Today's USAF AIM Points feature article was:
Academy to transform character development program
The article discusses the development of a new leadership and character development center at the USAF Academy (USAFA) in Colorado. Although the article doesn't describe the new curriculum, which I am very interested in learning more about, it does start me thinking about good questions for the new center director.
Knowing how leadership was taught to me at my commissioning source, in the Air & Space Basic Course, and in my correspondence course for Squadron Officer School, the focus was on the Übermensch of leaders with very specific traits: charismatic, outgoing, and married to their one vision of the future. We know these leaders had the right traits because their visions came true. They were unlike all those other leaders whose visions didn't come true, but were none the less charismatic and outgoing.
My wondering is will USAFA continue trying to develop Übermensch leaders, or will they focus on helping the students discover the students' individual leadership preferences and help them build plans for using their strengths and overcoming areas that... well aren't preferred by that individual?
This idea of developing mitigation to a leader's leadership preferences is central to the journal paper Frank and I wrote a few years ago (and honestly, we need to blog about shortly). Considering that each system is a different mix of challenges, by which different leadership preferences are needed, then leaders can only excel if they are either lucky enough to only encounter problems matching to their preferred way of solving problems or have developed contingency plans for problems that the leader would normally try sub-optimal methods.
Our challenge, as systemic leaders is to understand how to reign in our preferences and develop plans that help us see when our preferred methods may not yield fruit and intentionally choose other methods that are more likely to succeed.
If this type of leadership self-exploration is going to be embraced at USAFA, then my hats off to them. But until they provide something for us to review, we will have to seek other ways of getting our message out and hoping they hear the good word.
Read More......
Friday, August 28, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Systemic Views from the Web
I listen to IEEE Spectrum Radio (here). Often that podcast takes a broad view of issues in various marketplaces. The article below relates to our previous post about Black Swan Events.
"Mediocrity beats unpredictability", here, posted in January 2009. The article starts off with "The holiday shopping season was a disaster for retailers... Only a select few did better than last year, including Walmart and Apple. ...ask yourself: which is better—a store with lots of stuff, some great, some not, or a consistent experience?" This is a discussion on why people choose consistency (even if mediocre) over randomly great/not-so-good. Arguably, this demonstrates one way in which the normal group behavior of people seems to avoid risk and uncertainty. Read More......
"Mediocrity beats unpredictability", here, posted in January 2009. The article starts off with "The holiday shopping season was a disaster for retailers... Only a select few did better than last year, including Walmart and Apple. ...ask yourself: which is better—a store with lots of stuff, some great, some not, or a consistent experience?" This is a discussion on why people choose consistency (even if mediocre) over randomly great/not-so-good. Arguably, this demonstrates one way in which the normal group behavior of people seems to avoid risk and uncertainty. Read More......
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Black Swan Part I
Just started reading Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable." I picked the book up on Wednesday on my return trip from Los Angeles and talking with Frank. I was able to get through part one on the flight. This isn't so much a book review, as a discussion of how reading this book impacts thoughts on systemic approaches to leadership.
A "Black Swan Event" is something that is rare (specifically outliers), has extreme impact (changes world views), and has retrospective (but not predictive) predictability. In essence, Black Swan Events are those rare things that we never really thought would happen (because if we really thought that, we would have prepared), has a great effect upon us, and in retrospect we feel that the event was obvious in its cause and retrospective predictability. Examples given include: Europeans sighting their first ever black swan in Australia, 1980's market crash, 9/11, World War II, and others (the 2008/2009 "recession" could be viewed as a black swan event also). Taleb conjectures that the rate of occurrence of black swan events will increase as our systems become more complex, interconnected, and interdependent.
Taleb does an outstanding job in part one explaining the interplay between humans, statistics (randomness), and our limited ability to handle things that haven't happened before. This manifests itself in his addressing common logical fallicies that people engage in while talking about statistical concepts. For example, any cancer patient should know the difference between "No Evidence of Disease" and "Evidence of No Disease". The former is what doctors are able to determine after cancer treatments, the later is what an optimistic patient may (falsely) believe after being told there is no evidence of the cancer. Of course, the truth is we can never be sure that something doesn't exist, but we can say that we found no evidence that it does.
