What we can and can't do; what we will and won't do
Here comes the 19th century
Why is it so hard to shake off antiquated systems? Why for example, do so many information systems still, like the qwerty keyboard on which I type, resemble technology of 100 years ago?
Here are a few, in no particular order:
Voting: In my country, our preferences are logged on small pieces of paper filled in with pencil (yes, true). These are put in ballot boxes, which are delivered to central locations, and counted.
Medical records: Again, here in Australia, there is no centralised medical record. This means no ability for a hospital to know all my medical history, or the ambulance which arrives, to know if I’ve previously ordered one, let alone what happened.
Offices: One of my clients put it well, “Andrew, my grandchildren will be amazed that I was paid to drive a car from home, to an office, with a portable computer on the passenger seat. I plugged that in, at this office, worked there on it for 8 hours, then unplugged it, and put it in the car, and drove it home, where I plugged it in again, and did 2 more hours”.
Copyright: This legal protection still exists to protect intellectual property that is now widely shareable digitally, and largely untraceable.
Lectures: My nieces are both at university, and they attend lectures where almost nobody turns up. Why? Because they’re recorded, so asynchronous learning can occur and, frequently, they watch other people’s lectures, who are world experts, not just their university’s experts.
Question: What 19th century technology are you still using, and why?
What differentiates the best
Having spent most of today with a high-functioning public sector board, I was asked afterwards by someone unconnected with that board what I have observed that the very best of all directors can do.
My answer was that there are two things I notice over and over again about great directors. Most importantly, these are skills that are able to be consciously, deliberately learned, practised and taught:
They narrow their focus to what matters the most. They can discern the most important factor in a sea of variables; they can identify what will create disproportionate effects from a range of possibilities; they can ask, and answer the question, “What will add most value here?”
In the words of an ASX-20 director I spoke with, “They can smell the smoke from a distance”. This means having a prudent sense of long-range risk, without being alarmist, or bureaucratic. They can identify the ‘big horizon issues’ whether that’s related to climate change, demographic change, or culture change.
Question: How would you rate each yourself, and each director you know well, on the above?
I can’t do that
This is how Qantas dealt with a request recently.
I was running an all-day meeting at a Qantas meeting room at SYD airport. 12 people. Nice room, looking over the apron. We had the room set up as a large board table, with me at one end, with a credenza. I led the strategy session from there with a monitor and whiteboard. The other end of the room held a large empty table.
Before morning tea, the lady who served the food came in and bustled around me as I was running the conversation. She was trying to put cups, coffee equipment and plates on the credenza.
I asked her to put all of that, and the food, on the big (empty) table at the other end of the room. Her reply, “We can’t do that, sir”.
“Why not?”
“The plates will scratch the table”.
Right.
This happened repeatedly throughout the day . . . every time food was taken away, cups replaced, new food brought, she worked around me standing at the head of the table. We asked repeatedly to change this, and she said, “We can’t do that. I’m sorry”.
Right at the end of the day, the not-to-be-scratched table at the end of the room had not been used. She then proceeded to amaze us further by asking whether we could move the table back into the centre of the room to join the others.
“Why are you asking us to do that?” one of our group queried.
Her response, “Because we’re not allowed to move furniture”.
Right.
So, it’s too risky / dangerous / hazardous to move your own furniture, therefore you ask your clients to do it!
Crazy.
Question: How does your organisation react to reports of customer inconvenience?
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Until next Friday, think about your reasoning for what you can - and can’t (or won’t) do, and I look forward to being with you again then.
Andrew