The Problem Was Never Effort

When a team or a community gets stuck in a complex transition, we usually blame effort, caring, or resources.

But in my experience, it's rarely any of those.

This post explains that most problems stem from fragmentation.

In over twelve years working alongside people in the chaotic middle of transitions:

• in rooms I facilitated,

  
  

• classrooms I taught, and

  
  

• organizations trying to move forward together,

  
  

the same pattern kept showing up.

Recurring problems were typically not due to a lack of effort.

They were not due to a lack of caring.

And when people pointed at resources, that wasn't it either.

The problem was fragmentation.

Everyone is doing their part.

Everyone has their nose to the grindstone.

Everyone is doing what they know, or what is expected of them, to move their needle.

But too often, no one is coordinating the system.

Notice what these have in common. Nobody is failing.

Every part is functioning. The whole is simply not.

The Head and The Heart

Fragmentation happens because the system design lacks a cyclic acknowledgment that people operate with both their head and their heart.

The Head. The system must have empirical data, metrics, systems, and processes that are the coordination architecture that allows the system to move forward efficiently and purposefully based on observable and logical evidence.

This part of the system allows measurement against expectations and tracks whether progress and results are efficient or acceptable for risk and expected outcomes.

The Heart. The system must also acknowledge that people operate it, and their drive to contribute includes recognition of their human contribution.

This means what drives contribution involves psychology, emotional intelligence, effective communication, and the willingness to allow creative and collective ideas to innovate and improve the overall system, by those actually running it in practice.

When no one designs or coordinates the cyclic movements within the system, people start to feel unseen, in competition, and unsure whether their contribution matters.

A system that prioritizes one of these over the other will have constraints on efficiency and productivity, or get stuck with people not understanding why.

Something to sit with

Where in your system is everyone doing their part, but no one is coordinating the whole?

You don't need to fix it today.

Just notice where it lives.

I'd love to hear from you!

Let me know in the comments what you're noticing now.