The lens you didn't choose

It's never a choice between theory and no theory — only which one you're standing inside, and whether you ever notice. On seeing the lens you didn't choose, and choosing a better one.

A theory is not something you either have or don't have. It's the lens you're already looking through.

A few years ago I was teaching a workshop for a wonderful company. The offices were modern, sleek and distinctly lovely. The sort of place that makes you snap photos of nice desks, cabinets and artwork as inspiration for your own office. Very stylish, nice coffee too.

I was teaching people how to see their work more clearly and how ideas move to value – when a bright, certain young man explained why something had to be done a particular way.

“That won't work here because that's not how it works here, and we can't change that. It's just how it's done” he said. And moved on. I thought about this for a moment.

It is one of those sentences that sounds like an explanation while explaining absolutely nothing. Like rain is wet, trees are green, tea is tasty, PistonHeads is the best craft beer and Seinfeld is the best television show ever. All probably true. None particularly useful without qualifying.

So I asked, as kindly as I could: "Says who?" The room went quiet. Not because it was a clever question. It wasn't. It was just that nobody could remember and nobody knew why they all did what they do. Somewhere, years earlier, a decision had been made about how this company saw its work. Everyone had lived inside that decision for so long that they had stopped experiencing it as a decision at all.

It had become the norm. This is how we do things. This is what works here. This is how good companies operate. The decision had disappeared and it was now just how things work.

That is one of the more interesting things about theories. They disappear unless you're paying attention. They might begin life in a consultant's playbook, complete with diagrams, labels and a pleasing amount of blue in a nice font. They might arrive in a leadership offsite through something the CEO read on the train. They might be inherited from the person who had the job before you.

At first, you can see them. Then you use them for long enough and they become the air you breath and the way things are around here. You stop noticing that you are looking through a theory at all. And that matters.

Theories are lenses

The word itself gives us a clue. Theōria, from the Greek, means contemplation. A way of looking.

Not a rulebook. Not necessarily a framework. A lens. A theory is simply a way of making sense of what is happening around you. It helps you decide what matters, what doesn't, what is likely to happen next and what you might do about it. It helps you see.

You couldn't really work without one. Strip away every theory and you don't get objective reality. You get a hot mess of events, opinions, information and noise. Theories help us see.

Which makes the familiar question — should we be more theoretical or more practical? – rather odd, funny and strange.

There isn't really a choice. There is only the theory you are using, and whether you know you're using it. The person who says they don't do theory, they just get on with things, is operating from a theory too. They just can't see theirs. And an invisible theory can be surprisingly powerful. It can also be surprisingly dangerous.

Because if you can't see the lens you're looking through, you can't very easily ask whether another one might show you something useful.

Borrowed seeing

Most of the lenses we use were not chosen by us. We inherit them. We pick them up with the role. We absorb them from the last company. We learn them from a manager. We find them in a book.

Or, occasionally, someone arrives – confident, expensive and well-dressed – carrying one in a presentation. Here is the answer. Here is the model. Here is how high-performing organisations do it. There is something enormously comforting about this. Standing in front of a complicated problem and admitting that you don't yet know what is going on is uncomfortable. Being handed a framework is much nicer. So we climb inside. Then the lens disappears. The vocabulary settles around it. The assumptions stop feeling like assumptions. People start saying things like “that's just how it works here”.

And asking says who? begins to sound provocative, insulting even. Eventually the theory becomes something you are not supposed to question. At that point it has changed and is no longer a tool; it is a belief. And beliefs are a poor substitute for thinking.

This is what I mean by borrowed seeing. You think you are looking at the world, but you're looking at somebody else's picture of it. A theory developed in another company. A framework designed for another problem. A management fashion imported from another industry. A set of assumptions inherited with the job.

We use the lens and mistake it for the view from our own window. The trouble is that once we stop seeing the lens, we also stop seeing what sits outside it. And that narrows our ability to notice. Which, in turn, narrows our ability to learn, improve and make better decisions.

When the theory arrives first

I've watched this happen at some cost and the pattern is usually remarkably consistent. One organisation I knew abolished its managers more or less overnight. The leadership had all read the same book, been to the same conference and returned home glowing with a beautiful theory: Flatten everything. Dissolve the hierarchy. Let self-managing teams find their own way.

On paper, it gleamed with modernity and progressiveness. In practice, the hierarchy didn't disappear; it went underground. Power pooled around whoever was loudest, most established or most willing to push. Bullying was rife. Tribes formed. Nobody was quite sure who could decide what. People weren't sure who to ask. People weren't sure whether they were allowed to act. The organisation had removed the visible structure without considering the underlying power.

The result was not freedom. It was a tribal fight for control. Lord of the Flies in an office in Cleckheaton.

The theory had been chosen because it sounded good rather than because anyone had properly examined the problem it was supposed to solve.

