Author Archives: Mike Shipulski

About Mike Shipulski

Mike Shipulski brings together people, culture, and tools to change engineering behavior. He writes daily on Twitter as @MikeShipulski and weekly on his blog Shipulski On Design.

Sometimes Too Much is Too Much

Leave a reply

Sometimes Too Much is Too Much

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you’re out of gas, you’re out of gas. And there are no two ways about it, the last year has emptied our tanks. And when your tank is empty, it’s empty. When there’s nothing left, there’s nothing left. But what if you’re asked for more?

What is the mechanism to communicate that the workload is too much? How do you tell your boss that you can’t produce as you did before the pandemic because, well, you’re emotionally exhausted? How do you tell company leadership that this is not the time to layer on more corporate initiatives and elevate the importance of accountability? And if you do deliver those messages, will there be ramifications to your career? No ramifications you say? Then why do most feel overwhelmed yet say nothing?

How might we conserve our emotional energy to focus on what’s important? And what if the company thinks business continuity is most important and you think your family’s continuity is most important? What’s a caring parent to do? How about a loving spouse? How about an exhausted employee who wants desperately to contribute to the cause? And what if you’re all three? And what about your mental health?

If you can help someone, help them. If you don’t have the energy for that, tell them you know they are suffering and sit with them. They don’t expect you to fix it, they just want you to sit with them.

If you’re part of a team, check in with your teammates. Again, no need to try and fix them, just listen to them. Really listen. Listen so you can repeat what you heard in your own words. There’s power in being heard.

If you’re in a position to tell company leadership that people are living on the edge, tell them. If you’re not in that position, find someone who might be and ask them to pass it along. Tell them it’s important. Tell them it’s dire.

And when you go home to your family, tell them you’re exhausted and tell them you love them. And you’re doing your best. And tell them you know they’re doing their best, too. And tell them you love them.

Image credit: Unsplash

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

What Company Do You See in the Mirror?

1 Reply

What Company Do You See in the Mirror?

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

There are many types of companies, and it can be difficult to categorize them. And even within the company itself, there is disagreement about the company’s character. And one of the main sources of disagreement is born from our desire to classify our company as the type we want it to be rather than as the type that it is.

Here’s a process that may bring consensus to your company.

For all the people on the payroll, assign a job type and tally them up for the various types. If most of your people work in finance, you work for a finance company. If most work in manufacturing, you work for a manufacturing company. The same goes for sales, engineering, customer service, consulting. Write your answer here __________.

For all the company’s profits, assign a type and roll up the totals. If most of the profit is generated through the sale of services, you work for a service company. If most of the profit is generated by the sale of software, you work for a software company. If hardware generates profits, you work for a hardware company. If licensing of technology generates profits, you work at a technology company. Which one fits your company best? Write your answer here _________.

For all the people on the payroll, decide if they work to extend and defend the core offerings (the things that you sell today) or create new offerings in new markets that are sold to new customers. If most of the people work on the core offerings, you work for a low-growth company. If most of the people work to create new offerings (non-core), you work for a high-growth company. Which fits you best – extend and defined the core / low-growth or new offerings / high growth? Write your answer here __________ / ___________.

Now, circle your answers below.

We are a (finance, manufacturing, sales, engineering, customer service, consulting) company that generates most of its profits through the sale of (services, hardware, software, technology). And because most of our people work to (extend and defend the core, create new offerings), we are a (low, high) growth company.

To learn what type of company you work for, read the sentences out loud.

Image credit: Unsplash

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Do you prize novelty or certainty?

1 Reply

Do you prize novelty or certainty?

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you follow the best practice, by definition your work is not new. New work is never done the same way twice. That’s why it’s called new.

Best practices are for old work. Usually, it’s work that was successful last time. But just as you can never step into the same stream twice, when you repeat a successful recipe it’s not the same recipe. Almost everything is different from last time. The economy is different, the competitors are different, the customers are in a different phase of their lives, the political climate is different, interest rates are different, laws are different, tariffs are different, the technology is different, and the people doing the work are different. Just because work was successful last time doesn’t mean that the old work done in a new context will be successful next time. The most important property of old work is the certainty that it will run out of gas.

When someone asks you to follow the best practice, they prioritize certainty over novelty. And because the context is different, that certainty is misplaced.

We have a funny relationship with certainty. At every turn, we try to increase certainty by doing what we did last time. But the only thing certain with that strategy is that it will run out of gas. Yet, frantically waving the flag of certainty, we continue to double down on what we did last time. When we demand certainty, we demand old work. As a company, you can have too much “certainty.”

When you flog the teams because they have too much uncertainty, you flog out all the novelty.

What if you start the design review with the question “What’s novel about this project?” And when the team says there’s nothing novel, what if you say “Well, go back to the drawing board and come back with some novelty.”? If you seek out novelty instead of squelching it, you’ll get more novelty. That’s a rule, though not limited to novelty.

