Episode 20: Command and Control Business Leadership
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Transcript
[00:00:10] Blue: Right welcome back to the theory of anything podcast. We are continuing our conversation with Bart about applying Karl Popper’s theory of knowledge to Management and to business and to knowledge creation within business. So Bart welcome back
[00:00:28] Red: Thank you, Bruce. Happy to be back. Of course.
[00:00:31] Blue: We got cameo. How’s it going cameo? I’m great. Thanks, Bruce So where we left off as we were still talking about the remark that I made that triggered you and We talked about some of the barriers. Why is it that people don’t utilize? Kind of our best theory of knowledge in business since it’s primarily about knowledge creation We talked about that but we didn’t really get a chance to talk about what are the drivers and ablers that can get it more Accepted so maybe let’s let’s talk about that first. So Bart kind of give us your thoughts on that first
[00:01:04] Red: Yeah, yeah, so exactly as you as you say we talked about the unpopularity of Philosophical theories in management and that’s that’s one point but apart from the fact that it’s Philosophy it’s also like a theory that could be put into practice as I’ve tried to show Then there is still this remaining question. What keeps it from getting introduced and I thought about this a lot I’m not sure I have the I have the perfect answer, but in the beginning I thought that Management was dealing with simple questions and therefore They could live with simple answers. This is going back to the first theories about management. I Think it was the theory of Frederick Taylor Who really? systemized Has systemized that management and and boiled it down to two very simple rules rules of Productivities rules of how to behave what rules to adopt etc and this was Yeah, this was basically the idea that given the fact that problems aren’t that complex in in management reality We can do with simple answers. We can automate. We can Make very simple rules on on who should do what We can set Very clear metrics on how productivity evolves and we can apply Simple steering mechanisms if that problem productivity or whatever KPI is going out of range And so that is what I think a little bit the the idea of Keeping management as solving simple problems with simple answers And I think that worked for long And it and it got us into Even the the classical command and control philosophy or command and control approaches and so There’s this other thing that you know the last ten years with the advent of
[00:03:12] Red: Yeah, not only globalization, but the internet Global competition disruption of industries and all those things Problems for sure have become more complex There are more Requirements to fulfill for any organization in order to create value for a customer and continue to create value for customers That has become more complex As opposed to let’s say 30 40 years ago And so that could be a trigger once once problems become more complex probably will have to Look for answers that Are not that simple that we may want to keep a little bit open in terms of Getting and growing towards better answers that we’ll probably have to look for those answers much more collectively Through more cooperation through more ID IDs and ID evolution Across many people organizations themselves internally have become also more complicated and so the necessity for Good knowledge creation that satisfies the different Individual objectives of all the complicated structures out of which an organization is made up of these days is also probably a trigger For these kinds of approaches towards problem -solving. I haven’t I haven’t seen it really Going that way, but I’m I’m let’s say quite hopeful in that sense that I don’t think we can Get to any other way than this more open creation of knowledge with more cooperation simply because the problems are growing more complex and our structures are getting more complicated and to get out of that kind of Situation, I think we’ll have to evolve maybe with with many errors still that we still need to make and with many mistakes
[00:05:20] Red: But eventually we’ll have to get there Because because problems are simply getting more complex And so we’ll have to adopt better and better epistemology in order to cope with the problems and continue to Prosper and to create value in organization. So I’m quite I’m quite optimistic in in that respect the way we will get there and the speed with which we’ll get there is Another question there. I’m I’m a little bit less clear on what what exactly is going to happen
[00:05:53] Blue: So a couple thoughts first of all cameo and I had a conversation later I don’t know if we want to get too far into this, but she actually does know of some examples of Management companies that are basing their stuff at least around philosophy not necessarily Karl Popper’s philosophy so she came up with some examples of How philosophy does sometimes work its way into the management world, which I thought was interesting Did you want to mention that at all cameo?
[00:06:23] Green: Oh? Yeah, that was Just some random side conversation, you know the the particular example that I was using wasn’t even a Management company. They were a finance company
[00:06:35] Blue: finance company. Wow that
[00:06:37] Green: had built their Method there everything was built off of and ran’s philosophy essentially and That was kind of their guiding business principles were essentially randian
[00:06:55] Red: Okay, the interesting the
[00:06:57] Blue: other thing that I wanted to kind of mix into this was so when Bart was talking about how we’re dealing with Increasingly complex problems and so we may have to move away from the command and control This I think is arguably What we’re facing in Modernism altogether, right? I mean you think about the failures of institutions like the New York Times and the Washington Post or a Lot of the crazy stuff that’s just going on in politics I know we touched upon this in politics and in the previous episode They seem to a lot of them stem from the fact that the old command and control structures aren’t working anymore and There’s a great deal of if nothing else fear About what’s going to happen as a lot of these structures break down as the internet breaks them down is usually the way people put it Used to be that there was gatekeepers to knowledge and information flow and You know, you trusted the New York Times And you didn’t have tons of alternatives anyhow, right? It just so and they put a lot of effort into trying to seem very unbiased and things like that Even if that wasn’t really true and now they’re not even trying to look unbiased. They’ll they’ll put right up in the headline, you know the headline is Trump falsely claims, you know, and of course Trump is falsely claiming something But you’re not supposed to put that on the headline, right? And they’re not even trying anymore They’re just saying whatever it is their opinion is and that’s the headline
[00:08:33] Blue: And it’s interesting to watch this happen and I had a friend who you know took journalism in college And she’s like I just can’t even believe the types of things that the best newspapers in the business are starting to do in their headlines That used to just be considered journalistic no -knows altogether Like you just get failed in your class if you did something like this and now you’ve got the real guys doing it for real It’s interesting to watch a lot of these failures and what’s going on and now there really are alternative sources of information And of course a lot of it’s bad, right? I mean the New York Times is actually probably superior to most sources on the internet But uh, it’s interesting to see what’s what’s happening as they kind of just lose their power and the gatekeepers a lot losing a lot of their power and To some degree it’s almost freeing feel like it’s democratizing information in other ways. It’s scary the the degree to which fake news is Flooding around and things like that the fact that we now even consider New York Times to be fake news very often um A lot of these seem to stem from the same problem that we used to have very command and control type type structures And those were at least effective, right? I mean It’s easy to point to them and say You know, that’s bad and we can look at carl poppers philosophy and here’s the reasons why Authoritarianism is bad But they worked right and they’ve worked for years and that’s not saying something small They worked for decades for centuries
[00:10:07] Blue: um, yes And so it’s interesting to watch them kind of break down And to be forced into a situation where we have to come up with More interesting more Distributed ways of trying to deal with things like information and control of or Control may even just be the wrong word at this point control of society trying to keep things going to the crazy You know things like that, um So yeah,
[00:10:33] Red: and it’s interesting to see them break down indeed as you say But the question is then whether we will learn or we won’t learn that’s still That’s still a bit unclear, right?
