Why Management Isn’t a Dirty Word: Adam Thompson on Sequencing, Overload, and Real Execution

Management isn’t old-fashioned—it’s what makes real execution possible.

In this episode, Mike Jones is joined by Adam Thompson, strategy and execution expert, to tackle why management matters more than ever in today’s overloaded organisations. Far from being just about "nice" leadership, success demands clarity, sequencing, and the courage to have adult conversations about real work.

Adam shares practical insights into why organisations stall under overload, how to sequence tasks to unlock agility, and why execution without management is just wishful thinking. If you're serious about moving beyond slogans to real outcomes, this conversation is essential listening.

If you want to rethink leadership, management, and execution from the ground up, this one's for you.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why overload is the root cause of poor execution
• Why management, not just leadership, is critical for success
• How sequencing work reduces chaos and improves agility
• Why adult conversations—not assumptions—drive better workplace dynamics
• The real meaning of corporate courage in organisations
• How clarity and direction shape effective execution
• Why "good enough" beats perfection in the real world

🎧 Keywords: Adam Thompson, execution, management, leadership, clarity, sequencing, workplace dynamics, adult conversations, corporate courage, organisational strategy

📘 Learn more about Adam’s work: https://www.thompsonorganisations.com.au/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

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🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Buzzsprout

💬 Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Adam Thompson and His Journey
• 2:21 The Importance of Execution in Organisations
• 3:25 Understanding Overload and Its Impact
• 6:17 Management vs. Leadership: Why Both Matter
• 9:00 Creating Enabling Constraints for Focused Work
• 11:42 Adult Conversations in the Workplace
• 20:07 Bridging the Gap Between Leadership and Ground Reality
• 28:25 The Power of Sequencing Work
• 33:47 Building Clarity and Direction in Strategy
• 45:03 Focus, Execution, and Doing Good Enough
• 50:34 Why Sequencing Unlocks Organisational Agility
• 55:07 Closing Reflections

Transcript

Adam Thompson (00:00)
the modern day work situation of, I'm not sure that we've ever been busier, and I'm not sure that we've ever got less done at the same time.

we still talk about leadership as an interpersonal game. I'm not rejecting the interpersonal game of leadership, but can we see that as something that needs to happen as a necessary condition? But can we acknowledge that actually leadership is making this whole show, this whole system called an organization, produce the outcomes it needs to, and that's gonna require management,

Mike Jones (00:11)
Yes.

Adam Thompson (00:26)
It takes a lot of corporate courage to do what makes sense.

Mike Jones (01:00)
Welcome today I have the fantastic Adam Thompson.

Adam Thompson (01:01)
And today I have the fantastic Adam

Mike Jones (01:04)
Thank you for joining, Adam.

Adam Thompson (01:04)
Thank you for joining,

It's a pleasure. No, thank you, Mike So before we get into it, would you mind giving a bit of background, bit of context about

Mike Jones (01:07)
before we get into it, you mind giving a bit of background, a bit of context about yourself?

Adam Thompson (01:12)
I remember finding my dad ran a small business and on the bookshelf was a book, The One Minute Manager. And I remember reading that as a kid and just finding it really interesting. I sort of only realized that a few years ago that maybe understanding what's really going on is something that's always been in workplaces has always been interesting. And I had a pretty standard corporate career, you could say. I generally did roles that were initially involved in projects and strategy. And then that eventually led to being asked to look after some teams.

and then departments and then eventually whole businesses. And my last actual salaried role was an executive of the automobile club here in Adelaide, South Australia, which is where I am. You know, the same sort of auto club that you'll find all around the world. my consistent pattern was I'd be put in charge of something and my job was to, you'd say to fix it or make it work better and fixing it as in what are we actually here to do and then getting it organized and set up and lead so it could actually do it.

Then I started coming across some theories about how organizations work. I found those fascinating just because of the idea of there may be our ways to explain what we're essentially seeing. And after meeting some consultants that were great to work with internally, I decided to have a go at doing what I was doing externally.

Mike Jones (02:21)
I

like it. I know you do a lot with strategy, but if you don't mind, we're gonna focus on execution. What do you think inhibits them from executing properly?

Adam Thompson (02:22)
you do. And I know you do a lot with strategy, but if you don't mind, going to focus on execution. Yeah. What do you inhibits them from executing

properly? I've got a really straightforward answer. Overload.

Mike Jones (02:36)
Okay.

Adam Thompson (02:36)
And this is something that started becoming obvious to me quite a few years ago. And what I've done is I've held it in my mind as an ongoing hypothesis, not one that I can ever prove, of course. And I deliberately call it a hypothesis, it might be true, unproven. But whenever you talk to someone and you run into a mate and you say, how's work going? The answer is going to be a sigh. That's how's work going for people.

Mike Jones (02:48)
Mm.

Heh heh heh.

Adam Thompson (02:57)
And if you dig in a little bit as to why, there's too much going on and things feel all over the place and it stops that. And there's a feeling of being busy and nothing getting done. And when you start looking into some of the concepts of organizations, whether they're modern day concepts that have just starting to emerge or whether they're ones that can extend from decades ago, you'll see a common thing about managing the work. And my hypothesis is the amount of work that any given strategy asks an organization to do over the next, 18 months.

Mike Jones (03:18)
Hmm.

Adam Thompson (03:25)
I think is reasonable. But the way that's organised, which means the amount of work people are being asked to do today, I think is completely unreasonable. And then when you put all that together, you get the modern day work situation of, I'm not sure that we've ever been busier, and I'm not sure that we've ever got less done at the same time.

Mike Jones (03:31)
Mm.

Adam Thompson (03:42)
So really, that's what I boil it down to, overload. And my contention is that all the other symptoms pop up from that fundamental

Mike Jones (03:42)
Hmm.

Adam Thompson (03:49)
brick down the bottom that says overload, and I think all the other symptoms, both intangible, emotional, mental, and all the symptoms in terms of outcomes not being delivered, that's my hypothesis, comes from overload right there at the bottom.

Mike Jones (04:00)
Yeah, I like it. But you said something really interesting. Managing the work. How dare you say that in this world at the moment, because God's management is apparently a dirty word and, God forbid someone manages the work because that's so archaic, apparently.

Adam Thompson (04:00)
Yeah, I like it. But you said something really interesting. Managing the work. How dare you say that in this world at the moment because God's management is apparently a dirty and know, God forbid someone manages the work. Yeah. Because that's so

apparently. Yeah. One of the videos I put out, I actually titled it something along the lines of leadership is not what we need. We actually want management and

And the idea of that, I've got a couple of definitions I use that I've gradually evolved, which I think work well for me anyway, I can explain them. Leadership, the ability to get a group to willingly move in the direction needed. So, willingly and direction, they're the two things. If you're coercing them to move in the direction, that's not leadership. And if there's no direction, it's not leadership. So, willingly and direction, that's leadership. And manage means to make sure the value is there. So, in that sense, you might manage a team, but can also manage a swimming pool.

Mike Jones (04:41)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Adam Thompson (04:56)
if you're making sure that people can swim in it and to have it like that. So if we're talking about actually getting work done, my idea is that people want management. We use the strategy part to explain the work we're doing, why it makes sense, a good strategy makes sense, why the work matters and all that sort of stuff. Then we need to get the work managed that is organized so that people can actually do it. We've got a bit of an idea that floats around them. It's very popular, the purpose driven organization and all that sort of thing. But.

Mike Jones (05:22)
Yeah.

Adam Thompson (05:24)
I mean, how many organisations do have a genuine purpose that is going to be doing something that's good for the planet? There's going to be a few. But my idea is that people need to know that the purpose they're working for is not unethical. But beyond that, could you explain to me why I'm doing this work, where it goes to, why it matters to that person? And then could you organise it so I could please do that work? And I think that if we put those conditions in place, we're not only going to get a lot of work executed.

Mike Jones (05:46)
Yeah.

Adam Thompson (05:50)
but we're also gonna have people wanting to work there. But you you get something interesting. You talk management and manager. I think management of the work is obviously what I'm talking about here. And one of the most effective and traditional ways to do it is by having a manager. But it's useful to separate those two things. I think everyone would believe that work needs to be managed somehow. The method by which we get that done, that's where a lot of the modern day thinking and discussions is now sitting.

