Pure Schmaltz

I take a break from the Covenant series today to reflect on change. I know, I know, change has been so done, we're sick to death of it. The endless strategies for inducing it, for enforcing it, for managing it. But today, I want to reflect on a different kind of change. Second Order Change.

Some background: Google Second Order Change and you'll get something like 132 million hits, most of the resulting links guide you to indecipherable pages. (One notable exception here.) Bergquist knows his stuff, but few seem to be able to explain, describe, or coherently define second order change.

Let me add to that body of obfuscation!

First order change, Bergquist explains, is rather like a pendulum, moving, sure, but always within rather predictable patterns. Back then forth. Change intending to recover a lost status quo falls into the realm of first order change, which is sometimes referred to as "rearranging deck chairs." Changing salary ranges is a common first order change within organizations, so, curiously enough, are reorganizations. These switch one order for another order, typically without questioning the underlying concept of order. In project work, an organization can embrace Agile project management without ever questioning what it might *really* mean to manage and without shifting its underlying notions of project.

Changing the meaning steps into Second Order Change. Instead of rearranging deck chairs, we fashion life rafts out of them. Instead of replacing one management system with another, we do away with management. Second Order Changes are irreversible. Once initiated, like fire, they cannot be undone. We cannot simply flop back, pendulum-like, toward the familiar status quo.

Second Order Changes shift paradigms, another over-used word failing to describe a poorly understood phenomenon. We see with first order eyes, we reason with first order logic, we can dream and imagine in second order space, but never reduce it to method or technique.

Never is a strong word. How then, if no cookbook could be devised, could a group ever achieve second order change? One imagination at a time.

Bergquist claims, and I couldn't agree more, that such shifts emerge from stories, and very special kinds of stories: parables. These, as I explained in The Blind Men (see Buy My Book tab above), are stories that might mean something quite different things to different people, and even different meanings to the same person upon different readings or different hearings. These shift perception from the preconscious status quo toward a more conscious status quo or sometimes toward a different preconscious perspective. Whatever, perspective shifts and cannot return. Prior perspective might seem naive from this new perspective, or irrelevant, or simply unseeable. Out of sight, following insight, out of mind.

I have spoken before here about the normal human response to change, to attempt to flee backward toward the comforting illusion of the old status quo. Bank failing? Prop it up! Corruption corroding? Punish it back into line. These are first order responses to invitations for second order change. The way we manage change projects, for instance, guarantees first order responses. Identify intended result, enumerate the steps to achieving that result, assess and mediate risks to satisfying the steps, ... . Deck chairs.

The way we contract for change also encourages first-order responses. We want certainty, not transformation. We want familiarity, not change.

Second Order Change is transformative, irreversible, and permanent. One cannot undo fire. Nor does extinguishing it recover what was consumed.

Our society teeters now on the edge of transformation. The conservatives complain about the lack of specific details in the emerging plans, wondering what pattern the deck chairs will display afterward. Notice how the administration uses stories to describe how it is and how it might become, two principles of Second Order Change. Changing the story changes everything, so change the story first. Acknowledge how it is and how it has been, as painful and demotivating as this might seem, rather than sugar coating the "good old" status quo. Envision how it might be, what it might become, deflecting the details for how it must occur. Forgetabout the freaking deck chairs for a while, and focus instead on what really matters now.

In this reflected light, heading backwards to the old status quo feels like underachieving. Irrelevant. Why would we choose to go backwards, when backwards left us where we are today, when we can see (now, finally) that even better outcomes might well emerge in the future? Heck, the warm anticipation, the very promise can consume (FIRE-LIKE) the seduction of the old useda be.

What's the highest best use of our familiar deck chairs now?

This happens not because I'm a wind sock or because you have an overwhelming personality, but because I am human. We each have a subtle ability to synch with those around us. Most of this is preconscious, but nonetheless useful. We can depend upon this feature to guide, inform, adapt, and sustain us.

Much of what we learn seems to focus upon the objective individual acting as an independent agent. In this culture (this feature is quite different in other cultures), we imprint on the John Wayne notion of self-reliance. Yet no man has ever been an island.

We live in relationship. We work in relationship, too. In relationship with our context and with the others around us. Our near obsession with self nimbly blinds us to this fundamental fact of life. In a very real (but seemingly surreal) sense, we live in relationship with others, and not as independent agents.

