The Industrial AgeThe period when humans developed large complex organizations... More play was ContinueThe Industrial Age play of continuing redwork, or if pausing... More – continueThe Industrial Age play of continuing redwork, or if pausing... More the work as long as possible.
Picture an assembly line running uninterrupted. The Industrial AgeThe period when humans developed large complex organizations... More playbook was designed to maximize the time teams spent in redworkDoing, action, process, production work. Redwork benefits fr... More. That’s why the management plays we default to follow the same pattern: first, obey the clockThe Industrial Age play where we feel the stress of having t... More, then coerceThe Industrial Age play where we goad, manipulate, order, mo... More people into doing what we need them to do, get them to complyThe Industrial Age play of doing what we were told. More, and continueThe Industrial Age play of continuing redwork, or if pausing... More the redworkDoing, action, process, production work. Redwork benefits fr... More for as long as possible. Any stoppage of the assembly line, any pause in redworkDoing, action, process, production work. Redwork benefits fr... More, meant idle time and wasted resources.
We have been programmed to continueThe Industrial Age play of continuing redwork, or if pausing... More. ContinueThe Industrial Age play of continuing redwork, or if pausing... More the work, continueThe Industrial Age play of continuing redwork, or if pausing... More on to the next task, without a sense of completion. For example, in a service organization, a team member brings the boss a mockup for a new marketing pamphlet. After looking through it, the boss’s
words are: “Good, here are some edits.” ContinueThe Industrial Age play of continuing redwork, or if pausing... More. After the edits, the flyer goes out and then the next flyer is up for review. Boss suggests edits, then that flyer goes out and the work continues on and on like this.
If things are getting done, why do we need a change?
Three reasons. First, failure to treat completion as a deliberate step in the process translates into a failure to see the work in discrete elements; this failure carries risks. One risk is escalation of commitmentThe psychological phenomenon where humans tend to stick with... More which makes the organization less likely to change course
when needed. Long continuation cycles, lacking opportunities for completion, carry the risk of spending time, energy, and resources on suboptimal activities.
Second, failure to completeThe play at the end of redwork where we pause to reflect on ... More also takes a toll on the humans in the organization. No completion moments mean no celebration moments.
One hour merges with the next, one day into the other. Without completion, we do not feel a sense of progress for what we’ve accomplished
or learned. There is no opportunity to tell the story and no opportunity to reinforce the behaviors that allowed us to be successful. Humans
will become dispirited and lose interest.
Finally, completeThe play at the end of redwork where we pause to reflect on ... More serves to proactively control the clockThe new play where we are able to call a pause or time-out i... More, exiting us from redworkDoing, action, process, production work. Redwork benefits fr... More and launching us into blueworkThinking, cognitive, creative, deciding work. Bluework benef... More. Controlling the clock gives
us the operational pause we need to reflect and improveThe play at the end of redwork where we pause to reflect on ... More upon our processes. The psychological detachment from our previous efforts that comes after a sense of completion and celebration, sets us up to successfully run the ImproveThe play at the end of redwork where we pause to reflect on ... More play.
Completion marks the end of a period of redworkDoing, action, process, production work. Redwork benefits fr... More. Running the CompleteThe play at the end of redwork where we pause to reflect on ... More play means thinking about work in terms of smaller chunks of production (redworkDoing, action, process, production work. Redwork benefits fr... More) and frequent intervals of reflection, collaboration, improvement, and hypothesis creation (blueworkThinking, cognitive, creative, deciding work. Bluework benef... More.)
The CompleteThe play at the end of redwork where we pause to reflect on ... More play is the moment we exit redworkDoing, action, process, production work. Redwork benefits fr... More and head into blueworkThinking, cognitive, creative, deciding work. Bluework benef... More. The CompleteThe play at the end of redwork where we pause to reflect on ... More play is closely linked to the Control the ClockThe new play where we are able to call a pause or time-out i... More play and in some cases serves to control the clockThe new play where we are able to call a pause or time-out i... More in a planned and preprogrammed way. CompleteThe play at the end of redwork where we pause to reflect on ... More sets us up for ImproveThe play at the end of redwork where we pause to reflect on ... More.
Learn more about the Complete play.
Learn more by watching this Nudge – Leadership Nudge® 295 – The New Play is Complete
