Rapid Idea Improvement

We seek answers to the question "Who am i ?"

But is that possible ? What is the alternative ?

What you can not use a goal for:

What you should not use a goal for:

What you can use a goal for:

Introducing 2 possible approaches to answering this question ....

They cannot confirm your plans (only falsify them)

Both problems are soluble

We act upon our ideas - our behavior is a consequence of our ideas (goals, plans)

Ideas can be explicit, inexplicit and subconscious

Ideas evolve via conjecture and criticism

Now, when we want to make people do things, we try to replace existing ideas with new ones

Departments like Finance, Sales, … are constructs (to label and structure where people are)

What really exists are problems: conflict of ideas

For example: Finance wants customer payment periods shortened for working capital reduction, sales want to give longer payment terms. 2 ideas are conflicting here. You can never say that Finance deals with this, because sales is going to counter argue.

The solution to the conflict is never black and white IN a particular department

It is a mistake to think it should. “We are finance so we decide on payment terms”

It is all cooperation around a conflict of ideas from both sides. The solution that is implemented CAN EVEN come from a sales guy … or from any outsider. And those can be good solutions.

Or a sales person can criticise an initial solution from Finance, making Finance change their solution. Can you then say that the Finance department solved it ? No you can’t

What is the concrete implication: do not restrict solutions too narrowly to departments, set-up open, cross-functional teams to solve these problems, understand that solutions evolve via criticisms from many parties, making them eventually much better than the initial idea

People are the collection of ideas plus a universal capacity to change or improve them

When we hire people, we hire both aspects.

Many companies launch One Way of Working programs

Why

Flaws

We want to change in companies: from any current state to any new state (goals/ objectives). We need 2 things for that: a prediction (of the goal we want to reach) and an explanation for how to actually reach it (current state, actions, decisions, milestones, issues, ...)

We focus on predictions too much : the goals in and of themselves / plus the KPIs to show how far we are away from the goals, the rewards when reching the goal, the importance of the goal, ...

What is more important is to have good explanations for how to reach goals

And criticisms to improve those explanations

There are however still good and bad explanations

Bad explanations: “If you take your responsibility, you will reach the goal”

Good explanations: clear plans, with real-time updates whenever you learn from criticisms

The real knowledge is in the explanations, not in the goals not in the KPIs

Recommendations:

Moralising

Solving a moral problem is the opposite