Once this little switch gets flipped, nothing is ever the same again. We take less personal responsibility and more functional responsibility. I live through you, acknowledging that you also live through me.

Would the world be different if we could, in those moments of apparent isolation or those demanding only individual responsibility, see that we are not, never, ever acting alone? Hang with that question for a moment, let it sublet some space near your heart. The answer might remind you who you really are.

Me, I’ve tried—maybe not THAT hard—
to build my tenuous house of cards
with rains and winds, my chief assistants,
confused if this defines what isn’t.

Me, I’m dangling from bare threads,
turning on nonexistent treads,
hatless here on weathered ground,
mere threadbare glove without a hand.

Not too many can flip my switch,
fewer care to scratch my itch,
fingers folding upon themselves,
whispered, silent, stifled yells.

Such is the stuff of inspiration,
sparking from no clear revelation.
Who could imagine their redemption
arriving on THAT fool contraption?

A black dog slips in through the gate
surveying our space inviolate.
He sniffs shrubs and noses roses
with careless, thoughtful three-legged poses.

The cats, of course, beyond distressed,
flee to the safety of their nests,
Cowering courageously
until that pup will take her leave.

If life were smooth and soft and warm,
if trivial things could do no harm,
If we knew for sure no sky would fall
What would we do ‘tween short and tall?

Short, the obvious underling,
And Tall, outgrown most everything;
Between the start and the tippy top
lies pretty much everything we’ve sought.

And in that swirl of clear privation
lies the solace, inspiration,
wearing ragged, useless clothes
He comes as capriciously as he goes.

No need to set the visitor’s table
or change the linen, he is able
to slip in and out without a rustle,
timing clearly short of hustle.

But you can depend upon his step,
appearing many times, mid-schlep,
stumbling already humbling hobble
bringing some bright and beautiful bobble.

No one will ever understand
when you try your best to explain the plan.
They’ll insist upon some explanation,
when inspiration refused to leave one.

Take the credit with the blame,
nothing could ever be the same.
You can depend upon this friend.
No one could ever comprehend.

Apathy. Easily diagnosed. Not always so easily treated.

One very popular way to prevent resolving apathy involves for-your-own-good lectures exhorting another to "get with THE program." THE program? And which program IS that program, anyway? Usually, it's someone else's. Nothing wrong or unseemly about inviting anyone to get with someone else's program, but as an antidote to apathy, it usually sucks.

The resolution, when apathetic (or, when encountering someone else who is apathetic) is usually found a bit closer to home. Not by getting with someone else's program, but in finding your own. That mythical, selfless, single-minded, laser-like focus that's supposed to translate into pure motivation sometimes exists, but it's an unreliable companion. We are each capable of selfless pursuit, but selflessness is not high on anyone's sustainability scale.

Put on your own oxygen mask first. Find your own deeply-felt purpose within the more broadly advertised common goal. Piggy back on your own back.

What DO YOU want? If you don't know, can't choose, or don't feel like you're preference is supposed to count, you have every reason to feel apathetic. Order more absinthe.

If you don't know yet, perhaps pursuing an answer will encourage you. If you're struggling to choose, select some purpose for no more than its alluringness. If you don't believe your preference is supposed to count, you're counting yourself out.

Fortunately for you (and for me) someone's lurking nearby to remind you how much you DO count. Of course their message will land on temporarily deaf ears. They will be insistent. If you doubt this, listen.

The bitter pill I prescribe myself when I find my altitude failing is kinda hard to swallow then. I plug my nose and try to swallow it anyway. It goes like this:

I ask myself, "What do you want?" Followed by the question, "And of you had that, what would you have?", repeated five times. By the end of this ritual, I have usually found some alluring something at the bottom of my well. If not, well, I order more absinthe.

If you doubt that collective work can be accomplished when everyone is pursuing their own personal purpose as well as a common goal, here's a portrait of a rather large group where each person seems to have found one heck-uva powerful purpose for showing up, standing up, and really being there.

The nature of work demands that some carry more than their counterparts. Some necessarily hold more than others. Some necessarily assume more responsibility. But there are no marginal players. The marginalized enjoy every good reason for their dissatisfaction. They cannot be dependable.

