Last week was about the idea of a blank canvas.  This week we will build on that idea by looking at factories and broken parts vs. poorly designed systems.  Let’s pretend you own a factory that makes red, yellow, and green bottles.  The factory has 2 large machines.  Machine 1 has an issue and breaks some bottles of all colors.  What would you do?  I’d assume you’d run some diagnostics and check past logs to see if there is a pattern.  There’s no pattern.  You realize that sometimes stuff just breaks, so you replace the part and things work again.

One day machine 2 has an issue and breaks a bunch of green bottles.  What would you do?  You’d probably run diagnostics and check past logs.  When you check the logs, you notice a pattern emerging.  You notice that only green bottles are broken, and that it happens on the 2^nd Tuesday of a every month.  You decide to replace the parts, but when the 2^nd Tuesday of the next month comes around more green bottles are broken.  At this point, you have to ask yourself if something on machine 2 is broken or if it is poorly designed.  I’d argue that it’s likely a design issue, since the problem keeps repeating itself.  If it’s a design issue, then replacing parts won’t help.  Instead, you need to redesign the machine and the processes to reach a new outcome.

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything.  Over the past few months, I’ve heard a lot of people comment that “the system” is broken in response to racially charged events.  I’d argue this isn’t correct.  If the system was broken, you should be able to just fix the parts, and it would work again kind of like machine 1 in our analogy.  Instead, I’d argue that “the system” is doing exactly what it was designed to do, and the roots of this design are in the not so blank canvas that our country has grown from.  I’d argue that “the system” isn’t broken, it has design flaws.  To solve the problem, you need to design a new system that serves everyone.  For a work related example you can look at the evolution of talent management processes in various companies.  For the longest time talent management systems either intentionally or unintentionally discriminated against minority group members.  To fix the problem we had to move away from the assessments and practices we had always used, and replace them with a new design that would generate more fairness.  This evolution continues every day as we learn more and more about he biases that are built into things.

The challenge: What designs and systems influence your life?  Are you designing and building the right processes and systems to serve EVERYONE?

Bonus thought 1: I recently started reading Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Dr. Ibram Kendi https://www.amazon.com/Stamped-Beginning-Definitive-History-National/dp/1568585985.  I’m only a few chapters in, and I’m already gaining a better appreciation of the themes and ideas that have been shaping our canvas and have been the foundation for the design of our country and world.  It’s definitely been eye opening to me, especially as I read about racist ideas that started back hundreds of years ago and cause me to instantly think of things today.

Bonus thought 2: You can apply the idea of broken vs. poorly designed to your individual life as well.  When you want to make big changes in your life, you can’t just get a new part to replace a broken one.  You have to change the system and things you surround yourself with.  Changing the design, changes the output.  I’m currently in the midst of doing this for my physical, mental, and spiritual health.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry