Blitzkrieg e relações humanas

Convidaram-me para uma reflexão sobre relações humanas, qualidade e produtividade.

Ao pensar num ângulo de abordagem ao tema lembrei-me da ... blitzkrieg.

A blitzkrieg, ou "guerra relâmpago" em alemão, foi uma estratégia militar desenvolvida e empregue pelas forças armadas alemãs durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Caracterizava-se por uma abordagem altamente coordenada, rápida e surpreendente, que procurava romper as linhas inimigas e desorganizar as suas defesas de maneira decisiva e eficiente. 

A blitzkrieg foi tão eficaz que, em pouco mais de um mês, em Junho de 1940, as forças francesas pediram um armistício. 

Embora o conceito de blitzkrieg, uma forma de guerra altamente coordenada e rápida utilizada pelos militares alemães durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, possa parecer não relacionado com o tema das relações humanas numa PME, há uma maneira de estabelecer um paralelo  a partir da relação de confiança e colaboração em ambos os contextos.

No contexto da blitzkrieg, a confiança desempenhou um papel crucial no sucesso das operações militares alemãs. O Alto Comando Alemão teve de depositar uma imensa confiança nos seus comandantes de campo e tropas. Esta confiança foi construída com base em factores como a formação, a comunicação e uma compreensão partilhada dos objetivos. O paralelo aqui é que a confiança dentro de uma PME, embora de natureza diferente, também depende destes factores:

• Formação e Competência: Em ambas as situações, a confiança é construída com base na competência. O Alto Comando Alemão confiava nos seus comandantes porque acreditava na sua formação e capacidades. Da mesma forma, numa empresa, a confiança é construída quando os funcionários são bem treinados e competentes nas suas funções.
• Comunicação Eficaz: A comunicação eficaz foi vital para o sucesso da blitzkrieg. O mesmo princípio aplica-se ao ambiente de uma empresa. A comunicação aberta e clara entre os membros da equipa, departamentos e liderança é essencial para construir confiança e garantir que todos estão alinhados com os objectivos da empresa.
• Objectivos Compartilhados: Na blitzkrieg, todos compreenderam o objectivo geral: vitórias militares rápidas e coordenadas. Da mesma forma, numa PME, todos os funcionários precisam compreender a missão, os valores e as metas de qualidade da empresa para trabalharem de forma colaborativa em direção a um objectivo comum.
• Empoderamento: Os comandantes de campo alemães na blitzkrieg muitas vezes recebiam autonomia para tomar decisões no calor da batalha. Numa PME, capacitar os funcionários para tomarem decisões dentro das suas áreas de responsabilidade pode levar a um aumento da confiança e da propriedade do processo de produção.
• Responsabilidade: A confiança em ambos os contextos é reforçada quando indivíduos e equipas são responsabilizados pelas suas ações e desempenho. Seja no campo de batalha ou numa PME, a responsabilização garante que todos trabalhem em prol dos mesmos objectivos.
• Orientação para resultados: Em última análise, a confiança é reforçada pela realização consistente dos objectivos. Na blitzkrieg, tratava-se de vencer batalhas e, numa PME, trata-se de produzir produtos de alta qualidade com eficiência.

Que resultados e que comportamentos?

O livro "Step Up, Step Back: How to Really Deliver Strategic Change in Your Organization" está a ser uma agradável surpresa. Conta novidades? Não, mas apresenta-as de uma forma clara e escorreita.

Por exemplo, algo na linha do que aprendemos sobre a blitzkrieg e a sua transposição para o mundo dos negócios em "Specifying too much detail actually shakes confidence and creates uncertainty " e em Liberdade no terreno em:

"Element 3 of Clarity: Specify the outcomes and behaviors you want 

Having explained why the change is needed and why now; and how it fits with what's gone before, it would be tempting now to get down to some activities. But that's the old approach. What leaders need to do now is dial down that urge for action and instead spend more time thinking and talking about what this new strategy will produce.

The first critical part of doing this well is to talk about outcomes (rather than activities) and to specify targets for the outcomes you want the new strategy to deliver. This is essential if managers are to be able to make good decisions about which activities to work on. Without, an outcome to target, they're deciding blind.

…

[Moi ici: Li o texto que se segue na viagem de comboio na passada quarta feira à noite. Entretanto, nessa manhã, durante a caminhada matinal, tinha guardado a figura acima ao tirá-la do Twitter] Now a step change by definition is not something that can be delivered in the short term. To help people understand this, leaders should also structure the new target outcomes over different time frames. 

Specifically, there should be a long-dated, multi-year target for the big performance improvement that's being asked for, and then shorter-term milestones to help track progress. Note that the target is not the milestones themselves - these are just signposts along the way. The target is the big, hairy, multi-year objective. And the combination of these different metrics (both targets and milestones) across different time frames means long-term change is set up to succeed. 

Finally, to help people translate these outcomes into action, leaders should also communicate the new behaviors they are expecting to see. This means people can start making immediate changes (in the behavior) even before they're able to change what they 're working at (their activities).

