Category: management

How To Find the Right Balance for Bureaucracy

I am always astonished as how fast bureaucracy can develop in any organisation, i.e. activities being created that keep people busy with limited value created for the client. In this HBR article (in French) ‘Le coût de la bureaucratie‘ some measures of bureaucracy and of its costs are developed. At the same time, some bureaucracy, systems and standards is needed to keep large organizations going and remain effective as they scale. How can the right balance be found?

Bureaucracy is measured by looking for example at the time it takes to get a given decision, and the HBR paper shows that it increases significantly with the size of the organization. This is obviously a problem. At the same time, some kind of control is required on decisions being taken, in particular when they can have a large leverage on the organization’s performance. Similarly, a minimum of internal coordination and systems are required when an organisation grows, to make work more effective; but they should not be too inflexible and unable to adapt to new circumstances.

There is a fine balance between not enough and too much bureaucracy. Those organisations that find the right balance are the most effective. The main issue, I find, is that principles of operation often become obsolete but remain in force in bureaucratic organizations. I believe that every few years, a hard look should be taken at how the organisation works, and an objective of replacing 30 to 40% of its operating principles should be sought.

Do you practice this periodic health check?

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How Poor Management is a Hurdle to the Automation of Repetitive Work Tasks

In this excellent Atlantic piece ‘The Coders Programming Themselves Out of a Job‘, the dilemma facing employees that manage to automatize their work tasks is described in detail: what should you do if you manage to automatize your 8 hours’ task and then have nothing more to do?

Some fake it and try to look like they’re hard working – until they are caught. Some others transparently declare the situation – management is generally surprised (but not necessarily awed), and often takes too much time to reorganize the work. The central question is “Is it unethical for me to not tell my employer I’ve automated my job?”

In my view, this article just shows poor management quality that is unable to imagine that job tasks can be automated, or respond positively to employee initiatives. This is the reflect of an unhealthy corporate culture, which is unfortunately too widespread.

It seems to me that we should celebrate people who manage to automatise their tasks, give them a raise and see if they can contribute further. There is no fun performing repetitive tasks all day long if they can be easily automatized. And it is definitely not future-looking. It is much more fun to devise and code creatively and shift the value elsewhere.

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How People Constantly Take Decisions Based on Opinions

In my consulting work I am permanently astonished how much people tend to take decisions based on opinions without even taking a few hours to establish some quick facts about the situation.

Of course we all know that at the end we tend to take decisions based on our feelings, and that over-analysis is not good. However in the professional field it is astonishing to see how many substantial decisions impacting many people are taken with limited analysis or basic fact checking about orders of magnitude. A common example in my speciality is project scheduling, and scheduling forecast. It is quite easy to establish the current slippage of a schedule and the current productivity level compared to the expectations. Decision-makers do not even take a few minutes to establish those facts.

As a consultant a substantial part of my job is to establish some of those facts to question the worldview of decision-makers. And by doing that I am often disturbing because I often invalidate well established opinions. Up to the point that I often need backing by top management for those exercises.

Please take a few minutes to gather some basic facts and orders of magnitude before taking decisions. It would so greatly improve a number of situations. It is astonishing how many bad decisions are taken without basic fact-checking.

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How Each Social Group Has Its Own Vernacular Tongue

Have you realized that each social group, be it a local community, a sports club a particular industry or a specific company, has its own vernacular tongue. In particular, it tends to use words and acronyms whose sense is only understandable by the initiated. We often underestimate the community power created by this shared understanding – and the exclusion power for those that don’t understand it.

Which means that an outsider’s first focus should be to learn that specific tongue, so as to be integrated. The power of integration brought by the capability to speak the community tongue is incredible and underestimated.

As a consultant I do enter many different client organizations and learning the specific words, expressions and acronyms is the first priority. Once they are known and used properly, I feel integrated in the community, and they feel I am part of them, which is quite useful.

Hat tip to Alain Carcassès for the discussion and the original idea

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How AI is already at work managing employees

AI management of employees is not a scene of the future. It is already happening. Of course on a specific type of work, but nevertheless this is not science-fiction any more!

In the post ‘An internet company has found a single manager for 60,000 employees‘, Quartz explains how the company Rainforest QA is using AI to coordinate the thousands of mainly part-time employees doing basic checking tasks and bug-finding on algorithms and other software. Thus, how it has automatized most of its task assignment duties.

The web is already noisy from the possibility of funds being managed by AI instead of human teams. It seems that most of the basic management tasks of tasks assignment or arbitration between possible investments is soon going to be taken over by AI.

Welcome to the future of the organization!

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How to Overcome the Project Execution Paradox

The Project Execution Paradox is this: the more you advance in a project, the more you know about it, and at the same time the least degrees of freedom you have to influence it.

It is a close cousin of the sunk cost syndrome, which leads us to continue on absurd projects because of what had been spent already.

There are several techniques to overcome this paradox. They are mostly aimed to minimize commitment and maximize knowledge early in the project. They are routinely used without people realizing their ultimate aim:

  • create an explicit gate-based decision path that allows to review the project case during the development of the team’s knowledge and understanding of it, and possibly decide to stop it (or to go back to the drawing boards) before too much gets committed,
  • the ‘lean startup’ path that develops the project with small commitments of resources of energy while maximizing learning and the number of possible iterations,
  • All planning approaches which aim at dedicated resources to increasing knowledge before large expenditures are being made.

