Simon Copsey: Cracking Cholera’s Code: Victorian Insights for Today’s Technologist

In this talk, Simon Popsy explores lessons from the Victorian era, focusing on the cholera outbreaks in 19th-century London. He emphasizes how the prevalent belief of the time, the miasma theory, misled individuals and authorities into ineffective actions, such as emptying cesspools into the Thames. He illustrates how these flawed beliefs resulted in widespread outbreaks, stressing the importance of cause and effect thinking. Popsy connects this historical analysis to modern organizational issues, arguing that incorrect beliefs can lead to flawed behaviors and ineffective solutions within businesses. He encourages audiences to reconsider their assumptions and embrace change by examining underlying beliefs.

welcome back to the show we've already had opening talk from our keynote speaker and it's time to get on the day and move to the next discussion now it's kind of interesting because that first discussion there's a lot of talk about you know what to do in a modern setting how to communicate people how to integrate how to get leadership on board and after we've been focused

on the 21st century my next guest seems to be fixated on time traveling back to the 19th century to take some some firm lessons from the Victorian era it's my pleasure to introduce Simon popsy and I'm sure he can explain exactly why we're going back to the 19th century thanks there thank you everyone thanks for having me um yes no I am fixated on Victorian times there's

a lot we can learn there's a lot I'm yet to learn about Victorian times um but before I say why uh let me say hi so hi I'm Simon I help happier staff deliver better things sooner uh come say hi I'm over at curious coffee. club and thank you for having me um so cracking color is code the reason it's so important to me is hundreds of

thousands of people died from color in the 1800s and col still affects us today all of this furthers my desire to share what we can learn from col and particularly from one man's efforts to overcome the deadly disease and that man was Jon Snow a physician in London but as part of this there's only three things I really want to cover the first thing is the start

in Victorian times to show a tragic example of how beliefs can let us down what we can do it and how technology comes into the picture all the good ideas in this presentation come from other people all the bad ideas are mine and mine alone um as I go through this two warnings one is there's going to be some deviations away from history um minor deviations and

that's just in the interest of time can't squeeze everything in and also there's going to be questions um these questions aren't to test you but to test me to make sure I'm conveying the material in a way that makes sense answers in chat there'll be a short delay your answer is reaching me so I will be pausing now and then apologies for that but it just gives

me a sense check um questions as well in the chat please all right so let's jump jump in uh beliefs and how they let us down so let me set this scene so we're in 1854 London it's the beginning of the third outbreak over 100,000 people in the UK have died from color so far um the prevalent belief of the time is that color is spread by

inhaling bad smell It's Kind known as my and London's many sesss are therefore suspected so this was before London's SE system had been established London primarily featured Standalone CES pools throughout they were emptied each night by nightman as you can see in the picture who then sell that effluence to Farmers for uses fertilizer let me put you into the picture let's make this interesting so imagine you're

in Soo Cola is exploding you're the budget holder for the region or the V and local officials present you with three options and remember these three options were actually considered and they were all considered because they they were targeting the removal of the sources of bad smell and therefore the source of color so the first option is close smelly businesses like stauter houses or tanneries the second

option is entering the smelly cess pools into the temps and the third option is knocking down buildings to improve air flow so the question I have is which option would you try there's a 5-second delay going to pause have a coffee I'll see if any answers coming and I'll continue it's perfect time for me to break if not I have one up my sleeve there is too

much of a dinight but we shall see I'm going to roll on and I'm going to pick two and I'm still going to be curious what comes up for other people the reason I'm going to pick two is this was something that was actually done so we can actually play through what happened and the way that I'm going to play through what happened is I'm going to

use a cause and effect diagram uh this particular flavor is a current reality tree from the theory constraints um and it allow us to see how things played out through eyes of the people at the time I like it because it's dead simple the way to read it although I'll narrate it is an arrow is if then Clause so if the lamp is not plugged in the

