We start by discussing the complexity of... you guessed it - baseball. From there, we start breaking down operational learning through the idea of "being teachable".
(Transcript Start)
[00:00:00] spk_0: This is Andy and this is Matt and you're listening to
[00:00:03] spk_1: the Hop podcast with no name.
[00:00:06] spk_0: What a dumb names. So stupid.
[00:00:22] spk_1: All right, we're in welcome. Welcome back. Episode episode 12, allegedly. Um, and we're gonna start with where we normally start and where is that? We're going over the homework. But this is operational learning episode two. Last
[00:00:40] spk_0: wait. So we're in episode 12, operational learning episode two. Is this starting to become like
[00:00:46] spk_1: there's gonna be a sub series this episode. So we'll have it just a really long. You'll have to Wikipedia about at
[00:00:54] spk_0: the beginning of the
[00:00:56] spk_1: treasure hunt. Gotta find the gold. Hopefully you find it every once in a while. All right. So, uh, we are going to recap homework, but you're going to recap because I'm going to talk about it, make more sense in a second. But what
[00:01:12] spk_0: was so our homework was to try to find a place that we experienced that. Um The explanation for why something isn't going to plan is very, very much oversimplified, basically, taking the ideas that we talked about last time of ordered systems versus complex adaptive systems and recognizing that even though we live in a complex adaptive system. We often oversimplify the things around us as though we are in an ordered system. Right? As though there are simple, easy explanations for things. And Matthew you experienced that this weekend?
[00:01:50] spk_1: Yeah, I experienced it, I guess every weekend in the summer now. So this year my brother and I, your husband and I um joined a men's over 30 baseball league. Uh So we are back playing, you know, regular fast pitch, baseball, fast pitch is definitely in quotes. I was just about to say and so we, we are, are, I mean, it feels like reliving our childhoods. We, we were three years apart, so we never were on the same team. So we get to be on the same team finally and it's a lot of fun. But um everyone's a coach, everyone's a critic. You know, we have long press conferences after the game going over what we used to change. And there are these routine sayings as a part of baseball and particularly over 30 men's leagues, uh where the average players probably in their late forties, early fifties. But uh some of the saying are things like we just got to stop making errors and we're so used to saying that from the safety lens, but this is literal baseball errors, just
[00:02:58] spk_0: stop making it Matthew just you would be so much better if you just stopped making errors
[00:03:03] spk_1: and, and we talk about, well, I didn't get the hit because I'm just, I'm dropping my back shoulder just
[00:03:09] spk_0: one thing.
[00:03:10] spk_1: The one thing, it wasn't the fact that there's like the definition of a complex environment. It's the one thing I need to change. Um, we talk about the other thing was, well, the, the umpires, you know, they just, they keep making bad calls just against
[00:03:26] spk_0: us and each team feels that way. The umpires just, they're favoring the other team and both teams feel that way equally for each game about the other
[00:03:35] spk_1: team because everyone knows that the over 30 men's leagues where all the umpires being paid off. Right. Absolutely. It's a deep seated underground gambling that's happening all the time. So that's it. I actually, I thought about something when we started recording, what was the, the go to saying for being a flautist when you, what was it like, you got to pay more attention,
[00:04:02] spk_0: you know, you have to practice more. It was always just practice. Yeah. Yeah. Any time you made any error for any reason, it can be solved by just practicing more. Period.
[00:04:14] spk_1: Thank God, I didn't do that. Not be able to handle that feedback at all. It's ok. Uh, so that was, that was it. We took this massive complex thing and everyone says, just pay more attention and make less errors and we haven't played in 20 years. It's just not good anymore, what else to tell you? Uh, but I'll, yeah, paying attention is definitely the reason why I made all the errors.
[00:04:38] spk_0: Perfect. Yeah. So that's a really, that is a really good example because, because sports teams are complex adaptive systems, right? And so, yeah, we, we tend to oversimplify what's happening as to why we might not be winning.
[00:04:51] spk_1: That was, I mean, we won last week and the week before, even with all of your, er, not paying attention, don't ask about the games before that. But in the last three, we've won. See.
