It shows the incentive schemes of the Industrial Age corporation only work for mechanical skills. Once the task involves cognitive skill, rewards lead to lower performance!!
What then does motivate the K.E.E.N, the Knowledge Enhancing Exchanging Networker of the Collaborative Age? According to Dan Pink, there are 3 main factors: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
Autonomy like self-direction.
Mastery like getting better at something.
Purpose like getting up in the morning.
We are purpose maximizers
According to Dan Pink, we are purpose maximizers, not just profit maximizers.
So, when do you start maximizing your purpose?
Collaborative tools of the Fourth Revolution are reshaping the way we manage catastrophic events.
Examples from the Japan Earthquake:
If you are looking for information on people in the quake zone, Google has opened a Person Finder page.
Ushahidi, a crowdsourcing mapping tool, has set up a local platform for Japanthat allows people in the area affected by the earthquake to text the location of people who may be trapped in damaged buildings
And did you notice how Facebook is slow these days? That’s certainly because so many people use it to connect, give news to loved ones.
Emergency Response Institutions need to account for the Fourth Revolution. People are connected. They stay connected. And together they can greatly help themselves. When Emergency Response Institutions will know how to leverage this connectivity, their intervention methods will transform for the better.
Emergency Response institutions need to change. Let’s tell them.
Do you follow the evolution of the situation in Fukushima nuclear power plant? I do, and it happens I know a bit about nuclear power plants and nuclear safety. So basically, as in any field where you happen to know a bit more than average, I am frustrated by the approximations of conventional media.
So, I was looking for the best source of information for me – not just high level plain-vanilla information but accurate and detailed information to allow me to understand what was happening.
I found it.
It’s not CNN or any of the television news networks.
It’s not the International Herald Tribune or any of the newspaper web sites.
It’s Wikipedia. The Fukushima 1 article is up-to-date as quickly as the professional media and much, much more precise and detailed.
Fukushima NPP accident picture (from Wikipedia)
The power of the Fourth Revolution in action: the collaborative enterprise of amateurs beats the professional news.
When do you start looking at Wikipedia and other collaborative news sites for a better information coverage?
I want to share with you a true story of how the Fourth Revolution can bring incredible opportunities, regardless of whether you are living in a developing country.
A few month ago I was thinking about the concept of the Fourth Revolution, and considering maybe to write a book, when I stumbled on this image in the middle of a slideshow of diverse stunning images (thanks Jean-Marc!!)
a picture by Alim Boeana
WOW – I thought, that’s a great illustration of the Fourth Revolution concept! How can you get more visual?
So I went to try to get a copy of the picture in high definition so that I could use it for printing, and possibly the Fourth Revolution book’s cover.
So I googled a little bit, found soon the name of the photographer, Alim Boeana, and uncovered within a few minutes that he is a young and talented photographer from Indonesia, working in Bali and Yogjakarta.
After trying unsuccessfully a few email addresses I could find on the internet I finally managed to establish the contact thanks to Facebook (you can send messages to people you don’t know). We quickly came to an arrangement for the license for the picture, I transferred the money using Paypal, and I received the full high quality pictures by email. They now adorn the website, the blog and soon the cover of the book.
So, what’s the lesson from the story? Having posted some pictures on internet, Alim put a seed to the world. He could be seen. His stunning pictures were reproduced and spread from person to person. I could contact him although he is in a developing country, and that made absolutely no difference. And, in a typical win-win situation, Alim could get an unforeseen compensation for his pain and talent, and I could get a great picture for my project.
Just 5 years ago this would not have been possible without excessive pain, and probably we could never have been able to contact each other.
Who now still says the Fourth Revolution has not ignited? And that the entire world is not participating?
The “law of requisite variety” is a fundamental insight in our world. It is not well known. It should be recognized as a fundamental new insight that changes our understanding or the world.
The law itself comes from cybernetics – the study of systems controlled with feedback loops. Articulated in 1948 by Ashby, it states in its original form “only variety can destroy variety”. To be effective, the control system needs to have more variety than the perturbations of system it controls.
It has been taken up under a slightly different form in the 1970’s by the initiators of NLP – neuro-linguistic programming. In their words, “the actor with the greatest flexibility of behavior will ultimately control the system“.
In other words, the most flexible and adaptable actor will dominate.
We now know that most systems in our world – climate, biology, society – are systems controlled by feedback loops. This law should then apply to most of our world.
