Archive for Charles Handy
by Jon Husband
July 21, 2009 at 3:11 pm · Filed under
Charles Handy, Collaboration, Community, Culture, Enterprise Social Computing, Organizational Design, Social Computing
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Thanks to Paul Thomas, guest-blogging at the Cognitive Edge, a networked organization focused on applying complexity theory in practical ways to complex issues and organizational problems.
(Dr Thomas is founder of the complexity theory think-tank organization DNA Wales, Head of Leadership at the Business School, University of Glamorgan and is also the BBC Wales ‘Business Doctor’. Paul works with private and public sector organisations of all sizes, including multi-nationals, trying to show them there is another way to run the workplace.)
The title is lifted from the Cognitive Edge blog (extract below).
I have not yet read the Macleod Report (I’ve skimmed through it) ) but it seems that the Cognitive Edge blog post lays out yet-another-argument for coming to terms (or grips, or whatever) with the probability that it (social computing) will become the main way of carrying out the bulk of non–routine knowledge work.
Oh .. and of course I don’t think that all management concepts and activities should be dropped holus-bolus. I do, however, think, that managers everywhere should start really trying to understand the new social dynamics and methods of constructing pertinent knowledge that are now available, and making thoughtful and sensible decisions about why and how people get engaged with getting things done on purpose.
I know, I know .. it sounds like heresy to not constantly "tinker" in order to improve processes, efficiency and effectiveness. After all, we’re all familiar with concepts like continuous improvement, orthodox performance management schemes, Six Sigma, reengineering, etc.
However, how many of us have often wondered about whether or not people have an orientation towards doing things better, easier, faster, cheaper, if we find ways to honour their desire to do good work, to be respected, to make meaningful contribution, to be heard …
Maybe (in some or many instances) there’s too much structure, too many goals, overly rigid mindsets and worldviews … not enough questions, not enough debate, too few mistakes (how many discoveries or innovations are preceded by mistakes?), not enough "failing faster to learn faster", not enough acknowledgement of the deep motivations of people to serve others and do more useful and meaningful work, etc. ?
There’s a reason why the word "unleashed" gets used so often in books, articles and conversations about organizational effectiveness .. and I don’t think it means turning a horde of web-bots loose onto the organization’s processes. It has something to do with people and their motivation and guidance.
Anyone else ever wonder ?
I think that’s what this report from the UK government suggests. But I will have to go beyond skim-reading it to confirm that guess.
What do you think ?
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MacLeod Review says people potential should be ‘unleashed’
[ Snip ... ]
The MacLeod Review of employee engagement, commissioned by the Department for Business, has said workers need to be properly involved in the future of their firms.
Author David MacLeod said he wanted to see people’s potential “unleashed” and said engagement was a key to innovation and competitiveness. Apparently the report’s authors were told during their research that “trust works two ways” and that not trusting staff had a negative impact. They were also told it was people, not machines, which made the difference to a business.
Responding to the report employment relations Minister Lord Young said: “Workers know better than anyone how the firm they work for can improve, innovate and succeed.”
If this all sounds familiar, that’s no surprise.There’s nothing radical, or even new, about this report.
[ Snip ... ]
Of course people are the key to a company’s success. Of course the best people to ask for a solution to a company’s problems are those within it and on the frontline. And it stands to reason that if you haven’t got everyone in the organisation fully behind what you’re trying to achieve, you’ve got less chance of achieving it.
The Government says it accepts the report’s recommendations and now there’ll be an action plan to deliver them.
Now that the message is becoming more mainstream, maybe those who run our organisations will forget their management tools, and constant ‘tinkering’ with the system and finally wake up to the fact that this is the only way to make them fitter for the future.
Let’s hope they don’t just pay it lip-service, and they actually do it.
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by Jon Husband
January 5, 2009 at 3:09 am · Filed under
Change, Charles Handy, Community, Culture, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Social Computing, Social Media, User Revolution
I’d like tp build on my FASTForward blogging colleague Bill Ives’ informative post titled "Deloitte Declares We Are in a Media Democracy", Deloitte of course being the major global consulting firm Deloitte Touche.
