In most change initiatives, if you were to ask “who is responsible for compliance?”, there would be a clear answer. However, if you were to ask “who is responsible for ensuring what we do is ethical”, unless you are in a very narrow set of industries (research, pharmaceutical, etc) you’re likely to be met with… 

I was recently thinking about the impact a potential change would have, and my mind wandered to the various mnemonics and frameworks that can be used for this. My mind went to frameworks such as POPIT™ ¹, POTI²,  McKinsey’s 7S³, and the like. 

I was specifically thinking about the ethical impact of change, and was surprised that ethics isn’t directly covered by any of the commonly-used frameworks. It might be indirectly covered by some, but to me this felt like a missing piece of the puzzle, and one that is arguably relevant now more than ever. Always being someone who is somewhat ‘action oriented’, I decided to have a go at putting together an alternative framework that plugs this gap.

After some head-scratching, and thinking about making something short enough to be memorable while also broad enough to be useful, I came up with a group of terms. These terms are like “lenses” to look at a situation. I’m not suggesting for one moment that this is exhaustive, nor will it fit all circumstances. However I found it useful so thought I’d share it in case you do too!

The POETICS Framework

By happy coincidence, the series of terms I landed on happened to spell POETICS. Or rather, they did after a bit of jiggling (let’s be honest, we all know these things are really “backronyms”, right? LOL)

The first draft of the framework is shown below. I’ve also included some potential focus areas, and key reflective questions. However, it isn’t designed to be rigid… if you feel something should be added or changed for your context, you are probably right! It isn’t designed to be interpreted too literally or narrowly either. Like so many of these frameworks, it’s intended to act as a ‘thinking tool’. But it isn’t intended to replace the actual thinking…

A few months back I visited a museum in Bath, UK. There were lots of really interesting exhibits, but one that really caught my eye (and perhaps not for the intended reason) was this one:

As you can see, the cabinet is absolutely brimming with glass objects, arranged by colour. This strikes me as a really odd decision; a rather strange “organising principle” to use when laying glass out in a museum.

When the glass is organised only by colour, visitors have no idea whether some are older than others, whether some are more historically significant, or whether they are all somehow equivalent. If there is one “masterpiece” in there, I would very likely miss it.

Seeing this reminded me of the importance of curation — and how good curation (and good curators) are largely invisible. Think about the best museum or gallery that you’ve been to… I bet you can’t name any of the curators. Yet the fact that you enjoyed it so much suggests they were doing a fantastic job.

Curation Is for More Than Museums

I have a theory that most processes, services and ‘customer journeys’ have been defined with virtually zero input from actual users and customers. This becomes immediately obvious when you actually are a customer of just about any large corporation. Things jump out that make precisely zero sense, and often these are things that would have been flagged up if there’d been any form of actual customer or user testing. Typically, these are things which would have been fixed long ago if they had any mechanism to even hear and respond to customer feedback.

One of the challenges that exists is that people within businesses are not usually typical customers. An underwriter in an insurance company is nothing like a typical customer. They have all sorts of knowledge and insight that a typical customer doesn’t. A compliance manager at a bank is nothing like a typical customer who is trying to read the 10,000 words of text that went through 27 rounds of sign off, getting longer and longer each time (and yes, yes, I know some people’s perspective is that ‘regulation means we have to have it that way’.)

Also, as uncomfortable as it is: you or I are likely nothing like most of the customers or service users of whatever product or service your organisation offers. We might be like some of them, but we probably know more industry lingo and ‘insider information’ than the majority of them. And it’s hard to shake that knowledge off.

The Danger of Precision

As anyone who has worked with me knows, I’m a stickler for precision. Communication can be crisp, clear and concise when it’s precise. Yet, to be effective, precision requires a shared repertoire of knowledge. 

Take this real screenshot from a real chat system offered by a UK-based telecoms company. Reflect on the fact that this probably went through several rounds of sign off. It presumably went through several rounds of system and ‘user’ testing. Someone deliberately put this into production.

One of the red flags I’ve learned to look out for when dealing with organisational change of any complexity is consensus. This might sound counter-intuitive, after all surely consensus is a good thing, right? Well, yes and no; true consensus is good and should be celebrated, but too often what appears to be unanimous agreement is actually an illusion. Either people have different understandings of what has been agreed, so any kind of agreement is superficial, or people are holding back on discussing their concerns. Or perhaps an entire group has been missed, so a vital set of perspectives hasn’t been considered.

There’s a lot to unpack here, and the specific element I want to examine in this article is the idea of illusory consensus where people are holding back their true thoughts and feelings. This happens more than you might think, I can remember in the dim and distant past self-censoring my views as anyone who didn’t echo the prevailing corporate narrative was not seen as a ‘team player’. When constructive dissent isn’t welcomed it doesn’t disappear, in my experience it just gets repressed, with those repressing it now carrying an extra burden.

The Honest Elephant Model

A while back I came across the phrase ‘dishonest harmony’, I can’t remember where, but it resonated with me and it seemed a handy shorthand for situations where there is the type of illusory consensus referenced above. I started to think about the different potential dimensions implied by the phrase ‘dishonest harmony’, and on a scrap of paper I drew the following diagram. I’ve found this helpful, so even though this is very much a v0.1, I was keen to share it in case it is helpful to others. The reason I have given this model the working title of ‘the honest elephant’ will become clear as you read on…

Let’s explore some of the quadrants:

The Tragedy of Dishonest Harmony

Hi there, You’re getting this notification as you’ve subscribed via email to my blog. Some of you have been subscribed for years (probably over a decade in some cases!). You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t posted much here recently, and for that reason, I’m disabling email updates on my blog. There was once a time… 

One of the things I’ve learned the hard way is to always clarify what people mean when they use terms and jargon. One that is particularly fresh in my mind is MVP, which you will probably know stands for Minimum Viable Product.

I know there are formal definitions of what MVP means. The first time I can remember seeing a proper explanation of the term was in The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries, but there are definitions that predate this, and there are definitely definitions that have been written since then!

With multiple definitions and understandings of the term, “MVP” can mean different things to different people. In this article I want to reflect on some of the flavours I’ve seen and heard about out in the wild—both good and not so good. I’m sure you’ve seen others!  (And yes I know there are lists of MVP types out there already, but I was keen to throw some other ideas into the pot).

When reading this you will almost certainly come to the conclusion that some of these aren’t MVPs at all. If you find yourself having that feeling, this is good, and I agree with you! That proves the point that different teams have different definitions of the term, and shows the importance of taking the time to clarify it. In doing so we can hopefully nudge people towards the more sensible forms of MVP.

Type 1: The “White Label” Record (Functionally fine, rough around the edges)

Back when every club DJ played vinyl (records), you’d get some really interesting releases and dance remixes on “white label”.  There were some that you’d only hear in the clubs. These records were called ‘white labels’ because the label in the middle was white, and usually the sleeve was generic too. Sometimes there wasn’t even anything on the inner label, so DJs tended to handwrite the track name on there.