Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes (TED Books)

I think this is a sincere book with a few good observations that might be quite helpful to you and your organization. IF you already have your actual business “T”s crossed and your “I”s properly dotted. If you are floundering for basic business reasons (your products aren’t selling, your value proposition is broken, you are being killed by new regulations and taxes, or your competition is eating your lunch), well, you have some very important things to deal with first. These ideas MIGHT be a part of that process, but I think of these more as refinements than as basic foundational business principles.This is an attractive little book with lots of color, cute drawings, not too many pages (just over a 100 pages with the blank red pages, the drawings, and end matter counting as pages), nice thick paper, and a few clear and easy to grasp ideas. Whether you can implement them easily depends a lot on your corporate culture and structure, which is really the point the author is making. Your culture, structure, and the way humans tend to operate within such organizational caves can not only get in the way of your business goals and success, but kill it outright.The book has five short chapters or essays on different subjects. I guess they flow out of one talk she gave at TED, but I don’t think they really connect and build into an overall theme, except as ideas to help you rethink how you do what you do every day (not WHAT you do, or why you do it, but how you do some things on the margins). One of my pet peeves with these kinds of books is that they tend to belittle the numbers side of business because a lot of people who suppose themselves to be brilliant are lazy when it comes to thinking analytically and far too many people today are poor at understanding math. Oh, they can work spreadsheets and programs that do numerical analysis and crunch numbers. But getting to the meaning of what the numbers being crunched represent and what the crunched product means too often elude them. This book, in my view, panders too much to such people. She offers no financial evidence for her theories. Few dates of when the anecdotes occurred, no longitudinal follow up to see if the successes she cites continued, and no evidence of them being replicated in other organizations. Scientifically, this is a problem. Emotionally, it is flattering because we are such special and unique little snowflakes. But in the end, we all have bills to pay; don’t we? How is that done without financial success and, heaven forfend, numbers?I think the first chapter on “Creative Conflict” is quite strong. I like her take on diversity, but not just racial and sex diversity, culture, background, interests, life goals, and more. Her point that too many of us think we are look through windows out into the world when in fact we are staring into mirrors is, I think, quite right. We tend to feel most comfortable being around what we find similar to what we already know. And success is often about stretching ourselves into discomfort and the unknown. Of embracing differences in approach, different views, and looking for the uncomfortable questions that will make us dig deeper to make our solution even better and of more value.The second chapter on “Social Capital” offers her approach to team cohesion, dynamics, and cooperation. Some of us have been very fortunate to be part of a very special team when everything clicked and we were all able to combine our talents, differences, similarities, and focus on a goal and make it happen even beyond our wildest expectations. That is fun. That is a life changing experience. Heffernan offers some things you can look for to help promote that. But I think she goes overboard in diminishing the role of the singular genius. Beethoven didn’t write his music by committee. Hemingway and Dickens wrote alone. Nevertheless I think this essay is valuable. Her approach to “power listening” is something that can benefit anyone.But she doesn’t deal with the problem that teams don’t last forever. People transition in and out and people are not always fungible or easily replaceable. Not every mix of talents creates the same net sum of the parts. Maybe it gets even better. But we regard the 1927 Yankees as something special for a reason. And those of us from Detroit know how wonderful the Tiger teams of 1968 and 1984 were. It isn’t easy to produce greatness by recipe alone or on command.Chapter three argues that the notion of working endless hours and juggling lots of things simultaneously is counterproductive. It gets less done, lowers productivity, and lowers the quality of the work produced. Instead, limit work hours to those where you can work intensely and creatively on a single project, then rest and recharge. Take time to care for yourself and there will be a higher quality of you to do better quality and more creative work.Chapter four argues that the very structure of your organization might get in the way of your accomplishing your goals and developing value. She cites stories of how long standing problems in large organizations found solutions once managers circulated the problems throughout the entire organization and let fresh eyes and other resources come to bear on the issue. Sometimes managers don’t solve the problem, but are loathe to give up their ownership of it. They want to hold onto it, even though it remains something they need to solve, but haven’t. I do think her intention is good when she talks about a small team of creative types belonging to the whole company and being without a boundary. But a small team can only do so much. It has to triage and pick and choose. Not everything can be solved this way. And she speaks glowingly of not being constrained by resource limitations. Well, everything is constrained at some point. And, as I noted earlier, no one can pay their own bills if the company doesn’t pay its bills. So, beware the fantasy of otherworldly economics.The last chapter is about an idea that has gotten traction in a variety of places over the years. We have seen the notions of inverted pyramids and servant leaders and leaderless teams before. She pushed the idea that higher expectations, not just difficult goals, but outright enthusiasm for the team and its members being able to do more is key to them being able to do more. And that having low expectations tends to set low accomplishment in stone. She calls then the Pygmalion and the Galatea effects. Nothing can guarantee low achievement better than assuring people that you expect little from them because they don’t have the talent to succeed. She cites companies like Microsoft that have dumped forced ranking and the way they manage winning without having to force other people into losing roles.I think this is fine as far as it goes. But at the start of the season, every baseball and football team convinces itself it can win the championship. By the end of the season, one team does. The others may have “done more” by some measures. But they still didn’t achieve their major objective. What does that mean? You will have to decide.Again, I think this is a book to prod your thinking and provide you with a few ideas to consider. I think they might help you in designing, redesigning, and managing your organization. It is sure fire recipe book? No. It is a panacea? Heck no. But it is a good and provocative read. Even if it engages in a lot more arm waving than analysis.Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI

