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YAY QUESTIONS 1 C ANTHONY CRAMP, CREATIVE COMMONS . WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/ANTHONYCRAMP/ YAY QUESTIONS MANAGEMENT . WORKOUT JURGEN APPELO MANAGEMENT.COM/YAY QUESTIONS

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Does your organization appreciate the things you’ve learned? Do you applaud colleagues who do their jobs well? All too often organizations live by the day, from one crisis to another, and they forget to take note of the good things that happened. By asking two important questions at the start of your meetings, you can start looking for things to celebrate.

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It’s important that someone celebrate our existence… People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large.

Lois McMaster Bujold, American author (1949)

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Does your organization appreciate the things you’ve learned? Do you applaud colleagues who do their jobs well? All too often organizations live by the day, from one crisis to another, and they forget to take note of the good things that happened. By asking two important questions at the start of your meetings, you can start looking for things to celebrate.

A few years ago I discussed some organizational challenges with my former CEO, and I noted the employees in our company rare-ly took time to enjoy their successes. People were always working hard and they never seemed to celebrate the things that went well.

I suggested that maybe we should have a big bell in the o!ce, so that we could ring it whenever there was something to celebrate. The idea of a bell came to my mind because I wanted something that would be visible, inviting, and impossible to ignore when used.

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One week later, to my big surprise, the CEO brought me a copper ship’s bell and said, “Here’s your bell. Now do something useful with it.” I convinced the o!ce manager to hang it in the middle of our big open o!ce space, and I let everyone in the company know that every employee was allowed to ring the bell, if they had something to celebrate.

From that moment, every few weeks or so, someone would enthu-siastically yank on the rope, for signing a government contract, deploying a .NET web application, or for something less strenuous, such as running a marathon, or birthing a baby. Any reason was valid. (I once rang the bell for having more visitors on my blog than the company had on its website. It was just my excuse to enjoy an-other celebration.)

When the sound of the ship’s bell blared through the o!ce, all em-ployees immediately got together for a 10-minute celebration. Our people knew that the bell was often a signal for free cake or cook-ies, which probably contributed to the quick and easy gathering of the entire work force around the co"ee machine. The person who rang the bell then usually took a few minutes to explain what was being celebrated. There was enthusiastic applause. Yay! And then the eating started. The last time I heard the bell was when the CEO announced my departure from the company.

if they had something to celebrate.Every employee was allowed to ring the bell,

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Successes and Failures, Mistakes and Practices Before we turn to a deeper discussion about good reasons for celebra-tions, I think it’s necessary to consider the relevance of success and failure.

The first (and last) time I organized a school party, together with a fel-low pupil, it was a terrible disaster. The kids in my class unanimously and unforgivingly agreed that it was boring, and they all left early. We call that a failure. The outcome was not what we had intended. In my defense I can only say I had never organized a school party before, and that we learned a great deal. For example, I learned that 30 kids will not dance to the shrieks of Barbra Streisand when played from one flimsy cassette recorder.

The first (and hopefully last) time I organized a wedding, together with my spouse, the results were positively memorable. People called it a great success. The two astounding wedding locations, and the three dif-ferent outfits we appeared in, are fixed forever in everyone’s memories.

Again, I had never done this before, and we learned many things. For example, I learned that 100 guests will dance if you play at least one song by the Village People, played on professional equipment, and sup-ported by swirling balloons, soap bubbles, and laser lights.

If we organized another wedding (which we won’t) we would probably repeat many of the things we did the first time. Basically, we would fol-low a “recipe for success”, or in other words, a number of good practices that we have discovered. Naturally, whatever you do, there is never a guarantee for success. You just use recipes and practices to increase your chance at succeeding.

If I organized another school party (even less likely than another wed-ding) and I applied the same approach as I did the first time, it would be a big mistake, or a “recipe for disaster”. A mistake is something you do despite knowing that it will probably not work. When you make a mistake, you learn nothing [Godin, “The Di"erence between a Failure and a Mistake”]. OK, that may not be entirely true. You might learn that you’re an idiot, because you wasted time validating that, like the last six times, your approach still doesn’t work.

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Learn from Experiments Some writers claim that “we only learn from failure” or that we should “allow ourselves to fail” [Watson, “Celebrate Failure”]. Other people claim that we should “focus on successes” and that “success breeds success” [Fried, “Failure Is Overrated”].

The truth is, quite literally, right in middle.

