Motivation vs coercion

Shared goals, or carrots and sticks?

This blog continues the examination motivation. Social psychological theories on how motivation determines behaviour. Self-determination theory presents the case for suboptimal impact of motives born from persuasion.

Materials cited are sourced from: Ryan, RM., Deci, EI. 2000 “Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development and wellbeing” American Psychology January 2000, pp68-78

I have lost count of the number of times people have admitted to me that the latest pay rise, bonus, or dream role quickly loses its shine. That salary increase suddenly spent before it arrives just the same. The same issues with the same clients, or bosses, or staff. Many of those conversations returned to mind as I studied at some length the psychological theory on motivation I now summarise in this blog.

From a project management perspective, I think this concepts should grab everyone’s attention. It reinforces something I think we probably all intrinsically know. That carrot and stick management may get us to a point, but it is not going to get us all safely home. Could it even be an obstacle to success? This is another perspective on behaviour, and considerations to address when contemplating how we structure our control.

v | b | t

I will offer a conclusion upfront. When we choose to divide ourselves into them and us by our contracts we are reinforcing the externalised motivations reflected below. When we manage our staff with KPIs, outmoded controls, and seek to retain high performing teams simply with cash, we are reflecting the changed mindset, externalised motivations, performance and health implications that come with that lack of internalised autonomy, shared interest, and shared goal. The more we understand these implications the more visibility there can be. The more we can rethink how we collectively engender coherent behaviours. The more trust between parties we can hope to see.

Self-Determination Theory

In this article Richard Ryan and Edward Deci review their body of research into the impacts of external reward vs our individual intrinsic motivations. At the heart of this research is a reflection upon the social context in which human potential can be fostered or undermined by the manner of motivations we attempt to introduce to those we may wish to direct. Three factors are considered (Ryan and Deci 2000, pp68):

Competence
Autonomy
Relatedness

Each is considered in respect to the developmental tendencies of an individual, but also the wider environmental factors that can antagonise or nurture any of these three (ibid pp68).

What is contrasted is the direction of motivational engagement. Ryan and Deci outline their case in terms of factors that move us to act, be that the intrinsic (internal) motivational factors which are self-generated and arising from innate value and interest in an activity. Or they can be external coercions of persuasion. As Ryan et al advise, “the urge to act either an abiding interest or by a bribe” (ibid pp69). Depending on this source motive, they argue the resulting experience of the actor, and the consequent actions derived, can be highly varied as a result. Those authentic (self-motivated) having more interest, emotional attachment, and confidence in action and therein enhanced performance; and meaning two equally competent people will present different outcomes based only on this origin of motivational force (ibid pp69). These differences are categorised in this theory. Argued to be a continuum of developmental, situational, and progressive characteristics. They conclude that for both the health of the people we oversee, and the performance we hope to tend,

motivation is perhaps the critical variable in producing maintained change
Ryan and Deci, 2000. pp76

Intrinsic motivation is that natural inclination we may have toward “assimilation, mastery, spontaneous interest, and exploration“ (ibid pp70). It requires supportive conditions and can be easily subdued. Ryan and Deci have a sub theory called Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) which “focuses upon fundamental needs for competence and autonomy” pp70. To which they conclude even the necessary competence will only support an intrinsic motivation to act when there is retained autonomy in doing so. Arguing such lost autonomy will transfer motives from an intrinsic to an external source. The key claim herein, being that “extrinsic reward can undermine intrinsic motivation” (ibid pp70, citing Deci 1970). Or as separately quote “in attributional terms by an internal perceived locus of causality (deCharms, 1968)” (ibid pp70).

The implication of this is that carrot and stick motivations can become inherently counterproductive to long-term outputs, and to mental health. “…threats, deadlines, directives, pressured evaluations, and imposed goals diminish intrinsic motivation because, like tangible reward, they conduce toward an external perceived locus of causality. In contrast, choice, acknowledgement of feelings, and opportunities for self-direction were found to enhance intrinsic motivation because they allow people a greater feeling of autonomy” (ibid, pp70 citing Deci & Ryan 1985; citing further studies by Amabile 1996; Grolnick &Ryan 1987; Uttman 1997).

The third element identified is relatedness and a connected sense of security. The examples offered being reflective of infant tendency toward exploration as proximal to parents. However, they further argue this relatedness remains into progressive adulthood, “proximal relational supports may not be necessary for intrinsic motivation, but secure relational base does seem to be important for the expression of intrinsic motivation to be in evidence” (ibid pp71).

Self-Regulation of Extrinsic Motivation – if motivational origin is arising from outside influence, the Self-Determinism Theory (SDT) presents differing degrees of such requested behaviour, associated regulated means, and the manner of receipt of such attempted influence. They call this second subtheory “Organismic Integration Theory (OIT)” (ibid pp72, citing Deci and Ryan 1985). Ryan and Deci present this as the categorised continuum, with diagrammatic aid. I present below an adaptation to connect the textual explanations they offer too.

Adapted from Ryan & Deci 2000, figure 1 and notes, pp72-74

I have highlighted the two extremes of extrinsic motivations and pose a question of what our motivational sources become in our contracts of construction, service, or employment, when driven too far towards price, KPIs, and performance bonus. The concluding remarks of Ryan and Deci’s paper highlight cultural differences must be considered, and further that a linear progression from left to right should not be assumed as we individually mature in our many life roles. They do however flag the related implications to mental health when perpetually existing in the left-hand more side of determinism.

employees experiences of satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in the workplace predicted their performance and well being at work
(ibid pp75)

To which they present further evidence from studies where an individual could be examined across various life roles, they cite Sheldon et al 1997, who they advise “demonstrated that satisfaction in each of several life roles (e.g., student, employee, friend) relative to the individual’s own satisfaction, was attributable to the degree to which that role supports authenticity and autonomous functioning” (ibid pp76).

Here are two final quotes from their concluding remarks (pp76)

…Excessive control, nonoptimal challenges, and lack of connectedness, on the other hand disrupt the inherent actualising and organisational tendencies endowed by nature, and thus such factors result not only in the lack of initiative and responsibility but also in distress and psychopathology…
…Contexts supportive of autonomy, competence, and relatedness were found to foster greater internalisation and integration than contexts that thwart satisfaction of these needs. This latter finding, we argue, is of great significance for individuals who wish to motivate others in a way that engenders commitment, effort, and high-quality performance…
Ryan and Deci, 2000. pp76

Concluding remarks

One aspect of behaviour that I identified within my 2020 MSc dissertation was the reorientation of project interests dependent upon the party with most influence at time of procurement. In PFI, I argued this was not always the senior debt lender. Risk profile of projects changed as a result. If contemporary revisits of Self-Determinism Theory can be considered from the perspective of actor motivations as entities not just individuals, perhaps these categorisations can offer some means to inform subsets of what those motivational orientations may be.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

behaviour, motivation, MSc, psychology

Motivated behaviour

Behaviour as directed by motivations

How much can we explain what we do by our desires to know more, reaffirm we are more, or seeking to reconcile two things that cannot both be so?

All case references herein originating or cited per David Dunning “On the motives underlying social cognition” Chapter 16 of A. Tesser and N. Schwarz. Blackwell handbook of social psychology. Malden, Mass: Blackwell, 2001

Behaviour derived from need

We have begun addressing motivational factors in social psychology this week. The basics of life to keep the body functioning; safety; then belonging, social climbing, and culminating in actualisation – being the best that we can be (cf. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 1954) or what Carl Rogers called “autonomy” to explain what it is that makes us seek out tasks beyond such basic need (Rogers, 1960).

Behaviour derived from desire not need

But we were asked this week to examine another origin of motivation. What in social psychology is referenced as Social Justice, to explain the motives which direct us to act. It offers explanation for those less obvious motives we may be hiding, or reason for questions we ask, the people we seek to acquaint, and perhaps secretly berate.

desire for knowledge
desire for affirmation
desire for coherence

I briefly describe each.

Desire for Knowledge.

If we know a little, we will seek out more. Trivia, or answers to things we are almost certain we know, we will spend resource to have confirmed anyway (think of the cliff hanger question before the advert break). We will invest time and effort in dismissing or reconciling what is unexpected, just to trivialise if need be. We invest more time in people we think we need to know, whether that be for upside, to avoid downside, or with whom we must compete. We take more interest in causal reasoning after an event, and recall past failures to inform future event. We are proven to be more mindful of our opinions and our actions when we are likely to have to account for them. We will be more critical of argument, more resistant to stereotype, and be more insightful and thoughtful in integrating information when it has impact that leads back to us. We respond more openly to information that aids our own control, but seek information to support our deeds if retrospectively sought. By variance of preference some of us live happily with uncertainly, whilst others routinely seek to narrow fields of interest, compromise or look to shut down too many separate lines of enquiry, or hold stronger to category stereotype to get to certainty quicker – even if quick is less complete. This motive towards closure, plus the underlying trade-off or need for more cognitive detail, combine to make some people judge situations quickly, confidently, but belligerently, and others to not know when to form a judgement at all.

Desire for affirmation

Not all is knowledge based, however. We are also driven by our pride. We may have attributions that explain our success, but external factors to blame for the rest. Our decisions on whether to seek more information and our analysis of the information sought, can be determined by the control we have over the state of affairs this will inform. This can become a deliberative vs implementation mindset – helping a decision vs justification of what was decided upon. In analysis we may be “reality constrained” but nonetheless intent on neutralising information not presenting us in good light. We can spend time elaborating on the merits of traits we possess, and trivialising those we do not. Short-comings demonstrated as common flaws in us all, or seeking to present someone worse at it than ourselves. We may do this directly. We may also do it by implication. Higher performing people shown to be less gracious in praise or assessment of others – unless it is in something of no consequence to themselves. Our choices in social groups, friends, and our just causes, all directed toward our sense of self-worth and our pride.

Desire for coherence

Cognitive dissonance is explained as a felt agitation when two beliefs are inconsistent but both owned. By example, when we are forced to act against our principles we may convince ourselves of validity of both, change one to fit to the other, or find wider reason to hold one in lower regard. The coherence we worked hard to own, we may work equally hard to defended. And if choice has been made between two equally valid alternatives, we will denigrate the one we did not choose. The counterargument here is that we perhaps simply find new perspective. However, where there is clear distance between position taken and belief held, it is demonstrated the dissonance felt will prevail. Such dissonance only felt however if negative impact could arise. Sometimes such dissonance appeals, where such wider view is coveted and we therefore wish to become. Or it may be reduced where wider behaviour could mitigate any negative impact the dissonant conflict may suppose.

v | behaviour | t

All of these summaries are taken from David Dunning as referenced above. He leaves us with a few areas of research to continue. Some I hold as contemporary challenges. And connected to projects.

There is the question of which of these three motivational sources acts with greatest influence. Or indeed if we situationally need to consider all three. He asks at what level does motivation influence social judgement. Is it explicit with conscious control? Or is it implicit, without awareness and therefore presenting less opportunity for individual control? My question, when considering these influences upon our project behaviours, and against our control environments in such a complex arena, is why are we not just assuming it is both?

Dunning reports that research into motivation consistently returns to individual differences. More often so than does cognitive behavioural change. He ponders upon why this would be. And whether it is actually the motives of certain classes of people, rather than human judgements as a generalisation, that give potential to better clues. In my opinion, one possible upside to this observation is if we can extend this premise to project settings. Such as the subsets of project actors in complex construction. Can groupings be found to begin addressing motivation types that can pull interest into or away from a project goal? This I have previously identified as a possibility, per my MSc dissertation from 2020.

A second possible area of further research he identified as cultural differences. Dunning highlighted geographical culture, citing research that had given explanations to individual nuance comparing Japanese and North American differing motivations when faced with self-image threats. Japanese reaction being one of self-development flags vs. North Americans deeming these triggers to defend self-image. That could be considered directly in cultural terms in multinational projects. But I think we could consider industry sectors as having cultural norms too.

Perhaps these two research lenses can be combined. Could projects be typed to give idea of internal dissonance? Differences of understanding between parties themselves? Varying the project settings, this could be layering of the supply chain, and across commercial interfaces between parts of government hierarchy, or the interfaces between the buyer and seller in procurement. Other categorisations of comparison could be available across horizontal sector analysis, or vertical management analysis. Or we could consider this temporally at various stages of a project. Categorising motivations across knowledge, affirmations, and coherence between project actors. Relative power and influence, compared to specifics of motivational themes. Or more closely examining the variance within a single actor and its parts.

