Leading Light: Butterfly effect

Showing posts with label Butterfly effect. Show all posts

Saturday, 1 December 2018

Stepping into the future - Day 2

Day 2

Thunderbird 2 is International Rescue's heavy equipment transporter. The
craft's main pilot is Virgil Tracy. It appears in all but one episode of the Thunderbirds
TV series (The Imposters being the exception) as well as every movie,
making it one of the most iconic Thunderbirds' machines.

By way of a reminder, the theme for this year's Advent Blogs is "Heartaches, Hopes and High Fives". Please contact me if you would like to submit a post for later in the series.

Today's post was written in 2014 and was crafted by a man with whom I have had the privilege of working with and whose career I have watched rise with admiration and delight. He is doing so much to shape and influence the world of work (and the people within it) for the better. He is David D'Souza, Membership Director at the CIPD. He has been a wonderful colleague and is a valued friend. If it wasn't for Twitter we would never have met and my life would certainly be the poorer. He is a popular and well known voice, in work related and HR communities, (both on and off line); David is bright, passionate, values-driven, knowledgeable, funny, loyal, challenging and keen to encourage positive change (in individuals, organisations and society). He was the brains behind both Books of Blogs and hence many bloggers now can state in all honesty that they are published authors and that their book(s) made it to number 1 on Amazon.

If you don't yet, you should follow him on Twitter via @dds180 and read his blog. He will make you smile, frequently surprise you and usually encourage you to think. I am indebted to him on many levels - the top image (International Rescue that can go to great depths and lengths to see that the right things occur) is very apt. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank him for his support and encouragement (not just to me but also to many of the readers of this post).

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I've always been absorbed by the possibilities of what might have been. All of the realities that didn't come to pass.

I can't remember the first time I heard about The Butterfly Effect, but I do recall from an early age understanding how mistaken people were to say about football matches 'we would have scored three if we'd put those chances away'.

Because logic dictates that if you had scored the first of those chances then everything would have changed. Everybody would have returned to the centre circle and the patterns, behaviours, mentalities and choices that evolved would be completely different to what happened in the first reality. The romantic comedy Sliding Doors, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow (before she became odd) and John Hannah (before he was in a position to turn down films like Sliding Doors) featured this pattern of thought to its conclusion. What would happen to your day if just one small facet of it changed? In the film it was the main protagonist missing a train that led to the change in her life - in real life we are always just making trains or just missing them. Our days fundamentally change based on those events.

John Hannah and Gwyneth Paltrow in "Sliding Doors"

Unless you travel via Southern Rail in which case you spend most days watching departure boards giving you information on fresh delays...

This never-ending schism of possible realities manifests itself in similar ways with our careers, with our relationships and with every business. The impact of small things often dictates the path of the bigger things. My daughter is a notoriously bad sleeper. If she had slept better on just one night a few years ago then maybe my wife and I wouldn't have cracked and decided we couldn't survive without being nearer family. In which case we wouldn't have moved to the South East. Maybe I'd still be working and living in Yorkshire. And if I was still living in Yorkshire then I wouldn't be writing this blog about having moved to the South East. I probably wouldn't even be writing, I certainly wouldn't know the people that I know now. My life would be poorer for it - I assume. My life would certainly be different for it. That's all I can really know.

It's A Wonderful Life remains my favourite film and my company was named after Clarence, one of the characters in it. Simon Heath is a person I'm lucky to call a friend and he created a wonderful logo for me based on Clarence that I never got around to using...I wouldn't have met Simon if my daughter was a better sleeper. That's how life works.

The film centres on the impact of a man by an incident outside of his control. The only thing he can control is his reaction to the event, but the beauty of the film is the gradual realisation of how much a difference to other people one person can make. Our worlds are shaped by the people around us. Social media allows for even more random collisions, but make no mistake that our interconnectedness is what determines our lives and always has been. This isn't new.

I was lucky enough to be Best Man at a friend's wedding a few years ago, It's A Wonderful Life happens to be his favourite film too and we now have a ritual of finding a way to watch it with each other every year. He is a far better person than I would ever hope to be and one of those who goes through life constantly making the difference for others. I read out the following quote from the film at his wedding as part of my speech - "Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?". What we don't tend to appreciate is that our lives are influenced not just by those closest to us, but by a network more complex and intertwined than we could imagine.