Information theorists have discovered that systems learn most when failure rates are around 50% [Reinertsen, Principles of Product Development Flow]. In other words, when your experiments have both a chance of succeeding and a chance of failing, they generate the most information for you to learn from.

Either excessive or insu!cient probability of failure

reduces the e!ciency with which we generate

information. […]

Avoid oversimplifications, like “eliminate failures” or

“celebrate failures.” There is an optimum failure rate.

Donald Reinertsen, Principles of Product Development Flow

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We learn most when we can’t predict wheth-er our experiments will lead to good or bad outcomes. Apparently, failure and success are orthogonal to learning. What we learn from most are the experiences we’ve never had before, such as (in my case) organizing a school party or a wedding. When all we do is just repeating established practices, it is hard to know if we could do any better. Likewise, if all we do is making the same mistakes, then we’re not learning much ei-ther. Optimal learning happens somewhere in the middle.

A learning organization should not aim to minimize the amount of failure. Reducing failure would reduce learning. Of course, maximizing failure also makes no sense. What we should maximize is the understan-ding of our problems, which happens by experiencing both successes and failures. We should celebrate learning, not successes or failures.

No amount of examples

of successes or failures

is indicative of one’s

potential performance. It

all depends on your own

e"ort and understanding

of your own problems.

W. Edwards Deming,Out of the Crisis

not successes or failures.

We should celebrate learning,

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Emphasize Good Practices

In many working environments people’s focus is usually is on fixing problems. This makes sense, because continuous improve-ment allows organizations to survive and thrive. However, a focus on things that could be improved usually comes down to a focus on failures and mistakes, and this mindset can have some serious side e"ects. Being a

perfectionist, I have sometimes been guilty of this myself. I have “raised the bar” for me and for others until the bar was so high that Godzilla could do a limbo dance underneath while carrying a space shuttle.

However, I noticed a strange thing when I urged people to stop screwing up. I found this didn’t motivate them at all! I realized getting better isn’t just about reducing what goes wrong (making mistakes). It’s also about increasing what is right (using good practic-es). And every now and then people need a reminder that they’re doing just fine.

It’s no wonder the culture in many organ-izations feels negative when the focus of discussions is mainly on mistakes and prob-lems. Workers feel they are held accountable

for not being perfect. Instead of having a constructive view on improvement, people end up with a defensive frame of mind. They evade taking responsibility, and for every perceived problem they point at others who must have caused it. Because people’s minds are focused on self-defense instead of improvement, things will not get any better, and the organization will just make more mistakes.

I believe we should emphasize the good recipes over the mistakes, because you get more of what you focus on [Alberg, “How to Celebrate Success throughout Your Pro-jects”]. Few people seem to realize that you often get more of the things you focus on [Eckel, “You Get What You Measure”]. If you focus on mistakes, people will make more mistakes. If you focus on good practices, people will invent more good practices.

It seems evident to me that we should em-phasize the good behaviors, not the bad ones. We should celebrate good practices, not punish mistakes.

We should celebrate good practices,

not punish mistakes.

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Yes, you are! Constructive criticism can be quite useful. Though research has

shown that negative feedback is more e/ective on experts than on novices [Grant

Halvorson, “Sometimes Negative Feedback Is Best”]. Of course, it’s OK to let no-

vices know when they made a mistake, but their performance will increase much

faster when you focus on their good behaviors. On the other hand, it appears that

experts will usually appreciate it better to know where they went wrong. But they

too appreciate a pat on the back every now and then.

Am I not

allowed to offer people some

criticism?

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Emphasize Good PracticesWe’ve now seen that there are two possible reasons for celebrations. We can celebrate when we learned something, regardless of whether the outcome was a success or a failure. And we can celebrate when we repeated good practices, probably resulting in a predictably good outcome. The areas of potential celebrations are colored green in the accompanying illustration. I call it the celebration zone (consisting of regions B, C and E).

You can help people to focus on the celebration zone by asking them these two “yay!” questions:

#$%What0did0we0do0well?0(by0following0practices)

&$%What0did0we0learn?0(by0running0experiments)

Instead of questioning things that went wrong, it’s often better to ask what worked well [McCrimmon, “Celebrating Success at Work”]. This emphasizes that you want to share good recipes, not mistakes. It’s OK for people to discuss practices that are already widely known. Reinforcing good recipes makes it more likely that others will apply them too (region C). Even when, despite people’s best e"orts, the out-come of a good practice was a failure, you may still consider celebra-ting that at least they did their best (region F).