A bias toward best practices is a bias toward old work. And the belief underpinning those biases is the belief that the Universe is static. And the one thing the Universe doesn’t like to be called is static. The Universe prides itself on its dynamic character and unpredictable nature. And the Universe isn’t above using karma to punish those who call it names.

Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

The Solution to Every Problem Lives Inside You

1 Reply

The Solution to Every Problem Lives Inside You

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you want things to be different than they are, you have a problem. And if you want things to stay the same, you also have a problem. Either way, you have a problem. You can complain, you can do something about it, or you can accept things as they are.

Complaining can be fun for a while, then it turns sour. Doing something about it can take a lot of time and energy, and it’s difficult to know what to do. Accepting things as they are can be a challenge because that means it’s time to change your perspective. But it’s your choice. So, what do you choose?

What does it look like to accept things as they are AND do something about it?

If you want someone to be different than they are, you have a problem. And if you want them to stay the same, you have a different problem. Either way, you have a problem. You can complain about them, you can do something about it, or you can accept them as they are.

Complaining about people can be fun, but only in small doses. Doing something about it, well, that’s difficult because people will do what they want to do, not what you want them to do. Accepting people as they are is difficult because it means you have to look inside and change yourself. But it’s your choice. So, what do you choose?

What does it look like to accept people as they are AND to do something that makes things better for all?

If you have a problem with things changing, the solution lives inside you. Things change. That’s what they do. And if you have a problem with things staying the same, the solution lives inside you. Things stay the same. That’s what they do. Either way, the solution lives inside you, and it’s time to look inside.

How would it feel to own your problem and look inside for the solution?

If you have a problem because you want people to be different, the solution lives inside you. People behave the way they want to behave, not the way you want them to behave. And if you have a problem because you want people to stay the same, the solution lives inside you. People change. That’s what they do. Either way, the problem is you, and it’s time to look inside for the solution.

How would it feel to accept people as they are and look inside to solve your problem?

Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

The Secrets of Seeing What’s Missing

Leave a reply

The Secrets of Seeing What's Missing

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

With one eye open and the other closed, you have no depth perception. With two eyes open, you see in three dimensions. This ability to see in three dimensions is possible because each eye sees from a unique perspective. The brain knits together the two unique perspectives so you can see the world as it is. Or, as your brain thinks it is, at least.

And the same can be said for an organization. When everyone sees things from a single perspective, the organization has no depth perception. But with at least two perspectives, the organization can better see things as they are. The problem is we’re not taught to see from unique perspectives.

With most presentations, the material is delivered from a single perspective with the intention of helping everyone see from that singular perspective. Because there’s no depth to the presentation, it looks the same whether you look at it with one eye or two. But with some training, you can learn how to see depth even when it has purposely been scraped away.

And it’s the same with reports, proposals, and plans. They are usually written from a single perspective with the objective of helping everyone reach a single conclusion. But with some practice, you can learn to see what’s missing to better see things as they are.

When you see what’s missing, you see things in stereo vision.

Here are some tips to help you see what’s missing. Try them out next time you watch a presentation or read a report, proposal, or plan.

When you see a WHAT, look for the missing WHY on the top and HOW on the bottom. Often, at least one slice of bread is missing from the why-what-how sandwich.

When you see a HOW, look for the missing WHO and WHEN. Usually, the bread or meat is missing from the how-who-when sandwich.

Here’s a rule to live by: Without finishing there can be no starting.

When you see a long list of new projects, tasks, or initiatives that will start next year, look for the missing list of activities that would have to stop in order for the new ones to start.

When you see lots of starting, you’ll see a lot of missing finishing.

When you see a proposal to demonstrate something for the first time or an initial pilot, look for the missing resources for the “then what” work. After the prototype is successful, then what? After the pilot is successful, then what? Look for the missing “then what” resources needed to scale the work. It won’t be there.

When you see a plan that requires new capabilities, look for the missing training plan that must be completed before the new work can be done well. And look for the missing budget that won’t be used to pay for the training plan that won’t happen.

When you see an increased output from a system, look for the missing investment needed to make it happen, the missing lead time to get approval for the missing investment, and the missing lead time to put things in place in time to achieve the increased output that won’t be realized.

When you see a completion date, look for the missing breakdown of the work content that wasn’t used to arbitrarily set the completion date that won’t be met.

When you see a cost reduction goal, look for the missing resources that won’t be freed up from other projects to do the cost reduction work that won’t get done.

It’s difficult to see what’s missing. I hope you find these tips helpful.

Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Our People Metrics Are Broken

Leave a reply

Our People Metrics Are Broken

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

We get what we measure and, generally, we measure what’s easy to measure and not what will build a bridge to the right behavior.