[00:05:02] spk_0: So they're not directly causal, right? So your heirs are not paying attention, which are the clear explanations for why the root causes. We, we're saying this in just in case it's not clear. Um, they're not actually causal to you're winning or because you still won despite all of that because you were adapting to create success, even with all of the heirs, which there were, there are many, yeah,
[00:05:28] spk_1: we always remember the airs. This is true.
[00:05:31] spk_0: All right. So I think our plan, right is that we want to make sure that we touch just a little bit more on the complexity piece. So that this idea of operational learning makes sense.
[00:05:45] spk_1: Yeah, makes sense as to why we desperately need to operational learn because of complexity. And yeah, you, we do our normal prep for the, I just did a shimmy in my chair like a small dance. We did a normal prep for the episode and you, we really harped on two things that you want to make sure we we really get into
[00:06:04] spk_0: for complexity, right? Because I think that the the mental image that at least sticks with me in terms of trying to shift our thought process, right? So we recognize, right? So we can intellectually recognize that we're in this complex adaptive system. But some times it's hard to picture what that means. And so the mental picture that I use is historically, I definitely saw my world as an ordered system, which I'm trying not to do now. Um And so the mental image that I would use is we picture work our work world as a, as a big machine. And I would picture the people as part of that machine, right? Like the cogs in the wheel of the machine. And I would historically picture standard operating procedures as sort of the the requirements or the instructions of what those cogs should be doing. And our belief when things didn't go to plan was that uh part of the machinery could be broken, right? We could actually have a piece of equipment fail. But if it wasn't the equipment, well, then it was the cogs that were the humans that were failing. And so that meant that either they needed to be like their instructions needed to be like reiterated so that they know how to cog properly or we needed to sort of reform them because they knew their instructions but maybe they weren't formed properly. So we need to kind of either retrain or make sure that they have the proper thought process in order to be a good cog in a wheel. And so our mission basically, historically was to kind of look at those people and think that we had to adjust something about that cog that is a human. And if we did that, then the whole machinery would run well again. So that's picturing the world as an ordered system. And now that I recognize that that's not true. And if you actually go talk to those people who are people by the way and not cogs, strangely enough, they are not cogs that that was vastly oversimplifying what was going on. And that now how I picture the human is, um we picture them sort of in the middle of that perfect storm, right? So we talked last episode about the fact that in a complex adaptive system, a good way of picturing how events happen are sort of these pretty normal ingredients that come together and they come together sometimes in a fantastic way. And we have a really, really good day and sometimes they come together in a, in a way that ends up having a really bad day or a negative event occur. And now I picture the human as the person in the middle of those ingredients. And oftentimes we are adapting to ensure that the ingredients don't come together in a bad way, right? We are stepping over things that could be a problem. We are, we are zigging and zagging in order to make sure that we are creating success. We have tools that don't necessarily do the function that we would love for them to do. Well. And we have to figure out ways of, you know, dealing with something that's tricky or dealing with something that's frustrating or the person is the one that is actually in the middle sort of orchestrating all of those ingredients and mixing them in a way when they can have some element of control to adapt in order to create success. And they are not that cog in a wheel and they are not the one that needs to be sort of reformed or recorrect or retrained in most circumstances.
[00:09:20] spk_1: Yeah, I think it's, it's a, it's a, you can kind of see it when you describe it like that as we definitely used to look at it as this is a system and there are cogs and there are wheels and the human is just one of the cogs and they can quote unquote break and then need to be fixed by retraining. And that is just we got totally, totally stop that, that thought process because it's just not what humans are and it's not what the system is,
[00:09:46] spk_0: right? It's just, it's a pretty inaccurate mental picture of what's happening. So, operational learning, right? Is understanding what it's like from the person who's in the middle of all of those ingredients, understanding what they are having to do in order to create success, understanding all of that adaptation that is occurring so that we can actually have a pretty accurate mental picture of what it's like to get work done.
[00:10:12] spk_1: I think we nailed it. I think that's complexity. Yeah. Wow,
[00:10:16] spk_0: cool.
[00:10:17] spk_1: It only took us 1.5 episodes and we've simplified complexity. So here it is. Got it. Um And then we, so we, we used complexity as one of the major driving factors as to why you need to operationally learn. We also last episode just touched on operation learning and kind of what goes into it. And we, we settled on wanting to start by talking about the idea of being teachable when you're doing any sort of operational learning, whether that is just on the fly or in a learning team or any other way. Correct.
