Is it a word? No, but it can be. One of the most challenging things that many Enterprise Architecture practitioners face is this: No-one gets EA or gets it in a consistent way, especially those that are the very people who can derive the most benefit.
I am of the belief that for all of the frameworks and literature out there on Enterprise Architecture, very little is said about the psychological savviness that is required by today’s Enterprise Architecture practitioners.
Architects put in the time, the discipline and the care to get themselves grounded in EA Frameworks, develop a process, cultivate techniques and if they are really good, will be pragmatic about their approach to introduce them to the business and technology organizations. Sadly, all of the soft skills that have stood the test of time, in making architects positive agents of change and trusted advisors is no longer enough.
Architects of today are rapidly finding out that in the world we live in, with its accelerated rate of change, global upheavals and cultural thrashing, it becomes necessary to also have some psychological savviness and behavioral science tools in your architect tool-belt.
Forming the message is key.
When Architecture practitioners work with their clients and partners, forming the message is usually thought of in terms of “which model should I use?” and “what colors should I make the boxes and arrows?”. It is also thought of in terms of the architectural delivery process – for example, if using TOGAF, then ADM may be the model for the processes and artifacts in play.
But something is missing.
Why is it that no matter how many EA certifications are held, or models are produced there are often disconnects between what the architects are trying to say and what their audience is hearing?
More experienced architects will know the value of great communications and the importance of relationship building.
However, if the architect comes to a meeting with a bunch of models that are too “ethereal” or schematics that look as though he or she is planning to colonize Mars, then the architect is kind of missing the point.
An architect’s main role is to take the time and make the effort to understand the vast complexities of the problem domains.
Business challenges, technology challenges, organizational challenges. Opportunities and risks occur across all three. All with their various components and relationships across people, process and technology.
Once understood, the architect needs to decompose that complexity and make it simple. Simple to understand so that others can make form or validate insights, produce plans, design approaches and even make actual decisions! Decisions with an acceptable tolerance of risk.
So what is “Psychitecture” then?
Well, firstly, its a made up word. I know because I made it up. It means that there is a layer of other components and relationships that are more behavioral and need to be understood, acnknowledged and always improved upon if architects are to be successful and their clients are to receive the true value from their architects.
Leadership who work with the EA Team as well as the EA team itself must pay attention to certain behaviors so that the architect can facilitate better conversations.
It then becomes easier to use artifacts more successfully when exploring planning and design deliverables.
Here are some behaviors to watch out for, and when you see them, listen, observe and learn about what you are witnessing.
Behaviors we encounter
My way is the best way because I hold rank, making me more important than you.
Yes, narcissistic tendencies are still out there, even during the emergence of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs that are suddenly important because mainstream media and social media has made it more visible. Yes, unfortunately, it has become more the trend and the fad from many leaders while the workforce actually do the work. There are few leaders who, in my opinion see things like DE&I as necessary for our cultural health and less as a “tick in the box” towards their next promotion.
Guidance: be the change you want to see. Thanks Gandhi! Demonstrate the traits of a servant leader and if you are game, ask the offender, how they feel that their behavior is conducive to inclusion.
We always did it this way and we do it because it’s our standard.
Believe it or not, there are those people who if they were in charge of innovation, we would still be scooping up horse poo from cobblestone streets as we go around in horse and buggy vehicles. Sorry Amish folks, not meaning to offend you guys and girls, I get it that that’s your thing, but the rest of us have a planet to pollute.
Guidance: Ask people about how open they are to new ideas and do a little story telling of the radical ideas of the past that materialized into the inventions we use today.
That’s not the way we do it here or not invented here mentality.
Very much like the one above, but so caught up in the continuance of a languishing order maker and order taker employment culture. Just keep doing the same thing, reacting and not proposing and enduring rather than seeking to change. Thinking differently is about coming up with new ideas that dares to challenge the conventional wisdom. I was once told by a manager that it is one thing to come up with ideas but you have to execute them. My response was yes, but you need to have a culture that actually listens to the idea and then invests time and trust into developing the idea. No idea goes from idea directly to execution. Sure not all ideas pan out, but you find that out through the development phase.
Guidance: If you are surrounded by people who are molded by the order maker and order taker mindset, then you need to find new people or circumstances that allow you to gather new people.
I am in this meeting listening to your approach and all of its benefits but I am not engaged.
It can feel very demoralizing, pointless and even insulting when you take the time to present something to your partners and stakeholders, where you did everything right and no-one is even paying attention.
You engaged people before hand, had conversations, explored viewpoints, you collected good data to support your case, you formatted the presentation and even rehearsed it. So what could possibly go wrong? You did all the right things. Or so you thought.