[00:10:44] Blue: Yeah, like I I kind of believe I’m optimistic that we’re going to get something better in its place But I couldn’t tell you what it is, right? It’s not at all clear where we’re going, right? We’re going somewhere we’re going somewhere interesting, but it’s really hard to say what it is
[00:11:00] Red: Exactly exactly and it’s exciting to see and and we can only hope that That we’ll learn from the reasons Of why it has broken down.
[00:11:10] Blue: Yeah, and um, it’s I think this is where you’re trying to come from with your management philosophy. You’re trying to say look We understand how you should really handle things. You should handle them in terms of knowledge creation you should handle them in terms of Uh, trying to get everybody Putting their ideas out there being transparent criticizing the ideas coming up with the best error corrections Of course, that’s what we should all be doing. I mean, I just sort of make sense, right? I suppose the hard part is is that it’s not immediately obvious how to implement it And I suppose that’s why people pay you to go in and to Be a consultant for them so that you can explain if it was obvious then they wouldn’t need you, right?
[00:11:52] Red: Yeah, there’s there’s two things that there is indeed the know -how of doing this because you cannot say This sounds good as of tomorrow. We’re gonna work like that that does it doesn’t spontaneously emerge from Simply the the instruction that uh, we’re gonna let go of rules. We’re gonna let go of a little bit of Authority and control and then magically this new way of working will emerge So there is no how on on how to implement it. But on the other hand, there is also the enemy Or the rival epistemology which which has to gradually Fade out which is the justificationist approach Because if you want problem solving in the sense of popper with an open -ended perspective on knowledge creation Many of the managers that are used to Give the answers and justify the answers Even with know -how and even with approaches they’ll They’re gonna go they’ll they will have to go through some evolution in in their perspective on Justificationism versus a more open problem solving critic critic criticism based process and Yeah, I think we we came to that also last time In the sense of you know, which type of managers are then most likely To to to go in into such kind of evolution and which We’ll have a much harder time To appreciate and to at least, you know, try it and give it a chance and and look at it with In the sense of trying to learn from it
[00:13:45] Blue: All right interesting Can we have any thoughts?
[00:13:51] Green: um I I’m so fascinated just in how it plays out on the day to day as as a management consulting process Yeah, I it’s it’s really very interesting to me.
[00:14:05] Red: I think I think we had a we had an interest I’m steering a little bit towards it with with some purpose, but we had an interesting discussion The last time which we didn’t finish which was Which kind of manager would want to Take the risk I remember that between parenthesis of engaging in such a wildly new approach And and I think I then answered among other things that I have quite some success with female leaders, but I I came back a little bit to to to that claim afterwards because it’s Well, I obviously don’t have any explanation Uh How and why it would be linked to simply The difference between men and women In any case I can make it a little bit more. Um, let’s say neutral in the sense that any manager who Doesn’t necessarily want His or her answer to a management problem But is more interested in how A team comes up with an even better answer I would say that would be a good demarcation between managers that that I Could engage with and and and where I could be engaged with for a long time versus managers who would probably tell me after a couple of months This was a nice experiment. It doesn’t suit our culture or anything like that And we’re not so I think that is a little bit the distinction.
[00:15:43] Red: It’s it’s really about Whether you’re interested in in really having having the answer yourself or whether you believe that A better answer can be found Um And and that it doesn’t matter where it comes from Not only the individual who had the answer or Even the process in which the answer even got Still um a little bit better than than what the original answer was and and whenever You prefer or you’re interested at least in the second option and not the option In my in my domain of expertise. I need to have all the answers to all the questions in that domain at all time for all people um I think there is a dividing line and and I know still a lot of managers whom I have Good relationships with who who eventually at let’s say Are transparent in saying no, I’m more of the first category. I’m I’m I really need you know to um to have my vision to have my answers to to to spread my word In you know in my teams across my teams And for me, it’s it’s it’s too big of a step to say I’m gonna engage a process in which Um, I only ask the question and the best answer will be found in a process And it doesn’t matter if it’s any if it’s not any more my answer
[00:17:10] Blue: so We people often talk about like management styles and two that you often hear about Are people who are kind of authoritarian command and control Versus those that try to Be you know do it more like a democracy that try to get everybody a consensus. Sorry not democracy, but consensus They’re trying to look for consensus Is that kind of what you’re talking about here the the type of manager that would be less open to this would be one that’s Really focused on I know what it is That I believe I want Versus one who is it doesn’t necessarily who is looking for the group to come to consensus on things Is that kind of what you’re driving at or is that not what you’re driving?