This brings us to our first concept from the book, that many acquisition program managers believe that they can determine that their program is healthy, while they really should be trying to determine if there is no evidence of severe problems. From talking with several very transactional oriented program managers, many state that their programs are healthy because "nobody has shown me any problem". And then a black swan event will occur, something that the transactional PM wasn't watching for in their carefully crafted list of risk items. Unfortunately, the PM in this case is likely to end up in the same emotional roller-coaster as the cancer patient, learning that "recurrence" really means that we didn't see the evidence earlier. Audit agencies will enter and determine that the black swan event was indeed predictable (but not admitting that the predictability is only with the benefit of hindsight), if only the PM had tracked some other metrics or made some other decisions.
In another example, Taleb discusses how at a conference on randomness at a casino that the casino indicated that none of their biggest 5 losses were due to anything their models had predicted. Indeed, problems such as kidnappings, attempted bombings, employees not sending in tax forms (hiding the forms), and others lost the casino more money than any other source, such as cheating. This brings up that although casinos understand and manage the risk of cheaters, whales (high limit gamblers), and other aspects around their principal statistical risk model very well, the real black swan events come from previously unexpected other sources.
To a transformational leader, obviously opening the aperture by developing subordinates to consider and lead proactive responses to those events that could be fatal to the project is a key idea. But the systemic leader must go further and identify ways to reward the team for identifying risks outside the principal project, learn how to handle information about risks with ultra-low probabilities, and restructure the network of of the program to more effectively contain or eliminate risks.
In our first paper (posted about here), we discussed the 1996 Ariane 5 launch failure. This failure can be ascribed to a black swan event of forms:
I think that using the constructs presented by Taleb about conceptualizing the highly improbable (which strangely enough, may be very probable in highly complex, interconnected, and interdependent systems) may be a good mental skill for a systemic leader to know.
More about this book next week, as I get to part two.
Read More......
A "Black Swan Event" is something that is rare (specifically outliers), has extreme impact (changes world views), and has retrospective (but not predictive) predictability. In essence, Black Swan Events are those rare things that we never really thought would happen (because if we really thought that, we would have prepared), has a great effect upon us, and in retrospect we feel that the event was obvious in its cause and retrospective predictability. Examples given include: Europeans sighting their first ever black swan in Australia, 1980's market crash, 9/11, World War II, and others (the 2008/2009 "recession" could be viewed as a black swan event also). Taleb conjectures that the rate of occurrence of black swan events will increase as our systems become more complex, interconnected, and interdependent.
Taleb does an outstanding job in part one explaining the interplay between humans, statistics (randomness), and our limited ability to handle things that haven't happened before. This manifests itself in his addressing common logical fallicies that people engage in while talking about statistical concepts. For example, any cancer patient should know the difference between "No Evidence of Disease" and "Evidence of No Disease". The former is what doctors are able to determine after cancer treatments, the later is what an optimistic patient may (falsely) believe after being told there is no evidence of the cancer. Of course, the truth is we can never be sure that something doesn't exist, but we can say that we found no evidence that it does.
This brings us to our first concept from the book, that many acquisition program managers believe that they can determine that their program is healthy, while they really should be trying to determine if there is no evidence of severe problems. From talking with several very transactional oriented program managers, many state that their programs are healthy because "nobody has shown me any problem". And then a black swan event will occur, something that the transactional PM wasn't watching for in their carefully crafted list of risk items. Unfortunately, the PM in this case is likely to end up in the same emotional roller-coaster as the cancer patient, learning that "recurrence" really means that we didn't see the evidence earlier. Audit agencies will enter and determine that the black swan event was indeed predictable (but not admitting that the predictability is only with the benefit of hindsight), if only the PM had tracked some other metrics or made some other decisions.
In another example, Taleb discusses how at a conference on randomness at a casino that the casino indicated that none of their biggest 5 losses were due to anything their models had predicted. Indeed, problems such as kidnappings, attempted bombings, employees not sending in tax forms (hiding the forms), and others lost the casino more money than any other source, such as cheating. This brings up that although casinos understand and manage the risk of cheaters, whales (high limit gamblers), and other aspects around their principal statistical risk model very well, the real black swan events come from previously unexpected other sources.
To a transformational leader, obviously opening the aperture by developing subordinates to consider and lead proactive responses to those events that could be fatal to the project is a key idea. But the systemic leader must go further and identify ways to reward the team for identifying risks outside the principal project, learn how to handle information about risks with ultra-low probabilities, and restructure the network of of the program to more effectively contain or eliminate risks.
