened if any normal, organisational process of change had been followed. It would have got stuck. People would have said not only that we don’t want to do it but that it is impossible.  But our perspective has changed. Suddenly what was previously unnecessary and illogical looks logical, and the impossible, well, possible and perhaps even better!

But surely there is a Catch-22 here.

Our perspective has changed but only after we have made the change. A merely logical process would not have produced those outcomes that we now see as better.

When we think of innovation we often talk about releasing the constraints and freewheeling to find new ways forward. Yet, as we all recognise from sitting in brainstorming meetings, actually too often our minds get stuck and such approaches don’t unlock them.

It reminds me of the story of a business manager at Tektronix who couldn’t persuade the marketing and technical staff to work more closely together to produce new products. So, without consulting anyone, one weekend he physically moved all of them into one, open plan office. After initial protests and the passage of a couple of months… they started working together well and then would not have altered the arrangement.

This batch of innovation has come  because Covid-19 is a constraint and as such has forced a change in our viewing position, making us look in a new way.

So maybe, when facing a challenge or problem, we should make time to seek to identify ‘constraints’ and their impact to find ourselves  a new viewing position. Time to dust down our  six thing hats, synectics, creativity templates etc – so that by limiting our perspective, we can see things in new ways rather than stay stuck with what we see now.

Maybe only these can help us to break a Catch-22 without a Covid-19.