Accept where you are in order to get where you want to go
In Maturity Models, technical capability is only one aspect to aid progress. What are other essentials needed to advance in anything?
It is early on a Saturday morning. I stand at the far end of the pool as a heat of 8- and 9-year-olds swim the 50-yard breaststroke event during a swim meet. I’m a Stroke and Turn Official. The breaststroke is arguably the most technically awkward stroke to master. As a Stroke and Turn judge, my heart hurts a little every time I disqualify (DQ) one of these kids when they fail to correctly swim with the appropriate technique. I always remind myself that coaches want me to disqualify their swimmers. These DQ slips are specific points in time that help a coach teach a swimmer what they need to improve.
Just the night before, I judged a much different swim meet at the University of Minnesota. It was a highly competitive meet and the swim clubs that showed up brought their older, more experienced swimmers. There was also a handful of swimmers from U of M competing — elite Division 1 NCAA competitors looking to keep their edge during the summer months.
The stark contrast between that Friday night meet and the one I was now officiating fascinates me.
Somewhere in this crop of struggling toddlers are future D1 competitors, even future Olympians. Sometimes it’s easy to spot the prodigy who is already demonstrating the right tools needed to rise to the top, but more often, the future champions are still diamonds in the rough.
Of course, this got me to thinking about maturity models. Many organizations and teams have a hard time understanding where they might fit in a maturity model. As a consultant, I work with clients up and down the maturity scale. A key part of any project is orienting the team with the context necessary to provide sound advice. I once had a client that wanted an assessment of its current mobile strategy. They wanted to position themselves as much more evolved than they realistically were. Not only that, they also wanted to tweak the framework’s terminology so it didn’t reflect too harshly on their current state. This sort of spin helps nobody and clouds the reality of a current situation.
Maturity models come in multiple flavors and most of them map to a grid similar to this:
People love transformation, but they hate change
The initial audit of a current state is fun for people like me who don’t mind a bit of raw emotion and honesty. In large organizations or older companies, prevailing attitudes easily tilt toward repeating the same old processes and approaches because that’s the way it’s always been done. Entrenched habits make ruts that run deep. People love transformation but they hate change.
Understanding where a group, team, or entire organization currently stands makes the next step a natural progression — aligning on where to go next.
Key ingredients to successfully advancing in a maturity model
Early in the phases of maturity: technically proficient doesn’t always translate to future success.
An 8-year-old might demonstrate the correct breaststroke form. Without the proper form, that kid will continually get DQ’d every race and ultimately give up on that stroke. While proper form is a critical component for advancement, it’s but one of many factors needed for better odds at success. The same holds true for an organization that establishes good operating procedures, reliable technology, and predictable workflows. Those are essential but far from painting the complete picture.
Other essential elements needed to mature a team or an organization:
- Passion and competitive nature — If the heart’s not there, the body won’t follow. The competitive nature matters, too. How does a team respond when it “loses” or realizes it’s behind the competition? Hopefully, it rises to the challenge. Get hungry and stay hungry for continual growth.
- Practice is critical––More at-bats simply makes a company more comfortable and “better” at a new skill or process. Just like that 8-year-old swimmer putting in a couple thousand yards at practice, those yards get them race-ready. A product team in a company needs to practice new ways of working with the expectation that the first few times are going to be messy and they may likely experience starts and stops that feel deflating. Work through that messiness and come out on the other side equipped to work at the next maturity level. Commit.
- Communication––Open and honest dialog earns trust and exposes challenges and blind spots an individual or an entire team may be experiencing. Hurdles and hurt feelings can be crippling, but they’ll only get stronger and more damaging when ignored. Nip it in the bud.
- The most critical ingredient is acceptance––Be honest with the current state and capability and you will create an environment that’s open to improving. Everyone wants to be Apple or Amazon or Google or Air B’nB but people forget that these companies weren’t where they are now. They all went through their own growing pains and maturity to get to where they are now. Accepting the current state can sometimes take humility, honesty, and courage. The opposite, delusion and self-deception, prevents teams from acknowledging what habits and norms need to be discarded in order to grow. After all, the first step in overcoming a problem is to admit you have a problem. Accept it. Then grow.
A tree beyond your embrace grows from one tiny seed.
A tower nine-storey high begins with a lump of earth.
A journey of thousand miles starts with a single step.— Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching, Verse 64
Take the first step. Then, take the next step. And then the next…
Knowing where you are now, in realistic, clear-eyed terms, will help you identify what you need to do to get to the next step.
Note: The views above are my own and could be completely bonkers. I can’t help but notice things that could improve (and anything can be improved). I publish sporadically. Click the follow button below and I promise not to inundate you too much.