The comparisons I am providing of the Construction Playbook, the means of managing accountability within role and responsibility allocations, or the comparison of the High Reliability Organisation to other forms of safety concern, each providing places to pitch such research.

In all cases, perhaps opportunity to research this appropriately will come knocking. Or through my ongoing research and learning, I can formulate an academically sound case to make the enquiry come around the other way. Either way, I continue to find new comparisons and synergies between my risk orientation into the project management world, and that of psychology.

More than this however, I am now observing need in both camps. This social psychology is evolving science, and the project world is a complexity of human process desperately in need of new perspectives. These seem to me two parties in need of some mutual research. One as arena to the other.

In the interim, it remains more than enough to keep me asking more, upskilling more, challenging more, and seeking better perspectives on necessary wider change.

To be continued…

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

behaviour, david dunning, motivation, MSc, psychology, social psychology

Social Representation

…Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler
Albert Einstein

…I apologize for such a long letter – I didn’t have time to write a short one.
Mark Twain

Where do we, the general public, sit between these two truths? In the modern age we have no time – or no will – to read lengthy explanations. We prefer lowest common denominator, headline grabbing, click bait.

If there is honest intent to maintain truth in explaining cause and effect, psychology might call this stripped bare version “Social Representation”.

Although it must be said even the summaries of theory hardly get us closer to what this represents. From my text book we have these two summaries to help us:

…collective elaborative explanations of complex phenomena that transform them into familiar and simple form
Hogg and Vaughn 2018 pp105.

Their second attempt was:

…simplified causal theories of complex phenomena that are socially constructed through communication contextualised by intergroup relations. Rumour and gossip may play a key role in social representations.
(ibid pp113)

My homework tonight was to explain this in less than 200 words. I think Social Representation is simply:

…what science looks like once filtered through Twitter
author’s own

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199 words

High Reliability Organisation

Five principles about a HRO, that you need to know

This blog outlines what characterises a High Reliability Organisation, and why these five key principles relate equally to both projects of mind and of management.

I begin with a quote from two of the stalwarts of this topic and who nicely frame a reality I think most can relate to in any management or organisational setting.

is it really all that rare to have optimistic plans, insufficient staff, mis-estimates of complexity, broken promises, overlooked details, turf-battles, loss of control, unanticipated consequences? No!
Weick and Sutcliffe 2007 “managing the unexpected : resilient performance in an age of uncertainty” pp17.

This essay is focused upon the ability of a project to respond effectively to whatever circumstances become real. When the static plans, that were so good on paper, face the chaos of real world interactions. Those interfaces that were ignorant to the precision of the project script. How best to prepare for this change? How ready is the project to meet this friend or foe? How would the manner of your project preparedness, compare to the HRO?

Much of this sentiment perhaps applies equally well to people’s personal lives. The personal plans, lack of time or money, failures to anticipate, be ready, or adapt. There is opportunity to consider all scale with similar concepts of preparing for the unknown.

To plan or to train?

For me, this is fundamentally what the High Reliability Organisation is doing differently to most. Through the manner of organisational infrastructure, the attention to planning and training becomes quite differently orientated. As does the cultural implication too.

Much as we may associate emergency services, or armed forces, or special teams in some sports, there is a plan but it is the nature of the training that makes the adaptability count for more. Case studies in this area have focused upon processes upon US Navy Aircraft Carriers, emergency wards in hospitals, air traffic control, nuclear power plants. High profile failures have also been examined through this same lens. There are lessons and practice challenges that should be of interest to all.

High Reliability Organisations

Lekke (2011) writes a comprehensive review of the literature pertaining to HROs. Reflecting upon literary debate from 1990 onwards the more reliability-enhancing focused literature i.e., processes that an organisation uses to successfully manage its risk (as opposed early definitions that focused on accident statistics) present the most meaningful guidance for wider organisational application (Lekke 2011, pp5-6). This paper is available free from the HSE, and a link to the download page is offered toward the bottom of this blog.

The earlier work by Weick and Sutcliffe from 2007 is a more comprehensive examination of the five principles I address today. It is therefore their book that will draw the most comment and quotations in this blog.

Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe 2007 “Managing the unexpected : resilient performance in an age of uncertainty” 2nd ed. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. Karl Weick is a professor of organisational behaviour and psychology, and author. Kathleen Sutcliffe an award winning researcher (2006), author and professor of management and organisations. I quote and summarise findings from chapters two, three and four. However, the fifth chapter, not elaborated upon in this blog, is well worth a read too – Assessing capability for resilient performance – a series of audit process steps that enable an assessment of corporate mindfulness across HRO principles.

Weick and Sutcliffe’s five HRO principles

These five principles are what are deemed the most pertinent to characterise an organisation truly focused upon safety in high risk environments. They are further elaborated upon further into this blog.

Principle one – Preoccupation with failure and learning (per Weick et al 2007)
Principle two – Reluctance to simplify. “less simplification allows you to see more. HROs take deliberate steps to create a more complete and nuanced pictures of what they face and who they are as they face it. Knowing that the world they face is complex, unstable, unknowable, and unpredictable, HROs position themselves to see as much as possible” (Weick et al 2007 pp10)
Principle three – Sensitivity to Operations. “less strategic and more situational than is true of most other organisations. When people have well-developed situational awareness, they can make the continuous adjustments that prevent errors from accumulating and enlarging” (Weick 2007 pp13, citing Endsley (1995))
Principle four – commitment to resilience. “a combination of keeping errors small and of improvising workarounds that allow the system to keep functioning. Both of these pathways to resilience demand deep knowledge of the technology, the system, one’s coworkers, and most of all, oneself” (Weick et al 2007, pp14)
Principle five – Deference to expertise. “decisions are made on the front-line, and authority mitigates to the people with the most expertise, regardless of their rank” (Weick et al 2007 pp16).

HRO five principles and five factors of mindfulness

Weick and Sutcliffe produced an earlier paper, entitled “Mindfulness and the quality of organisational attention” 2006, Organisation Science 2006 4:7-8 pp514-524 which per page 519 gives consideration to mindfulness as it pertains to HRO characteristics. Preoccupation with failure; reluctance to simplify; and sensitivity to operations; commitment to resilience; deference to expertise; all outlined across a stability (or instability) of attention. Concluding that where HRO failings arise these may be characterised as the weakened mindful attention which they term as “mindless” as actions become too routine and attention becomes more diffused.

Note the convergence with individual Mindfulness practice

This prompted me to revisit John Vervaeke’s five factors of mindfulness. These are examinations of ones self whilst in meditative practice. It is derived from eastern traditions upon which Mindfulness has been popularised in the west. I have blogged about John Vervaeke before. There is more than a little to compare across the five factors of both.

The five factors of mindfulness

Each of these five factors is as Vervaeke describes them. I offer the HRO principle that correlates in italics

Vigilance – as new awareness not accepting familiarity, being watchful, enquiring, exploratory. To this I equate HRO preoccupation with failure e.g., tracking all failures (Weick et al 2007 pp2)

Sensitivity – ensuring the unfolding process can be further understood, as would be comparing a movie developing over time, vs a still of a picture. This I equate to HRO deference to expertise. The expert at the scene is seeing an incident unfold, any command and control delay can only be acting upon summary or picture moments to the film.

Acuity – unpacking and observing each part. HRO Reluctance to simplify.

Flow – discern and discriminate, observing physical characteristic, emotional state, and the intentions of attention or distraction of the mind. HRO Sensitivity to operations

Reminding – in such analysis being reminded to retain the vigilance and not become distracted from why the attention has been brought to the present. HRO commitment to resilience, e.g., managerial interest in retaining capabilities to resilience (Weick 2007 pp2)

HRO Five Principles as applicable to behavioural control

Weick and Sutcliffe split these five principles into two groups. Principles of anticipation. Principles of containment. (Weick et al 2007 pp42). I now present these same principles in these two groups. And include the corresponding principle as it applies in Mindfulness. Have in mind how these relate to preparations necessarily being coordinated in respect to behavioural controls.

Anticipation

PRINCIPLE ONE – preoccupation with failure. [Vigilance]

Embrace failure by paying close attention to the weak signals of failure; and by amplifying the attention to what these weak signals are, so that all parties can be on the look out for them (pp46). Detection may be made easier with check-lists; vigilance to failed processes of operation, follow-up, or checking; awareness of resource stretch or communication failures; awareness of distraction by multiple task. Or by asking the better questions that are hands-on; addressing criticality; and at least as frequently as needed. As a leader, being candid about our own failures can become encouragement for others to do the same (pp48). Reporting failures; encouraging and even rewarding the reporting (pp49) which can promote greater trust.

PRINCIPLE TWO – reluctance to simplify [acuity]

HROs simplify slowly, reluctantly (pp54). By example of the need for caution, here are some listed hazards of when too quickly assigning labels:

minor works by value can be equated to less importance (pp55)
shared labels but diverse meaning (pp 56)
labelling too early denies further acquaintance (pp 57) and draws us away from more detail and hidden early warning signs (pp 58)

PRINCIPLE THREE – sensitivity to operations [flow]

This is about the work itself, what is actually happening (pp 60). Interdisciplinary and interdepartmental interactions both increase credibility and trust, but also deepens peoples understanding of the interdependency of the complex system itself. This includes leader and manager availability at key moments of transition, communication, or change (pp59). Quantitative and qualitative knowledge are equally valued, face-to-face dialogue equal to reports (pp60). Beware the mindless routine (pp61). Beware the complacency of all is okay (pp61)

Containment

PRINCIPLE FOUR – Commitment to resilience [reminding]

Resilience is a form of control (pp70). It reflects three abilities: absorb strain; stretch and recover not collapse; learn and grow (pp71)

“human fallibility is like gravity, weather, and terrain, just another foreseeable hazard”
Weick et al 2007 pp68

the mode of resilience is based on the assumption that unexpected trouble is ubiquitous and unpredictable; and thus accurate advanced information on how to get out of it is in short supply.
Aaron Wildavsky (cited via Weick et al 2007 pp 69)

PRINCIPLE FIVE – deference to expertise [sensitivity]

The Karlene Roberts term is “migrating decisions, both up and down” (pp74). There is no place for delegation to an expert and leaving them to it. Citing the NASA Columbia enquiry “mission management welcomed this opinion and sought no others” in respect to one manufacturer opinion of tile efficacy going unchallenged (pp76).

HROs make an effort to see what people with greasy hands knows
Weick and Sutcliffe 2007 pp77

Expertise not experts – meaning an assemblage of knowledge not a person or institution. The example offered reflects ad hoc and self-organising networks that collectively provide expertise to solve a problem – without formal status and that dissolve as crisis is averted. This is characterised by pooling of expertise, flexibility, empowerment, based on increased skills and insight (pp 78). It also requires credibility (pp79), i.e., trust.

The comparison of personal awareness through careful and open meditative or contemplative practice, and the necessary attention necessary of management if a HRO environment is to be nurtured present opportunity for further examination of behavioural control theory in both project and psychological settings. The comparison made here is to demonstrate how connected these examinations may be possible to draw insight.

people in HROs work hard to counteract the tendency to seek confirmation by designing practices that incorporate the five principles. They understand their expectations are incomplete and that they can come closer to getting it right if they doubt those expectations that seem to confirmed most often
Weick and Sutcliffle, 2007 pp27

Additional factor comparisons

Saleh et al (2010), offered these same principles but the differently nuanced explanations offer some additional context to organisational commitment if following a HRO type ideal:

Production and safety as concomitant organisational goals. What Saleh et al (2010) summarise as organisational consensus i.e., as shared by all levels from senior management to front line operators;

Decentralised vs centralised operations with deference to expertise. An ability to shift from central authority during routine operation to the deferring to expertise at the location of situation in moments of need. Particularly where safety critical and time constrained. (per Weick et al 2007) “authority migrates to the people with expertise, regardless of their ranks” but also noting HROs operate centrally in normal times to engender culture, ensure training and readiness for crisis situations.

