KAREN MAY: It is a terrific
honor and pleasure for me
to be able to be here with all
of you and with you, Ed, today.
I'm Karen May.
I lead our People
Development Team.
AUDIENCE: Wo-hoo!
KAREN MAY: Wo-hoo!
But way more
importantly than that,
I am a lifetime student of
organizational behavior,
organizational development,
how in the world
we can function better
in this world as people,
and a lifelong
student of yours, Ed.
So I'm thrilled to
be able to be here.
And I know I'm joined here
today by a group of people
who are also deeply
interested in your work
and in the work of
organizational development
and fundamentally how
people and organizations can
be more effective, more
effective together,
and can reach both individual
and collective real potential.
And we are joined not only
by these folks physically,
but by any number
of people virtually
who are joining us
live stream and/or who
will be watching us later.
So we'll keep them
in mind as we go.
If you are joining on live
stream, there is a Dory--
go/EdSchein-Dory.
And if you didn't know
how to spell Ed Schein,
you wouldn't be on
this live stream,
so I'm not even going
to bother with that.
So feel free to pop in a Dory
question if you're live stream.
At about a half an
hour in, Kathy Chen
will be managing
the Dory with me
and will be reading out
some of your questions.
If you're here in the
room, we have a mic.
And we'll ask that, when you do
have a live question, that you
use the mic so that those
who are joining us virtually
can hear the response.
And, as I say, it's an honor
to be here with you today, Ed,
and to be joined by
people who know share
such common interests with us.
And in the spirit of your work,
I'd like to start with a very
open-ended question--
ED SCHEIN: Sure.
KAREN MAY: --and ask you who
you are here today with us.
ED SCHEIN: Well, I'm, first of
all, very pleased to be here.
This is my third
visit to Google.
And they are always
fascinating visits.
It's almost like
age meets youth.
[LAUGHTER]
And I think one of the things
that is me is curiosity,
and so curiosity about what's
going on in Silicon Valley,
in Google, in all
these startups.
The world is changing before
our very eyes very rapidly.
What could be better for
me than to engage in that
and share some of what I'm
learning as I encounter what
will be one of the
themes of the next book,
"Humble Consulting," which is
how to give real help faster.
I've begun to adapt to speed.
KAREN MAY: We can all
learn with you, then.
Wonderful.
And I know we'll look forward to
"Humble Consulting" coming out,
so we can read it and continue
to learn from you and with you.
I actually came to
our conversation
with a set of
questions more tailored
to your more recent "The
Humble Inquiry" book.
But I actually would like to
have us start a bit broader
and then move into
some of the questions--
and broader in terms of culture.
And we spoke a little
bit over our lunch
today about culture as
a multidimensional--
we have many cultures.
We don't just have a culture.
And it's within those cultures
that we choose our behavior
and kind of assess our context.
So if I could ask you to
share some of your thoughts
about those many cultures.
ED SCHEIN: I think
that-- as I was thinking
about this conversation,
Kathy, two words
kept popping up in my head.
One is culture as
something that's inside us,
not something that's out there.
It's inside us.
And that leads to
the other word.
If I have a message today that
I want to get out to the world,
it's that we've got to combine
our notions of mindfulness
with our understanding
of culture,
that mindfulness is not some
kind of meditation process.
Mindfulness is
situational awareness
of how culture inside
us and around us
is really dominating
our thinking.
And if we don't become aware
of how much our thinking is
culturally
determined, culturally
at the level of
nation-- you all come
from different countries
and different ethnicities;
that's a big layer-- culture at
the level of an organization,
and then inside the
organization, the occupation
you come from.
The engineering culture is
different from the finance
culture.
And then right down
to the work group,
where we now get to my quick
definition of "culture."
"Culture" is the
accumulated learning
you've had in your
group experience.
So you learned the
culture of your family.
You learned the culture of your
schools and your education.
And when you entered
Google, you had
to learn the culture not only of
the corporation called Google,
but of your own
particular work group.
So don't think of
culture as anything
other than accumulated
learning that
sits inside you as one of
your layers of consciousness.
And becoming more aware of
that I think is crucial.
Now the other dimension
of culture-- and then
I'll shut up.
I don't want to use up
all the air time here--
culture can be--
KAREN MAY: It's why
you're here, though.
It's your air time.
[LAUGHTER]
ED SCHEIN: To analyze culture--
when people say, OK, Ed, you've
described it.
But how do we analyze it?