When I was travelling to this year's CIPD conference I got talking to the lady opposite me on the train. I don't cope very well in an environment without stimulus and the very best type of stimulus is conversation, so if you are ever unfortunate enough to sit near me on public transport then please expect a conversation. The story of the mystery train woman was a wonderful 'sliding doors' story. She has been working in a special needs school for 7 years. After qualifying as a teacher she had taken a few years out and then found it very hard to get a job in a school. I hadn't realised how many applications there are for each teaching role - it was a sobering experience listening to her describe her job hunt. It is a tough market. Eventually she had give up on a permanent role and settled into supply teaching, but disliked the routine and the lack of certainty it brought.

One day a teacher at a school on the other side of the city called in sick (sliding doors moment...). The request to get up at short notice and travel to the other side of the city on a rainy day was the final straw that triggered a decision. That decision was to call agencies and say that any kind of longer term contract work would be acceptable. She just wanted a permanent home. One of the agencies had a role starting immediately.

Nursery School, Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy, 1898

So this experienced and qualified teacher started work as a Junior IT Support technician covering for maternity leave. Whilst pushing around a trolley full of laptops and freely admitting she knew nothing about IT the teacher got to know the rest of the staff. When the first permanent vacancy (non IT related...) came up she got the job. She is still there now.

Every career and every life is made up of little decisions. Every decision is the result of the events that shaped the thinking and feeling behind it.

A wise person once said you regret the decisions that you didn't make, but in reality we can never understand how different our parallel lives would have been. We can't change the past, but we can always change how we step into the future. I love the fact that I met someone on a train (thanks to Virgin for allocating that seat) - who has been supporting children who really need support for over 7 years.

I love that this came about because she decided to pretend to be an IT Technician. She decided to do that because she didn't like getting out of bed at short notice on a rainy day. That decision came about because someone she never met was sick - in some ways the most incidental person in the story is the most important trigger for all that went after. I hope that person was sick because they had consumed too much champagne and strawberries having the night of their life. They deserve it.

Life is rich, unpredictable and full of stories that we never hear. I hope you get to make some great stories this year - I hope I get to hear some of them.

Merry Christmas and I hope you have the best New Year that is possible.

Thank you for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

Stepping into the Future - Day 4

Day 4

International Rescue's Thunderbird 4
30ft long 11t wide
Propulsion: 6 electrically driven reversible axial-flow turbine impellers
Max speed 160 knots underwater and 40 knots on the surface
Piloted by Aquanaut Gordon Tracy

Today's post is from a man whom I have had the privilege of sharing much of the past year with, David D'Souza. He has been a wonderful colleague and is a valued friend. If it wasn't for Twitter we would never have met and my life would certainly be the poorer. He is a popular and well known voice, in work related and HR communities, (both on and off line); David is bright, passionate, values-driven, knowledgable, funny, loyal, challenging and keen to encourage positive change (in individuals, organisations and society). He was the brains behind both Books of Blogs and hence many bloggers now can state in all honesty that they are published authors and that their book(s) made it to number 1 on Amazon.

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I've always been absorbed by the possibilities of what might have been. All of the realities that didn't come to pass.

John Hannah and Gwyneth Paltrow in "Sliding Doors"

Unless you travel via Southern Rail in which case you spend most days watching departure boards giving you information on fresh delays...

Nursery School, Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy, 1898

Every career and every life is made up of little decisions. Every decision is the result of the events that shaped the thinking and feeling behind it.

Life is rich, unpredictable and full of stories that we never hear. I hope you get to make some great stories this year - I hope I get to hear some of them.

Merry Christmas and I hope you have the best New Year that is possible.

Thank you for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold

Sunday, 25 November 2012

The Butterfly Effect

Have you ever touched a butterfly or moth and ended up with shimmering powder, like iridescent fairy-dust on your fingers? Even when trying to help (such as when attempting to get them away from fluttering against a window pane to return to the garden), it is easy to damage them – partially because they do not understand what you are trying to do and hence are not cooperative. When I was a child my mother and my father, although it was harder for him as he wore glasses, used to give me "butterfly kisses", which involved softly stroking my cheek with their eyelashes - the most important aspect of a butterfly kiss was that it was gentle. There are many similarities between butterflies and business. When you are trying to introduce change it is best to handle people with care, unless you want to hurt them and hence reduce their ability to operate effectively in the future. Clear and honest communication is often the best way to gain trust and support from employees for a new plan. Unlike a helpless insect, if you explain your intentions and the desired outcome, people are capable of understanding the vision and working with you to achieve it.

