Notes while reviewing: The Responsibility Virus

I got quite a lot out of reviewing the Responsibility Virus, but most of it not from the book. I recommend 2 papers from Roger Martin's web page :

1. Breaking the code of change
2. Strategic Choice Structuring
   

Taken together, these two papers provide a complementary view of the information in The Responsibility Virus.

Breaking the Code of Change

From Breaking the code of change I picked out the notions of:

1. A "Testable Causable Hypothesis"
2. Definition of successful change
3. Cascading Choices

When so many 'problem solving' initiatives generate lists of things to do and end up producing 'stuff', the notion of a testable causable hypothesis (a falsifiable model) can help identify and resolve root causes.

"To change is to take different actions than previously. To take different actions than previously means to make different choices. Different choices produce change."

I found his analysis of an Asda case study interesting because of the  clear incongruence between the stated beliefs of the participants and their actions. The conclusion to draw therefore, to measure actions to form a model, not intention and beliefs.

Need to develop a definition of successful change.

"To understand change, we must first understand the status quo."

Roger represents the Status Quo as a set of cascading choices from higher order to lower order.

Issues need to be pushed upstream and responded to productively when an upper level choice results in a sub-optimal set of choices at the lower level. This seems related to the 'responsibility ladder' in The Responsibility Virus.

"The quality and success of the status quo will be determined by the functioning of the choice cascade. So, to understand change and produce change, I argue that we need to understand first why the current set of choices is made the way it is made now. That is, we need a causal model for the choice cascade of the status quo"

Status Quo maintained by:

1. Aspirations - what does the person and the organisation hope to accomplish
2. Insight - the level of 'real data' and contextual understanding available
3. Incentives - do incentives encourage or discourage choices and upward flow

Above influenced by learning capacity. Learning capacity increased by:

1. making choice and rationale explicit
2. understanding how the decision affects the actions available to the next level
3. open dialogue between cascading levels to change a sub-optimal choice

To effect change, change the choice cascade through actions at all levels of the cascade.

I found that the information in this paper helped me understand some aspects of Change Management that I hadn't quite integrated into my models yet.

Strategic Choice Structuring

Much of Strategic Choice Structuring resides in The Responsibility Virus, but I found this a more focused paper.

You can recognise a good strategic choice by having made it consciously, based on valid data and sound reasoning attributes (genuine, sound, actionable, compelling).

• Genuine - at least two viable options, specify clearly what will get done and not get done as a consequence.
• Sound - follows logically from the data and beliefs - testable
• Actionable - broken down into a series of steps to take immediately and into long term achievable goals
• Compelling enough to generate commitment to the choice

The Process for structuring strategic choices:

1. frame the choice
2. brainstorm possible options
3. specify conditions necessary to validate each option (what the stakeholders needs to see happening)
4. prioritize the conditions which create the greatest barrier to choice
5. design valid tests for the key barrier conditions