You have to think of it
at three different levels.
When we arrived here, we
saw what the anthropologists
would call the artifacts
or the artifices
or the creations of culture--
the buildings, the way people
dress, the structures, how
you get into the place.
All that stuff is the visible,
feelable, smellable, hearable
part of culture, which
is real but is just
the surface manifestation.
It's not below-- it's above what
is down below, which I think
of as the DNA of the culture.
In between that is the layer
that we like to talk about,
which is what I call
the "espoused values."
If someone says, why
do you people at Google
do it this way?
Then you'll come up with,
because we're creative.
We're fast.
We're team-based.
Those words are espoused values.
They are not
necessarily what is even
the deeper level that
would explain in detail
your day-to-day behavior.
I think of that as your "taken
for granted" assumptions.
It's sort of the
automatic way you
learn to behave around here.
That may mean
something as subtle as,
well, if we meet
one of our founders,
how do I relate to that person?
You know, you're not
necessarily going to learn that
from the espoused value level.
You're going to learn
that from observing,
by talking to older
employees, and say, how do you
really handle it when you get
nervous in your group meeting?
Or when you think
it's too competitive
and it's not supposed to be?
That's the DNA of the culture.
And that will reflect the
US culture, the management
culture-- broadly
speaking-- and then
the corporate culture of
Google and your own department.
So what we need to get conscious
of is that deeper level.
It's not about "is it
a nice place to work?"
It's about what's the
deeper reality of what
it means to work here
and how you get along.
So culture and mindfulness are,
in that sense, my key messages.
KAREN MAY: As
you're saying that,
I'm imagining all of us
going through our day,
trying to take into account
all of those layers.
And it's a lot to
take in-- and thinking
how do you guide people
to develop the capacity
to be aware and mindful
in a complex environment
where not only are there many
layers, but the volume of work
is high and the pace
of work is fast?
So you're sort of torn between
a process consciousness,
if you will, and getting
pulled into the task at hand.
And how do you advise people
to cultivate the capacity
to stay self-aware,
even in that complexity?
ED SCHEIN: That's
a great question
because it forces us into
some countercultural thinking.
If you look at how rampant
individualistic competitive US
society trains you, it's
all about you the person.
What are your talents?
What are your strengths?
What are your weaknesses?
All the measures of
people are around
their individual capacities
and talents, and so on.
And what's missed in that
is that-- particularly
in an organization like this
one that espouses teamwork
and the belief that
really great ideas come
about from a lot
of interaction--
the first principle is to become
less self-conscious and more
what one of my heroes,
Erving Goffman,
would call "interaction
conscious."
Think a bit more like the
social psychologist who
says, "What's going on
here between these people?"
rather than "How am I doing?"
We are so over-trained
on "How am I doing?"
and "Am I doing well?"
and getting feedback.
And the reward system is all
about my accomplishments.
But the reality of
work, I suspect,
is all about your
relationships to people.
So one of the big points that
comes out of "Humble Inquiry"
and helping is it's about
the relationship, stupid.
If you don't understand
how relationships form,
if you don't learn a bit of
sociology, and what is it
that people do when they date.
Or how is-- why is
there all this talk
about "is this a date or not?"
What are those words about?
What's a date?
A date is a relational concept.
Or what's a superior-subordinate
relationship?
You can't talk about
this individually.
You have to talk about
it situationally.
And so learning more
about relationships
is what humble inquiry and
helping and humble consulting
is really all about.
KAREN MAY: Interesting.
One of the things you talk
about in the book in terms
of relationships that struck
me was the-- my words,
not yours-- but the
increased responsibility
that one has for inquiry,
for humble inquiry,
as status increases.
And it struck me in
thinking about how
do we help leaders see and
take on that responsibility.
So when status is at play,
what are some of the things
that leaders can do to create
the psychological safety
or the safe space within
which creativity and problems
can be solved?
ED SCHEIN: OK, that's
a difficult one
because if the leader
were sitting here today,
I would say, you have
to become situationally
aware to whether the problem
you're trying to solve,
or what's worrying you is a
simple problem to which you
have the answer--
in which case, fine.
Tell your subordinate what
to do because you know.
You've been there.
You know all about it.
But if we discover
that what's really
worrying you is that
you don't know how
to get a bunch of
subgroups to work together,
you're discovering that
there's a loss of alignment
between various of
your subordinates
or the groups or
the subcultures,
now telling him what to
do isn't going to work.
