Many of us use the terms “effective” and “efficient” and we assume that if we achieve both at the same time then we can call it “success”. They are certainly both necessary but are they sufficient? If they were then every process that was both effective (zero mistakes) and efficient (zero waste) would be hailed a success. This is our hypothesis and to disprove it we only need one example where it fails. Let us see if we can find one in our collective experience.
Threats focus our attention more than opportunities. When our safety is at risk it is a sensible strategy to give the threat our full attention – and our caveman wetware has a built-in personal threat management system: it is called the Fright, Flight, Fight response. The FFF is coordinated by the oldest, most unconscious bits of our wetware and we know it as the fast heart, dry mouth, cold sweat reaction – or adrenalin rush. When we perceive a threat we are hard-wired to generate the emotion called fear, and this tells us we need to make a decision between two actions: to stand our ground or to run away. The decision needs to be made quickly because the outcome of it may determine our survival – so we need a quick, effective and efficient way to do it. If we choose to “fight” then another emotion takes over – anger – and it hijacks our rationality: arguments, fights, battles and wars are all tangible manifestations of our collective reaction – and when the conditions are just right even a single word or action may be perceived as a threat and trigger an argument, then a fight, then a battle, then a war – a classic example of a positive feedback loop that can literally explode into an unstoppable orgy of death and destruction.
Can we measure the “success” of our hard-wired FFF system: let us consider the outcome of a war – a winner and a loser; and let us also count the cost of a war – lots of valuable resources consumed and lots of dead people on both sides. Wars inflict high costs on both sides and the “loser” is the one who loses most – the winner loses too – just less. But is it all negative? If it were then no one would ever do it – so there must be some tangible benefit. When the sides are unequally matched the victor can survive the losses and can grow from “absorbing” what remains of the loser. This is the dog-eat-dog world of survival of the strongest and represents another positive feedback loop – he who has most takes more.
Threats focus our attention and if we are not at immediate risk then they can also stimulate our creativity – and what is learned in the process of managing a threat can be of lasting value after the threat has passed. Many of the benefits we enjoy today were “stimulated” by the threats in WWII – for example: digital computers were invented to assist making ballistics calculations and for breaking enemy secret codes. Much of the theory, techniques and tools of Improvement Science were developed during WWII to increase the productivity of weapons-of-war creation – and they have been applied more constructively in peacetime. Wars are created by people and the “great” warriors create the most effective and efficient lose-lose processes. Using threats to drive creativity is a low-productivity design – ee can do much better than that – surely?
So, our experience suggests that effectiveness and efficiency are not enough – there seems to be a piece missing – and this piece is “intention”. Our Purpose. This insight explains why asking the “What is our purpose?” question is so revealing: if you do not get a reply it is likely that your audience is seeing challenge as a battle – and the First Rule of War is never to reveal your intention to your enemy – so their battle metaphor prevents them from answering honestly. If you do get an answer it is very often a “to do” answer rather than a “to get” one – unconsciously masking purpose with process and side-stepping the issue. Their language gives it away though – processes are flagged by verbs, purposes are flagged by nouns – so if you listen to what they say then you can tell. The other likely answer is a question: not a question for clarification, a question for deflection and the objective is more threat-assessment data and more thinking and preparation time.
If the answer to the Purpose Question is immediate, an outcome, and positive then the respondent is not using a war meta-program; they do not view the challenge as a threat and they do see a creative opportunity for improvement – they see it as a Race. Their intention is improvement for all on all dimensions: quality, delivery and money – and they recognise that healthy competition can be good for both. Do not be fooled – they are neither weak not stupid – if they perceive a safety threat they will deploy all their creative resources to eliminate it.
One of the commonest errors of commission is to eliminate healthy competition; which is what happens when we have not learned how to challenge with respect: we have let things slip to the point that we are forced to fight or flee. We have not held ourselves to account and we have not learned to ask the ourselves “What is my purpose?” People need to have a purpose to channel their effectivess and efficiency – and processes also need a purpose because socio-economic systems are the combination of people and processes.
The purpose for any socioeconomic system is the generic phrase “right-thing, right-place, right-price, on-time, first-time, every-time” and is called the system goal. The purpose of a specific process or person within that system will be aligned to the goal and there are two parts to this: the “right-” parts which are a matter of subjectivity and the “-time” parts which are a matter of objectivity. The process must be designed to deliver the objectives – and before we know what to do we must understand how to decide what to do; and before we know how to decide we must have the wisdom and courage to ask the question and to state our purpose. Intention – Decision – Action.