Darwin’s theory is but the application of this law to biology. Darwin’s theory is that the species most adapted to its environment will thrive. That does not just mean a static adaptation like the color of the bird or the shape of its beak. It also means, the level of dynamic adaptability, of flexibility.
That humans have come to dominate most of their environment and the rest of the ecosystem is not because they are the strongest or physiologically the most adapted – it is because they are the most flexible and adaptable thanks to their intelligence.
Let’s now take this insight into the field of economics and society. The most adaptable and flexible will eventually dominate.
For organizations it means that flexibility and adaptability is a primordial condition for success. For institutions and governments also. The natural tendency to create organizations and institutions that try to freeze a situation to their benefit is doomed in the long term.
The quest for success should be to seek to enhance the flexibility and the adaptability of organizations and institutions rather than devise all sorts impediments to change.
It is also applicable on a personal level. To thrive, you need to be more flexible and adaptable than the world around you.
So, when do you start practicing that fundamental skill – flexibility?
Now that we have investigated in depth the Fourth Revolution and how it will change the world, we can now focus on what will make individuals successful. Find out four keys to personal success in the Collaborative world in part 7 of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – now online.
Don’t hesitate to comment and bring in suggestions in the comments to this blog post!
Can’t wait to see the conclusion? Next week, in the final part of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto we’ll finally discuss your choice – and why you are important for the Fourth Revolution.
Four Institutions will be deeply transformed – manufacturing, government and representative democracy, education and intellectual property. Find out how they will be transformed in part 6 of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto – now online.
Don’t hesitate to comment and bring in suggestions in the comments to this blog post!
Can’t wait to see the follow-up? Next week, in part 7 of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto we’ll finally uncover FOUR KEYS TO SUCCESS IN THE COLLABORATIVE AGE!
It shows how very recent neuroscience findings (1990 onwards), using the new technologies of non-invasive brain imagery (a result of the new theories of physics like quantum mechanics that are the precursor of the Fourth Revolution), give incredible insights on the operation of body and mind. That when communication exists between human beings, we automatically empathize.
Thanks to the new long distance interactive communication technology, we can empathize with the whole of humankind, with the whole world. The fundamental consciousness shift that is occurring today as a result will change the world, because our family is extended to the entire humankind and beyond.
We empathize with people at the other end of the globe that are suffering hardship. We give to causes that are entirely alien to our daily life, to fight poverty or hunger at the other end of the globe.
Are you ready to look at humankind as just one single family?
The new recipe for an organization’s success is simple. Simple and so powerful.
It starts with P for Purpose. The organization needs a compelling purpose. Compelling means able to create an emotional connection. And not just for those who work inside the organization, for a network of supporters and followers as well.
The next ingredient is R for Radical. The organization needs to be radical in choosing its areas of activity, its customers, its employees, its contributors, its suppliers. The successful organization knows how to say no. It knows how to take the less traveled path.
The two remaining ingredients are familiar to those who follow this blog. It is O for Open and F for Fluid. The organization needs to be in a close synergy with the outside world, exchanging both ways. Its organization needs to be fluid, flexible, adaptable.
That’s not all. You also need a little bit of IT for Information Technology. The terminology is a bit inappropriate. It should be more “Knowledge enhancing technology”. It is usually referred to as IT so we will stick with that denomination.
Put everything together, mix well, give some emotional heat without overheating, and what do you get?
P-R-O-F-IT. As simple as that!
So, when does your organization start to express a Purpose that can be emotionally moving, be Radical in its day-to-day behavior, and Open and Fluid? That’s worth it!
Organizations – the core value producing institutions of the Industrial Age – will be fundamentally transformed. They will become OPEN and FLUID. Discover the new philosophy of organizations and how it will transform the world in part 5 of the Fourth Revolution Manifesto!
Don’t hesitate to comment and bring in suggestions in the comments to this blog post!
Can’t wait to see the follow-up?
The next Part of the Fourth Revolution manifesto will be published around February 13.
We’ll dive deep into the consequences of the Fourth Revolution in institutions like government, education and intellectual property – the Institutions Revolution!
This is the week of the Organization Revolution. The Fourth Revolution Manifesto on the Organization Revolution will be published this week-end.
For those of you who might have missed earlier blogs, here are some links about organizations and the Fourth Revolution. May they inspire you to act today to help your organizations transform!