lamp will not turn on if then and a circle is an an course so if it is raining and if I am outside I'll get wet right so if you walked around in 1850s London three things you notice the cess pools were overflowing bad smelling seage was exposed onto the streets and out outbreaks were sudden and widespread even if we just look at some of this in

isolation we can start to see some cause and effect relationships so if sesss were overflowing that might be why or one reason why bad smelling seage was exposed on the streets there's something really important about London at the time which was that London's population had exploded lots of people were moving from the countryside into London over the previous years and with that being true and also London

continuing to rely on these Standalone sesss that was the reason why sesss were overflowing huge population increased relying on these small CS night men just couldn't keep up couldn't empty it quick enough empty them quick enough so they started to overflow and bad sewage bad smelling sewage was exposed also as I said the MTH theory was that color spreads via bad smells and Via bad smells alone

and if that was the case and there was bad smelling SE on the streets that's why they chose to empty the cess falls into the temp but also col spreads via bad smells and Via bad smells Alone by default all water is safe to drink and if temps the TS is the cheapest source of water in London and all water is safe to drink the water compan

is going to Source water from the temps but also if all water is safe to drink by default because Cola spreads only by bad smells then water companies won't filter that water because they have no need to and it's when these three things come together that sesss are being emptied into the temps water companies are sourcing water from the temps and not filtering it that yet rather

concern and Arthur Hill hassle put it really well he said the inhabitants of metropolis are made to consume a portion of their own excrement and pay for their privilege that was a horrifying truth so the question I have for you and I'll probably keep this rhetorical just because of the significant delay is is what happened next I will pause for a second just to let some ideas

prove but then I'll continue so if you went along with the mymi theory everything should be fine because chera is only spread five Asal but reality deviated from expectations water companies were actually spreading affected material in the drinking water which was leading to the outbreaks being sudden and widespread and that meant there was a pressure to act and the pressure to act meant the government did more

of the thing that they should not have done entering more CS into the temps faster creating a downward part so the question is why did reality deviate from expectations of the time and de puts it really well he says Theory leads to prediction and in this case the belief that color spreads by bad smells the MMA theory was wrong and this led to wrong predictions and therefore

the wrong actions so to summarize beliefs Drive behaviors if beliefs are wrong behaviors will at best be unhelpful in this case the belief was that Cola spreads via bad smells the miasma Theory and that led to the behavior of emptying sesss into the Upstream temps and water companies thinking it's safe to Source unfiltered Downstream TS water for drinking the question I have at this stage is what

happens if you try to change behaviors directly have have you ever told a child not to do something and what was the very next thing that did again pause for effect pause to give you some time to think well Alf puts it really well he says what rewards and punishments do if we try to change Behavior directly is produce temp compliance their bias obedience but temp is

the key word here and so really if we want to have any longlasting change in behavior of individuals or groups we need to start by changing beliefs and it's for this reason that a change in belief and it's for this reason that a change in belief must come before we see any change of behavior that is took over 30 years to see any real positive change in

London's approach to preventing col so recap cause and effect thinking can help us find the beliefs that undermine previous attempts to improve a situation the belief that people could only catch col by inhaling bad smells led to 1850s London doing all the wrong things in an attempt to improve the situation emptying sesss into the temps and course thinking can then help us understand what we need to

different differently next time as a result but beliefs must change before behaviors will change if people still believe in the misma theory they'll still operate in accordance with the theory so there's a question I want to put at the back of your mind for later we'll come back to this which is if you were to take a time machine to use dar's words back to Victorian times

and you're you're talking with Scientists how would you prove to them that their Theory the MMA theory is wrong keep that in the back of your mind I want to talk about my friend Sheila for a second so my friend Sheila she's she's fine now but she had a few symptoms a number of months ago she was feeling tired she had dry eyes she was feeling forgetful

course Sheila and she thought this was all because she was using the computer too much so her solution at the time was to use computers less very logical um but the question I have is how can we tell if Sheila's belief is correct how can we tell that all Sheila's symptoms were indeed caused by using computers too much the the answers I normally receive here is well