The complexity, the
systemic interconnections
are too complicated.
So you have to get past thinking
that you know what to do.
Accept your ignorance.
And that's where the
word "humility" comes in.
Humility is acknowledging
that there are some things
I don't know how to do.
Or there is some bit of
knowledge that I don't have.
We've projected this on
to the senior leaders,
but it applies to
everyone in this room.
There are situations
where you know what to do
and are experienced.
But a lot of situations
that you encounter daily,
if you're honest with
yourself, you don't really
know what's going on.
You don't really
know what to do.
And in those
situations, you have
to let your curiosity
and your humility surface
and become dominant.
"Humble inquiry" is
the acknowledgment
that sometimes
the other person--
whether it's a subordinate
or a boss or a peer--
knows something that you
need to know in order
to accomplish your next task.
So it's probably the
most practical suggestion
we can have in a complex world
is to get curious and ask
questions.
Don't think you already
know because chances
are, if it's complex, you
probably got the wrong answer.
KAREN MAY: It's interesting
as you're saying that.
And I'm thinking-- as
I imagine some of you
are-- about contexts in
which, on our best days,
we could be curious
and ask questions.
And on some days, either we
feel we have to prove ourselves
or we feel it there isn't
time for asking questions.
And so let me push
this a step farther
and say, if I know
intellectually the best
thing to do is to be curious and
ask questions and acknowledge
externally what I know
internally, which is I actually
don't have all the
answers, how do I
train myself to do
that in circumstances
when the cost of admitting
ignorance feels high?
Or the cost of taking
the time feels high?
So if I kind of know
it's the right answer,
are there things I can do with
the group or to train myself?
How do we help people push
through with that behavior
change, even when the conditions
feel difficult for that?
ED SCHEIN: I don't know this
is-- whether this is easy to do
or not, but two thoughts occur.
One is to become more
personal, which is paradoxical.
I think society trains us
to be mostly transactional,
particularly in business.
You're supposed to have
professional relationships.
And professional
distance is good.
The therapist is not supposed
to sleep with the patient.
That's bad.
But we then also apply
it to fraternization
in the military--
the officers are not
supposed to fraternize
with the troops.
So we have this huge
managerial overlay
that stayed transactional.
And again, in a simple
world, that's probably OK.
But the minute things get
complex and interpersonally
diffuse, transactions
no longer work.
You have to somehow acknowledge
that this is now personal.
Two or three of
us are competing.
And this doesn't feel good.
And I don't know
what to do about it.
The first thing is to
acknowledge to yourself
that this is personal.
And maybe the best
thing to do-- and that's
the other point-- is to go to
process rather than content.
Rather than say,
OK, it's personal.
I'm going to show
this other person
that I'm brighter and smarter.
So I'm just going
to argue even more.
Or I might say, God forbid,
why are we arguing about this?
Is there some
common element here?
And that means, am I putting
my career in jeopardy
by not winning?
I think we have to ask--
that's a tough question
in your environment--
is it better to win?
Or is it better to
personalize and build
relationships where,
collectively, we end up
with a better solution,
but God forbid,
I might not get all the credit?
I don't know the answer
to that question.
That's embedded in your culture.
But I'm suggesting you have the
choice of not content-competing
and saying, you
know, let me prove
to you why my idea is better.
Instead, say, wait a minute,
why are we competing here?
And maybe we should
look at the two answers
and how they combine.
Or, are you as
uncomfortable as I am
about how we're arguing here?
Personalization means
exposing the process
of what's going on between us.
And I would think, in
this kind of organization
that espouses teamwork, that's
a very natural direction for you
to go-- is to get more personal
rather than more argumentative,
and to let competition go
in need interests of better
solutions and better answers and
hope that the people above you
recognize the value of that.
But it's a personal decision.
If you end up with a boss
who only likes winners,
then you're stuck.
And if you really believe
this alternative way might
be better, then
find another group
because I think the US
managerial culture is
hooked on winning
and competition.
And it's all about
the individual.
So I'm very aware-- as the
book "Humble Inquiry" must leak
out-- I'm very
critical of competition
and rampant individualism
brought inside an organization.
That may be great for
capitalism writ in large.
But I think it's a
disaster when you bring it
inside an organization and have
what this one executive once
said to his
subordinates-- this was
the CEO who said to his VPs--
Now, I want you all to be team.
This is a team process.
But don't forget for a
minute that you're all
competing for my job.
And how are you supposed to--
KAREN MAY: Right, which
message is louder?
