Good obstacle,

bad obstacle
Mike Burrows
Founder, Agendashift™
www.agendashift.com
mike@agendashift.com
twitter:@asplake
Copyright © 2020 Agendashift™
Agendashift is a trading name of Positive Incline Ltd agendashift.com/gobo
#hello, I’m Mike

Mike Burrows
Founder, Agendashift™
www.agendashift.com
mike@agendashift.com
twitter:@asplake

agendashift.com/mike
 What stands in the way
becomes the way

“The mind adapts and converts to its

own purposes the obstacle to our acting.
The impediment to action advances
action. What stands in
the way becomes the way”

Marcus Aurelius (AD121-180)

Image: anonymous, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?

curid=18101954
 What stands in the way
becomes the way

Choose your obstacles carefully:

• Better obstacles lead to
better outcomes
• Better outcomes lead to
better solutions

Image: anonymous, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?

curid=18101954
Agendashift, the wholehearted, outcome-oriented
engagement model

Ideal, Obstacles, Agenda Right-to-Left

Outcomes for Strategy
(IdOO) change Deployment

agendashift.com/framework
IdOO /ʌɪdu:/
A mnemonic for this generative
pattern:
• Ideal – or ideal best – reflection
• Obstacles – identification
• Outcomes – generation

agendashift.com/idoo
Your obstacles

For your adaptive challenge, reflect on what your

ideal best might look like
• What stops that? What gets in the way?
(one bullet point answer)
Good? Bad?
1. Lack of a knowledge management system
2. Lack of work-in-progress (WIP) limits
3. Lack of people / money / time
4. Poor quality
5. Management, leadership (or lack thereof)
6. “Culture”
7. Lack of the X mindset

agendashift.com/gobo/examples
Good obstacles

• Real, relevant, representative

• Without:
• Alienating people needlessly
• Constraining options prematurely
Bad obstacles: Traps to watch for
• Scarcity language – obstacles that identify a “lack of” this or that:
• Language that sells a solution or theory
• Language that could be perceived as judgemental
• Language that identifies only one side of an imbalance
• Tribal shorthand:
• Jargon
• Finger-pointing
• Language that identifies in-groups and out-groups
• Begging the objective

agendashift.com/gobo/traps
Good? Bad?
1. Lack of a knowledge management system
2. Lack of work-in-progress (WIP) limits
3. Lack of people / money / time
4. Poor quality
5. Management, leadership (or lack thereof)
6. “Culture”
7. Lack of the X mindset

agendashift.com/gobo/examples
1. Lack of a knowledge management system
• Scarcity language – obstacles that identify a “lack of” this or that:
• Language that sells a solution or theory
• Language that could be perceived as judgemental
• Language that identifies only one side of an imbalance
• Tribal shorthand:
• Jargon
• Finger-pointing
• Language that identifies in-groups and out-groups
• Begging the objective

agendashift.com/gobo/traps
2. Lack of work-in-progress (WIP) limits
• Scarcity language – obstacles that identify a “lack of” this or that:
• Language that sells a solution or theory
• Language that could be perceived as judgemental
• Language that identifies only one side of an imbalance
• Tribal shorthand:
• Jargon
• Finger-pointing
• Language that identifies in-groups and out-groups
• Begging the objective

agendashift.com/gobo/traps
3. Lack of people / money / time
• Scarcity language – obstacles that identify a “lack of” this or that:
• Language that sells a solution or theory
• Language that could be perceived as judgemental
• Language that identifies only one side of an imbalance
• Tribal shorthand:
• Jargon
• Finger-pointing
• Language that identifies in-groups and out-groups
• Begging the objective

agendashift.com/gobo/traps
4. Poor quality
• Scarcity language – obstacles that identify a “lack of” this or that:
• Language that sells a solution or theory
• Language that could be perceived as judgemental
• Language that identifies only one side of an imbalance
• Tribal shorthand:
• Jargon
• Finger-pointing
• Language that identifies in-groups and out-groups
• Begging the objective

agendashift.com/gobo/traps
5. Management, leadership (or lack thereof)
• Scarcity language – obstacles that identify a “lack of” this or that:
• Language that sells a solution or theory
• Language that could be perceived as judgemental
• Language that identifies only one side of an imbalance
• Tribal shorthand:
• Jargon
• Finger-pointing
• Language that identifies in-groups and out-groups
• Begging the objective

agendashift.com/gobo/traps
6. “Culture”
• Scarcity language – obstacles that identify a “lack of” this or that:
• Language that sells a solution or theory
• Language that could be perceived as judgemental
• Language that identifies only one side of an imbalance
• Tribal shorthand:
• Jargon
• Finger-pointing
• Language that identifies in-groups and out-groups
• Begging the objective

agendashift.com/gobo/traps
7. Lack of the X mindset
• Scarcity language – obstacles that identify a “lack of” this or that:
• Language that sells a solution or theory
• Language that could be perceived as judgemental
• Language that identifies only one side of an imbalance
• Tribal shorthand:
• Jargon
• Finger-pointing
• Language that identifies in-groups and out-groups
• Begging the objective

agendashift.com/gobo/traps
Potential improvements (1-4)
1. Lack of a knowledge management system
→ Knowledge is hard to access
2. Lack of work-in-progress (WIP) limits
→ Workload exceeds capacity
3. Lack of people / money /time
→ Mismatched expectations / commitments
4. Poor quality
→ Process / product quality not aligned to expectations
For the harder ones…
5. Management, leadership (or lack thereof)
6. “Culture”
7. Lack of the X mindset

Three strategies:
8. Delete
9. Expand / explore
10. Get the right people in the room
• agendashift.com/rule-of-three
Advanced: What were we thinking?
For a few key obstacles:
• Where does that X come from?
Artifacts
• What is the charitable explanation
for what put them there?
Values • Look for the values and base
assumptions that might have been
in play when these obstacles first
arose
Base assumptions
• What keeps them in place now?

Inspiration: Organizational Culture and Leadership,

Edgar H. Schein
agendashift.com/events
Good obstacle, bad obstacle
1. What stands in the way becomes the way
2. Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes (IdOO)
3. Watch out for the traps:
• Scarcity language
• Tribal shorthand
• Begging the objective
4. Empathy is a superpower
5. Practice!

agendashift.com/gobo/takeaways