Was
the title of a 1979 disco hit by The Real Thing – you tend to find it
played now only at Christmas parties and the like; more’s the pity, I think it
deserves more airtime. The band originated in Liverpool by the way.
Foot
tapping disco banger it may be, but, tweak the title a little to ‘Can you
feel the Forces?’ and it is also a useful way to think about the
challenges you face in business; and not just in a business but in life
generally.
The
principle is simple and, rather elegantly, it also echoes the work of 17th
century polymath Sir Isaac Newton.
Let
me explain.
The
idea is that any challenge which we face in life can be considered to be being
acted upon by two opposing sets of forces – those on the left which are
pushing the issue towards some form of resolution and those on the right which
are blocking progress or actually making the situation worse (or the other way
around; it is nothing to do with political persuasion).
If
the forces are balanced then the issue doesn’t become any worse but nor does it
become any better – remember your O level or GCSE physics and Newton’s First
Law of Motion that an object will remain at rest if the forces acting on it are
balanced?
But if you can increase the effect of the forces pushing the issue to a successful conclusion and / or reduce the effect of the forces which are supporting the problem / preventing progress then you have the potential to deal with the challenge, overcome it – and move on to the next one.
We
have been using this idea of a Force Field with a number of clients who have
asked for help in dealing with a tricky issue in their business. Rarely
is the underlying issue a financial one – but it very often has a financial
implication and frequently it is this financial impact, showing up in the
management information reports / management accounts, which shines a harsh
light on the existence of the problem. Because, let’s be honest, most
humans have a tendency to ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ and develop work arounds to
problems. But some are of such an impact, magnitude or risk of such, that not
to grasp the nettle isn’t really an option – or not one which will
maximise the chance that the business or person will grow, improve and
flourish.
So
far, so simple and straightforward.
In
our experience, the real challenge in these situations is not to identify the
problem but to really get under its skin and work out what the helpful and
unhelpful forces are which are in play. It is really important to bear in
mind Einstein’s (I think it was him?) idea that ‘The thinking that got us into
the problem is unlikely to be the thinking that will get us out of it’.
And that goes to the nub of the issue with a tool like this; it usually
operates at its best when there is an external input or challenge into the
group’s thought processes to enable them to get out of their existing modes and
tramlines of thought and see the issue from a new perspective.
Once
the forces have been named and shamed so to speak, groups need then to agree
which are the most significant; or rather, if you could strengthen them /
remove them which would have the most beneficial impact. This can be a
bit subjective but we have found that groups pretty quickly discuss and reach a
consensus upon what needs to be addressed. A good way to do this is to
give each of them a magic wand and with a handful of wishes get them to make
clear what they would ‘fix’ if they could.
Now
it is time for a deeper dive.
We
know what we would change if we could – so now we have to work out what
steps could be taken in order to change the power of the most important
forces. And again, there are usually a range of views of what should be
done to improve things (which is good, we want this cognitive diversity) but we
ask the group to think really clearly about what small steps could be taken in
the next 15-30 days. Not to solve the problem but to move a little closer
to solving it. It is, if you like, a bit similar to the idea of marginal
gains or we consume something large one small mouthful at a time.
We
need to come back to Newtonian forces and the idea of momentum. That,
unfortunately, is the biggest risk in any change process like this. It isn’t
identifying the need to change, it isn’t identifying what to change, it isn’t
even identifying how to change – it is keeping up the momentum which the
group has created in their session to implement the changes required given all
the other distractions / priorities of everyday life whether that be business
or personal.
Fortunately,
there is a relatively easy way to overcome this risk – and it has two
clear components:
- agreeing to being held to
account. By other members of the team and by us; and
- leaders committing to taking the
agreed actions. They need to consciously live and demonstrate the values and
behaviours which the group has said it needs to adopt in order to resolve the
challenge satisfactorily.
I
said that there are two components, that is true, but they are not of equal
importance. Overwhelmingly it is the second which is the most important.
So,
there we go, a quick canter through one of the more frequent thinking and
problem solving tools we are using with clients.