Quality and Innovation

According to dictionary.com, one of the definitions for rubric is “any established mode of conduct; protocol.” But the context you’ve probably heard this word in is education – where a grading rubric or a scoring rubric is used to evaluate a complex artifact like a student essay.

In my opinion, it’s time to move the concept of the rubric from the classroom into the mainstream, because it can be applied as a very practical general purpose quality tool! (Hear that, Nancy Tague? I think you should write about rubrics in your next edition of the very excellent book The Quality Toolbox. Let me know if you’d like me to help make this happen.)

A rubric is basically a grid with 1) levels of performance indicated along the top row, and 2) criteria or dimensions of performance listed down the leftmost column. Each cell of the grid contains a descriptive statement that explains how the level of performance in that column might be achieved for a specific dimension:

For example, here’s a rubric that one group constructed to evaluate the quality of the mind maps that they were producing. The performance levels are organized from high performance in the top left (smiley face giving a thumbs up) to low performance in the top right (smiley face that looks like he’s about to pass out):

The dimensions of performance are neatness and presentation, use of images/symbols, and use of color. The descriptive statements in each cell provide specific examples of how the performance level might be achieved, e.g. “has failed to include color in the mind map” is an indicator of a low performance level for the dimension of “use of color” – which is very understandable!

The concept of the rubric as a performance assessment tool is relatively new! Griffin (2009), in a brief history of the rubric, notes that since its introduction in 1981, “the scoring rubric has evolved into a more precise, technical, scientific-looking document. It carries a tone of certainty, authority, and exactitude.” However, she notes, the utility of a rubric will depend upon the thought and consideration that goes into its construction. “A rubric is a product of many minds working collaboratively to create new knowledge. It will, almost by definition, be more thoughtful, valid, unbiased and useful than any one of us could have conceived of being as we worked in isolation.”

Advantages of applying a well developed rubric include:

• Provides a common language for sharing expectations and feedback
• Helps to clarify and distinguish the differences between various performance levels
• Helps to focus an individual or group’s ATTENTION on relevant aspects of each desired quality characteristic or skill area
• Provides a mechanism to more easily identify strengths and opportunities for improvement
• Helps lend objectivity to an evaluation process that might otherwise be subjective

Disadvantages:

• Different rubrics may need to be devised for the different activities or artifacts that are to be evaluated using the rubric
• Not all evaluators will apply the rubric in exactly the same way – there is a subjective element at work here – so people may need to be trained in the use of a rubric, or perhaps it would be more effective in a group consensus context where inter-rater variability can be interactively discussed and resolved
• Creating a rubric can be time consuming
• The rubric may limit exploration of solutions or modes of presentation that do not conform to the rubric

Using Rubrics for Quality Improvement

Rubrics are already applied in the world of quality, although I’ve never heard them go by that name. The process scoring guidelines for the Baldrige Criteria are essentially rubrics (although the extra dimension of ADLI and LeTCI has to be considered in the mind of the examiner). The International Team Excellence Award (ITEA) criteria in the Team Excellence Framework (TEF) also forms a rubric in conjunction with the performance levels of missing, unclear, meets expectations or exceeds expectations.

I see a lot of ways in which rubrics can be developed and applied in the quality community to help us establish best practices for some of our most common project artifacts, such as Project Charters. Nancy Tague includes a Project Charter Checklist in The Quality Toolbox to help us create better and more complete charters… but what if we added a second dimension, which includes performance levels, and turned this checklist into a rubric? Any checklist could be transformed into a rubric. Furthermore, to develop a good rubric, we can brainstorm and rank all of the potential criteria in the left hand column, using a Pareto chart to separate the vital few criteria from the trivial many.

Are any of you already using rubrics for purposes outside training or education? I would love to start a list of resources to share with the quality community.

Reference: Griffin, M. (2009). What is a rubric? Assessment Update, 21(6), Nov/Dec 2009.