obviously go see a doctor always go see a doctor but try something medication um see how it goes or um Diagnostics blood tests so I think those are all you know the right things to do but there's a really simple way that we can kind of check whether Sheila's belief is valid or invalid with just a pen and paper and that's through cause and effect thinking like

we did before um so Sheila believed using the computer too much was causing all three symptoms if she's right we should be able to connect all these symptoms to the underlying belief if we can't the belief is invalid belief should explain all symptoms and observations so let's try so if Sheila uses the computer too much and Sheila blinks less when looking at the screen that would explain

why maybe it's causing her dry eyes right but as Sheila uses the computer too much it doesn't explain her forgetfulness Sheil Sheila could not explain how using the computer too much would lead to her forgetfulness there was a missing because if Sheil uses the computer too much she would feel because and she just didn't have an answer and the same with tightness there was another missing because

if Sheil feel tired because again Sheil didn't have an answer and Lisa shov puts it really well she says people are hurt and organizations do not improve due to our carelessness in the use of the word because um and she so she's belief was invalid because it could not account for two of her symptoms the tiredness and forgetful forgetfulness two missing because um and so she the

solution that maybe it would help the dry eyes a little bit but it won't get to the root things um and a put really well he says we fail more often because we solved the wrong problem than because we solve the right problem we get the wrong solution to the right problem and see the solution was the right solution just to the wrong problem if her symptoms

had been caused by using the computer too much then fine use it less but that wasn't the problem so Sheila went to see a doctor um and the doctor looked at the symptoms and said oh I think you might have an underactive thyroid uh which would mean that you have reduced thyroxine hormone in your blood meaning your metabolism would slow leading to these things I can't even

pronounce which would then connect with all three symptoms it would explain all three symptoms and observations and if you take if she takes the thyroxine hormone it would balance the metabolism and everything all the effect afterwards including the symptoms would start to dissolve so recap valid beliefs should explain all symptoms or observations Sheila's belief using the computer too much could not explain a tiess or forgetfulness there

were two missing because whereas the doctor's belief that Sheila had an underactive thyroid could explain all symptoms all observations it ined belief is likely to mobilize unhelpful Behavior best she's incorrect belief led her to use the computer list did it help I think she missed Netflix right let's jump back in upgrading faulty beliefs let's come back to the question I asked you before which was how would

you prove the mymouth theory was wrong if you were talking to scientists at the time so let me give you a little bit more information to help so Jon Snow eminent physician um originator of epidemiology made made some observations time the first one was he created a map from all the deaths that were occurring in Soo um using hospital records and he noticed what I've already shared

with you that outbreaks were sudden and widespread they're occurring in a very short period in a very uh wide area the second observation he had was that there was a death in hamster and Islington far away from the outbreak area and so some people were affected even far from the outbreak what was more interesting was he noticed that the Poland Street workhouse had very few deaths five

of the 5 535 workers died but also even more interesting lime Brewery which was right in the middle had no deaths at all so this third observation was that some people even within the outbreak area were unaffected and so if these are the observations what we really need to do is take the common belief of the time the myma theory that color is spread via inhaling bad

smell and see if it can observations can we can we connect them all together let's try it so if color is spread via bad smell and bad smells affect larger areas like a h Soo then it could explain why outbreaks is sudden widespread and that was leading to the actions of Ting SE the terms knocking closing smelly businesses right but there's a missing because there's two missing

because in fact col the myman theory could not explain why some people were affected far from the outbreak area far from the bad smell and it could not explain why some people even within the area of bad smell within Soho were unaffected the PO Street workhouse the lion Brewery largely unaffected so what was Jon Snow's belief in comparison if the MMI theory he was starting to see

