Lessons in Managing Self-Organizing Systems: My Father, Squirrels & Birds

My father had a running battle with squirrels. The age old story of escalating hostilities between man and sciurine ingenuity: bird table, nut-feeder, wire, so called squirrel-proof feeders, mesh, string...you probably know the story. All to no avail. Mr.S.Nutkin was not to be deterred; birds were going hungry; my father's tactics were heading towards firearms.

This problem was a classic self-organizing system with an issue: each element was autonomous and independent (father, squirrel, bird, table), each operated within the same environment, communication was indirect via the environment, no direct control could be exerted between the elements and the emergent results were sub-optimal for all involved.

Amongst the things I have learned whilst studying and building self-organizing systems (and running S.O.teams) are

1. often the solution to a problem like this is counter-intuitive and based on inverting an assumption or goal
2. by trying to fix the problem you become and element in the environment yourself, and all the rules apply to you too - especially the no direct control rule
3. the only effective way to alter a self-organizing system is to alter the environment through adding/removing elements and allowing new behaviour to emerge
4. you cannot predict the total outcome of changing the environment and must be prepared to accept consequential behaviour

So applying Lesson 1, I decided to address the basic problem: How to stop the squirrels eating the birds' nuts? Inverting this I came up with the simple question: How to stop the birds eating the squirrels' nuts?

Lesson 2 told me I couldn't do anything to change the birds, the squirrels or my father directly. I could spend quite a bit of time on this but in the end it would just come down to an argument about philosophical positions. And my father probably wouldn't listen either.

Lesson 3 told me I had to add or remove something from the environment to affect a change. There was no way to remove all the birds or all the squirrels, nor stop my father feeding the birds. So it meant I had to add an element.

So I bought my father a squirrel feeder that the birds couldn't use.

Within 2 days the birds and squirrels were sticking to their own feeders. The birds were happier. The squirrels were happier. My father no longer had that look of murderous intent.

In fact, this simple act of management was so successful that some of the shy Red Squirrels from the forest behind us started frequenting the squirrel feeder (who knew it was the birds they were afraid of?) That's the upside of Lesson 4. The down side was that there are now twice as many birds and squirrels in the garden and my father is having to buy twice as much food. There is also some emergent behaviour in the pheasants hanging out under the squirrel feeder for the cast-offs which is causing the grass to be worn away. Oh, well. That's self-organizing systems for you: never done.

So why do I offer this parable?

The term self-organization is thrown about very freely when people talk of groups, teams, management and organization. When it comes to looking at the actions, rhetoric and advice given I feel that much of it falls into the "pop-sci" or "pop-psych" category, and often misses the point that the manager/facilitator/coach is an element of the environment and subject to the same rules. Moreover, self-organization is referred to as if it were an understood thing - which it is not by a long chalk.

I offer this parable and 4 lessons as items from my experience. I place them in the environment. And awaiting to see if there is any emergent behaviour.

Contempt, not for software developers, but for all they do

I have recently spent quite a lot of time reading tweets, blogs and current publications on Software Development. I feel despondent, despairing, bitter and isolated. I feel the "agile movement" has lost it's way, got diluted, compromised it's fundamentals, become a banner of convenience. I feel contempt for this movement of which I was an early practitioner, proponent, zealot. Though, for the individuals involved, I still have respect and admiration - they are bright, articulate, rounded people.

And for all this, I felt ashamed. My arrogance, my hostility, my mourning for a passion lost to the betrayal of others.

But these feelings were familiar. They resonated with a recent empathy. Then I remembered a passage from Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T.E.Lawrence's account of his part in the Arab Revolt during WWI). Talking of how he felt some years after having left Arabia, he wrote he had

"a resultant feeling of intense loneliness in life, and a contempt, not for men, but for all they do" (ch.1,p32)

This is the feeling I have.

Other passages have congruence with how I see the current state of the 'agile movement':

"As time went by our need to fight for the ideal increased to an unquestioning possession, riding with spur and rein over our doubts. Willy-nilly it became a faith. We had sold ourselves into it's slavery, manacled ourselves together in it's chain-gang, bowed ourselves to serve it's holiness with all our good and ill content. The mentality of ordinary human slaves is terrible - they have lost the world - and we had surrendered, not body alone, but soul to the overmastering greed of victory. By our own act we were drained of morality, of volition, of responsibility, like dead leaves in the wind." (ch.1,p29)

Others speak to how I feel about my history with agile:

"The moral freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up in the ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to remake in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace." (introduction to later editions)

In these words I find solace. Men far greater than I, more central to more important histories, have fallen prey to these feelings. In the pursuit of what you believe to be a better way of the world, maybe there is an inevitability in the course of human history for the vanguard to become dissolute with the world they help forge. Yet in these new worlds there is value and benefit for others - it is a better world for them. For the vanguard it was about the pursuit of the ideal, the journey. For the rest it is about the destination of being somewhere better. These two things can never sit well together.

So where does this leave me?

In looking for new employment I discovered that I unwittingly undertook a similar path to Lawrence. Although I am being offer Head of Development/CTO roles, I find myself drawn to being a programmer at the bottom of the pile. I even went as far as to draft an alternative version of my CV removing my management and agile experience (but have not used it). Lawrence re-enlisted in the RAF under an assumed name, but was discovered, at which point he enlisted under another name in the RTC where he was unhappy. Maybe this is something I should take heed of?

