Sean’s Wallet

I was having lunch last week with my good friend Sean.** We get together on a semi-regular basis to shoot the breeze about our latest projects and to catch up on family life, etc. When the check came, we each pulled out our wallets to pay and I thought for a brief moment that Sean had mistakenly packed a small concrete brick in his pocket by mistake. It turns out I was wrong - it was, in fact, his wallet.

Sean explained to me that, in spite of the fact that he doesn’t really need everything that’s in his wallet everyday, he can’t remove any items from it or they will all fall out. The wallet has now stretched to accommodate the number of credit and membership cards currently contained within. If one goes, they all go.

As we discussed this, the subject turned to organizations. I think that we’ve all probably experienced this phenomenon within our teams at one time or another. Objectives lead to systems, systems lead to derivations of systems, we hire around those derivations, and eventually we have a giant, complex, clunky organization set-up to accomplish various derivations of the “main thing.” This is necessary, of course, but at some point the focus can shift from being organized around an objective to being organized for the sake of organization. This is when “why” and “what” cease to line up and when dissonance can creep into our teams. The organization has stretched to accommodate the systems - if we remove even one, they all fall down. The goal, it seems, has become to perpetuate the system.

The same dynamic can emerge in our personal creating. We can obligate ourselves to the point that there is no joy in our creating. We are simply doing it to fulfill some mandate we’ve placed on ourselves, but there is no longer an inherent intrinsic motivation. It’s all flat. We’re doing it simply to remind ourselves that we can - to make sure the pipes aren’t frozen.

Leaders need to be constantly scanning the horizon for the emergence of this kind of dissonance. We need to make certain that the “why” and the “what” line up and that our systems are in-line with both. (Of course, the “why” is often the sticking point, no?) Artists need to ensure that we are not creating complex and unnecessary systems that are “stretching the wallet.” Beginning with simplicity (”what are we really trying to do now?“) facilitates complexity, but beginning with complexity all but ensures confusion. There are more places for the system to break down.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this… feel free to add pics of your wallet or purse…

(** Cruelty free assurance: No friendships were harmed in the writing of this post. In fact, it was Sean’s idea…)

Complexity

This hangs on the door of my office. (Please forgive the marvelous quality of my Treo camera.) It is there to remind me to keep things simple.

We almost always begin with 1+1, right? It’s the core. The mission. The clear systems that get us from “A” to “B”. Then things get complicated. We bring someone else into the project or on the team, and they’re now working on a derivation of the original mission. They realize that we need to turn “1″ into “3/3″ because it will give us better pricing. Then someone else decides that “3/3″ needs to be “(9/3) / 3. And this goes on and on until our systems are so complex and there are so many derivations that it’s difficult to remember our original purpose.

We must strive for simplicity in our systems because dissonance - when the “why” and the “what” don’t add up - typically arises from unnecessary complexity.

That’s why I keep this on my dlog. (That stands for door-log… goofy, I know.) It reminds me each morning to keep it simple.