ED SCHEIN: --make sense of that?
KAREN MAY: Yeah,
very interesting.
Well, I want to go two
directions with what you said.
So I'll go one and
then the other.
And one is triggered by
some of the questions
that some of my colleagues--
I know we're interested in,
which is, for those of us
who are women, some of what
you're suggesting
can feel even harder.
And do you have any
particular advice for women
to be able to follow
that kind of inquiry path
without falling into a
process stereotype or a less
competitive stereotype?
ED SCHEIN: OK, I'm going to
pick you up on one word, Kathy.
I don't-- what?
AUDIENCE: Karen.
KAREN MAY: It's all
right, Kathy, Karen.
I'll answer to anything.
ED SCHEIN: He's my coach.
[LAUGHTER]
KAREN MAY: Kathy, I'll
take it as a compliment.
[LAUGHTER]
ED SCHEIN: I don't give advice.
KAREN MAY: Ah, man.
OK.
ED SCHEIN: But you've
triggered some thoughts.
I think it is alleged-- and
you'll have to tell me whether
this is changing with
millennials and so on-- that
women really do learn to be
more relational from the outset,
particularly if they become
mothers and find that you
cannot deal with children
in a transactional way.
It gets acutely personal.
And so the skills that women
bring that are relational
should, in principle, make
a woman-run organization
different.
But I'm not sure
whether that happens.
I think the
managerial culture is
a male-originated
dominant culture.
And I think a lot of women
feel that, unless they give up
their feminine skills and adapt
to the masculine competitive
environment, they're
not going to make it.
So I see it more as a dilemma.
I do think women bring
something different.
But whether they can actually
exercise it effectively
in a traditional organization
is a real question in my mind.
And I've seen good
examples and bad examples.
And that's why there's
no relevant advice
except be yourself.
And figure out
what's better for you
if you're a woman-- to play the
male competitive game or just
say, I'm going to do
this thing differently.
I'm going to relate differently
to people, to be more personal,
and see whether
that works better.
KAREN MAY: So the other
direction your earlier comments
about culture and
what's happening here
triggered for me was, again,
something that we spoke about
quite briefly, which
was the observations you
have on what happened to
Digital Equipment Corporation.
And I wonder if you
could share with us
a couple of the lessons
that you would hope that we,
as an organization,
might learn from DEC,
rather than having to
learn it ourselves.
ED SCHEIN: That's a very
important part of my life.
I somehow managed, because
I was an MIT professor,
to be accepted by Ken Olsen, the
founder and president of DEC,
as a consultant because
he was a true engineer.
But because of that,
he said, we probably
aren't so great at
communication in groups.
So why don't you
come and sit in?
That led to 25
years of consulting,
watching DEC grow and become
the number two computer
company in the world behind
IBM, and in the late '80s,
level off and decline, until
it got taken over by Compaq.
So I ended up actually writing a
book, which I recommend to you,
called "DEC is Dead,
Long Live DEC."
Because during its heyday,
during its successes,
DEC believed itself to be
the most creative, the most
fun, the most exciting
company in the world.
And if you talk to ex-DEC
people, they will say,
those were the best
years of my life.
It was fabulous.
So how is it possible that
that could all go wrong?
And the metaphor that
really struck me most
was that, when DEC
was young, it was
a bunch of creative engineers
creating a whole new industry.
What could be more
exciting than that?
That sounds a little bit
familiar with early Google,
doesn't it?
That's a wonderful time to be.
And, at that point,
everyone is creative.
Everyone is valued.
Ideas are what it's all about.
But you then produce
some products.
And lo and behold,
they're successful-- wow.
So now you get promoted.
Now you have a
bigger organization
and, at the same time,
you yourself age.
So 10 years in now,
we're very successful.
And what I observe is, in
the initial conversations
in the top group of DEC,
people were rampantly
arguing with each other because
they were after the truth.
What should our next product be?
They were betting the company.
They were using their
intellectual tools to the full.
It was a nasty environment
because people were really
fighting for their ideas.
But it was a totally exciting
creative environment.
Fast forward 10
years-- these same
people are now in their
30s and they've all
been promoted into being
engineering managers or product
line managers.
And they've got organizations.
Now I'm in the same group
of seven or eight people.
And they're deciding the
next round of products.
And the argument sounds
equally vehement and exciting.
But I had this horrible
feeling that they're
now all arguing
as representatives
of their organizations.