was incorrect through his systematic approach what about the what was his theory his belief was chera is communicated by the evacuations for the elementary Canal what do what that means in Simple Simon speak is col was not spread through inhaling bad smell but instead spread through ingesting infective material as we know now because of Jon Snow um so Jon Snow saw this and and found and try

to then scrutinize his own Theory by using the same logic seeing if he could explain all the observations in front of him using his theory that col spreads F ingesting and infecting material let's try so if col spreads by ingesting infected material and water companies spread infected material through drinking water you taking it from the temps which has had all the sesss emptied into it and pumping

it directly into homes directly into water pumps on the streets then that would explain why outbreaks a sudden widespread we're fast tracking infected material two people but also if color spreads by ingesting effective material water can be transported in a bottle in food that's why some people were affected for half the outbreak and that's what happened in the tragic case of hamston Islington a granddaughter or grandmother

loved the taste of the Soho water so her granddaughter put it in a bottle took it up to hamst they drank it together they went back to their respective homes and they and so that that explain that one and finally color spreads by ingesting effective material and some buildings have their own water sources that would explain the final observation that some people even in the outbreak areas

weren't affected so the Poland Street workhouse had its own well lime Brewery They just drank alcohol all day they didn't drink the water so they were fine so given all that what solution do you think Jon Snow recommended in comparison to knocking down buildings in comparison to empting sess pools in comparison to closing down SM businesses B your water that was the suggestion boow your water so

much simpler once you understand the problem properly the solution become so simple so recap valid beliefs should explain all symptoms or observations in this case the MMA Theory had two missing because it couldn't explain why some outbreak and why some people even within the outbreak area wen't affected and an invalid belief is likely to mobilize unhelpful Behavior we could just boil water rather than empting stiv of

attempts knocking down buildings to improve airort closing SM businesses this recap Probably sounds very similar to Sheil just apply to victori London so let's come back to the present day let's apply this to a mod business what we've learned from Victorian times right so again putting you in the epicenter here imagine if you aren't already you're a principal technology consultant your client wants you to build an

internal travel booking website and this is to replace an existing manual process make it easier for staff to submit travel requests to a central admin team who then approve and book the travel your client believes it will solve three problems the first problem is St spending loads of time submitting requests second problem is that the central admin team that receives those travel requests spend loads of time

reviewing them and thirdly costs are increasing across the organization question I have for you pause for coffee is uh would you take this project on it pays well it pays well right let's use the usual cause and effect and see if we can get a bit more clarity so these were the problems that the business was facing as I mentioned costs were increasing reviewing travel requests by

the central admin team which just taking a long time and staff was spending loads of time submitting those travel requests in the first place there are two other problems or observations staff were unhappy and tired and also quitting um so in this business it's important know that travel was a significant cost and if costs were increasing and travel was a significant part of it leaders began to

focus on reducing travel costs and in the past some staff had wasted company money not many but a few what that translated to was staff not being trusted by leaders in general and if staff weren't trusted and leaders were focusing on reducing travel costs then all the leaders brought in unilateral rule which is all travel requests must be approved if all travel requests must be improved to

make sure we save a penny and a dime then and reviewing travel requests take notable time then what the leadership team did was they brought in a cental admin team to review each and every travel request and that was one reason why cost started to increase because you need to to pay that team you need to pay their salaries you're new team but also the central admin

team has limited context they don't know the people submitting the travel requests they don't know the purpose of travel they don't know why they chose the flights they did then the only thing the central admin team can do is review the requests on cost alone on the final number if that was the case that led to a lot of travel requests being rejected and then stff having

to resubmit re resubmit re re re resubmit but also if cheap hotels are out of town and requests are reviewed on cost alone then staff are going to be encouraged to stay at those cheaper hotels outside of town and then spend notable time in transit and also if cheap flights are at those inconvenient hours but requests are reviewed on cost and Loan and Staffing going to be

encouraged to travel inconvenient hours to save money what that means is that staff are unhappy and tired they've come all this way for an important meeting that's worthy of flying or Transit and then now tied might be their clients might be with each other and in those situations where it's the most important you make good decisions those St are unhappy and T unhappy and tied and going