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Deloitte Declares We Are in a “Media Democracy”
Bill Ives
Dean Takahashi at Venture Beat shared with us a summary of a recent Deloitte survey on the state of media. The report concludes that, “We’re living in a media democracy, where no single form of media dominates the attention of Americans. It’s also an age where everyone contributes to the media, not just traditional media companies.” The last part is old news but I find the first part more interesting.
There has been discussion about whether blogging will continue in the age of Twitter. I have mentioned, as have others, that they have different functions and complement each other. Twitter may take away a few of the functions of blogs but there are many left that cannot be handled by Twitter.
There has been very few times where a new media actually completely replaces an old one. Each new advance in communication technology expands the possibilities for knowledge capture and distribution. In each case it took a while to understand the possibilities and the requirements to enable them. Take text or writing for example: the invention of the phonetic alphabet around 700 B.C. enabled a number of unforeseen and unintended capabilities.
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Deloitte’s organisational consulting has for some time now been involved in employee engagement and organisational change, and so its practitioners in those areas will understand more of the emerging sociology of the networked workplace environment than the other major consulting firms. And of course, not to miss a beat, all the other major firms will all be out there now telling customers they have found a new ball to kick around, i,e, social computing. They will come up with logical responses wherever there seems to be a growing market. But beware of these firms’ response, in my opinion. If you want to know why, email me.
Is the general awareness of the effects of using computers, the Web and the easy sharing and consumption of information flows beginning to reach a critical mass ? Bill’s blog post would seem to suggest so.
And I’ll argue, as I have done for some time now, that the spread and penetration of social media use into organisations large and small will lead to some major changes in the practice of leadership and management (Will Enterprise 2.0 Drive Management Innovation?, FASTForward, January 10, 2008) and slowly but surely the impact will be (or should be) the increased democratisation of many organisations.
My favourite astrologer does not agree … but we all know horoscope forecasts are somewhat suspect, right ? But short-term, I can see the logic … in uncertain and ambiguous times, many people like the feeling of increased certainty offered by direction and control. Just ask Lou Gertner what was the hardest part of the IBM turnaround in the early 90’s .. he’ll tell you "upward delegation"
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"In 2009, hierarchies will grow, democracy will ebb–"might is right" and pragmatic choices win."
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But indeed some form of democratisation reaching through a wide range of human activities, including work in an enterprise, seems inevitable. The only alternative, I suggest, is the eventual use of information technology to control almost everything knowledge workers do, reducing computing activities to completing forms and updating various reports. That does not seem too likely, but I suppose its true that you can’t predict the future.
Do you want your workplace to become more democratic than it is today ? How will your workplace engage you a year from now … two years from now … five years from now ?
I was interviewed a bit more than a year ago by WorldBlu (Annual World’s Most Democratic Workplaces) founder Traci Fenton about the impact of social computing on organisational democracy. If we believe that "knowledge is power" and that the days of a few people at the top of organisations taking all the decisions and telling everyone else how to do things are numbered (John Cambers of Cisco clearly believes that’s the case, and is not sacrificing organisational effectiveness with that belief), then it’s clear that eventually shifts in traditional organisational power will be more frequent, more observable, and carry more implications for major changes in the ways people are led and managed. Gary Hamel clearly believes this is the case, as he outlines in his most recent book The Future of Management.
I’ve used this quote from business strategist and futurist Stan Davis before, but in this context I am not ashamed to repeat it because there are some very long term shifts underway for all of us, as the Deloitte study is beginning to recognize. The media we use to work and interact with others is fundamentally different than it was at the end of the do com boom, and it ain’t going away.
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While there wasn’t something called social media or social computing back then, here’s Stan Davis on organizing in the future, from the 1987 book Future Perfect:
"Electronic information systems enable parts of the whole organization to communicate directly with each other, where the hierarchy wouldn’t otherwise permit it.