[00:10:54] spk_0: Yes. So this phrase being teachable, um We give credit to Bob Edwards for it because I think many of us were using uh the terms of psychological safety, which there's absolutely nothing wrong with using those terms. But he has this way of taking words that sometimes don't directly have meaning to people and finding a way to convey meaning very quickly. So the idea of being teachable means that in any conversation that we're having around operational learning, we want to be putting ourselves in the position of being able to be easy to, for us to learn as the facilitator of a discussion. But also that it's really apparent to the people that we're talking to or even just the other person that we're talking to, that we want to be learning. And so there's kind of just a few key pieces to being teachable. Um One is that we make sure when we're asking any questions, the intent of why we're asking a question is to learn not to teach someone like they're teaching us. And it's not a time like, even if we don't, even if we don't agree with what the person is saying, which many times you won't, the intent of why you're asking the question is to learn the perspective of the person that you're talking to in that moment in time, which means that it is not a time to be saying anything to try to correct behavior the way that you think it should be corrected or try to place judgment on what another person is saying or try to teach something that you think is valid in that moment in time because the question intent is just for you to be learning their perspective. Yeah, I
[00:12:29] spk_1: think it's, it's kind of common to think where no one intentionally is doing this maliciously. But we're asking questions to hear where someone's doing something wrong.
[00:12:39] spk_0: Yes. If we have that ordered system, right. That's the broken cock I, I gotta, I gotta find where they're broken. And then I have to, I have
[00:12:46] spk_1: to, I've done this job and I know what you should be doing. So tell me what you're doing and I'll tell you where that doesn't align with what I think you should be doing. And that's why you're not having success the way I want to have success. So then I will tell you and I'm only asking these questions to find out where that gap is so that I will then teach you. I am listening to find the gap in what I want you to be doing. And then I will tell you what that gap is.
[00:13:08] spk_0: Yeah, that's exactly how we historically as leaders have been taught to ask questions and the not what we want to be doing in operational learning. Well, let's, I
[00:13:17] spk_1: mean, we're going to keep this about operational learning, but in the spirit of the podcast, not being just about safety. That's about any relationship you've ever had, right? This is true. I mean, friendships partnerships. It's just, yeah, we asked these questions because we, we just want to tell someone, what
[00:13:33] spk_0: are you doing wrong so that I can fix you and then
[00:13:36] spk_1: we dress it up. We're like, ok, hey, can you just tell me what your day was like? And then you're like, wait, so you didn't take the kids to the park, like you said, you were gonna like, it's just you're trying to find that gap and, and we get better at it and we, we always working. No, no,
[00:13:49] spk_0: no. We would say kinder than that. Matthew, we wouldn't even say so. You didn't take, we would say, well, I found in my past that when I take the kids to the park, it really helps them get some of their energy out. And then later in the day, it's not as difficult
[00:14:02] spk_1: and that's why they broke grandma's vase. Ok. So, uh, so ask questions to learn and then we said not to, to listen, quote un quote, just to teach, right? You're asking to genuinely learn,
[00:14:15] spk_0: learn about their world, right? Learn about their perspective, be able to put yourself in their shoes. So that's element number one to being teachable. Um And then when we are asking questions, we are trying to learn about uh whatever is happening in terms of a process, not fixated on a result. So if the reason that you wanted to go talk to someone was because we had something like an event occur, the focus of the discussion is not the event like whether it be a quality upset or a safety issue or operational upset. Um The focus is what it actually takes to get that job done. And if we're talking about like outside of work in terms of, you know, hey, grandma's face was broken, we're actually not talking about grandma's face being broken in the conversation we're trying to understand what it was like to manage the kids in that world, in that environment, whatever that environment was at the time.
[00:15:08] spk_1: So a good example would be we're not saying, hey, teach me what it's like to break this vase. That's not what we're doing. Uh We're learning about what it's just like to exist in the environment and go about normal work, normal day, right?
