Innovation Elegance: Solving VUCA

Jose Leal:

Well, hello and welcome to the Radical World Podcast. My name is Jose Leal, and I'm alone by myself today. No, Matt. But we do have a wonderful guest, Robert Snyder, who is in Chicago, enjoying what I'm presuming is still warm weather up there.

Robert Snyder:

Yes. Surprisingly summer. Summer-Ish.

Jose Leal:

It is cold down here. I don't know what happened. We got down into the sixties all of a sudden yesterday we went for a walk and it was like, whoa. Like, what happened? So Paul has struck the San Francisco Bay area, but I, I know my, my partner's brother lives there still. She was born there in Chicago. And and he tells me he still riding the boat on Lake Michigan. So it sounds like you guys are still enjoying that lake Summer feel. How are you doing today, Robert?

Robert Snyder:

I'm doing great. Excited for our conversation and just optimistic about, about where things are headed. And I'm delighted. Over the last couple weeks I was able to see a few of your episodes, and I'm, I'm delighted to be invited and, and be here.

Jose Leal:

Well, thank you. Yeah, and you said the magic word there 'cause it's about conversation. So I'm, I'm thrilled to always have the opportunity to, to get into conversation with someone who is got his fingers in the pulse of, of certain aspects of, of how we work and, and how our society sees and does work. So before we do that, why don't you tell us why you, why we should be listening to you? Like, who the, who the heck are you, and why? Why do I think that you're someone we should be talking to?

Robert Snyder:

Jose, because I am cross-pollinating like nobody's business. When we have these casual conversations, casual remarks about the performing arts these metaphors, it's as if you give me an inch and I'm taking a mile. So when we say things like, Hey, are we singing from the same hymnal? Are we in sync? Oh, let's wing it. Let's improvise. I'm really taking those metaphors to the performing arts and metaphors that, that raise our discipline and raise our empathy and teamwork. I'm putting it down on paper, crystallizing it, making it as coherent and as succinct as I can. So it's, it's readable. It's digestible hopefully inspiring because I believe that the arena of innovation, teamwork has so much to learn from the other arenas of life and collaboration and human activity. Our time is precious. We need to learn from these other disciplines to improve innovation, teamwork, because this, the status quo is far from acceptable.

Jose Leal:

Love it. Love it. But where did you come from? What brought you here?

Robert Snyder:

Okay. So I feel like you're kind of asking me an origin story. There's a few different versions. The shortest version is that over the last 10 years, I slowly started to conclude, wow, I have a unique perspective. Not enough companies are learning from these other disciplines, such as operations, supply chain, good old fashioned documentation, rhythm symphony. And I attended a webinar in 2018. It was a Northwestern University alumni webinar entitled, do you have a book in you subtitled. You can't take it with you. When we hear that phrase, you can't take it with you. Often we think of money, right? And the, and that's a legacy that we can leave. And I I loved that. Again, these two young female authors cross-pollinated, right? They took that analogy of you can't take it with you. And instead of talking about money, they were talking about their audience's wisdom. And so I interpreted them literally, I took it as a call to action and I said, you know what? I do have a unique enough perspective even if I'm wrong, someone will piggyback some fraction of whatever I put on paper, and they will be able to build upon it, pay it forward, play. Yes. And so that's where I came from, was after a 30 year career I started drawing some conclusions about the unacceptable status quo.

Jose Leal:

What was your career in?

Robert Snyder:

So any role, just about any role that you can imagine in it? I've had it programmer, database analyst, business analyst, tester trainer, project manager, change manager, risk manager, PMO business, PMO. I've been on the consulting side, I've been on the client side. I've had, I have PMP and agile certifications. So I feel I've had a well-rounded view of the disciplines, the perspectives, the formalities, the informalities, what's healthy and what's not healthy. I feel like I've been a good student of the innovation world. And again, I'm cross-pollinating like nobody else.

Jose Leal:

So you got to a point where you started writing books and you had all these years of experience, and what was it that you needed to say?

Robert Snyder:

I needed to, so the, the book, the book's original ambition was quite low. It was simply, here are things under this umbrella of left brain. Here are things that teams are not putting on paper that they need to put on paper. And the other half was, here's how the performing arts matter. If this was under the umbrella of right-brained. And through the editing process, the my editors led me to raising the ambition of the books to take a stand on agile involve culture, tackle this ever so ambiguous. It, the, the topic of culture is so vital, but it is so ambiguous, and I felt like I could reduce the ambiguity about shaping, reshaping, and improving culture. So yeah. I'll, I'll pause there. Is that.

Jose Leal:

Well, I agree with you. Culture is often referred to, and, and we all sort of don't know what it really means. And when we talk about culture and creating culture, more often than not, culture is an emergent property of our behaviors. And so we can do the good things and the bad things, but culture is whatever culture is going to emerge to be.

