K.E.E.N. skills | The Fourth Revolution Blog

How we can take advantage of the freak events that really shape our world

In this final post on the topic of complexity (read “How the Fourth Revolution brings us from the complicated to the complex” and “What we can learn from complex systems to understand today’s world” if you’ve missed them), we take some lessons of how we can be prepared and take advantage of the freak events that shape the world.

Now we know that freak events are really those that shape our world. Events that come in unpredictably, with a strength which we had underestimated, and change forever the lives of millions of people. They shape society much more powerfully than any progressive change.

These are times of crisis, where the previous equilibrium is pushed out of balance, outside its naturally stabilizing protections. During some time that particular part of the world struggles to retrieve balance, finally reaching a different equilibrium, start of another period of relative stability.

As our world inter-connectivity grows, the impact of a freak event happening somewhere in the world spreads.

cars flooded Thailand — Global impact of local freak events: cars flooded in Thailand's manufacturing plant

Last year the IT, automotive industries got struck worldwide by freak floods in Thailand; and many industries got struck by the Japanese tsunami – the nuclear industry worldwide, for example, will never be the same again. Are those events more frequent? Probably not. But their impact on the economy and on people around the world is now much greater.

How can the successful K.E.E.N. thrive in such a world? Yes, more surely than most people that try to keep the previous established order of things. A few principles apply, at first some basic defensive principles (risk management):

Never believe the situation you’re in is stable. Don’t lower your guard. Freak events will happen, and they will surprise you. The future is not an extrapolation of the past. Be prepared for them, have some emergency reserves and keep safety margins;
Diversify your income sources and try to minimize the possibility of common causes of failure;
Don’t believe the world will be the same after a freak event.
A well developed, worldwide network is a necessary asset that will protect the K.E.E.N. from excessive consequences; and the nomadic lifestyle of the K.E.E.N. will make it easy for him to change his activity elsewhere, where most of the opportunities lie.

More importantly the K.E.E.N. sees opportunities in these times of crisis:

Changes are much more easy to make during the crisis than in stable periods. What could you do that produces tremendous value for the people? What could you do that brings you closer to your purpose?
Crisis time will cleanup the economy from those organizations that were just surviving from past economic models; or that were decidedly too weak. What opportunities does this void create for you?

The successful K.E.E.N. knows that freak events will happen, and when they happen, he looks at them with the mindset of opportunity. The mindset makes all the difference. Even if almost wiped-out himself by the event, the K.E.E.N. will rebounce.

Welcome to the new complex world where taking the opportunity of freak events will be the driver of your success. Welcome to the Fourth Revolution!

What opportunities do you see in the current crisis and will you see in the next freak event that will touch you? Is your network and your lifestyle ready to take these opportunities?

Change your mind first to change your life

“Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything” – George B. Shaw. The more I speak about the Fourth Revolution, the more I consult in the field of organizational change, the more I find this quote incredibly deep and powerful.

Most changes need to start with a mindset change. Many failures are caused by the failure to change one’s mindset. Of course you can change your environment, your processes, your organization. But if you don’t change your mindset, or rather more precisely, your mind perspective, change will not be successful. You will fail, and slowly become sour, frustrated and angry.

Only by changing your mind first, by changing your identity, your view of the world, will you be able to really change your life, and to change the world.

So, how do we change our mind perspective? It requires both openness and deep introspection.

Openness so as to apprehend the reality of what surrounds us without all the filters that we usually impose to our perception
Deep introspection to find the right way to change – our own way, the way that excites us deeply and fits with our inner self

It is an intensely personal quest, and it can be made difficult by how our environment might tend to push us back into our previous mind perspective. It requires solitude and mindfulness. Yet going through this exercise is a necessary preliminary. All the rest of the change is just a consequence of the mindset change: see the world differently, you will act differently.

It is amazing how this is applicable both for individuals but also for organizations: organization’s culture and mindset needs first to change for the organization to really change. Change programs that do not consider this as a preliminary will fail.

So, when do you start stopping for while, open your mind and seek your passion?

Large companies adopt successfully internal social media. What are the others waiting for?

In this blog, we’ve argued that companies ought to adopt social media to release the creativity of their organization. That it is difficult (see for example “why organizations don’t implement virtual social networks“) but companies that will succeed in this transformation will reap fantastic results.

BASF success story in adopting social media

There start to be numerous stories of large companies being very successful at engaging their employees into internal social networks. Dion Hinchcliffe is writing a series of short case studies: see the case studies for BASF, Yum! brands, Alcatel-Lucent, Cemex. You’ll note it is not just companies at the cutting edge of IT technology but real brick-and-mortar companies. In each case, after due preparation, the engagement of employees has been noticeable. These companies are still to experience fully employee’s self-organization and initiative, but they are becoming close. How will they react when employees will take significant initiatives? Time will tell. For sure, they are well in advance compared to others and that should give them a significant competitive advantage.

And what’s the status in your company? Have you already setup and spread your internal social network? What are you waiting for?

What the failures of Kodak and GM can teach us personally

Crisis are always moments of accelerated changes. Recently, some key icons of the Industrial Age collapsed, bankrupt: General Motors in 2009 and Kodak in 2011.

General Motors was the icon of manufacturing, producing the most coveted american symbol – the car. Kodak was the icon of modern broadcasting, with the film – motion and still pictures.

