Even though I am pretty much a contract manager now, I aspire to be a craftsman.  Someone who is a master of their trade. Someone with that amazing ability to deliver outstanding quality reliably.

Those last four words are worth repeating: “Deliver outstanding quality reliably.” That ability to get it right first time is quite rare. Its valuable. People are prepared to pay money for that sort of thing. In some ways we expect this to happen as a matter of course ie. things are going to turn out exactly how we want them to, but they rarely do. Unless you are, or have hired -  a craftsman.

I find one of the most interesting aspects of really good tradesman is their tools. They are rarely shiny and new but more likely to be well used and battered but well cared for all the same. The tradesman will know exactly how they work and any idiosyncrasies that may have. They produce predictable results and you have confidence in them. Each one will have a specific purpose and place in the toolbox.

Check out this video I have attached below. It shows a real craftsman using his tools I think it illustrates what I am talking about really well.

Having trusted, reliable tools is rare in the information/digital world where new and improved seems to trump tried and true every time. People say…”What you are using a SWOT analysis technique for? You should be using this new technique which is like SWOT on steroids!” or “You are still trying to using Agile? Lean is the new thing you should be implementing.” etc.

The result is that we (ie. information workers) seem to spend all our time trying new tools and always feeling unsure if its working or not and then moving on to the next shiny thing. The risk factors are always high and it is rare to find someone that amazing ability to deliver outstanding quality reliably.

Of course what you are thinking now is that it’s easy to “deliver outstanding quality reliably” if all you are doing is just building another widget. That guy in the video has obviously made that exact bench many times before and he was just following a known process and had specialised tools for that process. The life of the information working is never like that. Its always about discovery and is never about building widgets.

I agree. But there are tools that can be applied to the discovery process. There are tools that can be used repeatedly and together, can form an information worker’s toolbox. I just don’t see that same level of trust and care about these tools in my day to day experience. I have started putting my own information worker’s toolbox together and over the next few posts I will describe what they are,  why I used them and what I get out of them.

Craftsman* create and build things. They take some raw materials and do some work to make something more valuable.  In today’s corporate world  this is not necessarily about building furniture or pottery because the raw material is most likely to be information. All large companies today rely on information technology and therefore depend on craftsman to be creative with it.

office by kirwilliam, on Flickr

When an organisation doesn’t have the right type of craftsmen internally, they contract the work out and employ contract managers make sure they get what they want within the time frames required. For the purposes of this post I want to extend this definition to say that contract managers are essentially “craftsman wranglers” whether they be internal or external.

“A” is a good example of a craftsman. “A”’s job title is a “Web Analyst” and what she does is look at website logs etc to measure how many people are viewing the company website and what they are doing while they are there.  She is a quiet genius when it comes to this task and is able to identify interesting usage patterns and predict how many visitors the website is going to get in any given month with amazing accuracy. Without her, the company would be flying blind regarding how their website is working.

“B” is a good example of a contract manager.  He leads a cross functional team that includes some craftsmen types like graphic designers and copywriters. While not being a designer or writer himself he is also very good at his job and makes sure the work is done on time and meets quality standards. He is exceptionally organised and excels at planning ahead to make sure his team is run well. He is making sure all the contracts are being fulfilled whether they be internal or external.

While both “A” and “B” both are good at their jobs and take pride in their work, there is a one thing that makes a significant difference: “A”’s work is not scalable while “B”’s is.  “A” can only do so much in a day while “B” can start managing other contract managers ie. A promotion means applying the same skills. “A” can also get promoted but this will mean wholly or partly turning into a contract manager which is not attractive at all to her She loves what she does and is not prepared to give it up.

What this all means is that in large organisations, people like “B” who are good, get promoted while people like “A” who are also good, seem to have limited progression opportunities.

This leads to an unfortunate outcome where companies are run by non-craftsman and think that their particular skills are the ones that are important and increase shareholder value. After a certain point corporate leaders have no idea how their company really operates and find themselves managing a black box that makes money but they are not really sure how. They choose to outsource as much as they can looking for cheaper ways to run the black box without realising that they are outsourcing the creativity which forms the real fundamentals of the company.

