I had a Revelation of sorts regarding my thesis (capstone) walking to work from the train. But let me back up a bit.
As my train got closer to the city, a person, similar to my own age, sat down next to me. A sideways glance at his reading material revealed Joe Bagent’s [blog] Deer Hunting with Jesus [Amazon].
Bagent is one of those writers that I find irresistible. Simple prose, powerful imagery, and accessible anecdotes.
We starting chatting – he revealed to me that his wife had bought him the book, as it reflected his own West Virginian upbringing as the child of a Blue Collar father who labored in the steel industry, while his mother stayed at home raising the kids. The conversation eventually progressed to a mutual agreement that the world as we know has ended, and the successes enjoyed by his family were not likely to be repeated. we are looking over the precipice anticipating what is next, who will lead us there, and how we will get there. Our outlook was mostly grim and bordering on apathy. I left the train with an analogy – regardless as to which candidate is elected, the country is going over a cliff. The only difference will be how fast we are going and how quickly we hit the bottom. Our obstacle is the American story, and the realities of American Culture – neither of which will allow for what we must do to be accomplished. Somehow, we have to use what we have to “git ‘er done”.
I’m a big fan of Russell Ackoff’s seminal story from Idealized Design [Amazon], where an engineering executive of Bell Labs tells his direct reports that “the phone system of the United States was destroyed last night”, summarized here:
About ten minutes after the hour, the door to the room squeaked open. All eyes turned to it, and there he was. He was obviously very upset. He was a pasty gray and bent over as he slowly shuffled down the aisle without a word to anyone. He mounted the platform, stood behind the podium, put his elbows on it, and held his head in his two hands, looking down.The room was dead silent. Finally, he looked up and in an uncharacteristically meek voice said, “Gentlemen, the telephone system of the United States was destroyed last night.” Then he looked down again.
The room broke out in a hubbub of whispered conversations saying that his statement was not true. Many in the room had used a phone that morning. The vice president looked up and said, “You don’t believe the system was destroyed last night, do you? Some of you probably used the phone this morning, didn’t you?” Most of the heads in the room shook with assent. The vice president began to tremble with rage. He shouted, “The telephone system was destroyed last night and you had better believe it. If you don’t by noon, you’ll be fired.”
I feel we are at the same point in the story of our country. In Ackoff’s tale, the assembled are in disbelief, certain in the prosperity of their company, until said manager breaks their referential frame, and reframes the challenges. In short, he dissembles the perceptions of his engineers, pointing out that they were dependent on their previous glories, including inventions that were created as much as 50-years prior. Similarly, their strategic planning sessions had focused on improving the parts, and not improving the whole.
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew a piece of paper and said, “I’ve made a list of those contributions to the development of telephonic communications that I believe have earned us this reputation. Before I share my list with you, I’d like your opinions. What do you think are the most important contributions we have ever made to this development?”
Almost every hand in the room went up. He called on one of those with a raised hand. He said, “The dial.” “Right,” said the vice president. “This is certainly one of the most important. Do any of you know when we introduced the dial?” One in the room volunteered a date in the 1930s. The vice president agreed. He then asked, “When was it developed?” No one knew.
He said he had not known either but had looked it up before he came to the meeting. He said, “It was before 1900.” We were surprised to say the least. He pressed on, asking for another candidate. The next one offered was multiplexing, a way of transmitting multiple conversations simultaneously over one wire. This yielded an enormous increase in the capacity of AT&T’s network. “Right,” the vice president repeated. He once again asked when it has been introduced. Someone knew it had been between the two world wars. The vice president confirmed this and asked, “When was it invented?” No one knew. Again he revealed that it was before 1900.
He asked for one more suggestion. The person he called on said, “The coaxial cable that connected the United States and Great Britain.” The vice president agreed and asked when it had been built. Someone knew: 1882.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd,” he said, “that the three most important contributions this laboratory has ever made to telephonic communications were made before any of you were born? What have you been doing?” he asked. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “You have been improving the parts of the system taken separately, but you have not significantly improved the system as a whole.
They were poorly positioned for competing in their current environment and were resting on their prior laurels. This story informs Ackoff’s theory of Interactive Planning and Idealized Design [pdf]. The outcomes of that session caused the engineers to think big and led to many of the notable innovations in telecommunications post-1962.
I’ve decided to “go big or go home” regarding my thesis (for the sake of argument, my academic program calls it a ‘capstone’; furthermore, I still have two more classes before I have to begin working on it).
My thesis will be titled “The United States of America was destroyed Last Night”.
In it, I will parrot the narrative of the Bell Labs story, making it factually current and politically relevant. The thesis will follow through the large scale group change effort involving prescriptive steps to facilitate change, including system thinking versus reductionism, stakeholder analysis, mess formulation, end-state planning, gap analysis, group development, obstacles to change, brainstorming, leadership and followership, technology implementation, collaboration, and decision making, coupled with a healthy dose of historical narrative and current context. My plan is to provide a politically and ideologically agnostic plan that allows us to tackle any of the various obstacles that stand before us, from terrorism, economic inequality, globalization, the loss of our hegemony, the renewed Russian threat, to renewed and sustained economic growth, the energy, water, and environmental crises, and the nation’s changing demography, by dissolving what we have and using the parts of what was to create an optimized organization to tackle our current challenges. As a nation, by many accounts, we have no choice but dream big.
Tags: AT&T, Bell Labs, Britain, changemanagement, coaxial cable, culturalchange, energy, Great Britain, groupdynamics, idealizeddesign, Joe Bagent, joebagent, Russell Ackoff, russellackoff, steel industry, technology implementation, telecommunications, telephone system, telephonic communications, United States, United States of America
Good luck. That’s a great way to start.
I have similar thoughts on the outlook of the country : (