DP&R Newsletter August 2021
Written BY:
Chels Chae
President & CEO
Written BY:
Joy Miyamasu
Director of Operations
Written BY:
Desiree Marts
Director of Human Capital
Systemic Adaptation
In the span of eighteen months, nearly all aspects of our lives have changed, especially in urban and populated areas across the globe. Until COVID-19 ravaged nearly all nations and major sectors of the global systems (economic, political, societal, cultural), even major disasters such as Super Storm Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, Tsunami in Indonesia, or Typhoon Haiyan, had acute but limited effects on those affected areas, leaving the rest of the world untouched and unaffected. While we sympathized with those victims and many chose to do good by contributing to temporary relief, the life went on as before. It took over thirty years to develop a systematic doctrine dealing with natural and man-made disasters in the United States and international cooperation ensued to establish a widely accepted practice in disaster response and recovery. If you examine a foundational document such as Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Disaster Recovery Framework, the word resilience/resiliency appear forty-four times. Resilience is defined as ““The ability to adapt to changing conditions and withstand and rapidly recover from disruption due to emergencies.”[1] It is our ability to take the hit and get back up and continue to function, live, and work as quickly as we can. “Get back to normal,” one would quip.
Although COVID-19 has been seen as a gargantuan anomaly and compared to the 1918 Spanish Flu, estimated death of nearly 50 million, I am seeing the COVID-19 pandemic as a large-scale symptom of systemic changes brought on modernity - globalization, speed of information, and fundamental shift of governance in most countries.
There are positive effects of modernity:
· Expansion of global market
· Cross-cultural changes in management and market forces
· Dramatic increase of foreign trade
· Inter-dependence of Resources
· Increase in direct foreign investment
· Widened scope of competition; improved quality
· Spread of best practice across cultures[2]
There are negative effects of modernity:
· Widening of perceived income gaps while there is much mobility up and down the economic strata
· Persistent import taxation
· Loss of jobs in developed countries
· Effects of multinational corporations: tax avoidance; labor practice; political influence
· Effects on society: increase in communicable diseases; widening gap of expectations; greater disenfranchisement
· Effects and perceptions amplified beyond reality
While positive and negative effects of globalization can be debated or refined, its general effects of rate of change, accelerated activities, and increased tension between resources and demand point to the certain possibility that COVID-19 is one of several perturbations that could rapidly become a new normal.
One of the hobbies I enjoy is instructing disaster preparedness classes through one of the national disaster training centers. In all of these classes, the idea of resilience takes on a religious theme since it is our community’s and personal ultimate goal – getting back to living our lives like before. At first blush, the importance of resilience well applies to our state of emergency – COVID-19 crisis. But we will need to look closer and deeper. As of July 2021, there are over 43 million COVID-19 cases in the United States; U.S. deaths amount to over 610,000; and daily cases continue to persistently spike and stabilize without consistent down trending.[3] These numbers do not bring hope to anyone paying attention. But I do not believe that we have a relevant model in disaster recovery framework and development of resilience when it comes to dealing with COVID-19. And I also do not believe that COVID-19 will be the only causation that will have global impact, affecting nearly all aspects of life – economic, social, political, and spiritual. It might just be one of the series of threats that will affect us in a similar way – globally, at all levels, on all systems.
What is one of the reasons for no urgency to figure out if the current model is helping us? One reason, change is difficult – we do what we know, and we prefer what we trust. For example, most of us tolerate the inconvenience of daily restrictions on some of the most basic tasks such as meetings and deliberations by enduring heavy reliance on virtual means such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams or teleconference because we think the current situation is temporary. “I want you to know that this [COVID-19 crisis] is only temporary,” said US Surgeon General.[4] We tolerate it since most of us believe and anticipate that we will all go back to how we had been operating sooner or later. In the meantime, we are operating at 60% to 70% of our capacity.[5] There is also a segment of the population that has actively resisted any preventive measures to thwart COVID-19’s effects on our community. Today, no one knows enough to know which actions are beneficial in the short and long- term. In the interest of being prepared, we should look deeper into decisions we make, based on the belief that the best approach is to restore what a community once had – resiliency model. COVID-19 and other “perturbations” could be permanent conditions.
