Career in the Collaborative Age | The Fourth Revolution Blog

How We Moved from Analytic to Appreciative Thinking

Peter Block in his book “Flawless Consulting” – one of the bibles on consulting – makes the point that between the different editions of the book which spanned from the early 1990’s to the 2010’s, the following evolution happened in consulting – and more generally in problem solving:

Appreciative Improvement at work: the 4D. Starting from what works instead of from the problem

in the 1990’s (and before) it was all analytically driven
in the 2000’s it was about “whole group participation”, i.e. getting groups of people transverse to the organization and representative of all levels defining and implementing solutions (in a very Total Quality Manner)
in the 2010’s it is about “positive deviance” – also called appreciative inquiry, i.e. finding those few areas which work much better (instead of focusing on the problem) and figuring out what is making the difference. This has spread in coaching as well as more general solution finding and implementation.

This is an excellent summary of how we have moved into the Fourth Revolution: from the analytic perspective of the Industrial Age into increased collaboration and finally into creative development of isolated successes.

In what stage is your organization and life at the moment? What about moving into appreciative improvements?

Project Soft Power Presentation (full video)

I gave a speech on Project Soft Power: Become a Great Project Leader at the 2013 Singapore Project Management Institute Symposium, which has been recorded.

I am proud to share the video which we’ve edited with the slides as well included so as to give the best experience if you could not attend:

If you can’t see the video, here is the link.

Many thanks to SPMI for making the video available! Original video is (c) SPMI and the content is (c) Project Value Delivery, 2013.

It’s not about Work-Life Balance, it’s about Work-Life Integration

This is a quote of Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO, as related by Hugh McLeod. Hugh continues: “Work and personal life seems to meld together in a way that can be either enhancing or debilitating – and it is up to each person to structure what works in their life and in ways that allow them to be their best in work and at home. What is interesting is that this is a new phenomenon, borne out of technology.”

Work-Life balance is a typical concept stemming from a time where work and life were happening in different environments, separated by the barrier of commuting. This geographical border has now been abolished by technology. Work has already heavily invaded our private home, and life increasingly (but with more difficulties due to old habits) invades a bit our work.

Visionaries try to develop new spaces where life and work could co-exist harmoniously (this seems to be one of the objectives of Tony Hsieh’s Las Vegas downtown project that allies urban and social experiment).

We need to stop these obsolete and pervading considerations about work-life balance and concentrate on how we can integrate these two activities. In fact, they are not antagonistic but in synergy and we need to recognize that better. Once we look at it that way, a world of possibilities opens.

What about you? What do you see when you consider that work and life are in fact integrated and will become ever more integrated?

What’s Your Presentation’s Single Message?

That’s a question I often ask to people who ask me to advise or coach them and I am often met with blank stares. Even after a long winding presentation that lasted a few hours. It is the most important question: if you don’t what’s your message, how can you expect to have communicated it properly?!?

What's the message? Bad ppt example — So, what’s the message?

Yes, you need to have one message. One SINGLE message that pervades your entire presentation from start to finish.

Remember that law of presentations by Jon Steel in Perfect Pitch: “The more separate points you attempt to make, the less your audience will take in“.

It might be tough to restrict yourself to one single message that you’ll wave in and out of your presentation, in particular if you feel like it is the single opportunity you will have to express yourself in front of a particular audience.

Yet, what do you prefer: one single message that is noticed and remembered, or a presentation that will soon be forgotten?

Make your choice. One single well-crafted message for the next presentation will take the day. Ready to try?

Re-imagining Work – Fourth Revolution applied (Video)

This excellent video from RSA Animate features Dave Coplin, Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft, explaining the future of Work – how it shifts with the digital revolution.

This video gives another perspective on the fact that Work as we were envisioning it in the Industrial Age is going to be deeply transformed by the Fourth Revolution: “The ways we live our working life today has become outdated“. And, it mentions how the concept of productivity is obsolete – not only obsolete – “it is fast becoming the problem“. The video also presents some interesting considerations on office space!

Plus, you’ll really enjoy the great illustrations as usual with RSA talks!

If you can’t see the video, follow this link.

Hat tip to Valeria Maltoni for this nugget. In her post she adds more comments on how she sees the future of work – in particular, that “One thing is for sure, a culture of openness remains scary for most organizations, as well as the people who work in them.” Interesting thought!

The Job of a Leader is to Grow More Leaders

It is the first point of Robin Sharma’s ‘the top 10 things amazing leader do‘ post.

Seeing the mighty oak in the acorn — As a leader, do you recognize the mighty oaks in the acorns around you?

Actually this is so true that I deem leaders who fail to groom successors and can’t pass on their steering wheel utter failures at leaders. Even if their organization had been successful under their helm.

What serves to deliver great results if they can’t be sustained after you are gone? When you have an unfortunate accident? It is just so true that one of the prime roles of leaders is to develop more leaders. And it is something you can see and touch readily in organizations. It is never a secret to know if the leader is coaching and mentoring others to grow and become successful as leaders. This practice, when it exists, pervades an entire organization.

It remains even more so in the Fourth Revolution, within the smaller core of organizations. At its core, movement leadership only does its job if it grooms future leaders. If the leader knows to step aside to leave younger generations take over in time.

Be a leader. Grow leaders!

