"your methods suck"

Algo que intuí há algum tempo e que exemplifiquei aqui "Causas e 5 porquês":

"E contei-lhes um caso real desta semana: numa pequena localidade do centro do país, entrei num pequeno café que tem um pão d'avó muito bom para almoçar uma sandes. Reparei que estavam duas mulheres com pinta de ucranianas a falar entre si e a interagir com os telefones. Depois, entra um sr. Alberto que veio para ler o jornal do café, depois entra uma outra mulher para tomar um café e beber um copo de água. De repente os quatro começam a falar sobre as "queridas" da encarregada da fábrica têxtil em frente, que tinham sido seleccionadas para fazer horas-extra no Sábado e que só depois de terem confeccionado 700 peças é que descobriram que as tinham feito mal."

Em sintonia com estes trechos retirados de "Change is more like adding milk to coffee":

"There is no such thing as Resistance to Change - only smart response to dumb method
...
"People don´t resist change."
Can you say that to yourself, in your head? Now that is a start. But what is behind the behavior, then, that we are observing all the time, in change efforts, if it is not resistance to change? Take a step back and you will see that people act consciously and intelligently (overall), to other things than the change itself. They may resist loss of status and power - which is quite intelligent. They may resist injustice, stupidity and being changed. Which is also intelligent. The change may also cause need for learning that is not properly addressed. And these are the things that we have to deal with in change: power structures, status, injustice, consequence, our own stupidity, top-down command-and-control, and learning.
.
"The more resistance to change you observe, the more likely it is that your methods suck."
.
Instead of watching out for the possibility of resistance, we should watch out for common mistakes in implementing change and deal with the perfectly natural reactions to (our) poor interventions."

"Uber", Mongo e a educação (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

Outra peça para trabalhar este desafio, "How can schools best prepare students for the future? Give them real work to do": "Prepare our Kids for Life, Not Standardized Tests".

"Uber", Mongo e a educação (parte II)

Parte I.

Mais uma peça para a construção de uma reflexão sobre o futuro da educação em Mongo em "Young Americans need to be taught skills, not handed credentials":

"One recent survey found that 43 per cent of college grads are underemployed.
.
This certainly mirrors what I hear from chief executives, many of whom tell me they cannot find the skills they need either at the top or the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Ivy League colleges are great for those who can afford them but most education has become completely disconnected from the needs of both students and the labour market.
.
There are plenty of MBAs who can read a balance sheet but have neither operational nor soft skills. Four-year business administration graduates are settling for low wage gigs, while $20-an-hour manufacturing jobs go unfilled because employers can’t find anyone with vocational training.
.
Desperate companies are trying to plug the gap — telecoms group AT&T has set up an internal online course to train the 95 per cent of those in its own technology and services unit that have inadequate ability in Stem subjects — Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Walmart Academy has trained thousands of workers, including in basic skills they should have learnt in high schools.
...
Perhaps the most successful and scalable bridging of the skills and credentials gap thus far has been the P-Tech high school, initially started by IBM as a way to create a middle-market talent pool and now said to run with 500 other industry partners in 110 schools in eight states."

Voltaremos ao século XIX? A escola pública existe para servir os funcionários,

2/2 voltaremos a ver a genuína escola comercial oliveira martins no porto, suportada pelo sector e independente do ministério da educação?

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) October 6, 2015

"Então, veio-me à mente a conversa deste mês de Agosto com estudante da FCUP do curso de Ciências de Computação. Segundo ele, o curso foi objecto de reformulação há dois anos. No entanto, continua a não dar toda uma série de linguagens de programação que as empresas precisam mas que os professores não dominam, nem têm motivação para aprender (esse estudante passou parte do mês de Agosto a estudar programação para Android nos cursos da Udacity).
.
Se a FCUP optasse por contratar professores para darem aulas sobre essas linguagens os professores incumbentes sofreriam."

Daqui, de onde também recordo:

"Há uma frase feita qualquer acerca das organizações que se aplica como uma luva neste caso:
Quando a velocidade da mudança no exterior, no contexto, no entorno de uma organização, é muito maior que a velocidade a que essa organização consegue mudar... temos outra Torre de Babel:"

“That’s how we’ve always done it.”

