Hello and Happy Monday!
This is the final email in the first quarter of 2024. How did your first quarter go? How are your habits? Are you making progress toward your personal and professional goals? We’re 25% of the way through the year - and they always go by so fast!
If you’re not on track to hit your goals, what changes can you make? Sometimes a goal needs to be dropped because in reality it’s not a priority and it’s distracting from the really important goals. It’s okay to let go of a goal that’s not important!
Sometimes the goal is a high priority, but the approach isn’t working. What modifications to your systems could you enact this week to put you on track for the end of the year?
For me I’ve been behind on my 200-lb clean goal. And by behind, I mean I’ve literally done nothing 🤣 I decided it’s still a goal I want to pursue, and reflected on what’s holding me back. One thing is I don’t have the equipment, so I rectified that over spring break. I grabbed some things from Rogue and will be setting it up this week.
Feel free to send me an email at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz to treat me as your accountability buddy. Not only am I curious what your goals are, but by emailing me you’re giving yourself a little social pressure to hit that goal 😀
Have a great week!
Kevin
A Quote
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One misconception about highly successful cultures is that they are happy, lighthearted places. This is mostly not the case. They are energized and engaged, but at their core their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than around solving hard problems together. This task involves many moments of high-candor feedback, uncomfortable truth-telling, when they confront the gap between where the group is, and where it ought to be.
— Daniel Coyle in "The Culture Code"
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Three Things
1 - 🎙️ Founders Podcast on Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant - This was a really fascinating glimpse into the mental toughness exhibited by Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. They were relentless competitors, yes, and they were really in tune with their minds. Michael’s autobiography says, “You can’t excel at anything before you train your mind. Mental dominance is what ultimately makes you unstoppable.”
2 - 🦄 What A Unicorn Knows - Subtitled, “How Leading Entrepreneurs Use Lean Principles to Drive Sustainable Growth,” this is a great book on how lean concepts, applied to business, drive scaled outcomes. It’s been out for over a year and only has 58 ratings - but a 4.9 average - so this is an obscure but very good book.
3 - 🤖 Notebook LM from Google - Several weeks ago Google released (in the US) a new experimental product called Notebook LM (LM stands for Language Model - so this is an AI product). It’s like a Custom GPT from ChatGPT in that you can upload your own content sources and use an AI to query and interact with them. Watch Tiago Forte use it here.
Deeper Dive on How Good People Operating in a Bad System Create Bad Outcomes
Systems are more powerful than people.
The system in which people operate has a greater influence on the outcome than the people themselves do.
When placed in the same system, people, however different, tend to produce similar results. The systems perspective tells us that we must look beyond individual mistakes or bad luck to understand important problems. We must look beyond personalities and events. We must look into the underlying structures which shape individual actions and create the conditions where types of events become likely.
Think of a system of government, for example. A representative democracy, a monarchy, and a communist state each have a huge influence on what the people living in those systems are able to do! As people immigrate from one type of government to another, their outcomes change. Same person, different system, different outcome.
Today I’ll share some examples of this idea as it applies to business and how you can leverage this to improve your outcomes.
Beer Distribution Game - Same System, Different People
Peter Senge shares this example in his book, “The Fifth Discipline”. He’s run this game with thousands of people, so the system is the same, but the people are changing.
The set up is that there are three groups - a brewery, a wholesaler, and a retailer - all trying to optimize their outcomes. They want to meet customer demand while minimizing their cost. Just like in real life, people operate with imperfect information, communication breakdowns, delays in response after input, etc.
What result does Peter see in this game? Remember, he’s run this with very capable operators across many disciplines. Really smart people must be able to succeed in this straightforward game, right?
Wrong.
It’s chaos and frustration. There are huge inventory oscillations from the bullwhip effect. That means there are large periods of time where material is out of stock (resulting in frustrated customers), and large periods of time where there are inventory stockpiles (resulting in huge costs). Because of information silos people make local optimizations without understanding how their decisions have ramifications downstream.
The system wins.
Toyota Production System at Fremont - Same People, Different Systems
In 1983 Toyota was looking to test its Toyota Production System in the US. GM had recently closed their worst plant, in Fremont, CA. Absenteeism was 20%. It had double digit defects and their production time was twice that of other plants. The employees were considered “the worst workforce in the automobile industry.”
Toyota chose this location as their venture into the US. Toyota and GM entered into a joint partnership called NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.), reopening the old Fremont plant.
Toyota hired back 85% of the former workers and got started. They made systemic changes, introducing their Toyota Production System to people and setting up the plant to work this way.
What result does Toyota see at NUMMI? Remember, these are the worst employees in the entire automobile industry. These really bad people probably can’t help creating a bad outcome, right?