Robert Snyder:

Can I, can I add one thing? So the, I had to come up with something structured and clean for the books and the left brain and right brained metaphors were not working for my editor. He pointed out, you mentioned left brain and right brain like four times in the whole book. This is antiquated thinking because the neurologists are, are showing us how the brain is not that simple. These hemispheres oversimplify the brain. So I was already undermining my own credibility by sticking with this left brain, right brain terminology. So where I landed instead, were, were the terms discipline and empathy. And in the subtitle of my first book, there's a term ruthless grace discipline on steroids is ruthlessness aim intended in a positive way, and empathy on steroids I call grace. That's where I get this phrase ruthless grace. So what I'm, what I'm trying to do is show companies how to raise their discipline and raise their empathy. My favorite and shortest definition of culture are the two words shared habits. So one cornerstone of my books and of my material is, is the shared habit of a framework that I call the five verbs. And I'll, and I'll, the short description of it is that this framework, the five verbs, reimagines a well-known common framework, I call the four adjectives. And these four adjectives are also known as the RACI matrix, RACI, adjectives, there's a form of speech in the English language that conveys action. And the form of speech is not an adjective. The form of speech is a verb. So why companies continue to use four adjectives, the RCI matrix to try to govern their work. I would, I would encourage companies to rethink why do you continue to apply this false sense of governance called the RACI matrix? The RACI matrix has been around for 20 years. It is not solving your biggest problems. It is time to rethink the racing matrix. And what I'm asking is, instead of governing with four adjectives, consider governing with five verbs. So I haven't even said what those five verbs are, but again, Jose, I'll pause. Am I, am I making sense?

Jose Leal:

No, not at all. I have no idea what you're talking about. Just kidding, just kidding. Actually, there's a question. So empathetic ruthlessness is, is the question thanks to Ben.

Robert Snyder:

Thank you, Ben

Jose Leal:

And, and maybe you can dig a little deeper on that for, for Ben and for myself, because I, I think I understand it, but I really want to hear a little bit more about what it means to you in a deeper way.

Robert Snyder:

All right. So the play, there's a playful semantic here thing, semantic thing here that is worth dipping into. Jose, you, you mentioned, you said the word deeper. At least let me get the superficial thing out, and then let's, let's explore if I've got something deeper here. 20 years ago in my dating life, I had to explain to a certain friend that it would be a bad idea if we dated. And this conversation about why we shouldn't date was about eight hours long. And at the end of this conversation, she said to me, wow, you are ruthlessly compassionate, because I had exhibited such a strong backbone, but had so much patience and perseverance in this conversation. So that term ruthlessly compassionate, stuck with me. And years later, we joked about that conversation and we, we had the semantic wordplay where we switched the two words. And I said, you know, it's better than being compassionately ruthless, as if I'm smiling with like a knife behind my back. I would rather be ruthlessly compassionate. There's a time and place for the word compassionate in the workplace. The, the closest term that I think is already accepted in the workplace is the word empathy. It's close enough to what I'm aiming for. So that's why I sequence those words in the way I do ruthless grace, ruthless compassion, ruthless empathy let's know where our teams need to be forgiving and where we need to be unforgiving.

Jose Leal:

And you talk about the fact that you were sort of trying to tie them to these two parts of the brain, as we know, it's not actually as simple as that. But the idea that there is, there are parts of us that are about logic and rigidity, and being able to look at things dispassionately, if you'll.

Robert Snyder:

Yeah. Pragmatism, right?

Jose Leal:

And, and then there are parts of us that are about feeling into it and being empathetic being in touch with and in relationship with one another not simply detached. And, and I, you're talking about these two things in recognition that they both need to exist in us. And very often we say, well, that's bad and that's good, or vice versa, right? Like that, that there is this, we have to lead dispassionately. It's about the data, it's about the numbers, right? We've heard that before. I'm sure you have. I certainly have probably have said it once or twice. And at the same time, there are people who say, well, it, it's all about being empathetic. And, and, and I think you're, I'm hearing you say it's both.

Robert Snyder:

Yeah. And, and my, my attempt to put it in business speak I've landed on the words discipline and empathy. I hope that most innovators agree with me that their team needs more discipline and their team needs more empathy. And if and when someone disagrees, then I just want them to own it. Own your level of discipline, own your level of empathy, and don't hide from it. Take a, you know, just own it.