Este exemplo:

É um caso concreto de:

“That’s how we’ve always done it.”

"The other “commandment” is to become very suspicious anytime you ask, “Why do we do this like that?” and you receive the answer, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” If no one in the organization can explain why a certain practice is the best, or why the product has to offer certain features, that may reveal a bad habit. I suggest several activities the leaders of organizations can do to get to the bottom of this puzzle. First, write down key business processes and ask yourself if you understand why the organization is doing it this way. Then ask others in the company if they understand why. Finally, ask newcomers to the company — after they have been with the organization two or three months — what processes they have seen in the organization they do not understand.
...
You propose that an organization implement “change for change’s sake.” Why?
.
There is value in the process of change itself. Many organizations are attached to certain processes and do not realize that when these processes become less relevant or do not work as well, it is time to change. I suggest not waiting for trouble; be proactive about making changes.
.
When processes become routinized, silos develop across firms, communication and cooperation fade away, and certain departments begin to command a disproportionate amount of resources. If the company waits for these things to emerge, it is often too late and too difficult to change. Instead, the company should adopt minor but proactive changes on a consistent basis."

Trechos retirados de "How — and Why — You Need to Break Bad Business Habits"

"only 54%"

"Since the mid-2000s, organizational change management and transformation have become permanent features of the business landscape. Vast new markets and labor pools have opened up, innovative technologies have put once-powerful business models on the chopping block, and capital flows and investor demand have become less predictable. To meet these challenges, firms have become more sophisticated in the best practices for organizational change management. They are far more sensitive to and more keenly aware of the role that culture plays. They’ve also had to get much better on their follow-through.
...
the success rate of major change initiatives is only 54 percent. This is far too low. The costs are high when change efforts go wrong—not only financially but in confusion, lost opportunity, wasted resources, and diminished morale. When employees who have endured real upheaval and put in significant extra hours for an initiative that was announced with great fanfare see it simply fizzle out, cynicism sets in."

Agora imaginem o quanto o mundo muda e muda a uma velocidade mais forte, o quanto essas mudanças requerem novas estratégias, o quanto essas estratégias são apenas hipóteses que têm de ser testadas e afinadas ou revistas, o quanto a execução de uma estratégia assenta na implementação e integração de projectos de mudança em processos... projectos de mudança?

54% nos Estados Unidos! E por cá?


Trechos retirados de "10 Principles of Leading Change Management"

"the rapid testing of many modest innovations"

Fantástico!

Que memórias!

Chegar ao Twitter e apanhar uma ligação para um artigo, "All Management Is Change Management". Ler o título e perceber que o nome do autor é Robert H. Schaffer.

Fico logo em pulgas. Será que é o mesmo Robert H. Schaffer que escreveu "The Breakthrough Strategy"?

Leio o artigo e no final vejo a foto do autor e confirmo que é o mesmo Robert H. Schaffer que tanto me ensinou e que citei nestes postais:

• A dança da chuva e outros rituais (Julho de 2006)
• Simplex (Abril de 2006)

Quando não sigo o principal conselho de Schaffer arrependo-me: concentrar um problema grande numa cascata de problemas mais pequenos e capazes de serem resolvidos mais rapidamente.

E o que diz Schaffer neste artigo?

"all management is the management of change.
.
If sales need to be increased, that’s change management. If a merger needs to be implemented, that’s change management. If a new personnel policy needs to be carried out, that’s change management. If the erosion of a market requires a new business model, that’s change management. Costs reduced? Productivity improved? New products developed? Change management.
.
The job of management always involves defining what changes need to be made and seeing that those changes take place. Even when the overall aim is stability, often there are still change goals: to reduce variability, cut costs, reduce the time required, or reduce turnover, for example. Once every job in a company is defined in terms of the changes to be made (both large and small), constant improvement can become the routine. Each innovation brings lessons that inform ongoing operations. The organization becomes a perpetual motion machine. Change never occurs as some sort of happening; it is part of everyday life.
...
Leaders should view change not as an occasional disruptor but as the very essence of the management job. Setting tough goals, establishing processes to reach them, carrying out those processes and carefully learning from them — these steps should characterize the unending daily life of the organization at every level. More companies need to describe their work in terms of where they are trying to go in the next month or next quarter or next year.
.
How do you transition into such a company? The simple answer is to skip the months spent creating a comprehensive plan to make the company more change-oriented. Instead, focus on some important goals that are not being accomplished. Have teams carve out some sub-goals they will aim to achieve in a few months. [Moi ici: Este é o velho Schaffer!] They should be asked to test innovative steps they think will make a difference and to learn from the process. Maintaining a short time frame for these experiments permits the rapid testing of many modest innovations. Of course, these are steps to advance major strategic goals, but the emphasis should be on executing specific changes — with each success followed by a new round of more-ambitious goals to tackle."