…

is explaining the change in terms of the outcomes he's expecting to see. By being clear and prescriptive about the outcome, he then didn't have to be prescriptive about which activities would be worked on. He could, instead, leave the choice of which projects to work on to managers further down the organization. After all, managers were closer to the business and better understood the processes and activities that would deliver this outcome. And because managers knew what they had to deliver (because they had a clear outcome to target), they could decide, within this constraint, which activities would best achieve this."

Covid-19 - Direcção e iteração colaborativa

Quando comecei a trabalhar a ISO 14001, nos anos 90 do século passado, fiquei fascinado com a sua diferença face à ISO 9001.

Ao trabalhar com a ISO 9001 facilmente ficávamos prisioneiros da quantidade de procedimentos obrigatórios que tinhamos de criar. Por isso, os resultados no terreno demoravam a aparecer. Primeiro tinhamos de arquitectar e construir o sistema, traduzi-lo em procedimentos e só depois começar a implementação. A implementação, porque o consultor era tótó, ou porque a gestão de topo só estava interessada na bandeira, ou porque a empresa estava sobrecarregada de trabalho, mais parecia um calvário. O objectivo da implementação era chegar a algo que pudesse ser certificado e uma bandeira atribuída. Uma vez obtida a certificação, a empresa dizia-nos adeus, e raramente havia oportunidade mergulhar na melhoria do sistema.

Entretanto, na minha cabeça remoía um artigo de 1992 na HBR - "Successful Change Programs Begin with Results"

Ao trabalhar com a ISO 14001 descobria a possibilidade de desenhar um sistema de gestão virado para atingir resultados. Um sistema de gestão como um portfolio de projectos:

Acabei por publicar um livro onde explicava a metodologia. (BTW, um projecto interessante que nunca foi pago pela editora)

No ano passado descobri mais uma norma ambiental, confesso que não a conhecia, a ISO 14005:2019 - Environmental management systems — Guidelines for a flexible approach to phased implementation.

Esta norma apoia a implementação faseada de sistemas de gestão ambiental. O que é que isto quer dizer? Em vez de começar por montar um sistema de gestão ambiental completo, com todos os ésses e érres, começar por um desafio concreto, um desafio específico. Por exemplo, melhorar a eficiência energética, ou reduzir a produção de resíduos perigosos.

Por que escrevo sobre isto agora? Porque o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras pôs-me a ler este livro, "The Lean Strategy" de Michael Ballé, Daniel Jones, Jacques Chaize, e Orest Fiume.

"Lean thinking starts with acting: solving immediate problems to better understand the deeper issues. It differs radically from the mainstream approach.
...
Lean thinking starts with find, in the real world, by identifying immediate problems right now, moves to face as we grasp which problems are easy to solve and which aren’t, what our deeper challenges are, then to frame these challenges in a way others will understand intuitively both (a) the problem we’re trying to solve and (b) the generic form of the solution we’re looking for, and then form the specific solutions through repeated try-and-see efforts with the people themselves until we, all together, build a new (often unforeseen) way of doing things
...
Effectively, the idea is that to learn anything, we first have to change something and then carefully check the results to evaluate the impact.
...
"Don’t look with your eyes. Look with your feet. Don’t think with you head. Think with your hands.”
...
The point is that running experiments and experiencing consequences is an ongoing process. It is more to accelerate the learning cycle—to learn and respond, then grasp with the current situation, then adjust again—than it is to establish large-scale goals and compare our progress to them on an occasional basis rather than as a constant state. Companies must use meaningful metrics to understand meaningful actions."

Entretanto, ontem ao folher um livro, "Managing Crises: Responses to Large-Scale Emergencies" de Arnold Howitt e Herman B. Leonard. Encontrei estes trechos:

"[Moi ici: As emergências podem ser de dois tipos, as de rotina e as de crise. As de rotina são aquelas para as quais as organizações se preparam e testam. São aquelas para as quais existem planos de resposta. Já a pandemia em curso é uma emergência de crise... não há plano, não houve preparação prévia] This is not a routine emergency. There are no scripts or templates—guides, check-lists, and norms that dictate the set of things that need to be done, their order, the way they are organized, and so on. An authority-driven command and control hierarchy is a good organizational form for producing the efficient execution of known and practiced routine actions.
...
This is a Crisis Emergency. This emergency has significant elements of novelty that organizations were not prepared for. The presence of significant novelty as the defining feature of crisis emergencies creates an array of distinctive challenges, requiring significantly different approaches, techniques, and processes by those engaged in them. Novelty comes in many forms and from many different sources.
...
During a crisis, leaders must relinquish the belief that a top-down response will engender stability. In routine emergencies, the typical company can rely on its command-and-control structure to manage operations well by carrying out a scripted response. But in crises characterized by uncertainty, leaders face problems that are unfamiliar and poorly understood. A small group of executives at an organization’s highest level cannot collect information or make decisions quickly enough to respond effectively. Leaders can better mobilize their organizations by setting clear priorities for the response and empowering others to discover and implement solutions that serve those priorities. To promote rapid problem solving and execution under high-stress, chaotic conditions, leaders can organize a network of teams." 