Organisational slack and redundancy. Enabling available mobility of task aware resource “if primary units fail or falter” (LaPorte TR., Consolini, PM. 1991)

Projects | within projects

mindful people have the “big picture” but it is a big picture of the moment…
…mindfulness is different from situational awareness in the sense that it involves the combination of ongoing scrutiny of existing expectations, continuous refinement and differentiation of expectations based on newer experiences, willingness and capability to invent new expectations that make sense of unprecedented events, a more nuanced appreciation of context and ways to deal with it, and identification of new dimensions of context that improve foresight and current functioning.
Weick and Sutcliffe 2007 pp32

A key factor of my current theorising and research motivation is my ongoing belief that the modelling of psychology and the modelling of project management and organisation theory have common ground. In the HRO I believe this to be particularly the case. The greater level of self awareness we can achieve as individuals, the equivalent increased awareness within a project or a firm. It seems to me more than coincidence that Weick and Sutcliffe write in the language of mindfulness and that my own comparisons with John Vervaeke’s psychological work in this area connect so completely.

v | behaviour | t

people in HROs try to weaken the grip of this invisible hand of expectations so that they can see more, make better sense of what they see, and remain more attuned to their current situation. They do this by attending to at least the five principles…
Weick and Sutcliffe 2007 pp32

There will be more to say on visibility and trust as cross references to both HROs and engagement with practices of mental training as outlined in mindfulness in non-escapism forms. Much of the five principles of both reflected upon here connect principally to behaviours and will therefore be revisited as challenges of accounted for same are researched and blogged upon further here.

Applicable to projects of any kind?

All materials I have reviewed to date on HROs consider the organisational readiness for crisis. The first major challenge is to connect this better to projects, and all parties therein not just the organisations that oversee them.

HRO principles steer people toward mindful practices that encourage imagination…it takes mindful practice that encourage imagination, foster enriched expectations, raise doubts about all expectations, increase the ability to make novel sense of small interruptions in expectations, and facilitate learning that intensifies and deepens alertness
Weick and Sutcliffe 2007 pp29-30

Creativity – rather than industry obediently completing without questioning a task – is a factor of personal assessments in the Big Five psychological tests. It always intrigues me that such industry is deemed a preferable factor in business application – I score low on industry (i.e. preferring creativity) which never did my job prospects any harm. This is reflected upon via several, more qualitatively focused, literature references I have blogged upon of late. Such principles may overlap between mind and management – as mindfulness or similar – but a sound and academically credible connection beyond mere comparison is yet to be adequately made, at least by me.

This is very much a work in progress. But the HRO was overdue some attention on this site.

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Additional credits

It was Professor David Stupples, from the School of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Engineering at City University who first introduced me to High Reliability Organisations. It was about this time two years ago. Deep into the introductory module of my Project Management MSc. Project Lifecycle with focus upon Systems Engineering – Systems Theory, Systems Management, Engineering Economics – then onto theorising about safety management. There we were told to read around the concept of the HRO.

I am also grateful to Professor Stupples keeping the HRO concept as a regularly feature in past exams. Alas, for me, January 2020 was not one of those times – for I had prepared a lengthy essay response – but the notes from that preparation aided my writing of this blog.

Some useful resources and links

Not all academic papers are accessible to all. The attached links are therefore offered as useful and worthwhile reading.

HSE link – The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reviewed the HRO literature in 2011. The research was conducted by Dr. Chrysanthi Lekka.

HighReliability.org – this link is useful to compare the focus of different leading authors. I particularly like the directional attention toward the disaster response as either proactive or reactive, and how some key academic writers have addressed HRO inputs.

McKinsey & Company – this article considered the HRO from a more operational perspective. The focus on communication, problem solving and leadership all reflective of wider HRO traits. I particularly like their 2×2 explanation of locational accountability and strength (cf. Principle 5).

Deloitte 2017 – 35 page document that captures much of the language and concepts reflected above.

LaPorte TR., Consolini, PM. 1991 “High Reliability Organisations” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 1991 1:1 pp19-48

Pate-Cornell ME 1996 “Uncertainities in risk analysis : six levels of treatment” Reliability Engineering and System Safety 1996 54:2-3 pp95-111

Weick KE, Sutcliffe KM 2006 “Mindfulness and the quality of organisational attention” 2006, Organisation Science 2006 4:7-8 pp514-524

Weick KE, Sutcliffe KM 2007 “Managing the unexpected : resilient performance in an age of uncertainty” 2nd ed. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Saleh et al (2010) list the following as key works of wider reading:

Turner, BA., Pidgeon, NF. 1997 “Man Made Disasters” 2nd Edition, Oxford Butterworth Heinemann
Perrow, C. 1984 “Normal accidents : living with high-risk technologies” New York Basic Books.
Karlehn Roberts works from 1987-1990
- Rochlin, GI., La Porte, TR., Roberts, KH 1987 “The self-designing high reliability organisation”. Reprinted in Naval War COllege Review 1998, 51:3 pp17
- Roberts, KH 1990 “Some characteristics of one type of high reliability organisation” Organisational Science 1990 1:2 pp160-176;
- Roberts, KH 1990 “Managing high-reliability organisations” California Management Review 1990, 32:4 pp101-113
WASH-1400 and Probabilistic Risk Assessment (per Kaplin and Garrick).
- Kaplin, S., Garrick, BJ 1981 “On the quantitative definition of risk” Risk Analysis 1981, 1:1 pp11-27

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About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

behaviour, High reliability, high risk, HRO, HSE, management, mindfulness, psychology, reliability, vervaeke

Making sense

Behaviour through a third lens

This blog takes on a third example of how to examine and thereby prepare to make better decisions toward behaviours. Bringing qualitative technique back alongside the quantitative techniques we are told are our future norm.

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Sensemaking – What Makes Human Intelligence Essential in the Age of the Algorithm

by Christian Madsbjerg 2017

when we commit to losing a part of ourselves, we gain something profoundly new in exchange. We gain insight. I call the practice of cultivating these types of insights sensemaking.
Christian Madsjberg 2017, Sensemaking pp5

In my opinion some of the sentiment of Madsbjerg has a sense of flow about it. He references “phronesis” to mean an Aristocratic synthesis of knowledge and experience (ibid pp6), and the type of leaders that become as one with the systems, societies, and organisations, they are stewarding “as an extension of their body” (ibid pp7).

CULTURE

From a social psychology we have theories that help explain the contextual nuance behind our social interactions. Social Representations by processes of objectification and anchoring which group or categorise based upon shared (communicated) experiences; or anchoring from pre-existing systems of thought. Madjsberg introduces similar influence pertaining to why people in that culture act the way they do (pp6).

He then (pp8) also identifies with the philosophical addresses objective reality becoming subjective understanding. Referencing Heidegger to reflect upon these unspoken assumptions “that on the basis of which beings are understood”.

we stop seeing a room as a space filled with individual items and we start seeing the structures form a cultural reality…nothing exists in an individual vacuum
Christian Madsjberg 2017, Sensemaking pp11-12

He addresses these meanings as philosophical terms reflecting our spoken exchanges. Highlighting contemporary philosophers and their terms: “Habitus” Pierre Bourdieu; “The discourse” Ernesto Laclau, Michel Foucault “The conversation”

In cognitive psychology there is reason to challenge all ideas of comparison between mind and computer, and the linear processing of information this represents. Madjsberg presents this same challenge with more philosophical underpinning. He rejects Cartesian understanding, arguing this “is meaningless without without studying the world” (pp39). Arguing a little later that sensemaking is the missing connective tissue (pp43), and that we must understand the holistic vs the atomised (pp49), and recommend us to read “no exit” by Sartre (pp51) and highlighting Google’s Ray Kurzweil 2012 book “how to create a mind” and the associated Pattern Recognition Theory of the Mind (PRTM) to which he observes “but it’s not how the brain works…” (pp52).

Heidegger helps conclude this philosophical analysis Hubert Dreyfus “Mind over Machine” as the pre-eminent interpreter of Heidegger (pp55-56). Madjsberg argues that these philosophical interpreters both argue against the mind as a rational calculator. Madjsberg instead presenting a framework of how experts achieve mastery through an engagement with culture and social context (cf. pp57-60 for his 5 stages from novice to expert).

Here are additional categorised concepts. Most pithy phrases, and all explanations are Madsbjerg’s.

THICK DATA

thin data is facts. Thick data is how we relate to the many different worlds we inhabit e.g., sensing the stress in a room (pp15)

pp70-75 four types of knowing: Objective; subjective; shared; sensory. These wide types enabling greater understanding e.g. pp76 pattern recognition or synthesis; pp79-81 literary economics. Reason, emotions, judgement, and analysis.

lack of thick data ability in boardrooms, “imagination and intuitions of top leaders are starving” pp16

PHENOMENON

time and space – reframe to a problem of a phenomenon pp99-100

SAVANNAH

pp15 Savannah not the zoo. Phenomenology of human behaviour in social context; pp18 see its ghosts

the thing in itself

pp93-96 . Avoid getting caught up in what is “real”. Example, pp96 the same champagne in a plastic cup or a fine glass from a white gloved waiter leave you with very different experience

always return to the thing itself
Edmund Husserl

Heidegger (Husserl’s best student) reversed the philosophy to focus upon social structures of worlds as opposed to Husserl’s reflecting on the thinking of the individual. cf. Sartre and existentialism

CARE

pp192 “without care, everything is correct and nothing is true“

pp154-155 William James “the principles of psychology” references to attention as focalisation, concentration, of consciousness vs other thoughts. “My experience is what I agree to attend to”

Madsbjerg presents this in a number of forms. pp183 become a connoisseur; pp187 alchemy of sensemaking by being in it. He also reflects upon what is not technical understood (pp191), concluding that “care cannot be replaced with Moneyball type atomised analytics” (pp194).

CREATIVITY

as opposed to manufacturing. pp123 problem solving human behaviour with no hypothesis or clarity of what is known needs sensemaking creativity that comes through us not from us

Related to THICK DATA is need for wider perspective because, he argues pp22, our complexity is artificial and our data is inappropriately contextualised. pp21 Abductive logic affords creative insight, but that requires us to accept dead ends and serendipity. It is messy and needs a confidence to remain doubt for indeterminate amounts of time.

pp130 “grace” as creative insight travelling through us via our social sphere not from us. [the later examples on pp146 akin to flow].

pp131 psychologist Wolfgang Kohler “three Bs” bus, bath, bed as three places where environment engenders creativity. Heidegger referred to “the middle voice” or old Greek word “phainesthai” which erases the distinction between subject and object – rather how they are revealed through us not by us.

pp158 “with a click, the left and the right are equally satisfied” pp159 “the metaphor” pp160 “the derring-do is actually in the service of site constraints” rather than the signature of the artist.

EMPATHY

pp107-108 “mood mentality” neither comes from outside or inside but from our very existence in the world.

pp116 theory of reciprocity (cf Marshall Sahlins three models of giving) give to get more vs get the same vs no expectation of return;

pp 114-116 Heidegger three levels of empathy:

below awareness threshold which we adjust to. It may be cultural clothing norms, or particular nuance of language. Sociologists and anthropologists have debated for 100 years whether this has a socio-animalistic or formal structural undertone.
awareness when it’s wrong. Often triggered from first level empathy moving to this second
Analytical empathy which is systematic, framework and theory supported. “This is sensemaking. Theory unlimatelg reveals the insight” pp116

pp168 “assessing and responding to the core emotional interests in the room” Sheila Heen Difficult Conversation (Harvard business school) pp169 in a room full of executives who is respected? Who is carries weight of insight? Who is seen as difficult? Who is trusted? Who is beloved?

pp170 reading the leader’s relationships, including the relationship with themselves. Self-conscious, cynical, invested, self-deprecating or at least self transforming?

pp171 reading the culture of the company: competitive; egalitarian; creative; hard-nosed; underdog or alpha. Changing points and tensions.

pp173 “reading between the rules”

pp175 be with the people to read them. If you cannot be with them, then read their fiction. The descriptions of the human experience.

pp176 “the gulf of veneer” vs walking in their shoes

pp177 understanding the antagonistic world. pp178 know who you talking to, and who they are really talking to pp179 which means you must know the culture.

pp182 the key is navigating the other persons emotions. The most dangerous negotiation is the one you do not know you are in.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

pp101 discourse analysis – words and concepts meaning and significance.

pp116 symbols and nuance of meaning; discourse theory showing words in context (cf Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe); binary codes of social systems (cf Niklas Luhmann); stage-managed impressions (cf Erving Goffman’s “the presentation of Self in Everyday life” 1956); Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theories of language – “don’t think, but look” as most language of cooperation is not verbalised.