Jose Leal:

You are what you are. And that's one of my things when I was in leadership at, at an organization, I, I was the empathetic one, right? And I had a really tough time. Are you familiar with DISC at all? So 250 newspaper publishers up in Canada, we're in a big meeting. It's a week long thing. And they, they do the disc for all of the managers that had never been done for the team. And there were two people that were green, myself and the HR person, head of HR for the, for the organization. And, and I was shocked 'cause I was always running into conflict with all of the publishers and the CFOs and everybody else who was blue and red. And so I was saying, you know, but we need to take care of these people. And they were like, yeah, well, you know, gimme the facts. Get the hell outta here. Right? so it, it, I know that, and very often people like myself find it difficult in the c-suite arena because more often than not, they are they lean blue or red, you know, using the, the dis colors, right? Where it's, it's more about that data mindset that rigidity that, that keep things about the facts. And we don't need feelings and, and this so when you talk to organizations, how do they feel about that? That blending of the two and, and the understanding that you have to do both.

Robert Snyder:

The general reactions to my material are positive. Everyone I'm talking to generally agrees they need more discipline, they need more empathy. There's blending and sometimes discipline is empathetic and vice versa. Being empathetic is the disciplined thing to do. So in general, there, there are, it's an overwhelmingly positive reaction to those terms. Now, where my audiences are skeptical is because they are tethered, they're tethered to the frameworks that they've been taught, that, that they've been told are the standard, the gold standard. And I am obviously pushing back about what is sacred.

Jose Leal:

I would argue if I, if I may interrupt. That not only are they tied to the, to the standard frameworks and methodologies and so forth, they live in a sea of what we call the fiat world, right? Which is a command and control mindset that somebody's going to tell me what to do, they have to tell me what to do, and when they do, it's okay for them to be direct and harsh and create rules and policies that I must obey. And if I don't obey them, then I'm in trouble. So we're used to this organizational structure that is both hierarchical, and more importantly, the idea that, you know, I walk into an organization right there, and then I've given up my freedom.

Robert Snyder:

So am I interrupting you or I want your respond. So this badge of command and control, it is interesting to consider who perce, who perceives who is wearing the badge of command and control. Where's the finger pointing? And who is empowered to put the badge on, right? So instead of the word command and control, I'm going to use the words bulletproof and invincible. And so, for example the word agile, I consider it to be bulletproof and invincible, because who doesn't want to be agile? Who wants to be labeled rigid or dinosaur or inflexible, right? No one wants to be labeled that way. So the, the word agile, the term has performed much better in the marketplace than its constituents

Jose Leal:

Right.

Robert Snyder:

And so my work, the reason, one benefit of me calling my work elegance is I hope it is similarly bulletproof and invincible. But unlike agile, agile doesn't let you opt out. I welcome you to opt out, but you opting out is signing up for vuca volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. And so I, I look forward to the adventure I've got in front of me to defend elegance. And going back to this term badge, what is the badge? Am I empowered to say, well, if you're not elegant, then you are vuca, but lead me, follow me, or get out of the way. And nothing will change until the status quo. Is more painful than the transition. So my target audience are exasperated innovation professionals, exasperated innovation teams. I think there are a lot of them, but there are some folks who untethering themselves from agile would make their head explode. I get it. Someone's got to be last there. There is an s-curve of adoption here, and I'm here in the year 2024. I am still targeting early adopters. And those folks are, they are sufficiently experienced and sufficiently exasperated with the software centricity of waterfall, agile, and hybrid, that they're willing to try something new and they're willing to look outside the discipline of it. I think it's a Einstein quote, right? We cannot solve our problems from, you know, inside the source. That's what they, we, we've got to look outside. So yes, let's look outside. And for those who feel that agile is people, people-centric, I would ask you start reading from the start of the Agile manifesto. It doesn't say we are uncovering better ways of teamwork. It says working software, and then X number of lines down under, under principle. At some point it starts talking about people, but I'm sorry, you, you can't, when the first sentence of your manifesto includes the words working software, better ways of working, so, or software development, developing software you cannot plant your flag on We are about people.

Jose Leal:

So we've, we've gone five different ways here. So I, I really want to get back to a couple of things that, yeah. That I think I'd love to talk about. So yes, we want to talk about VUCA because that is the topic we chose to talk about. But you sort of went and, and did a little of a switcheroo on me there with, with the with the agile term when I was talking about command and control. So let me see if I can try to grasp those two pieces, because for me, command and control is a shorthand for a world of domination. And most people feel a need, feel a sense of freedom within their private lives, but not so much freedom within their work lives. Right? And I perceive working with developers day in and day out, that what makes them unhappy is that they can't go about doing their work the way they feel they would do. Not that they have the answers, but they feel they would do better if they weren't dictated to regulated and controlled in the way that they are. And, and sometimes that's because of a PMO. Sometimes that's because of the organizational structure. Sometimes that's the marketing department, whatever it is the, the, the product owners and so forth. But whatever it is, there's this conflict and there's this inefficiency of, of development very often that comes from that conflict. Is that fair?

Robert Snyder:

Yeah, I can respond, but I You're still mid thought, aren't you?

