Post growth society

I see September’s HBR focuses on the ‘green’ economy and life in the post growth society. Yes the idea of limitless growth seems to have been exposed as a myth over the last 12 months. But post-growth society?

There will be growth alright, it just won’t be evenly distributed. While the ‘net’ might be flat, some will grow strongly and others contract significantly. I’m already sensing an inspiring and revolutionary undercurrent of activity and change. Expect a significant redistribution of capital and wealth. Keep your eyes open. Stay light on your feet. Make sure you’re on the right side!

Materialism has taken a heavy blow though. About time. Don’t think that will change any time soon.

iLove U.

One the best things I did this year was switch to Apple. iMac and iPhone ilove U.

Apple has just released its new Snow Leopard operating system. It’s radical. Not because it’s bloated with new features. But because it just faster,smaller, cheaper. Never been done before. Congrats Apple. The New York Times reviews it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/technology/personaltech/27pogue.html?_r=1&em

It’s a great example of the power of simplifying. Getting back to what really matters.

Might be useful to consider our own operating system.

What are the few things that make the difference in how we operate in our world?Perhaps we should focus on them. Strip out, outsource or ignore the 80% that generates little value for us. Double the 20% that matters. Would 20% to 40% of our effort improve our result by 60%?

Russian roulette

The track record for organisational change seems poor. Some research puts the success rate for change initiatives at 20% or less. Measured against the expected benefits. That’s like playing russian roulette with 5 bullets!

Almost all of the research seems to focus on faulting the change management process. The problem was poor communication or lack of ownership or insufficient consideration of culture or poor implementation, or …

But how much of the underachievement is because the change itself was wrong? The expected benefits are clear, it’s just that the ‘what’ of the change won’t deliver the expected benefits. I imagine, some change sounds good but isn’t. For example, consolidating process into the ‘back office’, may in fact increase costs and reduce quality.

It seems unfair to criticise the change process if the change itself is flawed. And yet it may not be easy to detect the flaws before the change has been implemented.

With such a bad track  record, a prudent course would be to tread carefully. Perhaps change is best approached as a series of small experiments to trial and validate different changes. Big bang approaches seem too dangerous. When you’re playing russian roulette, it really can be a big bang!

Debating sacred cows

I’m having an interesting debate at the moment over some  sacred cows. My friend is argueing that:

• success isn’t just about results, but about starting something,
• failure is valuable, and
• it’s all about learning.

He is, of course, wrong. Success is entirely about results (achievements). Failure or learning have no value.

It is the outcome that has value, or not. By all means start something but value should be judged on achievements. By all means fail, learn from the experience but the value of both will be judged on what is achieved by applying that learning. Not the learning itself.

It seems the more we think in terms of the abstract (eg learning) the less we focus on the concrete (eg. achievements).

Just another plug for achievement guys.

HR2.0

I spoke yesterday at HRINZ on change and HR. It was version 1.o of some thinking I’ve started on these two topics. It was a start. One of upsides of the current economic turmoil is that its forcing individuals and organisations to think again about ‘value’.

I often encounter unflattering comments about HR’s value from senior and line managers in organisations. I wonder if HR has become overly preoccupied with process, systems, tools, technologies and frameworks.  It reminded me of the IT industry. And led me to thinking about how pervasively we use the web today. It’s a long way from the IT industry I knew in the late 80’s.

The internet has transformed itself from simply a transport mechanism into something that delivers real value to people. The current term being used is Web2.0.

Web2.0 is about technology:

• as a platform for it’s users to create individual value (eg Flickr)
• as an architecture of participation (eg blogging)
• as a means of harnessing collective intelligence (eg Wikipedia)
• providing users with a rich user experience (eg RSS)
• letting users pull information to meet their immediate demands (eg Google)

WEb2.0 has lead to an exponential rise in the use and creativity of the web. No change management plan here!

What would HR2.0 look like?

As a starter I’d suggest that HR 2.0 could:

• insist managers are responsible for achievement of goals aligned with the overall strategic intent of the organisation.
• let individual managers decide what they need (from HR and others) to achieve those goals. And who, when and how those needs are met.
• focus at least 70% of their effort and resources (budget) on meeting the individual in-action needs of managers striving to achieve clear goals.
• work within an organisational framework of clear values, culture and shared sense of accountability.
• offer a suite of useful tools, frameworks and resources without advocating any.
• inspire people to be bolder in their sense of possibility and potential.

Interested in talking with anyone interested in further developing this thinking.

Huh?

Trying to focus on achievership (the discipline formerly known as leadership!) by thinking of the questions that achievers should ask themselves daily.

