I’m sure you can think of time when you’ve thought (or said), “Help! I’m stuck!” Here are a couple of scenarios that come to mind:

• The goal of a project is clear, but how to get there is not. For several days you’ve been thinking about it and asking others for ideas. Yet, for now, you’re stuck.
• A decision needs to be made. In order to make it, two (or more) people need to agree. The decision has been pending for weeks, and it does not look likely it’ll be made any time soon. You’re stuck.
• A piece of equipment is down and no one can seem to think of a reason why it shouldn’t be working. The longer things are down, the higher the pressure seems to get — you’re stuck.
• A customer seems to want something they cannot quite articulate. They’ve adopted a I’ll-know-it-when-see-it stance. After several rounds of prototyping, you’re no closer to striking a win-win deal — you’re stuck.
• You’ve inherited a project/team/responsibility that isn’t on the best path, but because of past decisions it seems best to just keep going. At least for a bit, you’re stuck.

I’m sure this list could get longer and longer if we had a challenge process to brainstorm these I’m-stuck situations. I image if we applied our collective brain power to thinking of some solutions to the situation above, we’d come up with several for each bullet point. I’ve heard people tell me a variety of things they do in these I’m-stuck situations: panicking or doing more research on the specific topic or complaining or eating cookies… you get the point.

The next time you think “Help! I’m stuck!,”think of it as a trigger. The next time these words or others like them float through your mind instead of defaulting to your usual way of doing things, pull out your MBM Framework, look at the MBM Guiding Principles or turn to the list of mental models in the appendix of Science of Success. As you scan the various tools and mental models, I hope you’ll see something that may help you look at your I’m-stuck situation a bit differently. MBM mental models can’t tell us what to think. They can help us with some things to think about.

It’s easy to learn more about MBM — it’s much tougher to apply MBM. Part of the learning process is pausing and being deliberate about what tool or mental model might be most useful in a situation. MBM is not perfect.  I’m not suggesting that just thinking about mental models will lead to solutions to every I’m-stuck situation. I am suggesting that I’m-stuck situations are great opportunities to learn more about MBM, and when MBM is systematically applied over time it’s the best way I know to create value.

What are some other “triggers” we can look out for that may signal it’s a good time to look over the mental models list?

Application, challenge, Mental Models, Value Creation

Lately, I’ve heard several various on this question: “How do we change people?” I must admit this bugs me. Perhaps we are just being sloppy in our language. Yet, embedded in that statement is a belief that I (or we) can change someone other than ourselves. It made me think of a theme in Abraham Maslow’s work: people do not resist change — they resist being changed.

When you step back and think about the folks around you who you wish would change, what do you believe about them? Do you think they are capable of change? Do you assume the best or the worst in their seeming resistance? Take a few moments to search yourself on this one. One of Maslow’s key contributions to the management literature is the idea of a healthy individual. Here are some of the attributes of healthy people:

• “Enlightened management assumes everyone prefers to be a prime mover rather than a passive helper, a tool, a cork tossed about on the waves…” (Maslow on Management, 29).

• “Assume that people can take it, that they are tough, stronger than most people give them credit for. One can easily enough find the limits for each individual and how much he can take and not take. Certainly the strain should not be constant, but people can benefit from being stretched and strained and challenged once in a while at least…” (Maslow on Management, 28).

• “Enlightened management assumes that people are improvable. This does not mean that they are perfectable. Furthermore, it does not exclude their having the vision or hope of perfection. All it says i that people can be better than they are by a little bit at least” (Maslow on Management, 28).

• “All human beings prefer meaningful work to meaningless work. …If work is meaningless, then life comes close to being meaningless. Perhaps here also is the place to point out that no matter how menial the chores – the dishwashing and the test-tube cleaning, all become meaningful or meaningless by virtue of their participation or lack of participation in a meaningful or important or loved goal. For instance, cleaning up baby diapers is repulsive work in itself, but it can be very lovingly done, it can be a beautiful thing for a mother who loves her baby. Washing dishes can be the most meaningless chore or it can be a symbolic act of love for one’s family and can therefore take on great dignity and can even become a sacred activity, etc. This can all be applied to the organization” (Maslow on Management, 39).

While not all of Maslow’s ideas are consistent with MBM, his work is a major influence on MBM. His work about the basic needs and wants of healthy individuals is particularly enlightening when it comes to change. MBM isn’t trying to create MBM clones or MBM drones. Instead, organizations that have MBM as their management philosophy are trying to develop an environment where we can create the most value. We’ve learned from free societies that we have to change in order to do it. Part of that is helping people apply MBM.