They suddenly are not the
individual creative engineer,
but they're the head of a group.
And they're very conscious
that, if their product isn't
the one picked, maybe a
hundred or a thousand people
will be out of work.
Now that transition from
being the individual creator
to being responsible for
a lot of other people
destroys a certain level of
creativity and innovation.
And it's inevitable.
You can't say, well, I'm just
as creative as I was in my 20s
when I was the lone creator.
It's different.
Now these groups get bigger,
and they become empires.
And the shortest explanation
I have of how DEC failed
is the empires begin to
fight with each other.
It was no longer just
individuals making a point.
But there were, in fact,
three different products.
There was the Alta
Vista search engine,
there was a big
water-cooled computer
that was being produced, and
there was the Alpha chip.
And the heads of those
organizations each
sincerely believed that they
were the DEC of the future.
But complexity intervened.
Each of those three were
no longer simple products.
They were now very
complicated technologies,
required more resources.
And the environment was
saying, you've got to focus.
You can't do it all anymore
because each project
is too complex.
And at that point,
those three [INAUDIBLE]
could not relate to each other.
They fought.
And they fought to the death.
And that meant they
started to steal resources
from each other.
They began to exaggerate
the market potential
of each of their products.
And, as a result, all
three hit the market late.
And all three of
those products failed.
And that made DEC no
longer economically viable.
So the notion that DEC
never saw the future or they
never understood the
strategy, nonsense.
They saw it perfectly.
But they could not
adapt by saying,
well, we better bet on Alta
Vista or we better get on the--
and kill two big projects
and fire thousands of people.
So the danger in size and age
is these other interpersonal
forces become very powerful.
And I don't know how
companies get out of this.
That's the problem of
the people at the top
of your organization.
How do they keep this
from happening to you?
Does that make sense?
KAREN MAY: Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
ED SCHEIN: And the reason
I'm touting the book
is the book not only
describes DEC's history,
but has a whole big
chapter on what happens
with age and with growth.
And you're right at that cusp.
KAREN MAY: Well, and this
is a terrific group for you
to be sharing with because,
to the extent-- tying back
to your earlier
comments-- to the extent
that we're conscious and aware,
we increase the likelihood
that we can ask
questions that will help
raise some of those issues.
So I think we all need
to read that book.
I'm going to now share
the pleasure of asking you
questions with my
colleagues both in the room
and outside of the room.
And Kathy, why don't we start
with one on the Dory and then
we'll go to one in the room?
And we'll just alternate.
KATHY: I don't know
if Stephanie is here.
Do you want to
ask your question?
AUDIENCE: I forgot what it was.
KATHY: Oh, OK.
I will read your question.
"Google, like many
other organizations"--
and this is kind of similar
to what you were just talking
about-- "Google, like
many other organizations,
is experiencing the challenges
of being in an environment
characterized by--" in all
capital letters, "V-U-C-A."
KAREN MAY: Volatility,
uncertainty, complexity,
and ambiguity.
KATHY: Got it.
"What types of
interventions, aside
from trying to hone our
senior leaders, have you seen
has a significant impact on
the organization's ability
to adapt?"
ED SCHEIN: Well, I think
probably the most important
example of dealing
with-- do you use "VUCA"
or do you always spell it out?
KAREN MAY: Having defined
it, let's stay with "VUCA."
ED SCHEIN: I think, to
deal with complexity,
one of the great
systematic-- systems
theory notions is
the system has to be
as complex as the environment
within which it works.
So as the product environment
and the political and economic
and other environments get
more and more interconnected
and complex themselves,
the organization
has to develop that same
level of complexity.
What that probably means is
a lot more differentiation
into a lot more different units.
It becomes harder and harder.
As in the DEC case, Ken Olsen
could no longer centrally
grasp these three units.
It might have been better,
with hindsight, for DEC
to break into three
divisions and let
them each forge for themselves.
So if one had to think in
terms of organization design
in the systemic way, you've
got to differentiate the system
and give more units
more of the opportunity
to create their own fate,
to decentralize more.
I don't think it's
possible to deal
centrally with this complex
a world as is developing out
there.
That makes integration
more difficult.
So the leaders now
probably themselves
become a group, rather
than an individual,
because they have to
be able to represent
the varieties of problems
that your different product
lines, your different
technologies,
your different subunits
are generating.
So I don't know if that
answers that question.
But I think it means systemic
complexity cannot be captured
by central single
ideas by definition.
