Surface Thinking

Not enough time is spent to develop critical thinking today. We are faced with a tsunami of data each day from 500 channel 24x7 cable and the virtual infinity of the internet. How to sift through or filter all this input remains a constant challenge– trying to make sense from it all.

When there is a speech on television, first you get word-by-word coverage, then a commentator says what the speaker just said. People often will simply recite the commentator's points, rather than thoughts of their own. This is Surface Thinking – Listen (the speech); Hear (commentator’s remarks); Repeat (tell others); Adopt (what they have been repeating).

Surface Thinking is not just about current events – academics can slip into it as well. Years ago I taught a course about employee training and development at the University of Maryland. The textbook gave statistics about companies investing in training and the authors stated that larger organizations invest more in training than smaller ones. Sounds logical – except the stats showed companies with: 100 – 500 employees averaged $467 per employee; 500 – 1,000 employees averaged $317; and 10,000+ employees averaged $446.

When I asked my classes if they agreed with the authors, only a few disagreed – unfortunately most just accepted what the authors said, regardless of what the data showed.

There's a huge difference between surface and critical thinking – here's an illustration (from pre-word processor days): A lawyer types 120 wpm and the Administrative Assistant types 60 wpm – who should type the brief?

Surface Thinkers look at the 60wpm vs. 120wpm and choose the lawyer since speed is twice as fast and therefore more efficient; Critical Thinkers choose the Assistant because only the lawyer can write the brief.

From a leader's perspective, what is the effect of Surface Thinking?

Surface Thinking is fleeting – new idea, new mantra. Communication about the mission, vision, and goals must be frequent and from many sources in the organization;

Listen more carefully to the Critical Thinkers for input and ideas – tap into new thoughts and insight for contributions to the results;

Broaden the development of Critical Thinking skills – use stories, internal case studies, and recognition as developmental tools

There's Talk, and There's Communication

Peter Drucker said '60% of all management problems are the result of poor communication.'

Why is this true?

Communications break down when losing focus on three areas:

• clarity of what's expected
• accuracy of what's completed, and
• timeliness of what's needed.

Clarity of What's Expected – Projects which do not have clear goals, vision, and mission set out in specific and measurable terms cause confusion and fall short of desired results. Keeping the goals in front of team members helps to focus on outcomes.

Accuracy of What's Completed – Detailed, appropriate input from team members about what is completed and the status of in-progress activities is necessary to manage project completion – appropriate data verses extensive data is the key here.

Timeliness of What's Needed – Timely reporting of appropriate data permits effective allocation of resources and contingency planning, when necessary, to make use of idle resources or target resources to correct delays..

How would you approach improving these three related areas?

Weekly status meetings for the team was popular when everyone was in the same facility. As the team expanded beyond the immediate area video, audio, and computer-aided technology added, but did not appreciably change the result. A weekly one-hour meeting of eight people 'invests' one person day (8 hours) per week during which 88% of the time is waiting to present your information. Getting the data without the meeting seems may be an alternative.

Weekly reports don't require simultaneous attendance, but do need preparation and production time to compile the information in the prescribed format and distribute it to the project leader. Week old information, no matter how quickly distributed is still old information when received.

As project teams evolved to teams from several organizations, locations around the world, and perhaps different languages, communications have become more complex and critical to successfully completing a project. Project software is intended to communicate data to the project leaders and staff in an organization. Does this solve the needs?

An example - for a membership project, I received a report from a software system which was a ½ inch thick sheaf of paper with tasks, priorities, and benchmarks – and a person with a full time role of keeping it up to date and complete. Although detailed, it did little for clarity, accuracy, and timeliness needed to improve project success.

How do we get the needed information, to the right people, in real time, wherever they are located, in a simple, straightforward fashion, and also have a means of sharing with others what the team members have learned working toward the results?

What's needed in your organization to simplifying prompt, accurate complete communications to make projects get more successful results?

The New Normal – Asynchronous Organizations

Years ago I was 'invited' to a weekly staff meeting at 8:00 AM Monday mornings. Eight people in a room for an hour – the equivalent of a person-day of time invested. Don't get me wrong – the meeting had useful, even important content and we all heard it together (the donuts were fresh too). When done we could carry our coffee cups back to our office and begin the day.

Convenient since we were all in the same location, but unfortunately travel could not begin before 10AM Monday nor could client meetings – almost without regard to the urgency of the need.

As technology improved and costs decreased, the meeting changed a bit to include others not physically present – staff off-site for travel, client meetings, or in other offices (the 5:00 AM West Coaster meeting from home was a classic). However, it continued to occupy all participants simultaneously.

Now in my organization there are 5 key individuals, no staff meetings, and a greater degree of communications, planning, and coordination (volume of donuts, however, is sparse). This is an asynchronous organization – it has no central office, locations in three states, and each individual is strategically engaged and briefed on all projects.

Updates, output, project results, and other such results documents, are copied to all 5 key people when written. As needed a phone call between two of us will cover updates, problem solving, scheduling, idea exploration, and closure on pending items in under an hour. Before lunch notes from the from the meeting – and action items – are distilled and distributed.

The success of the communications is based on the receipt not scheduling, each individual can access and respond when best able to do so. An asynchronous approach.

How does it work in practice? Recently I was suddenly called away for a family emergency and had a presentation scheduled later the same day. With a two minute call on the run to my partner Dick, he could step in with all program resources and the presentation concluded to enthusiastic applause.

Cory Doctorow in his book Makers describes a future world with a much greater degree of coordinated independent activity – a truly asynch environment in which business can successfully operate and thrive. Individuals satisfying consumer needs and getting results individually or in concert with others adding value as well.

The New Normal is being built on this foundation in reality – not as fiction. Look around and you can see the growing evidence.

Do you see it too?

Check out Blah, Blah Blog at the Web Managers Roundtable, on August 9, and BlogLab, coming August 16.