[00:17:49] Red: No, that’s that’s pretty much Yeah, that is the the belief or the interest Having a minimum of interest in the answer that the group can come up with as opposed to the One thing the certainty that that you have the answer for the group So
[00:18:05] Blue: let me go ahead cameo
[00:18:07] Green: Well, I actually want you to finish your thought mine was about the gender thing. I think we could come back to that
[00:18:13] Blue: Okay, so I was just thinking that this all reminds me a bit of conservative versus liberal and those are such abused terms but The I was reading an article recently and it was written by a guy who was self identified as liberal But he was talking about how the trump presidency made him more conservative not because he liked anything trump did But because he had originally thought that Trump’s presidency was going to be the gigantic fastest disaster that The left claimed it was going to be and instead trump was just ineffective at Implementing he tried things and the systems checks and balances actually work quite well, which is something I actually think people should take note of is that the fact that The system really did work the way it was intended so He It’s interesting. So he’s taking this the very negative view of trump But he’s saying but this actually convinced me that the conservatives were more right than I had thought and so He goes on to explain that kind of the typical attitude that he used to have as a liberal was that That they see these problems and they want to fix them And it’s those dang conservatives that keep them from doing it And if it wasn’t but for the conservatives, the world would be a better place And that’s fairly typical he claims Of the attitude of people he knows and that he’s around and his friends and things like that And he says what he started to realize during the trump presidency even with trump trying so hard to do things that he disliked um Was there was there’s this old saying that conservatives have where they say
[00:19:55] Blue: The liberal comes and sees this this gate or whatever and says look this gates It’s it is a problem. I want to get rid of the gate I don’t see any reason why we need it to which the conservative replies Well, if you see no reason why we need it then we need to keep it If once you can see the reason why we need it and you can explain that Then we can talk about replacing it with something better And so he kind of laughed about that and then came back later and said Actually, I’m starting to see that that’s kind of true that there’s a lot of traditions in place. There’s a lot of
[00:20:28] Blue: Things that sometimes we don’t even understand why they just came out of the evolved as part of What made a working society and removing them destroys the knowledge that’s created within these Structures that nobody ever intentionally put there to begin with it was just a matter of whichever types of institutions or Things that you that societies that had the better ones even if it was just by chance Those are the ones that happened to survive because other societies disappear And so you end up with societies that have these knowledge based structures that they may not have even intended And yet they’re important to how that society functions And so before you tear them down you need to stop and actually try to understand them and understand What it is that they serve purpose they were serving and so that you can replace them in a way that doesn’t make things worse And then this was his final point because conservatives He says now are right that we’re actually closer to chaos than we realize And it’s not just a matter of trying to just improve things. We have to also not let let things slip back Now this kind of goes along with my own Political view that both sides play a really important role, which you know, I stand by but it’s it’s somewhat similar To this authoritarian versus consensus approach, right? when a manager
[00:21:43] Blue: Has the attitude look i’m trying to implement What I know works They’re like the conservative, right that they They don’t even entirely know why what they’ve seen works works, but they’ve seen something that they they’re convinced works So they want to go do that and they know that the people working for them Maybe don’t understand what they’ve seen they don’t have as much of experience or whatever and in perhaps this even explains the success Of that management style. I mean, let’s be honest. It’s been successful for a very long time. It’s it’s a more successful approach Than being completely chaotic. Let’s say, okay, which would be the the natural order of things um So it’s it’s at least understandable why you would have managers out there. They’re not just bad They actually do know something they actually have some knowledge that they’re they’re afraid to give up on and for good reasons and they are putting some risk by Tearing down the things that they’ve seen that have worked before Maybe that’s why sometimes you have to wait until there’s a crisis like we’re starting to see on a regular basis here in society Before we’re really able to change those structures to be something else and everybody’s really ready to do it thoughts on that part
[00:22:58] Red: Yeah, I think I fully agree with what you say. There’s two Side remarks. I think there’s difference between politics and organizations. We’ve discussed before I think you can try much more in organizations. It’s on on smaller scales and there’s a much wider diversity of problems Which you can choose from Where to start actually with trying a new approach. I think politics is much more black and white and Yeah, the stakes and the transparency across the whole nation and everything are all playing along the media and everything so But that’s a side that that that’s a remark on a process remark on On on where it it would have most effect. My feeling is organizations There you can try and test this and learn it as a way of Solving problems in organizations in politics. I’m much less familiar and and a little bit hesitant But in principle, I agree exactly.
[00:24:06] Red: I agree fully with with what you’re saying But the second remark was also on the The the term consent you can go a lot of ways with the term consent It can be a compromise and then it’s very often No growth of knowledge, which I’m not in favor of But consent can also be you give autonomy to one individual with a great idea And you consent that the individual has the right to take the autonomy and to pursue his idea And then eventually learn from his or her mistakes And grow knowledge in that way out of the learning of mistakes And that way of consent I like a lot because then as a team you support an individual in Using autonomy With an idea around an idea that he or she has That’s the nice face of consent or the nice side of consent Which I fully support because it endorses the growth of knowledge On the other side on the other side consent that turns into compromise I think we talked about this before as well a typical compromise Hampers the growth of knowledge and David Deutsch also Famously writes about this in the beginning of infinity Um in in chapter 13, I guess and he gives a he gives a great explanation for why Compromises are typically leading to um a or or not Fueling growth of knowledge and and it’s a it’s a brilliant argument and it’s a very relevant one But if consent turns into compromises Then it has an impact on a negative impact on the growth of knowledge if consent Uh turns towards we as a group Endors the autonomy of the individual with an idea in supporting his or her Efforts in pursuing it.