Sindicatos. “É um absurdo” proibir o corte de árvores durante 15 anos

Com base numa ideia do @joaomiranda no Twitter:

A propósito de "Sindicatos. “É um absurdo” proibir a pesca da sardinha durante 15 anos"

'Playing Not to Lose Syndrome'

Mateus 25, 14:30

"His business suffered from slowing growth, systemic service problems, and aggressive and new competitors.
.
However, he seemed unable or unwilling to alter his course. He was worried about changing too much and possibly making things worse. So, he chose to stay the course. Now, here he was having dinner with me, losing his company and unemployed.
...
This senior executive is a perfect example of a person who has the 'Playing Not to Lose Syndrome.' Instead of striving to win and thrive in business, he was merely hoping not to lose and make it through one more day.
...
The real problem with doing just enough to get by and no more is that, like a person treading water, it ultimately doesn't work. At some point, you must swim to shore, or you will drown.
.
People believe that if they keep their heads down, nothing will change. Yet they lose anyway and what they are trying so hard to protect gets blown up in the end. And yet, the human tendency is to hold tighter and tighter to the status quo as though it were a security blanket--not understanding that it's smothering them!"

Trechos retirados de "How Avoiding Harsh Realities Cost These Leaders Their Business"

"To discover that the unfamiliar is the comfortable familiar they seek"

"People will do a bad (a truly noxious) job for a long time because it feels familiar. Legions of people will stick with a dying industry because it feels familiar.
.
The reason Kodak failed, it turns out, has nothing to do with grand corporate strategy (the people at the top saw it coming), and nothing to do with technology (the scientists and engineers got the early patents in digital cameras). Kodak failed because it was a chemical company and a bureaucracy, filled with people eager to do what they did yesterday.
.
Change is the unfamiliar.
.
Change creates incompetence.
.
In the face of change, the critical questions that leaders must start with are, "Why did people come to work here today? What did they sign up for?"
...
The solution is as simple as it is difficult: If you want to build an organization that thrives in change (and on change), hire and train people to do the paradoxical: To discover that the unfamiliar is the comfortable familiar they seek. Skiers like going downhill when it's cold, scuba divers like getting wet. That's their comfortable familiar. Perhaps you and your team can view change the same way."

Trechos retirados de "In search of familiarity"

Facilitar a mudança

"Forget efficiency. Motivating true change requires unhurried, face-to-face, one-on-one conversation. Email doesn’t do it, nor do memos or webcasts. If a specific work group or person is very important to your organization’s future, and they are resisting needed change, you have to take the time to talk with them in person, and to do it under as little time pressure as possible.
.
Focus on listening. No matter how brilliant your plan or persuasive your argument, you must make everyone feel understood. That starts and ends with listening. When you’re in these conversations, make sure to take up no more than 20% of the airtime, and when you do speak, try to repeat back what you’ve heard as much as possible.
.
Be open to change yourself. A resistor who senses you are listening only so you can get what you want won’t open up and definitely won’t get onboard. You must have an open attitude — be ready to learn something new and, if necessary, modify your plans. Show that resistors’ opinions and feelings matter to you and will shape your thinking and actions.
.
Have multiple conversations. We’ve found that effective dialogue with resistors typically requires a minimum of two conversations. In the first conversation, you listen and diagnose the roots of the resistance. In the second conversation, your goal is to make clear that you have reflected on what you heard; to outline what will be different, or not, in your approach to the change based on that conversation; and to explain why. Even if you’re not changing your overall plan, we’ve found that anyone who truly listens to opposition will have their thinking changed in some way. So you can at least be genuine about that.
The time in between these two conversations is critical. We recommend at least two days, depending on the scale of the change. If you respond immediately, either during the initial talk or within a few hours, resistors won’t believe, perhaps rightly, that you’ve fully considered their point of view. But don’t wait more than seven days, because at that point the person feels dismissed and forgotten.
Effective change management is critical to the vitality and progress of every organization. Where most people trip up is in failing to manage resistance effectively. Doing so requires an ability to listen to your opposition, diagnose their antipathy, consider their thoughts and feelings, and explain how it has changed your thinking, if not your plan. This is a time-consuming but effective process."

