Shaving and the art of questioning

A few days ago, I was about to start shaving when my 6 year old daughter (Lucie) entered the bathroom. She wanted to discuss our upcoming day together, but quickly started asking me questions about shaving. Every step of the way, she asked me what I was doing, what my objective was, why I used a particular tool or product, etc... She also asked me to explain or clarify what she didn't understand. (She also told me every time I missed a spot.) I use a shave brush, and so the process is slightly more involved than with a can of shaving cream - she also wanted to know why I prefer the brush. 

Of course, shaving is not something I spend a great deal of time thinking about: I do it on autopilot, in the morning, sometimes while half awake and mostly while thinking about something else. Her questions forced me to consider my shaving process step by step, and to find a reason for everything I was doing.  

As I finished, I realized that between my automatic behavior and her pointed questions, this had been quite like a process audit in a professional environment. However, unlike in most process audits I've participated in, a few things struck me about her demeanor :   

1. the sense of wonder in her tone and questions - as if what I was doing was the most  amazing and important thing in the world (at least at that moment)  
2. the innocence with which she approached shaving - she has no preconceived notions about how it should be done and has a completely open mind 
3. the way in which she phrased her questions - she knows nothing about shaving (I'm clearly the expert), and so her manner was humble and positively inquisitive  
4. the kindness underlying her questions - she genuinely cares about me and (at that moment) expressed her care by wanting to know more about shaving   
5. the trust and confidence between us that allowed her to ask probing questions without threatening me and allowed me to answer in a frank and non-defensive manner, knowing I would not be judged for them

Of course, father-daughter interactions are quite different from intra-company or consultant-client relations, but I believe that I learned a lesson. The next time that I find myself observing a process and asking questions about it, I'll try to remember Lucie's 5 keys to a successful audit :  

1. wonder and amazement - I am privileged to observe an expert working his/her craft  
2. innocence - I will try to abandon any knowledge of the task to approach it with a fresh and open mind 
3. posture and phrasing - I will inquire humbly about what the expert is doing and my questions will be gentle  
4. kindness - I will care deeply about the individual and extend him/her the kindness I wish to receive in return  
5. trust - I will take the time to build a relationship based on trust and show myself worthy of the same 

How to embed innovation in your organization?

This was my topic last week, speaking to a group of executive MBAs during a seminar focused on entrepreneurship. 

Innovation is a new and relevant answer to an important question. But once you have deciphered the "Mystery" of unnamed or unknown desires  leading to your unique Offer, when you have found your entrepreneurial Heuristic pattern  and finally designed a robust and attractive Algorithm, exit innovation; you enter the daily “raison d’être” of all businesses: reproducing  the formula, the solution, at the lowest cost and the highest profit, as long as possible. Even though we all know that in the future we'll have to make changes we are not willing to reopen everyday the Pandora Box of Inquiry.

Keeping innovation alive in an organization built for execution implies that essential questions, emerging or unknown are "routinely" identified and "processed" to keep  creating and implementing innovative solutions. A "double-bind" challenge.

Over a few decades of management practice, I tried to overcome this "double-bind", eager to combine the chaos of questions with the dull order of repetitive solutions. 
Amid some successes and numerous failures, I eventually discovered three essential "ingredients", tightly linked to each other.

First, People: Do you see them -do they see themselves - as the prime source of innovation or just silent performers of pre-established processes? I engaged my "authority" to allow everyone to be a potential "author", not just a docile instrument or scape goat for every problem; I went on suppressing information barriers and hierarchical walls, facilitating dialogue and initiative, giving time and space to breathe, think and relate, even introducing Art to the shop floor!  But along the way, I discovered that this "humanistic" and inclusive approach was incomplete: good intentions, great values, deep empathy and inspiring declarations are short-lived if not rooted in reality by a strong purpose.

Purpose is the second ingredient of embedded innovation: if we - the people- are the key to innovation, we must work together on it, addressing and solving the quintessential question- the what and the how of our "raison d'être"- which will keep  us ahead of the game. But in business,unlike school, problems and  issues are not given, they emerge,or not, are solved, or not, reinforcing or destroying the organization's life expectancy. We need to be on the outlook, open to discovery, ready to learn and unlearn to innovate. For this, we took the "organizational learning" road: fighting mental models entrenched in routine, valuing curiosity, fueling team learning, world cafés and open forums to develop collective intelligence. But I discovered that if our learning purpose was key for innovation, it was difficult to "engrain" in everyone's activity, everyday: our learning moments were mostly off time and off site; besides,too often we were not addressing the real issues: we were learning what we wanted to learn, not what we needed to learn. 

We were missing the discipline (everyday learning for everyone) and the alignment (addressing our "raison d'être": better customer value at a minimum waste); we were missing a common "innovation & execution" Practice, the third ingredient: learning tools,  rites and behaviors which are helping people to find and solve the right questions, leading to wiser solutions and frugal innovations. We developed this practice rooted in daily respect for people as authors and constant focus on the purpose of "necessary" learning. Young startups and reputed leaders call this practice "Lean". A practice for people with purpose.

To be or not to be: is it the Question or the Solution?

After a recent board meeting, I had a chat with the CEO; he was concerned about finding ways to improve his company’s operational excellence. I pointed out a few links between his quest and the strategic issues that he had brilliantly presented during the board. His answer was  quick and sharp: these are two different subjects. 

I could hear that there was no room for questions on the operational side: only flawless and repeatable execution was expected. The core and essential queries were reserved for the yearly ritual event: the executive committee strategic seminar.

He was right: leaders are often seen as heroes, bravely leading their troops through  unknown territories but delegating to their managers the boring and daily pride of delivering impeccable results.

Leaders own the big questions. Field managers must deliver reliable answers and competitive solutions.

But, in the real world, we have all attended -or even led- endless meetings debating around the “best” solutions and refining their implementation process, only to discover afterwards that these perfect solutions were useless as they were not addressing the right issues. We have also shared or built strategic visions followed by detailed strategic plans* to discover, in the course of action, that they were inadequate or not implantable.

Is it smart to separate questions from solutions? If so, where is the parting line? Strategy vs operations? Leaders vs operatives? If not, what is the way?

A few days ago, in his Gemba coach chronicle, Michael Ballé raised this issue, comparing Ford and Toyota systems: “the Taylor/Ford approach emphasizes the typical solutions (...).Conversely, Toyota’s emphasis in on the typical problems(...). In the end it all comes down to what problem you’re trying to solve.”

Our main challenge is therefore not to separate questions and answers, problems and solutions and let everyone -leader & operative- be the owner of both. This is the sure way to be kinder to the problems and wiser for the solutions.

* http://hbr.org/2014/01/the-big-lie-of-strategic-planning/ar/1