ConnectedEnterprise

Connected enterprise

Why do we need social business?

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The Dachis Group’s latest XPLANATiON of the attributes of a socially optimized business is a pretty good answer to the question, “What is social business?”

Looking just at the key differences in the info-graphic, I’d like to dig into “Why” these differences are necessary:

Greater acceptance of risks & failures: This is how complex problems are addressed, and all businesses are dealing with more complexity. As I mentioned in leadership emerges from network culture, a Probe-Sense-Respond approach is necessary. Dave Snowden underlines the fact that over half of your probes will fail and hence the need to have a culture where failure is an option. It’s what Dave calls “safe-fail”: “We conduct safe-fail experiments. We don’t do fail-safe design. If an experiment succeeds, we amplify it. If an experiment fails, we dampen it.” Failure is not just an option, it’s a common occurrence.

Clear guidelines allow everyone to speak openly on behalf of the company. That’s because hyperlinks have subverted hierarchy. Everyone is connected. In hierarchical organizations, workers are more connected when they go home than when they’re at work. This is a sure sign of the obsolescence of many management control systems.  The Internet has changed everything.

Democratization of information: User-generated content is ubiquitous and much of it is very useful. Search engines give each worker more information and knowledge than any CEO had 10 years ago. Pervasive connectivity will change traditional power structures, though the full effects of this are not yet visible.

Leaders and experts can easily emerge: It takes different leadership, or leadership for networks, to do the important work in complex work environments, which is to increase collaboration and support social learning in the workplace. If the main point of the internet is to remove “barriers to socializing”, then shouldn’t leadership in a networked, social business strive for a similar objective?

Team-oriented, much flatter, exists beyond the org chart: This is another result of a networked society but I’m not sure if team is the best term for social business and I would use collaboration instead. This is the objective of Wirearchy: a dynamic multi-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology.

Greater business visibility, info flows vertically and horizontally: There are emerging patterns and dynamics related to interconnected people and interlinked information flows, which are bypassing established traditional structures and services. It’s part of wired work.

Comfortable with outward facing communication: Most of the action in business is moving to the edge and a greater percentage of the workforce will be customer-facing.

Is leadership an emergent property?

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Note: this post is in early Beta.

Is leadership an emergent property of people working together (social capital) or is it something delivered, in a top-down fashion by an individual? I was asked about this recently, and immediately thought about the Apache nation that had only situational leaders, Nantans, who were in charge as long as warriors were willing to follow them. Because of this decentralization, they were able to fight the Spanish for a long time, regrouping as necessary, ultimately destroyed by a “benevolent” United States.

Looking at my outboard brain (my blog) I’ve reviewed some thoughts on leadership, which has not really been my focus, but is perhaps more of an emergent property after almost eight years. These are some of the ideas that still resonate with me.

Let me begin with this quote from Peter Levesque, which I picked up in 2004, showing how digital  interconnectedness may change our view leadership:

I suggest that the leaders will be found among the aggressively intelligent citizenry, liberated from many tasks and obligations by technology freely shared; using data, information and knowledge acquired from open source databases, produced from the multiples of billions of dollars of public money invested through research councils, universities, social agencies, and public institutions.

But an aggressively intelligent citizenry needs access to its own ideas. This in an ongoing battle with the established powers. Open information and access to our common knowledge assets seems to be a required part of any new leadership model.

Leaders may be required in hierarchies but are they necessary in wirearchies? The great work of our time may be to design, build and test new organizational models that reflect our democratic values and can function in an interconnected world. Leadership today may be more of an architectural task, or one of setting up the right systems.

We’re now at the stage where we have some new ideas for work (wirearchy, natural enterprises, workplace democracy) and some new technologies (social, nano-bio-techno-cogno). The next step in this evolution is for a new organizational model and that conversation has already started. The ideology will come later.

Ideas lead technology. Technology leads organizations. Organizations lead institutions. Then ideology brings up the rear, lagging all the rest—that’s when things really get set in concrete.

Does ridiculously-easy group forming mean that leadership can now emerge when people get together for collective action? What kind of leadership is there in mass, decentralized, social movements, like the Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street movements?