KAREN MAY: Very interesting.
Thanks, Stephanie,
for a good question.
Is there a live
question in the room?
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Just to follow
up on your last thought--
KAREN MAY: Do me a favor
and wait for the mic
just so that those who
are joining us virtually
can hear your question.
AUDIENCE: To follow up
on your last comment,
if you have to have--
ED SCHEIN: Move it
closer to your mouth.
AUDIENCE: If you have
to have divisions,
and divisions have
division leaders,
and the division leaders
have to sit in a room
and make group decisions,
but all the division leaders
believe if they're going to be
fired if their division fails,
how do you have the relational
conversation in that room?
ED SCHEIN: Complexity covers
problem solving as well as
reality.
I think the other company
that I was consulting
with at the same time as
DEC was Ciba-Geigy, which
was a big chemical
giant that had
to face the loss of the
chemical sector, basically.
Chemistry had been
overproduced--
and gradually turned themselves
into a pharmaceutical company.
And that became part of
what is today Novartis.
So I saw them struggling
with how does one destroy
a whole sector of a business.
And what they did was they
did it in as human a way
as possible.
They knew that they had to
let thousands of people go.
But they created a process
that made them still
feel we are a humane,
responsible company, by first
of all, slowing it down through
not replacing retirements,
by having generous buyouts, by
giving people consulting jobs,
by bringing in very good
counseling services.
So that you don't avoid the
tough economic decision.
But you handle what you have
to do in a way that still makes
you feel that you're not being
just a cruel, unthinking kind
of organization, but that you're
still the organization that you
always tried to be.
One of the principles
of that, by the way,
was that you never let somebody
go through HR or personnel.
The boss has to face the
individual and say, John,
or Mary, your job has gone away.
And so we're going
to have to figure out
what you will have to do next.
And here are some options.
But we have to have that
face-to-face conversation.
And they ended up having to
train some of their supervisors
how to do that.
But the notion that personal
things work-- people
treat each other as adults
when they get personal,
rather than as commodities.
The movie "Up in the Air"
is the worst example of what
organizations are finding
themselves doing--
is to be fired by a hired
consultant, in effect, or even
worse, by a screen, as I recall.
So personalization becomes
a very critical concept
in all my thinking.
That even those seven or
eight people-- actually,
Ciba-Geigy was run
by a group of 11.
And they had all these different
departments and functions.
They got to be very
close personally.
And one way they dealt
with the difficulty
is they had, over
the years, rotated
divisional responsibility
among themselves
so that there would
be real empathy.
If I'm Product A and saying
Product B has got to go,
I've managed Product B and I
know what it is I'm saying.
So you can get a
more personal process
at that level,
hopefully, rather than
a bureaucratic process that's
just driven by financials.
That's the one way
I've seen it happen.
They did a good
job of downsizing
the agricultural sector,
the chemical sector,
and beginning to lean
almost exclusively
toward pharmaceuticals.
It's useful to always
find cases rather than
look for generalizations.
If you have a question,
"how do you do something?"
find someone who
has done it and see
how they did it rather
than looking for a formula
off the shelf.
KAREN MAY: Interesting.
Kathy, is there another
question on the Dory?
KATHY: --questions on the Dory.
So Trista, who's in
our Seattle office,
asks, "Many people
in PeopleDev consult
with our business clients.
And we also want to
evaluate our own work.
How do we evaluate or
measure-- or how do you
evaluate or measure
your consulting work?
And do you have any guidance
on how we might evaluate
our consulting engagements?
ED SCHEIN: One of the
traps of the US culture
is that somewhere
along the line,
we bought into the science
model that everything
has to be numerical.
So I believe in measurement.
But I don't believe it has
to be quantitative, numerical
measurement.
So what do I measure?
If I'm in a long
project with the client,
the first thing I would do
is to have a conversation
about how should we--
two-- collectively measure
whether we're getting
anywhere or not?
You have a piece of that.
I have a piece of that.
Either one of us can say, this
isn't working, and bow out.
Now, that may not be
economically the best
for the consultant.
But that's one way
to measure-- is
to collectively build a unit.
In my more rapid
kind of consulting,
which I've found myself
doing much more out here,
which often is just one
hour or a long lunch,
and I feel that something
has been accomplished,
I very much go by whether,
at the end of that lunch,
or the end of that hour, we're
both feeling good and both
think this has been helpful.
And if the client
is just saying,
well, yes, "that's
been very helpful,"
I can tell by the tone of
voice that this has not worked.