Note: There is a comprehensive site containing many examples of rubrics at http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/assess/tools/rubrics.shtm – however, they won’t open in Google Chrome.

Jim Collins, author of Built to Last (2004) and Good to Great (2001), released a new compendium of his research this fall entitled Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that these authors have also stumbled upon the importance of quality consciousness – awareness, alignment, and selectively focused attention! These are the keys to developing a highly successful “ten-X” (10X) organization (one that outperforms its industry index by at least ten times, especially during times of great volatility in the business environment).

Collins and his co-author, Morten Hansen, don’t call it quality consciousness, though – they call it “Level 5 Ambition.” And Level 5 Ambition consists of three traits: fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoia. Each of these traits demonstrates one or more aspects of quality consciousness. Here’s how (using excerpts from p. 35 and 36 of the book):

Fanatic discipline: 10Xers display extreme consistency of action – consistency with values, goals, performance standards, and methods. They are utterly relentless, monomaniacal, unbending in their focus on their quests [emphasis added].

Consistency of action is enabled by awareness of quality standards, and unrelenting attention towards achieving them.

Empirical creativity: When faced with uncertainty, 10Xers do not look primarily to other people, conventional wisdom, authority figures, or peers for direction; they look primarily to empirical evidence. They rely upon direct observation, practical experimentation, and direct engagement with tangible evidence. They make their bold, creative moves from a sound empirical base.

By aligning the actions of an organization and its players with what the evidence shows will work, everyone is more confident and able to engage fully in the pursuit of shared goals. A data-driven approach, familiar to anyone who understands quality improvement practice, allows an organization to test its ideas on a smaller scale before committing to major changes.

Productive paranoia: 10Xers maintain hypervigilance, staying highly attuned to threats and changes in their environment, even when – especially when – all’s going well. They assume conditions will turn against them, at perhaps the worst possible moment. They channel their fear and worry into action, preparing, developing contingency plans, building buffers, and maintaining large margins of safety.

Hypervigilance is heightened awareness of the external environment, even during times of peace and productivity. The aspect of productive paranoia that I think is most instructive, however, is that it involves a choice of where to focus your attention: instead of harboring worry and panic about what might happen, the productively paranoid manager will focus on understanding failure modes, developing contingency plans, identifying backup strategies, and planning to branch off on alternative paths, if necessary. The attention is purposefully and positively diverted from unproductive emotions (worry and panic) to productive emotions (the positive feelings associated with being prepared).

Even though nearly 40% of the end of the book is an “Epilogue” containing more detail about Collins and Hansen’s research methodology and results, this is still a very substantial read, and one with very practical advice for businesses aiming to succeed through a challenging economy. My graduate students in technology management enjoyed it too.

Hey everyone! I’m back. I just returned from a 16 state, 20 day, 6392 mile road trip across the US – by myself. For me, driving is one of the most meditative, mind-clearing, rejuvenating activities in existence – especially in the west, where traffic is almost a non-issue.

Like usual, the little voice in my head pontificated about quality for much of the ride. Although I’ll write more about each of these points (and more) in future posts, I wanted to capture some of my “lessons learned” from reflection on the trip.

• When your plan is to drive so many miles, there is NO way you can focus on how many miles you have left to go, and still maintain the mental and physical energy to complete the trip. The best way to ultimately achieve your goal is to point your car blithely in the direction of your intended destination, start moving, start enjoying each moment of the trip, and set smaller, more realistically achievable objectives (like “getting to the town an hour away”). By getting the trip’s endpoint out of your head almost completely, you’re better able to focus on the here and now peacefully, calmly, and with well preserved physical and mental energy (while still making progress towards your goal). This has implications for organizational goal setting!
• By setting smaller objectives, you also leave yourself open to new “trip innovation”. For example, I knew on one part of my trip that I ultimately had to get from Salt Lake City to Santa Fe. By not setting firm deadlines with myself along the way, but allowing myself to go wherever the spirit of the trip led me from day to day (and hour to hour), I ended up doing cool unexpected things like spending an afternoon at the Taos Pueblo, which definitely enhanced the ultimate quality of my trip.
• There are amazing physiological benefits to “getting into flow,” Csikzentmihalyi-style, the most pronounced of which is being able to drive 800 miles in one day (for me) and end the day feeling energized (and able to drive another 200 miles, if I didn’t have that restriction on my driver’s license). Imagine putting in a 12-hour day of work, and then wanting more? That’s how you know you’re on the right track. You’re doing something that you feel good about… you’re getting immediate feedback on your progress… you feel empowered and in enough control.