[00:15:23] spk_0: And then the way that we're actually asking questions and engaging in conversation and operational learning, there's two pretty important pieces of it. Um One is that we don't have a prescriptive list of questions, usually of a kind of a place to start meaning you have maybe a process or an experience you're trying to learn about. Um And then all of the rest of the questions actually come from what the person is teaching you. So your, your follow up questions are truly follow up meaning you have to hear what the person is saying in order to even structure the next question. Um because you're just trying to clarify a mental picture as you go and in a place where we're not even sure what the next question should be. The second piece of this really important structure and conversation is making sure that we are doing genuine reflective listening, meaning that when somebody is describing something to you, you do want to take the time to try to describe it back to them to actually check that you are creating the right mental picture of what they are describing and in doing so in many or actually most situations that I have been in, people fill in the blanks for you. So even if you don't know what question to ask next by reiterating what you thought you heard, people will correct for what you've gotten wrong and add more detail into what you told them
[00:16:43] spk_1: and we know through conversation that you like it or not, you always have a filter on in what you're hearing. It's not a bad thing. Actually, it's just what your brain does to make the information make sense. And so you will naturally miss things and you might interpret things differently. And so it just by reflective listening and saying, hey, here's what I've heard. What did I miss? You're, you're checking that bias, you're checking that sort of filter that may have missed something that was crucial or heard it differently than someone intended or maybe someone needed a chance to clarify something and they didn't say it how they wanted to. They, it really gives the open place to have that conversation. And like we kind of, we kind of take the reflect of listening and we combined it with the open ending questions and, and using the next best, best question, which is what we say. And I find it fascinating because coming from the sales world, they're so used to saying, here's your sales script Right. And it would be like this, you're ready. So, if we were going to do it about your morning and I said, tell me how you start your day.
[00:17:46] spk_0: Um, I, I usually wake up when my youngest daughter wakes up and I hear her on the monitor.
[00:17:54] spk_1: Great. So your youngest daughter wakes up, you hear on the monitor? That's when you get up. Yes. Great. So, what about, what do you have for breakfast? Not that doesn't at all follow any sort of open ended and following uh the next best question. But that's what you know,
[00:18:10] spk_0: so there was reflective listening built in, but it felt like creepily not genuine.
[00:18:15] spk_1: I just wanted to get to my next question on my, on my sheet, which is so often, I mean, you've been doing this for a long time. How often do you get a request for operation learning script? Tell me what questions to ask.
[00:18:26] spk_0: Yeah, I mean, probably every time we teach it because it is, it is a little bit overwhelming or scary to think that there isn't a script um which is why we want to practice because when you don't have a script, it is actually quite freeing and you can learn quite a bit. And, and the reason by the way that we can't have a script is because you can't predict what you're going to learn because we're not in an ordered system, right? So we have no idea what questions would be the right questions to ask ahead of time. We have to be listening and learning as we go
[00:18:56] spk_1: and that includes an investigation, but we won't spend time on that now. Not
[00:19:00] spk_0: in, not in this moment, but maybe, maybe we just take a few minutes and, and show what this looks like in practice. Are you
[00:19:09] spk_1: ready? Oh, yeah. So let me quickly recap. I'm ready. I have a list in front of me, which is we talk about being teachable and that kind of has a couple of elements. Those elements are one asking questions to learn, not just to listen and then teacher solve someone's problems. Two is when asking questions, we're going to ask about what the process is like, not just what the result is and then we're going to talk about beyond open ended questions, which sounds crazy. So I'll explain that a little more, which is that the next question comes from what you just learned. It is not prescriptive, you're not just guessing, you're not trying to fill in the the, you're not making logical assumptions for them. You are asking based on what they said the next question and then reflective, listening into all of that. So let's give it a shot. I'm excited. All
[00:20:03] spk_0: right. Well, so, so you started off talking about your baseball experience.
[00:20:09] spk_1: OK. That's one way to say it baseball experience.
[00:20:13] spk_0: Um And that it was over simplified in terms of, you know, how things go well or don't go well. So what if we did a little bit of operational learning around what it's like to be on an over thirties bat wood bat team? Did I get it? Is that what it is? Ok. Over thirties wood bat baseball team. Um, and so I'm gonna operationally learn about it and if you don't know where to start, actually, one of the places that I start is by admitting, I don't know where to start. Um So I'll say something like, uh I'm really interested in what it's like to be on an over thirties wood bat baseball
[00:20:53] spk_1: team. I love the harp in this over thirties thing. This is great. Yeah. Um and I'm, I'm well over 30. So, yes,
[00:21:02] spk_0: but I don't, I don't even know what question to start with if I wanted to understand that world, uh where, where would you start? What, what should I know?
