Korzybsky's picture of the Structural Differential

Someone posted a link to the good (IMO) explanation of Korzybski’s tool “structural differential”.

Yet, when I see the example given at the end of the page, I can’t help but find it a bit short (though right): I think it could have been improved by noting that what Emily Observed (O) and Described (D) may not be (and probably isn’t) what the driver that cut her off Observed, Described and inferred. We can hypothesize that:

• he didn’t consciously noticed him cutting her,
• or inferred that she could live with the cut off because his hurry was Inferred as more important than her Inferred driving conditions,
• or inferred that the space between Emily and the car in front was enough for him and that moving in wasn’t really a cut off from his own past driving experience
• etc.

Can’t say it better than in this article from Management Innovation eXchange, though, so you’d better read it straight!

Forget Empowerment—Aim for Exhilaration | Management Innovation eXchange.

“Could it be that the current Social, Economical and Ecological interplay (system) is indeed sustaining the current situation (a downward slope to future ecological, economic and hence social havoc?”

I tried to quickly summarized my view in the attached diagram (for those that don’t know how to read such a diagram: boxes are “stock” that accumulate (or decrease) over time. Arrows are “flows” between stocks. A + arrow means that both sides of it move in the same direction (if origin increases, so does the destination of it, and conversely when decreasing). A – arrow means the two ends of the arrow move in opposite directions (if origin increases, destination decreases and vice-versa)).

The corresponding explanation would go something as:

• The Economy being in a downturn, it negatively impacts the Social capital of people (trust, willing to give to others [not in terms of money but more on the line of compassion and relationships]), which makes them less likely to contribute to improvements of the Economy (R1). 
• A decreasing Economy is negatively impacting Ecology as well (R2 through Ecological capital and Survival Instinct back to Social Capital) which, along with all the fuss about Ecology in the medias (UN call including), stresses out our Survival instinct, thereby negatively impacting our Social capital as well. 
• The less we have a Social capital, the less likely we are to contribute to Ecology (R4). 
• The last loop is about our stressed out Survival instinct that negatively impacts our Social capital, reinforcing the downturn in Survival instinct (R3).

Please show me where I’m wrong?!

Of course, should that situation has an ounce of veracity, the question would be: out to get out of it. This is the whole purpose of the aforementioned thread to propose some systemic (revolutionary in itself, probably) answer.

(thanks Tricia)

A Comparison of Appreciative Inquiry (Ai) and Solutions Focus (SF). – The Appreciative Inquiry Commons.

Strategy for Health and Safety Management at an Automobile Company
- From the Prevention of Low Back Pain to Toyota’s Verification of Assembly Line (TVAL)

Now, I’m in the Service Industry. How could that be done similarly? Burden would have to be seen from the point of view of a worker’s mind perspective.

Just taking into consideration the formula Weight burden index (B)=sum(WxNxL)xT/1000 could yield something like:

• Weight = difficulty of work: from simple mental calculus to highly mental computation & decision making…
• Number = number of times per job the “heavy” work has to be done
• L = Movement coefficient = an index of where that work occurs, of the conditions: under time constraints (eg. harder at the end of the process with a deadline than at the beginning)? Is it well defined (existing standard)? Is it always changing? Does it requires deep thinking before working? Risks of errors? Does it fit into a bigger picture (part of a bigger process)?
• Time coefficient = duration of difficult task

Of course, evaluation the TVAL of a work has no point if it’s not for its improvement…

RDA: Read, Digest, Apply!

What if managers started to ask these questions more often: when they take their new assignment? When doing annual (performance) review? At the beginning of each meeting? During lunch?

J’ai réalisé il y a un certain temps maintenant le petit memento qui suit concernant les principes et le déroulé d’une initiative Appreciative Inquiry. Vous pouvez le télécharger et le diffuser (en laissant l’attribution SVP

Bonne lecture!

Commentaires les bienvenus!

TRI Appreciative Inquiry v2.2 FR

Photo Credit: U.S. Army via Compfight

This article is #6 and last in a Series about using Solution Focus and Motivational Interviewing to coach CEOs into starting their own Lean journey.

#1 in series gave a broad-brush view of what I intended to write about. Please read it first.

#2 in series addressed the precontemplation stage of change.

#3 in series helped reinforce the contemplation stage.

#4 in series was about supporting the preparation stage.

#5 in series dealt with the action stage.

This article deals with the two last stages of change: that of Maintenance and Relapse!

Background on Maintenance and Relapse

During the last episode, we’ve seen how to help the CEO sustain his Action stage mainly by making him reflect on the results he got and on how he planned to continue to improve.

Or course, Lean is a journey, not an end in itself. So there’s no final learning on the part of the CEO. Yet, when it comes to his behavior, there are some new ones that must be put in place and maintained once he found that they worked (meaning they induced continuous improvement initiatives and thriving from the employees). Occasionally, the manager could fall back into relapse. The coach must then know how to help him get back on track to what worked well. Here’s how.