ABDUCTIVE LOGIC

Abductive – nonlinear – educated guesswork of most likely.

cf Peirce 1877 “the fixation of belief”; 1899 “first rule of logic”; 1903 “pragmatism and abduction”. Observing that Pierce was critical of deductive or inductive logic the former asserts correctness, and the second asserts unknowns are knowable with more technical ability.

NORTH STAR

not GPS. pp23 sensemaking shows the breadth of textural context needed. Following the North Star not head stuck upon the gps.

pp173 teaching is a negotiation. You’re negotiating for engagement and credibility. Once content is known you can speak from inside the content and thereby respond in the moment to the context.

pp195 Heidegger “meaningful difference”. The opposite in nihilism which corporate hierarchy is filled with. cf Heidegger 1954 “the question concerning technology” which he argues has not only replaced our gods but also replaced us. Optimisation of the material rather than flexing with it to find its best repurpose. pp197 we do this with people as interchangeable widgets vs “the source of meaning in our lives is not in us…it is in being in the world…we can all bring out what is best in ourselves” Hubert Dreyfus.

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v | behaviour | t

As a foil to the biological and behaviourist sentiments of Robert Sapolsky, Christian Madsbjerg’s equally contemporary writing presents the more nuanced reflection of what the mind offers in problem solving, rather than the explanations of behaviour as bio-chemistry and the brain.

The significance of sensemaking as presented in this wonderfully engaging book is its engagement with philosophical discussion in a practical way. Principally reflecting upon the necessary skill sets we all need when managing the very human reality in decision-making. This is the third blog from me this week addressing perspectives on behaviour. All of which I treat as equally valid in potential for understanding behavioural challenge, and therein the means by which controls and directions to decision-making can be outlined.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

behaviour, book review, culture, decision-making, flow, humanities, logic, philosophy, psychology, qualitative

Living without free will

Biology, behaviourism, control

v | b | t

This is a completely different argument of how behaviour can be addressed. It sits in conflict to the ordering of cause and effect I have reflected upon elsewhere. Visibility of this difference an important part of future assessment needs. As an address of behaviour however, it has the same central premise of control at its core.

Whether we trust in free will, society, the individual or the collective, we will have more trust in each other if we share visibility and control regimes of our behaviour that are intended to protect us all.

I have visited two purveyors of alternative perspective on this over the last few days. One I will now be visiting regularly. The other, not so much. Here are my working notes on both. I conclude with some additional observations, which set up additional research intentions and connect these ideas to wider sentiments I have introduced in other blogs.

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Professor Robert M Sapolsky

Professor of Biology, Neurology & Neurosurgery at Stanford University. In reporting upon Robert Sapolsky’s award for Distinguished Scientific contribution, American Psychologist wrote:

For connecting behavior with the neurobiology of stress through pioneering studies on baboons in Kenya and rats in the laboratory, which has opened the way for understanding how the cumulative burden of stress over the life course can accelerate brain aging and predispose an organism to systemic disease. Robert M. Sapolsky’s work has also revealed the synergy among glucocorticoid hormones, excitatory amino acids in the brain, and glucose availability in causing neuronal damage after stroke and seizures. A remarkably lucid and entertaining writer and speaker, in his essays and lectures Sapolsky reminds us of human foibles and illuminates how the social environment and individual personality influence physiology and brain function
America Psychologist November 2013, pp613

This same piece concludes with an outline of his commitment to communicating about neuroscience and its social implications to the lay public (ibid pp615). A quick check on YouTube will confirm his following is significant and his viewership consistently over 500,000 views.

A compelling argument towards the complexity of behaviour is presented in “The biology of humans at our best and worst“. The example scenario used in several lectures, TEDtalks, and podcast interviews is that of a male firing a weapon at a perpetrator who was possibly wielding a firearm but which turns out to be a ‘phone. He asks why did that behaviour occur? And presents the following multi-modal reasoning of contributing factors. The point being all of these modal perspective offer biologically relatable cause in time frames that become evolutionarily long.

1. one second before : what went on in his brain. Amydala activity indicates negative response or action potential is emergent.
2. minutes before : what environmental stimuli influenced his brain. Factors such as smell are considered influencing upon action.
3. hours before : what hormone sensitised him to those stimuli? Testosterone levels can increase the challenge defence response.
4. weeks before : what experiences (e.g. sustained stress) had reshaped his brain to determine how the more immediate forces would be received? Trauma will encourage the physical expansion of the amygdala months prior.
5. from adolescence : how did life experiences (pre-25 year old) impact the immature frontal cortex and shape the adult he became? Numerous external factors contribute to relative maturity and development of the frontal cortex (which is what determines our socialisation abilities)
6. from fetal life and childhood : how did early life experiences cause lifelong change in brain function and influence dormant gene expression? Prenatal stress hormone level have a determining factor from mother to fetal development.
7. from moment of conception : what genes were coded to determine hormone and neurotransmitter response? What variant MAO-alpha gene was inherited.
8. decades to millennia before : how did cultural and social environment come to define life norms, and by what ecological factors did this become the case? Is the cultural norm one of honour and revenge?
9. Millenia : Through gene selections and wider specie development, how did these behaviours evolve? Highly sexually dimorphic behaviours.
Robert Sapolsky “the biology of humans at our best and worst“

At best therefore, Sapolsky argues the causation of behaviour is complex. Across these multi-facetted and time relative perspectives it is this collective of contributions that become the causal factors.

No free will

In a 2020 interview he again refers to these layers of influence toward a behavioural response. They all become one factor. We can be changed by circumstance. We cannot change ourselves. There is no free will. There is no first neurone firing that begins an action, there is always preceding event.

But that does not deny the potential for change

In a very recent interview on the Huberman Lab podcast, 30th August 2021, Sapolsky talks at length about stress, dispels some myths about hormone interactions, and then addresses free will. We can know to know, he says deep into the interview (01:21:08). Change is possible of our mechanical systems, and finding means to build on this framework change, so responses are different. We remain our biology but striving to be better by knowing more means to mechanical change and it’s possibility. Learning that learning changes the brain, that in itself is the knowledge of knowledge becomes the tool of change. Just as protocols or pills are.

No free will, but still reason to seek exposures to externalities that effective change. What I conclude from this is that even if it is only the manner of natural environment that regulates such response – this is still reason enough to be focused upon the betterment of controls.

Before I evaluate this further, I digested one other book this week in search of how behaviour can be measured or controlled. The idea of contingency as cause, sits in this same agentless view of our interactions with the world.

Professor Stephen L Ledoux

“What causes human behavior – stars, self, or contingency” 2018

This recent book is an uncompromising argument as to why behaviourism, or more correctly behaviorology, should be preferred to psychology. The premise being that star sign and psychological addressing of behaviour by any form of agency of self are both little more than mysticism.

By example:-

mysticism – as in untestable or unmeasurable – behaviour – directing agents
Stephen L Ledoux “what causes human behaviour – stars, selves, or contingency?” 2018 pp xvii

In seeking the most contemporary examples of behaviouristic method, this book offers some assistance in this regard and helps contextualise behaviourism more broadly.

Historical context of behaviourism :-

John Watson 1913 denying any private experience is real. BF Skinner from 1930s to 1980s and bringing along “radical” behaviourism and his 1963 paper – celebrating 50 years of behaviourism. To which Professor Ledoux sought fit to compliment with a 100 year version in 2013. It is Skinner inspired Operant Behaviorism (i.e. stimulus evoked response) which is the basis of method presented at some leisure in this book.

There is also some comment on preceding “inadequate” behaviourism dealt with from pp15. Noting early behaviourist denying private (meaning inner) experience completely. To which it is argued Skinner solved in 1963 by arguing we need not preside over the skin as an interface to the evaluative process. Page 16 has physiology claimed as an ally of behaviourism. Emotions nothing more than chemical changes in the body to which in turn result in a feeling in response. Psychology by comparison is not afforded any such ally, I was a little disappointed therefore that the significant interface it now shares with neuroscience was not offered, even passing observation. My own MSc course is closely aligned with both.

The key notes I have taken from this book, I summarise below. There is reason to return to it, and these notes will prompt any such return.

pp30 and pp50 Parsimony – the simplest explanation is generally the most likely true
Pp37 in essence the argument is simply A to B to C. Antecedent to behaviour to consequence.
Pp38 antecedents as IV and most often one of multiple stimuli of which one or several may have contingent cause as the antecedent(s)
Pp39 behaviour is termed response in specific circumstances
Pp40 consequence being the varied operant effect becoming chapter addresses of the later book.
Pp41 C can also be reinforcing stimuli (SR)
Pp43 1987 TAEB The experimental analysis of behaviour
Pp63 what is NOT behaviour. Growth or decay; traits;
Pp76 bodily functions as stimuli; Pp77 emotional arousal as physiological stimuli
Pp85 controls as part of the environment. Behaviour control environment
Pp85 law of cumulative complexity
Pp86 responses are put in to classes (response class) where the regulatory of a response class may be measured her time e.g. dishwashing x times in 7 days.
Pp87. Behaviour classes are : motor behaviour (movements)
Pp88 emotional behaviour as glands stimuli for example
Pp89 functional classification – respondent behaviour (Pavlov); operant behaviour (Skinner)
Pp92 natural law controls ALL behaviour
Pp120 diagram of multiple contingent for reflexive; Pp121 non-reflexive; Pp123 generalisation – in conditioning; pp124 stimulus generalising; Pp126 evocation – evocation training – SR feeds energy back to nervous system and evokes us to respond differently
Pp129 function altering stimuli; Pp133 covert neural behaviour cf Fraley 2008; Pp141 positive or negative same as reinforcing or punishing postcedents; Pp151 types of reinforcer; Pp153 extinction of respondent when no longer able to elicits response; Pp169 shaping; Pp179 chaining; Pp191 fading procedure; Pp199 schedules of reinforcement; Pp217 assertive controls and 8 coercion traps; Pp273 overt and covert; Pp279 passivity

I now want to briefly reflect upon a confrontational tone of argument in this book. One hard to reconcile as coming from the academic class.

These next notes are prepared to support discussion within my MSc tutorials. We are mid-debate regarding the place of disciplinary dialogue and range of arguments that must be understood if the various arms of psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, biology, neuroscience, and wider behavioural sciences are to be understood. The sustained attack by this author is thereby captured below for representation with my fellow students. Here are some quotes reflecting the uncompromising dismissive attitude directed at psychology.

we consider Skinner’s radical behaviorism, the philosophy that extends naturalism to inform the natural science of behavior that today we call behaviorology, after its separation from the non-natural, fundamentally mystical discipline that defines itself as studying “behavior and the mind”, (pp7)
the relation between behaviorology and psychology approximates the relation between biology and creationism (pp9)
but if natural scientists instead compromise by allowing claims that behavior in general … results from the spontaneous, willful act of some putative inner agent, then they lose the whole subject matter of human behavior – a subject matter whose application is likely vital for human survival – to purveyors of non-science (pp10)
with these processes, or sub parts, like id, ego, motive, choice, or trait, we cannot trace the behaviorological, physiological, chemical, or physical links of a natural functional history chain; we can only trace the causal chain back to the supposed spontaneous wilful act of the self agent. This breaks the chain of events in the natural functional history and so further excludes psychological analysis from natural science (pp11)
no capricious inner agent makes responses occur (pp17)
with much scientific activity involving methods, anyone using scientific procedures, even mystical people, can objectively collect data on any real phenomenon (pp19)
the general result of this development [1987 split of behaviorolgy as a separate discipline] is a foundation natural science related to all other natural sciences, not at the discredited level of body-directing self-agents, but at the level of a body’s physics based interactions with the external and internal environments (pp19)
some disciplines studying behaviour fall for overly complex accounts (e.g. minds, psyche, selves, souls, or many other types of putative behavior-initiating self-agents), (pp32)
[of agentialism] as a result psychology began as a non-natural discipline, and remains so today, (pp43)
it [psychology] even defined itself as “the study of behavior and the mind”, as it stuck to its secular (i.e., non-theological) version of mysticism. (pp43)
…”the demon-haunted world” Carl Sagan (1995) referred to science as “a candle in the dark”. We must turn that candle into a floodlight exposing the whole variety of unhelpful accounts for behavior while illuminating the helpful accounts for natural behavior science, and thereby support the tole of this science in helping solve local and global problems.. (pp50)
as science expanded, the fictional accounts for most phenomena have retreated. Today, fictional accounts generally still thrive only with respect to human nature and human behavior (pp51)
many scientific and other authors would welcome linguistic changes that allow them to write without automatically implying inner agents (pp52)
Stephen L Ledoux “what causes human behaviour – stars, selves, or contingency?” 2018

The most telling lesson in behaviour I take from this book is to retain a level of respect and dignity in academic writing, and at least have the good grace to keep current with arguments opposed to ones own. My reading of the likes of Robert Sapolsky suggest this more constructive dialogue approach to advancing subject matter still sits alive and well.

