MIND - your language!

Even as I consciously try to add tension to every muscle in my body, each step feels less than firm as the wind lands blow after blow.

No matter how hard I try, each step is affected, every step failing to land quite where it might, without the relentless impact swaying me from side to side.

There is still a long way to go.

Each buffeting torrent of wind seems like another taunting jab, as I push the motorbike along the edge of the road.

As I push, I watch people chatting or singing to themselves in cars and lorries. I realise just how much we all take for granted when the thousands of component parts of our vehicles work together …. And with a sense of disappointment, just how ignorant we can be of a pending problem, until it all goes wrong. It dawns on me this applies to our places of work as much as it applies to our modes of transport.

I start to think through the sequence of events that led to the loss of power, which in turn led to my current predicament … hot, sweaty, crash-helmet on my arm, pushing the bike past the next sign saying the slip road is still another ½ mile away.

As I push, I think.

I run through the options, carburettor, blocked jets or air filter, could it be the electrics, the spark plug or the coil. … it’s a deep thought process, my brain connecting information across decades, only interrupted by the wind from each vehicle jabbing at me as one foot falls after the other and a bead of sweat works its way down one temple.

Broken down vehicles spanning 30 years are recalled for review, dredged up from some distant neural net that constitutes long term memory, a leaf in the petrol tank of my 1968 Mini was perhaps the hardest to pin down .. it would randomly cover the inlet pipe, starving the engine of petrol until it died, which then released the vacuum keeping the leaf in place, freeing it to once again roam the tank before repeating the problem.

Water in the carburettor bowl, failing coils, dodgy spark plugs, they all had their certain characteristics that gave you a clue what was going wrong when they failed.

Could I make a connection, was anything I’d felt, as this bike suddenly lost power, like any of those previous events in any way? If I could only work out what had failed, I could fix it, if not, it was going to be an expensive wait for a recovery service.

The slip road was only a 100yds ahead now; as I pushed the bike toward the junction, I just couldn’t find anything that made sense.

It was almost as if the engine had started to seize, but that could only happen if the auto-lube wasn’t providing the engine with enough oil. I’d had the whole thing apart only a few days before, 1st getting it running after a year lying dormant and then getting it MOT’d ... and I’d checked the pump.

Then again, it did have an after-market unrestricted exhaust and it had been showing 60mph on the clock when it cut out … maybe I’d just pushed it too hard for too long, after all it was only a 50cc moped and I was 13 stone and nearly six foot, it was a lot to ask of a little scooter.

I surmised, if it had overheated, now that I’d pushed it a couple of miles, it should have cooled down. If I was right, it would start again. If it did, i'd just have to take it a bit easier.

I figured it was worth turning the engine over and listening for any tell-tale sounds. Down the slip-road, away from the main road it was quieter, so I tried the kick start. It spun over freely enough, so I turned it over on the button a few times.

I was just about to give up fearing the battery might die, when the sound changed … that subtle difference in tone was enough to confirm it was trying to fire ... a little more throttle helped the mechanical pump prime the carb with fuel, and the little engine snapped back to life. I was back in business.

I was able to fulfill my promise that day. That little moped did the remaining 80 miles required to deliver it to my wife’s young schoolteacher friend. She is over from Spain, working in a primary school in the middle of nowhere and was relying on me to find her some transport ... on an incredibly tight budget. Fortunately, I didn't let her down.

Weeks later I was thinking about that little adventure and it dawned on me that it’s not having the experience and the knowledge to think through problems like that, so much as it’s having the right language with which to think the problem through .. it’s the language that allows your mind to recall a naming convention, associate sound combinations to inert objects and rationalise cause and effect … having the right language is the key!

Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery.
- Mark Amidon

 The process, (in this case, of elimination), was only possible because I knew what a coil is and does, what a spark plug is, what fuel bowls, jets and needles are... and how they work together to let a reed valve supply fuel and then snap shut to feed and then push back against a piston trying to suck-squeeze-bang-blow.

I had to have learned what an auto-lube pump is, the difference between a two stroke and 4 stroke … that would be impossible without the relevant words which have meaning attributed to them in my mind.

