Systems Thinking and Strategy for Leaders with Mike Jones - OrgDev Episode 23

In the latest episode of the OrgDev Podcast, we were joined by the excellent Mike Jones, founder and director of LBI Consulting. In this brilliant conversation, Mike brings a unique combination of experiences from military leadership and elite sports teams to organisational psychology and systems thinking. Mike unpacks what we so often get wrong about military-style command and control and the critical role of system design in organisational operations.    

Mike's journey is remarkable: he enlisted in the army at 16 without any qualifications, taught himself psychology and organizational studies, and became an instructor at Sandhurst. Determined to further his education, he wrote to every University in the UK to find one willing to allow him to formalise his learning.

💼 About our Guest

Mike Jones
  / mike-h-jones 

LBI Consulting:
https://lbiconsulting.com/

Mike Jones is the founder and director of LBI Consulting, a firm that integrates organisational psychology, systems thinking, and extensive leadership experience to help organisations navigate complexity. LBI Consulting focuses on developing and aligning strategy, organisational design, and culture based on research and practical solutions.

As a leader, organisational psychologist, and systems thinker, Mike navigates the complexities of contemporary organisations by developing foresight, strategy, and alignment.

Mike's leadership journey includes extensive service in the British Army, where he led troops in challenging environments. His leadership skills earned him a position as an instructor at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, a globally renowned institution for leadership training, where he helped shape future military leade

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Transcript

Transcript:

(00:00) hi and welcome to the org Dev podcast so what happens when you merge organizational psychology systems thinking uh the ability to help organizations navigate complexity and then you add extensive leadership experience gained in the military then also add experience of working with Elite sports teams and also sanur one of the world's leading training centers in the world you get Mike Jones who is our guest today and we're actually delighted to have Mike he's the founder and director of LBI Consulting since 2017

(00:32) Mike develops and aligns strategy organizational design and culture to deliver straightforward research-based strategic Solutions which we like we like stroke forward don't we dny we do so Mike has a really fascinating Journey that we really want to explore it's rooted in his extensive service in the British army where he led troops in challenging and hostile environments we really appreciate Mike's evidencebased approach so so Mike is actually we we found him through Linkedin he's a reluctant LinkedIn but but what he

(01:01) shares on there is real goals and he's on a mission to challenge some of the myths around strategy organizations and Leadership so as I mentioned he's been a leadership development consultant in Elite Sport for places like wasps rugby and the Rugby Football Union and he was selected as an instructor at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst a globally renowned Institution for leadership training and he really takes a systems thinking approach and Mike is it fair to say you're an advocate of Stafford

(01:28) Beer's viable systems model as well oh yes I'm a proper Fanboy um of of Staff of beer it's the sort of backbone to a lot of my work brilliant so so welcome and thank you so much for joining us thank you that's probably the nicest thing anyone said to me so yeah being here and it's recorded so you can just play it back now yeah yeah BR it's lovely to have you with us Mike thanks for joining us so just to kick us off just tell us a bit more about what you do what your role involves what your organization's all

(01:59) about it sort of emerged over time you know sort of develop developed to where it is now and really we do everything from the future so understanding the future and external environment to to developing strategy and then ensuring then that the organization and the culture are are supported to enable that to that strategy to be executed so with there is a myriad of complex weaves and messes that we have to untangle but I suppose that's what makes it really enjoyable exciting F and what sort of organizations are you doing that work

(02:33) with maybe larger organizations so we do a lot of work with network rail uh we've done work with NHS sort of big engineering companies so it sort of split my time split between sort of 50% public and 50% private but I think um some of them would probably want me just there permanently but I try to get away when I can and and these are organizations which are almost like final level boss systems aren't they they don't get much more complex than like Network work rail or NH systems so just how do you go about approaching

(03:05) them in the first place uh it's it's often You' got to be really careful when we go into an organization around what what what's your focus the boundary because it's quite easy in those organizations to sort of just um you know become a monolithic Intervention when it doesn't need to so you got to be really strict around we call it boundary like what's in the system what's outside the system um where where we going to call the edge so that we can do what we need to do in here but still recognize

(03:35) it's inter connection with the w system and I think that's that's the key it's like one make it very focused on what we're doing so we actually achieve the results that we need and what we brought in for but then still not ignoring the The Wider interconnections of the um system which by any means as soon as you go in and start tampering you are going to have some probably expected or unexpected impact onto the wider system so yeah it gets it gets very difficult and they're often quite messy because

(04:05) they're so they especially with some of the larger organizations that what people should be doing and should be doing what should be there what isn't there becomes very messy and so we spend a long time just trying to unpick it and think you know what is going on what what's missing you know what don't we know about this system which comes very quite complex and it's quite easy for the leaders that we supportting to be sort of overwhelmed in that in that space and we just try to keep it focused

(04:34) and break it down to manageable pieces so we're not overwhelming the system and the people involved yeah and there could be quite a lot of legacy and baggage can't there in those types of organizations they'll have had other projects other Consultants you know there there have been a a whole history of that yes um you often um when I go into an organization I always asked like what's the biggest thing that's just happened or has happened in the past what's the biggest change last thing

(04:59) that's gone through um and I find out who was there and go speak to them and go what what went well what didn't go well you know what what we taking into the future um with that baggage try and understand it so any intervention we do we are sort of nodding towards that so we we're recognizing yes things aren't perfect but we we're going to try and um overcome that as we move forward and it all depends really some of the leadership teams you go into depends how fractious they are or how much baggage

(05:31) there is you know I joked earlier but it is on sometimes it's like you know am I going in with some tissues or a gum Shield um and and that's what it is like sometimes initially because of that baggage um hopefully it's um neither but you never know you are our first ever systems thinking guest on the podcast and we really want to introduce people that are watching this and our audience have come from a whole variety of different backgrounds so some people um accomplished OD practitioners some people are sort of blending it with

(06:05) another role so maybe HR or uh engagement whatever and and some might be sort of exploring it or even potentially thinking about commissioning sort of this kind of work so just as a bit of sort of an introduction could you just tell us a little bit more about sort of systems thinking maybe just give us an overview of of of how Stafford Beer's model works and how it kind of informs your work yeah there's there's quite a few approaches with persistant thinking I I mainly um use Stafford beers viable systs model um and it