I was assigned this book for a leadership psychology class and it was a very quick and easy read. The author made some excellent points backed by scientific evidence. I only wish she went into more detail with her neuroscience examples, but that might have bored people less nerdy than me.

"Beyond Measures" delivers an easy to read, authentic and passionate view on leadership and work culture. The content is relevant and insightful and helped to re-energize my views about leading people. More importantly, I appreciate the authors disclaimers that leading organizations is a difficult and fluid process. She adds that no "system" or "7 step process" will apply universally to all organizational needs. Like any other book on leadership, the intent is to help us develop the tools to successfully lead our companies.

The Bottom LineRead the invigorating and highly quotable introduction as well as chapter 1 and stop there if you’re in a hurry.You may really enjoy the overviewing introduction and chapter 1 about creative conflict, while the rest of the book simply fails to delivery what’s promised in the title.The problem is that, the title promises small, actionable changes for big impact. But, dude, those that are actually suggested in the book are definitely not small ones: teaching empathy, smashing silos, introducing divergent thinking, making offsites work, forgetting ranking, distributing power, letting the best idea lead, … what’s next, ending war, poverty and saving the world? And those are small changes and small shifts?All are great points, but I just really can’t see how those changes are small. In other words, the author failed to touch the ground of small changes and simply chose to float in the middle, making a bunch of really good points that can NOT provoke your thoughts on the actionables. Ambitious, but falls shallow.Despite all that, the sobering opinions in the introduction and chapter 1 are worth your careful read. Call it comfort food if you want, but it’s not without subtleties.

The company I work for is in the process of trying to make a cultural shift to place more emphasis on creative and new processes. I have been working on one of these and I had recently had a disagreement with the owner on the direction i should take with my project. I spent weeks hiding my work and myself from him afraid of the confrontation that would result if he found out that I had chosen my own path. In the past I have done this and find that as long as hit the goal and get the desired results he would approve. I just have to get done before he finds out. This book highlighted for me, as someone who typically avoids conflict, by doing this I was creating a silo of myself, not getting the best ideas I could and cutting out the owner's input out of fear. This naturally would lead to anger from him if things did not work out because I denied him the opportunity to influence. At the same time his approach denied me the opportunity to influence him. Lots of things to work through myself as a result of this read. Some good tips as well.

This book gets to the point very well and makes some good thought provoking information. I like that it does not even try to give al the answers but expects the reader to come to their own conclusions based on the needs of their organization.Really liked this book

Great book and perfectly new

Great read. The Ted Talk was awesome to listen to, and the book delivered just as well. I have tried a few of those ideas in companies I have worked with, and even though technology is much more available, there are huge opportunities to combine old and new school ideas that you can tailor to your organisation's cultures and people. Very easy to read with lots of success stories. But like any 'aha' moments, always try it personally and with your immediate team first by role modelling. Don't try to change the world overnight.