So instead of asking “How do we change people’s mental models?” I’d rather ask, “What kind of environment makes it more likely for people to adopt and apply MBM mental models?” What conditions make it harder for people to adopt and apply mental models? Are there specific things we can do (or stop doing) to make it more likely we are applying MBM mental models?

I stumbled across an article about how Amazon has quickly gained 1/3 of all online shopping. I do not want to speak to the validity of the data the article presents. Instead, I want to think about how a company gains business (note: do an Internet search about the Amazon infographics and you’ll see people have a lot to say about it!).

Assume for a moment that nothing violates the Guiding Principles of Integrity or Compliance, how DID Amazon gain so much of the online business? Use MBM mental models to help explain how this came about.

Happy 4th of July to those of you who celebrate the adoption of the US Declaration of Independence. I’m reminded of how US founding was viewed in Europe whenever I read parts of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, I’m reminded that (as he put it) the “great American experiment” yielded fruit — prosperity. Typically, the 4th is a celebration of the past. Yet as the 4th of July rolls around this year, I find myself wishing we (the people of the world) would learn more from the past and the present throughout the world about how to enable more people to be more prosperous.  

The reason I care deeply about economic freedom is that I care deeply about people. It’s not about perfection — there is no utopia. It’s about facing the reality of living in a world of scarce resources and finding ways to make the best of it. I’m proud to be part of an MBM community because of the focus on people (both within the organization and in society in general). I cannot imagine working for an organization that puts a higher priority on anything else.

My hope for the world on this day of US celebration is to learn from history, to ask what do we want the world to look like down the road, and to find realistic ways to get there. I hope in several years when I write my July 4th post I’ll be able to link back to this post and say the world is a more peaceful, prosperous, and civil place.

I wish you a happy — and reflective — 4th of July.

Below is an amusing and thought provoking clip in the TED talks series. As you watch, be deliberate to think about what is consistent with MBM and what is inconsistent with MBM. What topics do you think might need more discussion/research to figure out of they fit in with MBM?

Once again, I find myself thinking about courage (see previous posts here and here). This is a topic I’ve found myself pondering on and off for about the last six months. The recent bout of pondering comes from some feedback I received earlier this year. After a meeting with some leaders, I was told (not in these words) that it seemed like I was afraid to give my opinion. The person who gave me the feedback did so in a respectful way (with my best interests in mind), but I felt the accusation: coward. To make things tougher, I felt like my behavior had been misinterpreted.

No one likes to feel cowardly. No one likes to know others believe them capable of cowardice. No one likes to wonder if others are being overly kind to minimize the chance of cowardice. My internal response was to mentally catalog when I acted with courage. I wanted to be able to say, “See, there I acted with courage!” During these mental exercises, a couple of things have dawned on me about courage:

• Courage can be difficult to see. While doing the right thing might be obvious, the fear or discomfort one might be experiencing is individual. In a twist to the story, I made some bold statements in a meeting and someone called me brave for it. It wasn’t bravery — I was not afraid or uncomfortable. One person’s courage is another person’s Tuesday afternoon coffee break.
• Don’t make the mistake of associating an increase in trust with a decrease for the need for courage. “Trust enables people to accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible and to work efficiently and in harmony toward a common vision. Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow called trust ‘an important lubricant of a social system.’ It is just as important in business” (Science of Success, 94). We know human behavior is nuanced (see mental models of subjective value, self-interest, and hierarchy of needs). Trust and courage are not straightforward concepts or constant characteristics. While some of us might be more trusting or more courageous in general, in different situations people will see things in different ways.
• Supervisors can cultivate one’s ability to act courageously. While my supervisor may not know every situation that requires courage, he can reward and recognize when I act consistently with the Guiding Principles. He may not know how much courage I had to muster, but he can point out when my actions made a difference. Genuine recognition goes a long way — especially when something required courage.

Applying MBM takes courage. MBM organizations expect employees to do the right thing. This means everything from speaking up when no one else does to stopping a machine/process (foregoing potential profits) to ensure excellence in safety to offering a radical new idea to disagreeing with the boss (or the boss’s boss…). Courage is not a topic we can avoid if want to advance the MBM culture. I’m grateful for the feedback I got earlier this year.