Mike Jones (05:53)
Hmm.

Mm.

Yes, yeah,

I like that distinction. And you're right, people want to be at work and they want to have the autonomy to do stuff. But I think, as you said, it's about being overwhelmed. think there's overwhelmed in the sense they've got so many constraints on them. It's like it's easier not to do work than it is actually to do work. And there's so much stuff.

Adam Thompson (06:18)
I like that distinction. And you're right, people want to be at work and they want to the autonomy to do stuff. I think, as you said, about being overwhelmed, think there's overwhelmed in sense that they've got so many constraints on them. It's like it's easier not to do work than it is actually to do work. Yeah, yeah. And there's so much

stuff.

Mike Jones (06:44)
without the direction, it almost becomes like just a opaque, just stuff that they can't work out what needs to be done.

Adam Thompson (06:45)
without the direction, it almost becomes like just an opaque, just stuff that they can't work out what needs

to be done. Yeah, yeah. Well, you could look at it this way. You could also say there's a complete lack of constraints. And so what I mean by that is Alicia Juarrero I've come across her work in the last couple of years, and she refers to enabling constraints. And her classic example of that is a roundabout.

Mike Jones (07:01)
Hmm.

Yes.

Adam Thompson (07:09)
So a roundabout constrains, a traffic roundabout constrains the free movement of all the cars, all the drivers, but by constraining those movements, it actually enables the whole system to work better. And I'm sure that if we're all approaching a crossroad and we know there's about 50 other cars coming from multiple directions, we would all gladly say, please constrain us by putting in a roundabout. It'll help us get through. It's what traffic management is. So we can apply that same thing to work. So what I would suggest is that

Mike Jones (07:21)
Yes.

Adam Thompson (07:35)
Because we don't have constraints in terms of who can ask who to do what, where does the work come from, what do we need to do? And almost because the word constraint has been held up as a negative, I don't want to be the constraint and all those sort of things, we've actually shied away from the simple act of saying, let's organize, let's manage the work in a way that it can go to people. mean, imagine this for a scenario. You get to sit there at, let's say we're doing an office type job or a creative job that involves a computer. You get to sit there.

And it's like a pez dispenser dispenses you a task. It dispenses you all you need to get that task done. And you are saying you're good at what you do. Could you please complete that task? And when you complete it, here's what you do with it. But unlike the old school stuff that people talk about, let's also say, and if you'd like to know the context for the task, if you'd like to know why we're doing it, if you'd like to know all the things that fit around it, here's where you find that out. We're happy to talk to you about it at any time. So we do two things at once. We allow people to get clear on the work they need to do and who they're doing it with one at a time.

But we also provide the context and the ability to say, what do you think of that work? Does it make sense to you? That way we can have the best of the modern day self-organizing world, which is people actually having the ability to talk about, this is what I think the work should be, this is what it is. But we also get the benefit of the management by saying, but we're not gonna ask you to do 500 things at once with about 10 different people asking you to do it. We're gonna make it clear this is what we want you to be doing now. And that's the way I think we can set up organizations to really get things done. It's through deliberate management.

Mike Jones (08:55)
Yeah.

Yes. And on the face of it, sounds so simple, but so many organisations struggle with it. And it comes to that idea of initiative. And we want people to take the initiative, but we don't give them the enabling constraints or even the direction to understand that, yeah, they've asked me to do this in order to achieve this. And if they know that, they could take the initiative because they can see actually,

Adam Thompson (09:00)
Yes, and on the face of it it sounds so simple. Yeah, it always does doesn't it? Several organisations struggle with it. And it comes to that idea of initiative. And we want people to take the initiative, but we don't give them the neighbouring constraints or even the direction to understand that, yeah, they've asked me to do this in order to achieve this. And if they know that, they can take the initiative because they can

see actually

Mike Jones (09:28)
They've asked me to

do this, but I could probably do this better and that will help not only achieve the task, but help the next order effect

Adam Thompson (09:29)
asked me to do this but I could probably do this better and that will help not only achieve the task but help the next

And it is simple or a way to describe it is I use the term it's radical common sense if we want work to get done how about we actually make it clear so people can get the work done

Mike Jones (09:42)
Hmm.

Adam Thompson (09:46)
but I'm never implying simple is easy and I remember once reading a thing that climbing Mount Everest is simple whenever you're faced with a decision choose the one that goes up

Mike Jones (09:49)
Hmm.

Adam Thompson (09:54)
But that doesn't mean climbing Everest is easy. But there's also another thing I remember I heard once. Someone said, what was the expression? Someone had said once, I've decided to become a Christian. And the answer was, so soon. Because the idea is, and the other way you could put it like this is to say, something like Christianity is a good idea. Has anyone actually tried it yet? And what I'm getting at by saying those things is, I find a lot of the time if we present these ideas to say, this is what we can do, it's quite simple.

Mike Jones (09:57)
Yeah, I like that.

Adam Thompson (10:18)
It's surprising how often people will argue that it's not that simple as opposed to actually trying it. And the common effect is as soon as we actually try it, so what you were talking about there in terms of creating that freedom and ability for people to talk about it, and you introduced me to Stephen Bungay's work, The Art of Action, and I thought that was brilliant because that actually talks about deliberately getting people together to go through what the work is and have discussions with it as a sense-making exercise.

Mike Jones (10:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, great book.

Adam Thompson (10:44)
But can you picture that? You actually say, we're gonna do a strategy execution workshop. You get the seven top executives in the place. You hand them out pieces of paper and pens, literally, not even computers. And you say to them, right, I'm gonna spend a half hour telling you how to write out your work so it's clear. And then you're gonna spend the next two hours doing it. What do you think the reaction would be to most executive teams for that for a workshop? And therein lies the problem. Yet the irony is, is there anything more important for an executive team to do?

than to sit there and get clear on what they think the work should be to then generate a conversation about that same

Mike Jones (11:16)
but as we know, Adam, the cynic in me is going to say that the more ambiguity they can create, the comfort they have, because if things go wrong, it's not their fault.

Adam Thompson (11:16)
But as we know, Adam, the cynic in me is going to say that the more ambiguity they the comfort they have, because if things go wrong, it's

not their fault. Yeah, but they're also sitting there with a board above them, and the board is going to be saying, why aren't you doing more? Remember the classic thing Eli Goldratt talks about, that if you've just spent in a factory $3 million on a new machine, and that machine sitting idle, because if it was operating, it would just clog up the rest of the system.

the person who invested in that machine is going to yell at you saying, why is that machine idle? I paid $3 million, get it going. And so even though we'd like executive teams to do it, there is the case that they got pressure on them to say, what do you mean you're sitting there spending a day with a pen and paper writing it out? Should you be doing that? So it takes, I call it corporate courage. It takes a lot of corporate courage to do what makes sense.

Mike Jones (11:57)
Yeah.

Adam Thompson (12:02)
And I find sometimes a lot of my work isn't explaining what needs to happen because we all kind of know it. But a lot of my work is to actually

Mike Jones (12:03)
Yes.

Adam Thompson (12:09)
give people the confidence to say, you do this, which seems obvious, it will actually make a big difference. Yeah. And I like it in that out of action by Stephen Bungay. He's using principles of mission command and essentially our orders process in the military. Yeah. In our orders process in the military, what happens is that the commander gives direction and then we give the next level down.

Mike Jones (12:15)
Yeah. And I like it in that Art of action by Stephen Bungay. He's using principles of mission command and essentially our orders process in the military. And in our orders process in military, what happens is that the commander gives direction and then we give the next level down the time

and space to assimilate what has been asked, work out the plan to then back brief the commander say, I've...

Adam Thompson (12:35)
time and space to assimilate what's been asked, work out the plan to then back brief the commander saying,

Mike Jones (12:43)
I've heard what you said, this is what I'm planning to do. And you know, they can go, well, yeah, it sounds aligned to me, that's cool. Or even you can go, well, I've heard what you said, I wanna do this, but I'm constrained by this. Are you happy to remove that constraint for me? And I can achieve these outcomes.