Trecho retirado de "Overcome Resistance to Change with Two Conversations"

Um punhado de pérolas (II)

Parte I.

"Embrace External Trends.
The outside world can push you into Day 2 if you won’t or can’t embrace powerful trends quickly. If you fight them, you’re probably fighting the future. Embrace them and you have a tailwind.[Moi ici: Abraçar a mudança em vez de lhe resistir]
.
These big trends are not that hard to spot (they get talked and written about a lot), but they can be strangely hard for large organizations to embrace.
...
High-Velocity Decision Making...
First, never use a one-size-fits-all decision-making process. Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors. Those decisions can use a light-weight process. For those, so what if you’re wrong? I wrote about this in more detail in last year’s letter.
.
Second, most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow. Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognizing and correcting bad decisions. If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure."

Aceleração

Ao ler:

"The world has been fundamentally changed by digital networks and software. Businesses and customers which are connected by networked digital systems create amplified network effects which means the velocity of business and the level of competition and innovation are higher than they ever been ever been. To survive in this new environment every business, from the largest enterprises to the smallest sole proprietor, must accelerate and fundamentally change their customer development processes. Increasing the ability of a business to adapt to a changing world has never been more important."

Lembrei-me logo da citação de Jack Welch:

“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”

O que me fez fazer a ponte com uma daquelas conversas de circunstâncias que se têm enquanto se espera que a escritura de uma casa seja redigida. Ouvi alguém dizer:

- Já compararam a velocidade, a quantidade de estímulos visuais, entre um episódio de desenhos animados de 1980 com um de 2010? Uma criança de hoje não tem pachorra para o ritmo de caracol dos anos 80.

E o bolbo raquidiano deixou-se tocar e fez-me recuar aos anos 80 e à série documental na televisão onde Alvin Toffler visitava uma fábrica abandonada, onde na sua juventude tinha trabalhado, e tentava mostrar como as instituições políticas nascidas no século XIX teriam dificuldade em adaptar-se à velocidade de Mongo.

E fecho com uma recordação dos primeiros tempos da minha vida profissional no final dos anos 80 do século passado. Ainda não se usava fax mas usava-se o telex e o telefone. Em visita com o meu chefe, o director técnico da empresa onde trabalhava, a um cliente. Um deles, ás tantas, diz com saudade:

- Lembra-se de quando as encomendas eram feitas por carta?

 Como é que a sua empresa evolui para aproveitar este aumento da velocidade?

Trecho inicial retirado de "Why has the level of business competition levels been turned up to 11? Or: Why is the lean customer development process important?"

Dar a volta

A vida de uma empresa é, de certa forma, uma espécie de jogo, não um jogo de equilíbrio mas um jogo de turbulência.
.
Quem quer manter o equilíbrio acaba por cristalizar e não acompanhar a evolução, às vezes vertiginosa, do contexto. Os outsiders, acham que quando uma empresa encerra há marosca, que a gestão foi má ou que houve ilegalidade, ou que ...
.
A verdade é que a maior parte das empresas não dura 20 anos. A anos bons sucedem-se anos maus, porque a uma velocidade superior à velocidade a que uma empresa se consegue transformar:

• os clientes mudaram;
• o governo mudou as regras do mercado;
• os concorrentes mudaram;
• os não-concorrentes mudaram.

