Sub drivers

Sub drivers, or just drivers for short, are defined everyday tensions, opportunities or problems, that we want to resolve. There is always one person who senses a need first, even if it's just for a millisecond. Thus, you are now accountable for making sure that the need is addressed. The first step is to understand what it means. We make it a little less abstract. The driver is a way of formalising and simplifying the abstract emotion of tension so that you can address it properly and communicate it to others.

Defining the driver is the first thing you do. Preferably by yourself as soon as you discovered the tension, but it can also be done with others. Try to keep it short – it's an art! If you can do it in one sentence you get a gold star. If not, it's still probably good enough, which isn't bad at all. A few to-the-point sentences is what's required.

The driver consists of a description of: the current situation giving rise to the tension, the consequences (either opportunities or problems) that this situation is causing, and the needs arising. Sometimes the consequences are implied in the situation description. Sometimes the needs imply the desired outcome. When we meet the needs, the tension gap is closed, and the driver is no longer relevant.

When we go from situation to needs, we move from a more objective description of how things are to a more subjective description of what is needed. That's okay. Your only job is to write the driver so that people understand what's going on.

Examples of a driver:

We have switched system to Workbook. It doesn't yet function properly, which makes us blind about the current situation. We need clear guidelines and a way to extract the right reports.

A common trap is to define the solution as part of the driver. Don't! It may feel nice, but it limits the number of possible solutions to the tension gap. Instead, keep it open and invite more than one perspective to compete and collaborate (both-and) for the solution. Diversity makes us more resilient, sustainable and anti-fragile. Let go of your ego and build on the collective wisdom and intelligence instead. We're doing this together!

After writing the driver, we qualify it – moving on with the driver, putting it on hold (or possibly even into the trash can), or we send it to whomever (a person or team) that we believe has the mandate and wisdom to execute on it. We trust whoever makes the decision to have the ability to make a wise one. Whoever is responsible for acting on the driver, we go into the next step of proposal forming (see below).