E ao chegar aqui ... recuo ao Natal de 2007 e a Boyd e à blitzkrieg (parte I e parte II):

"Give lower-level commanders wide freedom, within an overall mind-time-space scheme, to shape/direct their own activities so that they can exploit faster tempo/rhythm at tactical levels yet be in harmony with the larger pattern/slower rhythm associated with the more general aim and larger effort at the strategic level."

Como diz o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras: uma pena as empresas não estarem a aproveitar esta crise para encontrarem uma plataforma de comunicação real com os seus trabalhadores... sim, o primeiro ciclo de Senge:

"When there is clarity, broad agreement, ..."

“A question I often get as someone who writes about strategy is whether the concept of strategy, and the long-range implications associated with it, are of any use at all. After all, when competitive advantages are transient and the next big thing is impossible to predict, why put all that effort into defining a point of view about the future?
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That couldn’t be more wrong. In a complex situation, when you want to empower the entire organization to be able to act without direction from the top, having a shared view of what the purpose is and how each participant fits into it is absolutely critical. It is only with a basis of a shared understanding of what we’re all trying to achieve here that distributed action is possible.
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In organizations that don’t have a clarity of strategy and alignment, decisions get made and unmade, resources are spent on things that are not really relevant, people end up confused, and the stage is set for the kind of infighting that contributed to the demise of the Kin. When there is clarity, broad agreement, and even enthusiasm, people can pull together in a common direction.”

Relacionar com o blitzkrieg e a complexidade.

“General Stanley McChrystal, the leader in the United States’ fight against Al Qaeda, talks of creating what he calls “shared consciousness” and trust among team members, so that decisions can be made by those closest to the problem, regardless of their seniority." 

Trechos retirado de “Seeing Around Corners” de Rita McGrath.

"Specifying too much detail actually shakes confidence and creates uncertainty "

Uma delícia estes textos de von Molkte, escritos em 1869 e tão actuais.

“In 1869, von Moltke issued a document called Guidance for Large Unit Commanders. It was to become seminal, laying out principles of higher command which remained unchanged for 70 years, by which time the Prussian Army had become the German Army. Some passages are echoed in the doctrine publications of US and NATO forces to the present day. It contains von Moltke’s solution to the specific problem he identified in the Memoire, and directly addressed the general problem posed by the greatly increased scale of modern warfare: how to direct an organization too large for a single commander to control in person. As such, it is probably the first document of modern times to define the role of the senior executive in a large corporation.
...
What is of interest here is the approach to command and control. The emphasis is on the former rather than the latter
...
With darkness all around you, you have to develop a feeling for what is right, often based on little more than guesswork, and issue orders in the knowledge that their execution will be hindered by all manner of random accidents and unpredictable obstacles. In this fog of uncertainty, the one thing that must be certain is your own decision… the surest way of achieving your goal is through the single-minded pursuit of simple actions
...
There are numerous situations in which an officer must act on his own judgment. For an officer to wait for orders at times when none can be given would be quite absurd. But as a rule, it is when he acts in line with the will of his superior that he can most effectively play his part in the whole scheme of things.
...
not commanding more than is strictly necessary, nor planning beyond the circumstances you can foresee. In war, circumstances change very rapidly, and it is rare indeed for directions which cover a long period of time in a lot of detail to be fully carried out.
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Specifying too much detail actually shakes confidence and creates uncertainty if things do not turn out as anticipated. Going into too much detail makes a senior commander a hostage to fortune, because in a rapidly changing environment,
...
In any case, a leader who believes that he can make a positive difference through continual personal interventions is usually deluding himself. He thereby takes over things other people are supposed to be doing, effectively dispensing with their efforts, and multiplies his own tasks to such an extent that he can no longer carry them all out.
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The demands made on a senior commander are severe enough as it is. It is far more important that the person at the top retains a clear picture of the overall situation than whether some particular thing is done this way or that.
...
The higher the level of command, the shorter and more general the orders should be. The next level down should add whatever further specification it feels to be necessary, and the details of execution are left to verbal instructions or perhaps a word of command. This ensures that everyone retains freedom of movement and decision within the bounds of their authority."

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

"a willingness to show independence of mind and challenge authority"

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras começou por me dizer, logo no primeiro almoço, que desafiava as pessoas da sua equipa a desobedecer a ordens, a descobrirem que há uma forma alternativa de fazer melhor.