Warren Bennis wrote that hierarchy is a prosthesis for trust. With open systems, trust emerges.

Knowledge workers, collaborate, you have nothing to lose but your managers. This is a statement I made a bit in jest on Twitter, but the truth behind it is that management is less useful to the interconnected, professional, concept worker. With fewer managers and hyperlinks subverting hierarchy, will a different breed of leadership emerge?

It takes different leadership, or leadership for networks, to do the important work in complex work environments, which, in my opinion, is to increase collaboration and support social learning in the workplace.

I haven’t really answered my own question whether leadership is an emergent property of net work, but I have little doubt that we need different kinds of leadership (more open, transparent & diverse) and people with these attributes may emerge as their peers allow them to lead; for the time being.

Spreading social capitalism

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I had the pleasure of meeting Dan Robles at Innotribe and his recent post on It is Time to Evolve, got me thinking and making some connections. Dan starts with the big picture:

How the world really works

The Internet and social media have shifted the factors of production away from land, labor, and capital to a higher order of human organization.  This is what we need to be talking about.  People today produce things with knowledge – social, creative, and intellectual knowledge.  These are the factors of production for that 99% of the value that exists on Earth.

Dan goes on to say:

How can we expect to create any type of fair and rational economy from a bunch of invisible stuff milling around the parks?  There is no escape from Market Capitalism and no path to Social Capitalism without a Knowledge Inventory, period.

The knowledge inventory link above takes you to a video which discusses the three factors of production in social capitalism:

  1. Intellectual Capital (ability to collect, retain & share information
  2. Social Capital (ability  of people to work together)
  3. Creative Capital (ability  to combine diverse ideas)

These reminded me of the Law of the Few and how ideas get connected in communities.

knowledge inventory

Generally, Mavens exhibit the greatest intellectual capital; Connectors have the most diverse (creative) networks and Salespeople get things done (action). I wonder if this metaphor/model would help to get social capitalism “across the chasm”. Identify sufficient Mavens, Connectors & Salespeople (you need all three) and then build up to the 10% critical mass necessary to effectively spread ideas:

“When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority,” said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. “Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”

Leadership in Complexity

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In organizing for diversity and complexity, I discussed structural changes that are needed in our institutions. Kevin Wheeler has a great slide presentation on leadership in complexity that looks at what is required in such a diverse and complex work world. In the future of leadership development, Kevin describes some new core leadership skill sets (Slides 17-21):

  • Dealing with Ambiguity
  • Dealing with Complexity
  • Dealing with Interdependencies
  • Fostering Creativity
  • Challenging Assumptions

Two shifts are driving the need for a new type of leadership: 1) networks are giving workers the freedom to act and cooperate and 2) the optimal control structure for complex environments is loose hierarchies and strong networks. Leadership, and organizational support functions, need to move from command & control to enable & encourage.

Kevin’s presentation aligns with several of the ideas I’ve been working on. Using terms from his presentation, I would say that a transparent, flexible and open organizational model is necessary so that leaders can listen to and analyze what is happening in real time. In turn, leaders can help set context and build consensus. This is 21st century leadership.

 

New Hire Emergent Practices

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In May I asked what interesting new hire practices have emerged in the workplace and later re-posted the question to Google+. I also collected a number of bookmarks on onboarding, as some companies call it. There are many good practices, such as:

  • Dedicated coaches
  • Formal introductions to people in the work network, especially those at a distance.
  • Encouraging informal conversations.
  • Giving enough time to settle into the work.
  • Using collaboration platforms to enable better communication.

Good practices can be summed up with three key lessons:

  1. Connect People
  2. Connect with Social Media (less hierarchical than other forms of communication).
  3. Start the process as early as possible

Here are some of the more interesting emergent practices, in my opinion.

Offering to pay people to leave after onboarding, so that only motivated workers stay.

