This week, a short hiatus from my OKR series. There were loads of comments and new subscribers after the first post (as well as one or two unsubscribes) … seems like it touched a nerve! Part 2 is coming soon, with ideas for how to handle OKRs.
And a quick bit of news before we get into the topic of frameworks:
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Who doesn’t love having a framework to apply? Look, it worked for that company, so it’s tried and tested! Now we can have some of that goodness too!
But as we all know, the results are often disappointing. Sometimes worse than disappointing.
Frameworks are generally created by people who’ve spent years piecing together their ideas for how to generate repeatable success. They want to share it with the world, and that’s great. We adore them for it.
The problem?
They can only write down a tiny amount of what makes their framework work.
There’s a whole bunch of tacit stuff that they aren’t aware of. And there’s another whole bunch of stuff that can’t be written down even if they are aware of it.
Stuff like the experiences in their particular organisation, factors in their cultural context, hard-to-learn skills, a sense for when to skip steps or when to slow down and be extra careful. Even factors like what kinds of work can even be fed into this framework in the first place? And what shouldn’t be fed in?
When you see a popular framework, it’s neat and buttoned up. It makes sense, it looks so easy to follow, and has great case studies of success ...
... but when you put it into practice, it turns out all that tacit stuff really, really mattered, and the framework is incoherent with your specific context.
Now it’s time for the uplifting conclusion. But I’m afraid there isn’t really one.
Maybe it’s this: use frameworks as scaffolding to be taken apart and rebuilt for your situation. Don’t mistake them for shortcuts or silver bullets.
In my most recent journal article on The Prometheus Framework, I include a perspective on what they are that includes a cartoon - showing that The Framework does not lead you to avoid The Work of making sense in your context
Hello Tom. I am new in your channel and you may have already commented on it, but I am curious to hear your view on the Apple Vision Pro (to be officially launched 2nd Feb) user experience and whether you think this will be another disruptive product by Apple as they did 17 years ago with the first iPhone. Thanks.