Entretanto, os prussianos aprenderam:

“Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia, the nephew of the future Kaiser Wilhelm I, and a practicing soldier. In a series of essays published in the 1850s and 1860s, he reinforced the growing idea that what made the Prussian officer corps distinctive, and gave it an edge, was a willingness to show independence of mind and challenge authority. In an essay dating from 1860 entitled “The Origins and Development of the Spirit of the Prussian Officer,” he tells the story of a staff officer dutifully carrying out an order without question, only to be pulled up short by a high-ranking general with the words: “The King made you a staff officer because you should know when not to obey.” In contrast to other European officer corps, Prince Friedrich Karl comments, the Prussians do not allow themselves to be hemmed in with rules and regulations, but give rein to the imagination and exploit every opportunity opened up by unexpected success. Such behavior would not be possible if senior commanders were to demand full control over every unit.”

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”. iBooks.

Tudo a conjugar-se para asneira da grossa (parte II)

Parte I.

“A gap in knowledge prompts the collection of more data. ... Seeking to improve its information-gathering and processing capability, the company became more complex, adding committees and overlays, some permanent, some ad hoc. ... So it pumped more data through its existing systems. No one took a decision to do so. It was just the natural result of how the organization as a system was programmed. ... the data flow paralyzed decision making, because no matter how much there was, there was always more to obtain. Meetings were about analyzing problems rather than resolving them.
...
A gap in alignment is often indicated by top-level frustration and lower-level confusion. ... Top-level managers felt increasing pressure to specify exactly what they wanted people to do. They began to stress actions rather than outcomes, in the one case by spelling things out “in painful detail” and in the other through SOPs and central processes.
...
A gap in effects is typically responded to by an increase in control. The favorite control mechanism is metrics. As time goes on, the emphasis is switched from outputs to inputs, so that in the end everybody’s actions are detailed, analyzed, and controlled by a few people who look to everyone else as if they are seeking to become omniscient about the world outside and omnipotent in the world inside. Controls have a cost. Overhead builds up around the controllers, and the reporting burden increases for the controlled.
...
These natural reactions do not simply fail to solve the problem, they make it worse. Because the cause-and-effect cycles are systemic and reciprocal, all three reactions interact with and exacerbate each other."

Quantas empresas caem nesta armadilha?

Lembram-se dos relatos dos bombeiros em Monchique, parados enquanto populares combatiam fogos a poucos metros? Parados porque não tinham autorização superior para agir!

Há muitos anos ouvi falar em Blitzkrieg, como "Guerra Relâmpago", e sempre pensei que tinha a ver com surpresa e velocidade. Só há cerca de 10 anos aprendi com Boyd o que estava por trás da Blitzkrieg. A origem da Blitzkrieg assenta lá atrás no tempo, quando os exércitos de Napoleão limparam o sebo ao exército prusfsiano, uma eficaz máquina de combate da guerra anterior.

Uma catástrofe militar tem o poder de acabar com direitos adquiridos e colocar como objectivo número um a sobrevivência da comunidade. Isso, liberta as pessoas para colocar tudo em causa, até a impossibilidade de militares do povo poderem subir na hierarquia militar até ao topo por não serem de boas famílias.

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

Tudo a conjugar-se para asneira da grossa

“Clausewitz describes the effects of friction in terms of two gaps. One gap, caused by our trying to act on an unpredictable external environment of which we are always somewhat ignorant, is between “desired outcomes and actual outcomes (as in the example of the simple journey of the overoptimistic traveler). Another gap, caused by internal friction, is the gap between the plans and the actions of an organization. It comes from the problem of information access, transfer, and processing in which many independent agents are involved (as in his example of a battalion being made up of many individuals, any one of whom could make the plan go awry).

...
The problem of strategy implementation is often reduced to one issue: the gap between plans and actions. How do we get an organization actually to carry out what has been agreed? However, because of the nature of the environment, even if the organization executes the plan, there is no guarantee that the actual outcomes will match the desired ones; that is, the ones the plan was intended to achieve. The two gaps interact to exacerbate each other. In both cases there is uncertainty between inputs and outputs. The problem of achieving an organization’s goals is not merely one of getting it to act, but of getting it to act in such a way that what is actually achieved is what was wanted in the first place. We have to link the internal and external aspects of friction and overcome them both at the same time. There is a third gap, the one between the two, which we must also overcome
...
So these two gaps collapse together, leaving three in all: the gaps between plans, actions, and the outcomes they achieve.

In the case of all three elements – plans, actions, and outcomes – there is a difference between the actual and the ideal. The ultimate evidence for this is that the actual outcomes differ from the desired ones. That means that the actions actually taken were different from those we should have taken. This in turn may have been because we planned the wrong actions (as in the case of the traveler) or because although we planned the right actions, people did not actually do what we intended (as in the case of the confused battalion). Or it may have been because of both. The causes of those shortfalls are different in each case.
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And even if we make good plans based on the best information available at the time and people do exactly what we plan, the effects of our actions may not be the ones we wanted because the environment is nonlinear and hence is fundamentally unpredictable. As time passes the situation will change, chance events will occur, other agents such as customers or competitors will take actions of their own, and we will find that what we do is only one factor among several which create a new situation. Even if the situation is stable, some of the effects of our actions will be unintended. Reality will change...
So in making strategy happen, far from simply addressing the narrowly defined implementation gap between plans and action, we have to overcome three. Those responsible for giving direction face the specific problem of creating robust plans, and those responsible for taking action face the specific problem of achieving results in markets that can react unpredictably.
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These real uncertainties produce general psychological uncertainty. We do not like uncertainty. It makes us feel uncomfortable, so we try to eliminate it.
...
[Moi ici: Isto gera uma tendência para mais informação, mais detalhe, mais controlo, mais procedimentos, mais...] show a consistent drive toward more detail in information, instructions, and control, on the part of both individuals and the organization as a whole. This response is not only a natural reaction for us as individuals, it is what the processes and structures of most organizations are set up to facilitate."

