How to Accelerate Decision Making, Info Flows, & Open Mindsets
Organizations are under tremendous pressure from increased competition, volatile political shifts, and digital transformation. To survive, they need to be able to quickly understand what is going on and make faster, and better, decisions. Knowledge repositories just aren’t going to cut it any more. A seasoned Innovation and KM practitioner offers a new way to look at KM and innovation based on interesting research and with practical ways you can deliver even more value to your organization.
2. “We are kept from our goal
not by obstacles
but by a clear path
to a lesser goal.”
Robert Brault
3. Agenda
• Profile
• Observations
• Fundamental problem
• Flow and why it matters
• Identifying zombie organizations
• Defining “smart”
• Flow constraints
• Building smarter organizations
• Change
• Wrap up
@BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 3
4. Profile
•Author, speaker and consultant
•17+ years experience building
smarter organizations
•Board member, IAOIP
(Innovation Professionals)
•Masters in Management of
Technology
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At bookstores and Amazon
5. I have worked in range of organizations in
public, private and non-profit sections
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Brocksway Information Technology
6. Observation: work has been getting “smarter”
Slide 6
Source: http://cdn.dupress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-01-at-9.20.13-PM.png?2b7236
7. Observation:
Unhappy, disengaged people
• Command-and-control culture
• Surprising number of
psychopathic leaders
• Lack of innovation
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8. VUCA-Digital world
cc: frogthroat - https://www.flickr.com/photos/22980078@N04
“The Specter of an Accidental China-U.S. War”
“Sears tanked because the company
failed to shift to digital.”
9. Organizations face an obsolescence squeeze
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https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/why-lean-enterprise-transformation-hard
10. New things are a bet based on a prediction
about what is the signal
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Classifying Experimental Designs
Source: https://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/expclass.php
11. Fundamental problem: To survive, our
organizations need different capabilities
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Old world VUCA – Digital world
Grow big Grow adaptable
Reliably repetitive Radically responsive
Control Predict
12. www.Dynamic Adaptation.com
Key is the flow of information, ideas and decisions
http://www.squ.edu.om/Portals/20/PDF/World%20Water%20Day%202011/Adrian%20Bejan_%20The%20Constructal%20Law%20of%20Design%20in%20Nature%20.pdf
“For a finite-size system to
persist in time (to live), it
must evolve in such a way
that it provides easier
access to the imposed
currents that flow through
it.”
Constructal law, Adrian Bejan
12@BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com
15. Flow constrictions: the “Z” test (click here)
•Mindset
•Communication
•Decision-making
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16. “Z” test: Mindset
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Mindset
True?
Leadership prefers slogans to reality
Most people here want to work somewhere else
We rarely learn from our mistakes
People do not trust each other much
17. “Z” test: Communication
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Communication
True?
Too many emails and other internal communications
People do not know what is going on across our
organization
It’s hard for people to get useful feedback on their
ideas
18. “Z” test: Decision-making
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Decision-making
True?
Coordinating work with people in other parts of the
organization is hard
Easy to get to a “No” decision - hard to get a “Yes”
Meetings here are useless and unproductive
19. Mindset:
“We rarely learn from our
mistakes”
“Vulnerability is the
birthplace of innovation,
creativity, and change.”
Brené Brown
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Leadership
By KetaDesign (http://www.ketadesign.ca/eaglephoto5.html)
20. Communication:
“Too many emails”
Email by the numbers:
122 Number of emails a typical
worker receives every day
28% Average work week
consumed by emails
77 # times per day people
check their emails
@BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 20Rob Cottingham
http://www.socialsignal.com/image/truly-multitasking
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/the-social-economy
http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Email-Statistics-Report-2015-2019-Executive-Summary.pdf
https://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/Home_page/Research_files/CHI%2016%20Email%20Duration.pdf
21. One change, 125 different people, 700+ interactions
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Gottfredson, M. (2012, June 28). “The focused company.” Bain & Company. Bain Brief. Retrieved from http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/the-focused-company.aspx
Decision-making: “Easy to get a no”
24. Being smart:
Situational awareness
To know where you are in a
VUCA world you need:
• Broad range of
information
• Fast sorting between
signal and the noise
• Precedents don’t help
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25. Being smart:
Rapid learning
• Building and rebuilding
models to understand the
world
• Learning through
experimentation
• Practicing unlearning
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26. Being smart:
Maneuverability
Applying what you have
learned is the key
• Silo-based, top-down,
incremental decision-
making is SLOW
• Organizations need to
be able to pivot and
shift much more
quickly
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29. Flow constraint: Email!
