Addressing the glitch in the Matrix
In The Matrix, deja vu is a glitch in the system a sign that something bigger is at play. Photo by CBR.COM
Deja vu is the feeling that one has lived through the present situation before. In a work context, deja vu presents itself as a problem or challenge that has echoes of something you have seen before.
Most of the time it is something fleeting and we are able to shrug it off as simply a coincidence and of insignificance. Sometimes, it's more like in The Matrix, where deja vu is a glitch in the system and is a sign that something bigger is at play. A skill to develop in our teams is to identify when a repeating occurrence is a coincidence and when it is a signal of more significance.
In complex systems, where cause and effect are not linear and often not obvious, it is useful to pay attention to signals (sometimes faint and sometimes infrequent) that provide insight into how things are actually working (which can be very different to how we think or want things to work!). Identifying when it's a glitch rather than a coincidence allows us to identify patterns that can help us understand how our teams are operating.
Here's how two teams may approach the same problem as either a coincidence or a glitch.
Problem: The team is overwhelmed by the length and number of its meetings, which is placing pressure on individual and collective workload.
Team Coincidence:
OK, let's have half the time in each of our meetings in meetings.
Emails triple because the topics that would usually be covered in the meetings aren't being addressed and the problem shifts from meetings to emails (to phone calls, to IM chat, and so on)
Team Glitch:
OK, what's really going on here?
The team decides that it actually needs better ways to communicate and make decisions.
A solution combining meeting structure, shared files and communication channels is trialed and iterations are made.
Without being aware, the coincidental view spends its time fixing different versions of the same problem. They end up going in loops.
With more curiosity, the glitch view addresses a deeper cause of this (and potentially other) issues and enter into an upward spiral.
More on loops and spirals next week. For this week, here are a few questions to consider in your teams:
Does your team spend its time fixing different versions of the same problem?
How could you be more curious about getting a deeper understanding of how things are working in your teams?