The key to my capacity to understand a situation and decide on the relevant actions required is therefore, language … i.e. the breadth of my vocabulary!

As Wittgenstein said,

“The limit of my language is the limit of my world.”

It’s not the problem solving process itself that solves problems... it’s people, having the right language with which to describe and rationalise the problem, that's what solves problems!

The point is, you can only know how to work something, or fix something if you have the right language.

By words the mind is winged.
- Aristophanes

It occurs to me that this is a fundamental thought when considering business.

In business, especially in the last few years, people have increasingly spoken of ‘Culture’ and ‘Culture change’ in response to a growing awareness that a ‘Tools and Techniques’ approach is insufficient when it comes to making sustainable organisational change.

The problem is, all of the continuous improvement language, all of the strategy language, leadership language, technology language (I.T.) and Project / Programme management language, lean language, six sigma language, agile language ... all that is taught and accepted as 'best-practice' globally, is pretty much devoid of the vocabulary required to adequately consider culture and culture change.

As a hawk flieth not high with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excellence with one tongue.
- Roger Ascham

Few have adopted the language required to adequately discuss the component parts of culture such as values, beliefs and attitudes; at least, not with enough depth and rigor to provide them a practical working knowledge of the subject.

Using the moped as an analogy, we talk about culture in terms of Handlebars, seat, wheels, engine .. but not in terms of fuel octane levels and reed valve materials.

This lack of language significantly inhibits the potential to describe organisational culture, let-alone determine what can be done to improve it! This incapacity to communicate in tangible terms significantly inhibits organisational performance and change effectiveness, just as trying to improve the performance or efficiency of a vehicle would be inhibited by a conversation about the seat and wheels alone.

Complexity sits behind cultural elements like beliefs, values and attitudes, but they can be explained in terms of neuroscience and psychology … principles like self-concept, learned helplessness, bias, perspectives and the imprinting mechanics behind them all therefore must feature in the vocabulary which constitutes a working knowledge of organisational culture and culture change.

Without this language, there is no capacity to consider 'Culture', or indeed, 'Change' in any meaningful way. Motivation, Engagement, Alignment, Empowerment ... these are merely proxy terms ... populist generalisations, that allude to a deeper language .. a broader vocabulary ... that the majority of the market currently fails to provide or care for.

In addition, an understanding of what people in any particular company or department perceive to be ‘Good’ … their underlying philosophy… must form part of the language and dialogue used to consider ‘Organisational Culture’ … as this sits at root of all motivation and therefore all related actions and behaviours which also contribute to the formation of an organisations ‘Culture’, or leads to ‘Culture Change’, 'Change' and ultimately increased 'Performance and profit'.

For example, if you put ‘money’ in the hot seat in terms of an emotional / cultural driving force (E.g. Capital expenditure equating to EBITDA improvement and company value linked to bonus payments), there’s a high chance you’ll find those involved making decisions in their own self-interest. i.e. qualifying for an annual bonus by spending capital to increase company value on the balance sheet, because their perception of ‘Good’ is the bonus related to the action (WIIFM  - What’s In It For Me)…

Such behaviours often prevail even where those investments may be better spent on additional salaries and skills to adequately maintain the existing equipment, thus improving quality, cost, delivery and creating customer delight, increasing customer perceptions and long term sales potential / organisational stability.

That simplified example requires we also include the relevant language and open conversations about ‘good’ in terms of time-scales … i.e. a ‘belief’ about in-year returns based on financial reporting figures vs. longer term benefits... and the pressures that will make us choose one over the other.

As Toyota state in their philosophy;

“All management decisions will be based on long term considerations, even at the expense of short term gains”.

Such a belief in what good looks like will generate very different cultures between one company and another.

Where the shared perception of ‘Good’ is to provide the absolute best product or service to the customer at the lowest cost and highest quality in the shortest times, to maximise a positive reputation and the companies long term sales potential, we might see such ‘industry standard’ bonus structures removed in recognition that they drive counter-productive behaviors and decisions.

Where in-year market value and shareholder return is the mitigating factor behind an emotional decision making process, we may see such bonus structures increased and the long term impact of that approach ignored.