A delightful book, all in just 100 pages! A must-read for all Business Leaders and aspiring Leaders

I suspect one of the motives of this short book was to inspire us to feel and think and then be and do one small change at a time, in our own best way, and where possible collaborating.To this end the book highly succeeds.

“The paradox of organizational culture lies in the fact that , while it makes a big difference, it is comprised of small actions, habits, and choices. The accumulation of these behaviours - coming from everywhere, from the top and the bottom of the hierarchy, from inside ad outside of the company itself - creates an organization’s culture. It feels chaotic and yet, at the same time, is susceptible to everything anyone does.”“The blessing lies in the fact that institutional cultures are nonlinear systems. Small changes - listening, asking questions, sharing information - alter beyond measure the ideas, insights, and connections those systems are capable of producing.”“it matters more to built trust and encourage ambition than to reward obedience.”“Because organizational cultures are nonlinear systems, they can’t depend on just a few lauded superstars but draw their energy from the vast collective intelligence of every employee, affiliate, partner, and customer. In that, they’re inherently democratic, demanding a generous and humble mindset.”“Passivity, articulated through silence, exacts a price not just when people feel they can’t warn others about problems but also when they feel they can’t challenge and explore new ideas. It’s in that silence that opportunities - for redress or innovation - vanish.”“I’ve concluded that conflict aversion and a desire to please are universal, eviscerating our energy, initiative, and our courage.”“The silence isn’t golden; it’s suppressed conflict.”“Great teams need windows on the world, but biases mean that we mostly get mirrors.”“Childs was explaining what I’d felt that night in London: the unarguable moral authority of someone not out for himself.”“Recognizing that his values were at stake was a critical first step; when you’re tired, distracted, or heavily focused on deadlines or targets, even that can be difficult.. Experiments show that we often don’t even notice the moral moment, and by the time we do, it’s often too late. But what Luke found was that identifying the moment at which he was tempted by silence made him stop to think about his choices. Advise, allies, and rehearsal gave him the confidence to stand his ground.”“Ask yourself:What do I have to offer that no one else can bring? That’s what you are there for.”“Critical to the idea of just cultures, therefore, is the belief that as long as they are well-intentioned, mistakes are not a matter of shame but for learning.”“The black book of Torres is the book of mistakes. Whenever a mistake is made, the person who made it writes it up. One entry came from the chief financial officer, acknowledging as $200,000 error he had made in a currency hedge. But the value of the book goes beyond writing: every new recruit reads it on joining the company. So this simple book both shares the learning from errors - so they aren’t repeated - and sends a powerful message: everyone makes mistakes.”“When things turn out as we imagined, we call ourselves smart; when they don’t, we call that a mistake. But really the hypothesis was just not proved. Being able to see that as new information, rather than error, turns the debate into exploration, argument into thinking.”“Just as in aviation, highly complex procedures become robust only when everyone looks after them, takes responsibility, and cares.”“what prompts them to share ideas and concerns, contribute to one another’s thinking, and warn the group early about potential risks is their connection to one another. Social capital lies at the heart of just cultures: it is what they depend on - and it is what they generate.”“This wasn’t monitored or regulated, but no one in these high-achieving groups dominated or was a passenger. Everyone contributed and nothing any one person said was wasted.The second quality of the successful groups was social sensitivity: these individuals were more tuned in to one another, to subtle shifts in mood and demeanor. (…)And the third distinguishing feature was that the best groups included more women, …”“When it came time to draw up the company’s annual budget, each department head drew up a budget for that department - but then had to explain it so cogently to one colleague that the colleague could defend it at the leadership team meeting.”:While many people recoil from conflict because they fear it will endanger their relationships, the paradox is that hones conflict - during the hard work together - makes social connectedness grow.”“The mortar [argamassa], in this context, is social capital: mutual reliance, an underlying sense of connectedness that builds trust.”“There’s a virtuous circle here: creative conflict, done well, generates social capital that, in turn, makes conflict safe and constructive. (By contrast, an absence of social capital makes it impossible for people to speak and think openly - which means that they never develop the social connectedness they need from one another.)”