It is time to consider a different model – Systemic Adaptation. I would define it as: Decision-making method that seeks to assess any creation/actions/corrections/improvements through the lens of their effects on the whole system and conversely, changing the whole system at the risk of an acceptable margin of errors. Our approach to adaptation should be with an understanding that systems are complex and we are able to examine those parts of the system that are observable in order to learn and make changes which will optimize the effects as a whole and execute it at a far greater pace than we had ever imagined or sought.
A system is defined as “a group of related objects, substance, and organizational practice forming a network especially for serving a common purpose”[6] And Peter Senge believes that systems thinking (definition: Act of looking at the whole picture rather than the individual problem.) is a crucial component of any learning organization, including our way of life. Unlike the resilience model, systemic adaptation will assume that any solutions or actions must be assessed from a body-wide (systemic) viewpoint in terms of cost, benefit, and long-term effects with speed, understanding, execution, and reassessment on an increasingly recurring basis. The end result could mean shedding of current choices of investment in favor of solutions and procedures facilitating fast-embracing of change at a personal- and organizational-levels to gain system-wide enduring effects.
Systemic Adaptation. A key difference between the traditional model for recovery and different approach, systemic adaptation, will be that greater focus will be placed on faster paradigm shift, quicker embrace of system-wide changes, and shorter cycle of refinements.
Areas of Effort
Holistic Understanding of Systems
Adopt systems thinking to enable comprehension
Key Effects: Identification to Actions Leading to Desired Effects
Define the boundaries of systems that we can affect and apply discrete and limited actions to learn the effects
Group Learning
Mass learning, accelerated application, and culture setting
Re-assessment
Determine scope and scale of change in relation to desired effects, develop refinements.
Holistic Understanding of Systems: Begin with examining of relationships between parts of the system. In our case, there are key relationships between different contract supporting our customers and company staff in operations, human capital, finance, legal, contract regulations. There are relationships within the Company and with organizations outside of the Company. No one person has a complete understanding of the whole system that is contract management and company operations; however, through robust communication and clear and simple operations approach will help us as a team to “see” how things operate and your place in the whole system, that is DP&R. Key tasks that will help us in achieving holistic understanding:
o Robust communication: no such thing as over-communication
o Predictable operations method: recurring, collecting essential information, know by all
Key Effects: We should avoid attempting to apply a policy or employ procedures in a wholesale manner without knowing the expected outcome that are observable and measurable. Strive to understand the boundaries within which you have influence and build a solution that can be applied discretely to what you can observe and measure. For simple example, if we want to implement a personnel policy that will improve our benefits plan and how it will help us to keep our talent within the Company, we know that independent contractors are not part of the policy since different rules apply to them. Hence, the human capital policy will apply to our employees – full-time and part-time and we would collect data on the needs of that population, develop a solution, implement the policy, and then measure the longevity of our employees over time.
o Define the boundary: know the limits of solutions and their effect
o Identify how you would observe the effect and measure
Group Learning: I teach a number of disaster management classes as a hobby and persistent lesson I notice is how much learning happens between participants through sharing of experience, feedback, and small group working groups. Fight to form a group with which you can learn together – in your workplace, neighborhood (especially striving to overcome constraints imposed by the current pandemic), and social groups. Strive to maintain the speed of learning by avoid seeking cognitive comfort by being curious about things that you can discover. Culture change happens when more than one person is making change.
o Fight to form a learning group: level of learning increases when you are peer-learning
o Accelerated Learning: Remain curious about things that you do not yet know. Ask questions to discover rather than make assumptions.
o Culture Change: Look to make a change with a teammate alongside of you. It begins with you and your teammate.
Reassessment: It is crucial to know whether or not we are moving towards the desired objective at workplace, in family, in social networks, and community if you are expending resources to change the state of being. Knowing where you began and when you are now and the trajectory that you are on (intent is to aim for the objective that you and your group has set for yourself) will be crucial in adapting our Company and subgroups to the rapidly changing environment and challenges/threats that we face, daily.
Our approach to adaptation should be with an understanding that all assumptions must be examined and challenged to the maximum extent in order to focus on the key issues that matter and boundaries within which you can make changes, without overreaching.
Antidote.
Be patient – any complex systems may not lend itself to show how the changes we are making affect the whole. Allow time for it.
Trust your teammates – our mission is to build Trust, Loyalty, and Excellence. It begins with each of us doing our part and trusting those on our right and left to do theirs.
There will be new ways of adapting to change and we can begin by thinking differently.
[1] National Preparedness Goal, September 2011, p. A-2.