This makes an informed conversation about philosophical perceptions of ‘Good’ and how such beliefs become the psychological driving force of the actions behind culture absolutely essential; if leaders are to understand and problem solve in respect to ‘Culture Change’.

Ultimately, the intention to realise a change in the Culture of an organisation requires leaders do a little self-reflection and soul searching to identify what part they play in the psychological 'Cause and effect' cycles at work in the organisation. If they recognise it or not, leaders are a major part of the social and psychological system. 

Where that line of inquiry might challenge the provision of a bonus that often hits six or seven figures, there is a significant incentive to carry on regardless and just pay lip service to culture change.

So, with that in mind, we can ask, how much do we speak of philosophical alignment, moral obligation and motivation theories at a neural and psychological level in business, to openly address such deeply rooted issues in detail? (The equivalent of talking about the jet size in a carburetor or the gearing ratio between the front and rear sprocket, valve clearances or resonance depending on intake venturi length etc.).

The answer is rarely, if at all ... because few have assimilated that language into the world of business and most find it too difficult a discussion to hold; so they avoid it and the language that would lead to that kind of conversation.

This leads us to only one conclusion. There is a cavernous hole in our business vocabulary ... and consciously or unconsciously, it's being ignored!

Deeper levels of vocabulary and therefore ‘thinking’ are required when considering the culture we will form when project managing, implementing IT solutions, training leaders and introducing strategic deployment models to increase organisational alignment and performance, but, without the language in the minds of leadership teams, such thoughts ... such conversation, such solutions, are impossible.

At a deeper level, for advanced leaders, we may move beyond new vocabulary like bias and motivational drives and consider the neural stimulus behind such terms.  For example, ultimately, our language may include the opiate receptors in the dopaminergic mesolimbic pathway and the principles of agonist or antagonist synapses, which all feature when considering issues of behaviour, motivation, confidence, problem solving, innovation etc. ... there is a lot of vocabulary, a lot of 'language' available to help us understand 'Culture' in terms of 'behaviour', 'beliefs', 'values' and 'attitudes' ... but, as you can see, this isn’t language that normally crops up when considering culture in terms of EBITDA, ROCE or Share value.

What we must also recognise, it that language itself plays a significant part in the formation of culture.

Most service providers aiming to sell their solution to the market of growth and performance improvement driven CEO's, will suggest you can talk about Lean tools and techniques, agile, six sigma or new technologies. They will furthermore suggest these processes introduced via standard project and programme management methods will change culture … this is naive!

The irony is, I suppose, leaders, at all levels, will employ external support to address ‘Culture’, ‘Culture Change’, ‘Organisational Change Management’, ‘Leadership development’, ‘Alignment’, ‘Strategy’, 'Lean', what-have-you, and they hire people who speak their language, who promise to deliver what it is the leader has already decided the organisation needs, in a way that produces confidence (i.e. confirms rather than challenges the leaders existing world view).

This is quite simply putting unconscious perceptions of comfort before necessity... and I say it's ironic, because, with a broader language, the human factors involved with such supplier selection decision making activities (as with any recruitment activity) could be better understood and addressed, seeing leaders overcome their own bias during such decision making activities.

“The definition of madness is doing the same things you’ve done before and expecting a different result” Einstein

Trying to address culture change with the currently established industry standard language, is like being a baker and trying to fix a moped in terms of proving dough, or being a mechanic and trying to improve a cake mix in terms of 2 stroke mixing ratios.

To wrap this up, my final thought is this; If I’d insisted on solving my moped problems with totally inappropriate language, I’d still be stranded on the side of the road being buffeted by the wind from each passing lorry. In principle, trying to address organisational culture is no different. It requires the right language.

Any time you think some other language is strange, remember that yours is just as strange, you're just used to it.

Helping leaders learn a deeper language surrounding Culture and Change makes a greater difference to sustainable performance and profit than any of the tools and techniques you can imagine.

That's probably why IBM's Lou Gerstner said:

Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you that culture was just one among several important elements in any organization's makeup and success — along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like... I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.