Difference between revisions of "Sustainable Business Learning Community Conversations, Nov - Dec 2012"

Revision as of 16:02, 6 December 2012

November 29, 2012 Topic: Setting Goals

Comments from last week:

Community exists on so many different levels: your immediate community going up through levels to our global community, planetary community.

Some discussion as to whether it is more advantageous to live in the community you in which you work. If you live in a community, your notion of that community might be very different than someone who only works there - and you have more at stake.

Why take your skills elsewhere when Detroit needs your skills? Don't complain about what Detroit doesn't have if you won't contribute to it..

Jess introduced us to the concept of Homophily: People have a natural tendency to connect to and form community with people who are similar to them and share their background/education/interests/experiences/consumption bubbles. Even if they try to seek out difference, they still tend to end up with people who are like them. Even within homogenous groups we see this tendency: women group together with women, men with men, the wealthy with the wealthy, etc.

The way space and environment play out is important. We may have very few spaces in our everyday lives where we are forced to interact with people who are different from us. How do we intentionally expose ourselves to a "shared reality"?

What do you do in the groups that you lead, to help affect community? What are you called to do?

At Food Lab their focus is to develop a good food system that's accountable to all Detroiters, so it is important to reflect the reality of the community in the way that Food Lab operates. For example, they don't just use Facebook and Twitter because not everyone has access to a computer. They offer child care so mothers can attend. The leadership of Food Lab also has to be representative of the population so they have taken steps toward establishing racial and male/female diversity within their ranks. It is important to put the intention out there and take real steps to realize that intention.

Anna Cohn (Detroit Synagogue) asks: How do you balance diversity with credentials so as to best represent and serve the group. What are you trying to get from your leaders or board of directors? Do you need guidance? Diversity of perspective?

How much do you imagine what people have to offer vs. actually exploring what they have to offer? Do you end up choosing people with whom you have the most in common and are comfortable?

Setting goals can be a challenge!

Topic: Setting Goals (Goal Fatigue):

One of the things that management tends to be worst at is goal setting. This is because it's just not well understood. Many entrepreneurs are very strong in their trade, but not strong in business, so understanding goal setting and how to run a business is vital. The likelihood of failure is greater if they don't understand goal setting and the processes involved.

W. Edwards Deming: If you set a goal on top of a process that is not under control, there is an 85% chance that you're just making the matter worse. You will be doing more harm than good.

• Setting a date: It's not effective or useful to say: "This job has to be done by this date." Have you identified yet what it is that has to be done? Quality? Effort? Cost? What are we talking about setting a goal on? What is it that you're actually talking about? Outcome or process?
• Start with measurements on the process before you start with measurements on the outcome. You have to let the process get a little formed first before you can put measurements on it. Know and understand what it is that you are measuring.
• You have to have a goal setting process, a strategic process, a measurement process and then a process for change. So when someone just sets a goal without having processes in place, it just doesn't mean anything.

See: Carnegie-Mellon Capability Maturity Model relating to the degree of formality and optimization of processes. What maturity level are processes at before you put measurements to them?

Questions to consider:

• Can you start with an end goal from which you can work backwards in order to develop the necessary processes to get there? If your goal and processes can be adjusted and refined as you go forward, would this work? In this case you are drawing line in sand, not carving it in stone - the line or goal can be adjusted. Goals can be a catalyst to encourage action. If there is not understanding or a learning process incorporated into a change of goal, then you can't get people on board.

• How do you make the evolution from the large, truly unattainable goal, to a smaller more realistic goal? How can you determine if the kind of goals you're setting are attainable or not? Setting unreasonable or impossible goals can lead to goal fatigue.

• How do you avoid goal fatigue?
  • Goals have to be achievable
  • Goals have to be related to your larger vision
  • Even if you don't succeed, remember that if you have learned something you haven't really failed. The process is "the thing" rather than the result. Then you have to restructure where you have to go. The learning cycle then takes the burn out of the goal fatigue. Focus on learning instead of goals. See email on failure. Recognize that some organizations won't operate on the learning vs. achieving goals premise, and some will. Be aware of this at the outset.

• Are you in a space where people are asking, "what is our collective strategy/strategies, vs. what are our collective goals"? Are you able to articulate your vision and your processes clearly enough to share with others in your organization? Is all of this written down somewhere? When you bring in someone new, it is helpful to have your goals and processes written down for them to understand and catch up with everyone else.

