Thermodynamics, Emotion, and Organizational Batteries

Stress = Stored motion = Emotional battery

-From my notes on the first Thermodynamics of Emotion conference

In my first post on the Thermodynamics of Emotion conference I made the case that the rich and diverse combination of ideas that I encountered at this conference led to some useful and interesting insights. I’d like to share one such insight that I gleaned from the conversation, and perhaps some clue to the strange place that I found it.

The first day had begun with a wonderful presentation by Professor Adrian Bejan on his Constructal law. The foundation for many of his insights had come from his own life-long study of thermodynamics, or as I understood it, the study of the flow of heat through materials. Now I’m no physicist, but I’m quite familiar with the concepts of flow as they apply to lean organizations. I know a little bit about queueing theory and perhaps a thing or two about the application of flow based processes like Kanban. So, Adrian’s descriptions of flow as found in nature, while not the same, held a certain familiarity for me.

On the second day, there was a presentation by Kevin Behan, a highly respected, if somewhat controversial figure in dog training. Again, he was another marvelous teacher. He has a theory, called the Immediate Moment theory, that articulates a model for the flow of emotions between individuals. In his particular case, he is talking about dogs, but it’s not a huge leap to apply his ideas to people (at least not for me, but I’ve always loved dogs). He spoke about emotion as something that could be transmitted between and stored within individuals, “Like a battery.” He gave an example where dominant dogs would “flip their polarity” in order to engage more submissive dogs in play. The interesting thing was that his models were using the language of physics to describe how emotions worked. This is an interesting attribute of people exploring new concepts – they seem to borrow language heavily from other more well established theoretical domains.  One could not help but begin to draw parallels with the language used by Professor Bejan to describe thermodynamics on the first day.

I think it’s important for me to point out that at this point I didn’t have a eureka moment. In fact, if I’m honest, I was feeling quite skeptical toward many of the ideas I had heard. I had read both of their books on their respective subjects, and my more academic, establishment-minded, critical side had found some potential flaws and critiques of both of their theories. I was actually feeling quite conflicted. I was hearing interesting new ideas that I was having a hard time accepting. There was a very real part of me that wanted to dismiss these notions as the ravings of charlatans. I’m afraid I was a bit subdued after that second day. I had absorbed a lot, but what did it mean? Good Lord. What had I gotten myself into?

It was later that evening, over dinner with a friend, that some things began to come together for me. I was struggling to make sense of these ideas, and looking to see how they might apply to my work as a consultant. I know work flows through organizations. I also know that work can get blocked or backed up due to obstructions or impediments. In fact, some iteration based processes like Scrum and SAFe will create backlogs of work that are stored for processing on a sprint or quarterly basis. Therefore, if the work is temporarily stored up or blocked, even for a short while, does this create emotional stress or tension for people in an organization? You bet it does. This question blends the ideas I had heard from Immediate Moment theory with thermodynamics and organizational flow.

This is by no means a rigorous theory. It’s simply a question that arose from the overlap of a few ideas. Based on that question I started to wonder how I could use that question to help the people I consult with. If backlogs are a potential source of stress within organizations, then a few things might follow:

1. The larger the backlog the more stress you may encounter on the teams responsible for that work
2. The longer the backlog is held, the more stress you may encounter
3. Eliminating or changing backlogs should change how people feel emotionally. In other words, there should be less stress with smaller/fewer backlogs.
4. Can I use backlogs to locate stress in an organization? Alternatively, not all stress/tension is bad. In fact, some healthy tension is necessary.
5. Can I create or use backlogs to help drive that tension or change where that tension/emotion is located in an organization?

This idea of backlogs as a sort of emotional battery for organizations has some intriguing potential when we talk about organizational transformation or change management. To my limited knowledge, I’m not aware of anyone who has experimented with these ideas to try and validate them. It wouldn’t be too hard to do. There are plenty of subjective measures for stress that are easy to use. Backlogs are easy to find. That’s all you would really need to start to test these ideas. The idea of a backlog as an emotional battery for an organization could be a very useful contribution to our understanding of how to help bring transformation or change to companies.