In our first paper (posted about here), we discussed the 1996 Ariane 5 launch failure. This failure can be ascribed to a black swan event of forms:
- Before the launch, everyone thought the probability of a software defect really causing a loss of that mission was very low
- During the boost phase, a software error caused the Ariane 5 to self-destruct (loss of mission) - truly an extreme impact on the mission
- And lastly, in retrospect, the failure cause was obvious, as well as the way to prevent that type of failure in the future
I think that using the constructs presented by Taleb about conceptualizing the highly improbable (which strangely enough, may be very probable in highly complex, interconnected, and interdependent systems) may be a good mental skill for a systemic leader to know.
More about this book next week, as I get to part two.
Read More......
Thursday, August 20, 2009
First Public Talk on Systemic Leadership (June 2007)
I'm back from the Thanksgiving holiday and feeling nostalgic (originally posted in another blog on 9 Dec 2008).
Frank Sisti and I gave a talk in June 2007 at the 19th System and Software Technology Conference (SSTC) (link here in CrossTalk on the conference). This was to be our first dual brief on Systemic Leadership, although the title, "Acquiring and Engineering for Net-Centric Space Systems", seemed a bit vague. Looking back, this talk seems to have been ages ago, but in reality, the conference was just over 18 months ago.
About the Talk
This first talk gives a descent overview of the types of software failures that come from working highly complex systems. This talk goes into the people, management, and leadership issues that naturally come out from dealing with sufficiently "new to the domain" software applications.
Some effort is taken to develop the case proffered in our first post that there may exist some leadership mismatch between the types of leaders typically used in military acquisitions (Title 10 trained military officers) and those truly organizationally transformational projects that require equally transformational leadership.
One initial limit of our first talk was the focus on the development of software in support of novel space systems. In this way, we were able to echo the calls of others for the creation of software expertise to reside in the customer's acquisition organization (a point made by Glaseman in 1982, for example). Overviews were given of how to structure software expertise to support leadership at the acquisition program office and acquisition center levels.
The slides from the talk are currently available here. There are 24 references in the slide set, beyond the content described above. The SSTC is an informal professional conference, so no formal papers were submitted.
That was an interesting walk down memory lane. The next entry for me to write will be on the Journal Paper we wrote later that year (which, ultimately took much longer than anticipated to write). Read More......
Frank Sisti and I gave a talk in June 2007 at the 19th System and Software Technology Conference (SSTC) (link here in CrossTalk on the conference). This was to be our first dual brief on Systemic Leadership, although the title, "Acquiring and Engineering for Net-Centric Space Systems", seemed a bit vague. Looking back, this talk seems to have been ages ago, but in reality, the conference was just over 18 months ago.
This first talk gives a descent overview of the types of software failures that come from working highly complex systems. This talk goes into the people, management, and leadership issues that naturally come out from dealing with sufficiently "new to the domain" software applications.
Some effort is taken to develop the case proffered in our first post that there may exist some leadership mismatch between the types of leaders typically used in military acquisitions (Title 10 trained military officers) and those truly organizationally transformational projects that require equally transformational leadership.
One initial limit of our first talk was the focus on the development of software in support of novel space systems. In this way, we were able to echo the calls of others for the creation of software expertise to reside in the customer's acquisition organization (a point made by Glaseman in 1982, for example). Overviews were given of how to structure software expertise to support leadership at the acquisition program office and acquisition center levels.
The slides from the talk are currently available here. There are 24 references in the slide set, beyond the content described above. The SSTC is an informal professional conference, so no formal papers were submitted.
That was an interesting walk down memory lane. The next entry for me to write will be on the Journal Paper we wrote later that year (which, ultimately took much longer than anticipated to write). Read More......
"Advice for a new SECDEF?"
(Initially published article on 16 Nov 2008)
Dan Ward, a well known author in the DoD's AT&L magazine, asked in an online discussion group what advice you would give the upcoming SECDEF on the issues of our poor performance in acquisition activities. (in reference to this article from IEEE Spectrum http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/weapons)
My response was:
One concept that a few of us have been discussing is the mismatch between the the types of systems we want to acquire (disruptive/asymmetric) and the corps of individuals we have leading the acquisitions (title 10 trained officers, APDP/known metrics based acquisition managers).
I hypothesize that we cannot truly acquire asymmetric or disruptive technologies with people who are trained to use management techniques or leadership principles that are best suited for containing known problems. Leaders and acquisition directors who are used to directing their subordinates inherently build a program that works for that leader's and how that leader structures the organization to acquire the system (Conway's Law: "Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." - Brooks). Inherently, title 10 military officers are trained to be this kind of top-down leader for very good reasons. Unfortunately, that leadership style tends to not work so well with disruptive projects.