Further, I have come to recognize that I am a 'vanguard' kind of guy. I suppose I always have been. And in that there is an acceptance. I should feel no shame but know it is time to move on and let the followers settle. Those who make the war cannot make the peace.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

To Make Money Selling Shovels: First, Buy All The Shovels Then Create The Demand

The adage "The people who make the money in a gold-rush are those who sell the shovels" cropped up again as I was perusing the blogo's fear. It is an analogy I have used myself but I have no idea if there is any truth to it, or like many urban-truths it is merely short-hand for a presumed truth? Or, if there is truth to it, what more might we learn from the fuller, less sound-bitten story?

Thankfully, there is truth to the statement and I have not been guilty of repeating an urban-truth. Reading historical research of census data (like this difficult to read paper) there is statistically significant differences in the relative benefits to merchants (including shovel sellers), hotel proprietors, doctors, etc. (i.e. service providers) relative to the miners themselves. In fact, although the miners were better off in absolute terms (earning on average 3-4x what they would have elsewhere) they were worst off in relative terms because the merchants and other service providers were charging them at extortionate rates.

What is not clear from the analogy, but is from the census data, is that on the whole it was the service providers who were already there and held the distribution points and land that made the money. Many who came along later suffered a similar economic fate to the miners themselves, although they were still more assured of moderate, relative wealth than the miners. I could find no examples of anyone who had come along later with "a better shovel" who became extremely wealthy as a result. Being there first seems to be key.

The man who became the richest guy in California at the time was Samuel Brannan , who is the focus of the adage about shovels. In 1848, Brannan found out about the gold discovered at Sutter's Mill through people buying goods from his store using the gold they'd panned during their spare time (he also collect Mormon tithes in gold). Brannan was no 'poor store keeper' - he had established a couple of newspapers and had the store in Sutter's Mill and was the Mission President of the Californian Mormon Mission. Using his capital, he bought up as much prospecting equipment (including shovels) as he could in San Francisco and then, brandishing a bottle full of gold dust, ran through the streets shouting, "Gold! Gold! From the American River!". He created such a sensation that one of his papers couldn't publish the news as all the staff had left to look for gold. Brannan used his income to buy and sell land during the ensuing Gold Rush.

So what can we learn from this story?

• Be observant and find something considered valuable being done by other people
• Monopolize required, necessary resources before you....
• Generate unreasonable demand through sensational promotion of the thing and then...
• Charge over-the-top margins whilst you...
• Re-invest the profits in further monopolisation

I feel so much better about this analogy, now.

Leadership: Listening, Understanding and Disagreeing At The Same Time

Reading the contents and comments on Paul Dyson's recent blog about "the Whole Team" and eXtreme Business I was reminded of a piece of dialogue from the West Wing: Josh and Toby are walking down the street arguing, and the conversation goes something like,

• Josh: You're not listening to me
• Toby: I am listening
• Josh: But you're not understanding me
• Toby: I do understand
• Josh: But you're disagreeing with me
• Toby: I am doing all three: I am listening, understanding and disagreeing simultaneously

Conversations of this form often seem to crop up in the context of running a business in an eXtreme manner and dealing with the "whole team". I think there is often a misunderstanding of the practice of "whole team" , confusing participation with democracy. If you think "whole team" means 'democracy' you're ignoring the factors of responsibility and accountability.

Running any business or team requires both leadership and management skills. Leadership provides the vision of the direction and formulates the goals for the group, which they can then work on together (so becoming a team). Management defines the constraints (like budgets and resources, choice of technologies, etc.) and ensures that there is consistency and achievement of the agreed goals over time. Both of these require a lot of listening and understanding of what the group has to say. However, the decision about what the direction, goals and constraints for the group must be made by those responsible and accountable for the outcome of the group's efforts. This is often where the disagreeing comes in, usually because participants think their opinions (which have been solicited by good leadership practice) have been ignored rather than appreciating there are often a huge number of factors they have not taken into account that outweigh their position. To me, this is one of the big differences between a team and a group - in a team, members understand that the have been listened to and appreciated even when the decisions seem to be against their thinking, moreover, they continue with the same amount of effort and don't throw down their teddy-bear.

My attitude towards leadership and management is strongly influenced by John Kotter's early work. Part of his position was that it is hard to find individuals who have both the leadership and management skill-sets sufficiently developed and balanced to provide that mythical "charismatic business leader" whose presence guarantees success. From my experience I think this is true - individuals are usually more one or the other - however, I think the Kotter model overlooks the practice of having a pair, or a trio, running a team or business.

Having a true pair working together means that one can be undertaking leadership practices while the other balances with management practices - often these role swap backwards and forwards between the two on the scale of minutes, hours and days. With businesses or large groups, I think three is a better "responsible team" size - this provides the extra mediator practices sometimes required to balance the conflicts that can occur between leadership and management goals. I have worked with this model both at Connextra and e2x and found it to be a most effective model. Though I don't ever say it explicitly, I also try to influence any teams I have created or work with to form this same triumvirate structure for the responsible group. Needless to say, with three it is often the case that one is listening, one is disagreeing and the other is trying to understand how to resolve and synthesise the situation (allusions of classical thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis). However, I find it works better than other forms of organization.