During this stage, the role of the coach is to support the CEO in maintaining his own successful behaviors by:

• supporting and encouraging the behavior changes already done
• talking about possible trouble spots and developing plans to manage relapse triggers

Of course, in case of relapse (falling back in command & control mode, telling what to do (giving solutions), forgetting to following-through with improvements, etc.), the coach has a clear role to play as well:

• addressing the relapse, but without adding to the feeling of shame that could exist
• assessing and discussing what went wrong and remembering what worked well instead, to reuse that

Maintenance

By now, the CEO should have clearly identified what works for him in modelling Lean behaviors that foster employee thriving and continuous improvement. So, what’s important is that the coach supports him and help him put in place triggers to detect relapse and take action should this occur. I propose some questions below in the Motivational Interviewing and Solution Focus way used in the preceding posts of the series.

• Things seem to be running almost by themselves now. What are you doing that allows that? What else?
• How did you manage to get there (show the current successful behaviors) despite the rest of the organization not initially being supportive? [develop his sense of autonomy]
• What have you learn about yourself? What else? [develop his sense of competence]
• What do your current behaviors bring to management and to the employees? What pleases them? What else?
• What are the results from the customers points of view? From the stakeholders?
• How did you manage to achieve all of these? What else? What else?
• How do you feel?

Preparing for relapse:

• Old habits die hard: have you witnessed yourself falling back already? How did you noticed? How did you felt about it? How did you manage to get back on the train? How did you felt then? 
• What else?
• What positive effect had your getting back on track with Lean behaviors on the employees? How did they helped/supported you? What else?
• On a scale from 0 (no confidence) to 10 (totally confident), how do you rate your confidence in maintaining your effective Lean behaviors in the future? How come such a number? Why not a lower number? What strengths do you have that support your maintaining your Lean behaviors? What small step do you see yourself doing tomorrow to start moving to the next level on the scale? What else?

As usual with Motivational Interviewing, practice OARS: Open-ended questions, Affirm positive talk & behaviors (these are already embedded in the proposed questions above), Reflect what’s said (emphasizing success) and Summarize often.

Relapse

First of all, it’s important to stress that relapse is unavoidable. It happens, this is normal, and things can be done. During the maintenance dialogues above, some tokens were identified that support the CEO into his Lean behaviors and to get back on track should he had fallen off the train. Still, the CEO may wish to see the coach because some things aren’t going as expected, or the coach may witness some regress during one of the visit.

Motivational Interviewing addresses these situations by digging into the problem and trying to understand it. Since we’re trying to make use of Solution Focus at the same time, we’re introducing a twist here by building again a platform and helping the CEO re-imagine his Future Perfect, then help him identify what works that he can re-use to get back on the Lean train.

Here are some proposal questions:

• I noticed that some things weren’t as your showed them to me last time. What happened? how do you link the situation to your own behavior?
• What would you want the situation to be instead? What would that mean for your corresponding behaviors?
• How did you managed to demonstrate these behaviors in the past? What worked in the past to sustain the behaviors despite the environment?
• Aide from the current problem, what’s working? What’s giving you hope for the future? How do you manage to sustain these other aspects? How could that help you get back to your preferred future as far as the problem is concerned?
• On a scale from 0 (inappropriate Lean behavior) to 10 (ideal Lean behavior you’d like to demonstrate with respect to the current relapse), where are you now? What helped you not fall down a lower number?  What else? What small step will you make tomorrow to start moving to N+1? What else?
• How will you see you’re back on train?

Conclusion

Here we are. In this series of articles I tried to address the necessary change of behavior a CEO should demonstrate to move from his current behaviors (at the source of the current situation of his organization) to Lean behaviors more appropriate for an organization embodying Lean:

• thriving management and employees,
• exhilarating service to customers,
• and delighted stakeholders.

I proposed to introduce the necessary changes by making use of:

• Motivational Interviewing: a way to dialogue with someone to as to make him or her move through some stages of change without any raising of habitual “change resistance”. This is done by raising awareness in the coachee that he is autonomous in his decision to change or not, he is indeed competent in doing the change and by installing a sense of relatedness between the coach and the coachee where the coach models prosocial behaviors and embodies a posture (behaviors) that can be replicated by the CEO toward his employees. Five strategies are used for that purpose: 1) expressing empathy, 2) developing discrepancy between what the CEO wants and where he is, 3) avoiding any argumentation and 4) rolling with resistance and finally 5) supporting self-efficacy of the CEO.
• Solution Focus: a change approach that builds a platform out of a problematic situation, based on what works nonetheless. Then the coachees is encouraged to envision a Preferred Future. Then, the coach helps the coachee identify tokens that support his already working behaviors and the smallest possible steps that could be taken immediately to improve the situation toward the vision.

I hope I have been clear enough in my description of this endeavor. Any experiment you might make with this proposed approach, I’d be delighted to know what happened and what worked. Feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below or through any of my social entry points at my Google Profile.

Read more there: Art Smalley: Sorry, no buzz word » The Lean Edge.

When have you heard these kind of questions in your organzation?

How do you relate the current question with the current situation (efficiency, finances, etc.) of your organization?

What’s your conclusion?

What’s your Next Actions?