Adonis Blue, rare UK butterfly

There is nothing wrong with ensuring that you present an attractive end result to promote participation – a bit like growing suitable plants or placing food out to encourage butterflies into your garden. As it is with people, so it is with Lepidoptera – different things appeal to different types (it would be a dull and very competitive world if we all only liked the same things). Some butterflies and moths are attracted to carrion, just as some people like working in an environment where they are not forced to curb their worst behaviours (this is currently a hot topic in the media and on some blogs where HR has been blamed or defended for not curbing bankers’ excesses for example see http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/2012/11/investment-bank-hr-described-a-1.html ) others are drawn towards particular flowers or fruit. If you want a wide variety of skills and diversity in your business you must make individuals aware of the benefits that are most appealing to them:

some employees want to develop skills;
some value having a great community to work with;
some desire a career path; and
some simply want a secure and supportive place of work that rewards them appropriately for their contribution.

The latter is a more general need amongst employees (who doesn’t want to feel valued and to have a good place in which to work?), but increasingly people want a work-life balance too.

I can’t tell you exactly what you need to do to do to make your workplace attractive to the people you require, but, if you like butterflies, there are some types of feed that seem to have a universal appeal – a good recipe that attracts a wide range of butterflies is:

2 cans of beer,

1 pound (500 g) of sugar,

3 mashed overripe bananas,

1 shot of rum,

230 ml (circa 16 tablespoons) of syrup

230 ml fruit juice

Mix the ingredients well. Place in shallow dishes around your garden or paint the mixture onto tree trunks, fencing, stones or (if you don’t have a garden) place in a bowl on your window ledge (but be warned, wasps like too).

A butterfly’s wing under a microscope is even more astonishing than it appears when glimpsed as part of the insect resting on a flower. As you can see from the photograph below, the wing is covered in overlapping scales made of chitin (the material that often constitutes the outer skeleton of insects). Like employees, each scale is different and yet, all these independent pieces, working together in an orderly fashion, create an efficient wing to carry the butterfly forward on its journey. Just because people are different it does not mean that they cannot work well together with a shared sense of purpose.

Butterfly wing magnified 5,300 times

Earlier this week I attended the Strategic HR Network’s International HR Conference. There were some excellent speakers covering a range of topics from HR strategy and capability to cross-border leadership. The value of diversity was a common theme, as was the need to adapt in order to connect with employees around the globe. Some fascinating data was shared, some of which surprised me, for example according to research by a leading firm of consultants, Japanese workers hold process in high regard (and are often shocked at the apparently disorganised manner in which their American or Northern European colleagues approach and complete tasks) however, they are less keen on individual job descriptions as culturally people are expected to step up to do what they see needs to be done rather than being constrained – the Swiss in contrast like to know clearly what is expected of them. One of the thoughts that stuck with me since Tuesday is a phrase that was made in the opening key note about employees “wanting a career lattice instead of a ladder”. I first came across this phrase two years ago in the book written by Cathy Benko, the Chief Talent Officer at Deloitte, and Molly Andersen, a former Deloitte colleague and organisational effectiveness expert, “The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance In The Changing World of Work” http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Corporate-Lattice-Achieving-Performance/dp/1422155161/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353869665&sr=8-1-fkmr0 . According to the US National Bureau of Economic Research, companies have 25% fewer organisational layers than they had 20 years ago – as a result there are less opportunities for employees to move upwards, combined with this more people want a choice in what they do and may opt for a role that provides them with desired flexibility rather than seeking upward promotion. The current economic strain on companies, combined with enhanced technologies and available data, is resulting increasingly in organisations collaborating with what were formerly perceived as competitors. Workers often are retained for a specific project and are then expected to move on rather than anticipating or wanting a “career for life”. We are living in an exciting era of change and businesses will need to do more than simply make cultural adaptations to ensure success going forwards. It might amuse you to note that the scales of a butterfly’s wings are made of a lattice with interconnecting strands.

Butterfly wing scale magnified 14,000 times

Most of us are familiar with the “Butterfly Effect” in Chaos Theory – i.e. where a small change in one place can have a huge impact on a wider environment. The effect was initially defined in 1961 by Edward Lorenz (although he referred to a seagull rather than a butterfly flapping its wings, and only changed to butterflies later as they provided a more attractive image.) The phrase refers to the idea that the creature’s wings can make minute changes in the atmosphere that could ultimately alter the path or even the existence of a tornado. Lopez himself was trying to predict weather by using a computer model to rerun forecasts and determine likely outcomes. He entered the decimal .506 instead of entering .506127 and the result produced by the computer was a completely different weather scenario. It is hard to predict outcomes at work as even small fluctuations in employee behaviour can make huge differences. However, as information continues to be disseminated at ever increasing speeds and social media maintains its growing impact on the workplace, I am happy to predict that the people outside an organisation’s immediate employment will have to be taken increasingly into account.