You might be reading this and say “Hey! Those perspectives are all well and good for a vacation, but it could never apply at work.” And my response to you is… well, why not? IMHO, our work lives should be just as enjoyable as our vacation lives, otherwise we’re doing something wrong. It’s our job to figure out how to make it happen, for ourselves as individuals, and for the groups and organizations we’re affiliated with.

(This post is the result of a collaboration between Amy Shelton and Nicole Radziwill. Image Credit: Doug Buckley of Hyperactive Multimedia at http://www.hyperactive.to)

In our first post on this topic, we talked about the thirty-something entrepreneur who, after building a career working for others, is now ready to be her own boss. In our second post, we talked about possible attributes of a mature entrepreneur (perhaps you are an A player?) and why such individuals might find themselves doing a start-up. From a business point of view, both of the previous posts were focused inward, that is, they explore the qualities of the people behind a start-up.

But how does your customer benefit from your creativity, and your freedom to explore big ideas? Face it – a business will not last long without customers. Ultimately all your work and energy must create value for your customer. And you’ve got so much energy to make your great idea fly! So share that energy with your customers.  Listen to and apply customer feedback. Co-create a great future together.

Probably, the first step you took on your journey into entrepreneurship was to identify a need. In fact, many start-ups spring up because a founder either personally has a need, or knows someone who needs a particular product or service. The “A player” that’s typically at the helm of a start-up will take that identified need — and immediately start brainstorming ways to meet it. “A players” have “the room to explore hypotheses and make mistakes” within the environment of a start-up. Successful entrepreneurs are the ones who marry creativity and innovation with customer desire.

But how do you actually listen to them? What can the magic of your entrepreneurial environment do for your customer, in a practical way?

One actionable way to leverage this freedom is to employ the Lead User process pioneered by 3M. How do you do it? Just pick a group of 3-5 users who definitely need your stuff – you might be one of these users, or already know them – and then let them dictate how your product or service will satisfy their needs! It’s that easy. Keep them with you as trusted advisors throughout the development process.

Future posts will explore creative ways to make “listening to your customer” an actionable task. They’re already out there talking, on Twitter, and Facebook, and discussion boards… what else can you do to hear them, and interact with them, and work together constructively?

A start-up can excel where others have failed. Listen to the needs of your customers. Think creatively. Take risks. Create some magic. Make your customers happy.

(Image Credit: Doug Buckley of http://hyperactive.to)

What if your weaknesses were actually your strengths – but you just haven’t figured out what those weaknesses have been trying to tell you, or how to transform them intro strengths yet? (Wouldn’t you feel better about feeling weak?)

 “I believe in shaking up the way things are done.” –Leo Babauta, zenhabits.com, in “When Being Who You Are Challenges the Norms“

Embracing your weaknesses can help you shake things up to challenge the norms. Thanks to @ChrisSpagnuolo for tweeting that this was the best thing he read a few days ago, which made me click the link and read it too. I appreciated it as well – because I also believe in shaking up the way things are done. However, my approach is a little different: whereas Leo reflects on the impact he’s had on others by being vegan, minimalist, self-employed, carless, and so on – I believe you can shake up the way things are done by aspiring to be the best you that you can be – especially when you being your best means embracing aspects of yourself that others (or society) typically view as weaknesses.