The second question is about the tests and experiments that peo-ple performed, where they couldn’t easily predict the outcome. Here it is important that both successes and failures are discussed in equal measure. It is true that you can learn much from failure. But it’s also true that you learn from having success. That’s why your attention should be divided equally among both (regions B and E).

The two questions are both reasons for celebration. You celebrate to reinforce good behaviors. And you celebrate to reinforce learning.

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BEHAVIORMISTAKES EXPERIMENTS

LEARNING NOLEARNING

YOU LUCKY BASTARD!

WTF, DUDE YOU

SCREWED UP!WHERE’SYOUR BRAIN?

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BUT YOULEARNED! ARGH,

BAD LUCK!

YAY, YOUSUCCEEDED

AND YOU LEARNED!

YAY, YOUSUCCEEDED

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THINGS!

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PRACTICES

WHAT DIDWE DO WELL? WHAT DID

WE LEARN?

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When you have regular meetings with colleagues, such as one-on-ones, stand-up meetings, retrospectives, or weekly Skype calls, I suggest you make it a habit of start-ing with these two “yay!” questions. Every time.

Starting conversations with these questions has several benefits. First, it gives people permission to brag a little about their good work and what they learned. This helps them to feel good about themselves. By em-phasizing positive things, the atmosphere improves, and people will feel more at ease talking about some of their failures and mis-takes later on.

Second, it motivates people to be mindful about the good recipes they applied and the things they learned, so they have something to share in the next conversation. Everyone should understand their job is not just to re-duce mistakes and failures. More important-ly, their job is to learn good practices, and share them with their colleagues.

Indeed, the same questions exist in other contexts too.

For example, change management experts know that one

of the first questions to ask in any change program is,

“Where are things going well?” closely followed by “How

do we get feedback?” [Appelo, How to Change the World].

They are very similar questions, but in a di/erent format.

Another example is the Perfection Game, a useful feed-

back technique for trainers and facilitators. It asks peo-

ple “How well do you like what we did?” followed by “If

it’s not perfect, how can we do even better?” [McCarthy,

Software for your Head] [Van Cauwenberghe, “We Expect

Nothing Less Than Perfection”]. Again, they are two si-

milar questions, but in a di/erent context.

Actually, this all sounds quite

familiar!

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Celebrate! Any answers to the two questions could be a trigger for a celebration. Has the new employee correctly inserted the foobar into the goobase? Celebrate! Did a team member’s daring experiment result in a great insight? Yay! Applaud the one who valiantly helped a customer with an important shortcut which saved their data, even though it regrettably got fifty other customers disconnected. Perhaps you even want to ring the bell for the person who stupidly deleted all invoices, because it enabled the network administrators to improve their backup procedures.

In some environments, when you start asking the two questions, positive events are harder to find than a Python programmer in a Miss Universe contest. Maybe that’s because there isn’t that much good news to share in the first place, or because people don’t consider their good be-haviors and learning outcomes to be worth celebrating. I suggest you don’t take for granted what people do. Make every small step worth mentioning.

When you celebrate things, keep the following suggestions in mind:

#$%Celebrate%frequently$#Every#day#can#be#a#day#to#ask#the#two#questions$#Every#day#can#be#a#reason#to#celebrate$#Don’t#just#drool#all#over#the#big#achievements$#Pay#attention#to#the#small#things#too$#When#everyone#is#on#time#for#a#meeting%#celebrate!#When#the#CEO#published#his#first#blog#post%#“Yay!”#When#Juanita#didn’t#utter#a#curse#for#a#whole#week%#“Woohoo!”

&$%Celebrate%noticeably$#Make#sure#celebrations#are#visible#(or#loud)%#so#that#everyone#can#see#(or#hear)#what#is#being#celebrated#and#why$#Turn#your#celebrations#into#information#radiators$#With#a#bit#of#luck%#other#parts#of#the#organization#will#follow#your#good#example$#It#is#hard#not#to#go#with#the#flow#when#a#good#vibe#washes#all#over#you$

'$%Celebrate%remarkably$%Target#multiple#senses#with#your#ce&lebrations$#Be#remarkable#by#introducing#your#own#unique#rituals$#You#can#ring#a#bell%#throw#confetti%#launch#balloons%#share#chocolates%#or#flash#some#disco#lights%#and#play#a#Vil&lage#People#song$#By#turning#celebrations#into#little#rituals#they#will#become#part#of#the#organizational#culture$

When I wrote the first draft of this text I scheduled a visit to my former employer’s o!ce. The bell was still there. They rang it just a week before, to celebrate an important product release, and the 5-year anniversaries of several employees who, unlike me, did not leave the company.