Jose Leal:

Yeah, I am. And so I just want to keep, I just want to know, and so I'm, I'm with you. And so for me, the, the VUCA world, just to put all these pieces together here, is about recognizing that things are very dynamic. All of life is dynamic. And as a dynamic system, the more rigidity we put in place, and we pretend that it is not, not a dynamic system, then the dynamism of nature, the dynamism of life smacks us in the face because we've been lying to ourselves all along. That, you know, the project plan is really the project plan, and it's going to work out just as we said it would. And we're going to have these timelines, and they're going to work out just as we said it would. And we have this deadline, and we're going to hit that deadline, and we have this thing that's going to get done when we say it's going to get done, which of course, rarely does it actually happen. So to me, VUCA is really life, and our lives have become complicated by the scale of our technologies, of our systems, of our society, and our, the way that we often work in our organizations and the way our organizations are structured are very often about not recognizing that dynamism that is life. Is that a fair way to, to characterize that?

Robert Snyder:

Yes. I follow what you're saying. I'm dying to respond.

Jose Leal:

Bring it on, man. Bring it on.

Robert Snyder:

So my shortest answer is, I believe VUCA is a license for low expectations within your company. What kind of expectations do you want to set for your team on the topic of rigidity? Well, do you want to respond to that or should I keep going? Okay, keep going. So, I'm a dance instructor, and I, I only teach beginner Latin dance, salsa, bachata, all that stuff. And I distinguish for my students the difference between mechanics and style. And if you're a musician, there's a difference between technique and expression. So there's something called muscle memory. Muscle memory is a form of automation. You know what it also is? It's a form of rigidity. 'cause If I'm doing a salsa step, there's salsa on one, and it's understood and it, and you know, sorry, but it's, it's kind of rigid. And if I'm doing a bachata step, there's a certain step and a tap. And if I'm dancing chacha, there are certain expectations of the mechanics. If I'm playing violin, there are certain things about the technique of playing the violin or the saxophone, or singing and posture of, so again, I'm going to lean on the performing arts to help us stratify what are mechanics versus style. Mechanics says we have a common language, we have common expectations, and there's a boundary between mechanics and style. Because I, as a dance instructor, I'm not going to encroach on my students' style. And that's where I encourage them to take from me in this dance lesson. Only the mechanics. I'm recognizing where I'm strong for my students and where I am not strong, what is my expertise and, and where, what, what are healthy boundaries of leadership. And so I'm not going to apologize for muscle memory because even if it's perceived as rigidity, it is also simple, right? There's a, there's a message that we often hear is simplify, simplify, simplify. Well, once you simplify certain teamwork, you can automate it and you can code it. But the other extreme of, well, it's just vuca. Well then at its absurd end, logical end, why even code? Because code is pretty rigid. And so at what point does your team, like we're on the spectrum of expectations? Do you want to set high expectations? Do you want to set low expectations? What work is mandatory? What is optional? And what is improvised? And it's valuable for teams to stratify those three things. What is muscle memory? What is style? What is technique? What is expression? What is mandatory? What is optional? What is improvised? And when we teach our students, our followers, our teams, our colleagues, the difference between that, then we can reduce this friction reduce the friction, and, and just have better understanding, respect, boundaries. And as soon as we clarify these sorts of things for each other, now we have a license for high expectations. And that's really what I'm aiming for, is I'm trying to convince companies that a license for low expectations, it's not a fun place to work. It's not a profitable place to work. And there are clear tools where you have, you can raise your discipline, raise your empathy that is mechanics and style. And when we have clarity about both of these things, we have a license for high expectations. That's a place I want to be that is a magnificent symphony. That is a magnificent factory. And so my, my paradigm here is I'm trying to craft an elegant, I don't want verb sprawl. I don't want 30 verbs. I don't want this noise. I want the five verbs. I want an elegant, and even if, if the word agreement, if that scares someone who doesn't like the word sign off, let's hedge instead of a team being at a kind of agreement factory, let's call it an expectation, an expectation factory. And I invite people to opt in or opt out. Do you want to be an elegant expectation factory or you signing up for vuca? Either is fine, but it's easy to detect what you choose to be. And it's easy for me to make you own. You're going to own, whether you have a li, whether you are shaping a culture of low expectations and vuca or whether you are shaping a culture of high expectations and elegance.

Jose Leal:

You have just done something that very few people who have been on the podcast have been able to do, which is get me to a point where I'm not sure exactly where you're standing as far as as these two things. So for me, for example, VUCA means this environment of dynamic movement within the laws of physics, within the laws of society, within the structure of, of life. And that within that, organizations tend to actually create more rigidity structure that ignores some of those realities of that dynamism. And the rigidity that, that I speak of is the types of structures which I think you're referring to that say, we have this control. We have that control. We know what this is, we know what that is. And, and we work within those. The, the, that structure to then say VUCA is to some degree under controlled by us, which I think is the mindset of most organizations is to, to, to not have things surprise you. To have, to not have things be volatile, to not have things. Right. And so how do we what, when you just said what you just said, can you put it in those terms just so that I can understand better what your proposing here?