Here’s what I mean. A few months ago I was having a deep talk with my friend  @jack122112, lamenting my lack of ability to focus. (At least that’s how I interpret it… and how it feels.) I’m all over the place, and always have been. I have three degrees in three different fields, and a fourth Master’s that I almost completed. I’ve had jobs as a software engineer, a manager of software engineers, a data analyst, a post office contractor, a physics and calculus tutor, a psychiatric office manager, a medical biller, a business analyst, a scientific analyst, a secretary, a management consultant, an engagement manager, and a professor. The books I can see from where I’m sitting right now cover topics from quality to eclipses to brewing beer (which I don’t do, I just think about) to statistics to ergonomics to dream interpretation. I’ve explored topics and done research in a hodgepodge of areas to the point where it probably looks, from the outside, that there’s no cohesive theme among my interests.

But there is a common element – a point of cohesion – and that’s ME.

Jack wasn’t bothered at all by my dilemma. “Well,” he said, “perhaps your ability to connect with so many ideas in so many different areas IS your strength. Why are you so bothered that you can’t seem to focus in one area? Maybe that’s just not what you were meant to do. Maybe you should accept it.”

Women for a long time were kept out of the workplace because they were thought to be too weak or emotional for many jobs. People used to throw away very little, and nothing was ‘disposable’ because that was thought to be wasteful … wait, maybe that wasn’t so bad. What if you could shake things up … just by being who you are? Without having to do anything but tell someone who or what you are? –Leo

I’ve spent the past few months just accepting my dilemma, and not worrying about it too much. Maybe I’m just not meant to focus in one area, I’ve told myself, and I will discover the hidden strength in this. And paradoxically, since making this decision I’ve been more focused and content – and much more productive.

So here’s an exercise for you. What’s your weakness? What bothers you the most about your personal habits? And why do you think it’s such a problem?

For example, let’s say you just can’t get things done. You totally lack productivity… you’re a slacker. There’s a hundred things you know you have to do, but if no one is pushing you to do them, you’re just going to go off and play video games. And feel like a total loser. And apologize to the people you’ve let down when parts of your world come crashing down around you. (If I were you, the first thing I’d ask myself is, why do I need to be so productive anyway? Challenge the foundations upon which the assumption lies.)

What if your weaknesses are trying to tell you something? A few years ago, after bemoaning my struggles with time management, I discovered that I have enough time (and enough focus) for everything I truly want to do. And for those things I don’t get done, or just don’t have the energy to focus on, I’ve got to be real with myself — and figure out which one (or more) of these five obstacles are getting in my way! Then, after unveiling the root causes of my weakness… I can move on with a grounded, practical solution to transform it into a strength.

I really like Doug Buckley’s Facebook posts (he’s from http://hyperactive.to). Our connection was purely accidental – he tagged a picture of the back of my husband’s head on Facebook as his own, and after a short online debate (where he finally acknowledged that I was probably an expert in recognizing the back of my own spouse’s head) we friended one another. Doug posts great photos and images (like the one on the top left of this post), insights, quotes and music about 40 or 50 times a day. One of Doug’s recent gems was “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” ~ Winston Churchill

The ability to move from one failure to another (presumably, using each as a valuable learning experience) with no loss of enthusiasm! Wow, I thought… not only is that the secret to innovation, but… I am SO not good at doing that. When I’m facing a failure, I do what any sane, logical person in the grips of Chinese handcuffs will do… I pull harder. I rearrange the deck chairs faster. I get really &$^#&^$& angry. Then I pretend like everything’s OK. And when I can’t deal with pretending any longer, I break down into tears (hopefully not around other people).

Then, in the words of Fred and Ginger, I pick myself up – dust myself off – and start all over again.

(I just read this again, and just so you don’t miss the point of that last sentence… after I dust myself off, I’m starting again on the negative pattern of trying even harder. What, you think I’d give up that easily?)

It’s a miserable approach, though, regardless of how noble it sounds. Pulling harder or pushing harder (whatever you’re doing) requires more effort and rarely generates better results. And if you’re pushing against someone else who’s not ready to see your light, or pushing on a project that other people just aren’t ready to play within the bounds of, well… good luck.

