Dual Running

The movie Cool Runnings was one of those "life became art" about the Jamaican Bobsleigh team in the Winter Olympics 1988.

But that's a single track, with four people in a single vehicle trying to achieve something on a single stage.

Yet, work 2020s style is more Dual Running than Cool Runnings.

Gail Hackston posted today: Here

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/gailhackston_at-any-given-time-youre-effectively-working-activity-7260533565593989120-GsmK?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

and the feeling that we're effectively working for two organisations:

• The one you have now and its idiosyncracies, rituals, goals and personalities, AND
• The one you're striving to build.

I commented that it's no wonder we're all hyper-busy and exhausted because these two things have always been with us. Now - it seems - they're of equal and concurrent intensity, pressure and demands on our energy and application.

I quote the great Systems Thinker W. Edwards Deming when he said, "The Business that we're in must include the future." Which of course, he's right about. But in his day, perhaps not as a dual-running entity ALL of the time.

We're effectively attending to the now (largely the past and immediate moment in time) and the future (building towards new possibilities, improved systems and processes, hopeful and anticipatory behaviours and emerging changes in technologies, expectations and demands) in the same head in the same workflows with often little or no distinction in them.

So, welcome to Quantum Work, I suppose.

Quantum as in this:

!Quantum computing is a type of computing that harnesses the principles of quantum mechanics, allowing data to be processed using quantum bits (qubits). Unlike classical bits that are limited to either 0 or 1, qubits can exist in a state of superposition, representing both 0 and 1 simultaneously. This capability, along with entanglement and quantum interference, enables quantum computers to perform complex calculations much faster and more efficiently than classical computers for certain types of problems."

A superposition of both past/current and future simultaneously. Except we're not a qubit-friendly processor (yet) - we are built from patterns of the past (heritage) into the application of now (processing the world) with an eye on the future.

What we are seeing (IMHO) now in the world of work is the future is not a knowing glance to assure your intentions, but a fiercely competitive lure for your attention, efforts, thinking and immediacy. Alongside the present and being with it, in it and experiencing it.

And in the live construct of this post, Gail has commented and added this:

"...once you start seeing the two tracks it allows the parallel lines to intertwine and for you to identify the nonsense goose chases you are on in the current business!"

I think that's crucial. The intertwining on YOUR terms and not being hijacked by the forces of now and next, channelling them into one "bobsleigh" track to do your personal/team best.

Taking the Jamaican Bobsleigh team as an example, the Olympiads were "converted" sprinters. Athletes with good running power and skill converting that power into a metal vehicle travelling at speeds down a complex, curved ice track.

Their past and now was using that speed and power into a future destination of combined force into that metal projectile along the ice. Steering, braking, moving body weight and position in harmony to streamline the progress.

It wasn't easy and took practice and unlearn/relearn to get into their future state of being as fast as they could be to achieve something never done before from a Jamaican sporting perspective.

So we're perhaps sprinters trying to master the Bobsleigh to work that analogy to the max.

So if that's the diagnosis, what's the "remedy"?

Clarity.

Work - in both dual tracks (now/next) - can be overwhelming and you find yourself head down doing just to keep on top of it. Without any real sense of connecting it all; controlling energies, workflows, resources, help, creativity etc.

We need to manage the now and next thinking into doing and so we bring all our work into a backlog that caters for both. And clarity comes from the granular detail aggregated, planned and contained. Where it's bulging, you'd have to make some hard calls about commitments and time spent. And focus on what derives the most value.

We all get hijacked by others' agendas. And to push back we need evidence of what/why/when we might be able to help OR NOT. We're as obligated to not over-promise as we are to help someone or comply with their instructions. It's not that we can't or won't it's what fair and doable in the context we have. We have to let our "passion plays" or even priorities go in favour of someone else's. But we need to know we've done so by being clear to ourselves what we have to let go of; in order to let come and do.

Competence.

We need to be more "futures literate" (HT my good friend Erik Korsvik ?stergaard for that phrase) AND be super-focused on the here and now. And so we have to develop the skills of preparedness, readiness and adaptability as much as technical and core capabilities in our areas where our skills are in need to deliver impact and value.

With a lot of (rightly so) keen interest in more Skills-Based organisational constructs and approaches, it's really showing up the orthodoxy of Job Descriptions and the aggregation of those into teams, is starting to come under undue stress and pressures because of the dual running of now and next. Next (the future) requires capabilities and skills we have not yet defined let alone mastered and deployed.

Connectedness

To those future possibilities and to the here and now. And to each other, the ethos and strength of the team or unit you're a part of and to overall purpose of why your organisation and the work you do, exists. And that sense of meaningful connection that isn't just the domain of humanitarian enterprises, but all manner of work we do. Without utilities, transport, retail, hospitality, healthcare, justice, education, construction etc - where would we be?

So this connection is to the present and clear prioritised work and to the things that will build a better way in the future and ensure sustainable success. And the connection also needs to be made to preparedness and readiness we need for that future. Sometimes hope, sometimes strong beliefs, sometimes absolute dedicaton to the cause no matter what headwinds you face.

So in the HR professional field, I'd offer the answer lies in 3 key practice areas that bring these together:

Strategic Workforce Planning - not just a skills taxonomy but a really adaptive and planful way to deploy people and their energy, capabilities and collective endeavours to have the most sustainable, balanced and impactful outcomes possible.

Skills-Based Working - somewhat removing any constraints job "frames" have and instead create capability-based anchoring to core and professional disciplines and adaptive and emergent needs and demands.

Dynamic Organisation Design - an organisation that is pliable, but strong; shifts shape without convulsive and damaging restructures; and that plays ahead of pressurised change and directs people, effort, products, capital and intentions to change on its terms.

None of this is easy. And might feel like more added to the mix when it's exhausting already.

However, it's the only way to bring the dual running into one bobsleigh and a clearly defined track with the best of what we've got to what we could be.

Look out for some exciting news on these 3 practice areas in 2025...until then

"Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up, it's bobsled time!"