Robert Snyder:

So Jose, I follow what you're saying, and I, and I have no issue with what you're saying, but I'm having trouble grasping the succinct question.

Jose Leal:

So the, the succinct question is when you describe your sort of.

Robert Snyder:

People-Centric methodology.

Jose Leal:

That's not what I heard. So that's, that's why I am Okay. That, that's, that's what I'm asking.

Robert Snyder:

I need, I need to work harder on my messaging.

Jose Leal:

Yeah. So the people-centric methodology that you we're trying to speak to. Leads me to it, it sounded like you were excusing when you said like, oh, I work on software. If, if, if you know, VUCA is real, right? Like because, because

Robert Snyder:

It's always going to change.

Jose Leal:

Right? Everything is dynamic, and there are places where we, we lay constraints in everything we do, right? Every human being could do everything just about right. But we, we know that we shouldn't slap each other. We know that we shouldn't you know, kill each other. We know all of these things. And so there are

Robert Snyder:

Certain expectations.

Jose Leal:

Certain expectations, certain behavioral things that we do for each other. Yeah. And in an organization, those expectations are much more defined and more rigid than in our daily lives, right? And that rigidity.

Robert Snyder:

Or formality, but keep going. Keep going.

Jose Leal:

Formality. Rigidity, okay. I tend to see it from a, having been in, in leadership, it's this mindset of these are the boundaries that this team needs to work within. This is what they need to do, how they need to do it, when they need to do it. And here's the expectations that I have, and let's get, you know, the directors and, and, and the managers and so forth down the line to be able to keep those things in check and, and deliver on that expectation on the, on the whole.

Robert Snyder:

And all those things reject vuca.

Jose Leal:

Yes. Yes. And, and for the most part, don't recognize that these folks are human beings that are seeing things for themselves and are detecting and, and sensing that things aren't exactly as what was expected or, or defined or, or whatever. And saying, well, you know, this can't be done in that timeframe. This can't be done in that way. This is the wrong answer to this problem. There's a different problem than that, that somebody else has defined. That's the reality that I sense in the, in the, you know, specifically in the development space. And so I'm not sure what you are describing is the answer to that, the antidote to that.

Robert Snyder:

So two-way listening is critical. Two-Way accountability is critical. And these cultures shape, you cannot shape a culture of two-way accountability, two-way listening. You cannot simply shape that culture through talk, meetings and emails. So my material formalizes and basically mandates a culture of two-way accountability, and two-way listening. So I think that what you're concerned about is one way accountability or one way listening. So am I, am I tracking?

Jose Leal:

Yeah. I mean, that's a, a way to frame it. Sure.

Robert Snyder:

Yeah. And so, again, let's lean on the performing arts. If I'm on the dance floor and I'm an experienced male dancer, and I'm dancing with an inexperienced female dancer, I better be listening to her in every possible way. I can be listening to her. If I'm a member of a symphony and I'm sitting next to someone who I don't know, has a cold and is unable to sing, sorry, I'm going to change choir instead of a symphony. But they're sneezing or sniffling. I, I'm empathetic that, oh, we're, we're down a soprano. We're down a tenor. So again, the, the, these metaphors of the performing arts, the metaphor of this expectation factory is highly empathetic about what's going on next to you. So, I don't care about your seniority level. You need to be listening to people around you. You need to be attentive. And on another dance trait is elasticity, right? You cannot be rigid on the dance floor, and you cannot be a noodle. You need to balance the muscle tone of your dance partner. It's the same thing in our teams. What does elastic mean? It doesn't mean noodle, it doesn't mean nailing cello to the wall. There's a point of diminishing returns with this word dynamic. Cause at it's logical, extreme, absurd end, it's called chaos. So I, I liked your framework about there's, there's a place for dynamics and style and creativity and ingenuity and strategy and customer empathy. But is it structureless?

Jose Leal:

No. It, it isn't, actually. And that, that was going to lead me to the question about self-management, because we haven't talked about that. And we actually call it co-management. And I suspect we're not going to get to the other topic that we like to talk about, which is co-ownership. But I, I don't think that's an area of work for you. And so I'm going to make that assumption at least. And so the, the question then about self or co-management is how do you feel about the idea that the technology teams that you deal with, the technology departments and so forth, are are bound within this, this organization where they tend to work in a more, let's say, agile way or self-managed way, co-managed way but the organization tends not to be. And so how do you, how do you see that? Is that true? First of all? And, and, well.

Robert Snyder:

So my mind wanders to two words. Accountable. Who am I accountable to? Or am I orphaned? Just how te, just how tethered am I? Do I have a license to be orphaned? How entrepreneurial do I get to be? How much creativity do I get to have? Am I tracking to your question?

Jose Leal:

Yeah.