Have new employees work one level down for a week to see how their work affects others in the hierarchy. (Executive Yak)

Integrating staff into the workflow, culture, and team from day one (in a supportive environment). This reflects the emerging freelance economy that I work in, much more than the traditional corporate environment. As Will Kryski noted:

 I jump into companies as a contractor with no hand holding, mentoring, etc and am expected to perform from day one. Huge learning curves, little info or help, even on how to use the timesheet system. I just ask as required or figure it out on my own.

And to which I responded that one advantage we free-agents have is in adapting to new contexts. We change clients more frequently than salaried employees change jobs. We’ve had to learn how to adapt. I remember one client where I got to spend a week in a broom closet.

What I found most interesting is that I did not find a lot of unique or emergent practices. Perhaps these are being kept as company secrets or maybe HR departments in general lack creativity and innovation.

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Cooperation and networks at Innotribe

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Stowe Boyd & I are opening the presentation on corporate culture this morning, here in Toronto at Sibos. We will be looking at how organizational frameworks and models have changed. Stowe will talk about the architecture of cooperation:

The new architecture of work is now emerging, after decades of transition. White collar work became knowledge work which has now become creative work. The transition from process to networks is not just a recasting, not just a different style of communication. The work is styled as information sharing through social relationships, and where ‘following’ takes the place of ‘invitation’. People coordinate efforts, but work on a wide variety of activities, which are not necessarily co-aligned with others’ work, and which are not necessarily even known in a general way. A new degree of privacy and autonomy animates cooperative work, in comparison to collaborative work. Individuals cooperating hand off information or take on tasks in a fashion that is like businesses cooperating: they see the benefit in cooperating, and don’t have to share a common core set of strategic goals to do so: they don’t need the alignment of goals that defines old style business employment.

I will discuss the TIMN model, which I learned about via John Robb. I will overlay it with a look at dominant communications media and talk about some of the organizational changes we are seeing and may see in the near future.

We may see more of the following.

Wirearchy: a dynamic multi-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology.

Heterarchies are networks of elements in which each element shares the same “horizontal” position of power and authority, each playing a theoretically equal role [wikipedia].

Chaordic refers to a system of governance that blends characteristics of chaos and order. The term was coined by Dee Hock the founder and former CEO of the VISA credit card association [wikipedia].

And I’ll ask these and some some other questions:

Do networks obsolesce hierarchies? Can they co-exist?

What happens when your customers are more connected than your organization?

How does the transparency that networks enable change your organizational model?

Social networks drive Innovation

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I’m always looking for simple ways to explain how networks change business and how social media help to increase openness, driving transparency and increasing innovation.

Does this graphic stand on its own, or is there more explanation required?

Updated:

With significant feedback via Google+, here is the next, but not last, version.

Version 3 (thanks to Dan Pontefract & Simon Fowler and many others on Google Plus)

Adapting to a networked world

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Simon Bostock referred me to this speech that Ben Hammersly gave to the UK’s Information Assurance Advisory Council. The main theme is how the ruling generation (Baby Boomers) are failing to understand how the Internet has changed EVERYTHING.

You’re all the same age, and upbringing, as the people that the digital generations are so upset with. Don’t take it personally, but your peers are the sorts of baby-boomers that have been entrusted with the future, while they are obviously so deeply confused by the present.

For example:

[Moores Law] This is all obvious for us, yes, but Truth Number One, is that anything that is dismissed on the grounds of the technology-not-being-good-enough-yet is going to happen. We have to tell people this.

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Fundamental Truth Number two is that the internet is the dominant platform for life in the 21st century.

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Indeed, a small part of the trigger for the London riots can be understood as the gap between the respect given to peoples’s opinions by the internet, and the complete disrespect given by the government and the ruling elites.

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The government, and the security industry, in this country and elsewhere, have spent the past ten years really blowing it. Time and time again there has been a demonstration of security theatre, or overreaction, or overstatement of the risks in hand. From liquids in airports to invading Iraq, no one believes this stuff any more.

Hammersly likens his role as “translator” between the ruling generation and the younger generations, and given his record, he seems to be doing this with a vengeance. I’m sure it will still take some time to get the message through.