to be less productive which means it's more likely that cost will increase they'll make bad decisions um but also if star unhappy inside at some point they'll they'll quit um and if replacing stuffff comes at a cost as we know again cost will increase for another reason all this is is very direct but it so at this stage I tend to ask a question if you had

a magic wand and you could change one box in this diagram to change this from a really woeful sad tale to a happy tale what one box would you wave your magic W what to give you time to form a thought in your head look at the diagram see which one box you would change to try and help us unfold differently so the one I'm interested in

is is this one here STA and not trusted I'm curious what would happen if we actually trusted staff instead by default and Reed hting puts this well he says at Netflix you don't have to complete a purchase order and wait for approval to buy something you just buy it take a photo the receipt and submit it directly for reimbursement some people will cheat the gains outweigh the

losses so let's not put everyone in jail because of the actions of a few that's what he says um so I'm curious what would happen if we change this to the universe if we actually trust staff by default if we trust St by default let's play this out then well we don't need to review travel requests anymore because by default We Trust our stuff and if we

anymore we don't need a central admin because the only purpose was to review travel requests and that in itself we don't need to pay the salary so that means that costs reduce but another reason why everything else has been removed from this page is because all the problems and all the associated cost problems after that came from having a central admin team who didn't have context on

the people and the purpose of requests they were reviewing on cost and Alone um causing staff to travel in convenient hours take the you know flights that weren't quite right for them having to resubmit taking additional sta time staff being unhappy tied so by not having a center ad team we've actually removed a lot of the side effects and a lot of the cost of those side

effects which means that costs actually reduced for another reason no do we need to pay the salaries but we don't need to have those side effects and if costs are reducing that means we don't need to focus on travel travel costs anymore because costs are reducing there another and if there's no need to focus on travel cost it's another reason that we don't need to review every

single travel request so we get this virtuous cycle just by trusting staff to begin with so if we go back to the original question I asked you if you were that principal consultant what benefit would have creating a travel booking website have offered given that there were three problems that the organization was trying to solve stop spending loads of time submitting travel requests and resubmitting and re-

resubmitting reviewing travel requests taking a long time by the central admin team and cost generally increasing what benefit would have automating or creating that travel booking website offered well I do like a truck equit there's nothing worse than doing the probably I don't think it would have helped at all but let's summarize so the summary here is technology solidifies processes so in this case the technology was

an internal travel booking website for staff and that was there to reinforce the existing process in place which was a centralized approval process for all travel and that was reinforcing the existing behavior of all travel costs needing to be approved and that was driven by the underlying belief that staff cannot be trusted the great thing is is as we go higher up this Improvement you get greater

efficiency we can do things faster with mistakes but the cost of change are so high it's much easier to change a paper based process we can do that overnight but changing a software based system we know it can take years so we really really need to start with a belief we need to start here at the bottom if technology is so costly to change before we solidify

any process or any belief we need to ensure we solidifying the right ones in this case we want solidify the process that was was leading to all the negative consequences the business was observing um my dad puts it really well he says star managers can't see not because they don't want to but because they're unquestionably following the rules without asking why and it's why that helps us

get down into the underlying beliefs behind the processes so before we solidify the technology we know whether we're solidifying the right ones in this case the belief with staff cannot be trusted but equally so it could be color spread by inhaling bad uh so recap technology solidifies processes makes them hard to change if processes are based on incorrect beliefs technology will only help us do the wrong

thing better and make it harder to do the right thing uh here are some other invalidated beliefs um all beliefs that I've held at um I'll put some reading at the end of where I understood these aren't quite right but so what let's summarize everything so key points an invalid behaviors at best like she that we need to make sure we're not missing a because that we