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Memorandum to Secretary Walcott re: his son Stuart’s grave site; as found in “Evolution of the Memo, 1849-2011.” (2011,
November 17). Smithsonian Institute Archives. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/SIArchives/evolution-of-the-memo
Closed
Connects
few-to-few
Random info
structure
30. Mini-silos of disorganized emails you can’t find
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Morrison, A., Parker, B. (2011). “The collaboration paradox: More social information helps the workforce find what it’s looking for.” PwC Technology Forecast.
Issue 3. Retrieved from https://www.pwc.com/us/en/technology-forecast/2011/issue3/assets/transforming-collaboration-with-social-tools.pdf
Emailed
Knowledge
31. Flow constraint: Decision making
“In a healthy system,
information flows are
unimpeded by clots of
power or the sclerosis of
hierarchy.”
Philip Slater, The Chrysalis Effect
Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nasser_al-
Din_Shah_Louvre_MAO776-Edit.jpg
32. Building smarter organizations
Open mindset, fast-flow communications, and accelerated decision-making
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34. 1) Open mindset
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Move from
command-and-
control to
connected-and-
contribute
Vulnerability =
faster flows of info
and ideas
37. @BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 37
. . . Pull what and when you need info
. . . Info and ideas are openly available
. . . Working together in a document
. . . Info has structure and context
Source: http://www.pwc.com.ar/es_AR/ar/publicaciones-por-industria/assets/transforming-collaboration-with-social-tools.pdf
2) Fast flow communication: Enterprise networking platform
38. Fast flow communication: Making work visible
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95%
Non-luminous
39. 3) Accelerating decision-making
Downward flow, within a silo, known
problems and opportunities
Multiple-direction flow, across silos,
novel problems and opportunities
Conversa-
tionalists
Testers
Core
team
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Source: Fishbrne, T. (n.d). “Helping GrowthCloud Communicate Ways To Grow With Their Clients.” Image. Retrieved from
https://marketoonist.com/campaigns/all/growthcloud
“How Employees Shaped Strategy at the New York Public Library”
Bruce A. Strong and Mary Lee Kennedy HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, DECEMBER 5, 2016
Source: https://hbr.org/2016/12/how-employees-shaped-strategy-at-the-new-york-public-library
41. Accelerating decision-making: Have a cross-
silo decision-making framework
Define
•Define outcome / nature of problem
Involved
•Participators have partial veto
Decision
•The Decider both decides and implements
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42. Accelerating decision making:
Decision management
•Open platform
•Decision managers
•Frameworks and methods
•Data sets
•Training and coaching
•Fast-flow communications
44. www.Dynamic Adaptation.com
“Those who
are hostile
attack like
partisans”
“There is nothing more difficult
to take in hand, more perilous to
conduct, or more uncertain in its
success, than to take the lead in
the introduction of a new order”
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
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www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 44
45. Nurturing people change – a definition
Targeted effort
To influence people
To change the decisions they take
To achieve some result
Slide 45@BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com
46. Influence: feeling creatures that think
Slide 46
David Rock, “SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others”;
NeuroLeadership Journal, 2008
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/documents/thurs_georgia_9_10_915_covello.pdf
Relative importance
Error response
Choosing
Friend / foe
Unfairness = threat
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47. Shifting the equilibrium – polarity management
Slide 47@BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com
Source: Koller, R. (n.d.). Oversimplifying Change Management. Blog post. Retrieved from
http://www.howtochangemanagement.com/2012/12/oversimplifying-change-management.html
48. Targeted effort: three Cs (Dave Snowden)
Constraint
management
•Removing or
creating
Coupling /
connecting
•New
connections
Catalysts
•Creating
attractors
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48
“The difficult tasks of the world must be handled through the
simple tasks” Tao Te Ching
50. Final words:
“The soft stuff is the hard stuff”Chris Cool
•Find what is fun for you
•Build your own support network
•Yoda says . . .
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51. “Try or try not. There is only do not with no try."
Gordon Vala-Webb – Building Smarter Organizations 2016Slide 51
“Try or try not.
There is only do not with no try."