(06:33) really appreciates the sort of messiness of organizations and the interconnecting this and the emergence that happens with organizations so Stafford's model is broken down into in several systems that you look what five systems and it's about how do these systems relate with each other and it's all about uh control and um command and control or communication control probably the best word for it um so that this the system can be viable and the whole principle of Beer's work is to make sure that the

(07:07) organization self-organizing so it can organize itself without any external um influence or intervention um it's self-regulating so that it can monitor itself and adapt as it needs to to um feedback loops and then that it's adaptable over time and that's what you want uh as you go through and they're sort my key measures the systems working you youve got systems one which is the operations so that that is when you're in design that the most crucial part that's making sure that that those U

(07:39) those operations are designed in a way that can deal with the variety that's faced from the external environment can handle that value and can handle the variety is faced then you have uh system two which is coordination so that's making sure that you know all the parts that are working you can have them as autonomous as possible but ensuring that they are not going to mess each other up so actually they can work autonomously but U they are the coordination works so they can you know work effectively to

(08:09) accommodate uh and then you got system three which is all about insiding today so that's really making sure performance resources um they're agreed the resources are there for them so the operations can do their job and there's also that that that line of the sort of the organizational Mandate of right the policies and process you need to do then you have uh system four which which is all about outside in the future so that's intelligence Innovation strategy and that relationship between three and

(08:36) four needs to work because three is all about like how do we perform and get Superior value efficiently possible today where system four is all about well what what's happening what's changing and how do we get these adaptions into the organization so that we are ready for the future as it comes and then system five is the identity and governance is is mainly about identity it's about how do we get that that um vertical cohesion so like culture identity values of the business so we got really core um cohesion which then

(09:12) enables um our operational parts to be autonomous as possible and it it's the only approach that I really found that handles that difficult challenge of how how do we make sure that we can have the autonomy so that we can deal with the variety we're faced with but still we are cohesive enough that we don't start to fracture away as an organization wow these are these are the real sort of questions that sit in the center of any organization aren't there as well I have to commend you I've watched so many

(09:40) descriptions of Stafford Bear's model and that's the best one yet I know doubt there be other system thinkers on there that probably critique it but that's that's the life of anything that's the same as psychology same as s always ready to critique brilliant um and we've got lots of questions about your methodology and you work with clients but I guess you've got such an interesting journey and in that Journey are some really interesting perspectives so what what was your journey to your current role like how

(10:11) did it happen did you set out intentionally to become a consultant or did it just sort of just happened through opportunity or or challenges that you met no I wish I would say it was planned people have often asked me how did you how did you do this I'm like don't know it happened um I suppose in it it's sort of an odd one because I was a soldier for 18 years and uh you know if you if if if all had stayed the same if You' spoke to me now I'd still be a soldier I I would be um I I was in the

(10:42) army that was it I was going to be in the Army till I was retired across the old hopefully Colonel by that point but um unfortunately I was I was diagnosed with complex BTSD and I was discharged about seven years ago uh which was a complete shock to me it was a you know unwielding shock I never expected it to happen not only just going through what I was going through but the fact that you know I've now lost my identity I don't know what I am without the Army and but but luckily before before that happened I had a real like quite bad

(11:15) incident in Afghanistan to when I was leading people I it made me realize the fundamental question that why why do people follow you because they want to not because they have to and that got me really um intrigued and when I came back I went straight onto Amazon I was just like right I need books I need to read and bear in mind at this point in bit context I I joined the army because I have no education not because of anything I didn't I fell with GCS and I went into the the Army and I hadn't read a book at that point I've never read a

(11:48) full book so I I went and got a book actually it was David marquette's turn the ship around yeah my first start wow yeah yeah so I picked that up and then I was just fascinated about this concept of leadership and I know in the military we always go on about leadership and um you know but it's one of those things you sort of take for granted because it just sort of happens um so I started reading and I taught myself psychology uh leadership then got me onto psychology so I started teaching myself cognitive psychology then I got the the

(12:21) chance to be selected um to be instructed at the Royal Military Academy which was was fantastic was a fantastic place to to to be uh with the future officers of the British Army and then I I sort of was building up all this experience but then I had no medium to do anything because I had because I had no qualifications I I thought that was it so I I I then thought you know what I'm gonna I'm just G to do it and I wrote to every University in the UK and said I've got no education I've been teaching myself um psychology can I

(12:52) please can I please come on your courses and you know I I had no clue what the difference between a degree or Masters or anything I a PhD I I haven't got a clue I just knew University was a place that you can go to and get um qualifications um and a said no or just flat out ignored me wolver Hampton know BL they they gave me an opportunity they they interviewed me um they just supported me and they let me come on their course so I I then um studied to become occupation psychologist um which is a great honor uh and that first time

(13:26) when I was sat there and they were like write an essay I was like what is this um have I made the wrong choice here um but I I got through and then I sort of gone back a bit but when I was discharged I I was still fascinated and I I found leadership and psychology and wanted to help people understand this is the thing that was my purpose that got me through and I didn't know what consultancy was you know I I haven't got a clue I've been in the Army since I was 17 you know I had no clue at all so I

(13:59) had through chance interactions with people I got an opportunity with was rugby to help their leadership which went really well and then that went on to England rugby and I started to help them with a culture around the female game and so on and then it sort of grew there through Sports and then then I started to realize this this Mitch Match about everyone talks about leaders within a system but no one no one's fixing the system so we're fixing leaders or fixing people then put them back in a system that doesn't work so I

(14:29) was like I fascinated by the system so then I started then studying about systems thinking I came across um Patrick H start's book um he's a great he's he's a mentor of mine he he probably wled he's more Mentor but he is I pester him and then uh yeah so I started about systems and yeah then I started to merge the two and it really well so I've how I've come here is is complete emergence of of opportun unities I suppose well I think it's much more than that isn't it it's that's it's tenacity grit and and

(15:05) so many other things as well you don't need an interview you need a documentary on your Dani how do we follow that I'll let you go on though such an interesting story no I'm captivated by it I wanted to ask about kind of leadership in the military so what do people get wrong about leadership in the military so I think people have got quite a perception about what it what it is and and how you know command and control and how it works yeah it's ofly frustrating when I when I see it because people go oh but

(15:32) you know you in the military just tell people what to do and they have to do it the right to a point we have military law you know as long as my order is lawful you know they they they do have to obey it but that's that's the last thing we do you know that's that's like all else fails and you're resorting to using your rank then your leadership has probably failed at that point so it's not about that it's all about how how do you build up that trust and that trust is a um really important military