get down and understand cause and effect and cause and effect thinking can help us find and upgrade those incorrect beliefs like the Myas Theory we cannot trust staff all the other beliefs I showed you on the previous slide technology solidifies processes it may mean we just do the wrong thing better as we were attempted to do as a principal technology consultant and and so transformation therefore begins

with transforming beliefs kind of always uh checking uh debugging our beliefs and making sure they're right before we solidify the technology if also to summarize everything in one quote as you can see I I quite like quotes aov said that the principal obstruction to an organization getting to where its managers most want it to be lies in the minds of its managers beliefs govern our behaviors processes

and technology and those are the things that hold us back and stop us making progress before we solidify that technology let's just check check them now what so these are the reading materials um they're all excellent books they all were informed this presentation really really good can't recommend them enough all shatter my beliefs and assumptions for the better um I'm over at curious coffee cup Club please

come say hi free book a compilation of short articles that helps aims to help people understand why organizations get in their own way without realizing and practically what you can do about it yeah please please hello Darren that's that's me that's all got well I don't know if that is all you've got Simon I'm sure we can uh maybe weed a little more out of that brain

of yours folks if you do have questions for Simon this is the time to click across the Q&A Tab and type them out and I will definitely relay them to him but um yeah some some interesting insights there s I think the the interesting big takeaway for me is I I love that quote uh from your father right Nigel copy uh where he's pretty much just saying

you know the manager don't want to ask why like and I wonder why that is it's it's almost like um just reading it I was thinking think like a child right like you know when you know when your child first starts realizing why and they just always ask why we seem to lose that when we grow up and do you think it's maybe this fear of appearing

wrong or incompetent oh that's that's beautifully put and your answer is perfect Dar so so gold um there's this really wonderful video of him Edie Gold on YouTube about two minutes of him being interviewed and he said exactly that he said as kids um they they ask you why and the first thing we say is because that's the way it is then they ask you why and

then you say well because and then they say why again you say go talk to your mother right and so we we kind of um break them out of this curiosity um very early on and the thing is that kids are so curious they're so you know they're born curious we're all born curious but at some point asking why is kind of kicked out of us um

as you said and it might be part of parenting it might be part of organizations like if I'm an organization it can feel quite rude to say well why do we do it like this why is quite an imposing word in the English language um so yeah completely agree with what you said your your question and your answer um it's easily forgotten to ask why I I

think the the other thing there is also may maybe it's this of it's very intimidating to ask why to someone in a position of power because then you feel like you're you're essentially saying that they don't know right it's it's kind of like what you said there where it's like it's just the way it is as a parent you're like look this is the way it is

you have to do this respect my opinion I think it kind of leans into that it's not just that it's knocked out of you is that you then also have this authoritarian element reinforced that you should just follow what you're being told no that's really well put yes and it's and and sorry you said managers that you put it so well Dar I think um you know

managers or leaders in an organization they're the ones who set the rules you know rightly or wrongly they're the ones with the power it's not fault they just they have the power to change policies to change how things are done and unfortunately they're the ones therefore whose beliefs set how the organization works and so they're the ones we need to ask why because conditions change what an

organization does changes over time um how it does it changes over time it needs to change time otherwise we can't adapt and so it's absolutely they're the people we need to ask why too but they're the hardest people to ask why too depending on the culture depending on the Norms so yeah spot on again feels good yeah it's I think it's also one of those kind of

interesting things where the difference between just once again not appearing like you know what you're doing versus justifiable analysis it's it's almost like a lot of time companies are waiting to see examples of failure to justify them slowing down how do you kind of Rec recile that how do you like tell the these people in those positions okay you we are the example waiting to happen we

need to slow down and take a different look at this oh that's a good question right so so crisis of course uh is is a calling right as we've seen with like Challenger and very sad stories like that um I guess there's there's a few things there right so if you were to go to Vanguard Consulting who are amazing and they use a lot of demings kind

of beliefs I think they say this three approaches to helping leaders learn and see things differently I'm going to try and remember them one is um is coercive say you know do this or else so if you're in a position of power you could do that but if you're not you can't and as we saw with the you know telling someone to do something without helping them

