Contributions and Constraints

So many passionately want to make a contribution but often the value of the contribution is constrained by metasystems that are intended to enable contributor. What can be done to mitigate contribution constraint?

Leaders are part of the metasystem. What about leadership constraint?

If the team has a manager, the team is constrained by the capability of the manager. If the team aligns to optimize capability, the team is unconstrained.

Most organizations realize the difference between leadership and management. A good leader understands that everyone is a contributor, everyone is vital. The role of the leader is to enable and align the contributions into a symphonic whole. Leaders invest in educating and empowering workers, maximizing the quality of the contribution. Leaders understand that a well equipped team increases the inventory of substance which can answer any challenge.

However, even if the leadership is of the highest quality, if he/she must be consulted for every act of enablement, the team is constrained by the leadership. If the metasystem is built around an improvement community, focused on enabling the team, an amazing upward spiral results. It works because by focusing on team enablement, each member understands all individual contribution is essential, no matter the pedigree. The team affirms the value of each individual and aligns strengths to weaknesses to an optimized whole.

A mature team continues to optimize the optimization, improve the improvement. A mature team looks for team bottlenecks and marshals team resources to mitigate the constraints.

Tools are part of the metasystem. What about tool constraint?

If the tool has an engineer, the tool is constrained by the capability of the engineer. If the tool is built from collective intelligence, co-evolving the human and tool system, the tools are unconstrained.

Toolsets enable contribution when they adapt to the contributor, the contribution, the receiver, and the receipt, with self-adjustment to optimize each transaction. Engineered tools constrain the transaction to the engineer's view of the transaction, not the participant's view of the transaction. Often, participants must adapt to the engineered view in order to complete the transaction. Adding every flavor of a transaction to an engineered product forces the engineer into a dilemma of increasing the feature set or maintaining the elegant simplicity. That's a very tough choice with no good answer.

If the tool is an adaptive system, one that is easy to use and adapts to any current or future change, one that is composed of easy to understand models/systems, the engineering constraint is mitigated. The tool adds value to each transaction even if the particular transaction has not been preconceived.

The characteristics of an adaptive tool like this will be considered over the next several blog entries.

Sponsors are part of the metasystem. What about sponsorship constraint?

If the sponsorship is the elite, the result is constrained by the elite. If the sponsorship is based on value, the result is unconstrained.

There are places that do not value contribution that is not from the elite members of the internal society. They ask what is the value of leadership or tools that allow others to contribute something that is of little or no value anyway? However, sponsorship often comes from the elite. Often is an "us and them" mentality. Often the elite find it hard to believe that there would be anything of value from outside the closed society. Additionally, if the leadership and tools really worked to enable the masses, the elite would no longer be elite. The elite may be better off but they wouldn't be elite. Contrast the elite with the non-elite contributor who finds it very hard to believe that he/she does not have anything of value to offer. When the elite sing the mantra daily that only the elite can make a valuable contribution even the most enthusiastic contributors finally give up. Until the elite internalize that their biggest asset is the vast amount of people, globally, who want to make a contribution they will continue to impose constraint.

True sponsorship often comes from the bottom up. If the contribution works for another it will be sponsored. If the contribution does not work, feedback will be provided so the contributor can adjust the contribution (if desired). If the sponsorship is based on the value of the contribution, the sponsorship does not become a constraint. The contributions that add value will be sponsored.

Are you a contributor?

Do you think anyone else could make a contribution to your current work? If you believe that someone could help make a contribution, think for a moment about how you would like for that to happen. What is keeping it from happening today? Is it leadership, sponsorship, the toolset? Do you believe you can contribute something of value to the work of someone else? How would you like to make a contribution to other's work? What is keeping that from happening today?

What is constraining you today from making/receiving valuable contribution?

Think about it, and then let's collectively mitigate the constraint.

It will be up to you - To build the systems, to provide the leadership, to provide the sponsorship needed to make your contribution. It will also be up to the community to build the systems, to provide the leadership, to provide the sponsorship to your specifications.

We need your contribution and can't wait to see it.