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Additional observations to build upon in due course

Two quite separate sets of thought are racing since Robert Sapolsky reframed the more biological-neuroscientist perspective on human decision-making.

Firstly that we have little if anything to do with the immediate decision-making process beyond having ownership of the biology we contain;

Second, that what do have is ability, and perhaps therein a responsibility, to be putting ourselves into the path of passing circumstance that offers better versions of those parts in us that effect wider event.

By Robert Sapolsky’s own admissions it is hard to reconcile with the second part. The second part being how we live without free will. How are we to remain morally governed or even inclined if we have no directive part in the play? How can we remain accountable for our actions and inactions. Why bother to give thought to anything at all? That is, however, to assume there is also pre-destiny. And of that I remain unconvinced. Nor is it, in my opinion, where Sapolsky’s account is directed.

How is this related to projects | within projects?

Modelling of complexity

Robert Sapolsky is presenting the challenges of addressing numerous levels of systems. Biological systems with huge complexity. Therein the realities of influence that relate to distance. The more layers one must pass through, the less influence we can expect to have. In the Limbic System he argues (lecture 14 of his 2010-2011 Human Behavioural Biology series), that this is measured in the number of synapse a message must cross through. In the world of construction projects I equate this to the commercial contracts across a supply chain. The more layers there are, the less influence the employer has over the lowest sitting links. The solution in both cases is creating extra pathways to override, intercept, or simply have visibility of interventions from elsewhere.

Sapolsky also reflects upon prior history as effecting current action potential. This is much the same as the history of our supply routes, cultural ties, beliefs, laws, customs, and propensity to revisit old wars. Much the same as within one organisation it is only in understanding the history of takeovers, mergers, successful relationships with clients and suppliers, shared relationships or long-standing feuds, that one can begin to better understand why the infrastructure of that business works in suboptimal or counter-intuitive ways. Furthermore, just as evolution is quick to punish outdated modes of being, so too does economics and cash-flow quickly reward those frameworks of processes finding work arounds to past solutions that are now in the way.

v | Behaviour | t

Firstly, returning to the challenge to free will. For purposes of my projects research free will or not seems less of a concern than to acknowledge behaviour is still a subject of potential control. It matters only that we know there is potential for change. This is Robert Sapolsky’s key point in arguing there is still reason to seek better ways.

Second, the point at which Robert Sapolsky seems less sure of how we then set ourselves up to live. My work around is taking the position that the resulting actions are not predetermined even if we are not directly acting with agency or otherwise. We can get to know the appropriateness of the controls. Influence the manner of the control. As Sapolsky says repeatedly, “we can know to know”. I would add that we can know why to know. We can seek to know what better control is and why, and let the process of converting action potentials within neurones worry about themselves. Our project controls at all levels need to account for such unpredictability regardless how the actions come to pass.

Modal confusion

There is also modal confusion addressed here. Robert Sapolsky makes a fabulous case for the multi-layered influences of our behaviour. That all of these factors can have impact, and that to look upon one mode alone is to miss the complexity that unfolds.

By example of this modal flexing, Robert Sapolsky talks of the amplification of actions where elevated testosterone plays a part. That it is society that rewards action and therein the challenge defence that testosterone helps reinforce. But this is not aggression. It is society that rewards the selfish, assertive, dominating types. Testosterone is defending challenge to status. But it is society determining what factors status is derived. Sapolsky’s observations are that it is therefore at a societal level we can hope to have some control. If we reward more kindness with more status, challenges to status will have testosterone fuelled kindness as the follow on. These become nudges toward a direction of travel. My question here is simply do we collectively think our direction of travel could be better, and if so what control of our meta-systems better reflects that goal?

My point here is that this is precisely the observation of our interactions themselves. That our own conflicting intentions become nuanced by our interactions with others, and [the illusion of] ourselves. But that in all cases there is potential for change. Not needing to be born of free will, but nor relevant if not. Change, born out of influence of the control environments we create. The modal level of risk we are addressing becomes critical to this assessment.

Accountability and responsibility

Victims one and all?

Next is the issue of whether free will is the only means by which we can give justification to holding an individual accountable, or least responsible for their actions. Robert Sapolsky argues that our justice systems are a leading edge of reform need. Not arguing that we let danger to society loose upon the streets, more that we have a little more empathy to the reason they the criminal actors are so broken at all. Controversial, emotive, and itself a position to polarise the lay persons he is reaching toward. A worthwhile debate but for my part, I sit opposed.

Responsibility without blame

Whether we become radical behaviourists like Skinner, hold out for the idealism of mind over matter, or allow a dualism of mind and body in any order of influence or prioritised proof of anything at all, there is a level of amalgamations of systems of interaction that we identify with as a whole.

Here again I see projects and organisational thinking troubled by the same modal confusion. I have previously written about how accountability can be retained whilst responsibility shifts between layers of engagement. I think this same principle can be applied in downward layers of attention without necessitating a reductionism towards subatomic physics. Not that Robert Sapolsky would disagree with that, at least as a pro or con towards free will. He argues that the necessary “bubbling up” from quantum mechanics to synaptic levels of biology are not feasible; they offer nothing positive toward a less random decision ability if free will is argued for; or offer a uniform influence across the trillions of synaptic messages that would therein have to all conform.

My point is that regardless of whether we think an individual wills an action or not, society functions at this higher level of control. We are all individuals by that metric. Regardless of whether that is an amalgamation of systems. Or whether consciousness or self determined agency are illusory. Both still reflect a contained system and with it one scale of control. Accordingly, we legally and in personal judgements hold these levels of a whole as stand alone. We are each that collection of systems, that illusion of self. And the human version of collaboration which our frontal cortex helps us navigate better than other animal systems, becomes the beginnings of wider human derived societal controls.

We can address accountability and responsibility in these same terms. The key point is to be clear in the modal level of engagement we are working from. It is these social laws that we deem consent to be age related. Or what constitutes acceptable exchange of chattel. Or what organisational complexity and what hierarchical order we attach and seek reward. This is the what. The containment of a social system we should know to know.

Concluding remarks

Free will or otherwise, we are all responsible for the societal, organisational, or moral controls past down to us. We are personally responsible to ensure we agree they are right, or make peace with how we reconcile that they are wrong. We also each retain responsibility for what we have been handed down, and accountability for what we pass on further therein. This is the burden of management of others. And the stewardship and duty in leadership that most attempt to evade.

I am therefore encouraged by the congruent conclusions all theory and science across these disciplines seems to land upon – at least from what I have found so far. To my mind (or the illusion therein), this still becomes a question of behaviour, and the manner of control.

This remains immensely complex, but perhaps able yet to be bettered by the nature of control.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

accountability, behaviour, behaviourism, change, cognitive, decision-making, environment, MSc, plastic brain, project controls, psychology, responsbility

Psychology

Today’s blog is a brief overview of how some key elements of psychology sit together.

This is a working model I began building out 18 months ago. It will no doubt be subject to change as I progress in my more formal MSc Psychology learning.

Historic groupings of psychology and connecting fields

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

MSc, psychology

Flow

What is flow? Can we find it in our projects?

This blog summarises several accounts from academics in psychology and neuroscience on the subject of flow. To which I then add some context as I believe it can apply to projects and outlined using v | b | t.

the positive aspects of human experience – joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life I call flow
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

This blog is prompted by an observation and a question asked of a correspondent friend on LinkedIn. Who posted a ponderance as to whether the feelings of flow has a place in more group activity. It is a question I have been pondering for a while. Others have been writing of it for decades.

First, I need to introduce the two scholars of note by summaries of their work I hereafter refer:

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyl
John Vervaeke

I begin with a summary of key matters on the phenomena of flow

—//—

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

“Flow: the psychology of optimal experience.” (1990)

The book is written in ten chapters, of which I will offer some detail from chapter 4, “Conditions of flow”. For context the ten chapters read as follows:

Happiness revisited
The anatomy of consciousness
Enjoyment and quality of life
Conditions of flow
The body in flow
The flow of thought
Work as flow
Enjoying solitude and other people
Cheating chaos
The making of meaning

Chapter 4 – conditions of flow

Individual conditions to enable flow

pp71, Chapter 4, the Conditions of flow. The conditions within us to achieve flow are briefly summarised. The opening paragraph presents heightened concentration; lost self-consciousness; a sense that skill set is adequate in ability, relevant to task, and under control. Control in this context presented as a rule-bound action system with clear clues as to the quality of performance of task (ibid pp71). In flow, the activity becoming one performed for its own sake, in of itself the reason.

The autotelic personality

These personal traits or characteristics are what become referred to as the autotelic personality. Pp83 makes contrast to the autotelic personality, i.e., opposite traits are presented. These are traits of those of us unlikely or just incapable of flow. Reasoned by their inability to deny distractions from task focus. By one extreme, the schizophrenic’s curse of being compelled to take note of all feeling and need, without choice. By the other extreme, the excessively self-conscious person so concerned for their imagined appearance to others that the task itself cannot be central in attendance (ibid pp84). Both the inner compulsion or the outer more concern present a lacking of the “attentional fluidity needed to relate to activities for their own sake” (ibid pp85).

attentional fluidity needed to relate to activities for their own sake
What it is to be autotelic (Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 1990 pp85)

Flow channel – between boredom and anxiety

In all cases of flow there is an expanded complexity to our conscious experience, not so much as to cause anxiety, but enough to overstep thresholds of predictability and boredom (ibid pp74). To which Csikszentmihalyi offers an idea of a flow channel where the levels of skill required are such as to keep us beyond boredom. These skills applied to challenge that is manageably difficult. i.e., presenting enough difficulty to be keep our interest but below a point that anxiety of the scale of challenge consumes our calm. By this 2D measure, an increasing challenge is needing of more skill, and vice-versa (pp74).

Situational conditions to enable flow

Next, the conditions of the activity are examined. pp72 flow activities are described as paramount reality being felt toward optimal experiences in everyday life. Therein pp72, citing Roger Caillois’ four categories of game play to outline a range of activity that can enable a state of flow:

Agon (competitive games);
Alea (games of chance);
ilinx (vertigo – situations that challenge balance or altered body need)
Mimicry (as anything altering the reality or context such as the arts)

Csikszentmihalyi is presenting each category as requiring us to expand the edges or boundary condition of one form of our ordinary perception. From the four categories stated these expansions are outlined as: elevating skills to meet those encountered of an opponent; elevating our sense of future focus; the shuffling of different sense perceptions or the altered focus of consciousness we perceive; or temporary transformation into something other than ourselves (ibid pp73).

Scaled up to societal levels

For Csikszentmihalyi, this is also more than a singular experience, reflecting upon flow at much greater scale. Outlined in terms of culture, nation, and therefore whole populations being more at one with a great task. These can be moments of great focus or adversity. Wars, building of great wonder, eras of great advancement, discovery, and change. The common theme being that the individual or the group is brought back to the moment. Less distracted by what else may otherwise demand our attention or want more of our time.

Contextual denying conditions (Anomie or alienation)

Structural impediments are also outlined. At sociological levels these are referenced as anomie (lack of rules) and alienation.

Anomie could arise from great upheaval where societal norms are lost or collective circumstance changes without clarity of what that now means. Periods of sudden mass wealth, mass poverty, or displacement, or falsification of truths, all equally able to remove any clarity on what is permitted and what is not.

Alienation being the opposite, as an overly constrained set of rules oppressively forced upon a people in ways that contravene their beliefs and goals (pp86).

These are sociological and therefore situational or contextual conditions for flow but structural conditions can also be considered as blocks to flow within each of us.