Make every small step

worth mentioning.

Don’t take for granted what people do.

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What now? Try this when you want to get started celebrating things:

#$%Draw#the#celebration#zone#on#a#whiteboard# #and#discuss#it$

&$%For#each#of#the#regions%#ask#people#for#a#few#concrete#examples$

'$%Start#asking#the#two#questions%#“What#did#we#do#well?”#and#“What#did#we#learn?”

($%Decide#how#you’re#going#to#celebrate#what#you#learned#and#what#you#practiced%#in#a#way#that#is#noticeable%#remarkable%#and#fun$

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!C" #$%% NATHANMAC'*, CREATIVE COMMONS #.$WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/NATHANMAC'*/('*.(*)()#

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Experiment nowStart asking the “yay!” questions regularly in order to find out what you could celebrate. Appreciate the things people learn, and reinforce the good practices that are applied, in a way that is noticeable, remarka-ble, and fun.

Express yourselfDid you experiment with the two celebration questions? Do you have some interesting examples to share? Do you have questions, or tips on how to improve this practice?Via www.management30.com/yay-questions you can find discussions on Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.

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Explore for freeOn www.management30.com/workout we are growing a collection of great management work-out practices. Visit the site to find out which other articles, exercises, games, and downloads are available for you. And remember, all materi-als are available for free!

Experience itDo you want to see the workout practices in action? Management 3.0 events are organized all over the world by many international facilitators. From two-day courses to four-hour workshops, all events make a lasting impression. At www.management30.com/events you can find the full calendar.

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References1• ALBERG, AMY. “HOW TO CELEBRATE SUCCESS THROUGHOUT YOUR PROJECTS” 2HTTP://BIT.LY/I.&FWZ3 MAKING THINGS HAPPEN. #% MAY #$$'. WEB.1• APPELO, JURGEN. HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD: CHANGE MANAGEMENT +.$. ROTTERDAM: JOJO VENTURES BV. #$%#. PRINT.1• DEMING, W. OUT OF THE CRISIS. CAMBRIDGE: MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, CENTER FOR ADVANCED ENGINEERING STUDY, %.'). PRINT.1• ECKEL, BRUCE. “YOU GET WHAT YOU MEASURE” 2HTTP://BIT.LY/PC$CWQ3 REINVENTING BUSINESS. # AUGUST #$%%. WEB.1• GODIN, SETH. “THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FAILURE AND A MISTAKE” 2HTTP://BIT.LY/U*UX#E3 SETH’S BLOG. %' DECEMBER #$%%. WEB.1• GRANT HALVORSON, HEIDI. “SOMETIMES NEGATIVE FEEDBACK IS BEST” 2HTTP://BIT.LY/WBZ'KF3 HBR BLOG NETWORK. #' JANUARY #$%+. WEB.1• FAST COMPANY. “CELEBRATE FAILURE” 2HTTP://BIT.LY/G.D*RA3 FAST COMPANY. #% NOVEMBER #$$(. WEB.1• FRIED, JASON. “FAILURE IS OVERRATED, A REDUX” 2HTTP://BIT.LY/&%FFOK3 SIGNAL VS. NOISE. #+ MARCH #$$.. WEB.1• MCCARTHY, JIM. SOFTWARE FOR YOUR HEAD: CORE PROTOCOLS FOR CREATING AND MAINTAINING SHARED VISION. BOSTON, MA: ADDISON-WESLEY, #$$#. PRINT.1• MCCRIMMON, MITCH. “CELEBRATING SUCCESS AT WORK” 2HTTP://BIT.LY/INVGWZ3 SUITE%$%.COM. . APRIL #$$'. WEB.1• REINERTSEN, DONALD. THE PRINCIPLES OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT FLOW: SECOND GENERATION LEAN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT. REDONDO BEACH: CELERITAS, #$$.. PRINT.1• VAN CAUWENBERGHE, PASCAL. “WE EXPECT NOTHING LESS THAN PERFECTION” 2HTTP://BIT.LY/I.I$IH3 THINKING FOR A CHANGE. %# AUGUST #$$). WEB.

Jurgen Appelo is the author of the book Management 3.0, which describes the role of the manager in Agile organizations, and How to Change the World, which describes a model for organizational change. This article will be part of the upcoming book Management Workout, to be published in 2013. Jurgen Appelo is also the author of the Management 3.0 course, which is available in many countries.

More information about the books and course is available on www.management30.com

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