Robert Snyder:

So I believe everyone, innovators need to decide who are they accountable to? <Laugh>, who do they obey? What do they obey? Innovation teams are.

Jose Leal:

I would like to, I'm not going to interrupt you right there. I like the idea of who do they serve rather than who do they obey?

Robert Snyder:

Yeah. I, I'm, I'm okay with that. I, I obey is unnecessarily provocative, perhaps, but, but if I'm a designer, I need to obey what was upstream. If I'm a programmer, I need to obey. I need to serve what came upstream. I don't get to, oh, the, the time to be creative is not way downstream in a project you need to be, right? There's this thing called traceability. Well, are you signing up for traceability or saying thanks, but no, thanks. I think those, those projects have a term, it's called skunkworks. So if I'm a musician, oh, I see what's on the page, but you know, I'm going to go on my merry way and sing a desk camp to Queen Bohemian Rhapsody when we're here doing Brahms or Beethoven, right? There's a time and place for creativity, and there's a time and place for accountability to the expectations that were set upstream by a customer, by a manager, by a colleague, by Mark, by another department, whatever. So you have to decide, are you part of a team sport or are you playing an individual sport? And if you're not part of this symphony, karaoke is next door.

Jose Leal:

And so, so your view is that the, the organizational structure that defines, we've decided we're going to go work on this project for this client, and somebody has come up with the definition of what the project is, and when the timeline is and, and how we're going to go about it. Here's the five phases that we're going to take, and so on and so forth. That, that is the accountability piece.

Robert Snyder:

We have to have a sense of alignment, fair, whatever that is, however formal or informal explicit or implicit.

Jose Leal:

And is that something that's delivered to me or is that something that I get to work on? Because very often, right, the, the, the PMO walks in and says, here's the project plan.

Robert Snyder:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're, you're tiptoeing into the topic of the cliche, the awful cliche of so many business analysts, change managers, even project managers or developers. They want to be involved. They want to be involved sooner and have a say, not be not just inherit and not be involved in the, in the decision. So that is a absolutely valuable problem to solve, is to involve the right stakeholders at the right time. And what I'm trying to educate my readers, my audiences on is, is a transparent and very visible methodology so that you can minimize feeling like you got involved late.

Jose Leal:

But is the minimization because you, you, you've got fed some information? Or is it because you actually got involved early enough to, to, to be a part of that conversation?

Robert Snyder:

I'm starting to lose track. We got, maybe I put too many metaphors. I'm losing track of where to go.

Jose Leal:

Well, so, so it's, it's sounding to me when I say co-management, what I mean is, is that every individual has something to say, can have something to say about the design of a project. Let's, let's say design of a project is what we're talking about. Okay. And by that I mean, what we're going to do, how we're going to do it, when we're going to do it, all that good stuff, right? Yeah.

Robert Snyder:

We're, we're, we're, we're in the project charter.

Jose Leal:

And, and so now, I, I'm, we define together as a team, and as a team, meaning everybody that yes, this is a good project. Yes, we're going to go build this project in this way, and so on and so forth. And then yes, later on, I was part of that. It felt right at the time. Yeah, maybe now it doesn't feel right and we need to adjust. Yeah. But, but I don't feel like somebody dumped it over the wall Yeah. And told me this is what it's going to be. And I didn't have any say. I didn't have the opportunity to be part of that process.

Robert Snyder:

Yeah. Love that.

Jose Leal:

And so, so for me, that is an organization-wide view. That's what radical organization, a radical company is about, is this idea that fundamentally everybody has to have the right, not be forced, but have the right to be involved in any of these at, at the beginning of these projects, at the engagement with clients, at the engagement and with different departments that everybody is able to walk in and say, here's what I think about this, right? And, and here's how I want to be involved in this, and here's how I don't want to be involved in this. And if we're going to go down this path, I don't want to be doing that. But I do want to be doing that at an early enough stage so that it's not like, well, somebody's already decided and now you're just not complying.

Robert Snyder:

Yeah. Okay. So three responses. I believe there is an important distinction between bang the table leadership and set the table leadership. There's a time for both. And so what you're encouraging is set the table leadership. Love that. Secondly, I love the phrase people will get their say, even if they don't get their way. So I've worked on projects. Most the, the most recent example is in the Salesforce ecosystem. My employer was a large enough company where we had different lines of business. We had insurance, financial services, healthcare, government and more. And it was always interesting to try to optimize across our lines of business. For example, healthcare had really unique requirements that often caused it to be the fly in the ointment and, and hinder alignment because healthcare, our healthcare vertical had unique needs and demands. And that was a, that was a never ending struggle when healthcare is going to get their say. And, and often they got their way. But those are two different things. And so the reason I bring this up is that co-management, okay? But, but I don't, I like the idea of a tiebreaker, because all these verticals reported up to a chief revenue officer, chief operating officer, whatever. And their responsibility is to optimize globally across the lines of business and to minimize optimizing locally, right? We can talk about silos, bureaucracy, right? Right.