The real value of a business lies with the craftsman working there but this value cannot be fully realised unless you have good contract managers organising things and respecting the the work the craftsman do.

*(or “craftsperson” if you like but I assure you that even though I used the non-PC term here I mean it inclusively) 

I was familiar with the idea of design patterns in the context of software development and I knew them to be reusable approaches to solve common problems. They are  not necessarily the exact answer to your problem, it’s just a template that you start with and adapt to suit. So rather than starting from scratch, you get a head start by using a proven approach that has worked well in the past.

If you are not a developer don’t bother looking these up because they are quite boring and have names like “the adaptor” or” the bridge”. The problems they  are solving are common programming issues not day to day human problems.

Meeting nieuwe leden by Voka - Kamer van Koophandel Limburg, on Flickr

So it follows that an anti-pattern is the opposite of a pattern or as wikipedia says “Some repeated pattern of action, process or structure that initially appears to be beneficial, but ultimately produces more bad consequences than beneficial results”. The key thing here is that anti-patterns are not obviously “bad” at the start. They seem just as good as anything else but they have been shown to end up doing more harm than good despite seeming like workable solutions to begin with.

Now I am fine with this definition but here is the thing about the wikipedia article for anti-pattern: While the examples given for patterns are rather abstract, the examples given for anti-patterns are of a very human scale that is easy to relate to. The list of recognised anti-patterns kicked off with examples around organisational behaviours including

• Analysis paralysis: Devoting disproportionate effort to the analysis phase of a project
• Cash cow: A profitable legacy product that often leads to complacency about new products
• Design by committee: The result of having many contributors to a design, but no unifying vision
• Escalation of commitment: Failing to revoke a decision when it proves wrong
• Management by perkele: Authoritarian style of management with no tolerance for dissent
• Moral hazard: Insulating a decision-maker from the consequences of his or her decision.
• Mushroom management: Keeping employees uninformed and misinformed (kept in the dark and fed manure)
• Stovepipe: A structure that supports mostly up-down flow of data but inhibits cross organisational communication
• Vendor lock-in: Making a system excessively dependent on an externally supplied component^[4]

Now, being wikipedia you need to take this with a grain of salt and I am not sure these are true anti-patterns. Even so these examples had a huge impact on me, not because I can cite recent personal experience of most these but because of the idea that these can be grouped together to form a kind of organisational playbook. God I would love one of those.  I wonder what the good organisational patterns would look like?

There is only one good organisational pattern that I can think of right now and that is the 3 horizon model suggested in The Alchemy of Growth. I would buy a book that sets out these ideas in the same way as software pattens are used in software engineering.

West Coast at Half time #2 by Michael_Spencer, on Flickr

Now this sounds ridiculous but it is exactly the process I see happening when large organisations try to do anything new.  In a corporate environment there are many people with overlapping roles and responsibilities which creates an atmosphere of intense competition around whose ideas see the light of day. The internal politics and manoeuvring that goes on soaks up the energy of those involved and tends to favour those adept at political warfare and debate rather than any inherent practical capability to do things. To me, this seems to explain why large organisations take so long to create new things and why the result are often so poor.

What we are seeing is the work of exhausted fighters.

Smaller organisations don’t have this problem because they are lucky if they have enough people for a team in the first place. You are much more likely to find someone covering two roles rather that competing for one which means that they can focus all their energy on the work itself. They don’t need to establish a mandate to do something new or convince anyone else that they are competent. Creating PowerPoint presentations with 50 slides are a distraction that they just don’t spend time on. Instead they are judged on real world results.

Small companies usually have the advantage of a leader who is close to the work and knows what roles need to be done and is able to spot duplication and inefficiency. I am sure most CEOs of big companies don’t really understand how their companies work and have to rely on what they hear which is usually managers big noting themselves or cutting others down. They spend most of their time dealing with the politics.

I need to be careful here and say that most of my comments relate to doing new things. There are large parts of organisations which don’t experience this and that’s because they do something that no one else wants to do. There is no competition for who is going to talk to customers on the phone.

Of course you are probably thinking that big corporates make big decisions about big things. Their actions affect large numbers of people and involve millions of dollars. They need to have all these check and balances. To which I reply “yes, thats true” but I am not seeing checks and balances, I am seeing chaotic in-fighting with little in the way of actual results.