Whatever the approach, the paradox will remain and surprises will occur during project execution. By being aware of the Project Execution Paradox we can try to anticipate better and be prepared for its expression.

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How to Discover More About People: Play!

Long ago, Plato said: “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”

unhappy tennis player
An unhappy player that expressed his disappointment physically

It is particularly true I find when it comes to the emotional reactions of people who lose, or even simply by observing how much people can get involved in the game.

It is to a point where it is surprising that recruiters haven’t thought to include group games as part of their selection process (some do, but they are rare). It would also allow to observe whether people are team players, or rather seek to demonstrate their own performance. Games and playing are used extensively in teambuilding and leadership development programs though, and that often allows to know people much better!

Want to know people better, quickly? Set up a team game!

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How to Look Beyond Aggressiveness and Hate

“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear” – said Gandhi. When we express hate (or even just mundane aggressiveness) we in fact somehow express our underlying fear, our intrinsic insecurity.

hate as a distillate created by fearIt is amazing to consider when someone screams at you, how fragile and fearful that person must be. I find it is an excellent way to overcome the natural rush of adrenaline and the emotional reaction to the situation (which typically hovers around our primitive fight or flight reaction) . Plus it provides some empathy that might come useful in that situation (Of course if it becomes too obvious that you pity the person that is aggressive that might not resolve the problem at this instant so remain just calm and composed!)

Fear creates ravages throughout the world and in our daily environment. Nip the fear out, find out precisely what is feared and you’ll overcome aggressiveness.

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How Psychology Explains Why Most Projects Fail Miserably

The statistics of project failure are abysmal (two-third of projects fail – either outright, or by not providing the expected benefits). In addition, what is remarkable is that when they fail, they generally fail miserably – it is not just some statistical distribution due to the world uncertainties.

Psychology might offer an explanation for that interesting phenomenon, which I have actually observed in action in real projects. The prospect theory, mentioned and explained by Daniel Kahneman in the bestseller “Thinking, Fast and Slow“, shows that we tend to have some biases when deciding in an uncertain context.

A summary of prospect theory showing those situations where we tend to be excessively risk-adverse or risk-seeking
A summary of prospect theory showing those situations where we tend to be excessively risk-adverse or risk-seeking

What occupies us in this instance is the upper right corner: when there is a high risk of significant losses, we tend to take more risk than would be reasonable in the hope of being able to recoup our losses.

So, project managers, facing situations where the prospective outcome of their project is degrading fast, with a high probability of significant loss, would tend to take the risk of an (improbable) recovery rather than cut their losses. And in reality, it is a phenomenon I observe again and again in real project life.

As Daniel Kahneman observes, “This is where people who face very bad options take desperate gambles, accepting a high probability of making things worse in exchange for a small hope of avoiding a large loss. Risk taking of this kind often turns manageable failures into disasters.”

Make sure you can keep managing the situation. Learn to cut your losses instead of hoping for an uncertain recovery!

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How to Organize Working Space for Collaboration

Working space spatial organization is important when it comes to fostering collaboration. Many visionary entrepreneurs know this. And they came up with many different solutions.

world's largest desk
World’s Largest Single Desk

Steve Jobs at Apple is famously quoted for his bathroom concept at Pixar (one single instance so as to make sure people mix). Employees at Valve can move their desks as they want/ need to create temporary clusters around projects. Recently, a creative agency in New York came up with a design for a single desk for their employees (it is worth watching the presentation video to fully understand the design!) – (beyond the publicity, one wonders whether is will really enhance collaboration)

More commonly, start-up companies often start cramped in a single room, and collaboration is as a requirement as simple rules of community living!. In the field I am consulting in, large projects, an integrated project team interacting in a single open-space is a must.

There is no single solution, but managers still often forget how the physical space can influence productivity and creativity. Review your office lay-out and make sure that it fits what you expect to happen within your organization!

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Why You Should Respect Yourself and What You Are

“Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.” – Clint Eastwood.

Clint-EastwoodI like the thought that only by respecting yourself and what you are, you can release the power that is within you. And that only by respecting yourself you can have self-discipline.

It is so true that people that lack self-discipline generally, inwardly, lack a deep sense of self-respect. And that, as a coach, a nice way to improve the situation (i.e. the symptoms of poor self-discipline) is to work on the self-respect first.

Even if the world around you – especially if the world around you – resists, it probably means you are creating great stuff. Self-discipline and self-respect are the fuel for this creation. Don’t let ever anyone influence your self-respect. Don’t let your self-respect be taken hostage by anyone!

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Why You Should Not Care So Much About Your Competition

There is an idea that comes back again and again in all leadership and management books: don’t care so much about your competitors. Instead, concentrate your focus, energy and creativity in creating an awesome product. Be pro-active instead of being re-active.

How often do you think about your competition?
How often do you think about your competition?

This comes as a realization that organizations and individuals often spend too much time spying out what the competition is doing. Whether they would create some product that could push them out of the market. Fear is created. Actions become reactions instead of initiatives.

Many of the most successful ventures never cared about competition or imitation. They went their own way.

Some other successful ventures start life by imitating the competition (often because they were created by some former employees) and then, only, progressively, create their own way.

The thing is: you can never be the same as your competition. There are always areas where you’ll be weaker, and areas where you’ll be stronger. Don’t try to level up your competitor by working on your weak areas. Work on your strengths instead. And by doing so, create something truly unique. And the best is, this works for organizations as well as for individuals!

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