If That Were an Illusion, How Would I Know?
Originally published in our newsletter.
In the Signals & Levers Introduction, you meet Theresa, VP of Engineering at Limitless Systems. (Fun fact: Limitless Systems exists in the same fictional universe as Parts Unlimited from The Phoenix Project. We had such a blast inventing details about the company that we built a whole company website complete with a spoof ad spot for April Fools. Our book blends fiction and non-fiction, but definitely had a lot of fun with the fictional aspects of the book. But I digress.)
At the beginning of the book, Theresa is anticipating an on-time delivery of the latest release. Alas, her confidence was based on metrics that didn’t tell the whole story. She was under the spell of illusions. That happens. Who among us hasn’t had the stomach-dropping experience of discovering that all our plans and expectations were incompatible with reality?
So how do you see past the mirage? Signals & Levers offers a wide range of system thinking tools to help you do just that, but here’s one you can start doing today. Ask yourself:
“If that were an illusion, how would I know?”
On the surface it seems like a simple question, but answering it honestly and deeply requires you to examine not only the information you’re working with but your approach to gathering information and decision-making.
Consider the story of a CEO who asked himself that question about an ongoing initiative to replace the company’s ERP system. All the status reports painted a rosy picture of on-time delivery, but this was a high-risk, high-stakes project. Perhaps mindful of the Hershey’s ERP disaster, he knew that he couldn’t afford to succumb to illusions. He didn’t ask for more, different reports though. He went to see the workers—not the managers, the people doing the actual work. He asked them face-to-face: how’s it going? Is this going to work? Should we trust this system to run our business?
You can imagine the uncomfortable silences and foot shuffling that followed his questions. It is perhaps a testimony to his leadership that the people who were up to their elbows in the migration were willing to be honest with him. They shook their heads: No. Things weren’t going smoothly. They would not be ready on time.
The CEO decided to delay the switchover. Instead, he ran the new ERP system alongside the existing one. That decision came with a cost: all the data had to be entered twice. But by running both systems side by side, they could compare results over a period of months. His decision paid off: they discovered surprises that would have caused their own Hershey’s-like incident.
The thing I loved about that CEO’s story was that it was a true gemba walk. He went to see the people doing the work, and in doing so he had access to signals he otherwise would not have.
How could you do something similar?
Maybe you aren’t in a situation where you could go and see, but you could still talk to people closer to the work. Maybe different metrics could give you a new perspective. Or perhaps you could design small time-boxed experiments.
Whatever approach you take, the key is to keep asking: If that were an illusion, how would I know?