Personal denying conditions

Neuroscience and psychology are then revisited from pp86. Some people shown to have attentions towards concentration more than others. Cortical activations and “evoked potentials” from senses other than those being used in a task being more active and therefore more able to distract in some people, than others. Compared to the more able to concentrate more singularly on the task at hand.

Crucially, this was not deemed to be genetic or predisposed, but potentially a learned skill in of itself (pp88). By way of further examination Csikszentmihalyi then proceeds to consider the role family and early years learning can have on this learned phenomena in later life. Not however to deny us the potential for flow, but simply to have not presented environments where it is naturally able to be encouraged.

People of flow

The chapter concludes with a brief examination of examples of people who have achieved noteworthy outcomes attributable to flow.

Those people who faced up to moments or lives subjected to great ordeal but who not only survived but thrived by their experience. Richard Logan cited as finding a connection between such accounts as those who “found ways to turn bleak objective conditions into subjectively controllable experience.”

Blueprint of flow activities

Here Csikszentmihalyi presents a common theme that connects them all.

“blueprint of flow activities.
[1] First, they paid close attention to the most minute details of their environment, discovering in it hidden opportunities for action that matched what little they were capable of doing, given the circumstances.
[2] Then they set goals appropriate to their precious situation, and closely monitored progress through the feedback they received.
[3] Whenever they reached their goal, they upped the ante, setting increasingly complex challenges for themselves.”
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 1990, pp90

To which he concludes with a uniting observation that the many examples of those incarcerated who find flow “even though the person is objectively a slave, subjectively [they] are free” (ibid pp92).

In wider survival stories where the adversity is the threat of the environment itself, this was similarly deemed most survivable by those applying themselves in manner akin to flow.

“intrinsically motivated by their actions, they are not easily disturbed by the external threat. With enough psychic energy free to observe and analyse their surroundings objectively, they have a better chance of discovering in them new opportunities for action. If we were to consider one trait a key element of autotelic personality, this might be it.”
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) pp92

Chapter 4 concludes with a pithy reflection upon some being more naturally, or more fortunate in early learning, to be adept at managing themselves in this way. But also reflects upon how everyone can build their skills towards the goal of more flow, in body, in mind, in group or isolation, in work and in play. Ultimately, in life.

This is the natural segway to introduce some contemporary work by another psychologist of note. John Vervaeke, and some of his recent attempts to present these ideas to a mass audience. And who’s polymath interests and subject cross-pollinations have certainly influenced me.

—//—

John Vervaeke

John Vervaeke PhD is described on his YouTube channel as an award-winning lecturer at the University of Toronto in the departments of psychology, cognitive science and Buddhist psychology. Amongst his contemporary series of work three presents detailed psychologically relevant material that make reference to flow:

The elusive I further introduces concepts such as recursive resonance realisation which I will revisit in later blogs.

Flow in meditative practice

During the early days of the Covid Crisis, Vervaeke launched a meditative series that combined his cognitive science teachings and practices of meditation and contemplation. The third lesson (dharma day) addresses flow, as part of the initial setting up of any meditative practice. The whole practice being taught (lessons one through to ten) ultimately become a basic series of meditative practice intended to slowly train the mind to become more agile between externally focused contemplative focus, and inner meditative practice. This practice intentionally becoming gradually and increasingly a skilled discipline of increasing challenge that requires modal agility between extremes of inner and external address. In lesson six he advises cognitive science is indicating it is this observational modality that offers the benefits with mindfulness, a very effective way of gaining new insight.

Awaking from the meaning crisis – series

This is an epic series of lectures. Ideas of flow but a small part of much wider reaching ideas. Flow features in the following episodes.

Meaning Crisis Part 1. Meaning is a key to life.

What wisdom connects life meaning and self-transcendence? Building on the ideas of shifting the mind early roles of Shaman, flow state, mystical experience and subset as awakening experiences this episode reflects upon sources of meaning and insight which can be compared to the Csikszentmihalyi referenced stretching of boundary conditions of our ordinary perception.

Meaning Crisis part 2 Flow as a metaphor

Being in the zone. Demanding tasks that go just beyond the skill state. Skill improvements and increasing challenge are presented as being the basic engagement qualities that keep us focused on virtual realities – flow state being central to the video game. This is presented as a deeply positive experience. Which Vervaeke argues this to be a directly connected experience akin to what is sought in finding meaning in life.

Vervaeke’s suggestion (00:27:15) is the three means of gaining the better insight are the same three factors that enable flow state: clear feedback; tight coupling with environment; and error matters. He argues that implicit learning and flow sit in the same conditions of cognitive effectiveness. And these become self reinforcing. Because these insights are intuitive the sense of loss of self can be disconcerting or in the Shaman context “otherly”. In cognitive science this is parts of the brain talking that otherwise do not. The metaphor “to bridge”, reflected upon language as a means share meaningful experience. Better language becomes intertwined with metaphor – which is revisited in Part 3 as language complexifies to enhance trust in the message and how in touch this is with reality. All aiding to the possibility of the flow state.

Part 9 – Insight

Mindfulness introduced as the means to use attentional scaling between inner detail and external reality and back. Optimising between the two enables prajna or non-duality to bring an enhanced realness and meaning. Higher states of flow. [The more expanded exploration of these concepts referenced in the meditative series highlighted above.]

Part 10 – Consciousness

Salience landscape cf. Wallace L Matson “sentience”. The salience of information is what Matson calls ‘sizing up’. This is a ‘featurisation’ and ‘foregrounding’ in a recurring process that configures i.e., figurisation, all recurring until the problem is suitably framed. This dynamical system has three or four levels of recurrence becoming a highly textured and flowing landscape of problem framing.

—//—

How can we move our teams into flow state?

Returning now to the question which prompted this outline of flow. There are key characteristics described which can be reset against our engagements as teams, and in broader context, how we perform collectively or opposed in project environments.

Csikszentmihalyi present two key factors which can be considered in any project setting, of which I split the needed control as a third:

First, nurturing autotelic traits

First the traits of the autotelic personality. Heightened concentration; lost self-consciousness; a sense that skill set is adequate in ability, relevant to task, and under control (Csikszentmihalyi pp71).

Second, providing situational arenas of flow

Second is the situational conditions that encourage flow states. Which Csikszentmihalyi describes by way of the boundary condition of one form of our ordinary perception being challenged. Such as the competition between players, the means of contemplating future outcome; acuity toward the specific information of relevance without distraction; or the means to temporarily live as another to expand perspective.

Third, create flow channels via the right kinds of control

Thirdly, is the manner of keeping the balance of skills demands and challenge to keep teams in the flow channel. Given the key needs of focus, freedom to be, and the sense of psychological safety to be at the edge of skills to challenge, this increases the need to have clarity on appropriate control. Control in this context presented as by Csikszentmihalyi as rule-bound action system with clear clues as to the quality of performance of task. To which Vervaeke might argue is necessarily focused upon clear feedback; tight coupling with environment; and a retained sense of error rates matter.

The conditions for flow restated as v | b | t

Visibility | b | t

autotelic need for clarity of goal; observe and analyse their surroundings objectively, they have a better chance of discovering in them new opportunities for action; situational need for a real time acuity and wider context; closeness of leadership to action to retain the visibility to offer the necessary feedback and checking for error and regular feedback.

v | behaviour | t

autotelic heightened concentration; situational sense that skill set is adequate in ability; enabling adaptability for retained tight coupling with environment; shared vigilance and retained sense of error rates matter; necessarily presenting means for self-management, developing skills over time, and means to not interrupt project momentum when in the right flow channel. This would also mean the checking and feedback was also adaptable, and task challenge and skill orientated to enable project learning, team development, and means to measure, maintain, and improve.

v | b | trust

the autotelic traits all demand a heightened sense of trust. A trust in each other. A trust that focus on the task is not at the expense of missed danger from outside. A trust that mistakes are to be called out early, dealt with and corrected, against clear metrics, and fair feedback and recognised betterment in time. Trust that allows lost self-consciousness is to have psychological safety, trust in the shared respect of peers, and trust in the transparency of leadership upholding the standards to which all are equally judged. A team in flow, in the flow channel, is high energy, but necessarily making and correcting mistakes. Trust must also be shared and enable anxiety at challenge to quickly be reassured by the action orientated correction. This is therefore tied into the clarity of rules, training, and governance, that enables the sense that skill set is adequate in ability, current and therefore relevant to task, and under corrective control.

Concluding remarks

How many of us in construction, or wider project management per se, can read these descriptions of a state of flow and see our project environments and controls encouraging these traits? Who reads the Construction Playbook and see this environment being developed at our next generation of projects are born? Who amongst us sees the command and control manner of management as harnessing these flow channels to match challenge to skills?

These concepts are not new. But the questions are asked regularly and anew. Phrases I have in mind are notions of being like “a military operation” or “like a machine” or “acting as one”. There is more to say here, more to compare. Notably the striking similarity some of these traits reflect when describing the traits of the HRO (High Reliability Organisation).

HROs and Flow is a write for another day. For now, perhaps I need some feedback of my own. And a moment to regain my flow…

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

being present, Csikszentmihalyi, flow, leadership, Project, psychology, vervaeke

The Construction Playbook

Author: Warren Beardall

HM Government Construction Playbook

What role does it play? What impact is intended? Analysed using visibility | behaviour | trust

This blog has been prepared as another test using my experimental method of evaluation through the concept of visibility | behaviour | trust. According to the Construction News the CBI want implementation by public sector to begin quicker. I am trying to find evidence of project procurement having everyone’s welfare at heart, and not just that of the project initiator. So how does the Construction Playbook stand up under this lens?

Context of what follows

My research and attention is asking whether we set our projects up in ways that offer greatest likelihood of success, but necessarily having all project actors welfare within the definition success therein means. My premise being that projects of cooperation only become projects of collaboration when all those invited are intended to be actively within the sentiments of no harm. My assertion that it is better for all our projects if intended to be assessed in this way. Thereby having long-term benefit of this project, but also that of the next as central to the collective business case we should all have in mind.

Does this Construction Playbook therefore have your welfare, the jobs of your employees, your future training and planning needs in mind? Does it have the long-term health of our country and our future project needs in mind. Is it immune to the political vagaries and short-term passing of government terms of office. Is the infrastructure of our administrators of state better guided by this Construction Playbook. Are we?

Or is this just a public sector bringing its own house in order. With less strategic intent and more short-term shoring up. Is the path being set in this guidance one of better collaborations? Or is it leading us all toward new ways of doing old self-serving things under new labels and old deferrals of blame?

This assessment was written between January and March 2021. A number of discussions have been shared since with both academic and industry friends and colleagues. All opinions herein are mine alone. But they are sentiments shared.

Examination of the text

The Construction Playbook : Government Guidance on sourcing and contracting public works project and programmes. Version 1.0 December 2020.

The Construction Playbook has a wide industry sponsorship. It presents significant progress in seeking more consistent approaches to government procurement. It attempts to remove the singular cost focus of procurement; reinforces a wider sentiment by central government to adopt more strategic and long-term procurement practice; and demands greater upfront preparation and earlier market engagement.

It further introduces an expectation on government departments to apply this overall approach, and to be judged against its requirements. It advocates more focus upon modern methods of construction (MMC). More focus on supporting manufacturing ethos within construction. It states that supply chains should expect to be able to make fair profit. It advocates cross-departmental buying practices. Standardisation of delivery requirements. More component and design standardisation across projects, regions, and sectors. And more consistency and more clarity on key outcome expectations and roles.

Examination with v | b | t

The majority of my analysis here is presented as addressing the behaviours of projects actors. As does the Playbook, itself. This is observed as being principally focused upon the behaviours of the public sector parties, with much of the playbook a reflection upon the controls therein applied separating public sector engagement with private sector, rather than contemplating the controls to govern both. Notwithstanding the collaborative sentiments therefore, I conclude a them and us relationship is being developed from the start. My examination of all that follows highlights and thereafter reflects upon what behaviours this is inviting, intentional or otherwise.

Visibility | b | t

Sharing this Construction Playbook gives a visibility to all parties intending to engage with government procurement in the coming years. Much of the literature being generated through industry interactions is now busily being directed by this clarity, and the stated intended universal application of the Construction Playbook across all of government and public sector.

Within the examination that follows are recurring themes. There is a lack of clarity on the how. Or how to prioritise the what. Some what necessarily contradictory or conflicting with others. The visibility of such prioritisation is therefore assumed to only exist at more localised level. How such priority is to be translated and assessed between local and central expectations remains unclear as a result.

