Penny falls and solving problems

Did you ever play those Penny Falls slot machines as a kid or with your kids?

You know the one, you put a penny in one of the slots at the top, and then it falls on to a slidey platform thing at the bottom, bouncing off some pegs on the way down. Every now and again, a load of pennies fell of the bottom slidey thing and, if you were lucky, you got more back than you put in.

I did. I’m not much of a gambler, but I liked that machine. I probably never spent more than a pound a time. Except for the once. The pile of pennies was teetering on the edge, along with a special bonus prize, and a chap was hovering. It all got pretty pensive. I was sure he was waiting for me to run out of pennies and then he would jump straight in and win the lot! I was determined to stay on, but all of my holiday money later, I was forced to give up. I walked away and didn’t dare look back. I’m sure I heard the jingling of many pennies as I left the amusement arcade.

My point is this: When you put your money in at the top, you are not expecting it to come out in exactly the same place each time. You know it will bounce off those pegs and it is a game of chance; but when we are problem solving, don’t we keep sticking the pennies in the same slot and hoping it will keep coming out in the same place? I think this is what happens when problems become ‘stuck’.

We repeat the same way of doing things, maybe even upping the ante and throwing even more pennies at it, until we have to walk away. Do you know what I mean? One example – and it would be great to hear yours – is communication at work.

A CEO was referred to me by someone we mutually knew, who was frustrated about the number of ‘people problems’. He wanted his place to be great, somewhere where people enjoyed turning up and they could be creative and innovative. To be fair, they had achieved that in the main. I sat in on a few meetings and I could see that the problem was that people were not really connecting with each other with their messages. One person, needing some reports from another, had sent a fairly short email requesting the info. The recipient thought it was impolite, so didn’t put it at the top of their priority list. So the sender sent another. And another. Then they upped the ante, by making the tone more demanding. The recipient didn’t like them either, so the request found itself further and further down the priority list. Then the email sender invited others to the party by letting her frustration go with colleagues, demanding the line manager took action; and by not co-operating with requests made of them by the recipient. Repeating her actions and upping the ante just wasn’t working.

How would you solve this problem?

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Moments of truth

by Paula Holbrook • 27 August 2019

Have you ever had the challenge of making sure your company vision is being achieved and you are living your values? How did you achieve it? You know when you’ve got it right when everything just clicks in to place, everyone pitches in and you punch well above your weight. My favourite method for starting the process is exploring moments of truth. I love these sessions and design them to harness the unique communication strengths individual to that organisation. It is important to spend a little time tuning in to find out what they are, a lesson I learnt when I was asked by a CEO of Great Service (name changed to protect anonymity) to pitch to a meeting that comprised two boards that were exploring a merger. I wrote a short paper that explained the process I was to follow, which would result in a ‘strong future state’ statement. There was no way I could pre-meet the attendees, and as a new venture, they had not yet gelled in to a shared common language. To help illustrate my proposal, I drafted an example, which was a statement from a customer called ‘Vera’. Vera was made up. I imagined her over a glass (or two) of wine and I had great fun writing it. Moments of truth are those things you overhear someone say about your company when no-one knows you are listening, and in this case ‘Vera’ was overhead saying brilliant things about the organisation whilst waiting for a bus at a bus stop. I researched them carefully to match the future state of the proposed joint vision, values and mission for the new company. Problem was, when I joined the meeting, one board member was already asleep. As in snoring gently. Things were going really well and the paper with ‘Vera’ in it generated a lot of positive energy and discussion. The raised hubbub of possibility to deliver something new and exciting woke the somnolent board member up and she made haste to catch up with the discussion. Whilst her speed-reading was impressive, she had clearly missed one key point. She threw her pen down and exclaimed, ‘ if this if what customers say about Great Service, we should merge immediately!’. She thought ‘Vera’ was real, a notion that quickly got adopted by a couple of other of their board members (who perhaps were better at feigning being awake than she). I said I’d made Vera up. She wasn’t real. In fact, I’d made her up over a glass of wine the night before. They were stunned in to silence for a few seconds, before the newly-awoke snoozer exploded with disbelief. The problem was, I’d now lost it, I’d missed my moment. No amount of explaining by the board members that ‘got it’ could sooth the board members that didn’t. The merger didn’t go ahead for other reasons and I got to enjoy designing new ‘Vera’s with Great Service, resulting in a truly great company that really was in tune with its vision, mission and values.

Reflecting on how we are perceived

by Paula Holbrook • 27 August 2019

Isn’t it frustrating when you know you are a competent and capable leader, but you get feedback that conflicts with that view? You know, for example, that you are a kind and caring leader who listens and responds, but then someone you rate highly leaves. They either tell you it was to do with your management style; or they decide if you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all, so don’t give you the real reason for leaving. Think of it like this: You know you can’t tell what you look like without looking in the mirror, so why would you make decisions about how people perceive you behave without some reflection? Would you leave home for work without checking your hair is presentable and flies done up? Actually, I did that once, not the flies bit, the hair bit. I was in a hurry to get to work, blow dried my hair and set off. I’ve got the sort of fluffy hair that doesn’t respond well to hot air. No-one said anything, but I knew something was up by the way they seemed taken aback. After the fifth person, I ducked in to have a look in the loo mirror. Somehow, my hair was stuck up like a cartoon image of someone who had been given an electric shock, I cringe even now thinking about it. I went back out on to the shop floor and gave people permission to tell me next time I looked daft, that I would welcome their feedback. Which was handy the day I came in to work with my shirt inside out… The problem with reflection about how we are perceived is we (regardless of how perfect we are) all have distortions in our own mirrors. We can only reflect through our own particular lens and no two people have the same way of looking at things; on our own, we just don’t get the full picture. You have two choices as I see it: you have someone you trust, who will pass you the hairbrush without a fuss. They need to be honest and not pull any punches, but its good if they stop short at laughing in your face or making you feel shame; or you enable a workplace where everyone is a trusted aide. Actually, deploying both options might be good.