Jose Leal:

So exactly where my mind goes with when you describe that in.

Robert Snyder:

That way. And, and so silos and bureaucracy tiptoe into speed and quality. Cause If we're siloed, we jeopardize quality. And if we are bureaucratic, we have too many cooks in the kitchen, then we jeopardize speed, right? So we need to just be attentive and elastic to and avoid both extremes. And, and the approximate Goldilocks level is often good enough. And precision oftentimes is, is less important. So, so in this, this concept of co-management, I do want to add the word tiebreaker because all these decisions, I like the idea of having a built-in micro escalation point. We need to anticipate different brains, different smart people in our organization. We need to anticipate that they're going to disagree. We need to minimize the chance that they demonize or degrade each other. Disagreeing is okay, demonizing not okay. Task, conflict is okay. Personality conflict is o is not okay. Boxing ring of ideas, awesome boxing ring of people, right? And so this is another subtle benefit of the five verbs framework that designates a tiebreaker, designates our micro escalation point, and a sponsor that says, this work is worth putting on paper. This is not overkill to put this decision on paper. And now that it's on paper, we reduce the cost and we improve the safety to change our mind. It's important to enable pivoting where our most important stakeholder is the future version of our team. Six or 12 months from now, let's make it easy for our team six to 12 months from now to change their mind. I believe that's a awesome cultural benefit. But it is an unsung benefit of documentation. So I think I wanted to end on that point about yes, co-management but there's value in a tiebreaker. And when the work is on paper, then we have safety to change our mind. And no one is scared. We reduce being scared to change our mind.

Jose Leal:

Are, are you familiar with liberating structures?

Robert Snyder:

Ev it pops up like every six months. Yeah. And, and what I have been told is this five verbs framework is a liberating structure by having these boundaries, and you minimize noise, you unleash the potential minimizing, reinventing the wheel. And you, again, it, it's muscle memory. These structures can be a form of muscle memory, a form of automation. And now where does our brain power go to? What's creative, right? What's strategic? What is empathetic? What is mischievous? What is fun?

Jose Leal:

The, the reason I bring up liberating structures is because <inaudible>, who is one of the co-founders of it loves to say that everybody gets excited about the liberating, right? Which is involve people get everybody. It's, it's about bringing everybody to the table and not being imposing of decisions, right? I've made the decisions, I'm the decision maker. But more importantly, it's about the structures. It is structures that offer liberation. It's not about liberation without structure.

Robert Snyder:

Right? Minimizing noise ways, maximizing productivity and having clarity.

Jose Leal:

Oh, now you've just said a word that, that scares me. Oh, uhoh. Go ahead. Say finish. What you saying.

Robert Snyder:

That, that, that clarifies what is productivity versus what is activity? A fun lighthearted example is a swimmer. If I'm an Olympic swimmer, what is productivity distance across the pool? What is activity? Strokes and breaths. Don't, don't, don't starve yourself of air and don't expect to get across the pool with one stroke. Take the strokes you need. Take the breaths you need as a swimmer to get the job done. But what is the job? What qualifies as productivity is getting across the pool? And so it's similar in our teams, what is activity? Meetings and emails. But, and productivity is the agreement. Go ahead.

Jose Leal:

And, and productivity to me, very often in our organizations is actually a distraction from the reality.

Robert Snyder:

Say that again. Productivity is a distraction from the reality.

Jose Leal:

Yeah. We often say, are you being productive? Are we being productive? We're outputting stuff. Yes, stuff is getting done. We're being productive. And, but we're not making the impact that we should be making.

Robert Snyder:

Then, then those teams are not aligned about what qualifies as productivity versus what is activity necessary. But it's, but it's activity. But I interrupted. Go ahead.

Jose Leal:

Yeah, no, it, it's not so much about, and I appreciate your distinction between activity and, and productivity, because I, I, I, I often see those two things very much confused, but I'm referring to our focus on productivity. When in reality, we should be focusing on impact. What is it that we are doing, and is it the right things to do? Because we can often be very good at achieving our productivity targets, but all too often our productivity targets are not serving the stakeholders, and they're not serving the people that they're supposed to be impacting in, in a, in an effective

Robert Snyder:

Then you had the wrong assignments.

