building the future june 6th workshop slides
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Building the Future: thinking, planning, doing
Jane Dysart [email protected]
Rebecca Jones [email protected]
www.dysartjones.com
Focus for today
Viewing situations &
solutions strategicall
y
It’s so hard for us – & for our
colleagues – to see the big picture….&
especially to see it through non-library or non-
information lenses.”
Today’s approach
§ Consider strategic contexts &
strategic thinking
§ Explore scanning & visioning
§ Apply some techniques
§ Share experiences & learnings
with each other & with some
who rock the boats
Seeing Possibilities
Seeing Differently
Adjusting Views
Our Lenses
Begin to find clarity
• Identify 3 or 4 words or phrases you feel are integral to each of: • Strategy • Strategic thinking
• In 10 minutes, be ready to tell us who is in your group, and the terms your group used to discuss these concepts
• Join 2 other people, any people
Preparing for Significant Change: § Rooted in Trends &
Different Thinking
Willingness to Shift Focus: § Divest to Invest
Readiness to: § Accept the Implications § Reallocate Budget and
Priorities to Reflect New Directions
Strategic contexts
“in making decisions, you may be at the mercy of your mind’s strange
workings….” Hammond, Keeney & Raiffa, The Hidden Traps in Decision Making,
Harvard Business Review, January 2006
The whole purpose of thinking strategically is to define actions that are strategic. Strategic “actions” focus more on ensuring sustainability & success over the next 2 - 3 - 5 years, than about putting out fires today.
Strategic Thinking: Mintzberg
Management
vs.
Avoidance
Critical Thinking “ the intellectually disciplined process of
actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”
Cri$cal Thinking as Defined by the Na$onal Council for Excellence in Cri$cal Thinking, 1987 A statement by Michael Scriven & Richard Paul at the 8th Annual Interna:onal Conference on Cri:cal Thinking and Educa:on Reform, Summer 1987}. hHp://www.cri:calthinking.org/page.cfm?PageID=766&CategoryID=51 Last accessed May 31, 2009
Critical thinking is really about
§ Decision-making & problem-solving
§ Openmindedness
§ Productive dialogue
Good Critical Thinking
§ Raises the right questions – clearly & precisely
§ Focuses on the real problem or decision to be taken
§ Gathers & assesses relevant information
§ Develops well-reasoned conclusions & solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards
§ Relies on recognizing & assessing assumptions, implications, & consequences
R
Think critically, don’t criticize
What if the opposite were true?
Critical optimism “when planning (we) cannot be, by definition, pessimists. It just doesn’t go with the job. We’re supposed to be defining the future, aren’t we? [...] If we can’t see the world as a better place to live in, than what chance does anyone else have?” “History tells us that before great library can happen, it first has to be a mission. And a mission starts with a dream. As library employees & advocates, we potentially hold enormous power. And with it comes responsibil ity. Wield it imaginatively and wisely. And optimistically.”
Richard Seymour, Optimistic Futurism in Interactions
Why? • For our customers
• Designing meaningful services
• For our organizations • Planning, negotiating, managing & relationship building
• For ourselves, and our professional credibility • Aware & factor in our :
• tendencies & assumptions • perceptions & selections based on conditioning, beliefs
and desires, focus, emotions • reconstructive memory affected by time, what we want
to remember, and after-acquired information and suggestion
• confidence in our knowledge & ability to reason
Wakes us up “We’ve always” won’t move us
forward
“Naming” the process at first makes it legitimate to: Ø Challenge usual practices Ø Rethink what has been thought Ø Expand the emphasis from short-term
fixes to long-term
Surfaces our decision traps
§ Framing
§ Status quo
§ Anchoring
§ Sunk cost fallacy
Based on the work of Michael B. Metzger, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
§ Information gathering traps
§ Overconfidence bias
§ Availability
§ Confirmation bias
§ Generalization
§ False cause
Clarify your frame § Your assumptions form your “frame”
through which you “see” the situation
§ The questions we ask very often determine the type of answers we get So……..
§ Don’t accept the first frame – or question
§ “re-frame” or look at the issue from different perspectives, particularly from customer or stakeholder perspectives
Question your status-quo § Like it or not, tendency is
to perpetuate what we already know
§ Psychologically risky
“breaking from the status quo means taking action, and when we take action, we take responsibility, thus o p e n i n g o u r s e l v e s t o criticism and to regret.” Hammond, Keeney, Raiffa
So…….
§ Focus on the goal & ask how status quo helps move towards them
§ Evaluate vs. all other alternatives IN TERMS OF THE FUTURE § Ask outsiders to review
your evaluations
Lift your anchor § What we hear or see
first influences our subsequent thinking § Past statistics &
trends, an article, a colleague’s comment
§ The order in which we receive info distorts our judgment
So…..
§ Be aware
§ Find different starting points
§ As you gather other people to discuss the issue, try to limit the information you give them
§ Clarity your base assumptions
§ Keep coming back to the issue on which you are focusing
Surface your costs When you find yourself in a hole, the best thing you can do is stop digging.