[00:21:11] spk_1: I think, you know, we, we can kind of bypass what it's like to sign up for the league and how that team's created. I think that's all just sort of detail. I think the good place to start is how like the lineup is even formed. Like, how do we know what we're playing and how does the coach manage? Sort of 13 people that don't know each other? He has no idea how well they play and stuff like that.
[00:21:34] spk_0: So, yeah, 13 people who don't know each other and you're in, is it more than 13 or is it just
[00:21:41] spk_1: 13, 13 per team? And, and the teams switch every year? So you might, you might know a person or two, but you might not be on their team next year. It all changes. So
[00:21:50] spk_0: you might have played with or around them at some point. So you got 13 people and a coach, a coach is, is creating,
[00:21:57] spk_1: I think there's four teams. So four people have volunteered to be a
[00:22:01] spk_0: coach. So you have a coach who then has to somehow figure out how to put together a lineup. What is that like?
[00:22:09] spk_1: So from my understanding, our coach, Mike, who's also a player. Um
[00:22:16] spk_0: So your coach plays in the field, classic player,
[00:22:18] spk_1: coach, this is classic player, coach situation. Uh So Mike, you know, the league starts, Mike, I think they have a draft or they, they figure out a way to divvy up the players. Mike gets a list of 13 people and he goes all right. I can, I have a list of where they think they want to play. And now I have to make it make sense because you can only play nine people on the field that one time in one inning. So the way they do it is everyone bats if you show up, you bat. So the, the batting order is just as long as there are people on your team, they're, they're there, they're batting and then my cast is sort of and he does it in an Excel grid. So he has the batting order and then on the, on the, on the left side and the top side each inning and then it has where you're going to play your position for that inning.
[00:23:03] spk_0: Ok. So you've got, you got 13 people if you show up, which I'm guessing because you said if you show up then not everyone always shows up. Is that, is that true? I
[00:23:11] spk_1: mean, yeah, it's an over thirties league. So most people have Children and then they therefore have weekend plans over the summer, right? Because it starts, I think in June and it goes through September. So it's peak summer travel month. So, you know, I missed a couple of weeks, everyone kind of misses a couple of weeks here or there and you hope that it staggers just enough. So you have enough people to play a game.
[00:23:32] spk_0: Ok. All right. So yeah, not everyone is going to be there every week most likely because of just family dynamic life situations. And so you have, I'm picturing this Excel grid that I think you described, right? So you get a list of 13 people and then you've got a list of the positions that they are willing to play and, and that's what the decisions are made from. Am I picturing? So
[00:23:55] spk_1: that's how, that's, that's probably how the first week goes is, is coach Mike Coach Mike, I feel weird saying coach Mike, coach Mike, he, uh, he is before the first game. He's like, I got a list of people and another position and then he has to say, ok, over seven innings, I'm gonna try to get people into the positions that they can play evenly. So everyone feels like they have an equal chance to play because he wants it to be equitable, but some people play the same position. So you have to play if you have,
[00:24:25] spk_0: if you've got like like three short stops, the driving force here that I'm hearing at least in some regards is equity as opposed to trying to win. I mean, like what if,
[00:24:40] spk_1: because as you've stressed, this is a men's over 30 wood be baseball league. So the goal is that we have fun first and foremost. So it's yes, we all want to win. Everyone is competitive to a degree and everyone makes the playoffs. So technically, the regular season doesn't really matter. So you're just there to have fun and you, you want to play the positions you're comfortable in and, and Mike, coach Mike, coach Mike does his best to make sure that everyone gets a chance to play in those positions. Now, I will say that over time, people emerge as me being a little more defensively sound in a position versus another position and there starts to be some more trends based on who plays the position. Well, but even in those situations, there are still rotations, everyone gets a chance to play.
[00:25:31] spk_0: So as you go through the season, what I think I'm hearing is that the patterns of maybe a good lineup, meaning who's going to be playing where start to emerge because you're also the first time that if I'm understanding correctly, the first time that you play together is like on your first game, right? So no
[00:25:48] spk_1: practice, practice and you show up 10 minutes before the game starts, right?