• Can I get there from here? : The Green Garage leadership set the goal of transforming this building into a Net Zero Energy building. This had a real effect on the processes and systems and decisions that were made, and they were much different than if they had set the goal of just doing 10% better than a conventional building. You have to have an initial balancing between what you have and where you need to go, and ask yourself, "can I even get there from here?" There may be physical limits to the goal you have set so you have to recognize whether or not you are schooled in the skill levels necessary to achieve the goal.

• Democratic sharing of information:
  • Important to make sure there is a democratic sharing of information to ensure that changes can be made within your organization in a healthy way.
  • But does goal setting always have to be democratic? Can an organization be too big for this? In large corporations, goals come from the top, but you still have the employees to buy into it and want to do it. You have to let them know that this is something that we're doing for the good of everyone in the organization. How do you make other people share your goal/passion?
  • Trust in leadership: If your employees trust in your leadership, you can get them to believe in the goal. Be sure to revisit the "road" that your on. You can say to your team, "Look where we've gotten to, what do you think?"
  • It's important that the hierarchy be in place. Those working on the lower levels of the hierarchy can still have a voice, but the leadership is responsible for making final decisions.

November 15, 2012 Topic: Forms of Community

How do we form communities?

Comments from last week's conversation on Consistency:

It is a constant question in some businesses: Is there a better way? How do you get employees to look for a better way to do their jobs?

• At Food Lab people are taking increasing ownership in their collective. But Jess is finding it hard to figure out if investing in the "better" way is really worth the investment. They get a lot of suggestions, but it's hard to evaluate the worth in investment.
• What is the capacity of change in the organization you are working with? How much change can it take and still maintain its consistency and value? This isn't often well understood by people because it's an organic question. Change and the ripple effects caused by change are hard to get a grasp of.
• Also, there is a big difference between people wanting change and those committed to making the change happen.

Topic today: Forms of community

How does a community form? What brings it together and gives it cohesion? Caring? Interests? Proximity?

• Electronic community has increased vs. physical communities

• Communities can be place-based (proximity) or based on sharing of interests, values, and/or ideals.

• When communities are based on interests, values, etc., this can promote diversity. Ex: churches bring together diverse people who might not otherwise come together.

• Even more than simply sharing interests/values/ideals, is the emotional attachment that we have to those things that bring us together.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Strength of community ties might depend on where the community connects in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The deeper the need (that is, the more fundamental to one's survival), the more easily people will really come together. It's the importance of the shared interest to your life that matters; football may bring you together on a more superficial level than health issues.

People choose to live in Detroit because they value life in the city and only in living there can they share and understand the challenges that the people who live there must deal with. Hannah observed that if you don't live in a community but you work there, you might not even be aware of some of the positive things in that community that you might want to preserve. You need to be part of a community to really understand.

Problems in communities:

• How do you identify the real motives that cause a community to fracture? Do we understand what motivates people to do harm in a community? Is it need? Peer pressure?
• Do communities come together when they are threatened by a crisis? Do we really only understand our deeper connection to our community when we are personally affected by a crisis (e.g., hurricane victims in NY/NJ)? At what levels are communities stronger or weaker?

Which communities are we actually talking about?

• Your neighborhood?
• Your natural community? Are we aware of which watershed we live and work in?
• Which global communities are we connected to?
• How do all these communities connect to each other?
• All communities need to be healthy in order for them to function properly.
• The individual vs. the whole: am I just taking care of my self? Am I connected to the whole? Am I aware of the whole?
• Am I making decisions that affect only myself or affect the health of the whole?

Working vs. Living in a Community:

What motivates some people to work in a community, but not live there? Are they still part of the community?

• It might be that office space is cheaper, so it makes good economic sense to do business there.
• Whatever ones reasons for being there, they are still part of the community.
• Care is not measurable. People have different experiences, priorities, perspectives, accountability, etc. We can't really say that one person "cares" more or less than another.

How is someone who lives inside the city different from someone who lives outside? How do their relationships within the community differ? People within a community interact on many different levels.

Community and trust:

• Trust is vital to a healthy community.
• The more you know people, the less afraid or distrustful you are of them.
• Detachment from other people breaks down community and can even lead us to harm one another.

We design cities and structures that either foster community or cause it to break down. How you design a neighborhood, your business, products, etc. can make a difference in fostering community. Homes can be built close together rather than farther apart, with sidewalks and front porches; a product can be designed to be used collaboratively; your community may encourage train vs. car travel.