[2] “Positive and negative effects of Globalization”,UKEssays.com, https://www.ukessays.com/essays/economics/positive-and-negative-effects-of-globalisation-for-business-economics-essay.php
[3] COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, 17 August 2020.
[4] Star Advertiser, press conference, US Surgeon General, 25 August 2020.
[5] There is no scientific data behind this. Personally, there are some tasks I simply choose not to do until we get back to normalcy. I suspect that most of us have a list of those tasks that we put off until later.
[6] Merriam-Webster Dictionary online, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/system, adapted from multiple definitions.
Building Meaningful Connections
I would like to start by saying how honored I am to be the new Director of Operations at DP&R. It is a pleasure to serve and be part of a team as dynamic as DP&R (no pun intended). How I evolved into this role was by pure luck and meaningful connections. We live in a small world and an even smaller island, so investing in relationships is essential for success.
Meaningful connections are reciprocated. It is the ability to share thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to elevate the mind, body, and soul while building trust. We all crave it but may need to consciously put in the effort and apply it in practice until it becomes a habit. As we start to intentionally build meaningful connections, we simultaneously gain new insight and stronger relationships which seems indispensable during this pandemic era.
There is a wide selection of books and articles to read when researching pointers on how to build meaningful connections, but I found the article “9 Steps to Build Better and Meaning Relationships” by: Yann Ilung to be a useful synopsis.
1) Be Honest
2) Put Others Before Yourself
3) Make a Great First Impression
4) Make Everybody You Meet Feel Welcome
5) Focus on the Positive
6) (Be a Helper and) Take It One Step Further
7) Don’t Be Afraid to Show Your Flaws
8) Follow-Up
9) Leave Everything and Everybody Better Than You Found Them (my favorite =))
Article link: https://www.viewfromthetop.com/blog/9-steps-to-build-better-meaningful-relationships
An example of how it impacted my life goes back a few years when I read one of John C. Maxwell’s books which mentioned the benefits of open-ended questions. My first experiment was with my son. After I picked him up from school, I rephrased my routine question “how was your day?” to “what did you learn in school today?”. I instantly saw a shift in his demeanor that burst with intrigue and details. Our conversations blossomed into something more meaningful.
“People don’t always remember what you say or what you do, but they always remember how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
Creating Great Habits
Working from home has become the “new normal” in recent months and for some of us, this might be the best work setting we would have ever imagined. However for those of us who struggle with distractions at home, whether it might be due to having to multitask and educate our kids, tend to the furry friend who wants yet another walk around the block, or simply because for most, the combination of work/home is not the most ideal setting, this “new normal” is still quite the adjustment.
How can we build great habits in the midst of these circumstances that would let us continue our work at highest capacity, without sacrificing quality? And how can we manage to not just survive, but thrive in these unusual multitasking settings we have suddenly found ourselves in?
Setting a foundation to build great habits can be quite simple.
It starts with small and attainable changes. I think most of us think we must implement a habit or behavior all at once. Rather than setting us up for failure, because most big changes are not sustainable long term, we could simply make one small change. This one small change would quickly become routine to us, at which time we would then again implement another small change and so on. These small simple changes compound over time, bringing the big results that we desired in the first place. Yet it takes less effort and energy than if we would have implemented the big change all at once.
A good example for this is, let’s say you are distracted by the news apps on your smartphone during work hours. The temptation is to check and read the news throughout your work time. What if, rather than saying “today I will not read the news during my work hours”, you make a simple change. Remove the news apps from your phone. If that is still a distraction, because you could easily browse the news through the web browser, you could simply place your phone in a drawer. Then take it out when you take a lunch break. You could make that lunch break your “news time”, meaning it also becomes a reward for having focused on your work during your work hours. The small simple change of removing the app off your phone, or simply placing your phone in a different location where it is out of sight, followed by a reward that is not delayed for too long, could be enough to add up long term, resulting in higher productivity throughout your work time.
It is also very important when wanting to create new habits that you surround yourself with people who are already displaying healthy habits. For example, it is very encouraging when you are trying to implement better fitness habits to you surround yourself with friends who are becoming healthy and fit individuals. Those folks will not only inspire you but provide the needed accountability for you to make the small simple changes on a daily basis that it will take to become a healthier and fitter person.
