The book is particularly interesting because the writers have determined, through research, that a tribe's culture can be revealed by the language that its members use. Five stages are described, and key themes of each stage are:
- Stage 1: "Life sucks"
- Stage 2: My life sucks"
- Stage 3: "I'm great (and you're not)"
- Stage 4: "We're great (and they're not)"
- Stage 5: "Life is great"
As a person/organisation moves up the Stages, their personal effectiveness leaps ahead.
The main cultural shift described in the book is the shift from Stage 3 individualism to Stage 4 collaboration. Much of business is argued to be in Stage 3, where the focus is on winning as an individual (hence the focus on the Stage 3 to Stage 4 shift).
If you had to comment on the waste management industry as a whole, you would probably conclude that it generally operates in Stage 2 (life sucks - I have to work in this low level role at the tip, or driving this truck or whatever).
Over the dominance of Stage 2 there is a small minority operating at Stage 3; they consider themselves to have been lifted from the "squalor". This might be Superintendents or others, and they characterise themselves as competing (and winning) at the expense of the rest.
For the industry to truly contribute to a challenge beyond self-advancement, and specifically to see itself as contributing to a broad environmental/social challenge of stopping waste, it must operate at Stage 4 at a minimum.
The problem is, argue the authors, Stage 4 cannot be commanded. It must be nurtured through explicit development of Stage 4 tribal culture. I won't go into how, but it comes down to attracting a critical mass of like-minded people, and an almost personal epiphany for each member of the tribe.
The point is that you cannot impose a Stage 4 culture on an organisation that is not working within this culture. Trying to comes across as cynical or hopelessly naive, or even both. It becomes on of those pathetic examples of dippy sloganeering that is so often mocked. And yet those slogans show the way once you have made the leap to Stage 4.
To me, this is where the waste industry faces its some of its biggest challenges. People who think about waste come up with succinct formulations of the problem and then put that out there. It falls on deaf ears. The thoughtful solutions can only be implemented by the people working in the field, and they are literally unable to hear the formulation. It is spoken in an alien tongue. The messages of "cradle to cradle" and "zeronauts" get dismissed because they make no sense. They are fantasy, not relevant in the real world.
It would seem that a way to actually advance the industry is to encourage that epiphany, to bring people to Stage 4, rather than focus on yet new formulations. It won't happen as simply as this, in part because people who have experienced the epiphany saw it through some formulation that struck them at the right time and in the right way. They believe they are helping by refining their pithy slogans.
So I am left wondering. Imagine how much good could be achieved if an organisation was created that quite explicitly targeted a Stage 4 culture. It recruited people who worked in this space, and did everything in its power to maintain that space. I think such an organisation would be incredibly powerful.
A waste organisation that saw culture and the greater good as central to its mission, the prism through which it made all other decisions. No doubt some have done this, but I'm not aware of them. It is much more common to see organisations where there are a few converts who place a veneer of culture across the organisation. It never really rings true, and so never really achieves what it could.
A waste organisation suffused right through with an incredible culture, now that is something I would like to be a part of.
Even having a team with differing backgrounds, and opinions. having a shared viewpoint, and a shared culture is the thing that can get the individuals from 2 to 4. There has to be trust in the team, and that can come down to management, and building confidence. I have found it easier to build a team of 4s from a set if misfit 1s and 2s, than to get a team from three to four.
ReplyDeleteIf you can start out by having the team achieve something perceived as impossible, then it does make it easier to keep the momentum.
But these groups do cycle. realizing this can keep the momentum going.
The Implementation I have liked most, is a nurturing team, Culturally, it sits between two and four, with the objective of bettering the individuals of the team so that they can move beyond the team, and achieve their own goals. Deliberate staff turnover, where the benefit of being in the team, is the experience, and the confidence. The organization itself was a dead end, but members of the team were taken in as a 2 and ejected out as a 4 meanwhile the team was a continuing high performer because of that spirit.
Perhaps get the think tank together and start to grow it and see if anything can get up to escape velocity.
I have a couple of seed ideas I want to start growing. Do you know if anyone has mining rights to old tip locations in Perth?
Yes, the think tank is the way to go. I (obviously) have many ideas to pursue, and will do so by building up a team of like-minded people.
DeleteTo answer your question, I'm pretty sure there are no mining rights over old tips in the sense of a mining licence. I don't think a licence would apply. As for people having some arrangement with the owner to mine the landfill, I think it has been proposed for the old City of Stirling tip in Balcatta, and the EMRC is talking about mining its own landfill at Red Hill (itself).
There's certainly some good old tips to mine. I suspect it would be pretty expensive once you worry about all of the environmental protection (many old tips are on/in the Swan River).
If you wanted to catch up to chat, start some think tanking, I'd be happy to. I do Garbologie stuff on Fridays, and so would be free any time then.