change their underly beliefs they're just going to go back they're just going to go back at some point to the way they operated before because that's what they believe um the second one is um I can't remember the word it's logical um rational rational it's like what Consultants do and you know I'm a consultant so I can say that right we go into organizations we use logic

and say this is why you should do it like this this is why it's not been working so far this is why you're seeing the problems you are you can use perfect logic but that tends to not be as successful as the final one which is normative which is where you help it's like rational is almost like trying to help this comes from a a colleague of

mine I think Stuart he said that uh rational rational approach is trying to help describe the color green to someone who's never seen green before you can but it's not the same as normative which is where you get them to experience it and I think that's probably where going to the G or whatever it's called comes from where you help leaders experience why the organization is failing

by seeing it for themselves because you telling them this isn't working is very different from them experiencing not working and seeing why for themselves and coming having their own time to come to the same conclusions you have so that's normative and I think that's that's one approach it's always very hard because managers are so busy it's one of the constraints in any organization that's another reason why

I find these current reality trees quite helpful particular if you use them um as a collaborative Tool uh done as a group because it allows everyone to expose their beliefs of uh what's not working and why helps allows people to speculate and work backwards and kind of take almost a scientific approach because they can form hypotheses and then test those hypotheses by saying well if that's really

the underlying cause I expect to see these things as well you know if you really have malaria I expect you to not just have a fever also have these other things as well do we see these other things no okay well you must be wrong you know there's something we need to change here and so you can kind of use this collaborative tool to come to um

a simple understanding of a complex system in a business and um use that to then drive conversations and that can help I still think the nor normative part is very important because you need those leaders to come with you they need to be leading they need to they need to want the change but another thing that Vanguard uh or another consultancy I can't remember which one is

they do is um I really admire this is they don't do any kind of change or transformation unless the leader asks them because that invitation means that the leader ready to confront these assumptions that are probably invalid through no fault of their own we're never really taught how to be managers there's very you know management theory so you know it's not taught I wasn't taught it um

and I don't think many are this really lets lets those managers down so so yeah so until managers want are ready to have bad news or what could feel like bad news don't go and try to change them let them invite change when they're ready um so I think that's one of the uh one of the tools that they use in sales to say well you know

let's not try and pull people and let's let them come to us when they're ready when they've seen that all the things they've tried you know automation Etc doesn't work cost cutting doesn't work but yeah I spoke for a long time what comes up you know oh that yeah no I was just thinking that I mean that's whole sales point it kind of reminds that the classic

sales example I remember from long time ago where a guy was in an interview and the guy went um s with these sunglasses and the guy the guy picks up his phone and he starts reflecting the light into the guy's eyes and he just goes do you want to buy some sunglasses right it's it's that same kind of invocative element where what you kind of suggesting there

is that that agency you gave where they don't suggest until they're asked I imagine what they do is they analyze the business they present all the facts and then I'm gu guessing in that situation they're basically saying to the owner make your own conclusions and then we'll try to guide you based on those conclusions ah so I could talk too much about Vanguard in detail because I'm

probably going to get it wrong although they're really an excellent company so I'll try and do my best but I think they um they kind of bring the manager on the journey so they can see the problems for themselves and combine that with um looking at what it could an alternative assumption be here what could an alternative explanation be um so for example a common one that

deing brings up is you know 94% I'm going to get it wrong but 94% of issues in an organization come from a common cause come from the system itself being badly designed um as opposed to individual performance whereas a common assumption with management is if someone performs badly it's them whereas what Deming is saying is it could be but 94% of uh the time it's not them

it's the organization um and so what we need to do is we need to understand what led to the cause of failure and treat that and that's what doctors do right they don't just treat the symptoms they don't go oh you've got malaria oh you're a bad person they go oh you know where's that you know it's malaria it's not just a fever etc etc you're bad

it's oh that's coming from malaria let's give you this and this and this to try and help treat this so in the same same way that GPS work back to the underlying cause and recognize symptoms come from a cause when we turn to organizations and we see people as symptoms we see people not performing well as symptoms symptoms we never go backward and say why could that

be what have I done as a manager that's let that individual down um and so yeah as you said right managers failures in organizations come from manager manager in action often there's no disregard to managers i' I've been really bad manager it's not them we just not taught how to do things um we often promoted without without that theory sorry did that what comes up for you