But if the person goes away
from that hour saying, "Gee,
that was fun.
That was good."
That's enough of a measurement
for me that this is working.
So it goes back to
situational awareness.
I think we evaluate
moment to moment.
And in this next book,
"Humble Consulting,"
I'll talk a lot about
how these things have
to be measured from the
moment of initial contact.
We don't scout and analyze
and diagnose and then
figure out what to do.
The moment I'm with
a client, I'm doing.
I'm in it.
And I evaluate,
moment by moment,
whether this is a
good conversation.
I have to work that
way all the time.
When we sat down for lunch,
I have to ask myself,
you know, is this lunch working?
Are we getting connected?
So I put the measurement
evaluation process
in the here and now
because it's quite possible
that we will work for a
couple of years on a project
and the numbers won't
reflect anything.
Does that mean it's
been a failure?
People ask me,
well, you consulted
for Digital for 25 years
and they went under.
So you must not have
done your job, right?
[LAUGHTER]
So my fellow consultants
and I-- and there
were many other
consultants at DEC--
figured out what the correct
answer is to that challenge.
The answer is, if we
hadn't been there,
they would have gone
under much sooner.
[LAUGHTER]
KAREN MAY: That's great.
Well, I actually, in
all truth, imagine
that the people you taught while
you were there-- whatever they
went on to do afterwards--
were richer and more aware
people than they would have
been had you not been there.
That's my assumption.
Is there another live
question in the room?
Yes.
Great-- mic is on the way.
AUDIENCE: So you've
given great advice
for larger organizations.
Does your advice change at all
for the budding entrepreneur?
Because the valley is
full of, as well, folks
that are thinking of going
out there and starting
their own thing.
ED SCHEIN: OK, back to
I don't give advice.
[LAUGHTER]
But I think I would take
that on a personal basis.
I would want to know what
is that person trying to do,
and what's worrying
them, and not
to assume, again, that
there is a formula for what
young entrepreneurs should do.
One of the biggest
aspects of that
is the changing
technological scene.
I gave talks to young
entrepreneurs in the '60s.
And they were all
building stuff.
They were making other kinds
of computers, and so on,
and so on.
And I noticed that
when the software
world began to
infiltrate and take over,
those questions changed.
It's no longer a
matter of a little shop
where you build something.
It's now suddenly
a different kind
of intellectual enterprise.
And you're now selling ideas or
something entirely different.
So what does it even mean to
be an entrepreneur in today's
range of technologies?
What does it mean to develop
a new app for the iPhone?
This is a completely
different question
from how do I build a new
computer or a new car?
I guess you're now in both
kinds of businesses, right?
You're building products as well
as these very abstract things
that I don't even know how to
conceptualize and talk about.
So I have to ask my son,
what is an app anyway?
What does it mean
to sit down and do
a better job of programming?
Those are not questions
that entrepreneurs
used to ask before we
invented all this stuff.
So it's very situational.
But the thing I noticed
in my career studies--
I studied a lot of MIT
alums and other people.
And there was
always a subset who
wanted to build their
own companies who
were entrepreneurial.
And what I noticed
about them was
that they were driven people.
They had often sold
magazines as high schoolers.
They were not as academic.
They were not A-plus students.
They were the A-minus students.
Why?
Because they were too busy
doing stuff to really worry
about getting the best grade.
And they noticed that the
world didn't value pure grades
as much as the ability to get
things done, to be creative.
So I guess if that's a general
characteristic of people
like this, you have to
honor your own drives,
and say, well, what is
it I'm prepared to suffer
for because these
ideas have grabbed me?
And by God-- I recently
watched an interview
that I recommend to
all of you that I
got on Netflix called "Steve
Jobs-- The Lost Interview."
Apparently he was collared
for an hour and 10 minutes
by a very good interviewer
and really asked
a lot of very personal
questions about how
he thought about things.
It's a gripping
interview to see how
he kept coming back to some
ideas he couldn't let go.
No matter what else was going
on, something was always there.
And that, to me, is the
mark of an entrepreneur.
Because if you don't have
that, the early failures
are going to kill you.
You're gonna get discouraged.
That something has to reemerge.
And it's not necessarily
very articulate.
But it's something
that drives you.
That's one of the
things I learned
from studying entrepreneurs.
KAREN MAY: Very interesting.
Kathy--
KATHY: Do you have a follow-up
question, or do you--
KAREN MAY: Go ahead.