Jose Leal:

Exactly. And the wrong products and the wrong organization, and all those kinds of things. So for us, and this conversation with radical world, it's important to, to distinguish the, the, the work that you're doing, which is to humanize my, my terminology here, to humanize the, the way that we see work as as a process of human collaboration, not a process of technical functions, right? And so that to me is a huge step in the direction of a radical world. But from our perspective, we still are missing the piece of are we doing this in a collaborative way? Is it co-managed and at organization scale, not simply at team scale, right? And is it co-owned? Which is not a topic for today, but we're running out of time. We've run out of time. But it is a, a conversation around, you know, we, we talk about the, the CIO, the CEO, and the, the VP of this and the VP of that. Those are structures of people who don't have the, that have some skin in the game, whereas the people that they're leading don't have skin in the game, right? They're mo for the most part, not co-owners of the organizations and don't have the say in those organizations about how we're doing it and how we're not doing and what we are doing. Because we not only have to be good at doing what we are doing productivity, we also have to do the right things. And most organizations today, I down here in the valley, right? Silicon Valley, and a lot of the organizations around here, and a lot of the people that I know that work in these organizations, their issue isn't just how we do it. And are we being efficient enough? Their issue is what are we doing? And are these organizations doing the right things? And, and I know that, that, Robert, that that's not a conversation that you have or necessarily part of the work that you're doing, but it is for us.

Robert Snyder:

It, it is, again, I'm respecting our time constraints today. It is because, because the methodology, the material that I'm proposing is extremely scalable. Just because you're at a certain seniority doesn't mean this is less relevant. You may just be upstream, but your work. So, so I am, I'm promoting forced collaboration or opting out and saying, you know what? This bit of work, it's not collaborative, but I want you to own every piece of work and distinguish, this is collaborative. This is not collaborative, this is collaborative, this is not collaborative. And how, and I'm, I'm aiming to maximize the ease and the transparency, the simplicity of synchronizing, synchronizing all those expectations, minimizing surprises. So it is about, it is about forced collaboration. If you want to be part of the symphony, please stay. And if you don't, karaoke is next door. Do, do you consider business? Do you consider business a team sport? Then you must operate within a symphony, and you must imitate it. If your project plan doesn't imitate a symphony, you sound terrible.

Jose Leal:

And, and that.

Robert Snyder:

But pick your metaphor, right? Pick your verbs.

Jose Leal:

Right. And then in, in our view of it, which is not dissimilar from what you just said as an organization, we assemble ourselves as that symphony. So it's not at the project level that we decide, or at the team level that we decide whether to be in the symphony or not. That's already down the line. The organization is that symphony or not? And if you want to be in the organization, fine. If you don't want to be in the organization, fine. But it's at the organization level that we make that question, are we in collaboration or not? Right? And, and that's different because today's organizations aren't structured that way. But that's what we're exploring and advocating is an, an, an organization that is collaborative from day one and at scale, meaning within all corners of the organization. There is a, a collaboration ethos and an understanding that I can work on these projects, work with, with these clients from a collaborative standpoint, from day one, not because I work in this department of five, we're agile. But over there they're not. And over there they're not. And above me, they're not. Right.

Robert Snyder:

That symphony sounds terrible.

Jose Leal:

Exactly. And that's, I think, the world today, right? Yeah.

Robert Snyder:

Are we ready for a closing statement? Can I try to tie this up in a bow? And

Jose Leal:

Please, I would love a closing statement because it's been fun. Thank you.

Robert Snyder:

Thank you. I've enjoyed this conversation as well. We, we kind of subtitled this solving vuca and I would ask your audience, your community don't surrender to vuca. I am clearly obsessed with solving vuca. And if you believe these metaphors and the mechanics and the money profile and the job market and our mental health, if you have enough faith in this ambition to convert communication traffic jams to communication symphonies, please get in touch. Because that is what I'm doing, is I'm converting these frustration factories to elegant expectation factories. And if I don't succeed, someone will come after me, and they will, because the money dictates it. You can ignore the laws of gravity. The laws of gravity do not ignore you. Your company may be in meeting, hell, meeting gridlock. You can ignore the laws of marginal cost, but the laws of marginal cost do not ignore you. So if not, now, it's, it's coming. Low, marginal cost is coming for you, even if it's not me. But look me up.

Jose Leal:

I hope they do. I hope they do. And I, I hope that you can find clients that need to understand that it is about collaboration, because that is the, the future of work at whatever scale we we choose to work on. Thank you. Thank you, you, Robert, for that and for, for the work I would like to announce tomorrow's guest, which is Jevon McCormick board member of Conscious Capitalism. And I'm looking forward to that. 'cause I have a colleague who's worked with him in at Conscious Capitalism, and I've never had the opportunity to meet him. So looking forward to that. Again, Robert, thank you so much for today and for this conversation. And off the air, I'd love to, to to have some follow up conversations because I, I, to be honest, found it a little difficult to follow some of your terminology and would like to, my suspicion is there's, there's stuff there that would be interesting to learn from and to possibly bring in, in, into our understanding of how this radical world is going to unfold. So appreciate all of that work and the stuff that you're doing. Cool. Thank you.

Robert Snyder:

Same.

Jose Leal:

Cheers.

Robert Snyder:

Cheers.