(16:02) leadership it's showing that you know you're there for them and um your your words match um your actions and you build that Integrity that that relationship with um your men and that that familiarity is really important as well and it's not familiarity is because people say we have we have ranks but we we get to intimately know our people and look after them you know I remember being the leader and you know I had soldiers that were um you know married 18 you know had no parents um they had a young baby and I

(16:38) noticed something was wrong and I went to go explore and have a look and I realized that they they had no experience of looking after child or look after themselves you know and we then wrapped around the support and and you know got got other wives involved and stuff to help them to you know you know how to look after baby and that but we we gone to a tangent but that's how we build up that trust and the real support but the idea of this command and control is often when I see it on LinkedIn and you know you said about me

(17:08) and l d yeah I I grin and bear most of the time as I go through it um but they have to go a command and control bad they've got the wrong idea of what command and control is from the military command and control in the military is that you know I'm going to be very clear about what I want and I'm going to give you time to go away and do the analysis to think around you know what's the situation what have I actually been asked to do and why um and then you're going to come back to me and we're going

(17:33) to have a conversation you're going to say well I thought about what you want I I could do this but I'm constrained by this so you are you are you happy to remove that constraint for me if not then I I need to do this and it's a conversation and then we go yeah happy with that but through that process I've now got trust that we're aligned and you can go off and you can do what you need to do then that's command and control it's not micromanagement uh and that's what I think they think the military is

(18:01) about yeah and just put it on your point there which is you know why do people follow you and you're sort of saying that it's that you talked about almost pastoral care for your people don't you and and and that is the bit where you build up enough trust in those moments so when the ask comes and you need them to do something they're they're already on board isn't it and many leaders don't spend time investing that up front do they so when the ask does come there's there's no there's no loyalty to to to

(18:29) actually follow more there's no credibility there no they they they take take take and then they expect more and more where you know we we when we look at designing an organization we don't want to design an organization where it's relying on discretionary effort or you know over time like most do but you know when when it really matters are your people going to follow you or when it gets difficult are they just going to go you know what why why should I put myself in that situation for you when

(18:58) you've given nothing and and I think that's comes back to my point around why do people follow you because they want to not because they have to and you know I I observed this out in um you know Leading Men and it was like um we're in some very difficult and horrible situations but they still um followed you and they still were there for you and I think it's it's that that ability to form that relationship and that trust which is key I'm just really curious cuz sandur for example that's not just for

(19:27) the British military leaders get sent from military gets sent from all over the world don't they to attend there what what is some of the sort of Doctrine around leadership there and and the research that that makes it such a a great establishment that people aspire to go to to to learn their craft As Leaders I think the key thing the best thing that military has and I say this but I'm a bit disappointed of recent times when I look at some of the the stuff that comes out and Linkedin from the um the military leadership

(19:57) channels I think they've gone towards the simones um type of stuff which you know I just have to roll my eyes with pure cynicism but um we we seem to have a spot on every podcast where someone special judgment for in it we've never actually asked a question about him ever but he just seems to pop up in our conversations and not always favorably as well Simon fans have be watching I I I tend to offend a lot of people fine that's okay please that's why we want you on but it's all about Mission command so

(20:32) Mission command is fundamental and if if organizations could get this into um it's food organization it's embedded in it work so so much better and Mission command is essentially it's empowerment is best it's it's how how do we get our people or give them the freedom of action to deal with the the Ever Changing volatility complexity that we're faced with and it speeds up execution and I um and I had this challenge with leaders especially HR and all that like we want to empower our people Mike um it's great you're using

(21:12) words but what do you mean by that and um so I I went away and because I'm I love modeling so I created a model it's based heavily off the um um Mission command which is you know for someone to be empowered or to have that freedom of action certain things need to be um to exist one is the intent you need to have clear intent around what is it that we're trying to achieve in know and the in order to you know we we need to achieve this in order for us to do this um and I find organizations get the

(21:43) intent the what and the how very mixed up they Define the how too too high up and it does give no freedom of action they've already told them what they want how they want it to the degree which stifles any sort of freedom of action and then there must be constraints so there's always constraints you know even rishy suak bless him he's constraint um and we must identify those constraints and the constraints are what's the decision right what can you make decisions about what can't you make

(22:11) decisions about you know what's this know a lot of organizations already have these imposed constraints through safety regulations and stuff and then they must have the knowledge skills and experience to be owed and the role Clarity I that's really key move away from job descriptions and and just be really clear around what what do you think your role is and play that back and see what's implicitly held by your people and if you got those conditions in then they got the freedom of action I don't

(22:40) care how they achieve the what I've asked them to do as long as they they're in line with the intent and the constraints imposed they start going outside the constraints that's where we have a conversation go I need to do this but I'm constrained by this can you remove this constraint and what it does is it it reduces all this unnecessary communication and involvement and it just gives people that that autonomy to just um adapt to the changes that they're faced with yeah and I we because

(23:10) we had a pre-con conversation with you prior to this interview where we sort of you said something really interesting which is you know if you've got sort of seniority around a sort of a military task that needs to happen the the senior leader would give some direction and then the actual sort of the unit would then go and develop a plan based on it and then back you just shed a little bit more light on that in terms of how that works and how you can sort of maintain sort of strategic oversight yet get people the independence yeah and this

(23:38) relates very much with B assistance models as well because that's all about how do we push you know as much autonomy as possible to the operations um but how it's done is that we um and and there's a good there's a good principle called the first principal Black Box system thinking which is I don't need to know how the thing works to understand what um output or outcome it should achieve um and and this all ties in together what we do as Leaders we and it's even in our process we have a thing called

(24:08) seven questions which is a a sort of decision-making planning process that we go through and in there in question three there's that bit about the back breef so we've given you this is what we want to happen you know trying to it could be you know I want you to clear clear enemy from this you know from this sort of area that we give them more you know in an organization it could be R&D we need you to um reduce your cycle time from 12 months to six months you know it's just very clear what we want um and

(24:38) then we give them space to go away and and have a think about that and go well you know that's what they want me to do how how can I do that and they give them space to think about the contextual and situational factors that are in place um really pull apart what do they actually mean there's a lot of things that are um implied and specified and implied so specified they they want me to reduce the cycle time from 12 to six but there implied well if I do that they I obiously need to do this as well um so