E ainda, além de tudo isto, ás vezes também se tomam decisões arriscadas, não são boas nem más, porque tudo depende do desenrolar do futuro. Quando o futuro chega, muitas empresas têm de mudar. Quando uma empresa percebe que tem de mudar, que tem de se transformar radicalmente para tentar voltar a jogar usando outra vida, muitos "outsiders" tentam dificultar-lhe a vida porque vão despedir pessoas, porque vão fechar instalações, porque vão deixar de vender produtos ou serviços com que perdiam dinheiro. Trata-se de um tema já abordado nesta série "despedir é sempre resultado de uma maldade ou de preguiça da gestão" e aflorado nesta reflexão sobre a disrupção em curso no sector bancário.

.

Por tudo isto, faz sentido pensar em:

"When a company is in free fall, it makes sense to replace the management team, for all sorts of reasons. [Moi ici: A razão porque Zapatero e Sócrates não deviam ter chefiado os respectivos segundos governos] First, you need to inject new energy into a tired organization under stress. Second, you need to ensure that the team you’re building is made up of people with open minds who want to invent the future, not just defend the past. It’s unreasonable to expect the architects of the strategies and practices that led to your downfall to see the error of their ways, or the right path forward. Instead, you need to find leaders and employees with a rebellious spirit. Third, you need to locate key employees at the front line and promote them — as a source of knowledge and energy, and as a signal that the future will be about merit and open-mindedness. Finally, you need to make change happen relatively quickly. If you replace your team gradually (which can be tempting because it seems less disruptive), you’ll lose valuable time, and the employees you bring in will begin to absorb the organizational biases of the past.
...
Reversing free fall takes enormous energy and resources. Leaders who succeed at the job usually do so by combing through the company in search of noncore assets to shed, businesses to sell, activities to stop, functions to eliminate, and product lines to simplify,[Moi ici: Coisas que os outsiders consideram manobras de "direitolas"]
...
Companies in free fall have a lot to fix but seldom have all of the tools they need. They usually find that they are missing at least one capability crucial for adapting their business model to new conditions. Nearly all of the 50 cases of successful reversal of free fall that we have studied required at least one major new capability. It’s extremely hard to focus on new capabilities when you’re in free fall, but if you don’t, everything else you try to do may be for naught."

Trechos retirados de "How to Pull Your Company Out of a Tailspin"

Para reflexão

Ontem cheguei a este artigo, "No More Pills? Tiny Nerve-Zapping Implants to Fight Disease",

"Eletroceuticals may sound futuristic, but using electricity to treat disease is nothing new — think pacemakers for correcting wonky heartbeats, or deep brain stimulation for rewiring broken neural circuits in depression and Parkinson’s disease.
.
It’s easy to see why electroceuticals are sparking interest. Unlike run-of-the-mill chemical drugs that act on a protein or other molecule, electrical pulses directly hack into the main language of our nervous system to change its operating instructions.
.
That’s a big deal. “The nervous system is crisscrossing our viscera to control many aspects of our organ function,” explains Famm in an earlier interview with Nature. Rather than using drugs, which are rarely specific for a single biological process, we could zap a major nerve and, with surgical precision, change the instructions that an organ receives and thereby alter its function."

e logo recordei este outro, "Scientists Just Created 'Neural Dust.' It Could Be the Biggest Breakthrough in Keeping You Healthy", que tinha lido dias antes. Quando o li, ao chegar a:

"Researchers are still refining the new sensors, but they hope that, in time, once implanted, the neural dust could be used for purposes such as:
.
Control of robotic limbs or computers/prosthesis interaction
.
Bladder control
Appetite suppression
Oxygen monitoring
Hormone monitoring
Pressure monitoring
Muscle treatments
General biofeedback for fitness (like that offered by fitness trackers/monitors)"

Parei, invadido pelo pensamento sobre a resistência à mudança que os incumbentes levantarão... médicos, farmacêuticos, empresas produtoras de medicamentos, políticos que dependem destes três universos. Então, veio-me à mente a conversa deste mês de Agosto com estudante da FCUP do curso de Ciências de Computação. Segundo ele, o curso foi objecto de reformulação há dois anos. No entanto, continua a não dar toda uma série de linguagens de programação que as empresas precisam mas que os professores não dominam, nem têm motivação para aprender (esse estudante passou parte do mês de Agosto a estudar programação para Android nos cursos da Udacity).
.
Se a FCUP optasse por contratar professores para darem aulas sobre essas linguagens os professores incumbentes sofreriam.
.
Para que existe mesmo uma organização pública?