Mathematical illustration of Butterfly Effect - A plot of the Lorenz attractor for values r = 28, σ = 10,b = 8/3

By way of an example, I shall end with a story told at the conference about the launch of a new product – instead of spending millions on marketing, the product was given to a leading blogger, whose opinion was seen as influential across the industry, so that he could trial the product and comment on his blog. He was not an employee, the business had no editorial rights over his comments and he received no remuneration (other than the kudos of being the first person to be able to sample the product and tell the world what he thought of it). His comments were spread virally, he liked it and the product achieved huge sales. This type of viral marketing, using social media, is known as Butterfly Marketing. On the other hand, when BIC launched a biro specifically aimed at the female market there was widespread outcry across the web (http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/bics-pen-for-her-backlash#image-rotator-1 ) and the adverse public comments have had an impact on sales. The world in which we work and live is adapting, as we become increasingly networked; small things will make big changes for all of us, like letting butterflies loose, there is little control once the lid of the box has been raised.

Migrating Monarch butterflies

Given the theme of this post, it seems apt to end with the very 1970's video, The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast, inspired by Alan Aldridge and William Plomer's book of the same name.

The book won the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award when it was released in 1973 and the video became a surprising global hit.

(Roger Glover, The Butterfly Ball and The Grasshopper's Feast - Love is All, 1974)

"Come one and all to the Butterfly Ball...."

PS The original poem, written by William Roscoe in 1807, inspired the above, it is as follows:

The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast

Come take up your Hats, and away let us haste
To the Butterfly's Ball, and the Grasshopper's Feast.
The Trumpeter, Gad-fly, has summon'd the Crew,
And the Revels are now only waiting for you.

So said little Robert, and pacing along,
His merry Companions came forth in a Throng.
And on the smooth Grass, by the side of a Wood,
Beneath a broad Oak that for Ages had stood,

Saw the Children of Earth, and the Tenants of Air,
For an Evening's Amusement together repair.
And there came the Beetle, so blind and so black,
Who carried the Emmet, his Friend, on his Back.

And there was the Gnat and the Dragon-fly too,
With all their Relations, Green, Orange, and Blue.
And there came the Moth, with his Plumage of Down,
And the Hornet in Jacket of Yellow and Brown;

Who with him the Wasp, his Companion, did bring,
But they promis'd, that Evening, to lay by their Sting.
And the sly little Dormouse crept out of his Hole,
And brought to the Feast his blind Brother, the Mole.

And the Snail, with his Horns peeping out of his Shell,
Came from a great Distance, the Length of an Ell.
A Mushroom their Table, and on it was laid
A Water-dock Leaf, which a Table-cloth made.

The Viands were various, to each of their Taste,
And the Bee brought her Honey to crown the Repast.
Then close on his Haunches, so solemn and wise,
The Frog from a Corner, look'd up to the Skies.

And the Squirrel well pleas'd such Diversions to see,
Mounted high over Head, and look'd down from a Tree.
Then out came the Spider, with Finger so fine,
To shew his Dexterity on the tight Line.

From one Branch to another, his Cobwebs he slung,
Then quick as an Arrow he darted along,
But just in the Middle, -- Oh! shocking to tell,
From his Rope, in an Instant, poor Harlequin fell.

Yet he touch'd not the Ground, but with Talons outspread,
Hung suspended in Air, at the End of a Thread,
Then the Grasshopper came with a Jerk and a Spring,
Very long was his Leg, though but short was his Wing;

He took but three Leaps, and was soon out of Sight,
Then chirp'd his own Praises the rest of the Night.
With Step so majestic the Snail did advance,
And promis'd the Gazers a Minuet to dance.

But they all laugh'd so loud that he pull'd in his Head,
And went in his own little Chamber to Bed.
Then, as Evening gave Way to the Shadows of Night,
Their Watchman, the Glow-worm, came out with a Light.

Then Home let us hasten, while yet we can see,
For no Watchman is waiting for you and for me.
So said little Robert, and pacing along,
His merry Companions returned in a Throng.

William Roscoe

Book plate from 1860 edition of the William Roscoe poem