The best way to create a community of undependable players involves marginalizing them. Assume away. Take for granted.

Still, no matter how you might demonstrate your inclusiveness, some will manage to marginalize themselves, with the same effect as if you had marginalized them. Outreach offers some possibility for resolution.

What IS your strategy for enfranchising those who quite naturally disenfranchise themselves? Can you disconfirm their firmly held beliefs? Can you even recognize them?

Tonight, my Governor took calls from her constituents on live radio. About a third of the callers were disenfranchised. They started their comments with a pronounced, "Wool," by which I mean a poorly pronounced, "Well?" What followed was testament to disenfranchisement. One asked if the court order to pay back child support to an out-of-state ex-spouse didn't somehow violate the governor's desire to keep income within the state. Stunning disconnection. The governor invited off-line conversations: "Call my office! Leave your number! I want to get to the bottom of this," though every other listener understood that the caller was just trolling for excuses to sustain their victimhood.

God bless them, everyone, as Tiny Tim proclaimed. And bless the governor, who seems to understand that some quite naturally feel disenfranchised and need a special, personal invitation inside.

Whatever your position, and especially if your position seems lofty to another, take a step down and backwards. You need no defensive barrier, no protective guard to defend your position, no matter how obviously tenuous it might feel to you. Opening your arms wider when you feel assaulted will demonstrate your true power. Include them in your sphere, disconfirm their sense of marginalization. Ennoble. Include.

There Are No Marginal Players!

Claiming that the best laid plans, oft gang aglee says nothing about plans or planners, but speaks to something else. That no battle plan survives contact with the enemy speaks to what no plan can speak to.

If we could, if we would settle for the routine and the familiar, we could be in charge. But how often have any of us seen any of us actually settle for such modest, humble aspirations.? No, we want big, hairy, audacious goals. They make us feel bigger than ourselves, even though pursuing them generally puts the Gods in charge. Where the calculated odds are long, we don't usually shrink back but lean further forward. We stretch and want to. If the calculation claims a high potential for failure, we think ourselves somehow exempt, and would prefer to see ourselves that way.

In this very human way, we conscript the Gods and put them in charge.

Republican Senators innocently complain that the stimulus plan lacks specificity, they are right. When they say that it won't work, they are also right. It DOES lack specificity and it most certainly won't resolve the financial dilemma. It might do no more than trade the inertia of rest for the inertia of motion, which could produce a whole 'nuther set of uncomfortable choices, many unforeseeable from here. The stimulus puts the Gods squarely in charge. It's a dilemma worthy of them, and otherwise unresolvable by mere humans.

Our notions that we can foresee the future is not universally right, nor is it universally wrong. That we cannot see which it is with any reliability, more to the point. Plan? Sure. Execute according to plan? Perhaps. Succeed? Maybe. Fail? Well, depending upon how you measure success, probably.

Any effort can be judged successful. And any a failure, depending upon the perspective involved. Make your perspective explicit, and encourage others to make theirs' explicit, too. Together, you might triangulate with the Gods and succeed.

My ancestors, writing from the Oregon Trail, ended their letters with the simple phrase, "If I live," in certain acknowledgment that this decision was out of their hands. They went on to settle the West, or their part of it, certain only that The Gods Were Always In Charge.

It's no different now, though the apparent sophistication of our age enables endless projection of and planning for a future no more certain than it ever was. Sophistry, the ancients called it, muddling the mind. Retirement planning, we insist, ensuring a secure future. Even though the Gods Are Always In Charge.

And what does it say on the back of the buck? In God we trust. I wonder why. ... ...

Our current economic crisis demonstrates that the covenant between people and work has been broken. Investors abandoned their ethical responsibilities to become mere speculators. The pursuit of short-term profits subsumed long-term sustainability. Tactical advantage undermined strategic focus. Metrics clouded meaning. Growth overshadowed purpose. Personal position justified undermining collective well-being.

Each of these behaviors illustrate an ignorance of how work works. The fundamental principles of working well together have been known throughout the ages. Each of us have encountered teachers who have attempted to impart these timeless understandings. These teachers have not always held the formal title of teacher. Few of them have. But each tried to plant their fertile seeds in fertile soil. For me, I can say that my soil has not always been ready to receive these seeds.

