Tag Archives: organizational maturity

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Some thoughts about Results

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Good results have to be maintained.  Once achieved, relying on past success to be sustained into the future, without continued effort is wishful thinking.

That being said, it is true maintaing a strong positive reputation can be easier than resurrecting one from abysmal failure.  A powerful reason to seek success and when achieved work to continue it.

The Underpinning of Success

I had an interesting discussion today about whether good outcomes can arise by accident or whether planning and effort is required.  Can poor operational processes lead to success.

Obviously happy accidents occur.  People do win the lottery, although the odds are very low and winning is totally unpredictable. And conversly great effort does not guarantee good results.

The risk of failure is higher with bad processes and small effort, hence good risk mitigation dictates putting in the effort and trying hard (whether success is a guaranteed outcome or not).

Controlling Your Destiny

Whatever the level of effort, defining expectations, that is baselining success is a key element in achieving strong results.

Over the years I have seen many projects simply change their duration, cost or scope goals and then when the project is finished, pronounce success.

Moving targets to allow for achievement of same does work but personnally I don’t view it as a successful outcome.   In my experience though this is not an uncommon practice.

Ultimately though, it is like a pyramid scheme, not sustainable.  You can stretch the results for a while but eventually reality catches up.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Communication Maturity

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The maturity theme continues.

Todays focus is on humans most critical skill.  Whether living your life to the fullest, striving to be best or just seeking basic satisfaction, communication underlies everything you do.

Communication is simply the providing or recieving of information.  There are a multitude of ways to exchange information (i.e., communicate).  My blog, of course, is an outstanding example of this.

Of course once sent or recieved the information must be processed, always the tricky part.  Whether in an  individual or organizational context, the processing (which includes filtering) is most impacted by both parties maturity levels.

What is Communication Maturity.

One person tells a story to another.  They understand the information they have shared and check with the reciever “Got that”, “Yup” is the affirmative response.

Oh if it were really so simple.  In this example the receiver certainly got information, that was confirmed, but was it what the sender intended.?  Who knows?

Interpretation of information can be influenced by your personal filters, bias and most of all experience.  Maturity is all about experience and when applied as objectively as possible to information exchanges it can increase the likelihood of consensus understanding.

Consensus does not mean agreement rather common understanding.  For mature dialogue that is the goal.  A key attribute of successful  exchanges is understanding not agreement. This is the ultimate goal.

It is far more important that all parties view the base information the same way even if they don’t agree.  Without exception this leads to better outcomes.

Developing conversational maturity takes time (you need experience afterall) but it also take focus and effort. Experience is of little value if not applied.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Maturity

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The concept of maturity is about behaviour.  In essence, the greater ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner, the higher level of maturity.

Maturity responses are generally learned/ experience based rather than instinctive or emotionally driven.   Mature behaviour is reasoned and results are usually positve.

Capability and Maturity

The ability to perform effectively (skill/capability) does not in and of itself equal maturity.  That being said, mature actions require capability to execute.

Ability is easier to measure objectively.  For example a high jumper who has the ability to jump higher than all others in a particular competition is clearly demonstrating strong ability.

If their winning high jump is followed by a dropping of shorts and waving a bare bum at the crowd in a victory salute, many might question the maturty of their behaviour.  On the other hand a slight bow and gracefull acceptance of the applause might be considered more mature.

Both these assessments of matuity level are subjective,  based on perceived acceptability of the given behaviour.

The Value of Maturity

Albeit a subjective assessment, on the whole,  mature behaviour coupled with average or better capability will generally produce better results.

The principle basis for this derives from the fact maturity is experience based (i.e., learned behaviour) and so the results are predictable.  That is based on past experience you know what to expect.

Maturity does not just apply to individual behaviour  but can be applied to a collective whole.  As a group behaves at a higher maturity level the results improve are more consistent and sustainable.

Sadly even with a wealth of experience, behavioural maturity can still be average or even low.  Maturity is gained through experience but having experience does not necessarily mean your behaviour is mature.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Emotional Intelligence

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Today I got into a discussion with some colleagues about leadership behaviours.  The question arose what is more important for a leader, a high IQ (i.e., smart) or strong ability to interact with others (i.e., charismatic)

In his 1995 milestone book, American pyschologist Daniel Goleman proposed that while IQ probably represented the price of entry for great leaders(you needed at least some minimum IQ to succeed)  more important and a key determiner of success  was how you behaved.

He labled the measure of this ability to interract with others your emotional intelligence (EQ).  Goldman also developed a framework of five elements that can be measured to define your level of emotional intelligence.

An interesting side to this is the belief EQ can be developed and improved while many believe your IQ is what you were born with and cannot be developed.

Goldmans EI model has a great following in the by organizations around the world and has been adopted in various iterations by many companies.

Goldmans 5 Characteristics

Below are drastically  edited versions of Goldman’s 5 behavioural characteristics (for simplicity) taken from this website.  This just to give a flavour of what he considered behaviours that contributed to a high EQ..  For me, a high EQ equals a powerful and effective leader.

1) Self-Awareness – Self-aware people understand their emotions, and because of this, they don’t let their feelings rule them. They’re confident – because they trust their intuition and don’t let their emotions get out of control.  Many people believe that this self-awareness is the most important part of EI.