[00:26:04] Blue: Then I’m fully I’m fully with you. All right. Let me let me try to restate what you just said in my own words Make sure I’ve got this So the it may well be that the the consensus manager is the one that’s more open to your ideas But you’re not necessarily endorsing consensus. You’re not necessarily saying consensus is what we’re after because that may result in just Some sort of hod podge of ideas that gives everybody a little of what they want And so nobody gets what they want and we end up with an easy to vary Um approach that is could only be bad at that point. Is that really kind of what you’re getting at? Okay, I could definitely follow that and that makes good sense to me and just to kind of explain dutch’s argument here So dutch argues against compromise and I want to be careful here because the word compromise actually can mean more than one thing So the way he’s using it in this context. I agree is a bad thing. So imagine a legislature in politics that um You’ve got, you know, the left and the right and they both have an idea of what they want to do and so they end up with Not implementing either the left’s idea or the right’s idea, but some hod podge of both and you end up with Something that nobody wanted nobody feels responsible for and if it fails nobody Nobody fails with it, right?
[00:27:26] Blue: And so there’s no incentive to defend it or to try to make it really actually work because Both sides kind of want it to fail because it’s just this compromise that nobody wanted If that’s what we mean by compromise then I would completely agree compromise is a bad thing And the reason why is according to dutch is because that’s now easy to vary a good idea Would be hard would be hard to vary just like a good theory And so it should be that we want someone to come in to win And to implement their ideas and that we try them And that somebody’s responsible and if they don’t work that we know who’s responsible for the idea And we oust them from the off from office. We put somebody else in okay That would be a good government that creates knowledge one that Operates by both sides have to constantly just we take a little bit from this side a little bit from that side And the final policy is something nobody believed in that’s that’s bad. That won’t create knowledge Now I think the word compromise though does have Another possible connotation And that would be I’ve got this idea and I’m trying to implement it because I believe it to be a good idea It’s a hard to vary idea And it’s creating problems for the other side something that they don’t like So I try to error correct my idea and I try to improve my idea to reduce
[00:28:48] Blue: The resistance to my idea by modifying my idea to still be hard to vary and I’m still responsible for it so that It now addresses the concerns they have so that they now are It are possibly on board with the idea I’ve convinced them because now this idea addresses my concerns and their concerns Or at least it reduces their resistance So I’m able to get it passed and I’m able to get myself elected or implement my policy or whatever we want to do This could also be caused compromise and there’s nothing about this form of compromise That is not knowledge creating. It’s still hard to vary. There’s still somebody who’s responsible And that form of compromise is okay as far as I am aware Um, so I wanted to kind of differentiate there About the about the two different ways we might use the word compromise sometimes compromise can be okay If it’s the right kind of compromise if it’s an actual solving of the other side’s problems While still sticking to my Plan my approach
[00:29:51] Red: Yeah, I agree.
[00:29:52] Blue: Okay. Good. Good. Good. So we’re on board with that Um, cameo thoughts
[00:29:59] Green: I’ve still been thinking a little bit about um, one thing that bart said Around autonomy of idea and and the idea, you know, and I know this is central to your To the your management process is the idea of somebody coming in Getting saying I want to solve this and having full autonomy and I was just thinking for a minute about How rare it is to let somebody go and do something And maybe it’s just because I have an excessively bossy personality, but it’s just But to go and and I think Loading dishwashers is a great example Somebody goes and loads a dishwasher If somebody else comes and puts dishes in they almost instantly want to say you did this wrong Why would you do this this way, you know, and then they want to change it? Which I think ultimately is again still falling within your within your philosophy, but I Think we don’t necessarily want each other to have autonomy
[00:30:57] Blue: It’s you know, I I agree. I in fact if you really pay attention to the way people speak about politics in particular We’re all many tyrants
[00:31:07] Red: Right.
[00:31:08] Blue: We we believe we know the right way to implement whatever And if we could just be put into power We would fix everything And we are all very deeply many tyrants We don’t have in general a foul -blust attitude towards politics or the way things should be done And we should because that’s the truth That I probably don’t understand what the right policy is anymore than the person currently in power And I would probably make bigger or worse mistakes if I were to go implement my ideas Um, and that’s true of probably all of us. So I I definitely think that we we we kind of Don’t see ourselves entirely clearly. We don’t see our ideas. Maybe entirely clear would be a more accurate way to say say that We kind of think we know when in reality, we don’t know as much as we think we do
[00:32:01] Red: Yeah, and it’s a great it’s a great question. Uh cameo and um I would respond to that in the following way. It’s it’s We always have to be somewhere between full autonomy of an individual and uh cooperation While there are actually three things there is full autonomy of the individual There is perfect cooperation in the team and there is the hierarchy above that Either sets um the the you know either commands and controls or gives some freedom to the team What I mean with um an individual should have autonomy that is in the sense and in our process Uh In in the the conception of id owner and we talked about this but an id owner Has some autonomy to pursue his or her id but has the responsibility to actively seek criticism um and actively Seek for enhancement to the id And there is there is a there is a balance. You’re you’re you’re very right. There is no There’s no way to define when you should let the individual go with his or her id Versus when you should stop her and or him Yeah And
[00:33:19] Red: that is something that that that grows in a team But that grows only if you allow for a process Which allows to learn this and for sure you can let individual you can give too much autonomy to individuals And they run against the wall and learn nothing And you know be disappointed afterwards and never and never give their own ideas anymore on the other hand a group And that is the the remark of compromises a group can spoil A very good idea of an individual just because we have this this this ideal of Let’s do everything together and let’s let’s let’s ask everyone’s opinion. And so I see I see three extremes, you know the individual with too much autonomy who runs into the wall The other extreme is that the group actually spoils the entire Quality of the id just because everybody wants to say something about it And then the third extreme is that you have the higher key Who invents all the answers and you could look at these three extremes as a triangle and The the sides of the triangles are always bad All of those three extremes are bad. There’s no knowledge creation. There’s no value creation. There’s no learning.