(25:11) they work through that and then we come together and it's a bit like a command and control we we come together and we go well I thought about that this is my plan this is how I'm going to achieve it and and that's where the leader then assures that yeah they've got it they're happy we're aligned they've understood what the task is I I'm not too fussed on how they do it and and I say that I'm not too fussed on how they do it because hopefully we've got the right culture Clarity all that is supporting

(25:40) that decision making so then once that's happened I I I could trust them to get on and then they should only need to come back to me when you know they're struggling with constraints or we haven't provided resources um or something like that that that's absolutely fascinating and I guess people watching this they can probably sort of identify where this falls down can't um quite frequently one one thing that that we notice quite a lot is managers will often pivot quite violently between sort of being

(26:11) retaining control and all of a sudden go right you're all empowered to do the thing but when they do Empower them people just don't quite know where to begin or what steps to take or have The Confident or whatever it is there's a myriad of things but and then what happens is they don't take that opportunity in the leader's eyes so the leader then takes it back again how do you sort of bridge that Gap and and stack the odds of probability that those kind of opportunities will work out yeah you see a lot and I call

(26:37) it compression they compress the organization so much that you know people would dare make a a decision um and they haven't got the or they can't make a decision because you've just defined the house so much that they're looking and going well I know you're telling me had to do that but I can't the variety has changed so you can't see going up and asking for permission for Stuff then it just breathes the fact that the leader now thinks they're incompetent and they start to see

(27:03) control more and that's what happens it's like it's a actal friction we see when there's gaps between what we wanted to happen what actually happened and what I wanted someone to do what they actually did soon as these gaps start to appear we start to seize control we put more policies and processes in place and we just stifle the hell out of um our people so I think to sort of how how do we do that I think one is you know we got to work with the leader and think about you just need step back what

(27:29) what's causing you to get involved so much what what's actually happening what what are you seeing what's what's causing what's that complexity driver that's causing you you feel you need to then start to interrupt and get it from that perspective and then we need to get the perspective of the employees what are they seeing you know what do they think is causing them to to not make a decision what are they missing and a lot of times it's because we we want them to make a decision but we're not providing

(27:55) the inputs for them to make that decision we're not providing the Clarity what is it you actually want and I think that is so confusing to a lot of organizations because they have this like it's a um a breakdown of what system for that strategy we try to control everything uh and improve everything just the operation of tactical level when then we take our eye off what's actually happening changing and then we're constantly getting hit in the face so then we're reacting all the time and what this means to the people

(28:24) that are there to do the work is that they're like I don't know what it's what what flavor of the month are we on now yeah you wanted this three weeks ago I've only got you know I've only got so much resource and so much cognitive ability and you keep changing and I can't keep up so then they just come overwhelmed and then when they come overwhelmed they just go to Bunker mentality and they're just like right just tell me what you want yeah uh and they'll tiptoe their way through where

(28:50) if we can get it clear that clear intent be very clear more stredic and those decision rights you know this is your decision right if if I want you to make these decisions what information do you think you need and do you have the capability to to do that and if not then we just bring the constraints in we bring the constraints in and we build up their knowledge skills and experience so then we can widen out the constraints because you know you have two constraint but you can be too too open and it be overwhelming

(29:22) if they haven't got the knowledge skills and experience so so good this could be a very long interview this could be have you got a hard finish no no no I'm so for for those of you watching this is a notification this is might be a slightly longer episode than this is really fascinating you mentioned culture there where you talking about kind of the conditions what role does culture play in kind of strategic alignment and the work you do how important is it it's very important but unfortunately I've

(29:47) got a rule now that the first rule of cultures you don't mention culture um yeah because is like as soon as you mention culture you can see people's eyes glaz over and they're just like oh God God we're going to be changing everything again and it's it's not like that and and I think that you know I I I'm trying to get people away from talking about good or bad cultures there's useful and not useful and culture is an emergent property so what I mean by emerging property is um for

(30:15) people is the everyone's got to watch time is an emerging property of your watch but if you break um the watch down to all its component pieces there's not one element that gives you time it's how youing it all together it merges U time and that's really important when you look at culture because when you look at culture it you're essentially saying that I'm going to constrain your behavior in this system when you come in I'm going to constrain your behavior because I need this Behavior to emerge

(30:45) because that's going to support us to be cohesive as an organization and to drive um the the strategy of the organization and but for that I'm going to give you a value Exchange in that value exchange is normally when you speak to people in an organization what what's your what's your culture they're like oh you know it's great it's flexible you know I I get developed that's what we call a value exchange we need to understand what to people value in the organization we could build that in but um the

(31:15) emergence of the behavior is really important because when I say I don't care how they do it as long as they achieve the outcome of what I'm expecting that how is wrapped around because we've got the right ethical and moral Behavior that are going to do the right generally the right is or useful thing towards the a it's never going to be perfect and I and I sort of move away from defining culture as an absolute because it's it's emergent and it's and there's so many things that are missing when people look

(31:44) at culture because they look at culture and you know it happens is it you know we're having a culture change and what they do is they just like throw up a loader or they get tarwin's um or well twiin bank's um cousin twiin um to come along and um paint a new mural on the wall that says like it's a classic cliche on so it' be like sorry about language but they would have read J James K's book and suddenly got now no on the wall and you know um teamwork and all this stuff but shiver yeah yeah and you know

(32:20) they'll look at me especially when I go into London some of the clients sorry but they would go oh Mike look at us we've got a beer fridge how goe I'm like oh that's fantastic yeah great but when you when you pull apart the organization you thinking there's nothing structurally here that supports any of that and you know when I was talking about the watch and it's all its component parts you I've a lot of my research I've looked at um there's 14 levers that you know you have not full

(32:52) control some of you have full control but you know you have control on no matter what level of the organization you're in you have control on it's just how much control is depending like on boarding is a classic one you or recruiting on boarding you may not have the full control of the recruitment process and what you like to do it but you probably have quite a bit control on how people are coming into your organization and that you know you've got stuff like you know policies and processes you know people talk about

(33:19) teamwork but when you look at what they're incentivized by and what the policies by it's all about individual work you know it's not going to work you know you need to create that system system around it to drive those behaviors or to support those behaviors to emerge yeah and I think one of the things I'm personally really enjoying about the way you think about things is it take your watch analogy it's almost like a a Swiss watch approach to it it's like to to deconstruct the parts to to

