Reading Andy McAfee’s recent piece “IT’s Three Key Organizational Transformations”, spurred a personal thinking theme today. I was a bit disturbed (and disappointed) by what Andy seemed to miss in his thought — stuff that 2.0 thinking hinges on (but it wouldn’t be the first time, or likely the last).

Indeed now that I look at the comparison of his title and mine — the difference is clear — the evidence is in the language patterns.

There’s an inherent flaw in the language “Organizational Transformation”, similar to the flaw in “Driving Adoption“. The language itself carries a negative tone which almost ensures the failure that Andy points out in his piece:

“The difficulties of getting people to comply with the essential details of redesigned work explain why failure rates among the first wave of business process re-engineering efforts were as high as 70%.”

Compliance is another ‘wrong language’ term…so is change when it’s used as a verb rather than as a noun to describe the effect.

Andy also uses the word orchestration:

“Orchestration means designing how work will be done, then assuring that it actually is executed as designed.”

Here he deeply misses the positive nuances of a musical analogy. If we look at orchestration as something that brings together multiple ‘voices’ and differing moments of focus, all contributing to a structured output, that’s one thing. But it takes a really talented conductor with great passion to bring out the ‘feeling’ that truly defines a stellar orchestrated result.

Before any orchestration can occur, there is first a composition or script. This is the common reference point for all that is orchestrated.

And yet, all performers know that no performance is ever the same — there is no “assuring that it actually is executed as designed”, nor would you want it to be so. Different conductors and directors bring a different life to the intended performance of the composition or script. Why? Because of interpretation.

A conductor or director can have a great interpretation and still fail — without an equal ability to transfer the understanding of that interpretation to others. They alone do not deliver the results — they rely on others to do so.

A composition or script is brought to life through human potential. A focus on the human potential is critical to 2.0. Any related 2.0 failures can surely be traced back to a lack of such focus.

In the midst of a great orchestrated musical event, the performance itself is ripe with improvisation of emotion…collective emotion, not only from the performers but from the audience as well (any thespian knows that their best performances were on the nights with great audiences).

Yet, for beliefs to the contrary, great improvisation relies heavily on structure. For all such endeavors there’s a defined beginning and end, and often many key transitional points in-between. Those moments of transition are often communicated by subtle cues and expression of emotion. Those who assume that improvisation (or self-organization) is the antithesis of orchestration, truly misunderstand how the full potential of orchestration and improvisation is achieved.

One of the critical subtleties of 2.0, is the paradox: if you’re not operating in the paradox, you’re not exploring the full potential. In music, orchestrated improvisation represents such a dichotomy.

I see far too many Enterprise 2.0 practitioners who neither understand or think it’s relevant to embrace the paradox. Indeed, as technologists they still suffer from binary blinders. Regardless of what they say or do, it’s still fundamentally framed by an internal language of “if…then”, “either…or”. The realm of 2.0 is always “and”. The answers are in the “both”.

We see evidence of such language subtleties in Andy’s question:

“What are the most compelling examples of digitization that you’ve come across?”

The language here makes ‘digitization’ the goal, the focus. This is where the problem starts. It’s the same as a chef working to draw attention to the condiments: it’s just the wrong thing to do.

He goes on:

“What cases of technology-enabled business orchestration, self-organization, and/or science have you found most persuasive, instructive, or surprising?”

This is the antithesis of 2.0 thinking. There seems to be an implied “digital” missing in front of “technology” in that question (I’m pretty sure Andy’s not operating from the Clayton Christensen definition). If it were truly a 2.0-focused question, it would have ‘design’ in it somewhere (not the kind of ‘fixed’ design that Andy alluded to), for it is there that:

• Orchestration is balanced with improvisation
• Emergence is born of constraints
• Science is useless without art

In this realm, as in music and movies:

• Process becomes squishy and fluid — it flows
• Passion gives life to purpose
• People are guided, not managed
• Quality emerges from relevancy AND reliability

It is only through design that paradox is embraced. It is only through embracing and capitalizing on the human potential (which is ripe with paradox) that we have the opportunity to capitalize on truly great performances.

We need more leaders who are willing to lead people, not protocols.

The significance of language patterns was spurred by yet another recent article.   A discussion among practitioners ensued around the subtle differences between terms like “systems thinking” vs. “systemic thinking”. I’m now wondering if perhaps we might all be better served by a little “symphonic thinking”, of the Gustavo Dudamel variety.

Main Entry: sym·phon·ic
Pronunciation: \sim-ˈfä-nik\
Function: adjective
Date: 1856

1 : harmonious, symphonious
2 : relating to or having the form or character of a symphony <symphonic music>
3 : suggestive of a symphony especially in form, interweaving of themes, or harmonious arrangement <a symphonic drama>
— sym·phon·i·cal·ly \-ni-k(ə-)lē\ adverb