[00:34:37] Red: There’s no engagement Along any of the three extremes So where you want to be is somewhere closer to the middle of the triangle where the higher Cree is not preventing autonomy where the individuals are not taking too many Or too much autonomy to run into the wall Probably and where the group is not Spoiling the id too much and and enhancing it As opposed to spoiling it or as opposed to You know, bringing it down to to to some wishy -washy compromise That is indeed easy to vary and and and not effective at solving the problem And this is this is obviously A little bit disappointing in the sense that I cannot give any, you know, clear clear cut rules About when to go for the individual when to follow the group or when to follow the manager the three, you know The three extremes of the triangle, but still I’m I’m convinced that you have to be Somewhere in the middle and the group has a has an has an important role to enhance IDs of the individual the The individual has to learn to cope with the criticism and to allow for the enhancement and not go For a stubborn way of pursuing only his or her ID And then the higher key the the third party should allow enough room That this team dynamic can can eventually take place because they could ruin it as well Of course, and so that’s that’s a little bit. I think the the triangle that matters here
[00:36:14] Blue: So it’s interesting like in politics Since we’re comparing this with politics and admittedly politics is quite different There’s an immediate loser winner loser type situation, right? You get elected or you don’t you get unelected You get removed from office if your ideas weren’t working and people aren’t satisfied somebody else gets to try their ideas There’s always somebody ready to take over with their own policies and ideas that they want to implement. So in business where we’re doing this Um, it’s not really quite the same thing. We’re looking for the best idea we’re looking for and and the you you connect it with an individual to try to address that it doesn’t become this kind of consensus idea that Compromises and it’s really nobody’s idea.
[00:36:57] Blue: Nobody likes it But we’re not really looking, you know, the the idea owner Doesn’t have the same personal stake in it that george w bush did right or trump or Whoever right there they’ve got risk rewards all over the place And that they have to have the motivation to come in and to get their own people and to implement their idea Because they’re going to lose their office if they don’t or they’re not going to get in the office in the first place if they don’t um So how do you how do you handle that because it is it is enough of a different environment And you would probably if you required people to you know become superstars or you know Linguish into oblivion based on if they raised a good idea or not Probably nobody would raise ideas in a business environment or only the people who are going to be executives anyhow would raise ideas So you would want to you wouldn’t want to go quite that far as we do in politics where the ideas are so directly connected To that one individual and the ideas and the individual rise and fall together if that makes any sense
[00:38:05] Red: No, it’s a good question. I mean how do you deal with it? I think we need both every individual in the company who wants to contribute needs both They need autonomy and they need to and they need cooperation They need to have the feeling that they at least contribute some way somehow To what the group does and on the other hand they they also need autonomy in the sense of You know experiencing that their idea has made it into some Tangible realization that that that that that was successful that that creates value And so it’s in between those two things Given you know That that that the hierarchy allows for at least autonomy and cooperation in in in very Black and white command and control structures You you do not even start to address the topics of autonomy and cooperation But assume that you know the the hierarchy doesn’t prevent Autonomy to be given and cooperation or real cooperation in a team to to be developed Then I guess every every human or every every Person in an organization needs both For some ideas you you have to sense That your autonomy was at work that it was your idea Maybe a little bit enhanced by the group but that the core of the idea was your idea and it made it into implementation and realization
[00:39:36] Red: But on other problems or other ideas it it can feel really good that you as an individual just contributed A small piece of the puzzle and and it was somebody else’s core idea And I think you need you need both you need to experience enough autonomy For as long as possible Until one of your ideas really gets and it can be small ideas Yeah, I’m not I’m not saying that they all have to be big ideas and and with big rewards But you at least have to experience that some of your ideas After enhancement and and criticism have made it into realization and have made it into something that has Improved something that’s one thing I think every individual needs to experience that and on the other hand there needs to be cooperation It can be that it’s all separate ideas endorsed by separate people and their autonomy Because then you’re working one against the others and and there’s no cooperation There’s no contributions of other people On to your ideas and vice versa So I think it has it has to be enough of both um To yeah to to be lasting to be engaging in the end to be performant
[00:40:55] Green: I it’s really reminding me of When you see the most healthy versions of of agile in teams You know scrum teams that are operating really well that are truly self -organizing um, which always implies that they’re also in an organization That has already made a decision to be hands -off as far as Dictating to a team about what they’re going to do in most places that claim to be agile. That’s not actually true um, you know team structure is typically Defined for a team, but when you see agile done really well and you see it really That autonomy be be given to a team to decide for themselves how they’re going to organize and then To be constantly, you know working together To define autonomy for everybody within the team and then using things like retrospectives To constantly criticize The process but also to celebrate both individual wins and collective wins, but it’s rare to see it done. Well It is it is rare to see it done.