Take a few minutes this week to think about courage. When was the last time you were courageous at work? Who around you could benefit from some feedback (positive or negative) to help them act with more courage? What are some ways others have helped you to act with courage?

courage

Free speech is one of the mental models we learn about from free societies. Recently, I was asked for some sources on free speech, so I figured I might as well share them with all of you. First, I want to give you a little bit of context for these sources. I’m an economist by training, so when I first started studying MBM, I had to learn (and continue to learn) quite a bit about other disciplines that MBM has drawn from, including psychology, management, history, and law (along with how economics specifically fits into MBM). Free speech was one of those mental models that I thought I knew something about, but it turned out to be a rich and deep topic of which I only had a surface understanding. Below are the sources I found most useful in exploring this mental model.

•  On Liberty by John Stewart Mill – specifically the first half of chapter 2, which is call “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion.”
• “The Republic of Science” by Michael Polanyi — especially useful for exploring standards on free speech.  
• Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction — I offer this with the disclaimer that there are some examples of offensive speech used as examples of what does or does not qualify as free speech in the US.
• These guides are about free speech in higher education specifically, usually by start with some general thoughts about free speech. Also, I found them useful in helping me understand some of the practical implications  free speech rights.

What sources have you found useful when learning about free speech? What questions or thoughts come to mind about free speech?

As with all influences on MBM, not every single part of these sources are consistent with the values and beliefs in the MBM philosophy. MBM draws on lessons, ideas and best practices from thinkers and disciplines to understand how humans achieve societal peace, prosperity and civility. When reading original works that influenced MBM or sources that are educational, I encourage you to critically evaluate what is consistent and inconsistent with the MBM philosophy.

Free speech

Recently I’ve been working on a paper about Michael Polanyi. Every time I read something by Polanyi or something about Polanyi I find a new nuance or layer. The mental models influenced by Polanyi’s work have serious implications for innovation and change. Three mental models that come to mind are personal knowledge, discovery, and the republic of science. These three mental models may seem obscure to some of you, but I believe that if we can find ways to have organizations that are ripe with opportunities for employees to develop personal knowledge our ability to create value would greatly increase.

After all of this rereading much of Polanyi’s work, I seem to come back to the quotes about passion and originality. In particular, a paragraph on page 34 of Everyman Revived caught my attention.

“Originality must be passionate, Polanyi wrote, in the same vein. ‘Theories of the scientific method which try to explain the establishment of scientific truth by any purely objective formal procedure are doomed to failure. Any process of enquiry unguided by intellectual passions would inevitably spread out into a desert of trivialities. Our vision of reality, to which our sense of scientific beauty response, must suggest to us the kind of questions that it should be reasonable and interesting to explore.’”

Be passionate about one’s work isn’t a matter of extreme emotion. Instead, it’s something more like a fascination, a gut feeling you’re on to something, a hunch that something is worth doing, or a nagging sense that more can be done. People create, innovate, and solve problems when they are passionate enough to put in the time and effort necessary to develop and apply personal knowledge to discover.

“Obsession with one’s problem is in fact the mainspring of all inventive power. Asked by his pupils in jest what they should do to become ‘a Pavlov’, the master answered in all seriousness: ‘Get up in the morning with your problem before you. Breakfast with it. Go to the laboratory with it. Eat your lunch with it. Keep it before you after dinner. Go to bed with it in your mind. Dream about it.’… But what is the object of this intensive preoccupation? How can we concentrate our attention on something we don’t know? Yet this is precisely what we are told to do: ‘Look at the unknown!’ – says Polya – ‘Look at the end. Remember your aim. Do not lose sight of what is required. Keep in mind what you are working for. Look at the unknown. Look at the conclusion.’ No advice could be more emphatic” (Personal Knowledge, 127).

The Guiding Principle of Change lays out an expectation that we “Embrace change. Envision what could, challenge the status quo, and drive creative destruction.” To do this, we must places where we can pursue our passions to develop and apply our personal knowledge to discover new/better ways to create value.

From your experience, what are some characteristics of an organization that seem to encourage developing and applying personal knowledge – particularly when it comes to employees working on things they are passionate about and that create value for society? What are some characteristics of an organization that seem to discourage discovery?

I’m sure many of you have heard of Learn Liberty — a website dedicated to providing content about the ideas of a free society. I check it regularly because MBM is based on the ideas that allow free societies to prosper. Over the past 50 years, MBM practitioners have learned from many different disciplines, including economics and history. Learn Liberty has some great video clips in both subjects. Below are two videos from the site that give a taste of what’s on the site.  