Tudo a conjugar-se para asneira da grossa, para microgestão, para big data...

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”

Não são parafusos, são pessoas

Um tema que os professores Guedes Miranda e Vitorino me deram a conhecer quando andava no 10º e 11º anos de escolaridade: o indeterminismo. A incapacidade de ter à priori toda a informação, mas mesmo que a tivéssemos teríamos de viver com o facto da mesma acção não gerar os mesmos efeitos ao longo do tempo. Einstein, da velha guarda, dizia que Deus não joga aos dados.

“War is an environment, he argued, in which getting simple things to happen is very difficult and getting difficult things to happen is impossible.
...
The gap is described as the difference between what we know and what we can do, as the gulf between planning and execution
...
It is important here to understand the nature of Clausewitz’s disagreement with von Bülow, and others of the school of scientific generalship. They too recognized that chance and uncertainty played a role in war. The difference was that they believed these factors could be eliminated by a more scientific approach to planning. Certainty of outcomes could be achieved by anyone who could gather and correctly process data about topological and geographical distances, march tables, supply needs, and the geometrical relationship between armies and their bases. They believed that in many cases this would render fighting unnecessary.
...
Clausewitz disagreed on two counts. First, he believed that friction was as inherent to war as it is to mechanical engineering and could therefore never be eliminated but only mitigated. Secondly, he believed that studying march tables and the like was not a fruitful means of mitigation. In fact, he came to think that friction had to be worked with. It actually provided opportunities, and could be used by a general just as much as it could be used by an engineer. The first thing was to recognize its existence. The second thing was to understand its nature. That was and remains more difficult.
...
The very business of getting an organization made up of individuals, no matter how disciplined, to pursue a collective goal produces friction just as surely as applying the brakes of a car. Because of the role of chance, actual outcomes are inherently unpredictable.
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There is a gap between the actions we planned and the actions actually taken.
...
no one should develop a strategy without taking into account the effects of organizational friction. Yet we continue to be surprised and frustrated when it manifests itself. We tend to think everything has gone wrong when in fact everything has gone normally. The existence of friction is why armies need officers and businesses need managers. Anticipating and dealing with it form the core of managerial work. Recognizing that is liberating in itself.
...
Not only is an army not a “well-oiled machine,” the machine generates resistance of its own, because the parts it is made of are human. Although Clausewitz’s metaphors are all taken from mechanics rather than biology, he clearly sees where the metaphor itself begins to break down. He is reaching toward the idea of the organization as an organism. While the scientific school sought to eliminate human factors to make the organization as machine-like as possible, Clausewitz sought to exploit them.”

Clausewitz não via o factor humano como um defeito.


Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”

"No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy"

Bom senso, simplicidade - coisas que normalmente estão em défice:

“1 Decide What Really Matters .
You cannot create perfect plans, so do not attempt to do so. Do not plan beyond the circumstances you can foresee. Instead, use the knowledge which is accessible to you to work out the outcomes you really want the organization to achieve. Formulate your strategy as an intent rather than a plan.
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2 Get the Message Across.
Having worked out what matters most now, pass the message on to others and give them responsibility for carrying out their part in the plan. Keep it simple. Don’t tell people what to do and how to do it. Instead, be as clear as you can about your intentions. Say what you want people to achieve and, above all, tell them why. Then ask them to tell you what they are going to do as a result.
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3 Give People Space and Support.
Do not try to predict the effects your actions will have, because you can’t. Instead, encourage people to adapt their actions to realize the overall intention as they observe what is actually happening. Give them boundaries which are broad enough to take decisions for themselves and act on them.”

Recordar von Molkte:

"no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force
...
No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

"Unfortunately, these reactions do not solve the problem"

"“We can measure the results until the outcomes we want are achieved. We can make plans, take actions, and achieve outcomes in a linear sequence with some reliability. If we are assiduous enough, pay attention to detail, and exercise rigorous control, the sequence will be seamless.