[00:42:04] Blue: Well, that’s something i’ve wondered about a lot right is And it makes sense what are the reasons according to you guys But are the reasons that it is hard to have it work well?
[00:42:15] Green: Well, I think one of the reasons is because companies Want to tell People how to do a thing. Hey, we’re gonna be agile. Here’s how you do it and here’s here’s the makeup You’re gonna have here’s what everybody in those roles. Here’s what their roles and responsibility That’s the response, but you know, we know exactly what a product owner is supposed to do and what a scrum master is supposed to do A true self -organizing team. I think Using these kinds of concepts would you you’d have teams that have the skills, but you know, maybe some of the Developers want to be writing the user stories versus the product owner or you know the the individual What am I going to do every day? is rarely In the actual teams domain to determine, you
[00:43:09] Blue: know, I I think I’m going to give a different answer on this And this is the conservative in me I think doing it wrong is easy And doing it right is hard because it’s hard to vary And so the norm would be doing it wrong Yes, the norm If if if you don’t very carefully get everything right you will be doing it wrong And so let me let me give examples of this. So Cameo and I have talked quite a bit about What’s the role of a project manager? So I’m a project manager. I used to work for cameo And you know, what’s the right role of a project manager? And I think the role that we normally want to assign to a project manager is often counterproductive Even even though it’s popular and people like it and you know, they’ve paid me lots of money to do this Role that in many ways it was actually counterproductive And one of the ways in which it is Is the ease with which a team will give their autonomy away to a perceived leader? Uh -huh,
[00:44:12] Green: absolutely.
[00:44:13] Blue: Um The ease with which They don’t want to have to take on the responsibility that goes with that autonomy And if they can give it to somebody else and give the responsibility to that person as well They likely will um Because and there’s you know, it’s desirable to not be responsible to some degree, right? And I think a lot of times when you have a self -managing team It’s hard to be a self -managing team because you’re responsible for everything, right? And and you you have to really take your role seriously um Constantly deciding. Oh, we had this commitment for this two -week sprint. We’re going to work overtime even though we know in the big scheme of things It’s not that important to the overall project We made a commitment and there’s different attitude changes that require a level of personal responsibility That are a little harsh at times, right? And there’s some really big benefits, too That’s why when teams actually do this and do it. Well, they prefer it this way
[00:45:16] Green: Yes,
[00:45:17] Blue: but but trying to get there along the way. There are so many opportunities to just go Yeah, it’s not for me
[00:45:25] Green: It’s interesting as an interesting perspective
[00:45:29] Red: Yeah, I agree with both of your arguments I see I see them too and they’re my source of motivation to fight it
[00:45:40] Green: Yeah, it makes me sad when I see teams Being dysfunctional either because they nobody on the team feels like they have autonomy um You know, but or they have a leader that’s dictating to them um Or sometimes just teams just can’t seem to get anything done because they have the opposite no No clear leadership no strong leadership and no ability to self -manage
[00:46:10] Blue: And and if you have to if you have to choose between a team that is dominated by one person And They make all the decisions themselves and a team that is completely dysfunctional and can get nothing done at all Having the one person in charge is the better choice And I think this explains the success of the command and control structure For centuries and century millennia. In fact, right is that it’s an immediate improvement easy to implement improvement I should overemphasize how easy it is. It’s not that easy, but easy by comparison um To implement improvement. It’s you know, Julius Caesar comes in and and makes himself You know the emperor and gets to immediately run things the way he wants to and has an idea And has a theory about what he wants to implement And it’s probably going to actually improve things Right and this this is why dictators are often popular Is they actually improve them
[00:47:13] Red: Okay, bruce. I I hear you but i’m gonna i’m gonna twist it a little bit more and more of the problems in big organizations Are are not necessarily vertically where you can appoint indeed an authority and give the authority enough control And use his or her experience
[00:47:33] Red: To get things done and and but more and more of the problems are lateral um And you know, you have just departments at the at the same level of hierarchy that have to solve problems that were never used To come together even because they were working in silos And and and the entire silo was solving their problems But now given increased complexity on the side of the customers and the market There there are many more problems that require cooperation between Same levels of hierarchies and then it’s not even trivial to a point Which one of the two will be the leader here because there will be both be candidates And there’s not one of the two departments that will always say Yeah, you can take the lead and I will follow you so you you’re getting too much more Conflicts if you want because of this lateral cooperation where where there isn’t the availability of this Leader who has always been there in the past to take care of his or her silo And that becomes a problem that that that’s that’s where command and control is even is even Not an option anymore because you’ll have two leaders standing up at the same level of hierarchy And and and they will have to cooperate and find solutions together Unless if they escalate everything because if they’re stuck they will escalate And then all those problems end up at the desk of the next one in line above But that’s also not that’s also not an effective way because that’s slowing things down The one above doesn’t have all the information to then solve the problem because he has He has not the insights that both of the leaders below
[00:49:20] Red: Him have So so you’re getting into more and more difficulties to get away with The idea that command and control will still and for a long time Be and remain the the prevailing and successful model. I’m I’m a little less Convinced of that
[00:49:42] Blue: you know, I I agree with what you’re saying and If I can so to take a term from machine learning There’s this concept of and this isn’t only in machine learning, but this is kind of where I Came to it is this idea of collective intelligence Right, there’s if you have so we look at like a communist society, which of course they never get to the supposed communist level or always socialism You could be the smartest guy in the world Right, and you’re never even going to come close to the level of intelligence that’s going to exist in a capitalistic society Where prices get set by actual supply and demand Versus somebody trying to figure out what they think it should be right It’s the collective intelligence when you tap into it if you when you properly tap into it It’s amazingly smart compared to any one individual We know it can go wrong too, and I’m not trying to say otherwise but um things like capitalism tap into collective intelligence um democracy In its own way taps into collective intelligence You try to look at a dictator running a country They never do anywhere near as good a job as a well -run democracy that is able to tap into collective intelligence and problem solves Solving happens faster and um knowledge creation happens faster. This is this is why You know monarchies and dictators and various types of tyrants. They really just don’t succeed long term, right? That may have been a good model back when the alternative Uh the alternative of democracy didn’t exist yet. That may have been better than anarchy, you know, or whatever, right? But it surely has not proven to be the best model even now in most cases
[00:51:35] Red: Yep I agree
[00:51:38] Blue: All right, um, you know we’re running out of time. I actually still wanted to get cameos um Take on um her comments on uh women versus men. Yeah
[00:51:50] Green: Yeah this had come out of uh out of the statement that That it seems to be that the the female and um managers seem to adapt to this concept and this idea better than the men
[00:52:08] Blue: Was
[00:52:09] Green: that I think that was what what the trigger was from last time I remembering that correct. I
[00:52:14] Blue: think that’s right.
