So I am back from my whirlwind, three-city tour last week (Phoenix, Toronto, Chicago), which explains my lack of blogging. I had a fabulous time at three very different events. Monday I was speaking at the Organization Development Network’s annual meeting. These are people (like me) from the field of organization development, so it was nice to be able to talk about Humanize ideas with “my people.” Wednesday I was keynoting at Impact99, a conference about innovation in Human Resources (a field that needs innovation badly, if you ask me, and let me tell you, this was the group to do it!). And Thursday Maddie and I were speaking at Northeastern Illinois University to students and professors who had all been using Humanize in just about every course in the College of Business this semester.

Despite the variety, however, a single theme emerged for me by the end of the week: making “what is” more visible.

I am realizing that “management” is an art and science that is focused on what “should be” rather than what is. In the spirit of designing effective machines, we design our management practices in the abstract. We theorize about what would work best and then put it into practice. Just think about all the conversations about the difference between leadership and management. Lots of “shoulds” in those conversations, and not so much attention on what’s actually going on.

If you want to Humanize your organization, you will need to start with what is. You’ll need abstract thinking too, don’t get me wrong. The quality of that thinking will drive your success too. But you have to make sure that you design processes that make what is more visible. For example, I heard a presentation in Toronto from a company that offers online performance management software. It allows everyone in the organization to set up their own targets and then share accountability with a wide variety of people. I thought that was really cool, but one of the other people watching the demo was concerned: how do we ensure that the goals people create are in line with the goals in the strategic plan?

This caught me off guard. I was thinking that once people put in their goals, you’d immediately be able to see how aligned (or not) they were, and that would lead you to some cool conversations with people about the disconnect. Sweet! But that was not the default assumption here. The default was we need to identify the central goals and create processes that force people into those areas. In theory that’s fine, but it doesn’t seem to care about the (potential) reality that your people don’t WANT to follow the strategic goals. In fact, those people (you know, the ones who are closest to the customer?) might have insight you hadn’t considered. Maybe the goals need to change? Of course maybe your goals ARE awesome and it’s your people who are confused and need to be straightened out. That’s certainly possible. But why not start by understanding what is, and adjust, rather than designing the perfect process and forcing it through.

This principle is critical in culture change (which is ultimately what Humanize is all about). We spend way too much time thinking about our ideal culture, and not enough time making visible “what is” in our organizations. There is power in understanding what is. It can be eye-opening. It’s at the foundation of learning. The idea that we will get it all right in our heads ahead of time and then “launch” is, well, mechanical. Human systems are more emergent. If you invest in making what is more visible to people, you’ll increase the capacity of the system to move in the right directions.

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