Don’t worry, it may not be you, it may not even be them, its because as the saying goes… we are only human.
When you do all the right things that appeal to logic and reason, you are essentially engaging the pre-frontal cortex of your audience brain. For some, with practice, self learning and discipline, this becomes more easy and natural to do and these are the people for whom you may score maximum engagement.
For the vast majority of humans out there, and this is only my opinion, they first engage with their reptilian brain – that area of the inner brain known as the amygdala. This is the area most tuned for basic survival, in fact, its where we get our fright, flight, fight response from.
Once you engage them through an “amygdala hijack” (thanks Mark Gouston: author of “Just Listen”), you can grab their attention with relevant points and once engaged, bring out the stuff that requires more reasoning to engage their frontal brainiatrics (don’t worry, its a technical term and yes, I made it up). Ah, language is such an evolving phenomenon and we all get to play our part.
Guidance: If you want to propose something, try something to engage the amygdala first. Is there some risk or danger that your proposal can avoid or eliminate? Present the risk or danger first, let it grab their amydalas by the – I don’t know, whatever the amygdala equivalent of testicles is, and press hard. You may get a negative or even aggressive response due to fear or frustration but see what happened?
You got a response. You got them engaged. Should it have to be like that? Obviously not. We are all professionals but in this day and age, we lack focus.
The greatest problem that affects architect to stakeholder conversations is this.
“The problem of people not understanding that they actually have a problem”
– Russell Cotter, 2022
Yeah, feel free to quote me on that.
Our behaviors as Architects
Are we perfectly behaved. No. We are here to design, to help decide, to nurture understanding and to unify a collaborative mindset and creative spirit. Do we always get it right? No. Sometimes the assumptions were wrong, the supporting data was insufficient of the risks were too high. But we learn and adapt for the next time.
Architects are sometimes viewed as the design police or the standards police and are perceived as the group of “NO”, when we should be looked upon as the partners of “KNOW”. Our experience, our view of the enterprise, our attention to complex components and relationships are valuable, especially if we can distill it into simple actionable tasks, design patterns or decisions that create a sense of design safety and solution viability confidence.
I have personally experienced leaders who have have not had the patience, courtesy or discipline to listen and yet, have had their actual employees send me LinkedIn invites during my presentations. Yes “presentations” was deliberately pluralized. One even messaged me about the excitement she felt because she was so inspired. Another messaged me and said she was moved to tears when I told a story around CX based design. Another wanted to use some techniques I shared towards a multi-million dollar program (and succeeded).
Some basic psychtecture traits that may help us and our partners:
- Honesty – if the real answer is “I don’t know, but I would like to try and find out for you”, then that’s the answer.
- Humility – you know, we don’t know it all. I have experienced meetings where people have only brought me in as the RUS (Random Unbiased Smarts) instead of Russell (my human name).
I will be the first to admit that I have a question to ask to help clarify my understanding. - Openness – yes, I borrowed this from the Agile Scrum values but I have to be open, which means I have to demonstrate authentic listening.
It doesn’t mean I have to agree, but I need to consider the point someone is actually making. - Be vulnerable – admit to your mistakes. We all make them. Share a lesson learned.
Why are these traits so important?
Is it because it makes us seem nicer? Maybe.
Does it remove perceptions of architects being so arrogant? Could be.
I believe these traits are important for one main reason and it is this:
It builds trust.
Trust takes a lot of time to build and a split second to destroy.
Without trust, you will not get that seat at the table, you will not be viewed as someone with integrity.
Consequently, the ideas you may want to present, no matter how brilliant, may be easily dismissed.
In summary
I believe that being or becoming mindful of the psychological aspects of architecture activities will always be important in our work. It can help to develop and cultivate collaborative and positive outcomes for teams who need to achieve great things in a world of rapidly accelerating change.
To succeed in this endeavor, I would say that you begin with some introspection and dig deep into the motivations for why you even do Enterprise Architecture. I did this exercise over a whole weekend and I finally arrived at my answer.
I am passionate about leading people to their AHA! moments. That’s it.
I enjoy doing it because it makes use of my lateral thinking and first principles design skillsets (dopamine activated!), it makes me feel good about myself when people experience and appreciate my help (seratonin activated!) and when groups look to me for guidance and trust me, it creates a feeling of belonging (oxytocin activated!). So, as you can see, these three neurotransmitter activations satisfy my human needs.
Don’t worry, I am resisting the urge to dump an image of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs into this blog (even if it is psychology-related)!
So, read what you like, believe what you will, and use what you can.
My goal is simply to present some viewpoints, offer some guidance and hope that some of it helps some people at least some of the time.
Happy architecting and psychitecting!