With this reduced visibility, the interpretative space may be opportunity for some. From a risk perspective however, this suggests future scope for split motivations, localised confusion, and possibility of agenda manipulation by those best placed to influence and conflate. These are precisely the interface risks I deem to be the source of much of the risk we introduce into projects, simply because of goal creep, goal division, and the grey space it encourages.

v | behaviour | t

The majority of my analysis sits within these behavioural intentions or implications. Ordering of this more detailed examination follows the ordering of the Construction Playbook itself.

Behavioural changes by Public Sector are offered from the outset

Introduction – “Right at the start” (pp2-3) prepared by Gareth Rhys Williams – Government Chief Commercial Officer; and Nick Smallwood – Chief Executive, Infrastructure and Projects Authority. I have reordered these key sentiments into what I believe to be three main categories of interest:

Thinking in new ways: thinking of risk, sustainability, and programmes systemically; sector health; productivity and addressing skills shortages in the long term. Advocating front loading of effort, longer lead times for quicker finishes.

Key benefits desired: Outcome based; long-term partners; standardising designs, components, and interfaces; innovation and MMC; win-win contracting for better outcomes; better financial awareness and preparations; better end to end delivery.

Reform via buying actions; safety, cost, speed, and quality; data sharing; investment in training. All parts of the playbook to be passed down into the supply chain. Meeting everyday needs of users and VfM for taxpayer.

Beginning from page 14, the five phases are examined in order:

Preparation and planning;
Publication;
Selection;
Evaluation and Award;
Contract Implementation.

Stage one: Preparation and planning

Stage 1 : Preparation and planning

Pipelines, portfolios and longer term contracts

pp16 – the conflicting desire for longer term contracts but more involvement of the acknowledge higher likelihood of innovative SMEs is left with contracting authorities to reconcile. Indicating that contractual performance metrics should include this on a VfM basis. Early market engagement deemed an essential means to do this. As is feedback being sought directly from the supply chain.

Playbook indicates the solution to SME capacity constraints is using JVs and consortia with SME involvements. This is not consistent with aims of platform solutions or the procurement options posed on pp34

This also conflicts with the cross-referenced GovS008 Commercial Functional Standard and National Infrastructure and Construction Procurement Pipeline 2020/21

Stage 1 : Preparation and planning

Modern methods of construction

pp18 – contracting authorities are left to determine how to assess MMC wider value to project and programme outcomes.

Harmonise, digitise, and rationalise demand.

pp18 Collaboration between contracting authorities is encouraged. Aiming at standardised interoperable components across a spectrum of suppliers. pp19 – achieved by “standardising and digitising specifications; shared design content and approaches across portfolios” supporting wider government priorities.

Quality Planning | Platform approaches | Targets for MMC

Product platforms are encouraged to standardised assemblies, and cross-sector collaborations of standardised purchasing. Procurement encouraged to steer markets and suppliers toward these platform approaches.

pp20 Offsite construction to be treated as favourable. This is now an expectation of departments.

Targets for MMC . IPA and Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) are developing a common set of metrics to better understand and support performance, which will include metrics to demonstrate supply chain engagement.

Further embed digital technologies

Seeking to collate and improve quality of data using the UK BIM Framework. Standardised information requirements, exchange, and security. A common framework of standards and protocols. Digital twin goals also associated with future performance and asset management.

Stage 1 : Preparation and planning

Early Engagement and clear specifications

Early engagement – earlier identification of delivery and risk challenge; options; relationship building across the whole supply chain. pp22-23 tested at first business case stage but note the complications anticipated in fair marketplace and transparency. [This seems to conflict with drive for innovation. How can innovation and open market discussion be accommodated together?]

Innovation – pp23 – open to new ways of thinking; revisiting processes and continuous improvement. [This seems to conflict with standardisation (and collaborations across sectors and platforms).]

Social value and SMEs – pp23 – early engagement suggested to engage with SMEs and to wider social value initiatives. [this is however left with the supply chain to manage amongst itself – see next]

Early supply-chain involvement (ESI)

Deemed to offer more effective design solutions and overall VfM. Includes formal engagement of Tier 1 alongside Tier 2 and 3.

pp24 – ESI deemed to need good leadership, governance, commercial management, and wider strength in capability. Above all, building trust with open and collaborative process “in sharing ideas and innovative solutions”. [it remains unclear how commercial sensitivity can sit alongside incentive to share innovation. In this early stage any optioneering opportunity and early evaluation of risk alongside a public sector is lost. Instead reliant upon the supply chain to organise itself across competitive boundaries away from public sector stewardship or prioritisation.]

Outcome based approach

pp24 – Outcomes focused on whole life value, performance, and cost; to include social value model in informing procurement route. Outcomes, not scope, to unlock innovation and continuous improvement. Outcomes defined at outset. Clear and measurable. Definition of “whole life value” being developed with industry in 2021. [the key question will be how is short-term VfM and long-term asset value to be reconciled against short-termism politics and similarly short-term media and public attention – government and politics are the only influence able to redirect these messages by long-term planning of their own.]

pp25 – Design underpinned by stakeholder informed objectives which meet requirements and specifications. Specification that are not too prescriptive to allow for innovative solutions. [These goals seem contradictory. How is it possible to define all stakeholder needs; develop design against clear specifications; allow for innovative solutions; support standardising solutions and cross-sector platforms across long-term strategic partnerships; and present all necessary information to promote fairness to bidder decision making. This is a wish list – not clear delineation of how to prioritise and why]

It is also envisaged that there will be several design and specification stages but no means to envisage how this will be supported by the necessary upfront stakeholder management, control, and clarity of priority that will not suit all.

See also: Infrastructure Procurement RoadMap 2013; Collaborative models of construction procurement 2014

Stage 1 : Preparation and planning

People and Governance

Approvals follow Green Book and Orange Book requirements.

Contracting authorities are required to have streamlined approval processes geared toward outcome success; consider strategic approach and by extension to focus upon additional means to identify portfolio potential; account for complexity, cost, and risk determining rigour of process; use “Should cost” benchmarking; involve accountable Senior Role Owners (SROs) who own the business case and cross-functional teams.

See page 73 matrix. OKUA. Owner (Joint-Owner); Knowledge experts; Understanding; Awareness. [this seems to create difficulty when separating accountability and responsibility]

Stage 1 : Preparation and planning

Deliver Model Assessments (DMA)

Part of First Business Case stage. Objectives and outcomes defined from the outset. See pp33 for DMA and pp34 for five potential approaches. Five potential approaches namely: Transactional – traditional standard competitive service delivery

Hands-on Leadership – complex and in need of close supervision and active stakeholder management more than cost focus.

Product Mindset – lessons learnt focused for optimisation via repeatable manufacturing type approach.

Hands-off design – outcome focused without specifications that influence solution.

Trusted Helper – client is focused upon core business and seeks a supplier who can work within the operating procedures or technical challenges better than the client.

[in the absents of early engagement and proactive public sector input – contractors are likely to develop assumed risk profiles based upon these five approaches – particularly if public sector simply return to contract only interest as the hands off means of project control]

Stage 1 : Preparation and planning

Effective contracting

Project scorecards are being tested through 2021. There are intended to be integrated into business case baseline post completion. Reference is also made to them being part of the project contract and KPIs. [Note: no specific reference to them forming part of project controls beyond contract]

Key performance indicators are deemed part of a good contract – includes appropriate specifications and performance indicators; incentivising the priority outcomes; proportionate to project size and complexity; quantifiable and measurable metrics; and inline with wider government metrics; and top three metrics available to public scrutiny.

Commercialise the delivery model means being specific about intended benefit and value and chosen with these at the core of the decisions made. “One of the most effective ways to deliver outcomes is to create contracting environments that promote collaboration and reduce waste. Contracts should create positive relationships and processes designed to integrate and align multiple parties’ commercial objectives and incentives” pp40. [Why focus on contract for positive relationships? This is cooperation. To collaborate a closer relationship is necessary. Building a shared control environment seems much more collaborative if sharing is a key desire.]

Commercial approach “how much delivery responsibility are we willing, able, or need to take on?” pp41

Procurement strategy consider award method; design responsibility; coordination and integration responsibility. [this is where the lack of clear accountability statements in page 73 “OKUA” invites delegated ownership risk].

Contracting strategy pp42 this seeks early risk allocation; roles / responsibilities and rights / obligations being allocated directly into contract. Contract deemed the place where key elements of project including specifications. [Compare this to other guidance on acceptable contract forms and boilerplate clauses on pp43 and 44, which is prescriptive to three forms. By this early commitment to contract form, this falls into the ‘risk transfer in preference to risk management and control’ trap].

Keeping bid costs down and use of frameworks. [this will be good news for long-term relationships but it is inevitably going to stifle competition. The relationships with SME supply chain within JVs not with Government is inevitable. Whilst this page acknowledges the SME barrier to entry of bid cost, all wider sentiment of engaging via JVs of tier one contractors’ conflicts with any means to accommodate SME directly and more efficiently.]

Stage two : Publication

Stage 2 : Publication

Going to tender

Setting the tone encourages upfront preparations prior to going to tender. It also cross-references the Supplier Code of Conduct v.2 dated February 2019 which whilst not legally binding does offer direct access to the Central Commercial Teams in the Cabinet Office (and in extreme circumstances Gareth Rhys Williams as Government Chief Commercial Officer via pp5 of this CoC). This code states, “risk is allocated to the party best able to manage it…share intelligence on supply chain risk…we will endeavour to create and maintain a culture that facilitates collaboration between all suppliers and government…” (pp7 ibid). “we expect suppliers to avoid passing down unreasonable levels of risk to subcontractors who cannot reasonably be expected to manage or carry these risks” pp10 ibid). https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk

Procurement timelines are to be supported with early market engagement and avoidance of inadequate timescales being set.

Risk Management is required to be collaborative but also across portfolios [does this mean government is best able to manage more risk?]. Internal control, and proactive approach is referenced pp47 [but this is in the context of contracts and commercial lifecycle]. Risk appetite is referenced in context of innovation but also references optimal outcomes [rigid contract forms do not support this sentiment]

Stage 2 : publication

Risk allocation

pp48 Risks owned or jointly owned by parties best able to manage them and supported by good risk management and be subjected to extensive scrutiny prior to going to market. [it is not clear what this scrutiny would entail but reference to National Audit Office suggests the VfM trap.]

Risk allocation is to be considered against practical and financial means to absorb it. A good approach is deemed to focus upon market testing and balance of risk; risk focus against objectives; use of a risk allocation matrix based upon means to manage; joint risk registers. [there is no reference to early identification of critical controls best suited to manage risk identified]

Fair return is intent upon avoiding cost driven impacts upon project success, with a profitable outcome to supply chain deemed a sustainability objective.

Stage 2 : Publication

Payment mechanism and pricing approach

Output drivers should be central to payment and the level of risk around the scope and requirements. pp50 Fixed pricing or scale based upon scope uncertainty are deemed appropriate [this indicates risk is to be treated as a tradeable commodity, not a threat to outcome]. Do’s focus on early warning and joint-decisions, outcomes focus, indexation, and data sharing. Don’ts list lack of clarity in scope and evaluation; liability limits; avoiding risk pricing due to time constraints; and avoiding the transfer of information gap risk to supply chain. [there is no consideration given to the control environment beyond contract and price]

Onerous contracts pp51 is a term used to trigger discussion with supplier on cause and options.

Further reading: Green Book; Orange Book; Outsourcing Playbook; Cabinet Office Two Stage Open Book; Construction Hub Value Toolkit.

Section three : Selection

Section 3 : Selection

Due diligence during selection

SQ Standard Selection Questionnaire to be used. Payment systems to be assessed for all contracts over £5m p.a.

Section 3 : Selection

Assessing economic and financial standing of suppliers.

Key principles financial standing to perform work; be fair and transparent to not prejudice competition; use Contract Tiering Tool.

Stage four : Evaluation and award

Stage 4 : evaluation and award

Evaluating bids and contract award

Value over cost pp56, and social value pp57, low-cost bidding is defined as anything more than ten percent below average or the Should Cost estimates – and are referred to Cabinet Office pp58

Stage 4 : evaluation and award

Resolution Planning and ongoing financial monitoring

Assessment of impact of supplier failure, and upfront resolution planning. Note it is the supplier who is required to provide Service Continuity Plans and exit plans; separate from contracting party’s contingent plans [no reference to shared project plans]. Financial mitigations include bonds, PCGs. Project bank accounts to be used as standard.