Lastly, rather than focusing on goals, let’s look at our systems. Goals are not bad in themselves, as we each should have something set in place as a target. But maybe, when we look at our systems, we can create better habits by finetuning and making our systems more efficient. Let’s say you work all day, cook all meals for your family, educate your kids from home, then do housework as well as yardwork. That is a lot to fit into a week. For most of us, the tasks do not stop there and sometimes it feels very overwhelming to try and make it all fit, resulting in less energy for the things we really would like to spend our time on.
What if, we came up with a system that would let us plan and prep most of our meals on a Saturday afternoon? Then when we have everything prepped in bulk, we would simply pull out each meal component from the fridge and put the meals together for a family dinner throughout the week. What would have taken us an hour each day, now takes us maybe 15 min with advanced planning and just one small chunk of time dedicated for the preparation.
What if, you implement a system in which your children contribute to the house and yard work? They might be able to take on quite a few of the housework and yard tasks, such as vacuuming, dusting, mopping, feeding and walking pets, mowing, weed whacking or washing windows and cars. If you create a system in which they can earn a set amount of money for each tasks, it might just set them up for future success by teaching them that hard and quality work results in commission/salary wages and in the end a feeling of accomplishment. You might have a little more work at the beginning, teaching your 7-year-old how to mop the floor successfully without flooding your entire 1st floor, but soon the delegated tasks will free you up as well.
Another system that might save you time and energy are of course services that you hire out. If the rate of return is beneficial, you might consider hiring a cleaning team, if you do not have family members that can help with cleaning your home. Instead of prepping a lot of food all at once, you might consider buying already prepared meals at Costco or a local supermarket once a week and supplement your cooking with these premade options. There are plenty of services these days that free up our already tight schedules. We just have to weigh the cost and worth of these services.
If you enjoy reading and would like some excellent strategies on creating great habits, I highly recommend “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Another book I have recently found helpful and very practical is a meal prep book called “Prep Once, Eat All Week” by Cassy Joy Garcia.
Let’s keep creating great habits to be the best people, within the best company for our communities.
Difficult Situations
As we live our lives and interact with those around us, we will find ourselves confronted with difficult situations and how we face them impacts not only ourselves but those around us. My daughter recently reminded me of this in referencing a conversation I was sure she had blocked from her memory. She was 12 at the time and had been spending the weekend with me when I got a call from her mother. It was one of those your daughter and not our daughter calls, so I knew it wasn’t good. Long and short is that she had taken a terribly inappropriate quiz on social media and shared it for all to see. Meaning…” The Talk”…was happening now! On the I-15 with no preparation and no backup.
This situation isn’t unique. Perhaps in the way it presented but we all face difficult situations that we must react to. I believe we address these types of situations in one of two ways.
We can avoid them. Pretend it doesn’t exist. However, when we avoid these situations, they don’t really go away. All we do is remove ourselves from them. The situation still exists and if it is left unattended it will continue to grow and be more difficult to address.
Or we can address these situations directly. We’ve all heard the saying “Bad news doesn’t get better with time” and we know this to be true. I like to think of it this way. If the oil light is on in my car one of two things is going to happen. I can do nothing and eventually the engine will seize, or I can add a quart of oil and the light will go off. It’s a fairly basic representation but think of it this way. The first option is going to cost me a credit card payment for the next year or two. The second option cost me little more than a cup of coffee. So, it might be uncomfortable for a moment but not for long. This was also true in the conversation with my daughter.
At this point you’re probably thinking I at least marginally pulled this off. Wrong. I failed miserably and fortunately there was a follow-on conversation with mom later that day. But she doesn’t remember that. What she does remember is that her dad didn’t avoid a difficult situation. That we had it. And that she could always count on her dad for the tough stuff. Oh, she also remembers that Mom took away Facebook. Not Dad.
DP&R Fitness Activity Team Challenge
In July, some of DP&R’s Team Members took it upon themselves to participate in our very first fitness challenge.
The goal was to have everyone collect as much fitness activity time as possible, whether it be running, SUP, walking, gardening, Hula dancing, or swimming.
The team member with the greatest amount of fitness time would receive a fitness tracking device at the end of the challenge as their reward and there were other prizes to be earned for various other goals reached.
Along the way, our team had special mission tasks, such as going on a walk and picking up trash they find or sharing a beautiful part of nature they encounter.
This team building activity taught us that we are stronger when focused on a common goal, cheering each other on and challenging each other to be the best we can be.
We look forward to repeating this challenge annually and building upon the foundation from this year.
Together we can work on constantly improving ourselves and being the best for our communities.