I I think the the interesting thing there he like you know you kind of admittedly like hands up I've been a bad manager and I think like that's that's the biggest thing we're afraid of like you know I'm not shaming you here it's more the fact that we we as people fear failure right but the reality is if you look at the most successful people like I

always say they're the biggest failures like you know um like you I do a lot of things in competive gaming and I go that guy's the best in the world he's The Biggest Loser I'm like whoa what do you mean he's the big because he had to fail a million times to get it right so good and I think that's maybe one of the big issues with

managers is it can be an even more um scary element is this thought that you've got all these people that you're responsible for this business you're responsible for people could lose jobs you make the wrong choice but I feel like quite often more companies fail due to uh paralysis than making the wrong choice actively at least yeah no I think or just not making any choice right

or just continue like I um there there's two things that's really exciting and really well put there's two things come you know Mike R puts it really well he says the difference between uh reality expectations is learning right that that's what it is um and it's just we have to be open to that and it's hard um there something else you said there which I I've just

completely forgotten unfortunately um but yeah AB absolutely um oh that was it yeah often when any change in any organization um can lead to Improvement or making things worse right yeah um what we need to be what we we it's about trying the change and seeing whether it does lead to the expected Improvement and not just Improvement full stop but the expected amount of improvement if it

delivers less or more Improvement than expected even if it delivers 10 times what we expect there's something in our head that's wrong why could we predict that if we couldn't predict that our theory was wrong as Deming says if our theory is wrong we don't understand the organization properly and it means we're in a dangerous position so when we try the next change it may not be

an improvement it might be a catastrophic failure so we need to make sure our Theory you our mental model of how the organization works is correct um and we you said that comes from expectation reality being different and so slowly over time our mental model comes to represent the organization and it will never fully represent the organization you I think as confuser said the world is infinitely

more complex than our mind can comprehend but we need a a mental model at least reflects reality as best as best we can yeah yeah what the way that you kind of describe that as kind of the difference between going to the slot machine in Vegas and going into chess tournament right like it's you know you might hit a jackpot but if you can't explain to me

how you hit the jackpot you were correct in the way you approach the jackpot then there's nothing but Randomness to your your method right exactly and that's that's that's that's so uh well put yeah that's so well put um if you can't you know setting goal setting quoters is is great and that you know organizations do that I say GPS you have 10 minutes to see a

patient sales team you have this much time to bring in this much revenue that's great but if you can't explain by what means you know you want people to achieve it all you're doing is setting quotas that will help people fail you're not creating an organization that can support them and Elevate their performance to achieve it so as you said right how is that slot machine going

to get you the goal right you need to if you can answer that that's much better than saying deliver me 10 jackpots in 10 days so yeah absolutely but that takes imagination that takes creativity that takes understanding that's hard as a manager that's hard no one teaches you I think what you've done well is his speaker has got people to start imagining and thinking a little bit

deeper um Simon I think we're about to run out of time here so I I don't want to run us over um very for invocative talk here I'm sure a lot of people are already kind of scrammed their brains thinking what can I do different uh once again you know if they want to reach out I believe there you go scan across there go check out the

Curious coffee Club Simon as you can see is a very receptive person so I'm sure he's eager to hear from more of you uh but now I just want to thank you for your time buddy it was an absolute pleasure to talk to you it's lovely to be you thanks for the questions geez really good all right thank you Simon hopefully we'll see more of you soon

take care [Music]