Adam Thompson (12:43)
I've heard what you said, this is what I'm planning to do. And you know, they can go, well, yeah, sounds aligned to me, that's cool. Or even you can go, well, I've heard what you said, I want to do this, but I'm constrained by this. Are you happy to remove that constraint for me? I can achieve these outcomes.

Mike Jones (13:02)
And I think it's great because it gives you that alignment, it gives you that clarity, and it gives you that order of sense of what's really important. What's the outcomes and...

Adam Thompson (13:03)
And I think it's great because it gives you that alignment, gives you that clarity, and it gives you that order of sense of what's really important. What's the outcomes

and outputs that I need to achieve? Yeah, yeah. I think it just sets the standard for execution. It's fascinating, and I'm really pleased that you suggested that book to me last year because he positions these ideas as an antidote to complexity. And to me, that was a really unique insight.

Mike Jones (13:11)
outputs that I need to achieve. I think it just, it just sets the, the standard for execution.

Adam Thompson (13:28)
and to go through the history of the Prussian army and how they were defeated due to their own rigidness and how they looked at their whole way of operating. And maybe we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves as an organization because this debate went on for five decades. So to try to get to it. presenting as an antidote to complexity, think that was a bit of genius and a great insight to say if we are going to be asking people to respond to what's coming at them. And so you go to the classic example, the retail store being able to respond to what its customers want.

providing that context around them and what the purpose is actually enables them to do that. Whereas traditionally, if we want to hold to almost a hardline attitude of all management is bad, it's going to be assumed that people are going to require that shop to put things back upstairs again to say, am I allowed to sell green t-shirts? And it goes back down. Whereas the idea of the mission command or the commander's intent is to actually create that freedom. And I think that's an important insight.

Mike Jones (14:13)
Hmm.

Adam Thompson (14:19)
And the other big one that I got from Stephen Bungay's work is the concept of it's a sense-making conversation. So even though they're called orders in the military, when it does work effectively, as we see in special forces teams, the idea is a sense-making conversation based on a document that we can use to both get on the same page. And the analogy I like to use is a homeowner and a builder. Because the homeowner doesn't assume I'm a better class of person than the builder and I need to talk down to you. And the builder's definitely not going to assume that in the other direction.

But the builder has the skills and the expertise. The homeowner has the initial vision and the resources. And together we have a conversation until we arrive at a plan that we can execute. And then as we all know, a good homeowner will check in to say if you got what you need and that sort of thing. But if the homeowner gets in there and starts telling the builder what type of nails to use, we're going to have an issue. On the other hand, if the homeowner's seeing things that's making them wonder, it looks like you're putting on a third bathroom and I only need one bathroom.

Mike Jones (15:08)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Thompson (15:14)
then that gets raised. And if we do have two adults, it works well. And I think therein is one of the other keys to what makes an organization successful. It does rely on us all doing the work of showing up as adults and not parents and children. And that's a lot harder than we think.

Mike Jones (15:26)
Yes.

Yeah, definitely when in organizations you've created that or taken that control so much that you've moved to freedom of action for people. So you create that learned helplessness.

Adam Thompson (15:28)
Yeah, definitely when in organisations you've created that or taken that control so much that you've moved the freedom of action for people. So you create that, learn helplessness.

Yeah. Yeah. But remember, there's an attraction to learn helplessness as well. And Peter Block, actually, his work is brilliant. He refers to it almost as a collusion between the dominant leader and dominant doesn't just mean

Mike Jones (15:43)
which obviously didn't help.

Adam Thompson (15:55)
what you might expect for dominant. It could also mean generating loyalty, stick with me and you'll be okay. You've got that type of leader. Then you've got the dependent team member. And in both situations, both parties have the security of control. The dominant leader says, you will do what I want, so I'm in control. And the dependent gets to say, well, it's not my problem because you're telling me what to do. So it takes both of them, the willingness to step into the anxiousness of starting to take accountability together. And that's a lot more work than it sounds like for a lot of people in the workplace.

Mike Jones (16:23)
Yeah, you know, I don't know if you see it. see where there's that lack of clarity around who does what. You alluded to earlier around that, you know, management of the work, you do this and this is what we expect from outputs and outcomes. I think sometimes people look too much at behavior first and not structure.

Adam Thompson (16:24)
Yeah, know, I don't know if you see, I see where there's that lack of You alluded to earlier around that, you know, management of the work, you do this and this is what we expect from outputs and outcomes. think sometimes people look too much at not

structure. Yeah, and I was actually chatting to a friend and colleague I do work with.

And we were actually discussing just how much a lot of modern day leadership. He'd been to a couple of things recently where before going to the thing, everyone had to fill in their survey. And even one of the events he was at, this is a bunch of CEOs, they were all given badges to indicate what color person they were, you like you're the aggressive, you know, that, I know it's still going on in this era. But as much as we say, it's the systems that affect the way people behave. And everyone will generally nod to say that at the same time.

Mike Jones (17:03)
⁓ God.

Adam Thompson (17:14)
we still talk about leadership as an interpersonal game. I'm not rejecting the interpersonal game of leadership, but can we see that as something that needs to happen as a necessary condition? But can we acknowledge that actually leadership is making this whole show, this whole system called an organization, produce the outcomes it needs to, and that's gonna require management,

Mike Jones (17:18)
Yes.

Adam Thompson (17:33)
which in turn requires intervening at the right moments to get the show to work. Of course we need to have interpersonal relationships. That's because we're humans. You can't be an asshole. Otherwise...

Mike Jones (17:40)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Adam Thompson (17:42)
Work

happens through relationships, so it's necessary, but the idea of that that's the game, that's just crazy, I think. But I think there's a certain attraction to that, because we all love reading gossip, we all love seeing what's going on, like the world is about seeing who's doing what, even professional sport, it's equally as much fascinating for the gossip as it is for the actual sport. So that's the stuff we used to. And it does have a place, but I think it has a very dominant place, which I don't think

Mike Jones (17:49)
Yeah.

No, I think that's great insight. And I think you're right that interpersonal does matter, but it's not the whole piece. There's more to it.

Adam Thompson (18:07)
No, I think that's great you're right that interpersonal does matter but it's not the whole piece. No, no I it's

necessary but not sufficient it's a necessary element but it's not sufficient because put it this way I don't want a pilot who's a great person to deal with who can't fly a plane. Simple as that and the pilot's accountable for returning people to their destination well and anyone who's

Mike Jones (18:25)
Yeah.

Adam Thompson (18:32)
got the authority to change your whole system, you're accountable for making sure that people arrive and then go home from work well. They're not damaged by the way you've organized the place for work to occur. so, yeah, so that's a big part of it. And to put it another way, if you ever ask a group of people, assuming the person's not actually an asshole, but would you like someone who's a bit gruff and a bit direct who runs his place brilliantly? Or would you like someone who's the best person in the world who runs the place all over the shop? And we all know what the answer's going to be there.

Mike Jones (18:39)
Mmm.

Yeah, I think

people talk about that nice leader, but that nice leader is not going be very effective for very long. You're not going to think that leader is very nice for very long when you're sitting there with no direction.

Adam Thompson (19:00)
people talk about that nice leader but that nice leader is not going very effective for very long or you're not going to think that leader is very nice for very long when you're sitting there with

no direction. Well what I'd say is if your style is nice, be nice. If your style is gruff without going over the edge into asshole then be gruff. But the point is

Authentic meaning when you talk you are saying what you think, the ability to get the message across, the ability to do it with empathy though. I always say if someone's dog died that morning that's not the day to talk to them about their performance. So you've got your basic empathy as a role in doing it. But it's about nice or not nice. It's about the ability to actually communicate and make the decisions and make the show work. The work of Richard Claydon is really quite interesting because what he points out in a lot of the

Mike Jones (19:31)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Thompson (19:46)
lot of his thinking is that successful leaders actually have a high need for power, which is quite interesting. Now we make the assumption when we say words like power, that it's a megalomaniac asshole. And that's not true, as in that's not the assumption to put in place here. But the concept is, leaders who are successful generally say, I want to take accountability for making this good for everyone. That's a necessary thing. Now that sounds uncool. It sounds very unmodern.

