Hal Macomber has written an interesting post on our capacity for language and the uncertainty it creates, relating some of Maturano’s ideas to the world of projects. It makes some of the theory more widely applicable. Though not a subsitute for understanding what and why, it’s a starting point for conversations with management.
The work of projects is coordinated through conversations. It’s not about process. It’s not about schedules. Work is certainly not coordinated through controls. It’s all about conversations, particularly requests and promises. Yet people don’t see the coordinating aspects of commitment conversations. Instead, they see writing code, hanging doors, designing product, and doing one report after the other. It fits that people don’t get highly competent at something they don’t see.
I particularly like the idea that “Just knowing that people don’t speak up is enough to begin changing the behavior of people with the authority to act.”. In other words, management doesn’t need to know what people are not complaining about in order to change what is going on. And they know their staff are complaining. They are probably complaining themselves.
