You are social!

Here are some of the observations and insights that were shared via Twitter this past week.

@ChrisNahr – “Socrates would haunt discussion forums. And probably get banned for trolling.” – via @lemire

@nilofer – “In the Industrial Era, the unit of power = Organization. In Information era, power was = Data. Social Era, unit of power = Connection”

@MeetingBoy – “Boss asked for ‘some impressive-sounding stats to support my presentation.’ Decision first, then check the data. That’s how LEADERS do it.”

@montberte – “With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.”

Five Whys – Business Plans Don’t Work – via @TimKastelle

Let’s take a look at some of the activities which are not being done:

• The business is not validating who its customers are, what problems the product is solving, or how well the product is meeting customer needs
• The business is not finding out which customers will actually buy the product, which distribution channels and pricing strategies work best, or whether the sales model will scale
• The business is not revisiting the business plan in any way, or making any corrections as it discovers new information about its customers, its suppliers or the operational activity needed to generate revenue
• The business is not controlling cash burn, or waiting to find out whether the business model actually works before committing itself to a series of execution milestones and sales targets

@JohnnieMoore – Hierarchy, innovation, disruption

I think innovation often eludes big organisations because they’re just too fat-fingered to pick it up.

I wasn’t there and can’t judge the difference all this made but I am struck by how easy it is to reinforce hierarchy in the name of constraining it.

@sjgill – The unexamined leadership program is not worth doing [I also came across a similar post on measuring the effectiveness of a leadership programme, by Paul Kearns]

Evaluation is not an option; it’s an integral part of the learning process. If you want a leadership development program to be more than entertainment and you want it to achieve learning that results in significant performance improvement, than you must evaluate the program and the organizational environment of that program.

@EskoKilpi – in the social workplace, there can never be just one “boss”

Thus, an individual always has many leaders that she follows. You might even claim that from the point of view taken here, it is highly problematic if a person only has one leader. It would mean attention blindness as a default state.

Following is at best a process of active, creative learning through observing and simulating desired practices. Leading is doing one’s work in an open and transparent way. Leading is engaging with people and being openly reflective. Patterns of recognition and patterns of communication are the most predictive activities there are in forecasting viability, agility and also human well-being.

Identity is a pattern in time. The individuals are forming in the social. You can’t add a social layer to what you do, or to your IT-systems – you are social!

Victorian Family socializing at the Beach
On the Shores of Bognor Regis by Alexander M. Rossi