In an unpredictable environment, this approach quickly falters. [Moi ici: Imaginem ter um Estado-Maior numa sala, longe das operações no terreno, a dar ordens aos bombeiros sobre quando devem actuar e como. E comparar com o blitkrieg] The longer and more rigorously we persist with it, the more quickly and completely things will break down. The environment we are in creates gaps between plans, actions, and outcomes:

•  The gap between plans and outcomes concerns knowledge: It is the difference between what we would like to know and what we actually know. It means that we cannot create perfect plans.
•  The gap between plans and actions concerns alignment: It is the difference between what we would like people to do “and what they actually do. It means that even if we encourage them to switch off their brains, we cannot know enough about them to program them perfectly.
•  The gap between actions and outcomes concerns effects: It is the difference between what we hope our actions will achieve and what they actually achieve. We can never fully predict how the environment will react to what we do. It means that we cannot know in advance exactly what outcomes the actions of our organization are going to create.

Although it is not common to talk about these three gaps, it is common enough to confront them. It is also common enough to react in ways that make intuitive sense. Faced with a lack of knowledge, it seems logical to seek more detailed information. Faced with a problem of alignment, it feels natural to issue more detailed instructions. And faced with disappointment in the effects being achieved, it is quite understandable to impose more detailed controls. Unfortunately, these reactions do not solve the problem. In fact, they make it worse.”

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”. iBooks. 

"The problem is getting the right things done"

Acabei de ler até à última página  “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”de Stephen Bungay. 

Valeu a pena!

O livro começa com uma introdução sobre o blitzkrieg, tema que já abordei aqui há anos (2010 e 2009) e que os relatos do recente incêndio de Monchique avivaram.

O livro começa com o discurso estratégico de um CEO. Depois, alguém coloca a pergunta:

"“what do you want me to do?”
...
she had had the courage to ask the risky question that everyone wanted answered.
The reply was measured, but evinced frustration of its own. As I said, the CEO observed, we do not have all the answers. But surely you don’t expect me to tell all of you what to do? This is not a command-and-control organization. You are big boys and girls. I am not running this company, we all are. We have a strategy, we have long-term objectives, we all have budgets. We are running a business and we have a direction. It is for each of us to decide what we have to do in our own area and to get on with it.
...
Answering that simple question “What do you want me to do?” is quite a problem.
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GETTING THINGS DONE
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Generating activity is not a problem; in fact it is easy. The fact that it is easy makes the real problem harder to solve. The problem is getting the right things done – the things that matter, the things that will have an impact, the things a company is trying to achieve to ensure success. A high volume of activity often disguises a lack of effective action. We can mistake quantity for quality and then add to it, which merely makes things worse.”

"autonomy at work is the key to employee satisfaction"

"A recent survey conducted by The Harvard Business Review reveals that autonomy at work (not micromanagement) is the key to employee satisfaction and organizational achievement.
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It describes this concept as "rebelling," or giving employees the freedom to "deviate from organizational norms, others' actions, or common expectations, to the benefit of the organization."
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Autonomy for your employees depends on clearly defining your company vision while grounding every project in logical outcomes. Issues arise when people get caught up in their output (how much work they're producing) without a defined outcome (what it is they need to produce).
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"Am I working on the right thing?" is a hard question to answer without understanding what the outcome should be.
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When you hire the right people and share the outcomes you wish to achieve and why, you can trust them to figure out the how. 

Fiz logo o paralelismo com o Blitzkrieg: Agilidade e estratégia

Trechos retirados de "This Harvard Survey Reveals What Most People Miss About Leadership"

Porque nascem os hábitos

Para um apreciador da filosofia de comando e alinhamento por trás da blitzkrieg o texto levanta dúvidas. Dúvidas que depois diminuem quando o autor entra com variáveis como motivação e a complexidade (ou será obliquidade?) do objectivo.

E recordo os tempos mágicos dos anos 90 em que estudava o que a NASA tinha feito a nível de implementação da ISO 9001 nos seus centros. Ainda hoje me lembro, figurativamente, que eles não davam a comida na boca, eles mastigavam a comida na boca e só depois é que a davam. Queriam correr o menor risco possível de que algo fosse mal interpretado.

Para reflexão, recomendo a leitura de "When to Set Rigid Goals, and When to Be Flexible".

Num outro registo (?) algo em sintonia com a leitura de Charles Duhigg "The Power of Habit":

"While there’s no doubt that a flexible approach encouraged more people to adopt the goal, that same flexibility actually hindered the goal’s completion. But why?
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The answer, it seems, has to do with the limits of people’s decision-making ability. According to a variety of sources, we are required to make as many as 35,000 decisions a day. So in the context of an already information-overloaded, decision-fatigued workforce, one thing people will likely appreciate is the need to make fewer, not more, decisions. And that’s exactly what a rigid approach to goal pursuit offers. By setting a predetermined sequence for the achievement of a goal, the number of unnecessary “decision points” that arise when people pursue a plan is reduced or perhaps eliminated completely. As a result, a goal both becomes more likely to be achieved and potentially feels easier in the process." [Moi ici: Não se fiquem por este trecho só ou levam uma parte incompleta, truncada da reflexão. O trecho é só sobre o porque nascem os hábitos, para reduzir a quantidade de decisões conscientes que temos de fazer]

Schwerpunkt

"the reality is that strategy succeeds or fails based on how well leaders at every level of an organization integrate strategic thinking into day-to-day operations. This is less about complexity and more about practical focus.
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Being a strategic leader is about asking the right questions and driving the right dialog with your team. In doing so, you raise the team’s collective ability to be strategic. The more competent you become in asking these questions, the better positioned you are to drive progress for your team and your organization."