From Blogger to Beauty Guru to Celebrity Businesswoman in 6 Years

August 2013 headlines: After six years of tutorials and millions of views, YouTube beauty guru Michelle Phan has launched her own 250-product line of makeup – backed by L’Oreal.

I am not particularly a fan or expert on makeup (!) but I found it to be a great story to show the power of the Fourth Revolution. Michelle is clearly passionate about makeup. After some blogging she started posting videos on Youtube in 2007. Obviously there was a need! She has today 769 million views and has 4.6 million subscribers! And what was a passion became a business. AT 23 years old L’Orelas backed up her video making. And at 26 years old L’Oreal backs her up for a personal line of makeup.

This great post on Mashable explains her story. Her secret recipe is story-telling. “Success is like a lightning bolt. It’ll strike you when you least expect it, and you just have to keep the momentum going” she says! This other post is also quite instructive about her career.

Coming from a humble background, with passion and having obviously fun, Michelle created what will soon be an empire. She created tremendous value for many people (for free). And most of her fans are at the other end of the planet, in Asia. And all thanks to the Fourth Revolution!

Have a look at the promotional Youtube movie for her product line which recounts her journey and where she thanks the community she created around her for giving her all the ideas that founded her success and her product. Still don’t believe in the Fourth Revolution?

More material: Michelle has also her own Wikipedia page, here is the link to her Youtube channel, and her website.

How the music industry transforms through the Fourth Revolution

I would like to share this excellent summary of the economics and of the transformations of the music industry in the last few years: Who killed the industry – an interactive explainer. It is a brilliant example of the transformation and of the questions raised by the Fourth Revolution.

music industry revenue per year — The music industry total revenue per year, by type of support

The interesting point is that from the point of view of the artists, it was pretty tough to earn any money in the previous setup. All the money was flowing to the industry.(“[in 2000, she estimated that if a band made an album, sold a million copies, went on tour, and made two music videos, the band might break even, but the record label would take home $6.6 million”!.., [and the band owns none of the work])

It seems there are more opportunities now to be heard, to connect with fans, and to make a living. However, the new forms of music streaming seem once again to forget to compensate the musicians!

In any case, if you thought you’d become rich by becoming a well known musician or singer, that will make you think twice!

Hat tip to Mitch Joel/Alistair Croll in their fantastic weekly “Six links worthy of your attention” on Mitch’s blog

How a Single Person Can Now Create a Product useful for Millions of Users

Maybe you have been using the ‘Instapaper‘ application. It is an application that allows you to bookmark webpages and read them later, even when you are disconnected, from any device (more on Wikipedia).

What you may not realize, is that this application was developed single-handedly by one person, Marco Arment, during 5 years, from 2008 to 2013. With no full-time employee, this self-funded startup attracted more than 2 million users!

Marco sold it in April 2013 to allow it to grow and in a very humble blog post tat is worth reading explains how that was needed to allow the product to grow and tackle competition (he still remains involved and has only sold a majority stake).

Think about it: “If a multi-million dollar business can be developed and managed by one person with a laptop in an apartment, what happens to your business and your job as this rapid innovation and digitization continues to ripple through every industry“? This question by Mitch Joel in his last book “Ctrl Alt Delete” is worth considering for a moment. In the Industrial Age, such product development would have required a large staff and a huge investment. Not any more.

And I have personally met a number of entrepreneurs running very profitable companies from home with the help of part-time contractors.

Indeed, the Fourth Revolution is marching on! Are you in?

Steve Jobs, Insanely Driven (Video)

Steve Jobs was an exceptional individual, and quite insanely driven. He must have been tough to work with! This interesting 1h BBC video about his life show how much he was driven by his own idea, and regularly took the market by surprise, coming from unexpected sides.

(Follow the link if you don’t see the video)

The first minutes about his education and the origin of his philosophy very close to the hippy approach (“taking LSD was one of the most important things in my life” he says) are quite fundamental to understand his drive to change the world. They are possibly the most interesting of the video (the rest we generally have heard already).

However the revelation that he tried to fight cancer using unconventional means, which only delayed surgery and allowed the cancer to spread, is also showing the other side of excessive drive.

Take the time to re-discover why and how Steve Jobs did what he did. That’s quite instructive.

Hat tip to Mitch Joel from his blog post Insane Ambition.

Why You Need to Reboot Your Life

Mitch Joel is a well known blogger, founder of a marketing agency specialized in social media. He published a few months ago his new book, ‘Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It‘.

This book is excellent and is based on very much the same philosophy as the Fourth Revolution. An entertaining slideshow and even a video are available to explain the basic concept of the book (and take an other view on the Fourth Revolution!). Enjoy!

25+ Mind Blowing Stats About Business Today – CTRL ALT Delete from mitchjoel

So, are you ready to hear that you need to change to remain employable in 5 years?

Why You Should Stop Asking for Permission

In the Industrial Age we’ve been raised to ask for permission before doing anything. That was part of our basic education as polite and obedient workers.

The thing is, nowadays and as at any time, to create great stuff, it is essential not to ask for permission.

When you are in an organization or any kind of social setting and you have a great idea, if you start asking for permission, you’ll never get it or you’ll become upset before you get it.

Practice the Jesuit saying: “It is much easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission“!

Just go and do it. Even if it means diverting some resources here and there. If the idea is good they’ll follow.

The next time you’ll realize you are about to ask for permission, pause a second and ask yourself if that’s really the right thing to do!

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