Earlier this year I spoke to HR Executives and Chief Privacy Officers about social media, the most visible part of the world connected by the Internet. After one presentation it was clear that the group (all over 40) knew that things were changing but few understood what they could do within the context of their own organization. Or perhaps they had no real incentive to do so.

While people like Hammersly are needed as translators, we also need pathfinders to show concrete measures that can be taken by the pioneers. Using the  tipping point metaphor, Mavens deeply understand the situation, Connectors are needed to get the word out and Salespeople have to convince those in control to take action. That means there’s work for many while we get to the critical mass where a networked way of working (e.g. wirearchy) living (e.g. Shareable) and learning (e.g. MOOC)  become natural.

The democratization of the enterprise

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My About section used to include this paragraph, written a while back and still reflective of my professional perspective:

A guiding goal in much of my work is the democratization of the enterprise. Democracy is our best structure for political governance and I believe it should be the basis of our workplaces as well. As work and learning become integrated in a networked society, I see great opportunities to create better employment models. I know that we can do better than cubicle farms, cookie-cutter job descriptions, generic work competencies and boring, dead-end jobs. I especially enjoy working with any organization that is open to change.

I share this vision with Mark Dowds, whom I’ve only met once but we’ve stayed in touch through the magic of social media. Here’s a great presentation by Mark, founder of Brainpark, on 8 reasons to democratize the workplace.

The entire presentation is well worth watching to understand why these are important, but for the attention deficient, here are the eight reasons:

  1. Reduced costs
  2. Reduced workforce
  3. Increased productivity
  4. Getting closer to customers
  5. Fewer layers of bureaucracy
  6. Shorter time to market
  7. Increased employee motivation
  8. Increased recognition of employee contributions

Mark (@MarkDowds) has a great sense of humour and I’m sure you’ll find his presentation enjoyable.

Natural entrepreneurship

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When you come to a fork in the road, take it. – Yogi Berra

As I look at what I’ve learned about business, information technology and learning over the past decade I see two major influences, perhaps not mutually exclusive, that will change how we work and learn. One is the pending major shift in energy consumption and the other is our increasing connection through the Internet.

My observations and readings tell me that when we change how we work, our education systems follow suit. There is no doubt that many of us will be changing how we work in the near future. That will mean changes in how we educate ourselves.

Peak oil has already passed and we will have to come to terms with using more costly sources of energy and using less of it. That will change how we get to work, how we go to school, and especially how we make and move goods. Scenarios such as Jim Kunstler’s are one possibility, but there are many others. Change does not happen in a straight line. However, there is no doubt that the shift away from the cheap oil economy will have repercussions at all levels.

The Internet has also changed how we work and communicate and this will continue unless something like the long emergency happens. In the meantime, the Net is changing how we do business and how we perceive learning (e.g. connectivism). For example, command & control, supply chain management and performance management are all being turned on their heads as hyperlinks subvert hierarchies. The same is happening in schools as what is taught inside has less relevance with the outside. Here in New Brunswick debates rage on singing O Canada and wearing sweats in school while critical thinking and basic digital literacy are ignored. Meanwhile, kids are having conversations with friends around the world, getting involved in international causes or creating media that is watched by over 150,000 people. Not your typical day at school.

Can we simultaneously prepare for these two possibilities- a connected world and a long emergency? I believe there is a viable option in natural enterprises, as put forth in Dave Pollard’s Finding the Sweet Spot, which I reviewed last year. Natural entrepreneurship will work in either an electric or a non-electric future, making it more resilient than most industrial models. For instance, Dave found that successful entrepreneurs had several things in common.

They built strong, collaborative relationships and networks, and operated their enterprises “on principle”. They understood that powerful social relationships are the underpinning to all human enterprise, and that collaboration succeeds better than competition. And by sticking to principles of responsibility and sustainability they ensured that these relationships were deep, trusting, and reciprocal.

Principles for natural enterprises can work whether the network of relationships is local or global. Since business models drive education models I would suggest that our business schools take a serious look at new business models and do so soon. Meanwhile, our educators have to engage in discussions on what our education system can do to build the skills for natural entrepreneurship. Time is running out.

First we shape our structures and then our structures shape us – Winston Churchill