Artisanal Habits

Harnessing the power of observation

Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash

Peripheral vision reduces in proportion to the speed at which we travel. The faster we go, the less we see, and we get tunnel vision. The problem with that is that often, by the time we get to where we think we want to go, we no longer know where we are because the world around us has changed while we weren’t paying attention.

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The shape of my professional practice has been changing inexorably since the pandemic as we’ve flailed around waiting for a normal that never was to return.

As working habits have changed, at first out of necessity and then out of preference, responses have varied from those who have gone all in on remote working to those whose feudal empires don’t feel the same when there are no serfs to berate. Climate change has gone from a fashionable topic to soggy, windy or arid realities - often all three in apparently random arrangements. AI has been finding its way into our lives in modest but powerful ways that the strategists and futurists did not foresee.

The faster those in leadership positions try to force a return to normal, the less they notice, and a new term has entered my conversations: “culture lag”: the gap that grows between what those in authority think it should be and what it is becoming. The bigger the organisation, the more significant the gap and the greater the bewilderment.

“A new ignorance is on the horizon, an ignorance borne not of a lack of knowledge but of too much knowledge, too much data, too many theories, too little time.”

Eugene Thacker

When the focus is relentlessly on a narrow, typically financial definition of performance, those parts of the culture that define its place atrophy.

Small things—human connection, paying bills on time and not stretching creditor days to infinity for a few ounces of cash flow, time to think and laugh together, and curiosity—are unnecessary but vital aspects that make the organisation memorable.

We are all artisans. There is work we all love to do, and the variety of what we love represents the seeds of progress.

 ‘The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

Steve Jobs

We have, however, submerged the artisan beneath layer after layer of protocol, process, and dogma. I’m an avid reader of emerging thinking in the way we work, and I get increasingly frustrated by how those with real insight spoil the impact of their insights by providing formulaic recipes for using those insights when each situation people face is different.

It seems like giving a talented chef a vast tray of select, exotic ingredients, full of possibility, and then teaching them to make beans on toast. After a while, beans on toast become the benchmark, and we end up with mass mediocrity.

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Artisans are different because they have developed a habit of noticing small things that most pass by as they hurry to perform. From the sacrifices made to cut costs that move the product or service being provided one notch further towards mediocrity to the tone of voice in a colleague to a client who doesn’t turn up as often as they used to, artisans are different. They have developed a habit of noticing through small rituals, from journalling to taking walks at the same time every day, going down the same route, to sense what is changing. They occupy “the quiet before” when the things that will shortly become apparent to others show themselves, who take the effort to notice.

It’s difficult in environments where everything is measured and recorded. In these places, the “culture gap” becomes a culture in its own right—one of selective ignorance. one that meets its narrow obligations and goals, no matter how mediocre.

Among the hundreds of business models, processes, and frameworks I have experienced, used, and taught, only one stands out. It stands out because although often cited as a framework, it’s not; it’s a philosophy: John Boyd’s OODA loop.

It is founded on the importance of observation—inner and outer, generated and natural, large and (mostly) small as continuous attention to our surroundings. These are the inconvenient truths that models sold as solutions ignore and whose impacts do not yield to the popular, acronym-powered, simplistic solutions that sell books.

Observation demands engagement, curiosity, conversation and intuition. Every business model you have ever learned will fit inside, a valuable but incomplete part of a larger whole in pursuit of a problem worth solving.

I have learned that we are not all equal, no matter how much we practice. Strength lies in achieving unity in diversity, in being together in healthy differences that do not allow culture lag to occur.

I have found myself in the company of exquisite observers - those who see things I can only see when my attention is drawn to them and can then, as someone who is an orienter, a joiner of dots, can then do my best work. That work, though, is a function of the things brought to my attention, and my thanks and deep appreciation go to CD, SD, SH, AC and others - you know who you are :-). You cause me to see things I might otherwise well miss and would be the poorer for.

Whilst the OODA loop is often used as a “solo” framework, it is far more effective as a small group activity because there are so many angles and facets to consider. Small groups with high levels of trust bring more to the framework, as individual capabilities are harnessed in “the quiet before” we turn to “doing”. The power of “being” together - with each other and our environment is what we have experienced in Ciaran Duggan’s forest and Sue Heatherington’s valley (they, of course, would question, rightly, who belonged to who).

My point is that observations are the genesis of generative change and need somewhere to grow. That growth takes place in conversations, which in turn need spaces that allow them to take flight and generate more observations.

Orientation, without effective observation, is like ploughing the soil - it yields short-term benefits at the expense of long-term health, and eventually, we run out of nutrients. It gives us processes like Lean Six Sigma and “Agility”, which eventually run out of steam as they are applied mechanically and without the insight that those who designed them in the first place had. They become devoid of creative energy.

Observation is an artisanal habit; like any habit, it needs a degree of ritual and ceremony. for some, it is a walk in nature; for others (including me), it is the discipline of journalling, and for yet others it is making something for the sake of it - from art to furniture. Peter Korn talks evocatively about understanding what a piece of wood does not want to be, what it does, and how he senses that on the lathe. He has a conversation with the wood.

If we choose, we can all bring that to our work, whatever it is. There is a point where our input begins and ends, and we have an opportunity for conversation before the next step begins.

If we can make that a habit, who knows where conversations might take us?