A ilusão da comunicação é terrível. E a força da focalização na execução de uma estratégia é tremenda.

A minha bitola é o schwerpunkt da blitzkrieg.

Trechos retirados de "Being a Strategic Leader Is About Asking the Right Questions"

Estratégia = Alinhamento na acção

"2. Strategy Execution definition.
There are quite a few different strategy execution definitions. When I define what strategy execution, I like to start from a famous Mintzberg quote.
Professor Henry Mintzberg is an internationally renowned strategist. He has written more than 150 articles and 15 books on business and management. One of Mintzberg’s insights, “Strategy is a pattern in a stream of decisions,” helps us to better understand how to define strategy execution.
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A long time ago, I learned this phrase by heart—but it took me 5 years to really grasp the point of it. The trick I use to understand Mintzberg’s cryptic statement is to approach decisions in 2 steps. First, there’s the overall decision - the big choice - that guides all other decisions. To make a big choice, we need to decide who we focus on - our target client segment - and we need to decide how we offer unique value to the customers in our chosen segment. That’s basic strategy stuff. But by formulating it this way, it helps us to better understand the second part, the day-to-day decisions - the small choices - that get us closer to the finish line. When these small choices are in line with the big choice, you get a Mintzberg Pattern.
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So if strategy is a decision pattern, strategy execution is enabling people to create a decision pattern. In other words, strategy execution is helping people make small choices in line with a big choice. That’s my strategy execution definition.
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This notion requires a big shift in the way we think about execution. As a strategist looking at strategy execution, we should imagine a decision tree rather than an action plan. Decisions patterns are at the core of successful strategy journeys, not to-do lists. To improve execution speed and accuracy, we should shift our energy from asking people to make action plans to helping them make better decisions."[Moi ici: É claro que uma estratégia, IMHO, precisa de ser convertida em planos de acção, em iniciativas, em acções a desenvolver , por quem, até quando. No entanto, a caminho do futuro desejado, durante a viagem, surgem imprevistos, surge a necessidade de enfrentar situações não previstas, situações novas, situações difíceis. Aí, a rapidez de actuação é fundamental... Blitzkrieg, Schwerpunkt (parte I e parte II)]

Trechos retirados de "Strategy Execution - The definitive guide" de Strategy Jeroen De Flander

Estratégia em tempos de incerteza

Olha-se para o título "Is Strategy Dead? 7 Reasons The Answer May Be Yes" e, só pelo título fazemos logo o enquadramento do que aí vem.
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Mesmo assim, disponibilizamos-nos para o ler e ... às primeiras linhas a coisa descarrila logo:

"Webster’s defines Strategy as “a careful plan for achieving a particular goal over a long period of time.” 

Mais do que um plano ou antes de um plano, estratégia é algo mais a montante, são escolhas sobre o que fazer, sobre o que não fazer e sobre o que vir a ser.
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Ao escrever isto a minha mente recuou até ao blitzkrieg e a Boyd e tentou recordar-se de... schwerpunkt!!!
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Porque o mundo está cada vez mais cheio de incerteza é impossível ter uma estratégia, porque a realidade muda e precisamos de mudar o plano, para a acompanhar, essa é a narrativa do artigo:

"In the end, your company’s strategy is nothing more than the collective actions of all of your employees, and these actions are being guided less by strategies thoughtfully crafted within wood paneled conference rooms, and more by speed, unpredictability and sweeping change occurring on a dynamically evolving battlefield."

Mas se a realidade competitiva está a mudar constantemente, segundo um bailado que não se pode prever, e é preciso agir rapidamente, o que dará consistência a essas acções que têm de ser decididas cada vez mais perto do terreno, como na blitzkrieg?

"Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances."

 Continuo a preferir a leitura de Roger Martin sobre a estratégia em tempos de incerteza e recordar "Strategy and the Uncertainty Excuse":

"The danger, of course, is that while we are using uncertainty as an excuse to put off making strategic choices, the competition may be doing something else entirely. They may be strategizing their way to first mover advantages and positions that leave few if any attractive options in the market.
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Without making an effort to ‘do strategy,’ though, a company runs the risk of its numerous daily choices having no coherence to them, of being contradictory across divisions and levels, and of amounting to very little of meaning. It doesn’t have to be so. But it continues to be so because these leaders don’t believe there is a better way."

Liberdade no terreno

Recordar o exemplo do desempenho da Wal-Mart em Nova Orleães no pós-Katrina em "Lições de 2012":

"Os funcionários superiores da Wal-Mart concentraram-se em estabelecer metas, avaliando o progresso e mantendo as linhas de comunicação com os empregados nas linhas da frente e com agências oficiais quando podiam. Por outras palavras, para lidar com esta situação complexa não emitiram instruções. As condições eram demasiado imprevisíveis e estavam sempre a mudar. O trabalho deles era assegurar que as pessoas falavam umas com as outras."

E comparar com a mensagem de David Marquet em "Turn the Ship Around":

"Specifying to the crew that the true objective was to put the fire out as quickly as possible was a mechanism primarly for competence. Specifying goals, not methods is a mechanism for competence"  

E comparar com o sucesso da Blitzkrieg:

"Tell team members what needs to be accomplished, get their agreement to accomplish it, then hold them strictly accountable for doing it - but don't prescribe how. Requires very high levels of mutual trust." 

E recordar "Schwerpunkt":

"Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances."

Estratégia como verbo

Neste postal de ontem abordei a forma como, num projecto com o balanced scorecard, procuro passar da fase do paleio, da conversa, para a fase da acção, para a fase da actuação rotineira no dia-a-dia.
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Quando uma empresa na sua boa-fé formula uma estratégia, por muito bom sentido que ela possa ter, não passa de conversa, não passa de paleio. Formular e não agir é crime e é o mais vulgar.
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Traduzir uma estratégia num mapa da estratégia já é um importante passo em frente, ajuda a melhorar a comunicação, a visualizar o encadeamento das peças no tabuleiro, a interiorizar o papel de cada um. Contudo, fica a faltar a resposta à pergunta "Sim, OK, percebo. Agora, o que querem ou esperam que eu faça de concreto já a partir da próxima segunda-feira?"
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Ou seja, é preciso passar à execução da estratégia no terreno. Este é um tema de eleição para mim. Por isso, o interesse deste artigo "Strategy as performative practice : The case of Sydney 2030" de Martin Kornberger e Stewart Clegg publicado em 2011 pela revista Strategic Organization e de onde sublinhei:

"strategy in terms of political processes that do not unfold according to the neat logic of more traditional economic strategy research (Moi ici: Como alguém disse "uma brilhante estratégia não resiste aos primeiros minutos da batalha", há sempre algo que não foi pensado, alguém que agiu, que interpretou de forma diferente... não há o crime perfeito. Por isso mesmo é relevante a comunicação e compreensão da estratégia... a lição que fica da blitzkrieg: o objectivo final está fechado e é sagrado, liberdade táctica para quem age no terreno)
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the micro and everyday activities that constitute the labour of strategy, (Moi ici: Qualquer estratégia, para ser executada, para ser operacionalizada, tem de ser traduzida em micro-actividades que podem ser descritas como "quem, faz o quê, até quando") focusing firmly on ‘praxis, practitioners and practices’. Strategy is understood as an activity, as a verb rather than as a noun. For example, the analysis of processes of strategizing focuses on micro-level, everyday interactions in strategy meetings, workshops, conversations and so on, in which strategy is talked into being
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Could we imagine strategy as a performative practice? Strategizing means developing a (usually big) picture of the future that will frame immediate courses of action. In this sense, strategy turns the arrow of time; the future becomes the condition of the possibility for action in the present. Hence, we suggest analysing strategy as a performative practice. The concept of performativity directs our attention to the circumstance that strategizing is an activity that does something.
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Strategy communicates not only socially negotiated meanings but also legitimate and illegitimate forms of action and voice, producing consent but also triggering resistance
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strategy is a discursive practice that constitutes a reality (instead of mirroring it), that defines what is meaningful (instead of measuring it) and that legitimizes actions and decisions (instead of rationally analysing them).
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strategy is a practice that aims at mobilizing people and ‘bringing them along’. As such, strategy is a transformative process: the activities performed as parts of the strategy process contribute to bringing about the desired results as the performative aspect of strategy. Strategy does not so much describe the future as cause this future to come into existence through its process."
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É tão fácil e atraente abordar a estratégia como a tarefa de descrição de um futuro desejado e esquecer que é preciso causar esse futuro através de pessoas que diariamente executam milhares de operações, exibem comportamentos, têm de tomar decisões e pensam por si, e têm as suas prioridades, sonhos e ambições. Se não as alinhamos com a estratégia... não há estratégia.

Em tempos de incerteza...

"the only way to set strategy effectively during uncertain times was to bring together, much more frequently, the members of the top team, who were uniquely positioned to surface critical issues early, debate their implications, and make timely decisions."

E a sua empresa? Com que frequência analisa criticamente os temas associados à estratégia? A frequência actual é diferente da frequência de há três anos?
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Imagina que uma empresa com um sistema de gestão da qualidade alinhado com a estratégia para o negócio, se entretém e contenta com uma revisão anual do sistema?
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Quantos minutos dedica à estratégia nas suas revisões do sistema?
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Mais, Quantos minutos dedica por mês a discutir temas relacionados com a estratégia?
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Em tempos de incerteza a maioria acredita em mais controlo, acredito que não, acredito em mais firmeza estratégica e, muito mais, fluidez táctica.

Trecho retirado de "Managing The Strategy Journey"