(33:44) make sure all of the parts are really carefully designed and the way in which they're fit fitted together as well and and really being very Mindful and intentional about it as well yet if you sort of contrast that with many of the organizations we work with you know if you if you actually look at the the schedules of senior leaders they're so condensed and they're doing so many things that there isn't that space to really think with the care and the position about how you build your organization and what you're doing here

(34:14) and the in the potential implicative impact of that as well so what do leaders need to do to take more of this intentional approach stop getting involved in unnecessary crap that they do um and actually you know allow the component parts because you see it I see or know leaders they spend you know anywhere between 70 90% of their time on on meetings stuff and you really look at and go what are you getting involved in that for you know there's there's clearly some structural issues there going on um and we talk about you know

(34:47) in vial systems the the all those connections are are Communications or information channels and they they're clearly broken because that's what's caused you then to get involved and go to a tactical level I was I was seeing a um an incident happen a couple of weeks ago and there was like um 15 senior leaders involved in something which should be just routine but they're there they're all there you know getting involved and pressing the organization and you're thinking what what you do why

(35:19) you getting involved so it's a little bit like an under sens football match yes yeah you see a little herd of players it's it's true though isn't it it's about the system works best when everything is in its nested in its place isn't it almost yeah and you got the connection so there's there like there must be something that's structurally wrong that's causing you to do that and we and and another thing as well is we call um the knowledge Gap so there always a gap between what we would like

(35:48) to know and what we actually know and what this does when this happens it starts to proliferate meetings so when you see like working groups and you know meetings proliferate that means that they're they're trying to almost find the absolute answer uh and that's what's causing them to go into paralysis it's it's even got even worse since covid because it's almost like Microsoft now has just G to thrown up everywhere and now we've got powerb boards we got powerbi boards for powerb boards and

(36:18) dashboards and all it's happening is we're just amplifying so much information at the management we're overwhelming they've got loads of data they've got no it which is then causing them to have to talk about it more where if they can try and be really clear about what start to attenuate the information I what what do I need to know to make decisions and knowing that there's no perfect answer and sometimes there's a lot I just need to trust people to go in line with the intent that's been given and find out the

(36:47) information and by doing that that should then give them the space to utilize what call system 4 which is that outside and future and that looking to see what's what's actually coming what's changing and what are my models that I'm holding are they are they are they true they're useful and when I talk about this is um cone asy theorem how you regulate the system is only good as the model you're using to regulate the system sense yeah so and we hold two models um as Leaders we have the

(37:20) external environment and we have the internal environment and you know are these actually useful are they congruent and I find that um When leaders you know spend all their time in meetings they don't step back from the fog they don't get off the balcony and they don't go down to the several layers of the organization they don't go to learn and understand what's actually going on so is is is what's happening in my organization is that is that the same as the model I'm using to make decisions

(37:53) and this is really crucial because you find a lot of leaders they're making decisions off a model that is wholly disconnected from their their organization it's almost like they're they they've got a map of London that was made in the 1860s and they're trying to use that same map now to navigate around London they wonder why then they're not achieving what they want to they're getting frustrated because they think they've got capabilities that they they don't have and and the solutions

(38:19) make sense from from their surface level of understanding doesn't it as well um soorry I don't want to take this off but there there's one question I wanted to ask specifically um and it's related decision making one of the things that we sort of saw that is that you were at s business school in University of Oxford um and you did scenario planning as well how's that kind of informed your work and and and what can leaders take on to actually apply in their decisionmaking approach yeah it' be very

(38:45) useful I really enjoyed that I was hoping to do some more with side in the future but I used scenario planning quite a lot of organizations informing the strategy because you know scenario plan is is great to understand what what are the plausible changes that are going to happen in the external environment and then if if these things were going to happen What impact then does that have on the ecosystem that we're operating in and it's a strategic question but also an organizational design question because the Strategic

(39:15) question does is our is our strategy the way that we're trying to get fit in the external environment is that still going to work or is our value going to change so then thus we need to think about you know how how do we need to adapt pivot or innovate in in such a way so that we are uh resilient within those changes that could be happening but it's an organizational design challenge because then looking is our is our organization is that going to withstand the turbulence that that brings us are we capable to be resilient within that new

(39:50) world of it cups and then then you can look and we call it wind tunneling you wind tunnel your organization so wind tunnel is same you you put it and see actually what's the aerodynamics of your organization how how good is it within that situation uh and then what that does is it gives you time to understand what you need to adapt and it gives you the warning signs so if that's going to happen how do we know it's going to happen I would see these things oh that's great and we start to build that

(40:16) within our intelligence of our system for so we start to monitor those things so that we're ready rather than as the philosopher Mike Tyson once said you know everyone's got a plan to get punched in the face what we're trying to do is minimizing those punches um he's right up there with Aristotle there right and and that's what it's very useful especially nowadays where organizations are obssessed with like being lean um and you know I call it the bean bean counter effect where they're just like they just

(40:50) keep cutting and cutting away because they think that just cutting and cutting away is going to crease the uh the bottom line and it it what it does then it means that you use all agility and the thing with the external environment as we know it's complex but it's volatile the rate of change uh is increasing and it if you're lean it doesn't mean you can't adapt it just means you're going to be slower at adapting because you need to bring those adaptions in uh in a rate that your operations can handle without them being

(41:19) disrupted or destabilized and you know so scenario planning especially important for that because it stretches time it gives you that time to adapt if you have loads of agility like bags of agility kicking around and you got spare resources and capacity then your focus can be a lot shorter because you have the resources to adapt quicker and and Agility is one of those names words that gets banded around and has kind of sort of lost its meaning hasn't it because obviously to to be truly agile I guess if you are running so lean you are

(41:52) trading off the future for performance today aren't you uh but people aren't always is aware of the tradeoffs that they're making when they're making those decisions almost like in in isolation so lean over here and we're talking about agility over there but they don't they don't Interlink do they or there's the capability isn't there no i' I came to this when I was looking at leadership and it's the same with organization there there's a tension that's always

(42:16) there between how do we deliver Superior value efficiently as possible today whilst understanding what we need to change now to be B in the future um and that's a tension that happens and Agility you're right is one of those words that it just sort of banded around you know aob be aob like what do you mean by that you know where do you need it and it it it gets awfully frustrated that's probably the most frustrating things trying to unpick all these things well I think we've had it so this not