Mike Jones (19:56)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Adam Thompson (20:11)
but it also makes perfect sense if we eliminate the assumption that wanting power means that you're mean and unethical. Now, of course we see a bit of that, but that doesn't mean that it's always the case. And doesn't it make sense? Like the idea of if we're asking someone to take charge and make this whole show work well for us, which of course includes listening to people and getting that sort of view, we're gonna want someone who wants to do that. Yes. You're hitting up on a really, really good point.

Mike Jones (20:32)
Yes. And you're hitting up on a really, really good point. Because I

often hear and read on social media about all power is bad, but not all power is bad.

Adam Thompson (20:39)
So I often hear and read on social media about all powers bad, but not all powers

bad. No, no, that's, and that's, not saying all gravity is bad. Like, yes, if you jump out of a plane without a parachute, yeah, gravity is bad. But if you jump out with a parachute, or if you're trying to get a ball to roll down a slope, gravity is pretty good. So, no, and that's all power is the ability to influence. And we see it in the tangible world and we see it in the intangible world. It's, it's a question about what the power is used for.

Mike Jones (20:49)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Adam Thompson (21:04)
that ultimately becomes

a question. But it's a real challenge, The ability to be accountable for the work of a team, a department, whole organization, but to do it in the knowledge that other people are not your subjects, they're also adults that have freedom. Then the ability to make what's ultimately clear agreements and then to hold people accountable to those agreements, not because you're their king or queen, but because you made an agreement and you didn't stick with the agreement. We need to talk about this because I'm disappointed.

Mike Jones (21:17)
Yes.

Yes.

Adam Thompson (21:30)
That's an adult workplace and a lot of people mistake that workplace for some sort of like lavender burning in the corner, flowers, of, you know, lovely meditation type place. But a workplace of adults is actually about being clear on promises, saying, I need this from you, can you deliver it? And the answer being, no, I can't, okay, tell me why. So it's actually having very adult conversations where people can put their needs on the table and say what needs to be done. And we don't need to blow up hierarchy to do that.

Mike Jones (21:55)
Yeah.

Adam Thompson (21:57)
because if we look at, let's use the term manager, if the manager says on behalf of the team, I will make sure we're all clear on what we're doing in the bigger picture. I'll be at, and Peter Block actually calls it a broker and a banker for the team. I will represent us in terms of how we work in the organization. I will make sure that the funding, or I'll clarify what the funding is. I'll make sure the requirements are clear and I'll generate the right conversation so we can do that. And we look at that as an act of working for the team.

Mike Jones (22:20)
Mmm.

Adam Thompson (22:23)
we can now get the great things that, because that's a necessary role. Someone needs to be doing that, whether you share it amongst 10 people or you just give it to one. And one way to do it is to give it to that one person. And if they can treat everyone like a fellow adult, and if they could be treated like an adult, then we can actually have a situation that can work really effectively. Yeah, I think that's a great insight. And I like the idea of that bargaining. This is what I need you to achieve.

Mike Jones (22:39)
Yeah, I think that's a great insight. And I like the idea of that bargaining. This is what I need you to achieve and

this is resources you got and you go, well, I kind of need a bit more. And it's having an adult conversation to challenge that rather than what we see is that horrible trope do more with less. Yeah.

Adam Thompson (22:49)
and this is resources you got Google.

I kind of need a bit more. And it's having an adult conversation to challenge that rather than what we see is that horrible trope do more with less. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

And if we go back to the homeowner builder analogy, now if a builder is feeling pressure to keep work going and that sort of thing, they might succumb to saying, yes, it's not deliverable. And we know that that doesn't work in the end. So that's where if we're seeing that happening, we need to try to help people to say what they're really thinking.

When it is working well, builders will say, that's not possible. What do you mean it's not possible? If your budget's 50 grand, this is what we can do, we can't do that. Now, because of the power differential in organizations, it's easy for the person in the managerial role to actually just force it. And because what they're doing in turn is they don't wanna look up above them and have to say, no, I can't do that. So we get this interesting situation where the work is forced down so that the person that has to say no,

Mike Jones (23:35)
Mmm.

Adam Thompson (23:47)
is the person in the chain that's paid the least. And that's one thing that I've got an issue with ethically, because if anyone should wear the pain of saying no, I would like it to be the CEO who's paid the most saying to the board, no, I refuse to do that because it's not possible. Now that might not work well for them, but to me, they're kind of paid to wear that anxiousness of having that conversation. So I think it's just mean all the way up to unethical to be able to pass it down the chain to some poor bugger who needs the money to be able to actually pay their mortgage.

and you're forcing them to have to say no, they're not going to say no because they need to keep their job to pay the mortgage. And now we've created a situation of pain.

Mike Jones (24:20)
Yeah.

I think there's another element to that as well where

Adam Thompson (24:28)
the leaders there and the boards, mental model, what actually happens down on the ground? You can question, are they actually...

Mike Jones (24:28)
the leaders there and the boards mental model of what actually happens down on the ground. You can question, they actually disconnected from reality? And then thus they don't understand the ask that they're doing is just ridiculous.

Adam Thompson (24:40)
disconnected from reality and then they don't understand the answer they're doing is just

ridiculous. Yeah, yeah. I've seen examples of exceptional CEOs where they've been able to show reality and I'm talking about showing reality by getting everyone together on a Saturday afternoon in a big room that's got a whiteboard and the CEO and the CFO up there with the board drawing boxes and saying this is this bucket, this is this bucket, here's what happens and that sort of thing.

So I've actually seen efforts put in, not just doing another report, but actually working together. And I always say, if we use the analogy of planning a camping trip, and you've got four in the group that say, should be doing this, if you can just get up to the board and explain, this is why what you're asking for is impossible, generally we can work it out as humans. So again, we get to that question of, know, the irony, Christianity is a great idea, it's a shame no one's ever tried it. Like, all these things are great ideas, and people say, but I can't get the board to understand, and I'll say,

Mike Jones (25:23)
Hmm.

Adam Thompson (25:34)
tell me how you've tried. And it falls over pretty quick. Well, we wrote a paper, okay. And I've never heard a situation where we all got in a room together, we spent three or four hours, maybe on a Saturday afternoon, you know, out of work to just nut it out. Whenever I hear that's happening, it's consistently, it's either things are a lot better and sometimes it's even a silver bullet. It's never been what a waste of an afternoon. Yeah. And come back to your point about common sense.

Mike Jones (25:39)
Hahaha, RIP.

Yeah. And it's come back to your point about common sense.

People must, the leaders, the board must realize that regardless of size of the organization, there's always limited resources.

Adam Thompson (26:02)
people must, the leaders, the boards, must realise that regardless of size of the organisation, there's always limited

resources. Yeah. What's going on is that point that I was making a bit earlier on. When they look at the total budget, they look at the total number of people and they look at the work, it is actually possible if you expand it over two, 18 months, two years, three years. So that's what they're seeing.

Mike Jones (26:26)
Yeah, yeah.

Adam Thompson (26:28)
So when they're told we don't have enough resources, their brains are quite correctly saying, what do you mean? But if you say to it like this, we're asking people to carry 20 pavers at once. The most any one person can carry is two, but if we lay them out laterally, we can actually be able to move there, then it makes more sense. So the big disconnection is in the concept of time, and it's that even that simple idea of if I paid all that money for that machine, why isn't it working? So boards, they want well.

Eli Goldrad himself actually says most of the issues in an organization are because people are good. The board wants to do well by its stakeholders. Come on, get work going. The CEO wants to do well, doesn't want to disappoint the board. So because people ironically want to do well, we end up just loading everything in at once. And it's exactly the same as trying to get people onto a bus. We're basically getting everyone to crowd around the door. We're saying fight for resources and we're not actually getting them lined up. And then people say it's impossible to line up the whole organization. I'll say, yeah, well, why don't we just try 20 %?

