A talk @leebryant gave at Meaning 2013 looking at startups and corporates and the lack of innovation in org design they both suffer from; plus, how we could turn the best of our new firms into C21st institutions to give longevity to our ideas and values.

1. who is building the institutions
of the twenty-first century ?
LEE BRYANT
POST*SHIFT

2. very old, successful
firms rarely had onedimensional goals

3. is business only about capital accumulation ?

4. are there also other ways to create and measure value?

5. short-termism: managers vs shareholders in public firms

6. short-termism: managers vs shareholders in public firms

7. finance was once a service to business; but now owns it

8. startups: a new
way or just a
financial product?

9. unicorn hunting: too many startups internalise VC goals

10. unicorn hunting: too many startups internalise VC goals

11. acqui-hires and sunsetting
2008 Personal annual report for Lee Bryant
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Geneva
Sevilla
Munich
Boston
Copenhagen
Berlin
Frankfurt
Paris
Feb 05 to Feb 08
Feb 26 to Feb 28
May 28
Jun 08 to Jun 13
Jun 25 to Jun 27
Oct 20 to Oct 23
Nov 11 to Nov 12
Dec 09 to Dec 10
You took 12 trips in 2008, which added
up to 29,416 km or 8% of the distance
to the moon.
In 2008, you mostly coincided with:
Henriette
in Geneva, Copenhagen and Lisbon
Pedro
in Geneva, Copenhagen and Setúbal
In 2008, you spent
319
47
You have 177 travellers in your network. They travelled
a total of 9,538,128 km in 2008, and everyone on
Dopplr travelled a total of 1331.4 million km or 8.9 AU
in 2008: the approximate distance to Saturn from the
Earth as of January 2009.
Your personal velocity for 2008 was 3.36
km/h, which is about the same as a duck.
You spent the longest in Blato.
Your carbon for 2008
Stowe
in Copenhagen, Lisbon and Berlin
The 5 most popular cities in your network are London,
New York, San Francisco, Milan and Paris.
Colin
including Geneva and Copenhagen
Thomas
including Geneva and Copenhagen
The furthest distance you travelled was to Boston
(5,269 km from London), which is the 9th most popular
city on Dopplr. The shortest distance you travelled was
to Brighton (76 km from London), which is the 70th
most popular city on Dopplr.
3,607 kg CO2
Based on figures from Fueleconomy.gov, 1 x Hummer
H3 4WD truck produces nearly 10 metric tonnes of
CO2 a year. The visualisation above uses this figure to
illustrate your carbon from Dopplr as calculated by our
friends at http://amee.cc and is an approximation only.
The city images above sourced from Flickr and are used under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence: Going to the Park by Alexandre Duarte, Alcazar relief by chantrybee, BMW - Welt by digital cat _, Sunset on the Charles by Pear Biter, c.f.hansen, christiansborg
palace church, copenhagen, 1810-1826 by seier+seier+seier, we'll meet again by chaosinjune, Telephone Booth by maha-online and Paris Old Metro Signboard by pedrosimoes7.

12. you don’t need to lose your purpose to scale and grow

13. why so little innovation
around org design ?

14. many problems begin with the org chart

15. many problems begin with the org chart

16. many problems begin with the org chart

17. many problems begin with the org chart

18. too much focus on appearances vs real value creation

19. Coase’s transaction costs thesis: reality is less rational

20. Microsoft’s failed stack-ranking management system

21. even Google suffers the middle management problem

22. even Google suffers the middle management problem

23. after all, if you have a money tree, what else matters?

24. org design, structure
and culture are key to
building C21st orgs

25. social business technology: necessary but not sufficient

26. more interesting: the new affordances it brings into play

27. we already have many alternatives to simple hierarchies

28. “The centre is tired"
photo: @honorharger

29. “speed, trust, scalability. tangible, epic goals”
photo: @georgejulian

30. “Collective intelligence is the way to crack problems”
photo: @honorharger

31. “creating wealth for society through solidarity”
photo: @georgejulian

32. Haier: from state industry to agile market leader

33. Kyocera: de-centralised ‘amoeba management’

34. Morning Star: efficiency through self-management

35. Valve: no management required

36. Valve: no management required

37. Valve: no management required

38. white goods, old tech,
agriculture & gaming anyone can do it

39. but must startups
mimic corporates
when they ‘grow up’ ?

41. five areas where these guys could learn something…

42. planning and project management: agile, open, flexible

43. working in the open: shared as the default setting

44. devops: automate and monitor *all the things*

45. the wiki way: if you see a problem, fix it

46. role- and task-focus, not management by entitlement

47. role- and task-focus, not management by entitlement

48. let’s create the
new institutions

49. institutions codify and give longevity to ideas

50. what might post-C20th organisations look like?

51. what might post-C20th organisations look like?

52. fractal structures are more resilient at scale than hierarchy

53. how do we get there from here?

54. this is not your consultant’s ‘change programme’

55. protected spaces provide a low-risk starting point
Performance
ALPHA
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Departments and policy content had 1.46
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Unique visitors per week to departments and policy

56. Recent news
Policies
protected spaces provide a low-risk starting pointchart view)
1116 recent news items (76 in
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57. leadership is even more vital, but management is not

58. the future of work ?

59. what might the ‘old firms’ of the future look like ?
{ }
explicitly blended business
goals - not only financial
!
better ecosystem thinking to
reduce costs for all players
!
social tech + new culture of
work + new structural design
!
employ people, be situated in
a community, contribute
!
sustainable ownership and
funding models not IPOs
!

60. credits and references
Images:
!
http://i.imgur.com/5mHPnj9.png
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinkerszone/3948664111
http://i.imgur.com/Qr3xx.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lancefisher/4704384949
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dce76/159422716
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davegray/8194170066/
http://www.current.com.au/2012/09/26/article/Haier-Learning-An-inside-look-at-Haiers-short-marriage-to-Fisher-Paykel/NFZBKHSEQP
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42931449@N07/5299199423
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5547/9713908761_133c3f4119.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mediaeval_universities.jpg
http://www.espresto.com/image/esp_contentpage_igr/esp_39813.jpg
http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/the-worst-climbing-the-corporate-ladder-stock-photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcbodden/5142987254
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!
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Other references:
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http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/valve-how-i-got-here-what-its-like-and-what-im-doing-2/
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ffb9028c-4619-11e3-9487-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk&siteedition=uk
http://firstround.com/article/How-Medium-is-building-a-new-kind-of-company-with-no-managers
http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/05/meetings-all-the-way-down/
http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/
!