Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
~ Viktor E. Frankl
In lean management, a pull system is a natural flow of activities driven by the natural pace of the work that produces value. Today I stumbled across this quote from Viktor Frankl, whose book Man’s Search for Meaning is surely one of the top 10 influential books on my world view. In this quote, Frankl suggests that goals are a pull system.
Goals are indeed a pull system. Goals come from internal processes. We have individual and shared goals that motivate us to act.
In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.
~ Sid Caesar
Goals pull us, we ideally act based on goals. These individual actions are tasks. The tasks we take on are in service of the goals. However, if we don’t actually enjoy what we’re doing in service of these goals or, worse yet, act contrary to our goals – we are squandering our lives.
In a business context, if goals are clear amongst teams and the organization, the work involved in achieving those goals is more likely to be rewarding. We are happier in doing it. And this is a pull process.
A beneficial by-product of pull systems is they reduce waste. Pull systems do this by highlighting where we are operating in ways that stymie our goals. Pull systems reward innovative thinking to remove these points which are constraining our goals. Pull systems say “The constraint is here, it is obvious, are you going to do something about it?”
Though I still have no semblance of a life outside of Nine Inch Nails at the moment, I realize my goals have gone from getting a record deal or selling another record to being a better person, more well-rounded, having friends, having a relationship with somebody.
~ Trent Reznor
Trent Reznor here is saying, “Look, I don’t live to work or work to live. I live to live. I am a musician and it’s my life. But my goals aren’t fame oriented, they are happiness oriented.”
Making music makes Trent happy. Making people laugh made Sid Ceasar happy. Understanding where people found meaning made Viktor Frankl happy.
In an organization, creating good product or solving a problem may make us happy.
At heart, though, the successful application of our talents is what makes most of us happy. When our organizations have no clear definition of goals or work contrary to individual goal achievement – waste is the result. We end up with, as Frankl says, the “push” of drive.
The push of drive is the artificial force necessary to apply to people to get them to work contrary to their own goals.
Enter here the concept of friction. When you apply an external force to an object to get it to move, friction occurs. The amount of friction is the amount of energy lost in the transfer of momentum from one object to another. Loss of energy = waste.
In a pull system, things operate faster by removing friction or constraints. In a push system, things operate faster by applying more force.
For Reznor, the push would be more money, the pull would be self-improvement. Money may drive him, self-improvement motivates him.
When creating rules in organizations or devising ways to get things done – ask yourself “What are the push and pull elements here? What motivates people, and what drives them? Where is friction created? How much friction can we withstand? What friction can be avoided?”
Blogged at Caffe Appassionato in Seattle’s Interbay Neighborhood
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