Other thoughts on the nature of community:

• Josh remarks that it is hardwired in all humans to create community, but perhaps we need to focus less on what creates a community, but on how you engage people in community in order to move forward.

• Individuals have varied levels of tolerance when it comes to proximity with members of a community, that is, some people need more personal space than others. However, you have to be ready and willing to give some of yourself to your community in order to become a part of it. It's up to you to find your own level of comfort.

• Belonging to a community is important because it helps us to form our own identity; the community/communities to which we belong help to define us.

• There is value both in communities that are durable and long-lasting, and communities that are temporary.

• Community means that you will have people there to help you if you can't help yourself one day. Just as you give a bit of yourself to your community, someone else will be there for you one day when you are in need.

• Suntae's observation: On a national level, Koreans have a really strong sense of community, but less so on the city level (esp. in Seoul, which is an enormous city). He wonders if the opposite is true here in Detroit, that people seem to identify more with being part of the city of Detroit, and less with being Americans?

For further reading on cities and community, see: Death and Life of American Cities by Jane Jacobs

November 8, 2012 Topic: Consistency

Thoughts from last week's conversation on Leading Change:

• Cory, who works in a your entrepreneurship program in Ypsilanti, used the change curve in one of his classes.
• Hanna has been applying the change curve chart in developing an awareness of her life and its direction.
• Allow a period of self reflection after you recognize something that needs to be changed.
• Nested changes: One change can lead to change on a higher level.
• How does one change affect another change?
• Small changes can be a big deal for a lot of people in their daily lives. Small changes can have surprisingly big ramifications.
• UM triple bottom line students are discovering that small changes in a small organization can have ripple effects. Sustainability shows us that all things are connected so small changes can produce a big effect.
• Important to communicate values of your organization even before you identify areas of change. For example, at the Social Club they can say, "Water bottles were eliminated because we value the environment and are trying to achieve no waste".
• You need to be able to focus on a higher purpose with your work/business. These values should be identified under the "awareness" phase of the change curve. Your business's values shouldn't change (find your "north").

Consistency is key

Today's Topic: Consistency

A tension exists between consistency and change. How can they be effectively balanced?

Cory's story:

• In their entrepreneurship program, they teach kids that they are a "brand" and that the strongest "brand" has consistency.
• Through consistency we can have a dependable relationship/interaction between people, businesses, etc.
• Consistency in personal relationships is necessary. Otherwise all you have is a transactional relationship. Consistency is required to maintain a relationship over time between businesses.

• Hannah's business: Different people require consistency in different areas. Clients should have their experience be exceptional each time. Why is that important to Hannah? Because she believes that this is what the clients deserve (one of Hannah's values) She offers the therapists consistent and reliable support - she has their back. If they get a bad client, that client won't be able to come back. They know that they will always have what they need, support, clean sheets, products, etc.

Consistency and Change:

• Because we live and work in an ever-changing environment, your business may have to adapt in order to maintain its consistency, whether that be consistency in product quality, customer service, etc.
• In an organization with an over-arching, high level of consistency, employees may feel more comfortable adapting to changes that occur because they feel secure - they understand the values of the business.
• You have to be able to discern which small changes in your business's environment need to be dealt with and which do not. How do you recognize when there has been a big enough change that it will require a systemic change in your business? Consistency and change are like a yin yang thing - there has to be a balance.
• Change requires a reason. It is not good leadership to tell your people that they have to change simply because things are always changing. People adapt more easily to change if they know and understand why the change is happening. Visual reminders (poster on wall) can be helpful, reminding them of your values, making clear why some changes will be necessary.
• Realize that people often have an emotional attachment to their jobs and their working environment which means that change can be difficult for many of us.

Consistency can refer to stability over time as well as internal integrity.

Consistency of focus:

• If everyone in your organization knows where "north" is, if you can clearly define where the finish line is, then you can work through the "how's", and "who's."
• Everyone will be more comfortable with change when they know that these changes are helping get to the "finish line."
• You have to get people to believe in the "authenticity" of your vision - they need to buy into your vision in some way, or at some level, in order to be successful.
• If the finish line keeps changing, or there is inconsistency in leadership (i.e., making people work on things that are not getting you to the finish line), that is when the things become messed up.
• If you have consistency in direction, your business ecosystem will work with you. If there is no consistency in direction, the ecosystem will create "noise" which you will absorb creating problems.
• Loss of focus/vision will create fatigue among your team members - they'll get frustrated.
• Let people own the change: if people are able to work out how to effect change on their own, they're more likely to do it enthusiastically.