As with any planting, some of the seeds inevitably fall on barren ground. In fact, few of these seeds need to sprout. Perhaps only as few one, for we are not growing an exclusive crop or feeding merely on the rich harvest of wisdom. Some of what we, as humans do is inevitably stupid. Sustenance does not require driving all darkness out of the cave, and at best, we navigate through shadow much of the time. One candle makes a difference. One well-formed vision adequately illuminates a worthy goal.

We live in a time, as have every generation before us, illuminated by false Gods. That's what my many mentors have tried to impart. More, they have tried to show me how I might distinguish between false and benevolent Gods, between false and sustaining beliefs, and between false and nourishing choices.

I was moved to start this series when I was reading job descriptions. I found in many, indeed most of them, evidence of deep misunderstandings of what people can and should do in a job. The phrase that popped most excruciatingly for me was this one:

"Incumbent drives results"

I stopped in that moment and questioned this now common metaphor. In the currently common vernacular, leaders, managers, directors, and executives produce results by driving organizations, operations, systems, and most emphatically, people. And I remembered then, in that moment, something one of my mentors tried to teach me long, long ago when I attended business school.

This mentor seemed ancient to me at the time. His sheer antiquity lead me to question his wisdom. His obvious joy when railing at his innocent students scared me a bit. "I consider it to be my sacred responsibility to see that this University release only capable people out into the world, and if you can't demonstrate your capability to me, you will not receive a degree from here," he used to say. When he winked at me as I finished a case study presentation, saying, "Mr. Schmaltz' got it," I knew I'd touched something remarkable. I wonder still what that remarkable thing was.

Now I find words for it. Here's the first of my covenant collection. It has served me well. May it fall on fertile soil for you.

1- One Does Not Drive Results

Leadership demands not driving but guiding. Our organizations are comprised of sentient, intelligent beings, capable of choosing wisely for themselves and for the communities surrounding them. Remind them of their capability. Invite them to act with compassion, to engage with purpose, and make informed choices. Lead with a light hand.

There are some things no team should be asked to do. If you, as leader, do not know what these are, your team can help you understand. Ask them how if you do not know, and you'll know.

Never interested in football, I've never once watched a Superbowl game, and Superbowl Sunday seems like an alien religious holiday. Me, I reframed it. This one Sunday of the year, the toodling back roads have no traffic. It's the first Sunday of the year that anyone's reliably likely to see newborn lambs gamboling in the fields. In my families since, we call it Lamb Lookin' Sunday.

The rules are simple. First, start driving in the general direction of lambs. While it is illegal to pre-determine the exact location of any lambs, and it's strongly preferred that a new lamb pasture be discovered each year, it's perfectly appropriate to plot a course that seems likely to pass past lambs. They must be discovered, not simply revisited.

Second, before returning to home base, a new tune must be added to Dadbo's Terrible Top Fifty Traveling Tunes. These are songs, composed during the ride, which feature some aspect of lambiness. After twenty eight successful excursions, we have quite a portfolio of past melodies and a raft of sparking lyrics, each of which first bring warm reminiscence before finally morphing into distraction. The new one's just gotta be, well, new.

Three: If you see lambs, you gotta stop. It is an obligation, a responsibility, a matter of character and ethics. When sheep are spotted, it's traditional to simply shout out, "Sheep!" as a warning to all in the car. Should there be no evident lambs, the all-clear sign is, "Sheep, no lambs." This returns the watch to watchfulness and halts the search for someplace to pull off the road without ending up in the ditch.

What do we do when we find lambs? We park the car, get out next to the fence, and revel in the innocence of a Spring who's promise can finally be confirmed, though her presence might not yet be felt. The wet, cold winds bother the lambs not even a little as they butt their mother's udder between playing hide and seek, umbilicals brushing the wet grass.

This is the Sunday marking the acknowledgment that we have survived another winter, that another in a truly endless stream of Springs is stalking us, and that right here, unlikely as it seemed just yesterday, hope thrives.

I won't comment on anyone elses' taste in Buffalo wings and half-time extravaganzas. We each receive our reassuring succor from our preferred cup. For me, it's family toodling down a country lane dedicated to a foolish mission, making up another memorably ridiculous tune.

Little tiny baby saying, "Who I am?
Who I am? Who I am?"
Little tiny baby saying, "Who I am?
I'm a lamb!"