“Building social capital makes organizations more productive and creative because high levels of trust create a climate of safety and honesty. That makes companies more efficient and profitable, too. How? By making it easier to ask for help.”“We interrupt when we think we know where the argument or a sentence is going - but our interruption blocks new ideas or thoughts. Moreover, when participants know that they won’t be interrupted, the mood of the meeting changes. Urgency, the fight for airtime, dissipates. Knowing you will be heard creates space for thinking.”“recognizing that the dynamic between people is what brings organizations to life.”“So monotasking - focusing on one task at a time - isn’t only more efficient; it also leaves us better able to use the knowledge we have gained. This isn’t just a matter productivity. Distracted people can’t think, which also means they cannot begin to think for themselves. They make good sheep, but will never make great leaders.”“When it comes to time, most organizations are very good at measuring its quantity but poor at measuring its value. We need time for quiet, focused work. We also need time to let our minds wander and find the insights and inspirations no amount of focus will ever bring. Synchronizing time for a team, a project, or an entire organization can create a powerful sense of community. But walking away from work can be the greatest contribution we make to it.”“So there’s a paradox: for the culture inside to be vibrant, it has to let the outside in.”“Whereas many organizations talk about divisions, what Cronk is talking about, and Makin and Essenpreis experienced, is a porous membrane - between the company and the world. It is their interaction, their frequent collisions that make the business creative.”“Never mind who’s gifted, who’s talented. Expect great things and you are more likely to get them.”“Standart tools of appraisal, assessment, and ranking provide an illusion of control, a comforting defence against the slaker. But they’ve overengineered the solution to the small problem while ignoring the bigger one. Turn that around - focus instead on liberating and celebrating talent - and the results are predictably disproportionate.”“expected technical expertise to head the list. But out of the top eight qualities, that one came last. What mattered most to people was working with colleagues who believed in them, cared about them, and took an interest in their lives and careers.”“What the Pygmalion experiments and the Google data demonstrates is that one of the simplest ways to elicit great work from people is to show you believe in them.”“But were they dead to begin with? Did the company recruit and hire dead people? Of course not. But lack of time, attention, and concern had killed off the interest and talent with which they’d begun.”“At Arup, such flexibility isn’t unusual. Teams are formed according to the expertise that the job demands - and the skills that individual engineers seek to develop.”“Instead of hierarchy, what I’m watching is heterarchy: and informal structure that changes in response to need.”“Just as the human brain itself is not hierarchical - its different areas and capacities are recruited in different combinations according to the task - so, in creative organizations, every individual counts.”“[Powerful people who control resources tend not to pay much attention to the less powerful] The paradox of power, therefore, is that while we need leaders to show that they care about others, they often can’t.”“Nobody asked me to. I’m not a leader. It’s not my job. It might not be your job, but it is your life. Most people will spend around a hundred thousand hours at work. That’a a long time to be stuck with ideias that find no outlet.”“The message Deming sought to convey was simple: No one should have to ask permission to take responsibility.”“They don’t just get work done, they think about how it gets done, whether it needs to get done, and what would make it better. They think with others and say what they think, are prepared to listen and open to change. This is easier to do when you have a rich experience of life, the ability to hear, the time to concentrate, a well-stocked mind for reference, and the social capital to be heard.”“The alert reader may, by now, have identified some contradictions intrinsic to building a robust culture: you need rest but a well-stocked mind. Focus and attention are vital but so is getting out into the world and walking around. Expertise and knowledge matter but hierarchy is an impediment. You must learn to think for yourself but also with others. Speaking out is important but someone has to shut up and listen.”“Recognizing that we need both noise and silence, time for reflection but also for action, the capacity to see the potential in every individual while building up our own store of knowledge, ultimately yields the adaptive minds that respond to change with vigor.”“Indeed, it is when business allows itself to become separate from the social environments in which it operates that real harm occurs. What we need is not a purely efficient division between two worlds but the mental flexibility to live across them.”