Why don't we pick the thing that's on the top of the list and at least try to get that to go through? And that can help to break some of that gridlock to get it through. And another great metaphor we get from nature is simply, if you think about logs back in the days coming down the forest, and was literally the job of the person to run around on top of the logs with a stick to move them to get the flow going again, because the logs literally get jammed. And that's what we're talking about exactly the same concept in terms of work. And know you don't need to put in the ERP to figure that out.

We don't, we just simply need to get together and put some stuff on some wall, know, the dreaded post-its or anything like that, and just make some decisions about what we wanna see moving through next. But I'll tell you the irony, Mike, even when you get that clear, the cultural norm of, yes, but I've gotta get the next thing moving, I've seen CEOs that have said to people, this is the project I wanna see done next. And when they've inquired politely, I'm just wondering why that hasn't been finished yet, I was working on the other five. And these people aren't idiots, and nor are they lazy.

Mike Jones (28:14)
Yeah, yeah.

Adam Thompson (28:16)
but the cultural norm of if you've got a second free, get something else started, it's so hard to overcome. And that's a big reason why we're in this work situation we are. Yeah, the same stuff is firing off from that. know, thinking about, coming back to the military, not because I'm ex-military, but we have a thing called main effort. Yeah.

Mike Jones (28:25)
Yeah, the same stuff is firing off from that. know, thinking about military, not because I'm ex-military, but we have a thing called main effort. So

we indicate that is the single most important thing to unlock the success for everything else. We must do that. And we resource that first and anything sequentially after.

Adam Thompson (28:40)
So we indicate that is the single most important thing to unlock the success of everything else. We must do that. And we resource that first and anything

Mike Jones (28:51)
which I think highlights your previous point, but also when we talk about this overwhelm or overburden, we know then that creates not only a lack of capacity to use initiative or to collaborate

Adam Thompson (28:51)
which I think highlights your previous point. But also, when we overwhelm or we know then that creates not only a lack of use initiative or to...

collaborate or to look at what's going on and adapt so you're not getting surprised. But it also creates wellbeing issues.

Mike Jones (29:04)
or to look at what's going on and adapt so you're not getting surprised, but also creates wellbeing issues. But we don't...

Adam Thompson (29:13)
we don't, all these things that you say called wellbeing experts that I see on social media, I don't see them not talking about what you're talking about, let's sort the structure out, let's sort the workload. They're talking about surface level things. It's like amounts to...

Mike Jones (29:14)
All these things, these so-called well-being experts that I see on social media, I don't see them not like talking about, let's, what you're talking about, let's sort the structure out, let's sort the workload out. They're talking about, you know, surface level things. And to, ⁓ now

we're to do tabletop yoga, or we're going to do this stuff. And all it's creating is these people are going to do that thinking, well, I'm away from now and I'm going to have to go back to the...

Adam Thompson (29:32)
Oh, now we're to do tabletop yoga or we're going to do this stuff. And all it's creating is these people are going to do that thinking, well, I'm away from that and I'm going to have to go

back to the hundred dollar emails that are just stocking up now because you've got me doing this other thing. Yep. That's not actually going to help me. Yeah, I think you're right. And resilience and wellness and the like, it's definitely got a place and the place for it is

Mike Jones (29:42)
hundred odd emails that are just stocking up now because you've got me doing this other thing that's not actually going to help me.

Adam Thompson (29:56)
Let's say the work is actually well organized, that people are able to focus and spend their time delivering and the like. But there's going to be periods of time where because of, and especially if it's an organization that's doing social good, there's just a lot of it. But I need to be really clear, it's a lot of it in terms of what's lined up. So it's be like working the service deli at a supermarket and then knowing that there's a lot of people lined up, but you're still serving them one at a time. You can't be any more efficient than that. But that can be stressful.

Mike Jones (30:08)
Mm.

Adam Thompson (30:21)
And so we need to be resilient in those moments. The other one can actually be in moments of trying to work out what should we be doing? So that's a separate thing to getting it done. And there's the state of the world and trying to work out what's the best course of action that can be very much anxiousness producing. And I'll use the word anxious, by the way, deliberately to separate from anxiety, which is a treatable condition that needs to be respected. But I'm talking about anxiousness and worry. And it's definitely got its place when, however,

we are putting it in place because we are mismanaging the organization. So that's causing the stress. That's where we get the irony that I think that you're talking about. so, yeah, and that's the equivalent to getting people to run with a rock in their shoe and then teaching them how to get over the pain of having a rock in their shoe when we could just be removing it. So, but remember, as you said at the start, many management's so uncool. Like how many LinkedIn posts do you see, management's what we need.

Mike Jones (30:54)
Yeah, yeah.

I love that. I love that.

Adam Thompson (31:11)
Could we stop this leadership rubbish? That's not gonna be a very popular post, but if you write something that words that basically say leadership's cool and management's rubbish, that will get a lot of likes and a lot of traction on LinkedIn. And here's the way I tend to look at it. Management's what we need to make sure the show runs well. if we can, the more we can move to managing it together, the more effective we're going to manage it. And we need leadership from time to time, but you can't lead the whole time.

Mike Jones (31:15)
No.

Adam Thompson (31:34)
There's leadership moments. You hear it in terms of customer moments, in terms of that type of thing. It's the same with leadership. There are moments of leadership and they're often the moments where someone who has really got the capability in the role can tell, I need to have this conversation now or I need to do this or I don't need to do that. So there's moments of leadership, key conversations, key things that get put out, but that's not something that you do all the time. Yeah, we often talk about leadership being the moral element.

Mike Jones (31:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, because we often talk about leadership being the moral element

and management being the physical element. It's like, you know,

Adam Thompson (32:01)
management be the physical elements? Yeah, I guess we could put

it that way. But it's interesting, isn't it, because that still moves leadership into the moral, as in into the intangible and that sort of thing. I say being ethical is a necessary condition because people can't trust someone who's fundamentally unethical, which to me means not considering the views and impacts all around you. But the other part is leadership, getting people to willingly move in the direction needed, that's going to be tangible.

Mike Jones (32:12)
Mmm, G2.

Adam Thompson (32:26)
we need to be over there or at least go in that direction as well. You see, well, I'm trying to think now what the actual statistics is, but I'm sure it's in like the high 80s, if not 90 % of employees are unsure of the direction of the organisation. Yeah. Now there's two parts to that.

Mike Jones (32:26)
Yeah, yeah.

Hmm. But you see, well, I'm trying to think now what the actual statistics is, but I'm sure it's in like the high eighties, if not 90 % of employees are unsure of the direction of the organization.

Adam Thompson (32:53)
Some of it does come from it being too confusing. You know, have too much of the generic thing. And in a well-meaning attempt, people don't realize mission, vision and values came from consultants in the 80s. And I'm not saying that the concept's rubbish. It can be useful to know, here's the future we'd like to move to. Here's why we're... I'm not saying that stuff's useless, but it almost got locked into a generation that mission, vision, value is the same as a house needs a foundation before you put the walls up. It was just invented probably by people like me who said this is a cool concept.

Mike Jones (33:03)
Yes.

Adam Thompson (33:20)
So that's one of the starting points, but the idea of saying, here's why we exist and here's what we're trying to get done, that has value. The other thing is this though, there's a concept in maths called an asymptote, a line that curves and gets closer and closer to the other line but never quite touches it. Clarity is an asymptote. In other words, it will never hit 100%. So there's a point in time where we have none, that's true, but a little bit of clarity, if you think about a line that's exponential, a little bit of clarity goes a long way towards making things a fair bit clear.

to then, it's like the 80-20 rule, to then spend the next six months rolling out some sort of thing, we're better off to say to people, hey, you've actually got the clarity you need. Now, do you know what work your team's here to do and what you're here to do? And I think when people are saying, we need more clarity, that's code for saying, could someone please sequence the work that I've got coming up and explain what it actually needs to look like so I can get on and do it. I think that's what they're saying.

Mike Jones (33:47)
Mm.

Adam Thompson (34:11)
but it looks like they need more clarity because what they're hunting for is some way to say what do need to do next.