Qual é mesmo o propósito do INEM? https://t.co/5OPspmYasS

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) August 27, 2016

Por isso, há dias desafiei este colega com este tweet:

@ccz1 @rukamartins em proteger os seus funcionários do q em pensar no futuro dos seus clientes. E estes pagarão por resultados na sua vida

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) August 22, 2016

Há uma frase feita qualquer acerca das organizações que se aplica como uma luva neste caso:
Quando a velocidade da mudança no exterior, no contexto, no entorno de uma organização, é muito maior que a velocidade a que essa organização consegue mudar... temos outra Torre de Babel:

Mais do que evidências, persistência!

"For the rest of us, though, the flip isn't something that happens at the first glance or encounter with new evidence.
.
This doesn't mean the evidence doesn't matter.
.
It means that we're bad at admitting we were wrong.
.
Bad at giving up one view of the world to embrace the other.
.
Mostly, we're bad at abandoning our peers, our habits and our view of ourselves.
.
If you want to change people's minds, you need more than evidence. You need persistence. And empathy. And mostly, you need the resources to keep showing up, peeling off one person after another, surrounding a cultural problem with a cultural solution."

Trecho retirado de "The flip is elusive"

Uma questão de postura

Acerca dos que abraçam a mudança em vez de lhe resistir:

"When in doubt, try wings.
.
Wings use finesse more than sheer force. Wings work with the surrounding environment, not against it. Wings are elegant, not brutal."

A propósito de "Comissão diz que proibir serviços como a Uber e Airbnb só em “último recurso”"

Trecho retirado de "Add engines until airborne"

"mesmo sem ter nada a ver com tecnologia"

"Hackathons Aren’t Just for Coders" pois não, até poderiam ser úteis na sua PME, mesmo sem ter nada a ver com tecnologia.

"Hackathons are no longer just for coders. Companies far outside the tech world are using these intense brainstorming and development sessions to stir up new ideas on everything from culture change to supply chain management.
...
At their best, hackathons create a structure and process around idea development. Sure, breaking out of the day-to-day routine can reinvigorate and inspire staff, but hackathons also demonstrate to employees that innovation is not only welcomed but also expected. Well-run hackathons lead to concrete ideas for new products and processes that can improve the customer experience and increase growth."

O facto de no fim as equipas terem de apresentar uma proposta... não chega mandar bocas e voltar ao ramram.

O que pode correr mal

Vi esta figura ainda antes deste século ter começado. Nunca a esqueci:

Sistematiza o que pode correr mal num projecto.

Inovação versus incumbação

"A colleague recently minted a new word by accident — incumbation”. It won’t catch on but its fleeting appearance made me wonder what such a term, if it existed, might define: the opposite of innovation.
As grimy layers of admin accrete on the original bright ideals of their founders, incumbent companies become prone to inertia and what Gary Hamel, the management thinker, has called “bureausclerosis”. Such complacency is bad. But some of the methods that established companies use to protect themselves are worse.
...
Recumbent incumbents are almost always doomed. The good news is that technology and transparency have already cut away at the distribution and information monopolies that used to shelter large, lazy companies. The bad news is that survivors will continue to use foul means as well as fair to protect themselves. Their misguided attempts at self-preservation can hobble the advance of more original, more innovative competitors."

Como não recordar "Abraçar a mudança" ou "Engaging emergence".
.
Como não recordar o tempo perdido, a largura de banda da atenção ocupada com tantos recursos desviados para defender o passado nos têxteis:

• Já tenho dado para este peditório ao longo dos anos neste blogue (Maio de 2011)
• "Por que é que calçado e têxtil têm tido desempenhos tão diferentes?" (Março de 2013)
• O tempo que se terá perdido... (Julho de 2014)

Trechos retirados de "Incumbents, dark arts and the opposite of innovation"