So, here is the thing: Successful companies grow bigger and eventually get to a size where internal conflict arises about who is actually responsible for doing the interesting work. At this point a political environment is created where some people thrive and other people get pushed into corners. I am saying that the people adept creating and delivering good ideas are rarely the ones who are good at the politics. So what you end up with is a situation where everyone seems to be extremely busy but externally nothing appears to be happening.

For large organisations to succeed, every effort needs to be made to minimise the politics and make sure the best person for the job is actually doing “the job”.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, ‘Top Gear’ is a BBC car show presented by three blokes driving a lot of expensive super cars or competing in motoring challenges and I can’t get enough of it.

Until recently, I liked it because of the three presenters who are motoring journalists that speak their minds but they also have a engaging quality when they are out driving together which makes the show very appealing. They also have quite distinct personalties and seem to be teasing each other most of the time which is somehow refreshing compared to usual sugar coated TV shows we see..

The thing is…. they are into Series 10 now and are starting to repeat themselves quite a bit but I keep on watching and I now realise that it is not about the presenters anymore.

No way can you fit 2 outboard motors ... by nahtanoj, on Flickr

The defining thing for me now is production values displayed on this show. They are outstanding. Everything is high quality, every shot looks beautiful, every segment is interesting and every adventure makes you feel like a kid again. Every single episode is memorable for some reason.

Sure Jeremy, Richard and James are fun to watch but they are really only representing the average viewer in all of this. They actually spend very little time being journalists and are mostly just providing a way for us to vicariously live experience they are having. Who can afford a Bugatti Veyron anyway?

So while the presenters are a little like comfortable old friends now and I now know all their funny lines, the producer(s) are really the ones keeping me watching.

Since my current role includes the word ‘producer’ in the title here are some things I have learnt from the production of Top Gear regarding producing success.

1. It is rare to get it right first time so persevere.

Top Gear started in 1977 and has gone through many changes before finding the current combination. The format that they launched with was very different to today but they tried different things until they got it right.

2. Everything starts with good content.

The ideas that the Top Gear producers come up with each series are simply awesome. e.g. Taking the worlds fastest car to its top speed, driving to the north pole, driving across Africa, competing in real 24hr endurance race.

3. Know your audience.

Jeremy Clarkson is wholly or partly offensive most of the time but you still want to watch him. I am sure some people watch just to get really offended. (He makes this so easy to do). Personally, I watch him because he is so refreshingly politically incorrect it makes me really think if I agree with him or not. In any case the producers know their audience and know that Clarkson is pushing the right buttons for the audience segments they target.

I am not talking about mission statements here or a company vision or any of the noble ambitions that get set and ignored day to day. I am talking about the many times in my career when I have been told that our new inspirational objective is something like “grow by 23% the next financial year” or “to reach $1.3 million dollars in recognised revenue”.

”

Cashmoney by Martin Kingsley, on Flickr

Yes. That is a goal I can really get behind. I am so motivated now.”
(NB. Read that line aloud in a monotone voice to get the full effect of the sarcasm.)

Seriously, who really does get off on these sorts of things?

I will tell you who…… It’s people who are so far removed from the actual business that they view it as just a money making machine where the inner workings and detail are invisible and irrelevant.

I guess it’s little like planning a holiday based on how many kilometres you travel.

A- How was your holiday?
B- Great, we did 2435kms as planned.
A – Really, where did you go?
B – I’m not sure but we really covered some ground!
A- Did the family have a good time?
B – Probably. You will have to ask them.
A – Right. So What are you planning to do next holiday?
B – Well….if we can squeeze another 5% out I will be happy.

I think the dollars and percentages should not be treated as goals in themselves.

If you want to lose weight. You are far better off setting a goal to go out for a walk every day rather than saying you are going to aim to lose 1.13kgs a week with no real understanding of how you are going to get there.
So in a business context we should be setting goals to do real, tangible things that people can relate to. Like making products better or improving service standards and communicate this to the staff rather that insipid financial porn.

You can still have the dollar and the percentage measures in the background if you want. I am sure they are important to the suits but realise that they are secondary measures and not the core of the matter.