Mike Jones (34:16)
Yes. And I think that's really crucial when you think about, ⁓ synchronizing of a bit, we talked about earlier with all the stuff that he's doing. Yes. When you look at it one way, they have the resources, but actually if we synchronize it all out, we can see the interdependencies, the conflicts, ⁓ that you you've got. And I think there's that bit of that lack of synchronizing all the work and giving that direction.

Adam Thompson (34:16)
Yes, and I think that's really crucial when you think about synchronizing of a bit like we talked about earlier, of all the stuff he's doing. Yes, when you look at it one way, they have the resources, but actually if we synchronize it all out, we can see the interdependencies, the conflicts that you've got. And I think there's that bit of that lack of synchronizing all the work and giving that

direction.

Mike Jones (34:45)
and you talk about

Adam Thompson (34:45)
and you talk about mission visions, to me, a mission is a very clear thing. Yeah. Which is not really used. So how I know mission is completely different now it's used out in. Yeah, look,

Mike Jones (34:46)
mission visions, to me, a mission is a very clear thing, which is not really used. So how I know mission is completely different to how it's used out in civilian organization.

Adam Thompson (34:58)
for you a mission is something it's a box that can be ticked at the end. Yes. Yeah. You are to do this in order for us to achieve this. Yeah. Yeah. And someone like me, I could be wanky about it and say, my mission is to make every organization in the world better. And that's not happening.

Mike Jones (35:00)
Yes, yeah, you are to do this in order for us to achieve this. Yeah.

Adam Thompson (35:12)
That's not happening and I don't need some sort of mission. I like being able to help people and get paid to do it and I'm I'm honoured and I value the fact that they asked me to do it. I don't have anything greater than that and I'm actually okay with that and I think a lot of people in their job, maybe their mission is, could you be clear on what you want me to do so I could finish it and go home please? And if that's the case, let's go. Let's be clear on what we want people to do so they can, and for those that want a higher purpose, we can go as far as you want. Like let's say,

Mike Jones (35:34)
Yeah, yeah.

Adam Thompson (35:40)
you got the people who run the power network in a given area. We can make the purpose up to human life, because without electricity, we don't have surgery maybe and that sort of stuff. Or you can say, you know what, it's cool to get the transformer fixed, whatever. There's an important point that I think Peter Block makes, which is when people say, what's in it for me, the answer actually can be, I don't know. Which normally raises a bit of shock. But what that's saying is, I don't know really who you are.

and I don't know what purpose you can find in the work. I can tell you why the work needs to be done, but who am I to tell you your purpose in this work? I'm just another human alongside you. And I reckon that's a really interesting and deep point, but notice how much that goes against the narrative, because if you say that to people, they'll say, well, that's not acceptable. The boss needs to provide a purpose, which puts us back to, okay, dad or mom, give me my purpose, please, which therefore robs people of their ability to actually get the work done.

Mike Jones (36:16)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah,

And there is a

part as well as around what sort of erodes clarity is because we're trying to make something for everyone. And sometimes when we're doing strategy, it's just not going to involve everyone. And if you're not directly mentioning it, that means you just carry on doing what you're doing and do it really well. But actually the strategy means that we need to

Adam Thompson (36:33)
There is a part as well is around what sort of erodes clarity is because we're trying to make something for everyone. Yeah, it's a good Yeah. And sometimes when we do strategy, it's just not going to involve everyone. If you're not directly mentioning it, that means you just carry on doing what you're doing and do it really well. Yeah. But actually, the strategy means that we need to...

Mike Jones (36:59)
or reduce the cycle rate here or, you know, do something different over there, but you, you just need to carry on doing what you want. And this is where wonder where strategy, gets, I always say this all the time. I think strategy gets confused with marketing and PR rather than what it is, which is clarity of direction. So that you can assimilate that and then understand what's implied and what's explicit.

Adam Thompson (36:59)
increase here or reduce the cycle rate here or, you know, do something different over there. But you, you just need to carry on doing what you want. And this is where wonder where strategy, gets, I would say it's all the time. think strategy gets confused with marketing and PR rather than what it is, which is clarity of direction. So that you can assimilate that and then understand what's implied and what's

explicit.

Mike Jones (37:28)
what you need to do to enable that to happen.

Adam Thompson (37:28)
What you need to do to enable

that to happen. Yeah, and if we focus on execution, we can actually say strategy is in service of making sure that the efforts of all these people in our organization isn't being wasted. when your servant leadership popped up, was it Richard on a green leaf in the 70s and that sort of thing, and it again got mistaken into a couple of decades worth of happy HR into

Mike Jones (37:42)
Yes.

Hmm.

Hahaha!

Adam Thompson (37:54)
I'll do whatever you need,

I'll serve you. And there's so many HR people I know, by the way, who are exceptional at it, who don't take this view that I'm sort being a bit disparaging about, but it got turned into, I'll do whatever you want. But if you think about serving your fellow humans, which is in both directions, strategy serves the front line by making sure that the front line's efforts isn't doing something that's not needed. So if we want, I'm not saying it's the way, but we can definitely frame strategy as in service of execution.

Mike Jones (38:13)
Yes.

Adam Thompson (38:19)
by saying, and if you think about a family business, if a family business was doing something that we could tell is not gonna be needed in 10 years time, but our mission was to keep everyone employed, we would start saying, okay, what can we do here? What's gonna be needed in the world? In other words, strategic thinking, right? That's what we would do. So it's an interesting point, isn't it, that I've always wondered, if you adjusted CEO and executive salary, that if you had to make redundancies occur, then that percentage is how much the salary goes down by. I wonder if that would change the idea of

Mike Jones (38:33)
Yeah.

Adam Thompson (38:47)
Our job is to maintain full employment of our people. Therefore, strategically, we need to find areas of value where we can get funding coming in to thus make us a viable organization. So if you think about that, you get an interesting angle on strategy, isn't it? Because the job is now to keep all thousand of us or 100 of us or 30 of us employed, but doing valuable stuff, not stuff that's not needed. No. And you would start to see leaders really understand this idea that you just said there about a viable organization.

Mike Jones (38:57)
Yes.

Yeah.

No, and you would start to see leaders really understand this idea like you just said there about a viable organization, one that

is self-organizing, self-creating so that it can keep living. But also, all these special projects and this other thing that just seems to balloon in organizations, there'd be a lot more scrutiny about actually what are they there for and are they adding the value that they should be.

Adam Thompson (39:15)
One that is self-organizing, self-creating, so that it can keep living. all these special projects and this other thing that just seems to balloon in organizations, there'd be a lot more scrutiny about actually what are they there for and are they out of the value

that they should be. And remember they pop up, as Elo Goldratt says, because of the goodness in people. So I remember I worked with a group once and I often point out

Mike Jones (39:38)
Mm.

Adam Thompson (39:41)
I'm not a process improvement expert. I'm not the guy that pulls your data, looks at it, and then comes back to say that. I know some people here in Adelaide that are brilliant at that. Their business has been going for a decade. They're brilliant at that. They will find you the customer experience triggers that get it up or the cost and that sort of stuff. What I often say is I'm the person that can help your team look at the data it needs to look at so that then over time you'll understand the work and you'll make those improvements. So it's kind of like it may be the same end result but in a different way and mine takes a bit longer.

But I remember one, we actually worked out, we put up all the graphs of the way the process worked, and then we noticed that one of the graphs, one of the steps of the process, that shape of the graph reflected the end-to-end time, which tells you, obviously that's the step in the process that's having the impact directly onto end-to-end time. And that was a great insight. And I didn't know, I knew that it's important to find that, that I call it the pace setter, or the barista in the coffee shop point that can do it. But it never occurred to me to put up seven different graphs of each step.

a graph of each step and then see which one reflects the bigger picture. It seemed obvious in retrospect. So obviously it becomes, okay, leave that person alone, let them work on what they're working on so they can make it better. Everyone agreed. The very next day, this really smart person went to that person with a laptop saying, hey, when you're working on that, could you have a look at this please? So despite having the executive in the room, despite consensus in the room that that's a step we're gonna focus on and work on and knowing the person who's gonna be able to analyze it to make that step work better.

the very next day someone popped in with, and you know what? The idea they had, it was a really good one, but not now, mate. But how do you say to that person, well, could you just do nothing for the next week? That would be weird for them as well. And so that's where we get the situation in organizations, which creates overload. I'll give you good example. If you take education, education departments, and I know from the one here, are full of people who are smart and they care.