[00:52:15] Red: Yeah. Um,
[00:52:16] Green: so this is my theory was
[00:52:18] Red: a wild conjecture from my part It
[00:52:21] Green: was wild conjecture Well, here’s here’s what When you said that and I was like, oh, yeah, that doesn’t surprise me and bruce said why is that so I I think that in in management you see men who come in and uh Have a very aggressive over the top style um That is what gets them ahead and so they’re they’re rewarded for that behavior And so that’s kind of all they ever know is that really harsh command and control I think it’s more difficult for that personality to be rewarded for females I think for a woman to achieve leadership typically she’s still gonna have that but she’s learned to temper it Because unless she can get the consensus nobody’s gonna let her rise up in in in organizations. Um A certain amount of sexism is what you’re talking about. Yeah Yeah, well, yeah, definitely. Um a cultural sexism that we are less tolerant of assholedness from From women than we are from men.
[00:53:39] Blue: Yeah And I was in fact, I was just reading this article this last week about You know some some of these really prominent Tech leaders uh that that you see that have risen and have been incredibly successful. Um, you know, steve jobs or Or or jeff bezos They also have a reputation for being absolute jerks. Um, again and again and again, right? And and the the article argued like you would never see a woman be able to get away with that. Um Because they a woman has to be able to Get people to work together. That’s or at least Maintain a level of likeability That’s higher than a man would have to maintain So I I agree with your assessment. I actually Have read some things that are very suggestive and you think about The way messages are given to men and women throughout their lives It would stand to reason that what you’re saying would would be true Let me give another side to this that’s probably going to be a little controversial too. Um When you do look at women in those positions They come across to me as very alpha male -ish Right.
[00:55:00] Green: Well, yeah, I have some thoughts about that. But yes
[00:55:04] Blue: And it seems to me that the other side of this without at all Saying anything against what you just said because I think you’re completely right It does seem like We culturally expect a leader to behave In what you might call an alpha male as an alpha male And I could give you examples Of people who just really fit that profile and therefore get promoted Even though it’s not super clear that they’re doing anything Sure.
[00:55:33] Green: Oh, yeah And
[00:55:35] Blue: men who don’t have that as a personality and most don’t right They’re not likely to ever get promoted Right. It’s it’s they’re they’re going to be Pursuing some other path most likely because it just isn’t something that the feedback Coming to them is ever going to suggest that this is going to work for them And they may go into technical fields and nothing wrong with that. They may go into other sorts of fields So it’s interesting that Even when we do see women successful in this way They fit that mold still really heavily and that that mold seems to be what we’re looking for for some reason I’m not even sure I could tell you why I mean, I can’t tell you why but I can’t tell you Why if
[00:56:16] Red: I understood cameo? Well, I think her point is that that Women can do it in two ways The way you describe but they also have an alternative way and when they find the alternative way They’re doing it in a completely different way than than males do But I don’t know if was that what you wanted to say cameo because I I I follow that point completely I
[00:56:40] Blue: don’t think she’s saying completely different. I think she’s saying tempered So I think her and I are agreeing more than we’re disagreeing
[00:56:47] Green: I don’t I don’t feel like I’m disagreeing with you at all all bruce and I don’t I don’t think it it has to do I think it has to do with how Women learn To get along with other people and and to temper Their own natural aggression If they want the the leadership path because Because just like a a non aggressive Man would struggle to get promoted to jobs that really do reward kind of a more command control type of personality A woman who has too much of that is just as rejectable as a man who doesn’t have enough
[00:57:30] Blue: Right. No, I see exactly what you’re saying In it makes sense and and I think I see that too even when I do see Women in those positions that come across to me as very strongly alpha male They’re almost always tempered more so than the men in the same positions not always and these these are such These are
[00:57:50] Green: So it’s interesting when because because I I am this woman, right? I you know me. I’m I’m pushy I’m over the top. I’m also really Friendly I’m really Yes, I think generally easy to get along with in spite of the fact that I’m also really really pushy Now When you said that though, I got to tell you this has always been like this weird thing for me I dislike that the part of me that feels almost the most like me Is Identified as male and and I know that those are male behaviors But I I don’t and have never felt male, you know, and I don’t feel like The fact that I walk into a situation and want to take control of it has Is like a male marker at all And I agree and even the fact that we’re calling it male Is sexist to some degree right because we’re identifying Certain genders with certain ways of behavior and there’s no particular reason why we should other than Some combination of stereotypes and let’s be honest stereotypes usually exist for reasons, right? But not necessarily good reasons so Well, and and the fact that maybe less women have this trait Doesn’t shouldn’t for for us as you know Identify it as male, but we do and how we have traditionally been and we use this, you know Stereotypes are there for a reason You’ll see it like in the comment section anytime, um, you know People think when we’re getting up on our high horse like hey, there’s a reason We don’t want women flying airplanes, you know, and it’s because
[00:59:38] Blue: Yeah, you’re right and and this comes back to um the discussion we had I can’t remember who was on one of our episodes or not about um The they tried to give extra time on a math Yeah,
[00:59:49] Green: yeah, yeah, I don’t remember that that might have just been you and I noodling.