1. What is my personal purpose?
2. What am I doing about it in terms of a personal mission?
3. Who needs to be committed to achieving my mission?
4. What needs to be done today to achieve my mission?
5. Am I on course?

Looking at our world there seems to be plenty of challenges and opportunities to make a difference. Pick one. Get started.

Value for Money

VFM is a bit of a catch-cry at the moment. There’s a lot of talk, but I doubt whether any significant improvement in VFM will occur. For three reasons:

1. Reducing head count and other resources puts more pressure on day-to-day operations and people have to pedal faster to keep up with business as usual. There is less time to think systemically about innovating and improving value from the public’s perspective.
2. Reviewed budgets line-by-line while appearing to save money can actually result in cost increases elsewhere in the system.  So overall costs can go up. But more importantly missing the bigger opportunity to make larger system-wide improvement.
3. And talking about the system … the wider political system is inherently highly risk averse. It would be a brave CE who would risk his reputation and career by being bold and failing.

To make significant improvements in VFM we need to:

• think systemically about what’s happening and understand the demands placed on the organisation.
• consider ‘value’ from the perspective of the consumers or public.
• identify a limited number of focus areas (no more than 5) for significant improvement. (I hear, that even Microsoft has there 3 big bets!)
• find ways to manage (rather than avoid) risk taking.

Interested in thoughts from the front lines.

Inside the box

It’s a cliche today to “think outside the box”. Everyone seems to want creative, innovative ideas. Few are prepared to invest in making them happen though!

I had lunch with a friend last week who talked about her boss’s interest in thinking outside the box. Liz had a different point of view. Liz was passionate about the need for more thinking “inside the box”.

I have just finished reading John Seddon’s book “Systems Thinking in the Public Sector”. It’s a sobering critique of the British government’s reform agenda. He uses some compelling examples of how ideological approaches to improving public services are in fact increasing cost and lowering quality. He takes a systems approach and draws on the thinking of Edward Deming and Taiichi Ohno. Ohno was the developer of the Toyota Production System.

Anyway, here’s a quote from Ohno.

“Everything you need to know in order to make improvements will be found in your own system. If you go looking elsewhere, you will be looking in the wrong place”

Liz is right, lets think inside the box! I think Liz sees plenty of opportunities for improvement right in front of her.

Creating relevance

Someone once said to me “I don’t need more information, I need more insight”. That was over 10 years ago. It’s even worse today! There’s more information and, it seems, less attention to go around.

A valuable insight, is to be able to distil the vital few from the trivial many. Whoever you are – whether you’re a chief executive, policy analyst, HR specialist, mother, fireman, or anyone. Malcolm Galdwell wrote an interesting book on this – “Blink”.  It takes experience to pick the ‘right’ vital few.

Many organisations are currently operating with significantly constrained resources (compared to a year ago). For too many the response has been for their people to pedal faster! Do more with less, but the underlying thinking hasn’t changed. Too many organisations/teams still lack a coherent and simple strategic plan which shapes the focus and engagement of their people. And the current economic pressures aren’t helping. Everyone is simply to busy to think differently.

This is part two in my emerging leadership framework. It seems important that leaders can take what is personally important to them and turn it into a strategy that creates relevance for them and their teams in their work environment. This is a piece of “thought leadership”.

A useful tool can be to build a team charter . This would be explicit about the future that the team is building. I call it the intended shape of the future. While we can’t control everything that influences our future, there is a lot that we can control. So it is important to make some deliberate choices about where to focus. And there should only a few areas of focus! I’d recommend 3-5. I call them the pillars, that support the intended shape of our future. I understand that Microsoft, with all it’s resources, has their “3 big bets”. I’ll bet their people can remember 3!

It sounds simple, but it requires the ability and intention to synthesise a wide and diverse range of inputs. It requires a discipline to stop doing some things. And, it requires the courage to keep going. Then we can start to shape the future we want, rather than react to the future that simply arrives.

A coach, face-to-face with me

A key element of success in any activity is the ability to come face to face with yourself. To robustly interrogate our own thinking and behaviours. It’s very hard to do that from the inside. We need a confidant, a mentor or a coach. Because it’s difficult to see ourselves from the inside. Someone’s got to hold the mirror.

I’m noticing a signifiicant increase in coaching enquiries and work. Perhaps because of the current business climate. It has made me think of the qualities that I respect in my coach/mentor. Apart from the expected professionalism and integrity, here are my top 5 qualities:

• an unwavering belief/commitment to my potential.
• a depth of life experience  that recognises living without easy answers.
• a generosity of spirit.
• an openness to possibility and learning in every moment
• a sense of play, fun and humour.

Thanks Bob.

If you don’t have a Bob, perhaps you could find one. (I’ve added Bob’s website to my blogroll!)