One suggestion would be to be very deliberative about recruiting, training, and developing leaders that can acquire and field disruptive technologies. Some research that we've done indicates that transformational leadership preferences** work better for novel and disruptive technology programs. If the new SECDEF can figure out a way to establish action level leaders (program managers/directors) that can promote an effective acquisition environment for specific disruptive programs, we may be able to adequately control our acquisitions - not by using the techniques that have worked in the past, but by the PM working with talented/skilled/not-yet-blinded-to-new-t
Read More......
Dan Ward, a well known author in the DoD's AT&L magazine, asked in an online discussion group what advice you would give the upcoming SECDEF on the issues of our poor performance in acquisition activities. (in reference to this article from IEEE Spectrum http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/weapons)
My response was:
One concept that a few of us have been discussing is the mismatch between the the types of systems we want to acquire (disruptive/asymmetric) and the corps of individuals we have leading the acquisitions (title 10 trained officers, APDP/known metrics based acquisition managers).
I hypothesize that we cannot truly acquire asymmetric or disruptive technologies with people who are trained to use management techniques or leadership principles that are best suited for containing known problems. Leaders and acquisition directors who are used to directing their subordinates inherently build a program that works for that leader's and how that leader structures the organization to acquire the system (Conway's Law: "Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." - Brooks). Inherently, title 10 military officers are trained to be this kind of top-down leader for very good reasons. Unfortunately, that leadership style tends to not work so well with disruptive projects.
One suggestion would be to be very deliberative about recruiting, training, and developing leaders that can acquire and field disruptive technologies. Some research that we've done indicates that transformational leadership preferences** work better for novel and disruptive technology programs. If the new SECDEF can figure out a way to establish action level leaders (program managers/directors) that can promote an effective acquisition environment for specific disruptive programs, we may be able to adequately control our acquisitions - not by using the techniques that have worked in the past, but by the PM working with talented/skilled/not-yet-blinded-to-new-t
**Transformational Leadership, as proposed by Bass and Burns, pardon the buzzword sounding name, is an actual preference of leadership action dating back to the 1970's which focuses on "leaders and followers raising one another to higher levels of motivation". Contrast with the more typical transactional leadership preference (common to title 10 military training), in which the leader tells the subordinate what to do or what to be responsible for (also covers contingent reward, where we reward people for doing what we told them) *** I'm intentionally avoiding trite suggestions such as "long term, stable funding from Congress for acquisition programs" and similar, as such suggestions are too far away from the US Constitutional prohibitions on separation of powers and changes there may lead to other very undesirable consequences. |
Systemic Leadership
Welcome to our blog on Systemic Leadership.
This community is for discussion on how leadership can impact the development, deployment, employment, and success of disruptive technology projects. Different leadership traits thave different impacts on disruptive technology projects. Our work focuses on building theories of interaction between quantifiable leadership traits and projects through case studies, quantitative studies of families of projects, and current event anecdotes.
What are some examples? The leader who is more worried about the correct cover on a TPS report than in your feedback on the project to use Web 2.0 technologies to make your products more available to new users - that leader has a mismatched leadership style. Another leader who is more concerned with developing your understanding and engagement in Web 2.0 may be a better match.
In some of our prior work, we have exposed some of these mismatches - some to United Stated Department of Defense weapon acquisitions (see the Nov 2008 IEEE Spectrum article asking a leadership question about how to acquire weapons here) and some to more benign (and more commonly known) technologies, such as MP3 music sharing. Read More......
This community is for discussion on how leadership can impact the development, deployment, employment, and success of disruptive technology projects. Different leadership traits thave different impacts on disruptive technology projects. Our work focuses on building theories of interaction between quantifiable leadership traits and projects through case studies, quantitative studies of families of projects, and current event anecdotes.
What are some examples? The leader who is more worried about the correct cover on a TPS report than in your feedback on the project to use Web 2.0 technologies to make your products more available to new users - that leader has a mismatched leadership style. Another leader who is more concerned with developing your understanding and engagement in Web 2.0 may be a better match.
In some of our prior work, we have exposed some of these mismatches - some to United Stated Department of Defense weapon acquisitions (see the Nov 2008 IEEE Spectrum article asking a leadership question about how to acquire weapons here) and some to more benign (and more commonly known) technologies, such as MP3 music sharing. Read More......
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)