This document summarizes a presentation about making organizations smarter by improving the flow of information, ideas, and decisions. It discusses how the modern digital world requires organizations to be more adaptable and responsive. Traditional command-and-control cultures and siloed structures inhibit these flows. The presentation advocates for building an enterprise networking platform to facilitate open sharing, using a learning mindset to constantly evaluate new information and ideas, and adopting a "gardenership" leadership model to nudge change. It emphasizes that organizational change is difficult but important for thriving in today's volatile, uncertain environment.
LPC Warehouse Management System For Clients In The Business Sector
What is a team to do? How to be smarter to meet the challenges of a VUCA-digital world
1. Out of Sight / Mind
Knowledge in Faster Decision-making
Gordon Vala-Webb
September 2018 KM Forum
World Bank
Gordon@BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com
@BuildSmarterOrg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com
2. Two key questions
Is your world . . .
Volatile
Uncertain
Complex
Ambiguous
Is your team . . .
Smart enough to
handle it?
@BuildSmarterOrg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 2
3. About me . . .
@BuildSmarterOrg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 3
Brocksway Information Technology
4. About you . . .
•Region?
•Familiarity with KM?
•Feedback on ideas?
•Too many emails?
@BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 4
6. 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.”
6
7. Our organizations optimized for “old” world
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Old world
Grow big
Reliably repetitive
Control
VUCA – Digital world
Grow adaptable
Radically responsive
Predict
13. 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
Slow flow of decisions
15. Diagnosis
Sclerosis of the information arteries
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16. 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
16@BuildSmarterOrg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com
17. Silent brainstorm and group discussion
1. Silent brainstorm (4 minutes – 4 ideas):
What are the barriers your team / organization to flows:
Information
Ideas
Decisions
2. Group discussion: Top three most common barriers
3. Report out
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19. Flow constraint: Command-and-control culture
Do as I say
Don’t think too
much
Don’t make
mistakes
Don’t be too
different
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20. Flow constraint: Disengagement
• Taylor - Scientific mgmt
• Multiplicity of rules and
procedures
• Surprising number of
psychopathic leaders
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21. 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
23. Smart teams, smart organizations have . . .
• Poll Everywhere: Teams / Organizations
• Smart teams / organizations
o Use a broad range of information:
• More sources, faster processing
o Constantly learning
• Make predictions / bets; rethink and redo
o Make good decisions quickly
• Especially cross-silo, complex ones
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24. Smart teams / Org
Key component
Situational awareness
•Broad range of info
•Fast signal and the
noise sorting
•Precedents don’t
help – figure stuff
out!
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25. @BuildSmarterOrg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 25
• 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
Fast flow info / ideas: Enterprise networking platform
27. Fast learning:
Model testing
•Building and rebuilding
models to understand
the world
•Experimentation
•Unlearning
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29. Group discussion:
How hard is it to make change in your organization?
“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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30. Shifting the equilibrium – polarity management
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Source: Koller, R. (n.d.). Oversimplifying Change Management. Blog post. Retrieved from
http://www.howtochangemanagement.com/2012/12/oversimplifying-change-management.html
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31. Influence: feeling creatures that think
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
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32. Gardenership – a new model for leaders
Shape an organization’s internal ecosystem using its own energy
Managing Gardening
Order Nudge
Correct Coach
Tell and confirm Observe and reflect
Plan and execute Probe and seek
feedback
32@BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com
33. “Try or try not. There is only do not with no try."
Gordon Vala-Webb – Building Smarter Organizations 2016 Slide 33
“Try or try not.
There is only
do not with no
try."
33
@BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com
35. “The soft stuff is the hard stuff”(Chris Cool)
•Find what is fun for you
•Build your own support network
•Start before you are ready to
being
@BuildSmarterorg www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 35
36. Questions?
Old org
Slow flow, looking
in and backwards
@BuildSmarterOrg
www.BuildingSmarterOrganizations.com 36
New org
Fast flow, looking
out and forward
36
Editor's Notes
Longest job was six years
Leave to go somewhere - 4 times
Leave because I’m told to - 3 times
IT:Taught myself to program – 1975Composed my senior honours essay on mainframe computer – 1979
“Computer technology substitutes for workers in performing routine tasks that can be readily described with programmed rules, while complementing workers in executing nonroutine tasks demanding flexibility, creativity, generalized problem-solving capabilities and complex communications.”
Source:
http://www.frbsf.org/economics/conferences/0311/alm-skillcontent-qje.pdf
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4), November 2003,
THE SKILL CONTENT OF RECENT TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE:
AN EMPIRICAL EXPLORATION*
DAVID H. AUTOR, FRANK LEVY, AND RICHARD J. MURNANE
According a survey results from Gallup, worldwide, only 13 percent of employees are engaged at work; in North America, 71 percent are “actively disengaged” from their work. Crabtree, S. (2013, October 8). "Worldwide, 13% of Employees Are Engaged at Work.” Gallup. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engaged-work.aspx