(42:42) naming clients anything but they said we're really agile we've just done this huge change to Agile we went in there you're literally hot desking that's that's what you've done that's what we've done when I when I look at agility I I think can you can you adapt as quick as or quicker than the external environment or your competitors you know that's that's your measure and in how how um agile you need depends on the rate of change in your external environment you know obviously the the fast of the

(43:14) higher volatility the more agility that you require you know and that's where we we talk about open and closed systems so in open system uh or start with close system even a closed system where it's quite stable you you can pretty much predict the the actions of your outcomes and all that stuff then you're gonna have more efficiency you know that's where lean and all that look works really well Le manufacturing that all that stuff where you're in an open system where it's high variety it's

(43:42) quite unstable you can't necessarily predict the the outcomes of your actions then then you need more autonomy and probably more likely you need greater agility there's so much in there I think you know if organizations could just take a fraction of that it would just improve the quality of strategy making and and Alignment massively I think strategy in organizations is is generally not of a high quality I I love strategy we often have this argument in my house who do I love more my girlfriend or strategy I'm not gonna say who

(44:12) wins but you know I'm deeply passionate and it um it got me for a long time when I left the military I was so I I honestly thought that organizations you know they have all this stuff squared you know they know what strategy is of course it do existed and then you go into organizations and I was a bit like whoa what's going on I can't even make sense of this stuff and um and what it appears to be their strategy seems to be this thing that they they do as a an offsite so they go are we going through

(44:43) an offsite they spend half the half the time the offsite throwing bloody tennis balls at each other uh and making marshmallow Towers highing each other about how great they are and then they spend the other half pontificating about some vague statement that they they will brandish out and call a vision statement which means absolutely nothing it's got no relation to the capability of their organization and if you could make sense of that you'd have to be Albert Einstein but even him probably confused um and

(45:12) then they wonder why they get so much cynicism when they go back to the organization they they they probably get a big marketing consultancy to come in to do some flamethrower flashing lights and disco lights to announce their new strategy and I wonder why then all the people are just like oh God not again and then then nothing happen so the difference between what they wanted to happen what actually happened this Gap starts to appear which then has an unhelpful reaction of them tried to seize control again yeah and I think

(45:39) once they've painted people in that well it's they're incompetent that's why it's not worked it's really hard for people to reverse out of that once they've got that that mindset about their teams or their you know the organization generally as just saying and sometimes people they can be prone to Outsourcing the strategies they may well bring in sort of expert hand to come in and and and to devise a strategy that's maybe based on sort of benchmarking the industry and that as well and again

(46:04) there's there's a risk there of it being disconnected to operational reality isn't there we we do a lot of so I do a lot of strategy work I'm actually next week and we doing helping an organization develop strategy but we use we know that because there's a bag of tennis balls behind you damn you know my tricks the U and that's it and ours is um I use a methodology called patterns of strategy so devised by Patrick offat and Lucy L um and it is very aligned the reason why I like it is very aligned to

(46:41) military where it's it's all about understanding your fit and relationship with the external environment and it's always that question there so when we look at the external environment we're modeling our our relationship with it um because we we we we use the the theory of in Berto machano so talking about structural coupling so we are as an organization you're structurally coupled with your external environment you know that relationship we call it it changes you structurally over time and these relationships have a

(47:12) default directory you know it's going on that directory if you you could do nothing and it will take you out there um but you'll be making some unconscious changes as you go along you start to you start to then have to react to the changes that are happening so what we do is we look at the modeling the rati and go actually have you've done nothing would you like where it takes you and if not then H how do you change the nature of that relationship and we can look at Maneuvers like you know foresight you

(47:38) know concentration of mass around certain things but it's it's a systems approach but also ask that question you say that you're going to do this how are you going to do that you know what capability do you have that can actually do that with your organization and then it's also asking that bit around well if you've done that at what would they do in response and how would you know they're doing it and it starts to get to that understanding that we are not um and this is my biggest problem with

(48:07) strategy is they developed strategy as if like they are going to the beaches they find you know it's a Define location they're going there um and the world's going to be ultra stable enough for them to achieve that and it ignores anyone else around them and they wonder why then you know is I think 98 % strategies never implemented it's crazy because they're they're not formed by the input of the understanding external environment the input of our capability as an organization to execute that and

(48:39) then our ability to transform so actually can we transform in time to actually enact that strategy and it touches on an interesting thing isn't it because um sorry Dan I'm going to touch on one of the points you wanted to make which is about sort of um built versus emergent strategy and that you know we focus so much on the build and if actually look at how much resource is actually dedicated to that built strategy in the document it's based on what resources they have but there is so much emergent strategy that happens and

(49:07) sometimes they underestimate and so there is no buffer because when inevitably stuff happens there is no additional anything to give to it and that's when we often go into 120% capacity or things just just stay on the list or drop off the list as well is that something you see that organizations don't necessarily take into um perspective when they're doing the strategizing process no it's like they working like predetermined fixed Cycles like oh it's oh five years we must do another strategy um and they'll

(49:37) they'll spend loads of time doing the perfect Gant chart of something then it goes into the um draw and then they look back um five years behind and go wow you know oh of course we're meant to do that Emer strategy is very much it's that that ability to observe and orientate the external environment so you're doing these things and it's about what's happened in relation to that what's starting to emerge and how how how's I fit with that so you making more conscious choices because if not and

(50:05) you're not doing that and you're just fixed by this predetermined thing that we're going to do and believe that the world stable things are going to start to emerge by your interactions if you're aware of it or not and new things are going to happen by chance you know there's going to be new new new actors coming to your external environment you're not aware of and then just by that interaction is going to emerge something that wasn't expected and you've got to be prepared as an

(50:32) organization as Leaders to to be observant to constantly match that tension between the inside and out know yes we need to be efficient of what we do uh and do that but we need to be very cutely aware of the changes that happen and there may not be what we expected to happen but we need to be able to observe to see that they're emerging and then thus go well if that's going to emerge the way we think it's going to emerge then what does that mean to us and then start to put that adaption in otherwise

(51:03) if you don't you just constantly go into oscillation reacting all the time in crisis mode and when you go into crisis mode all that does is to stabilize your operations and when you got disabled operations that's where you know your your people just counterwork behaviors coming withdrawal disengagement distress well-being all that just plummets and then you start to lose the value that you're actually trying to create in the first place and you don't get any stability in the organization and you