Timeframe. If we measure people on a daily pitch, we get behavior that is maximized over eight hours. If a job will take nine hours, it won’t get done because the output metrics would suffer. It’s like a hundred-meter sprint race where the stopwatch measures output at one hundred meters. The sprinter spends all her energy sprinting one hundred meters and then collapses. There’s no credit for running further than one hundred meters, so they don’t. Have you ever seen a hundred-meter race where someone ran two hundred meters?

Do you want to sprint one hundred meters five days a week? If so, I hope you only need to run five hundred meters. Do you want to run twenty-five miles per week? If so, you should slow down and run five miles per day for five days. You can check in every day to see if the team needs help and measure their miles on Friday afternoon. And if you want the team to run six miles a day, well, you probably have to allocate some time during the week so they can get stronger, improve their running stride, and do preventative maintenance on their sneakers. For several weeks prior to running six miles a day, you’ve got to restrict their running to four miles a day so they have time to train. In that way, your measurement timeframe is months, not days.

Over what timeframe do you measure your people? And, how do you feel about that?

Control Volume. If you have a fish tank, that’s the control volume (CV) for the fish. If you have two fish tanks, you two control volumes – control volume 1 (CV1) and control volume 2 (CV2). With two control volumes, you can optimize each control volume independently. If tank 1 holds red fish and tank 2 holds blue fish, based on the number of fish in the tanks, you put the right amount of fish food in tank 1 for the red fish and the right amount in tank 2 for the blue fish. The red fish of CV1 live their lives and make baby fish using the food you put in CV1. And to measure their progress, you count the number of red fish in CV1 (tank 1). And it’s the same for the blue fish in CV2.

With the two CVs, you can dial in the recipe to grow the most red fish and dial in a different recipe to grow blue fish. But what if you don’t have enough food for both tanks? If you give more food to the blue fish and starve the red fish, the red fish will get angry and make fewer baby fish. And they will be envious of the blue fish. And, likely, the blue fish will gloat. When CV1 gets fewer resources than CV2, the fish notice.

But what if you want to make purple fish? That would require red fish to jump into the blue tank and even more food to shift from CV1 to CV2. Now the red fish in CV1 are really pissed. And though the red fish moved to tank 2 do their best to make purple guppies with the blue fish, neither color know how to make purple fish. They were never given the tools, time, and training to do this new work. And instead of making purple guppies, usually, they eat each other.

We measure our teams over short timeframes and then we’re dissatisfied when they can’t run marathons. It’s time to look inside and decide what you want. Do you want short-term performance or long-term performance? And, no, you can’t have both from the same team.

And we measure our teams on the output of their control volumes and yet ask them to cooperate and coordinate across teams. That doesn’t work because any effort spent to help another control volume comes at the expense of your own. And the fish know this. And we don’t give them the tools, time, and training to work across control volumes. And the fish know this, too.

Image credit: Unsplash

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Great Coaches Do These Things

2 Replies

Great Coaches Do These Things

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Good coaches listen to you. They don’t judge, they just listen.

Good coaches continually study the game. They do it in private, but they study.

Good coaches tell you that you can do better, and that, too, they do in private.

Good coaches pick you up off the floor. They know that getting knocked over is part of the game.

Good coaches never scream at you, but they will cry with you.

Good coaches never stop being your coach. Never.

Good coaches learn from you, and the best ones tell you when that happens.

Good coaches don’t compromise. Ever.

Good coaches have played the game and have made mistakes. That’s why they’re good coaches.

Good coaches do what’s in your best interest, not theirs.

Good coaches are sometimes wrong, and the best ones tell you when that happens.

Good coaches don’t care what other people think of them, but they care deeply about you.

Good coaches are prepared to be misunderstood, though it’s not their preference.

Good coaches let you bump your head or smash your knee, but, otherwise, they keep you safe.

Good coaches earn your trust.

Good coaches always believe you and perfectly comfortable disagreeing with you at the same time.

Good coaches know it’s always your choice, and they know that’s how deep learning happens.

Good coaches stick with you, unless you don’t do your part.

Good coaches don’t want credit. They want you to grow.

Good coaches don’t have a script. They create a custom training plan based on your needs.

Good coaches simplify things when it’s time, unless it’s time to make things complicated.

Good coaches aren’t always positive, but they are always truthful.

Good coaches are generous with their time.

Good coaches make a difference.

Image credit: Unsplash

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

How Not to Get in Your Own Way

1 Reply

How Not to Get in Your Own Way

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you could get another good job at the drop of a hat, how would you work differently? Would you speak your mind or bite your tongue?

If you didn’t care about getting a promotion, would you succumb to groupthink or dissent?

If your ego didn’t get in the way, would you stop following the worn-out recipe and make a new one?

If you don’t judge yourself by the number of people who work for you, would your work be better? Would you choose to work on different projects? How do you feel about that?