Goal fatigue: If you set an unrealistic goals and consistently stick to them, you will fail and lose people. You need to be able to change to reflect the changing reality of a goal (if conditions alter). Jeff Bezos (CEO Amazon) says that the smartest people he knows are people who are willing to recognize when things aren't working and are willing to change what they are doing.

Jess's (Food Lab) uses dashboard to chart changes : Changes come up every week that she and Anna have to implement. So they started putting all these changes on the "dashboard" that they created. They are able to look at them all in one place, figuring out which tasks fit together, then scoping and bundling them so they can actually fit them into their schedule in an efficient way. This is an example of a balancing mechanism between change and consistency .

Mind mapping softwares (tools used to map out ideas, brainstorm, problem solve): Xmind and Freemind

However, software can only do so much. Leadership, discipline and competency are about 90% of the real work. There's nothing like face to face interaction to really communicate your ideas to others.

November 1, 2012 Topic: Leading Change: Fostering & Encouraging Sustainable Change, cont'd.

Pointing the direction toward change!

What does a working environment that is conducive to change actually look like?

Two examples given:

• Quest tech - manufactured robotics for the auto industry, then, as the industry began running into trouble, they shifted to building training models for sustainable energy
• Motor City Denim - made covers for machinery, but now manufacture jeans
• A Rouge River canoe outing company (name?): As this company became more involved in Friends of the Rouge river clean up projects, they moved their tours further into Dearborn and began focusing on environmentalism, tying sustainability into their core business.

What qualities do these businesses have:

• Open-mindedness
• Efficient decision process making
• Knowing how changes will impact bottom line - how much will you save by using a more sustainable model? Having real numbers helps to encourage people to accept change.
• Ability to define the creative space: Communicate, at the very beginning, the scope of creativity, what's up for grabs and what isn't - are you open to all ideas or are there limits? The creative person needs to understand the scope within which they can be creative. There are real practical limits: What are we interested in being creative about? Where is the focus?

Some thoughts on change:

• If you want to implement some kind of change in your business, you must be able to define "why" of the change or you won't be successful.
• Sometimes a change that an organization makes will mean that some people won't fit anymore
• Some change happens accidentally; encouraging creativity and imagination can help foster positive change.
• Trusting employees to take responsibility for their work or a project allows for more creative thinking and makes it easier to effect change.
• Communicate where your vision is and where your employee(s) vision is. Ask yourself, is this really good for me? Good for them?
• Stay focused: "If you chase two rabbits, you'll lose them both." (Adrienne's grandma)

Effective ways of building awareness:

• Starting earlier and small is better than late and large. Let people know that change is coming.
• Be clear on the context: where does change fit in? How does it fit in to your business - is it about social responsibility? Environment? etc. Open up the dialogue and bring it out in conversation.
• Keep out all negativity: people have emotional attachments to their habits - focus on positive aspects of a change.
• Ownership of change: How would it benefit a business to move ownership of change (the "why" of the change, the approach, implementation and sustaining of the change) closer to those people who are actually doing the work?
• Dialogue - communicate and get feedback about an issue that may require change in a nonhierarchical way. If you're trying to create change, what does change landscape look like? Listening is more important than sending a message.
• State the "because" - "We're going to do this because…", you'll have a better chance of convincing them.
• Use "we", be inclusive. In invitation to enter into the "we" and be legitimate, meaning you will value and listen to others opinions.
• Scope of Change: The scope of change must be determined, but don't do this too early; you want to get feedback first because you might get the scope completely wrong if you don't.
• Measurement: Look at expected results vs. actual results and trends. This helps you to gain perspective and to learn and understand.
• Be aware that change is always happening anyway - the world around you is changing and your business will have to respond to it eventually.
• Be honest about the change you really want to make. Establish basic goals and let your employees work toward them. Don't encourage people to change if you aren't truly going to stick with it - it will just discourage them in adopting change in the future. There should be a balance between adapting to change and trying to effect too much change, too often.
• Be a good listener. You have to have dialogue first so that you know where people are coming from and what they think about it. You should understand where people are if you are going to introduce change.
• When the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same, you will move forward.

Earlier Conversations:

Sustainable Business Learning Community Conversations, continued Sept - Oct 2012

Sustainable Business Learning Community Conversations, cont'd. Aug - Sept 2012

Sustainable Business - Learning Community Conversations June - Aug 2012

Sustainable Business Learning Community Conversations Feb - May 2012