[00:25:53] spk_0: And so, so you, you start to get an understanding of how to work as a team in terms of what people's strengths are. And if you do have, you know, four people or 10 people that all want to play shortstop, you find out, you know, maybe the folks that are best suited for that position, but also with the secondary or, or maybe primary goal of having fun and allowing people to play the positions that they would like to be playing and that they are comfortable in because historically, these folks have all played before, right? And so those might be the positions that they are most comfortable from their past experience. Yes.
[00:26:27] spk_1: And I'll, I'll end with this note, just everyone really understands the league that I play and it is crucial to understanding operational learning. Um Everyone goes in with the understanding of we are playing in a men's over 30 with bat like so no one takes it entirely too seriously. So, if you wanted to play shortstop and so for other people, everyone's like, yeah, whatever, let's just have some fun. And if I need to switch in and switch out, that's totally fine. So, no one's out there, like, but I want to play that totally fine with this idea that we're playing again. A men's over 30.
[00:26:59] spk_0: Ok. So let's stop here. I think we, I don't know how many minutes we went for in this operational learning about your men's over 30 league. Um But hopefully it was just long enough for people to hear a bit of the pattern of the question asking. I mean, obviously, Matt and I, we have a report together. We, we spend a lot of time together. So it's easy for us to have a conversation. But even when you don't have that type of relationship with someone, I can say, you know, just from my own experience of doing it, the conversation sounds and feels pretty close to what we just talked about because you're genuinely interested in what the person is saying and you're using the ability to have discussion around a passion of theirs or something that they have personal experience with. And you're just asking them to teach you more about their world. And most of us are pretty comfortable talking about our own experiences. So as long as you're not asking someone to make judgments about other people or judgments about other experiences outside their own. Um, most people are pretty open to conversation around their world
[00:28:03] spk_1: and it is, like you said, it's my experience. Right? And this league has been around for a bunch of years. So if you talk to someone who played in every year since it started, they'd have different experiences and different things to say. But they would still be that I want to teach you. Yeah, it's something I enjoy. I have fun with the men's over 30 wood bat league. So that would be something that people always wanna share. They do, they, they like talking about something they get to have expertise in.
[00:28:27] spk_0: Awesome. So hopefully in that we were able to hear a bit of the reflective listening pieces as well as the asking questions to learn and making sure that the next question was actually coming from what you were saying. Um And also obviously, we were not talking about whether you won or lost in the last games, but actually learning about what it was like to be on that team, which if you continued down this path, perhaps people can start to see how these pieces would come together. But if we were ultimately interested in, if you won or lost, you can start to see some of the brittleness in the system, right? You can start to see, well, there's 13 people that come together who don't practice at all who have had past experiences on different teams. And multiple people who maybe only like to play one position and you're just trying to make sure that everyone's having fun. You could see how those ingredients lined up together may not create the most competitive team.
[00:29:22] spk_1: You said it, not me. Uh That was, that was it. So let's go for homework and we'll wrap this one up,
[00:29:30] spk_0: right? So homework should they choose to accept? It would be take any discussion at any point, work or personal life. And at a moment in that discussion, try to use questions designed to allow you to learn about somebody's experience and attempt three follow ups in that discussion that follow up could be either just reflective, listening to allow somebody to fill in the blanks for you or it could be a question that came from what they said that you're trying to ultimately create clarification around your mental picture of what they're describing. So three follow ups in the middle of a conversation that you're having with someone, see if you can do it.
[00:30:15] spk_1: Yeah, my only piece of advice would be, don't say, oh, wow, tell me more three times in a row that you'll get called out. Uh But give it a shot and yeah, we'll talk more about that next time. Awesome. Thank you. We'll uh we'll talk in a couple of weeks.
[00:30:36] spk_0: Well, that's it. Yep.
[00:30:39] spk_1: Another one in the books we did it
[00:30:43] spk_0: if you uh want to send us any of your thoughts actually fling us any of your thoughts you can do. So at the website www dot hop podcast dot com.
[00:30:55] spk_1: That's Hoppo DC A ST dot com. That's still
[00:31:01] spk_0: such a stupid name.
[00:31:03] spk_1: We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for listening.