To solve problems at scale, you have to know the smallest details
It is not problems that malfunction or break down in clear, visible ways that are the most troubling.
It is the problems that don't appear to be problems that do the most damage.
What I call "Kabuki theatre" is technology integration that gives the appearance of functionality but is underemployed, controversial, burdensome, and doesn't promote confidence among users let alone show demonstrable return on technology investment. It is characterized by show versus functionality, substitution over transformation, style over substance, innovation over repair. It is often the result of "Me-too!" top-down integration programs.
Three features feed the cycle of mediocrity
Leadership teams don't understand technology to any reasonable degree are leading ICT departments
ICT department who aren't trained or suited to meet the of needs of staff and students in an educational environment
Organizational surveys and community kimmy committees focusing attention on telling leadership what is wrong that do nothing to encourage individual accountability and 10 to fix problems. With so many cargo call installations what prevents growth and integration is in large part the animosity generated during implementation as the two groups most often responsible
Why is this a problem worth solving?
5% is know-how and 95% execution (as everything that has value) execution is everything.Obstacles that keep teams from success is not lack of knowledge, but more about mindset, leadership and management skills, and how to put a strategy on the table and get buy in from your team and leadership in the organization. In other words- its bugs in your administrative process and infrastructure. Great companies value learning over everything else.When a company learns it takes the form of a good culture. "build cooperation into the infrastructure. instead of adopting the important parts, they adopt the visible trappings. it's the processes, the systems behind the devices, the connections, the integration where the rubber hits the road. Anybody can parade around with a macbook.
How many people in your organizations are duct tapers constantly dealing with how/where systems and processes fall short? Are you using systems and processes that were never designed to solve the problems you face now but problems that teams had long ago?
Mimicking just distracts because tech is treated as a set of tools, method of faster and cheaperl; so these well meaning folks act out these technical processes they have seen without changing mindset, leadership style or culture. This results in the illusion of tech integration. All the roles are there, all the events take place, all the artifacts and text is there, but the real benefits never reach the user and the coordination overhead wasted because nothing actually changed, same heirarchy, same micromanaging, all failing to grasp the true principles.
Organizations too commonly invest in digital infrastructure and strategies that don't meet staff or customer needs. Until this is acknowledged, it cannot be fixed. Getting beyond Kabuki theatre is one of the first steps towards becoming a learning organization; which is one that continuously transforms itself.
Systems, processes and capacity building that reclaim all the ineffective/inefficient processes, all the wayward ten-second increments of action wasted that add up to hundreds of lost hours per year of our most precious resource: human brain cycles/capacity.
How do you solve it? How do you make the invisible, visible?
-- Don't assume anything is a "best practice" approach to technology integration no matter where you read it. Every context is different; one-size almost never fits all.
Must identify and breakdown the reason why people reason defensively. If you can't get toward this, change is nothing but a passing phase.
Kabuki is why service orientation is so important. So much can be going on but be benefitting no one and it can be maddeningly unnaccountable because it's giving off the appearance of working.
- build the new mindset that can recognize it, which is the first and best shot at addressing it. You need to not only understand that something is not working, but why--exactly--it is not working. Too often unaccountable or opaque systems and processes are held onto for deeply dubious reasons, including that the real reasons behind a system or process remain submerged as unchecked assumptions.
--Designing systems for commitment will take your organization much further than compliance. You need directly responsible individuals as given the opportunity to really own a thing, to take responsibility for something is key.
- Repair is more important than innovation. Shiny objects in technology are utterly and totally over-rated.
How do I know this approach works?
-instead of adopting the important parts, they adopt the visible - awareness of better options and bad communication, - Stories from the schools, Stakeholder surveys/Anecdotals/Visuals - pictures of the changes-- video screen in matsukata house, etc.
Next Steps
- Click here to receive the first section of the free white paper: Leading Technology Change.
- Click here to contact Matt Brady for a free online consultation about your school or organization
- Connect on linked in or twitter - Read more...
