Knowledge Is Power.
I've had some things on my mind of late and thought I'd post them. First, let me give you some context to my thoughts, broken up in pieces; then I'll put the pieces together.
Theory of Constraints:
In my cost management class we began studying the theory of constraints (TOC) this week. In a nutshell, it's a theory explaining the process of identifying the constraint ("bottlenecks") in an organization, exploiting that constraint, subordinating all other processes to that constraint, then elevating and eliminating the constraint.
The Right Questions:
Thursday of this week Clayton Christensen came to the BYU-I campus and spoke about the importance of asking the right questions to get the right answers. It was a very insightful forum. During the Q&A session afterward, he talked a bit about how our current education system is and how is needs reform. Professor Christensen pointed out that God never inspired man to make literature and history two separate and individual subjects; man did. God never inspired man to make calculus and mechanical engineering two different subjects either; man did. Because of separating such subjects in the schools, we have developed the habit of compartmentalizing things, where it becomes hard for us to take those topics and mix them with other topics in our minds. What education needs to start doing is breaking down those compartmentalizing walls and merge topics together. For example, teaching literature using history, or history using literature; teaching calculus in the form of mechanical engineering. So two major insights were gained (for me, anyway) from this forum: we must learn to ask the right questions and we need to learn to converge the different subjects in our head.
Improving Collaboration:
I'm currently the president of the BYU-I Accounting Society. This semester we have restructured the leadership model in the society to allow more collaboration, communication, and leadership among the officers and members. I introduced the idea and the officers really liked it. However, since it's new for everyone, there have been bumps in the road and it's been a struggle implementing the ideas that the model suggests. In fact, yesterday I ran into one of the secretaries of the society and he expressed his concern that he felt that he wasn't doing enough and wanted to do more. We talked about the new leadership model and how it was designed to give the officers more "substance" in their roles and responsibilities. I told him there was more for them to do, I was struggling to organize it all. I asked him if I could sit down with him and the other secretary this weekend and go over some specifics and design the secretary position better. He was definitely for it (and so was the other secretary, whom I later called). We're to meet tomorrow (Saturday).
Then, today I met with the presidents of the cultural associations on campus to discuss implementations of having a World Cup on campus among the associations. It turned out to be a good meeting, but I felt that the meeting wasn't as effective as it could have been; that the time wasn't well utilized.
After the meeting, the Korean Association president called me apologizing that he couldn't be there. We set up a time later today when I could sit down with him and go over what we talked about at the meeting. We met and I explained the meeting's minutes with him. He brought up some concerns, and then for the next 15 minutes or so we figured out solutions to those concerns. It was a very productive and constructive 15 minutes where a lot of wrinkles of the meeting's discussion were ironed out. After the president left, I realized that we accomplished much more in our 20-minute meeting together than I did with the presidents together in our 40-minute meeting. I was amazed!
Summing it all up:
Then came the phone call from home. My mom called earlier this evening and we talked for a good while. I was telling her of my accomplishments recently, as well as Clayton Christensen coming and the process of improvement requiring change. It was during this conversation when things began connecting and clicking in my brain. All of these things from the different areas of my life were all connecting and I realized that they were all related to each other, even if on different levels. After the phone call with my mom, I thought some more about it on the way home.
The first thought that came was the individual meeting I had with the Korean association president. Because we met individually, we were able to focus on specifics and resolve specific concerns. There was no distractions from others; it was direct communication between just the two of us and things got done much quicker. As I thought about my random meeting with my secretary, it was individual and we were able to get (at least) closer to the root problem of our society. I assume (we'll see tomorrow anyway) that our meeting tomorrow will be similar in productivity as my meeting with the association president.
The second realization also came in connection with this one-on-one meeting I had with the Korean president. He pointed out problems with the campus World Cup that didn't even cross my mind, simply because I had not asked the right questions. He apparently had and, therefore, could point out root problems. I never considered these problems during the meeting--and apparently neither did anyone else in the meeting with the other presidents; all because we were asking the wrong questions.
The third insight also connects with the one-on-one meeting. I realize that the reason for the rocky implementation of the new model in the Accounting Society is because there are constraints in our current processes. It seems that currently the biggest constraint is understanding, and right now, I'm the bottleneck. I have explained the general theory behind our current model to everyone in a group meeting, but I haven't sat down with everyone individually and hacked out the specifics with them. I have only done that with two of my officers, and coincidentally, those are the only two that are moving forward with things. The others, however, have not. Now, with my individual meeting with the secretaries, I expect that they will begin moving forward.
From this experience, I realized that I have either been working backwards, or I have been missing a large part of the puzzle. I have focused so much on group collaboration that I completely missed out on the individual collaboration. It seems that individual empowerment is critical to achieve empowerment at a group or an organizational level. This also ties into the theory of constraints, which says that one should not simply look at the whole process, but focus on the individual parts of the process. Ha! Eureeka! I think this is the underlying principle behind the current issue at hand!
So, now the problem has been identified. The exploiting part now is to talk with the individual officers and get them going. I don't quite yet know where the "subordinating" part of this process comes into play, or how. Actually, I think that part plays in when we go to the group level, after I have met individually with all of the officers. In addition, perhaps also getting the officers to apply these same principles within their respective committees.
This has been a very insightful session for me. I believe the Holy Ghost put the initial insights in my mind and prodded me in the right direction.
I think it's also cool how the different "compartments" in my life converged together to create this synergistic environment of discovery and insight. Knowledge is power!
What are your thoughts about all of this?
Any suggestions or ideas about my "subordinating" stage? Do you think I'm right? Close? Off base? What do you think the next step should be?
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