In the last lesson you were asked to demonstrate your skill in PTO. Now check if you were able to PTO as instructed.
The orange you were asked to peel was:
Resolve the PTO paradox in 111 words.
The most important instruction for you to follow in this PTO was the specification of 111 words. You were not to know that, of course. In PTO one never really knows because one doesn’t get the opportunity to discuss things, as one does in normal situations.
One of the benefits of PTO, provided you have a skilled leadership team, is that anyone in the team can give anyone else in the team a PTO and it is done without question or discussion. This has advantages of speed, efficiency and effectiveness when the team is striving for a mutual objective. But it is not easy and does take PRR to produce a high level of PTO skill.
Obviously, so early in a leadership training sequence, one is not expected to get the ‘right’ answer as much as one is expected to just try and practise the skills.
DFQ #15:
What is the biggest insight about PTO that you have had so far as you’ve been doing these past few lessons?
PTO.
You follow the instructions. But which one? Explain the paradox? 111 words? Which is the more important one?
For PTO to make sense there can not be ambiguity, or choices (then it’s not a PTO situation, right?).
In a sense this whole pipeline is a PTO situation. You ask us to answer questions, and we do. Yes, we do it differently (small pieces, long string, thumb, knife) but we don’t question it. Interesting.
While I peeled the orange with regards to the 111 words I didn’t make much sense with regards to the paradox. The emphasis here is obviously on the 111 words so the “trainer” would be happy but the value of the completed task is (in my view) questionable.
Ok I didn’t complete the task in 111 words even though I knew that is what is required. My biggest insight (which I guess I already knew) is that I am not cut out for military training and will always be a subversive pacifist/rebel. No seriously I am a scientist and part of this profession is trained to question which is where carrying out a PTO provides a dilemma as it requires Blind Faith and many scientist question this approach. This is where being both a manager and a scientist is like chalk and cheese in many respects. However a balance between blind acceptenace/dleivery of a PTO and questioning the PTO is surely required depending on the task.
That it is not so much about blindly following through as quickly as possible. It is important to understand exactly what is being asked and then use creativity/free thinking/whatever to make your best attempt.
Personally PTO suits me. I like being given clear direction, and get a real sense of achievement when I meet the outcome i.e. 111 words and a clear message (I hope it was clear!)
I have been criticised about my attention to the detail and that I often don’t see the ‘big picture’. PTO to me is about getting to the same endpoint, but making sure that I have paid attention to the detail along the way. In my role I’m required to review the detail and when I don’t give tasks the attention they deserve due to time pressures the things that I’m skimming over always come back to haunt me! Moving forward, some advice about planning time wouldn’t go astray.
I did adhere to the 111 words in the last DFQ, but I thought it was more important to “resolve” the paradox. Anyway, the biggest insight is that there is a right time/place for certain things; ie. we can/must PTO (to a degree of excellence), and yet we can put on our thinking caps at other times.
I think one insight is the pace of work needs to be correct for peel the orange to work. Plus there is a need to understand people very clearly to correctly define and assign a peel the orange task.
To achieve results, you just have to get the job done.
PTO helps me see the need to understand the black and white. Here choice is limited, just do it.
Once the black and white is clear, we can see the grey. This is the area we can really apply our thinking skills to create a BVS.
I used less than 111 words, but interpreted the statement as:
“Resolve the PTO paradox (with)in 111 words.”
My biggest insight about PTO is the realisation of the number of times when PTO could be applied in my work life (and hopefully for my children too!!!). PTO is very useful in a scientific sense when managing the collection of samples or taking of measurements to ensure that uniformity and integrity is maintained among samples. PTO may even be important when doing repetitive tasks such as getting into a daily ritual of completing management or scientific tasks when it may be more important to start the job than it is to be highly creative. The other realisation is the need to transition from certain tasks that require high level creativity to those that require PTO.
Once again I had an issue with detail, just assumed that it was less than 111. We peel the orange for many reasons:
1. because it is the right thing to do
2. because it pleases someone
3. because we trust someone
I still believe that peel the orange can be an evil, maybe some of you remember My Lai, those American soldiers peeled the orange and murdered over 500 women, children and the elderly. I am finding it quite difficult to blindly trust the PTO with those facts in mind.
I would find it hard to PTO if I perceived a ‘team’ member – especially a junior colleague – was hand-balling the unpeeled orange to me.