(51:34) have a really um what we call a schizophrenic organization got no identity no really can then make sense of the choices that are presented with them um on a daily or weekly monthly basis just stepping back you do so much and you've got so many interests what would you say you enjoy most about the work that you do what really kind of fires you up when you've got you look at your week and go that's that's going to be a good week I enjoy I enjoy it a lot I I see I get nervous and I joked earlier about you know is it going to be

(52:02) tissues or is it going to be a gumshield that initial part is is often when I go into a first engagement we we try and figure out you know is this going to be really hard to slog at first or is it going to be quite that's that's normally quite a tough but I I generally really enjoy every interaction I have but the thing that really gets me you know really engaged and um just love what I do and just gets me to jump out of bed is I call it that har moment that moment where you you see it in the clients in the organization

(52:31) that's sort of like that penny is just dropped and they're like yes right they get it and and the fact that um I love the ability where I I can walk away and I have now built a capability in the organization where they can they can self-organize they're adaptable um they can regulate themselves without needing me there all the time yeah we often talk about being temporary scaffold we don't want to be in there kind of with an client dependent on us forever it's making sure they're sustain sustainable

(53:03) and able to move forward on their own I think that's why it comes back to G's Point earlier around like the strategy do or any intervention do we go away and hide in the dark corner and do it all for them and just go W well done um that's never going to work I know that's like model of quite a few but it it's never going to work because they got no ownership they don't understand it where we want to build want to help them achieve their challenge they've got but I I like to teach them along the way the

(53:32) ready did a fascinating episode on their podcast uh recently didn't they Dani where they talked about sort of the traditional consultancy model and when you do bring in traditional Consulting they say the risk is that temporarily you're bringing in that capability and you're kind of you're you're making up for the fact that they don't have lateral capability within the organization and so when the consultancy pulls out you've still got the same issue but you've now have a slightly

(53:57) different organization with more compounded problems as well so there's that real thing about how do you build that internal capability and resilience and it's not that dependency is it's a real kind of tight rope as a consultant imagine that you're constantly walking because your education your Insight about systems is so much more advanced to them and how do you leave enough knoow and knowledge for them to keep seeing the system in the way that you're seeing it as well yeah I think that's

(54:21) where the viable systems model really helps because it's looking at you know for an organization to do that and be you know self-organizing self adaptable and self-regulating um you know this is this is roughly what what you need to have and so we look at you know what what how do you manage these things how do you manage adaptions so far and they can talk about and you're going to look and see if that's useful or not and you can build that up and as you're doing that you're building the organization up

(54:50) so you building this structure where I think a lot of times we rely on WE rely on like Superstars and we build an organization around Superstars where what you want to do is you want to build an organization that you know e even the average person could look like a superstar because the structures are there ready for them and you know they're not fighting against it and this is where I have um know challenge I've often said to the psychological Community it's like we need to start embracing more system thinking because

(55:18) you can try and fix the personal you want but and assess them and tell them you know it seems to be like just um overly focus on assessment but then you've got to realize what's the system they're going back into because the system will win the system is a big beast and it will win you do all that beautiful work on them in the training room or in the coaching room and then you release your beautiful that's gone from a caterpillar to a butterfly and you release them into this organization with sand paper walls don't you yeah

(55:46) yeah that's what that's probably my biggest issue with some of these you know LinkedIn things because they they talk about this Utopia of leadership this thing where you've got this this this human that is like unhuman really you know there like this hopefully joyful person is all about they they don't talk about the other side of the attention which is the aim and you know as a leader and and I I often say this and I probably didn't say this on L because I probably get lynched Vally lynched um and I would say that I think

(56:21) we've lost the the what of leadership with the how of leadership because really if we look at objectively the leader is there to advance the aims you know of the organization you're there to get the aims how you do that as a choice and you could do this in very several ways but often I think they neglect to talk about that real tension that challenge and then say or you know leaders should do this and they go back into the system they go I want to do that but Gees I'm you know I've got to achieve these aims as well and and try

(56:52) and do that and and they're getting torn apart with that so just looking back at your this is a big question your whole career and what's what's the big one some of the biggest lessons you've learned so far not everyone wants to be helped and that's a that's a tough one you know when definitely when you know hope I've shown I'm I'm deeply passionate about this and I want to do you know you know do well um my girlfriend also you know really supportive me she always says you know

(57:23) it's so great you've managed to find something that you do that you love so much but also it's a job um but what what really gets frustrating for me is when I go into organizations and they just don't want to be helped you could hold that mirror up to them as much as you want but it's they don't want to do that difficult work that actually is going to work they want what they want is they want um um you know quick fixes wins tick boox oh yeah just demonstrate that they they've done something so they

(57:51) can put on a newsletter and say oh look don't we appreciate you all because we've done this um or a piece higher um and that's the real frustrating hard hard lesson that I have to sometimes and and it's helped me because then I go well you're not for me I can walk away but that was the hard lesson where I was really frustrated I was go why why why wouldn't these people do it they can they're intelligent people they must clearly realize that you know by just having some values is not going to solve

(58:21) their problem um yeah and that's what's gets me frustrated and it's pry hardest lesson it's such wishful thinking isn't it they they just want a really simple solution a quick fix and take away the anxiety and make it easy so I think it's really important to have that that boundary as a a practitioner that you know when you can't can't do the work for them obviously you spend all your time learning and developing you know we can tell you you're passionately interested how do you do that what how

(58:47) how did you go about investing in your own Learning and Development um I think there's some there's a formal element which you know I go and um challenge myself and go courses um to learn even even um even if I don't even believe in it um I I still go to to open up to different perspectives and that's what's I think's key is in the learning don't don't just narrow yourself down in a path like you know I'm a psychologist or assistant fer I'm only going to do these um I open myself up to broader

(59:19) perspectives so I go look at stuff in biology I go look at stuff in um you know different um and different streams so there's a formal element I do course but there's a lot of reading like if you look around I literally got Stacks books to St here um and my girlfriend's like how do you find so many books to read you know can't be that many books on leadership like oh yes is and on that note can we just ask this because this is a question we want to start building into podcast and we'll put you on the