What the hierarchy proscribes, the network facilitates: each part in simultaneous contact with all other parts and with the company as a whole. The organization can be centralized and decentralized simultaneously: the decentralizing mechanism in the structure, and the coordinating mechanism in the systems.
Networks will not replace or supplement hierarchies; rather the two will be encompassed within a broader conception that embraces both. We are still a long way from figuring out the appropriate and encompassing organization models for the economy we are now in."
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Here’s Stan catching up to the Web 2.0 world ("catching up" isn’t quite the right term … outlining what he think with respect to the most recent development so n the Web is probably better
Decision-making over the past quarter-century has continually moved from the center to periphery, down hierarchies to where decisions are carried out. Current technologies, especially of the Web 2.0 world, have moved that decision-making even further, overwhelmingly beyond firms’ boundaries and into the physical and mental space of the customer.
The differences between the two worlds are striking.
Whereas information is still hoarded and protected in companies, it is freely shared and reused in the connected Web 2.0 world. Hierarchy and command still rule the day in most organizations, while individuals are self-organizing, loose and flat.
Other shifts are from command & control to adapt & evolve, from provider-generated to consumer-generated content, from vertical to horizontal organization, and from an ‘audience-’ to a ‘community-’ approach to customers.
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It would be interesting to learn what you think.
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by Jon Husband
January 26, 2008 at 11:02 pm · Filed under
Business Model, Change, Charles Handy, Cloud Computing, Conferences, Dead Paradigms, Economics, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, Long Tail, Open Source, Relationships, Social Computing, Social Networking, User Revolution, Web 2.0, Wisdom of Crowds
Here below is an excerpt from and a link to a report just published by the recent Aspen Institute’s Communications and Society program.
In a previous post I mentioned a growing awareness of the impact of the interconnected digital infrastructure and digital natives on the Enterprise 2.0 market. The publication of this Aspen Institute report is to me just one more piece of evidence that it’s real and growing … and it’s a credible source (though not quite a tangible case study 
David Bollier reports from his OnTheCommons blog about "The Rise of Collective Intelligence: Decentralized Co-Creation of Value as a New Paradigm in Commerce and Culture” (pdf) published by the Aspen Institute.
It may be that the serious jargon of the term "collective intelligence" will put some (or many) off, but increasingly it seems to be becoming clear that the interactive social construction of knowledge put to use in response to constantly dynamic markets is demanding some new business logic, new points of friction with which to fashion transaction and new ways of designing and managing the work that leads to the creation of economic value.
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The Rise Of Collective Intelligence
Most forwarding-thinking businesses are starting to realize that they need to come to terms with the open Internet environment. This means making some radical changes in how they think about markets, how they structure their own enterprises and how they treat customers.
[ Snip ... ]
On the Internet, people have acquired considerable powers of their own. They have developed their own sustainable micro-cultures. They can create their own commons to carry on conversations among peers and develop new forms of reliable “collective intelligence.”
This bottom-up knowledge empowers ordinary individuals to approach market transactions on a more equal footing with sellers, who have historically had greater market power and knowledge. The commoners are able to capture more of the knowledge they create, and use it to their own advantage. Indeed, the commons can be regarded as a source of cutting-edge R&D for companies, as MIT professor Eric von Hippel has shown in his book, Democratizing Innovation.
The phrase that the conference used to describe this phenomenon is “decentralized co-creation of value.” It means that the market is not the sole source of value-creation; dispersed online communities are now sources of value that businesses must collaborate with in order to generate value.
The commons stands on a more equal footing with the market. Instead of all “value” coming from centralized players like corporations, increasingly, value is coming from the “ends” of the Internet – the periphery, where new ideas and innovations first materialize. Value comes from individuals, and groups of individuals, operating in the free space of the commons, where overhead is low to nonexistent, and creativity is not regimented to service prearranged market niches. Thanks to the Internet, social niches are becoming “staging areas” for viable niche markets, a phenomenon also known as the “Long Tail.”