Mike Jones (41:09)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Adam Thompson (41:29)
and they're capable and they know about education, it's really inspiring. Here's the trick, any idea about education is generally gonna go in through a teacher. That's the point because basically everyone in head office is the equivalent to engineers in the factory who have ideas about how the factory could work, but eventually it's gonna have to go through the person who's doing And remember, teachers are highly capable, exceptional people themselves with their own ideas about what to do and that sort of thing, and they're teaching a class.

of kids and all the special needs these days and all that sort of stuff, so it's intense. So how do you say to a group of people who've got great ideas, that's fantastic, about one of them we're gonna implement each year. That's the challenge, right? But unless the teacher can change the way they're teaching, which requires them to learn it, to agree with it, to be trained on it, it can't change. So that's a classic situation you get in so many public service organizations. Brilliant people, smart ideas, passion.

Mike Jones (42:06)
Yeah.

Adam Thompson (42:18)
They're all trying to round them through together because they care because of the goodness in them. And there's always a point where that person saying, that's cool, but I'm flat out trying to make the coffees here. And your idea is you've all got 20 ideas about how I can make the coffee differently, but I'm busy making the coffee and I can handle one new idea per year. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. You know, some of this, as you mentioned, about you putting up the graphs and everyone identifying that because they, they step back from the thought. have a look at that.

Mike Jones (42:35)
Yeah, yeah. But you know, some of this, as you mentioned about you putting up the graphs and everyone identifying that, because they step back from the fog to have a look at that. And, you

know, we talked earlier about Stephen Bungay's work and, you know, having the execs in the room to actually work, step back and work it all out. Do you think that's a challenge there that, we just get zoned into the work and no one's actually taking a step back to...

Adam Thompson (42:47)
We talked earlier about Steve Mungay's work and having the execs in the room to actually step back and work it all out.

Do think that's a zoned into the work and no one's actually taking a step

back to think about how it's all being orchestrated? So what if someone in the group said, hey, we're all probably going to get stuck into the work. It's natural because we care and we're humans. How about I'll make sure that on behalf of us, I'll keep an eye on the bigger picture. I'll make sure from time to time we get information, we look at the bigger picture. If things don't seem to be working, I'll bring it up in the conversation.

Mike Jones (43:03)
Think about how it's all being orchestrated.

Adam Thompson (43:21)
If it seems like it's one of you in particular who might not be going down the right track, how about I'll just come and have a private chat to you? I reckon a lot of groups say, yeah, that sounds like a useful role. Well, what do we call that role, A unicorn mate. And that's the irony is I think if you have a big self-organizing show, that role, I just described, which is a manager, that's what's going to emerge. But the difference is it might emerge as an adult to adult role as opposed to being

Mike Jones (43:31)
A unicorn mate.

Yes.

Adam Thompson (43:47)
So, and the classic example, this is again what Peter Block talks about. If you're a group of partners in business together, you might have a managing partner, but a partner would not go and sign their fellow partners up for training and then inform them that that training is compulsory. A partner would bring to the people to say, the fellow partners, hey, I found this, what do you reckon? And if that partner felt that it was really necessary for them to get the work done, then they need to make the case that it's necessary to get the work done. But remember,

This is the part that's often missed in the self-organizing sort of viewpoints. The requirements are locked in. So it is not optional that once a team has been given or signed up to say, this is what we will deliver in the next three months, six months, whatever it is, those requirements are locked in. So if the team is saying, we can deliver without that training, okay, but we've agreed that's gonna happen. You're an adult that made an adult decision there. And that becomes a thing. So that's the key part of it is the managerial role, whether it's done by a manager or by a group.

Mike Jones (44:30)
Mmm.

Adam Thompson (44:39)
is to clarify those requirements to make it really clear about in return for these resources, which is usually going to be money in the form of salary and sometimes equipment and stuff, in return for this, we'll deliver that. And now we have ourselves an adult workplace, which takes us back to the homeowner and builder. And that's how we can get an effective organization put together if we do the work to have adult conversations and then create clarity and actually manage the work itself. And here's the irony, by doing that very almost obvious stuff, I think if you do the basics right,

Mike Jones (45:03)
Yeah.

Adam Thompson (45:07)
I think you move straight into the top 10 % of workplaces worldwide.

Mike Jones (45:10)
Yeah, I don't disagree. And I think that's a really valid point around the importance, I think, of that role. And that's self-organizing because a lot of organizations are predicated on the fact that everything's know, everything's predictable, and nothing's going to move from when we decided it is, but it's not going to.

Adam Thompson (45:10)
Yeah, I don't disagree. And I think that's a really valid point around the importance of that role. And that's self-organizing because a lot of organizations are predicated on the fact that everything's everything's predictable, and nothing's going to move from when we decided it is. But it's

not going to.

Mike Jones (45:36)
And

I think what you've really highlighted over this talk is the fact that if we keep overwhelming people, keep chucking things in, we think that we're adapting. We think that we're doing more good stuff, but we're just reducing the capacity for us to actually adapt to what is really important to the actual shifts that happen in the external environment. And we just create that internal entropy that creates so much chaos that we...

Adam Thompson (45:36)
And I think what you've really highlighted over this talk is the fact that if we keep overwhelming people, keep chucking things in, we think that we're adapting. We think that we're doing more good stuff, but we're just reducing the capacity for us to actually adapt to what is really important, to the actual shifts in the external environment. we just create that internal entropy. It creates so much chaos.

Mike Jones (46:04)
We can't do anything.

Adam Thompson (46:05)
We can't do anything. We're just locked in.

Mike Jones (46:05)
We're just locked in, we're too rigid.

Adam Thompson (46:07)
We're too rigid. And we can't move because if you're reading 10 books by reading 10 % of each book each time and then we've detected something that needs to change, when you lob the 11th book in, it just goes into the mix. Whereas if we're reading one book because we need to ship that one then read the second one, if something's changed, we can remove books four and five, slip the others back, put that book at the front now. So that's the irony of if we go right back to Stephen Bungay's work in the Prussian Army.

by being skillful at being clear on the work and not just skillful in articulating it, but skillful in having the sense-making conversation, we become super agile because we're good at changing the work very quickly. And that's the irony of it. By actually focusing on clarity of the work, we become more agile, not less. And I think that, in a way, is that's where it takes corporate courage to actually see that and believe it and put it into action. Whenever it is put into action, by the way, works well.

Mike Jones (46:42)
Yes, yes.

Yeah, I could attest to that as well. And I think it's such a great analogy to use and really highlights what we actually needed in this sort of volatile organizations. But it's just, like you said, it's that courage to step back and realize that the paradigm that we're using to, or the mental model we're using to navigate organizations has good intentions, but is it really suited for what we're trying to actually do?

Adam Thompson (46:56)
Yeah, I can attest to that as well. I think it's such a great analogy to use and really highlights what we actually need in this sort of volatile organizations. it's just, like you said, it's that courage to step back and realize that the paradigm that we're using to, or the mental model we're using to navigate organizations has good intentions, but is it really suited for what we're trying

to actually do?

And I reckon the good intention part, I'm glad you highlighted that, Mike, because it's too easy to get together and consultants do it as well. Oh, bloody clients, why are they doing that? All this sort of carry on. And it's not done with this underlying assumption of they're all decent people trying to get stuff done. And yes, some people might be a bit lazy and might produce less, but, you know, I reckon it's definitely below 5%, probably 3 or 2 % genuine assholes, proper dysfunctional in the workplace type thing. And we all have that comment. Everyone rocks up to do a good day's work.

Maybe not even that, but we do know that if we can set up the show so that it makes sense, we're giving it our maximum chance. And then it becomes fair or ethical to say to people, hey, I don't know if you're getting the job done here, but until we've actually set up the system, and by the way, good enough, not perfect, as long as we've set up the system so it's relatively clear in terms of we need you to do this now by then, and here's who you work with, if we've got the good old fashioned boring management in place, but we're managing like adults to adult and not managing like,

Mike Jones (48:10)
Yeah, that's good enough.

