Do you remember those primary school sports days that seemed to involve 1000 uses for a bean bag? The humble bean bag had some advantages: it didn’t hurt if one was thrown at you and if you balanced it on your head it would stay there. Two distinct advantages that a cricket ball doesn’t have. That said, the cricket ball is used for international sport largely due to the fact that it moves incredibly quickly, is relatively friction free (efficient) and reacts instantly to inputs (like hitting, throwing, spinning or by the aerodynamic action as it passes through the air – at least I think that’s why bowlers spend so much time polishing it in their groin).

Let’s leave these two implements for a moment and turn our attention to coherence. Jonathan Haidt, in his book ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’ talks about coherence of organizations and individuals. Coherence is how all the layers seem to align. He discusses the industries where everyone is acting in accordance with their values, they can see they are making a genuine contribution to the company and that the company is making a genuine contribution to society. Then there are others where the company is neither benefiting society nor living up to the values the business was set up for in the first place. The front line staff is receiving poor feedback from the customer but that message isn’t getting through and other staff feel a disconnect between their ideals and the work they’re actually doing. It’s often the situation when an organization grows fat and comfortable in its current situation and decides to stop growing: process creeps in to cater for the lowest common denominator (to make everyone’s lives easier), the structure becomes quite disparate and flacid, communication starts to become harder and the organization becomes less agile. This would be fine if the world never changed, but we are subject to constant change. No-one can predict what will change nor how it will happen, but only an agile organization will be able to react accordingly.

The same happens within individual people. Those who keep taught and agile are much better able to cope with change. As change takes place over several years or even decades it’s easy for we humans to think that, actually, nothing changes and, therefore, why bother staying taught and listening to all your layers and senses; why not introduce some coping mechanisms (processes) that allow us to become a bit fat, lazy, flacid and disparate?

What does this have to do with bean bags and cricket balls? Quite a lot. A bean bag is a loose confederation of individual pellets all tied up in a bag. It feels comfortable to sit in (or balance on your head) but It won’t react to external events unless hit very hard, a slight tap on one end won’t be transmitted to much of the rest of it and it’s not hugely aerodynamic or efficient so even if it does start moving it won’t travel far. A cricket ball, by contrast is taught, tightly bound up together, efficient, travels a long way, reacts to even slight stimuli and won’t stay still unless it’s on a flat surface. Oh and it’s hard to catch.

Which are you or your organization: a bean bag or a cricket ball? Please reply or have a rummage around on the Inflow Performance FB page or website.

Jace