KATHY: Do you want to ask it?
AUDIENCE: Hi, my question
was in relationship
to some internal research
that we've done lately
around the characteristics
of the highest performing
and most effective
teams here at Google.
And so I was just curious, in
your career, some of the things
that you've come up
with, you've seen
exhibited by the most effective
teams that you've worked with.
ED SCHEIN: There's a
lot of research on that.
And I think a lot, again,
depends on what they're doing.
One of the earliest
studies of leadership
was done way in the '50s
on basketball teams, where
you had a very clear criterion
of whether you win or not.
And, at that point, one of
the interesting findings
was that the winning teams
had leaders who were clearer
about the difference between
"my best people" and "my worst
people" than less
effective teams
who had leaders that said, "my
people are more or less alike."
That's an interesting
bit of research
that may not apply
to research teams.
But it does connect
with Steve Jobs,
who kept saying it's
all about the A players.
And if you're not an A player,
I don't want you on the team.
So this notion of
knowing who has
really the talents for
the particular tasks
may be one characteristic.
But from my point of view,
an even more important
characteristic is the
ability to become a team.
And there's a concept
that some of you
may have become familiar
with that Amy Edmondson calls
"teaming."
She's written a book
called "Teaming."
The notion there is that you
don't become a team by just
getting to know each other.
You become a team
by joint learning
in a difficult situation.
When a group of people who may
think of themselves as a team
suddenly have to face a new
challenge that none of them
have separately faced, and
they have to learn together,
that forces a level of
personalization that
may not have been there before.
And that will be crucial
to better performance
at a later time.
So if I were managing
teams, I would probably
invent problems for them to
force them into joint learning.
Because I couldn't assume
that just because they've
been together and they
say they like each other,
that's not enough.
It has to be joint learning
that really creates a team.
Those are the things
that surface for me.
KAREN MAY: You would
be interested, I think,
to know the study
that Adam is referring
to found that the variable
that most indicates
the team will be effective
is psychological safety.
And that felt-- as I was
reading "Humble Inquiry"--
certainly felt like a
precondition for inquiry
to exist.
ED SCHEIN: Were you are
familiar with Amy Edmonson's
work on this?
Yeah, because she's made a huge
issue of psychological safety.
And that goes back
to my earlier stuff
on psychological contract.
The surface is that any time
we're in a work relationship--
and this could be applied
to team members-- what's
the contract you have
with your team members?
And does it include that
I can be totally me?
Or do I have to play a
certain kind of a role?
And certainly
psychological safety
would suggest that
you want to lean
toward making this personally
possible to be yourself.
And if you're the
leader of the group,
to go heavily into creating
an environment where
people will feel safe.
To me, that's one of the biggest
pathologies in the US system--
is that managers have the
notion that, if you're
a responsible subordinate, you
will tell me what's going on,
instead of realizing that,
unless I deliberately
create psychological
safety for you,
there is no particular
incentive for you
to tell me what's
really going on.
So as a boss, you have to
really create that environment.
You can't assume it.
KAREN MAY: Very interesting.
So many lessons here for
us as an organization.
And I can't help
but finding my mind
going also to what's
happening in the world.
And these lessons feel so
relevant across the globe.
But we don't have time for
world peace or politics today,
I'm afraid-- time
to talk about it.
Hopefully we have time
to help make that happen.
I know I've seen a few
folks needing to gather
their things together and go.
You say we have
two minutes left?
So we can-- let me give
you the last two minutes
and ask you, not in the spirit
of advice, but teaching,
perhaps, what would you
leave us with-- as we
try to do our best
work as folks who
attend to process in a fast
and intelligent and competitive
organization-- what
would you leave us
with as we go out into our
days and weeks and years?
ED SCHEIN: I'd come back to
mindfulness, Ellen Langer
style.
If you haven't read
Ellen Langer's stuff,
you really should do
that because she sort of
was the creator of the concept
along these psychological
lines.
And the question that she
asks that I would leave you
with is, whenever
you're in an experience,
stop and say to yourself,
what else is going on?
There's the thing
that captures you.
But what else is going on?
What else is going on
in this room right now?
What else is going on
between the two of us?
There's so much of
experience that's available
that we gloss over or ignore.
And the real learning is often
in the "what else is going on?"
Thank you.
KAREN MAY: Wonderful.
ED SCHEIN: This is great.
KAREN MAY: Thank you so much.
[APPLAUSE]