[00:59:53] Blue: I
[00:59:53] Green: don’t know
[00:59:54] Blue: So, yeah, there was there was this I care if it was an episode or not, but they Stamford or somebody decided that for the undergraduates they were going to give 15 more minutes on a math test Um, because they were wondering if that would cause more women to score higher because maybe Being you know a woman correlated with being more careful and taking a bit more time and maybe that policy of having a time test um Would therefore favor a masculine style over a feminine style and so and so I actually think that was a fantastic idea because to be honest timed math test It’s really not clear why that shows that you’re better at math because you can do it faster, right? I mean that’s that’s not the way real life is going to be, you know So I really approved of them trying this and seeing what would happen And so I had a problem with this with newspaper articles that were trying to portray it as They would they would write the headline to get the clickbait It would sound like they were giving women an extra 15 minutes and not men But in reality they were giving everybody an extra 15 minutes they were just trying to see if it affected the style and people were getting so angry over this And even when I would explain what the truth was they’re giving 15 minutes to both. They are still so angry over it And it was the sherry scissors. We did talk about this in the sherry scissors episode. Can I
[01:01:22] Green: yes? Yes, I remember
[01:01:24] Blue: um And it’s it’s interesting that I mean there’s so many things we could unpack here, right? The fact that it did make some difference between the the The scores between men and women but only in the second quartile not the first quartile So it ended up I would even say it was a somewhat successful experiment But it didn’t make some drastic difference, right? It made some difference But not it didn’t really affect the top performers and things like that, right? And and one of the things I was I was looking at I was looking at my own tweets And someone was arguing with me about this and they made some big argument about Well, we don’t want to you know lower the standards for pilots Or we don’t want to lower the standards for you know being marines or or being in elite Poors or whatever and I said, you know if if taking a math test was to get into some sort of organization Then your analogy would have made sense But it’s not it’s just a math test, right? It’s not at all clear Why we shouldn’t change this? Even if it turns out I mean, it’s not even clear that it makes that much of a difference But if it does then we probably should change it, right? Why should we favor? fast over accurate
[01:02:38] Green: well, and the and the thing that came up out of that was um Just that any time you start talking about almost anything that has Gender implications. Yes out of the woodwork You will see so many people who want to use this argument of Hey, obviously men and women are you know, these stereotypes are here for a reason They’re indicative of truth that must be universal and are the thus Justification for us to continue to maintain the system in the way that they have always been maintained. Yeah
[01:03:16] Blue: Yeah, okay. Sorry. That was a bit of an aside
[01:03:20] Red: Yeah, I can I can I make one comment on on on this Going back a little bit to the to the term tempered. I struggle with it I may make a bolder claim in saying that To me and maybe Europe is different than than the US but to me female leaders at least have a broader repertoire That they can dispose of in terms of using as as as manager as managers a broader repertoire Including the bit of you know, the alpha male -ish style and everything But in in as a whole still a broader repertoire compared to men That is what that’s
[01:04:02] Blue: that’s a that’s a that’s a much better way
[01:04:05] Red: It’s it’s it’s not the alpha male -ish tempered version. I think it is a broader repertoire to in in my perspective, um
[01:04:14] Green: Well, and and and I agree and what I’m claiming a little bit here is that we are training women to have those skills by the Because of some sexism within our society That women have just have to learn those skills To be to be able to rise up as leaders
[01:04:37] Red: Whether
[01:04:38] Blue: or not that’s true. I don’t know I that that’s that’s your conjecture It’s at least a reasonable conjecture at this point Then
[01:04:46] Green: there’s no way to prove it at all anyway because we would need a different society That didn’t tell
[01:04:52] Red: yes
[01:04:53] Green: girls from a young age that if they’re going to be bossy They also need to be very nice and smile pretty while they’re doing it and probably look good, you know, where are my stress? All right fair enough
[01:05:08] Blue: Great
[01:05:10] Green: That’s that’s probably where we should end for today, right?
[01:05:13] Blue: I was gonna work quite pretty in there somewhere, you know, you need to be able to cry pretty Wasn’t that Jessica Alba that they told her if she had to cry pretty for All right, well, thank you guys. This has been a an awesome discussion
[01:05:34] Green: Very much great to have you again on on this episode.
[01:05:38] Red: Yes. Thanks a lot. Enjoyed it a lot
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