Supplier Failure Contingency Planning template concludes with a resourcing and funding strategy; stakeholder and supply chain details; risk register.

Stage five : contract implementation

Stage 5 : contract implementation

Successful relationships

pp64 successful relationships deemed to be means for better VfM and advocates standard forms of contract. Early engagement to include delivery teams and designers. Management of contract deemed key early strategic decision. pp66 principles of collaboration, openness, transparency, and flexibility referenced based upon contractual delivery; role allocations; and upfront agreement to dispute resolution. [no reference to decisions of critical controls only contract management].

Reference to one team “win together, fail together”, [but no expansion on what this approach means.]

Early workshops suggested to set expectations of standards, behaviours, and ways of working, success criteria, impact on wider goals [seems a little late to be considering behaviours as these are generally set into a project by the way it was set-up. Perhaps this would be better as a KPI of the governing party…]

Stage 5 : contract implementation

Transition to Operation

pp68 Prepare from set-up. Soft landings deemed to be smooth transition from construction to operations.

Exchanging data is included as a critical success factor, and referenced “golden thread” of intended purpose of building or infrastructure.

Pre-handover is focused upon pre-sign off and references as-builts; transfer of information to operator; end user orientation; CDM files; and aftercare plans. Additional control is envisaged via contract and wrap up contracts in timely manner. [the lack of ongoing project governance and shared controls makes this process highly contractual in nature and inherently less collaborative as a result.]

Lessons Learnt stated as ongoing process during a project and feedback presented via Cabinet Office email address [no project sharing beyond the public sector entity appears to be considered].

v | b | trust

The remainder of this article will focus upon relationships, cooperation or collaboration, and the sentiments of trust that result.

The distant observer further highlighted

This distant buyer sentiment that public sector becomes in construction is not a new phenomena. It is characteristic of public sector. My MSc dissertation revisit of PFI concluded the buying attitude of the authority party was hands-off in the extreme. Reliance on others to do the checking and the terms of contracts to offload the risk if all else failed. The distant public sector interest inevitably offering space for the ebb and flow of very different powers and influence to take hold over time. This Construction Playbook offers little to suggest anything beyond fire and forget contract control will remain.

Project Control

There is no focus on critical project controls per se. Internal control, and proactive approach to risk management is referenced pp47 but this is in the context of contracts and commercial lifecycle. KPIs and pay mechs geared towards outcomes; risk allocation; control; and reporting; is all driven through contract management. Frameworks, standardised contracts, boilerplate clauses, are all advocated. This seems completely at odds with efforts to develop collaborative one project ideas. Contracts should create positive relationships and processes designed to integrate and align multiple parties’ commercial objectives and incentives” pp40. Key performance indicators are deemed part of a good contract.

Deliver Model Assessments (DMA) offers five potential types but there is no guidance on how this will change control environment or wider governance. See pp33 for DMA and pp34 for five potential approaches.

Flexible or fixed? pp42 contract is required to allocate agreed risk allocations and specifications into contracts. Managing relationships (pp66 referenced one team “win together, fail together” but no expansion on what this approach means. Both these sentiments are at odds with the wider sentiment to commit to specific contract forms. Compare this to other guidance on acceptable contract forms and boilerplate clauses on pp43-44, which is prescriptive to three forms.

Role allocation is based upon the internal owner, adviser, and awareness needs. No consideration is given to project roles therein, and no accountability vs responsibility considerations (cf. pp 73 matrix). Contracting parties are encouraged to consider award method; design responsibility; coordination and integration responsibility. However, this is where the lack of clear accountability statements in page 73 “OKUA” invites delegated ownership risk.

Pre-handover is focused upon pre-sign off and references as-builts; transfer of information to operator; end user orientation; CDM files; and aftercare plans. Additional control is envisaged via contract and wrap up contracts in timely manner. The lack of ongoing project governance and shared controls makes this process highly contractual in nature and inherently less collaborative as a result.

Lessons Learnt – No project sharing beyond the public sector entity appears to be considered.

Risk Management

There is reason to be nervous that deep pockets syndrome will continue. Party best able to manage doctrine is maintained. Risks owned or jointly owned by parties best able to manage them pp48, “a good approach is deemed to focus upon market testing and balance of risk; risk focus against objectives; use of a risk allocation matrix based upon means to manage; joint risk registers”. However, later statement clarifies that risk allocation is to be considered against practical and financial means to absorb it.

This document also cross-references the Supplier Code of Conduct. This code states, “we expect suppliers to avoid passing down unreasonable levels of risk to subcontractors who cannot reasonably be expected to manage or carry these risks” pp10 Supplier Code of Conduct).

Risk allocation appears to be a tradeable commodity not a threat to success. Outputs and the level of risk around the scope and requirements should be key to payment mechanisms. Fixed pricing or scale based upon scope uncertainty are deemed appropriate (pp50). Risk should be subjected to extensive scrutiny prior to going to market (pp48). It is not clear what this scrutiny would entail but reference to National Audit Office suggests the VfM trap that plagued PFI.

Bigger picture required. Risk Management is required to be collaborative but also across portfolios. How does this work between contracting parties? Procurement timelines are to be supported with early market engagement and avoidance of inadequate timescales being set. Supplier Failure Contingency Planning template concludes with a resourcing and funding strategy; stakeholder and supply chain details; risk register.

Conclusion : a step closer but not a bridge

There is reason to applaud this new engagement and initiative to present greater clarity of how construction is to be procured across the public sector. My concern remains that this guidance continues a long tradition of them and us contracting with the private sector. A buyer attempting to present a united front but not a uniting goal. As this country looks to build its way through the 21st Century I hope this is just the first step toward closer ties and smarter buys. But to collaborate is to take account of all sides. To lead is to be presenting clarity of vision, interest in control, and steps that build trust between parties, not better contracts for when one falls.

A step in the right direction. But plenty more to go…

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

construction, Construction Playbook, controls, dissertation, HM Gov, IPA, leadership, Project, trust

Is seeing, believing?

What truth can we know from sensed perspective?

This blog is a brief summary of my own thoughts before going into tutorial discussions this week. It might be interesting to post a before and after perspective to a great question set within my cognitive psychology module this week.

Group question: What does the distinction between sensation and perception imply when discussing one’s “truth”? If there are, in fact, multiple “truths” what does the lack of objective reality mean for scientific psychology?

I had a few immediate pithy sentences come to mind. Who do you believe? The truth is out there… You can’t handle the truth! Is the truth even knowable?

I was tempted to reflect upon philosophical truth in wider sense but personal truth seems hard enough. The hard problem…

Physiological truth

The bounds of our experience are closely connected to our senses. Therein how we interpret the information received. Technology allows us to expand some of the ranges of our senses but even with this expanded translation of reality we perceive, interfaces are crossed between us and the reality known. If indeed reality itself is more than a belief.

Even without artificial aid, the sheer scale of data we gather is extraordinary. From lecture materials just read, the precision of the data captured by our eye is almost innumerably complex. The interconnections of cells and pathways connected to sight are 100,000,000,000^4,000which presents more possible connections than there are atoms in the universe. From this unimaginably large array of data connections – once over whatever interface exists between reality and perception – we can then process what we determine to be thousands of objects at any one moment. To which data we may add touch, hearing, smell, and taste; bodily awareness and spacetime positioning. Even considering just the relays of these receptors not all is fully understood. By example, there are receptors in our skin we know exist but only best guess their purpose.

Perceived reality

What then of the processing itself? We have innate abilities considered unique in the animal world. Our physiological orientation associated with touch concentrated in body parts unlike other mammals. Our tongue physiologically more acutely connected by touch than cats, or dogs, rabbits, or rats. Our fingers more intimately registering a range of touch. Klatsy et al. (1985) 95% of 100 common objects (e.g. fork, brush, paper clip) correctly identified by blindfolded subjects i.e., identified by ‘feeling’ them. At some point in our anthropology, tongues enabled sound to be morphed into repeatable and more complex phrases of noise. The dexterity of our opposable thumbs offering information gathering potential and control enough to mould and craft.

The brain’s Somatosensory cortex receives and processes the layers of information derived from touch. Each skin location is represented by a corresponding cortical area (orderly ‘topographic map’ of body). The processes space in the brain demonstrated to be greater for some areas of the body than others.

*(Graphic source unknown but adapted from Penfield, W. & Rasmussen, T. The cerebral cortex of man. New York: Macmillan, 1950, via UoN lecture notes)*

This is a mapped area of the Somatosensory cortex. Devised from Penfield & Rasmussen, 1950 work on patient responses during brain surgery. The amount of cortex are reserved for more sensitive skin areas are represented by larger areas of cortex where ‘more neural hardware’ is present.

Not mentioned in these lectures was a wider comparison of other more distant specie relations. The octopus has the same number of neuronal cells as a dog (~500m), and twice that of a cat. Yet only 10% of those are in each of it’s two brains, with the majority of the rest divided equally in each of its eight arms. Our principle sense is sight – imagine that! The octopus dominates its perspective via its sense is smell – through its skin. It also has semi-autonomous ability to morph specially adapted skin to mimic hue, form, and texture of the environment it is in. How different must the organisational structures be to have more decision-making made near the source. The High Reliability Organisation of the animal world. Here then are senses and interactions with a less centralised perception in a range of information alien to our own. What truth does it smell that we cannot see?

Intentional change

Crucially and uniquely, is our capacity to imagine and to symbolically rework information into repeatable and transient inner form and temporal bound. Within these mechanisms we gain insight. We predict. We learn. We find ways to repeat, communicate, and adapt. I am yet to encounter the psychological explanations for this within this course, but other reading informs me this is unique to us. Noam Chomsky is on our syllabus but not until next term. Crucially this symbolism enables intervention, interpretation, adaptation and theme. A rework of information as translated from nature whilst not fully knowing what that necessarily means. We operate through best guessed grey spaces. Summarise, approximate, prioritise. We predict based upon imperfect information, errors, and change. What is truth when there is always a necessary approximating and therefore an unknown?

Scientific truth

By what measure can we deem science as singular truth? And by extension therefore psychology. As examples, Aristotelian revisions by Galileo. Newtonian physics revised by Einstein who for twenty plus years thereafter resisted but slowly accepted the notion of quantum mechanics – which his theories cannot fully square. Within living memory for many was the witness of the Kuhn vs Popper debate which pitted the historic realities of the settled science practices vs the acclaimed scientific method of falsification, which Popper advocated was our norm but which Kuhn reflected upon as no more than an ideal. Reality vs best practice therefore not harbouring singular truth – or at least not for long. Within this framework of discourse sits the question of whether mathematical precision can ever replicate what our limited instruments of measurement can perceive as real. And to what extent the bounds of human knowledge and sensory perception can be extended by the technology we build – and may one day soon be replaced.

Moral and ethical truth

Kant, Hagel, Nietzsche or Foucault all parked for another day. Here I will only dwell upon legal truth – as onus of proof. In the narrowest of definitions here sit more interfaces of truth. Innocent until process demonstrates guilt. The ownership of a better, more believable, subjective truth. The intent or the transit by a letter in the post assumed sent. Or the intentions of words – contract or intent – hermeneutics – at the risk of the drafter or interpretation of the reader as forever at risk of latter-day revisits of old truths. New science to old facts. Fingerprints or DNA affording hidden reality to be revealed. All of which requires a level of trust in the moral and ethical agreements of people, and the technology by which we rely. We have a sensed record and perception of its meaning, but is this ever unquestionably right, or unequivocally true?

Socratic discourse, know more to know we know less

This is a group question for debate amongst peers this week. A moment of perhaps coming to our senses or a sense check of what is known. Offering perhaps a sensible solution. Perhaps seeing is believing as we push this around all week. Even if we collectively agree on what we think we might know, can we be sure we agreed to the same thing? Can we be sure we communicated it without error? Can we ever really know anything? Or just hope to narrow the gap on the unknown.

In truth, Socrates was probably right. If Plato’s writings in his name are to be believed. To be wise, is to know we do not know…

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

MSc, philosophy, psychology, Truth