2) Self-Regulation – This is the ability to control emotions.  People who self-regulate typically don’t allow themselves to become too angry or jealous, and they don’t make impulsive, careless decisions.
3) Motivation – Motivated people are willing to defer immediate results for long-term success. They’re highly productive, love a challenge, and are very effective in whatever they do.
4) Empathy – This is the second-most important behaviour. Simply put, it is the ability to identify with and understand the wants, needs, and viewpoints of those around you.
5) Social Skills – Those with strong social skills are typically team players. Rather than focus on their own success first, they help others develop and shine.

Curious What Your EQ is?

There are numerous EQ test available on the internet that will provide you with an estimationof your EQ and an idea of areas you might to focus on to improve your EQ and so your leadership capability.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Organizational Maturity

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There are many models and much consulting provided around an organizations capability and maturity.  My favorite framework for an insttitutional capability / maturity model is based on the following concept.

The level of maturity (see definition) is assessed and then coupled with the organizations capability (see definition)

 The overall capability / maturity rating depends on the assesment of both these factors and could be low even if maturity was high but capability was low (or vice-versa)

Maturity and Capability Definitions

Maturity – degree of formality and optimization of of the organizations processes.   This can range from largely ad hoc practices (no maturity) , to formally defined steps (low maturity), to managed result metrics (medium)to active optimization of the processes (high).

Capability – the consistency of execution and quality of the result is based on defined measures. These can range from following the process occassionally making it up as you go along (low, sporadic capability),  to one hundred percent uniformity in both practices and results (high capability) proven by real artifacts.

The Maturity Trap

Some organizations have well defined processe and practices which are largely ignored by the organizations human resources as they go about performing their roles each day.

The organizations stated goals (it’s reason for existing ) might be achieved  – or might not and this success or failure is largely “figured out” as time goes by.

This might be an organization with some maturity, but capability (do you perform?) could be sorely lacking.

In a truely capable -mature organization his would not be the case.  Outcomes can always  be accurately predicted in a highly mature /capable organization .  That is in fact, a key defining attribute of such organizations.

In short, a highly capable and mature organization will have clearly documented, well defined processes together with “artifacts” to prove they were executed and the expected results achieved.

In essence they ,say what they do and prove they did what they said.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

How you get there

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Some organizations rely on the Superman principle to get things done.  The superman or woman use their powers of strength, agility and invunerbility to leap tall buildings, smash obstacles and whatever else is required to attain the goal.

Typically this approach is not sustainable.  It also creates a number of dangerous side effects.  Dangerous in the sense they increase the risk of low efficiency, high cost and most significantly, poor morale.

Pursuing the Goal or Achieving the Goal

The superman approach supports goal achievement but the the pursuit of these goals, how you attain them, can be very ugly.  Think of a field littered with bloodied dead bodies.  Holding the flag at the front is the superman declaring, “I won”.

Unfortunately, most of the team does not care at that point.

Key Pitfalls of the brute force approach

  • single point of knowledge; superman leaves and the organization is in trouble
  • high turnover; it is human nature to leave supermans shadow and people do in droves.
  • ability to repeat; the methods employed by the superman are usually unique and intended to only work once.
  • sustaining, even maintaining the change; superman moves on and the changes they wrought wither on the vine.

Most importantly, feeling good about the achievement.  This is very sinle threaded between the sponsor and the superman.  The others typically feel nothing but relief.

Take time, involve everone, use clearly defined processes and repeat them, pause and celebrate success. Don’t seek individual heroes, create an environment where everyone is a hero.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Process and Behavioral Maturity Link to Performance

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Both from a personal and organizational perspective high performance is integrated with the overall maturity of both processes and behavior.

Today’s post explores these concepts in a little more detail, still at a high level.  More detail and examples to come in future posts.

Behavioral Maturity

Maturity is about responding to your environment in an appropriate manner.  The higher the level of maturity the more closely aligned and effectively integrated are both response and environment.

Process Maturity

Processes maturity can be described as a ladder of increasing effectiveness in the employment and practice of the associated activities.    Using high level descriptors a five level maturity model could be defined as:

  • Level 1 –  Chaos  (processes are not documented, inconsistent and mainly adhoc focusing on whatever works.)
  • Level 2 –  Superman (processes existed but are scantily documented and not consistent.  A few practitioner are found to get things done – somehow.  These super people (trying not to be sexist) drive the performance and results.  Given they focus on “getting it down” this can leave a pile of dead bodies (metaphorically) in their wake.
  • Level 3 – Institutionalization (one clearly documented process exists for each activity and controls exist to ensure they common processes are followed consistently by all.  Communication of where the process library is confirmation everyone knows about it is key to ensuring standardization.
  • Level 4 – Continuous Improvement ( the institutionalized processes are constantly reviewed and improved)
  • Level 5 – Ongoing Measurement (confirming process effectiveness through defined metrics while practicing – e.g., continuous checking of the quality of a product being created while it is being created.

Performance

And topping it all off, where do high levels of behavioral and process maturity get you?  Intuitively is your actions are fully aligned with the goals (environment) and the tools exist to support execution of these actions efficiently (clear processes) the overall outcomes (performances) will improve.

Think about it, give it a try!  More details to come in future posts, comments and questions will be responded to.  ( The processes are in place here at Kerrzone and the behavioral maturity is high).