Adam Thompson (48:22)
sovereign to subject or parent to child, that's how we can get that sort of thing done. Yeah, I like that. And I like the fact you put in that. It's not perfect. No. It's good enough. And I think we need to remove weight from this idea of perfection and, everything must be a certain way. When I say good enough as well, I always point out if we're watching the dials on the nuclear reactor, good enough is pretty close to perfect. If we're talking about

Mike Jones (48:27)
Yeah, I like that. And I like the fact you put in that it's not perfect, you it's good enough. And I think we need to remove away from this idea of perfection and, you know, must be a certain way.

Yeah, yeah.

Adam Thompson (48:48)
me putting together a proposal for a client and I'm obsessing over a particular word in it and it takes me an hour to do it, that means I'm going too far past. So when I say good enough, I actually mean good enough depending on the context, because it's easy to assume good enough means a bit shit. Whereas, no, what I'm saying is good enough is good. But that's what happens in the sense making conversations. What does good enough look like and all that sort of thing. And so that's what it comes down to. It's a natural thing to say, but we haven't got time to do all that.

Mike Jones (49:02)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Adam Thompson (49:14)
And that's true if you're trying to do everything at once. But if we do work out and that becomes the key, we can't do everything at once, but just because we're not doing it now doesn't mean we won't get to it. Yeah, and I think, glad you mentioned time, because that sort of aligns to what we're talking about, that in execution people forget about time. We're trying to do things at certain time and I think that sort of mediates that good enough. Yeah. Because...

Mike Jones (49:17)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think, glad you mentioned time, because that sort of aligns what we're talking about, in execution, people forget about time. We're trying to do things in certain time and I think that sort of mediates that good enough, because

it's good, it's at a really good standard. Yes, we could probably spend another five weeks doing all this stuff, but we ain't got five weeks. So that's good, because we need to do that in that time.

Adam Thompson (49:40)
you know, it's good, it's a really good standard. Yes, we could probably spend another five weeks doing all this stuff, but we ain't got five weeks. Yeah. So that's good because we need to do that

in that time. And we do work in that way. We do it personally if you're procrastinated about doing the board paper and it's just due at the end of the day and we work in a focused way and we can even do it organisationally. We saw that through COVID. It's not like IT departments magically grew the capability to get everyone working on video from home.

but they were finally, two things happened. They were given one thing to do and the standard was just get it working and then we'll figure out the rest later. So because IT was given that, what do you know? IT departments around the globe nailed it. They got everyone working from home within five days. That's a hell of an effort, but I reckon if you're in any IT departments, like yeah, that was hard, but we knew what to do. We just were left alone finally. And that's what we can learn from that experience.

Mike Jones (50:13)
Yes.

Yes. Yes.

And I think that's such a great thing. It's amazing what you can get done when you give direction and focus and give people the resources to do what you need to do and just give them the space to do it.

Adam Thompson (50:34)
And I think that's such a great thing. It's amazing what you can get done when you give direction and focus and give people the resources to do what you need to do and just give them the space

to do it. Yeah. But you see so many ironies to use that common sense idea again. Some IT departments would put some sort of demand manager role up the front. The irony is that's living in the IT department. And I'd say, look, they have a say. They've got insight.

But how are they supposed to know? What I would do is I'd put that squarely in front of the CEO and their exec team to say if the rate of IT development is actually the rate of change in our organization, which is often going to be the case these days, then it makes sense that the executive team is sequencing the work into there. Not every tiny detail, but basically saying that before that before that, listening carefully to what the CIO says is capacity and actually believing them. And then what you'll see is the throughput increases.

Mike Jones (51:25)
Yeah, yeah.

Adam Thompson (51:27)
change happens quicker because again, we're not completing 10 % of each book at a time. We're completing a book, completing another book, completing another book. So change starts to happen versus nothing happening for 18 months for two years. So that's where if you've got that crucial area of the organization, which is often gonna be technology, it doesn't make sense to have some poor bugger who's sort of a maybe one or two levels removed from the front line trying to manage demand of the whole show. Give it to the exec team, because that's the key thing. And you know what? The irony is in professional sport,

the coach sits there, because it's the coach's job to work out what's going on, that it's not actually working. The coach wouldn't say, can someone else go and work out the sequence, please? I'm too busy doing other stuff. So in a lot of industries, we can make sense of it. And it just, again, it takes corporate courage and a willingness for an exec team to say, we'll take hold of that. And know we're not micromanaging here, because we're not going to tell you how to do development, but we're definitely going to do the managing the organization, which is sequence the work in that's going to change the organization.

Mike Jones (52:04)
the

Adam Thompson (52:22)
And you know what, if you put that in front of exec teams, after they get over the initial debates, they're actually really good at it. They just haven't had much chance to do it. And they're still caught up in the culture where you have to get it all going at once. But I come along and I basically just, and I use various almost verbal tricks, pretend there was only one you could do. And I'll say, I'm gonna annoy you all now. I'm gonna make you only choose two. And then from two, which one, so there's various tricks you can use, but they're actually quite good at it once you give them the right framing.

Mike Jones (52:28)
Hmm.

Yeah. And I like that, that no nonsense common sense approach.

Adam Thompson (52:49)
And I like that no-nonsense, sense

approach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it does work.

Mike Jones (52:54)
So,

I just admire that straightforwardness, that common sense approach.

Adam Thompson (52:57)
been a pleasure. I just admire that straightforwardness, that common

Mike Jones (53:02)
if you were to leave a listener, a leader with something to think about or to take away from all this about execution, what would that one thing be?

Adam Thompson (53:02)
so if you were to leave a listener, a leader with something to think about or to take away from all this about execution, would that one

The word sequence.

Mike Jones (53:12)
Okay, cool.

Adam Thompson (53:13)
That's the one. And this might be surprise. Priorities are an input into sequence. So priorities are service of sequence. But if you think about an airport, if you've got two planes coming in, it might be attempting to say the big A380 with the most passengers on it, that's probably the priority. But maybe it makes sense to land the little Cessna, get it landed, move it out the way, that'll be good to move it on. So sequence, that would be my one word.

and then sequence happens on a fractal level. You can sequence the whole change of your organization right down to sequencing each individual's work. So it's sequence gets us out of overload, but don't underestimate the level of corporate and personal courage it takes to actually choose one thing to get it done. But here's the good news. If you sequence everything, the way you were trying to read those 10 books, you weren't gonna get them all done until 10 months anyway. If it's one book a month, they're all gonna be happening at the last month.

So if you're sequencing them, it actually doesn't matter which one you pick first, they're all still gonna get done in the same amount of time. But by sequencing it, you'll actually start to see change occurring. So sequence, and the thing I would put alongside that is, when you hear all the arguments in your mind rising up about why your place is different in terms of sequence, ask yourself, that's how much the culture is making me want to resist this idea. Because sequencing adds up, but we have so much sitting inside of us that makes us not wanna see it, so.

Mike Jones (54:26)
Mmm.

Adam Thompson (54:29)
That's my word, sequence.

Mike Jones (54:30)
Oh, I love it. I think that's a great spot to end the conversation. And you keep mentioning books and secrets and I'm looking aside to me of all these books I need to read. So I'm going to take that and sort them out. But Adam, honestly, it's been an absolute pleasure. And if you've enjoyed the conversation between me and Adam, please like and subscribe and share it to your network so that other people can gain from Adam's straightforward wisdom.

Adam Thompson (54:32)
I it. I think that's a great spot to end the conversation. And you keep mentioning books and secrets, and I'm looking aside to me of all these books that I need to read, so I'm gonna take that and sort them out. But Adam, honestly, it's been an absolute pleasure. And if you've enjoyed the conversation between me and Adam, please like and subscribe and share it to your network so that other people can gain from Adam's wisdom.

Beautiful. No, it's been a pleasure, Mike. I really appreciate the questions you asked and the way you made the conversation happen. So, you know, thank you for me as well.