If you knew your time at the company was finite, how would your contribution change? Who would you stop working with? Who would you start working with? Wouldn’t that feel good?

If you didn’t care about your yearly rating, wouldn’t your rating improve?

If you cared more about helping others, wouldn’t your talents (and the returns) be multiplied?

If your time horizon was doubled, wouldn’t work on projects that are important at the expense of those that are urgent?

If your ego didn’t block you from working on projects that might fail, wouldn’t you work on projects that could obsolete your best work?

If you cared about the long-term success of the company, wouldn’t you work more with young people to get them ready for the next decade?

If you cared solely about doing the right projects in the right way, wouldn’t you help your best team members move to the most important projects, even if that meant they worked for someone else?

If you cared about helping people develop, would you formalize their development areas and help them grow, or take the easy route and let them flounder?

If you didn’t care about getting the credit, how would you and your work be different? Would the company be better for it? How about your happiness?

If you declined every other meeting and just read the meeting minutes, would that be a problem? And even if there are no meeting minutes to read, don’t you think that you’d get along just fine? And don’t you think you’d get more done?

What would you have to change to work more often with young people?

What would you have to change so your best people could be moved to the most important projects?

What would you have to change so you’d dissent when that’s what’s needed?

What would you have to change to develop others, even if it cost you a promotion?

What would you have to change so you could ditch the urgent projects and start the meaningful ones?

What would you have to change so you could spend more time developing young talent?

What would you have to change so you could attend fewer meetings and make more progress?

What would you have to change so you could work on the most outlandish projects?

What’s in the way of looking inside and figuring out how to live differently?

If you were able to change, who would you start work with? Who would you stop working with? Which projects would you start and which would you stop? Which meetings would you skip? Who are the three young people you’d help grow?

If you were able to change, would you be better for it? And how about the people that work with you? And how about your family? And wouldn’t your company be better for it?

So I ask you – What’s in the way? And what are you going to do about it?

Image credit: Pexels

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Let Yourself Draw Inspiration from Others

Leave a reply

Let Yourself Draw Inspiration from Others

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you try something new, check to see who has done something similar. Decompose their design approach. What were they trying to achieve? What outcome were they looking for? Who were their target customers? Do this for at least three existing designs – three real examples that are for sale today.

Here’s a rule to live by: When trying something new, don’t start from scratch.

What you are trying to achieve is unique, but has some commonality with existing solutions. The outcome you are looking for is unique, but it’s similar to outcomes others have tried to achieve. Your target customers are unique, but some of their characteristics are similar to the customers of the solutions you’ll decompose.

Here’s another rule: There are no “clean sheet” sheet designs, so don’t try to make one.

There was an old game show called Name That Tune, where contestants would try to guess the name of a song by hearing just a few notes. The player wins when they can name the tune with the *fewest* notes. And it’s the same with new designs – you want to provide a novel customer experience using the fewest new notes.

A rule: Reuse what you can, until you can’t.

Because the customer is the one who decides if your new offering offers them new value, the novel elements of your design don’t have to look drastically different in a side-by-side comparison way. But the novel elements of your offering do have to make a significant difference in the customer’s life. With that said, however, it can be helpful if the design element responsible for the novel goodness is visually different from the existing alternatives. But if that’s not the case, you can add a non-functional element to the novelty-generating element to make it visible to the customer. For example, you could add color, or some type of fingerprint, to the novel element of the design so that customers can see what creates the novelty for them. Then, of course, you market the heck out of the new color or fingerprint.

A rule: It’s better to make a difference in a customer’s life than, well, anything else.

Don’t be shy about learning from what other companies have done well. That’s not to say you should violate their patents, but it’s a compliment when you adopt some of their best stuff. Learn from them and twist it. Understand what they did and abstract it. See the best in two designs and combine them. See the goodness in one domain and bring it to another.

Doing something for the first time is difficult, why not get inspiration from others and make it easier?

Image credit: Unsplash

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Productive Disagreement Requires Trust

1 Reply

Productive Disagreement Requires Trust

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When there’s disagreement between words and behavior, believe the behavior. This is especially true when the words deny the behavior.

When there’s disagreement between the data and the decision, the data is innocent.

When there’s agreement that there’s insufficient data but a decision must be made, there should be no disagreement that the decision is judgment-based.

When there’s disagreement on the fact that there’s no data to support the decision, that’s a problem.

When there’s disagreement on the path forward, it’s helpful to have agreement on the process to decide.

When there’s disagreement among professionals, there is no place for argument.

When there’s disagreement, there is respect for the individual and a healthy disrespect for the ideas.

When there’s disagreement, the decisions are better.

When there’s disagreement, there’s independent thinking.

When there’s disagreement, there is learning.

When there’s disagreement, there is vulnerability.

When there’s disagreement, there is courage.

When there’s disagreement, there is trust.

Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.