The Price System, Part 1: Information

Forgotten Rebellion: Black Seminoles and Largest Slave Revolt in U.S. History

This part of a series of articles called “Employee #12345.” This series is designed to point out how MBM differs from other management philosophies from an employee standpoint. While not a comprehensive view, this series is designed to provide a personal view of how the MBM philosophy differs from more traditional ways of running a business. As with all posts, keep in mind this is my viewpoint alone, and I’m not a guru.

Supervisor: Thanks for stopping by Employee #54321. Here’s your performance review.

Employee #54321 sits in stunned silence.

Supervisor: I know you did a couple of special projects that our review process doesn’t include — like the mentoring program and hiring committee work — but my hands are tied. Your numbers just don’t stack up to the other people with your job title this year.

Employee #54321 sits in stunned silence.

Supervisor: Don’t worry. I know you’re a good employee. I’m working to get your job title reclassified so we don’t have this type of thing happen in the future.

Traditional companies can treat employees like numbers when it comes to their performance reviews. Here are a couple of common practices that  can have that effect:

• Performance reviews are a one time event (usually on a rigid schedule).
• Performance reviews are largely based on a single dimension assessment of whether someone met, did not meet or exceed expectations.
• Those responsible for giving performance reviews have to compare everyone internally by rankings.
• Performance review forms are widely standardized (i.e., an accountant and a machine operator have the same form).

Employee #54321′s frustration largely comes from a situation where performance reviews are based on internal comparisons and have been overly standardized.  (Employee #11234 was featured in another post addressing the other two bullet points listed above). Some of the downsides to forcing annual reviews to have internal comparisons include:

• Losing touch with the reality of market competition. What if compared to the industry you have most employees who are far above (or far below) the typical contributor?
• The incentives may cause a lack of initiative in areas that may create value but don’t contribute to pre-mandated performance measures. Why would Employee #54321 agree to take on special projects in the future?

Compound the idea of internal rankings with overly standardized forms and employees like Employee #54321 may become extremely demotivated. Not only are the special project contributions being overlooked, but the standardize reviews are penalizing her. Employee #54321′s supervisor feels trapped as well because a high performing employee is going to get a bad review. It’s a double whammy that demotivates employees and limit’s the supervisor’s abilities to motivate and retain great employees.

So what would Employee #54321 experience if she was in an MBM organization? Well, she might find on the surface that her supervisor does things similar to her past experiences, like annually sitting down with her to take a big picture look at how the year has gone. What she’ll find is some major differences in approach. For instance, her supervisor will have detailed feedback, using many different sources of data (like her RR&Es, feedback from people all around Employee #54321, as well as the supervisor’s own observations and whatever else helps form a reality-based view of Employee #54321′s performance). Instead of Employee #54321?s supervisor just filling out a form, Employee #54321 will get an annual review that is personalized. 

Employee #54321′s performance isn’t based on a forced internal ranking — instead her supervisor will use an approach that considers many factors, including:

• The MBM Guiding Principles as a critical part of assessing Employee #54321′s performance. The MBM Guiding Principles are expectations for all employees in MBM organizations and must be included in the performance review.
• Personalized measures (both quantitative and qualitative) that have been clarified during the RR&E Process.
• “Economic analysis and 360-degree feedback should be used to understand his or her contribution to long-term results. This is to ensure the best information available is used to appropriately recognize both positive and negative contributions” (The Science of Success, 153).

Like many of the topics examined in this “Employee #12345″ series, instead of viewing performance reviews as a one-time-one-size-fits-all-process, MBM organizations consider individuals. I don’t want to mislead you, there are some forms involved in most annual reviews in MBM organizations. The difference is MBM organizations allow for personalization on the forms and supervisors are asked to use their judgement when using standardized forms. Sometimes it makes sense to use standard forms, but when it doesn’t, supervisors have options. This approach is quite different from standardizing a form to use for every employee in the business. It’s likely Employee #54321′s experience would have included the extra projects and mentoring because her supervisor would have had the option to include them. Also, it’s likely Employee #54321′s RR&E would have been adjusted to account for the special projects. So her expectations would have been different than they were previous to taking on those projects.

I’ve found my annual reviews to be useful — sometimes exciting, sometimes painful (not overly so), and sometimes a little of each, but always useful to my growth. It’s not easy work for a supervisor to approach annual reviews this way. The payoff can be huge in terms of helping direct reports increase their abilities to create value in the long run. MBM organizations are not perfect, but the likelihood of useful annual reviews increases significantly when taking this approach.

What’s been your experience with annual reviews? Does my experience reflect what you’ve experienced with performance reviews? Let me know what you think in comments.

Employee #12345