Curiosity – a first step to changing thinking

The only way I've found that's worked to change management thinking is for people to go through a normative change experience.   This means that – rather than attempting to convince someone to change with well constructed arguments, people discover a new way of thinking for themselves. 

The video below gives – in less than two minutes – a great example of a US senator going through a normative experience.  It's a clip from the excellent documentary film Merchants of Doubt. 

By it's very nature, you can't make someone go through normative change.  As Chris Argyris says, people need to make a free choice.  They need to discover it for themselves.  One way to encourage them is to make them curious.  If they become curious then they may decide to discover more for themselves.

4 tips for making people curious

Here are few tips for making people curious.  They're in no way guaranteed to work, but at least give some structure to an approach.

1. Listen.  And be curious about the other person. There is plenty of information out there about listening skills  – I find Gerard Egan's Skilled Helper approach effective. Don't assume you know what the person's motivations, concerns, and assumptions are.  Find out from them by listening open-mindedly and without judgement.  This can take time – you may need to build a relationship over a number of conversations.  There are no 'quick wins' when it comes to changing thinking.

(The next three tips are taken mostly from the book Curious by Ian Leslie). 

2. Identify knowledge gaps.  Seek to understand the person's knowledge of the subject you want to make them curious about, and the gaps in their knowledge.  If a person already knows something about a subject, they will naturally respond my wanting to know more. When they know nothing about it they’ll find it hard to engage their brains – they can’t imagine finding it interesting or are intimidated. On the other hand, if they feel they already know lots about a subject they are unlikely to be interested in more information about it.

3. Use surprise  – but not too much.   Get the balance right between low and high surprise – when a violation of a person’s expectation is more than tiny and less than enormous. If the violation is minor, people ignore them. When they are massive they refuse to acknowledge them. 

4. Be like Agatha Christie.  Her books didn't tell you butler did it on the first page.  They make the reader curious to find out more and keep reading as clues are gradually revealed.  Likewise, don't try and tell the person all the answers straight away (this could also lead to information overload).  Instead, leave a few questions unanswered, prompting to go and discover for themselves. 

Remember that list in my last post?  Even though they may not change thinking, they can help make others curious.  Now, whenever I use these rational methods (reports, presentations, meetings, conversations, etc) I’ve given up on trying to change thinking. My aim is to tailor my message – using some of the tips above – in a way that gets people curious enough to take the first normative steps.

What has made you curious in the past?  Feel free to comment below, or share this blog with someone else who might be curious. 

19 things that don't change thinking

In my last post I spoke about the importance of thinking when it comes to improving work, and some of the mistakes I've made.

Here's a list of things that don't change thinking about management and work.  How do I know?  Because I've tried them all! 

1. Passionate speeches
2. Slick and well rehearsed presentations
3. Cool looking slide decks
4. Sending videos of other people talking
5. Case studies
6. Referring to academic research
7. Meetings.  Definitely not meetings
8. Finding examples of other people or organisations who've done things differently
9. Strategically placed posters
10. Asking the boss to insist certain people attend a meeting or workshop with you
11. Process improvement workshops
12. Lots of data – presented using charts that look simply magnificent
13. Clever comebacks during a heated discussion
14. Designing and delivering training sessions
15. Telling stories that take the listener on a hero's journey with obstacles to overcome along the way, and an ultimate triumph
16. Recommending books – or a chapter or even a passage in a book
17. Re-writing an organisational policy or procedure
18. Writing a blog post!
19. Attempting to know all the answers

These don't work as they are attempts at rational change.  What does work?  I'll discuss some possible first steps towards doing this in my next post.

How about you?  What attempts have you made to change thinking?  What worked and didn't work?  Feel free to comment below, or share this with someone who could be curious. 

Why it's all about the thinking

For my first post, I'm going straight to what I think is the most important topic – management thinking. 

One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that if the thinking doesn't change, real and sustainable improvements won't happen. 

If you're familiar with John Seddon or his organisation Vanguard, you'll probably recognise this diagram, showing the relationship between thinking, the system, and performance:

Performance means things like customer satisfaction, costs or revenue, and staff morale.  It comes from the organisational system – rules, structure, performance measures, policies, procedures, roles, IT, etc.  The system isn't there by accident or chance.  It's been designed by people (usually those in charge), based on their thinking – the assumptions and theories about the design and management of work, and about the people who do the work.

Conventional organisations are based on what you might call command and control thinking.  Typically you find top-down control, decision-making removed from the work, targets, functional silos, etc.  Although often well intentioned, it leads to poorer service, increased costs, and a disgruntled workforce. 

Most of my failed attempts at improvement are because I didn't change the thinking.  At best those efforts lead to minor and short lived process improvements.  I've typically made at least one of the following mistakes:

1. Putting too much focus on the analysis, rather than changing thinking.  In the past, my focus has been on gathering data and analysing data. For example, big sample sizes of demand and end-to-end measures, or detailed process maps showing.  Data is important – really important – but on its own it won't change the thinking.

2. Doing all the learning myself.  Or sometimes only doing the learning with  the front-line team, and not with the leader who has the authority to change anything.  This comes partly from the previous point – my desire to get all the analysis.  But if I do all the data gathering and analysis, nobody's thinking will change.  It's also because I've not always put enough focus at the beginning on what Peter Block calls contracting: "an explicit agreement of what the [in my case internal] consultant and client expect from each other and how they are going to work together".

3. Leaving the thinking bit until last.  I used to get all my analysis done, and then finally try to introduce the thinking behind it all at the end.  This didn't work well.  Now I take any opportunity to talk about thinking right from the start.  For example, early on when listening to demand we might discover an average call-handling time target.  Before, I would have saved talking about the thinking behind it until the analysis was done.  Now I'll pause, and start asking questions like "how does this target effect the customers?" "how do your colleagues feel about it?" "why did someone think setting this target was a good idea?" "what are the assumptions behind it – about how we should manage, and about people and their motivations?"

So now you know some of my mistakes.  You might be wondering a few things.  How do you change thinking?  What should you replace the old command and control thinking with?  And how will you know if the new way of thinking leads to better performance?  These are all subjects I'll attempt to cover in future posts.

For now, what do you think about thinking?  Please feel free to leave a comment below, or share this post with anyone who could be interested.

About this blog

I'm Sam, and this is my blog is about improving service – about improving the lives of the people a service exists to serve. 

It's also about making it easier for the people who work in that service to get things done.  If the improvements happen to make or save some money then all the better. 

I don't claim to be an expert, but I have been doing this with intent since 2010, and know more than I did a few years ago.   I remember my early struggles, and most of the mistakes I've made.  One important thing I've learned is that if you want to make genuine improvements, you need to think differently about work.  Hence the name Rethinking Service.

I plan to share tips, advice, opinions, and things I've learned along the way – most of it from other people whom I will endeavour to reference.  It's partly borne out of frustration at not being able to improve things as much as I'd like to at my current and previous workplaces.  I've never had the positional authority of someone high up in an organisational hierarchy.  Like many other people I've met, I'm hindered from making improvements by the existing thinking in the organisation.  

My ambition for this blog is to help people like me – who go to work to make things better.   I'm sure the blog will evolve as I learn more from writing it.  I'm looking forward to learning from others on my journey, so please feel free to comment, or share this blog with anyone you think could be interested. 

You can also follow me on Twitter @rethinkingserv