Building Capacity

June 7, 2001


Terror struck yesterday when a father said to me, "terrible
two's are misnamed, two was GREAT! Just wait for three."

Two, in our family, is proving to be plenty challenging. At the
same time, I have never experienced something so exciting as
watching Emma learn to do and be. She is becoming competent
-- and opinionated. It seems the more she learns to do, there
more there is to fight about.

Yet somehow, almost every day, we are working to teach her
new skills. She and I were cooking pancakes together -- she is
getting good a cracking eggs (it involves cracking then
*squeezing* hard... not TOO much shell ends up in the bowl),
and we worked on stirring.

Making pancakes took at least half an hour, and I could have done
it myself in a few minutes. Why? Because Emma and I were
making something much more complex -- we were making
pancakes + capacity. Ultimately, Emma will be able to make
pancakes herself; ideally even better pancakes than we make
together -- and as long as we're speaking of ideal, they can also
be served to me in bed along with fresh squeezed orange juice!

A rather different example -- lately I have been looking at each
email I answer and deciding if I should write a "template"
answer that can be used over and over, an article, or if I should
just answer the email. The goal is to provide lots of good info to
lots of people -- without having to reinvent the wheel every
time. So far, I have 10 template emails and have 4 articles in
the works.

Building capacity is about doing work in a way that allows more
work to be accomplished in the future. It is something we all do
-- as managers we create systems and hire employees; as
parents we take the time to show rather than doing it ourselves;
as teachers we build on previous skills to create new ones. We
can also build capacity for ourselves in our lives and work.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with capacity building is clearly
identifying the needs. For example, an organization having
communication troubles might work hard to generate IT capacity
only to find that their real need was listening skills.

When you create capacity you also create new problems --
there is added complexity. Now that Emma, Patty, and I have
build the capacity for Emma to put on shoes by herself, she
won't leave her shoes downstairs (so the sandbox is gradually
coming inside). When I create "template" emails, I have more
and more data to manage. When we teach students to be clear
about their needs, we spend time discussing details. When you
hire more sales staff, your phone bill goes up.

The point is, when you build capacity, you are dedicating some
resources to that process -- you are making and investment
now to make things easier later... but you want to be sure you
can use the capacity you build.

So now that you are convinced not to build any capacity because
it is sure to be a burden... let's look at the pancake example
again -- there are some elements that will help you plan other
capacity-building:
- Clear need. We definitely will want more pancakes later.
- Clear lack of capacity. Should have seen how Emma USED to
crack eggs.
- Defined task. Make pancakes.
- Specific subskills. Crack eggs, stir batter.
- Process for building capacity. Cook with Daddy, make messes.
- Mechanism to "house" the capacity. Emma.
- Management of added complexity. Keep eggs out of reach.
- Time focused on learning. 1/2 hour pancake making.
- Part of ongoing process. Emma helps bake lots of things.
- Integration of new capacity. Not yet! Eventually Emma could
actually make breakfast...

So here is a challenge for you -- consider an internal capacity
you want to build for yourself. Perhaps you would like more
capacity to focus your energy, or to enjoy your stress, or
connect with the people around you? Pick something "big" like
that, then use the list above to break it down.

There is nothing magic about the list, I just made it up based on
the pancake example -- so as you try out the process, make the
list better, and send me your refinements. I will collect the
examples and build our shared capacity for building capacity.

Warmly,
-Josh

This is an EQ Reflection from Six Seconds. Feel free to forward
so long as you keep this bit: ©2001, Joshua Freedman
http://www.6seconds.org