Wrong.
They get super impressive results. Within two years NUMMI had the highest quality and highest productivity of any GM plant. Absenteeism went down to 3% (from 20%). These same people went from last to first by changing their system.
The system wins.
How do you leverage the power of systems in your own work?
Be a System Architect for your organization
Your business is made up of many systems, but they’re often invisible. The people are easy to see. The content they produce is easy to see. The framework they operate within is less visible. You’ll need to see the invisible and then make adjustments.
Going through all of the ways to think about systems is outside of the scope of this newsletter, but there are two things you can start to look at right now: Roles and Responsibilities, and Rituals.
Roles and Responsibilities
Does the person you think is charged with performing a function/task also know they’re charged with performing that task? Not always!
Things change and morph all the time, and there are many assumptions left unstated. You may not be on the same page with your team or peers on who does what.
Be clear on the roles you need for success and what their responsibilities are. This can also be done collaboratively, of course, but make sure you have your perspective clear before engaging with the team. A RACI matrix is always a good model to outline and document these responsibilities for the full team.
Not only does this exercise clarify who is playing what role - but the exercise often informs your resourcing. Maybe you don’t have enough people to accomplish all the tasks - and you either need to add people or make another adjustment. That’s another part of your system that effects the outcome!
There are so many people working so hard and achieving so little.
- Andy Grove
Rituals
Who is meeting with whom, when, and what are they covering? Meetings are often derided, but that’s because a lot of them are done unintentionally. The “system” of meetings has an influence on the very smart people attending those meetings!
Meetings - done well - are rejuvenating! Have you ever left a meeting feeling energized and like your team is making progress? Those are awesome!
Meetings, and other rituals, are part of your system design. They’re also part of your information diet, as discussed last week. What meetings do you need, on what cadence, with which attendees, covering what topics? Make sure this is set up appropriately.
If you need to meet about something first thing on Monday, make sure that’s on the calendar. If you need quick updates on something twice a week, make sure that’s on the calendar.
As an organizational system architect and leader make sure you have designed and implemented what you need to be successful.
Oh, and don’t forget to cancel those meetings once their purpose is fulfilled, lest you contribute to too many meetings 😀
It’s been said that a bad system will beat a good person every time.
“Wrong leader!” …maybe
A huge part of leadership is ensuring you have the right people. When hiring, the entire point is to decide whether the person is a good fit. In large organizations there’s a department called HR dedicated to helping assess and grow people.
It’s no wonder that when things go wrong, the people seem to be the problem. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard someone say “wrong leader,” “wrong person,” or even just negative assessments during performance reviews - and completely ignored the system in which those “wrong” people are operating.
Some people are poor fits for their environment (see fish climbing a tree - my first newsletter!), and they should move on to someplace they can be successful. But those people doing the assessing aren’t asking enough questions about the system that person is operating in.
Is something about the system making it difficult for this person to be successful?
It’s natural for a leader to assume the people are the problem. After all, they are the ones not doing what we need to have done. But you would be wrong. The people are not the problem! W. Edwards Deming, father of the quality movement, taught that anytime the majority of the people behave a particular way the majority of the time, the people are not the problem. The problem is inherent in the system.
As a leader your people are your number one priority - but before assuming the person is bad and needs to be removed, take a look at the system and see if the problem lies there.
When in doubt, remember the NUMMI example above - in two years the same people went from last place to first by implementing a different operating system!
Bringing It All Together
Good people operating in a bad system create bad outcomes.
If you cycle good people through a bad system (beer distribution game), you’ll continue to get bad outcomes. If you take the same people and change to a better system (NUMMI example), you can get good outcomes.
You need to be the system architect for your organization. It’s a broad topic, but start by investigating roles and responsibilities. Does everyone in the system know what part they play? Document it with a RACI matrix.
Be intentional about your rituals. Ensure you’ve got the meeting schedule, the attendees, and the topics you need to be successful.
Before exiting someone, assess how the system contributed to the bad outcome. The system always wins, even with good people.
Call to Action
Put on your System Architect hat for your organization. Stand on the metaphorical balcony and look down on your organization. How is it running? Do you see all the pieces? Assume you have good people; what about the system design is holding them back?
If you’ve got an area of poor performance, check on the roles and responsibilities and rituals. Does everyone know, in sufficient detail, the role they’re playing? Do they know the expectations of that role? Document it!
Are your meetings serving you and your team? Start with meetings that drain you. What’s going on there? Does it need to be canceled or redesigned?
Email me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz and let me know what you uncovered in your organizational system. Did you discover any stuck points? If you’re struggling with some part of your system, let me know what’s going on.
Don’t forget to have fun! System design stuff is cool 😎
Kevin