(59:49) spot a little bit but are there any books that have really inspired you along the way that have just either given you sort of a bit of a paradigm shift or like they've given you some explicit knowhow they just thought wow that's that's really done something for me read a lot of um I'm looking as I'm looking at my book we want you to move the camera so we can see it but that's fine don't worry yeah I think what's got me at the moment like really gets me focused in a different way is is a lot of the systems

(1:00:20) work I think so I reading a lot at the moment um know there's lot Patrick stuff there's beer stuff um but what what I found recently really interesting recently is I've been going back um to things like clout Fitz and Bob molter uh sunzo um and it's amazing what they were talking about all those years ago I wrote a newsletter about it um one of my first newsletters and it was it was breaking down the wisdom um and I think I'm um I'm getting a lot more insight from looking back and I found you know know to some people out

(1:00:59) there now but um I find some of the um the modern books I just get bit too fatty um so I like to look I'm going back and looking back now so a lot of John Boyd's work he's his his stuff is really um powerful and I think um misunderstood and underrated a lot of the time so yeah that that's why I sort of go back and look at those things and Bon m is very much The Godfather Mission command really and how how do you spell that for people that watching this now oh God you're asking Soldier to spell

(1:01:30) now if no we'll just put it in the in the show I think it's v o n um m o l k t I believe thank don't ask me to count now glad we asked thank you for that spot as well brilliant and um and the last question we always ask in every episode and you've got the ultimate story of there are no barriers that if it's something that you really want to do you can achieve it in terms of getting where you want career aspirationally what advice would you give someone who's starting out now so maybe someone who is considering a

(1:02:07) career in od uh maybe intrigued by systems thinking and building into their practice or or even they might be an HR they might be a social worker they might be a soldier but they're looking at this what what advice would you give to them just starting out um I I I think breath so you know readed you know I think really underrated a lot of time see didn't read his first book to 27 but U you know read and research in that area as much you can and then you know go find um go find a mentor be Reach Out reach out and to don't be afraid to make

(1:02:45) connections because I think that's when I first came out with the milit I had no Connections in thing my my you know I still look now and think you know my my Network's probably quite um live but I I would reach out and go go find some good people that you can have a conversation with be curious uh and answer these questions um and don't take don't take everything um you know is you know is is is sort of binary look look for themes about what's happening uh and then go explore what's what's missing so what's

(1:03:17) the difference and I think that's real key so look look what everyone's saying and find out what's the difference definitely and don't give up be yeah yeah and that's true because I remember you know I still do it now I'm human you know I'll I'll sit there and I'll doubt myself um all the time um and I think that's I think that's healthy in a way sometimes you know not doing too much because it keeps you it keeps you on the The Edge and with the edge it gives me that first then to learn um and

(1:03:48) it's I think that's a healthy boundary doubting yourself enough that you still remain curious I don't ever want to be in that position where I think I know it all and and I think that's that's probably a good advice for people that you're never know going to know all you don't need to know it all but just keep being curious to to try and think that there's there's something there's some book that's going to give you the answer and then go find the other book that you

(1:04:11) think's going to give you the answer and that gives you that drive to keep reading and keep exploring different ideas so that's crucial absolutely and it also helps if you love strategy almost as much as your partner as well oh yeah brilliant well I just want to say a huge thank you Mike it's been a really enjoyable conversation this is we've run long on this one because there's just so many things we wanted to explore and and Dani I can't speak this for you but like for me there's loads of other areas

(1:04:37) we'd love to explore with Mike as well so ABS I think we need to bring Mike back for a second episode do well I I think that Mike has a book in him at least I think at least the world according to Mike or or your journey or something like that that is a book I would definitely enjoy reading as well so um a huge thank you thank you for being so generous with your time and thanks for being a brilliant guest um just some of the things I'm sort of taking well there's so much but I guess I'm limited to three I really enjoyed

(1:05:03) what you said about being empowered but there's just so much beneath the surface that you know being empowered is the emergent property of a lot of different things if I'm taking your physiology right so it's about you know the intent and don't be too specific on the how being really clear on the decision rights being clear on Ro Clarity you know being mindful of the constraints you put in place and adjusting them accordingly to the context that you're in um you talked about compression and

(1:05:29) and what that does and being mindful of doing it um you know knowing when to step in and when not to and I love the idea of the first rule of culture we don't talk about culture so so I think that's really good it's just again it's a little bit of a red herring and it and it and it triggers things in people doesn't it it means almost gives people a bit of an out doesn't it because it's just like this's this big imorph thing we can't touch and like you it's the Precision and the care and the and the

(1:05:56) real deep thought that you put into things in in the different parts and they come together I think that's some of the things I'm taking away D Dani what what stands out for you so many things I think one of the very early things you said about the importance of trust and really knowing your people and that being kind of the key to leadership I think that's so important um I love the that your phrase about build build an organization where everyone can be a superstar rather than just having kind

(1:06:17) of the high-profile Superstars but create a a world where everybody can be a superstar and then the other takeaway is the importance of scenario planning and getting our leaders and organizations to build that into their their approach to strategy and then wind tling tunneling I love that as a a metaphor for for testing what they what they come up with thank you really humbling and you know it's really humbling that you you you'd want to invite me onto your podcast so I really appreciate it thank you for being our

(1:06:42) first systems thinker I think hopefully it's really open people's eyes people will have a thirst to learn more and uh and to to potentially connect how do people reach out to you you have a newsletter you like do various things what's the best way um for people to reach chy Mike it's probably on um LinkedIn it's the only I even though I hate it but it's a really good medium I like to um um you know V my ramblings on there so yeah I do have newsletters on LinkedIn I do every month and but I do

(1:07:10) try and post regularly on there you know but please get in touch with me there connect um and yeah you know I'd love to have coffee with people that you know um found us interesting want to chat yeah definitely and we really enjoy your LinkedIn like when we see posts it really grounds as consultants out in the field working actively it grounds Us in in the really good principles and and challenges paradigms and all that kind of stuff as well so really recommend people to do that too as well so so thank you everyone for for watching this

(1:07:38) we really appreciate it um hopefully we've earned your like and what we really appreciate is if you enjoyed it is to subscribe to the channel because we're adding Mike's interview to This brilliant collection of really just first class thinkers practitioners authors and just people who create meaningful and significant change out in the field as well so so Mike we're really pleased to have you join that collection as well so please subscribe on the next interview up really soon so thanks very much everyone

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