Warren Buffet
Case study: after-action review
When have you taken a strategic stand? Approached a service or operation differently?
What did you learn? What worked? What didn’t?
As a result of this, what is your frame?
What are your anchors?
What are your sunk costs?
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;
an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill
Gap or green field?
Peripheral Vision § Process for building "vigilant
organizations" that are constantly attuned to changes in the environment
§ Steps focus on improving receiving,
interpreting and acting on weak signals from the periphery
Scope: limit where to look
Scan: with
intention
Interpret: data’s
meaning
Probe: some data
Act: on the
insights
George S. Day & Paul J. H. Schoemaker, Harvard Business School Press, 2006
Trends
§ Capture, manage & use
§ Keep staff & Board or influencers current, NOT just at strategic planning time
§ Discuss implications
http://socialwisdom.ca
Sources of Ideas
§ Examine your skills & talents
§ Keep up with current events
§ Investigate other markets
Consider:
Paper.li
What are the implications?
Critical thinking, trends & assumptions
Strategic thinking
Decision-making
Strategic planning
Deliberated tasks
Operational planning
• Take a wide scope
• Ask the right questions
• Scan different places
• Pay attention to signals
• Explore for more info
• Decide
• Act
Strategy needs to be experienced
“Beyond Strategic Thinking” Jeanne Liedtka, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, Rotman Magazine Winter 2011 p. 29+ (author of Designing for Growth, 2011)
John Maxwell, Leadership Gold, 2010
Design your future
Stand in the future
Decision-makers Vision
Some Staff’s Vision
CEO Vision
My Vision
Your vision
Other Staff’s Vision
Common view; various perspectives
Systems Thinking:
Embracing Complexity
Dave Pollard
Applying
Case Studies to Spark Thinking
Case Study 1. Prepare your decision approach for either Case 1
or Case 2 - 10 minutes
2. Next, with your colleague:
§ Talk through your plan or approach with each other
§ Advise each other on critical thinking decision traps
§ Determine your anchors & assumptions -- 10 minutes
Case one:
§ Your budget will be 10% less for the next financial year.
§ 80% of your current budget is staff, 15% is content, the other 5% is for various administrative costs (travel, training, phones, supplies).
§ Put together an approach for making the decision of how to work within this budget.
Case two:
§ You have an idea for a new service you believe clients will value. There isn’t any more funding available and staff are working at capacity.
§ Put together a plan for making the case to proceed with the service.
Case one:
Your budget will be 10% less for the next financial year. 70% of your current budget is staff, 15% is content, the other 15% is for various administrative and operating costs (technology, training, phones, supplies).
In 10 minutes, draft an approach for working within this budget.
Case two:
You have an idea for a new service you believe clients will value. There isn’t any more funding available and staff are working at capacity.
In 10 minutes, draft a plan for making the case to proceed with the service.
Discuss with a partner for 10 minutes:
1. What surprised you when you had to think about critical thinking practices and avoiding decision-
making traps?
2. How did you “frame” the situation?
3. What assumptions were you making?
4. What anchors did you identify?
5. What will you do differently in making decisions?
6. How will you apply this starting now?
Implementing
We can’t make decisions alone
or in a vacuum, nor can we
implement in the same way we
always have.
The decisions & problems we
face are increasingly complex.
It’s hard, and it’s worth it
Social Wisdom.ca “Top five desired skill sets for digital strategist:
§ Facilitation; work with cross functional groups to create
alignment on objectives & plans
§ Influence & negotiation; articulate benefits & risks associated
with digital opportunities
§ Analytics; identify the insights that will contribute to a
balanced, thoughtful review of a business; distill intelligence
from data
§ Project management
§ Synthesis. [a rare skill]; synthesize activity, client needs or
discussions to distill to the most salient facts.”
Implementation plan
Project facilitator
Team
Project C
Project facilitator
Team
Project B
Project facilitator
Team
Project A
Managed, persistent progress
Project charters Effective meetings
Formal & informal buzz Service Models
Roles & working relationships
Practitioner’s Experiences
Not just any practitioners: § Stephen Abram
§ Ken Haycock
§ Donna Scheeder
Seeing Possibilities
Seeing Differently
Adjusting Views
Sources to Consider
§ www.trendwatching.com
§ www.trendhunter.com
§ www.infotoday.com
§ www.davidleeking.com/
§ www.walkingpaper.org/
§ www.tametheweb.com/
§ www.socialwisdom.ca
§ http://stephenslighthouse.com/ Stephen Abram
§ www.wfs.org World Future Society
§ www.librarytechnology.org Marshall Breeding
§ Library of Congress Webcast series: Digital future http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/results.php?mode=s&cat=45
§ www.nowandnext.com
Building the Future Workshop, June 6th, 2014
2 things I am going to do with this information, or as a result of our discussions today are:
1.
2.
I’ll do this by (date):_________________________
Thank you
Jane, Rebecca
Guests!