All of these developments create a real crunch for traditional large corporations because large companies like to have extreme control. That’s how they deliver predictable results to investors and protect their brand reputation. But on the Internet, control and predictability are not viable strategies. In fact, they are counter-productive.
Value is generated by having less control. Customers won’t trust a company that tries to use digital rights management or bullying tactics to assert too much control. In a sense, companies are not just competing against other companies, but against the freedoms of the commons.
The challenge for businesses, then, is to develop new sorts of “open business” models that can respect the social dynamics of the Internet, while still monetizing certain forms of value (e.g., selling advertising to the Web users who like your site). Companies have to realize that brands are forms of socially created value; brands are not simply the result of advertising and image campaigns. Online communities create and promote a brand every bit as much as mass media.
One of the most fascinating parts of the report is about the next generation of computing, often known as “The Cloud.” Bill Coleman, the entrepreneur who started BEA Systems and recently started the Cassatt Corporation, describes the Cloud as the convergence of voice, data and video in a networked system that also combines computing, telecommunications and the Internet. You plug your computing appliance into The Cloud – and all your data and stuff is “there,” not on your personal computer.
Everyone at the conference agreed that the current trends in economics and technology will make The Cloud inevitable. Software and hardware will become commodity products, computing will become a service provided by very large utilities, and a handful of these Cloud providers will eventually put the telephone service industry, the cable industry and Internet service providers out of business.
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I have been for some time been calling the emergent organizing principle that I believe underpins the necessary new business logic and models, derived from social-interaction-driven market niches, "wirearchy" – a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology.
I am heartened this report has come out (emerged, let’s say) from a group of bright and aware people at the Aspen Institute. I suspect that it makes those of us who feel something big and different is going on bit by byte, link by link … a bit less iconoclastic.
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Tags: Collective intelligence, new business logic, new business models, ROII, Return On Investment in Interaction, cloud computing, co-creating value, decentralization, wirearchy, hierarchy
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by Rob Paterson
October 5, 2007 at 1:41 pm · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Business Model, Charles Handy, Conflict, David Kilkullen, Donut, Enterprise 2.0, Sponsored Post, Terror
I have been writing about how the “Donut” will replace the traditional organization.
Here is Kilkullen on how the “Donut” works in the Terror context:
I find it fascinating when I find that someone I don’t know has seen the same as I.
by Rob Paterson
September 30, 2007 at 6:34 am · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Business Model, Charles Handy, Donut, Emergent, Enterprise 2.0, John Robb, Public Media, Social Media, Wisdom of Crowds
How often have you see an organizations tell itself and the world that it is “The Best” and has the best people? Of course – this can never be true because in a complex world we can never know everything. And knowing does not mean that you read a good book or took a course. Knowing means that you are immersed. For instance of the thousands of excellent people in public radio and TV, or the hundreds of thousands in marketing – who is immersed in social media? In the public media area I would venture less than 30.
No matter how smart we are – we all need help? So how do you get the help? Shift to the “Donut” – taking this route will open up access to the talent you need at a price you can afford.
One of the cleverest people I know is John Robb. Here is a nugget from him that clarifies this point:
Here’s three simple insights for organizational success in a chaotic, complex, and hyper-competitive environment (and a way to use the wisdom of crowds to unearth talent that you need to thrive):
- The best people (to solve any given problem) don’t work for your organization. A corollary to this: if you don’t have the best people working for you, you will fail.
- Use transparency and the marketplace to find the best people located outside your organization (simple test: whose ideas capture the greatest mindshare within your organization?). NY City’s contest is a great example of using transparency as a means of finding great talent.
- Buy all of the time they have available.
NOTE (on when being good isn’t enough): Another trend is that an increasing number of problems are information/knowledge intensive. This means that an old rule from the software world applies: a couple of great programmers are more valuable than a room full of good ones. Apply this rule to any complex information-intense problem you face and you will get much faster, cheaper, and better results.
None of us have the best people for any of the myriad issues that confront our organizations. But the best people do exist. Why not use the “Donut” to bring them in to help you?
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