Another organisation spent a small fortune on an enterprise-wide delivery framework. The promise was clarity and speed. The agile ceremonies duly appeared complete with jargon and hoards of online training courses. The vocabulary changed. Within weeks, people were speaking the new dialect. Meanwhile, the actual problems – unclear ownership, poor communication, competing priorities and a climate of fear – sat stubbornly where they had been before. Only now they had better jargon and placing the word Agile in front of almost anything gave everyone the illusions things were getting better.

The framework was not necessarily bad. It was simply an answer to a question nobody had properly asked.

In both cases, the theory arrived before the understanding. And that is a particularly expensive mistake. When leaders are under pressure, a framework can feel like a handrail in the dark. You haven't tested it. You don't know whether it works. But holding something feels better than holding nothing.

Understandable. Also how you end up spending a lot of money installing somebody else's way of seeing.

Theories worth having are grown

The good news is that theories don't have to work this way. Theories that earn their keep are usually grown rather than installed. You can borrow ideas. Of course you can. And you should. The trick is what happens afterwards though.

You test them against the actual conditions of the business. You check the theories have utility. You adapt them, throw bits away, combine them with things you've learned somewhere else and discover where they work and where they don't.

Eventually, something useful emerges. A theory of this place. A theory that has been earned, built and tested for utility rather than imported. You can also explain it simply and pull it apart without anyone panicking or getting worried about what may be discovered. You can question it without being accused of not understanding the strategy. And, importantly, it should make the work easier to see and move to value, rather than harder.

That's a useful test. If a theory/lens adds more fog than it does clarity, then its probably not doing much for your eyesight, and likely costing you some pennies for the privilege.

It is also why the best consultant I can imagine doesn't arrive carrying one grand theory to bolt onto an organisation. They arrive curious. They listen, they watch how the place actually works, they notice what everyone else has stopped noticing.

They have a whole toolbag of models, theories, experience, battle-scars and half-remembered ideas, but they don't know which one is right until they've looked at what is actually in front of them. Then they choose, and they test, and they change their mind if the evidence requires it.

What they leave behind isn't the theory borrowed from somewhere else. It is a way of understanding the particular organisation they have been working with. Something grown from the problems the organisation actually has. A theory that has utility to this company, at this time, to move ideas to value and cultivate an enriching workplace. Or manage finances, or hire people, or whatever problem you're tackling.

The test is usefulness

A useful lens earns its place by a fairly simple test: Does it help you see the work more clearly?

Does it help you deliver something a customer genuinely values? Does it help create a better climate for the people doing the work?

Not: Is it elegant? Is it fashionable? Was it developed by someone famous? Does it look good on a slide? Does everyone else seem to be using it?

Usefulness is a better test. If a theory cannot be examined, questioned or tested against reality, it has stopped being useful. You should probably be suspicious of anyone selling you one you aren't allowed to question.

I'll hold my own to the same standard. The Idea to Value system is a theory too. It is a particular way of looking at how an idea becomes something of worth, and where that process tends to get stuck. It has five lenses, 26 principles and a flow from idea to value. But none of that makes it true. It makes it a lens. It should be judged by the same standard as anything else: Does it help you see? Does it help you deliver? Does it help you build a better place to work?

If it stops doing those things, put it down. A lens you can't put down was never really a lens. It was a cage with delightful views.

Seeing the lens

This isn't an argument against strong theories. Quite the opposite; you need a good lens. A good lens, held with conviction, is a wonderful thing. The important bit is knowing that you're wearing one. Because the moment you can see the lens – name it, examine it, test it, remember that it was chosen and could be chosen again – something changes. It stops running you and starts serving you.

The act of noticing is the beginning of better thinking. And, conveniently, it is the one part nobody can sell you.

It's not about whether you need a theory or not. You're inside one right now for almost everything you do. You're reading this, nodding or disagreeing, fitting it against everything you already believe about how work works. The question is therefore much simpler.

Did you choose the lens you're looking through?

And, perhaps more importantly:

Is it still helping you see?

Seeing the lens you're in

A few questions for finding the theory you've stopped noticing.

“Says who?”
When something “just has to be done this way”, ask where the rule came from. If nobody can remember choosing it, you've probably found a lens you inherited rather than chose.

Can it be questioned out loud?
If challenging the approach feels disloyal rather than useful, the theory may have hardened into a belief. That's usually when it stops being a tool and starts being something ingrained in how people see themselves.

Did the theory arrive before or after the understanding?
A framework reached for under pressure, before anyone has properly examined the problem, is more likely to make the problem worse, than solve it.

Does it make the work simpler to see, or more complicated?
A good lens reduces the fog. If a theory needs its own dictionary, glossary and bachelor’s degree just to participate in the conversation, it deserves a second, sceptical look.