I’m a smart person. I’m solution oriented. I can make things happen!! As a result, I doggedly pursue my goals. And when I’m meeting with resistance (especially when that resistance doesn’t seem to make sense to me), I don’t respond very gracefully at all. (Sometimes I even turn psycho-chick, which makes me feel even more disturbed, because I’m pretty level headed in general and I wouldn’t act like that, would I?)

The illusion of control is an affliction that’s unique to humans. Bears looking for salmon will move on if their favorite spot in the river isn’t producing. If people were bears, we’d stick around, keep waiting, commit to a positive attitude, convene a quality circle or tiger team, rehash past data that proves the salmon used to be there (or extrapolate to show they will be there again, really), wish real hard that the salmon are still there, pretend nothing has changed, craft convincing arguments that the cost/benefit of moving to another place in the river is prohibitive (or my favorite, just cost neutral), curse the river, wish we’d never gotten into the habit of eating salmon in the first place, lose all motivation, lose sense of the meaning in one’s life without the salmon, or sit on the riverbanks weeping over the ephemeral salmon who just won’t show up no matter what we do. Pretty pathetic. Nowhere near as agile as moving to another spot in the river where the salmon may have moved on to themselves.

Professor of psychology Jonathan Rottenberg has hypothesized that this resistance mechanism is also what compels depressed people to stay in bed – hiding under the covers, retreating into sleep or alcohol or drugs (pick your poison) – is just a way to deal with one’s inability to disengage from efforts that are failing. He writes:

So this alternative theory turns the standard explanation on its head. Depressed people don’t end up lying in bed because they are undercommitted to goals. They end up lying in bed because they areovercommitted to goals that are failing badly. The idea that depressed people cannot disengage efforts from failure is a relatively new theory. It has not been much tested in research studies. However, the idea is well worth exploring. It fits well clinically with the kinds of situations that often precipitate serious depression — the battered wife who cannot bring herself to leave her troubled marriage, the seriously injured athlete who cannot bring himself to retire, the laid off employee who cannot bring herself to abandon her chosen career despite a lack of positions in her line of work. Seeing these depressions in terms of unreachable goals may be useful clinically, and may help us better understand how ordinary low moods can escalate into incapacitating bouts of depression.

To be innovative, we have to learn how to detach from failure quickly and move on with the next stage of our ideas with enthusiasm. If Rottenberg’s new hypothesis has merit, to escape depression we have to learn how to detach from failure quickly and move on to our next goals or the next phases of our lives – with enthusiasm.

Can a futuristic mental health intervention increase our personal innovative potential?

My hunch is yes. There are always other fish in the sea.

(Image Credit: Doug Buckley of Hyperactive Multimedia at http://www.hyperactive.to)

Last week in a conversation with a friend I mentioned “you know how it’s easier to solve other peoples’ problems than to solve your own?” I was using this as a lead-in to a longer discussion, because he has some problems (in my opinion), and I’m really convinced I know how to solve them. I can see very clearly how he’s getting in his own way, self-sabotaging his own efforts, and refusing to face an aspect of himself that he should just confront directly.

“No,” he replied. OK, I thought – guess that ends that conversation. I didn’t pursue it any further.

Turns out you really CAN solve other peoples’ problems better than your own. According to a recently published research paper by Evan Polman and Kyle Emich, people were better able to engage in the abstract thinking required to solve complex problems if they believed they were making decisions on behalf of someone else. With greater psychological distance, a larger proportion of test subjects were able to develop workable solutions.

So when faced with a dilemma… ask someone else for advice. And make sure they’re not too close to you, meaning they can remain detached enough to present a solution based on resistance-free abstract thinking.

Here are some additional articles about the Polman & Emich (2011) study:

• Daniel H Pink: employees are faster and more creative when solving other people’s problems
• More Creative at Helping Strangers