Thinking About #1 ... Uncertainty, Restructuring and Perception
Sharing a number of things I've been thinking about lately. Getting them out of my head. This time is about research around how people handle uncertainty, corporate restructuring and narrow reality.
This post is inspired by the “Clearing My Tabs” posts that
does regularly (one recent example) and the “Interesting Things…” posts from (one recent example). I’m looking to make this a semi-regular post where I get all the thoughts bouncing around my head onto digital paper. Let’s start!Our ability to handle uncertainty is predictive of a lot (or…)
This recent podcast really got me thinking in all kinds of directions. I can see the behavior split in my family, my work and even just walking around watching how people handle different situations in life. Everyone handles uncertainty differently, seeks closure or enjoys a lack of closure in different ways.
I found myself introspecting, considering where in my life have I made decisions to embrace or avoid uncertainty. And where in my life have I been uncomfortable with a lack of closure or worked to find some closure. The professor interviewed for the podcast is an amazing person - Dr Danna Young.
As the days past and I sat with these ideas. It started to feel like another one of those personality profiling challenges. While people certainly have defaults or tendencies, any given reaction to uncertainty or closure seems to be highly situational.
Is restructuring just dumb?
I’ve worked through, managed and rarely lead large scale restructurings during my career. Every time I’ve learned something. Some were more or less positive. I’ve never been through a restructuring with or without retrenchment that was fully positive.
Every large scale restructuring involves a lot of knowledge, momentum destruction. The belief is that the “reset” will lead to a fresh start for those involved and the ability to reach new heights. There is also often an urgency to act and a feeling that if this isn’t fixed now via drastic action… I’ve found all kinds of ways to justify the restructurings that I’ve been part of and readily believed or convinced myself that they were.
Sometimes it feels like a restructuring is a delayed response to an inadequate performance management culture. A hope of a restructuring is that problematic people can be cleared and a better structure put in place to start again. Reality doesn’t work like that. The best people also leave in a restructuring due to uncertainty and other factors. It’s a seemingly quick solution to structural problems.
As I’ve gone through one after another, I’ve started questioning this belief in a quick solution to a cultural or structural problem. Increasingly, I find myself more comfortable with LEAN-like methodologies of continuous, incremental improvement. Research on this topic seems to broadly support this.
The whole episode of If Books Could Kill on the book “Who Moved My Cheese?” is worth a listen. If you are short on time, listen to the last 10/15 mins where they delve into the issues with and history of corporate restructuring. They make reference to this research that shows restructuring generally fails to produce results or lasting headcount reductions, but remains popular in the culture of corporates.
This aligns with my own experience. Lasting organizational change that I’ve been through happened slowly with the buy-in of the invested stakeholders. That isn’t possible when a restructuring tears everyone apart and tapes them back together again. I think this is also seen in technology implementation. When technology can be developed in collaboration with involved stakeholders, it’s much more likely to be successful, yet can take much longer.
Perceptions of reality when we only see one small slice
I’ve been thinking a lot about how my limited perception of reality influences the decisions I make. The world outside our perception is massive and complex. Just walking around one conference hall in Singapore, there are hundreds of different professionals, industries and domains that I have only a superficial understanding of (if that). Yet I function perfectly well within the world just as billions of other people live their lives without ever understanding my domain.
This is both infinitely fascinating as there are lifetimes of experiences outside my realm of perception and frightening as it means I’m making decisions based on an understanding of only a fraction of the reality around me.
I wonder about this through the actions of the wealthy who influence cultural movements across the world economy. Their slices of reality and blindness to other realities can mean the difference in millions of human lives. Why prioritize humans in space when humans on earth need help? Because their perception of reality is one small slice. And in that slice, earth is a lost cause, impossible to help or other people are doing everything they can.
This seems a structural reality we simply have to deal with or accept. I used to think that through reading more widely or having a wide social circle, I could get a better whole-picture. Now, I realize that is impossible. The picture is simply too large, multi-dimensional and complex. The best I can hope for is to cultivate a rough sense for what I’m missing.
In some ways, this seems like how financial-wizzes gain outsized returns and find niche alpha. They somehow gain a sense for an area of the market that is outside the perception of most people. And it explains why such wins can be fleeting. Once discovered, it is no longer a niche view. It is challenging to cultivate such a perception repeatedly as it is certainly reliant on our network, reading and exposure.
Conclusions
I’ll continue to explore these and other topics in future “thinking about” posts. Do let me know your additional perspectives and we can continue to explore.