This is just one illustration of some of the ideas that came out of the Thermodynamics of Emotion conference for me. If you lock a physicist, a dog trainer, and an organizational consultant in a room, you never know what might happen. Be warned that the process is not a linear one. I worry that my writing may portray how this idea came about as linear. It was not a linear process at all. There was confusion, doubt and skepticism, a fear of pop-science oversimplification, and underlying it all, a conviction that there might be something useful buried here, if I was just patient enough to hang in there and find it.

What I Learned from My Family about Team Building

As part of a dispersed team of coaches I’ve been puzzling over how we can become more of a team. It’s not easy. First of all, unlike a traditional team, we don’t share much work in common. We all work for different clients. It’s similar work, but on any given week, we are all working on dramatically different coaching activities. Second, the client always comes first, so we often miss team activities like meetings and stand-ups. Third, anytime we get together, it’s always virtual. We only get a chance to see each other once a year. It’s really hard to feel like you are part of a team under those circumstances. Some might argue that you simply can’t do it. There are days where I might agree.

Recently I had some experiences that have given me some hints to how we might be able to come together as a team. I was at my youngest daughter’s gymnastics competition the other day. As I watched the competitors I heard people screaming their support and whistling as they did their routines. As this was taking place, I had this crazy thought, “I wish someone would scream that kind of support for my daughter. I bet she would feel awesome.”

Let’s pause for a moment to stop and appreciate my truly mind-bending level of clueless on display in that last sentence.

It was at that point that I realized, “Hey dummy, that’s your job!” Not just me either, it was my whole family’s job. We needed to scream all of our heads off. That’s what having a team in your corner does. Here’s the funny bit – you do it regardless of the level of performance. It’s in the job description for a family. After all, no one else is likely to do it. Knowing what that kind of unrestrained support can do for a person, why would any sane person hold back? It would be a shame to do so.

So when it was my daughter’s turn, that’s what I did. My family thought I had lost my mind. And frankly, I wasn’t very good at it, but she didn’t care. Apparently this cheerleading thing takes practice. It wasn’t until a little bit later that I realized that one of the key jobs of being on a team is cheering on your teammates with every fibre of your being. You have to holler your head off no matter how they perform. If they are great, you blow a vein screaming. If they struggle, you scream louder. Why? Because you care. You want them to feel part of a team, whether a family or a workgroup.

But what if they are not competing? Let’s face it, a lot of our time is stuck in the day to day preparation for some event that may not come for a while. That’s pretty much the reality of what we face whether we are a family or a team. Of course in a family, the thing to do is to take an interest. Inquire about progress. Help solve problems. Help remind them of what it takes to be great. Keep them on track. Encourage them to keep moving forward. Talk about progress. Celebrate the little wins. Of course all of that support applies to teams as well as families. Ask about what people are working on. Celebrate little wins. Help keep them encouraged. Help keep them on track to the big win.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is that my kids absolutely love it when I take any interest in what they are doing. For instance, I don’t know anything about Taekwondo, but I can offer to hold the punching bag. I can do the warmups alongside them (which they inevitably find hilarious). I can do the stretches (well…more or less). The point is, I can participate. In a work setting you might describe it as pairing, but that’s not really required. It’s enough just to help out in some small way. We can even do these things when we are remote. We can help with setting up documentation. We can help with prep and coordination (of which there is usually plenty). We can consult with each other during good times and bad. We can offer ideas for improvement. We can do all of this from afar, and I’m pretty sure it will be welcome.

So there are two things that I think are essential behavior for successful dispersed teams:

1. Full throated encouragement for everything they do, from everyone – let them know they are awesome, because if you won’t, who will?
2. Do the small stuff. Just hold the punching bag. Do something, anything, to help. Set up a document template, book a flight, recommend a resource. There is no such thing as too small when it comes to this.