Were You Entitled, or Was The Title Won?

NOTE: The title of this post is also a link to the article referenced within the post.

I recently received a post (see link above) regarding "Learned Helplessness", which is defined as "where people 'learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity is restored for them to help them self by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance.'" Unfortunately, I see "Learned Helplessness" too much in business and community. I believe our culture has evolved from the independent self-sufficiency exemplified by the puritanical contingent of our country's forefathers, to a culture of entitlement (read as "helpless").

I work with and teach others to take ownership for who they are and the results of their actions. This is often times difficult when people have been entitled too long, but told they are performing well (read as "vanilla" not "balanced" feedback) in spite of the evidence of their labors. I have a 2X2 Capability Awareness matrix I use to help illustrate the entitlement mindset. It is sometimes difficult for people to accept, but once they do, they are on the road to recovery.

Ultimately, the fundamental flaws of our economy right now are evidence of this mentality. Unfortunately, it does not just evidence itself with the "less fortunate." Learned Helplessness is often enabled in the executive suites, by group think, or what I like to refer to as Cognitive Myopathy. At other times it is enabled by lack of integrity and professional courage.

In short, Learned Helplessness has pervaded every facet of our society in pandemic proportions. Sounds pessimistic doesn't it? I, however, am an optimist. I believe that armed with the correct knowledge, delivered by those with the professional courage to render the appropriate balanced feedback, that most people will want to do the right thing and to feel good about, rather than justify themselves. Given this assumption, I believe also that ours is not a hopeless state. As stated in my prior post, good investigators are generally also good leaders. They have to leverage leadership to gather, assimilate, collate and make sense of all the data that exists around the Loss Event and then identify and develop Actions for the Root Cause. If you are doing investigations, and not exemplifying the characteristics of a good leader, you are in danger of a less than complete investigation. In order to accomplish a good investigation, you have to work at leadership, and as such, solicit the help and support of other. An attitude of Entitlement or Helplessness, will only scare of the support you need to be successful.
So when you are done with the investigation, ask yourself...Were you entitled, or was the title won?

When The Lead Investigator Is Happy...

Yesterday, I was speaking with yet again, another colleague (I have a lot of colleagues!), and shared with her (we'll call her Christine, her real name is Christine), this concept of SMIs. Although I found the term intriguing myself, Christine really enjoyed it and was quite animated. Here, I believe, is why:

1. If you acknowledge someone as an SMI, and you bring them into the investigative team as an SMI and if they embrace the idea of being an SMI, this has great potential to bring an air of fun and light-heartedness to the investigation. In my view, a sense of fun, makes what would otherwise be a tedious investigation, go much faster and more interesting.
2. If the SMI understands clearly their role as such, then they will have the added value of being consciously critical, asking the difficult why's without fear or reservation.
3. If the SMI is comfortable and has fun with their role on the investigative team, then you have clearly established a safe environment for the investigation to take place in.

Actually, all these points are indicative of a safe environment. Christine's animation about the SMI concept, is because she holds these three things in high esteem. She knows the value of a safe environment for an investigation, especially a difficult one.

One of the single most important aspects of an investigation, is that the environment IS safe for all the investigative team members. This allows for a forum where anyone can speak wit hout fear of judgment or repercussions outside the investigation. Especially SMIs. When team members can operate without fear, then ideas and interaction flow freely, accelerating the investigation.

This makes the Lead Investigator very happy. And you know what they say:

When the Lead Investigator is happy, everyone is happy!

(By the way. Today is my son's 20th birthday. He is in Spain and I haven't seen him since February 18th. So here is my message to him: ¡Cumpleaños felices Lorin Douglas! )

Subject Matter Idiots

I was in yet another conversation, with yet another colleague, as we discussed the value of having someone who is not close to the process, to be on the investigative team. He is a Six Sigma Black Belt and told me that his group called these people SMIs. Like a goof, I asked what an SMI was and he responded, "Subject Matter Idiots."

We had a good laugh, but his point is well made. You want someone who knows nothing about the process being investigated. They are not afraid to ask questions that won't be asked by people who, because of their expertise, may not consider the question at all. Not because they are above the question, but because they are too close to the process, for the question to even be on their radar screen.

I like to think of this concept as a painting by Claude Monet, credited with starting the "Impressionist" era in art during the late 19th century. Monet used textured "dobs" of paint to create an impression of what was seen by the observer of the painting. Consider his work, "Sunflowers", a famous still of sunflowers in a vase on a table. If you were to get as close at this work as you physically could and look at it, all you would see were "dobs" of oil paint in rich yellows and oranges, with some greens, which made no apparent sense at all. But as you stand back, you can see the collection of color swaths come together to make sense of something meaningful to the eye of the observer.

Investigations are similar. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are too close to the process. Whereas an SME cannot see the broader view because of their Cognitive Myopathy, an SMI has no Cognitive Myopathy. Without such a filter, there are no rules and anything, or any question, is fair game.

I have been involved with investigations where SMIs took the investigation down the path to true Root Cause by asking the "why" questions no one else could see.

When you need a fresh perspective, don't be afraid to leverage a Subject Matter Idiot.

Group Think is Thoughtless

In the 18th Century, the Vienna General Hospital had a serious problem. There was a high degree of infant deaths due to puerperal fever. Data for infant deaths became available in 1784. From 1784 to 1822 the infant mortality rate was about 2%. From 1823 to 1841 infant mortality was about 7% and from 1841 to 1846 it jumped yet again to nearly 10%.

Women plead not to be admitted unless they had to be, knowing their babies had just as good a chance at survival, outside the hospital as in. Physicians studied this phenomenon and could come up with no cause as to why. Doubly perplexing was that infants delivered by mid-wives had a mortality rate of 0.6% as opposed to the infants delivered by the physicians and medical students, which had the near 10% mortality rate.

In 1846 Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis agreed to a three year contract to work at the hospital, beginning that year. He became aware of the problem, pored over the data and learned that in 1823, pathological anatomy began at the medical school, where physicians and medical students would dissect and study cadavers. Midwives did not attend the medical school, and as such performed no pathological anatomy. The physicians and medical students would complete their anatomy classes and then attend to the obstetrics of the hospital, now being carriers of cadaverous contamination.

Upon recognizing this issue, Semmelweiz instituted the practice of hand washing in chlorine after a physician or medical student completed a pathological anatomy. This was instituted in 1847. Infant mortality rates from 1847 to 1858 were about 1.6%, significantly lower than the nearly 10% mortality rate before.

During the decades prior to the investigation of Semmelweiz, the physicians in the hospital could not begin to fathom that anything they were doing would be the cause of the increased infant mortality rates. This is a classic example of Group Think. Group Think is found in organizations (larger than one individual). Tunnel vision and myopathy are synonymous with group think, but can also apply to the individual.

I read a book once, entitled, "Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box," in which the example was given of an infant learning to crawl. The infant gets up on its hands and scoots around by pushing itself back. Eventually, it gets wedged against something and cannot scoot back farther, becoming trapped. Frustrated, it screams and cries and pushes back harder, but to no avail. The paradigm of the infant does not allow it to consider that it might be the source of its own problem. If it could see the problem, it may not be able to do anything, if much about it, because it may not have the capability to change direction without pushing back. Intervention is nearly always required.

This is the hallmark of Group Think, Tunnel Vision and Myopic thinking. That is why it is important to have the emotional maturity to allow someone else to challenge the thought processes we are engaged in. This is critical to a good investigation. Having someone on your investigative team who will challenge the process can get others to see and think about things in a different way. This is necessary to a robust and successful investigation.

Group Think is thoughtless.