It is the end of the Industrial Age they represented for sure, but some of their competitors have survived the crisis and are even thriving. These two companies did not manage to change their mindset. They did not manage to let go of the milk cow before it would be aged and dry out. They did not manage to go global. They did not see all the good ideas that were created in their organizations. Here they stood arrogantly in their fortresses, misunderstanding the evolution of the world.

There have been some enlightening posts on the case of Kodak lately – read for example “What’s Wrong with This Picture: Kodak’s 30-year Slide into Bankruptcy” from Wharton school.

What can these failures teach us personally?

Both cases are somehow a failure not to recognize sunken cost. They held to their precious traditional assets (which they had already paid for many times) and did not recognize that they needed to move on.
They failed not because they were not able to create the new products that the people wanted or needed (Kodak people did invent digital photography!) – they failed because they were not able to try those new products, even at small scale. They were possibly scared that it might put into question their entire model. And so what?…

Thus two questions for us on the way to become successful in the Fourth Revolution:

Aren’t you holding right now to something just because of the work and effort you’ve put in it? Isn’t it time to move on?
When you have a project that might change dramatically the way you live and the way you receive your income, do you put the project back into the drawer or do you try it first small scale?

Let’s not become like GM and Kodak. Let’s let go of sunken effort and let’s experiment with new things. When do you start?

The best change programs are simple and applied ruthlessly

Yourself or your organization needs a drastic change? How can you do that?

Too many change gurus and consultants will engineer and recommend large, complex programs. Yes of course, you need to re-engineer processes, communicate, engage with people.

My take: any change effort is 0.1% decision, 10-20% engineering, 80-90% implementation.

Don’t exhaust yourself at the engineering stage. Spend less time designing the perfect change program. Focus on the one thing that needs to change, and design a very simple incentive system to get yourself or your organization moving in the right direction. Remember the elephant and the rider. You want to be emotionally engaging, capitalize on the elephant’s hot buttons to get it moving, and easy.

Then, however, be extremely disciplined and consistent in applying the new, simple system. It is simple, easy to communicate. Repeat, repeat, repeat; communicate, communicate, communicate; act consistently, act consistently, act consistently.

Remember: don’t consume all your energy devising the change. Keep it simple, and emotionally engaging. Keep your energy for the implementation stage. And there, be ruthless in your discipline and how you apply it throughout the organization.

Be more elegant when you ride your elephant!

I love this metaphor from the book “Switch: how to change things when change is hard” by the brothers Heath:

We are like an elephant with a rider on top. Our elephant represents our bodily needs, our emotional pulsions.

The tiny rider on top represents the rational mind.

How does the rider get the elephant to move in the intended direction, without too much frolicking around? That’s certainly not by any large action involving all its strength, by pushing the elephant around (which would be quite impossible). It is by building a relationship with the elephant, by knowing intimately what are the elephant’s hot buttons. And then, it is by providing the small impulses that are needed to show the right direction.

We are so much influenced by our rational Industrial Age approach of action and reaction that we often look for change actions that are as large as the final intended action. The best change actions are those small actions, requiring a small energy but emotionally engaging, that will create incredible, massive change. It is an art to engineer those actions. There are many examples in the book how massive change actions finally had very limited results, while sometime small change actions completely redefined an organization or a community.

Ride your elephant more elegantly. Do not try to force it to move in a direction. Find the right small, emotionally engaging move that will create sustainable, incredible change.

Educate people, don’t train them anymore

“How many of you believe in training?

You train animals but you educate people”

I found this thought in one book by Alan Weiss, a consulting guru. I noted it because that’s quite deep actually, and it relates perfectly to the Fourth Revolution transformation.

chain production — train for mass production efficiency

Training was appropriate for the Industrial Age. People got trained to do their job more efficiently.

You trained people to do their individual task more quickly, with better quality… And you used carrot and stick incentives to help.

Alas, training is not any more appropriate for the Collaborative Age. Education is much more. Because value is not anymore in people following a written, predictable process to produce something. Now, you need to give people the background, the thinking tools, the inner game to produce effective things, that are worthwhile and of high value.

Education (as in general, higher cultural education) was reserved to a small portion of society. It needs now to be made available to everybody.

And ‘training course’ needs to change in ‘educational event’. And the content focused on getting people to developing their thinking and creative abilities.

When will you change your people’s development strategies to fit into the Fourth Revolution new needs?

Successful launch of Project Soft Power concept: having fun around the Fourth Revolution

During a talk given on 6 March, 80 members of the Singapore project management community discovered my new concept of Project Soft Power™!

Project Soft Power and the Fourth Revolution

It is basically a cross over from the Fourth Revolution and Emotional Intelligence applied to Project Management. Do you recognize the slide at the back?

This talk sponsored by the Singapore Chapter of the Project Management Institute was very well received. And more over we all had fun through the exercises that were designed to have the participants discover more about themselves! See here the summary report on SPMI website. Click here to access the Project Soft Power slides on slideshare.

The Project Soft Power book is now in the last stages of production for a publication in May of this year. Or, you can also ask us for a keynote speech. In any case, stay tuned!

Project Soft Power presentation in action - having fun!

So, will you be coming to attend my public talk on “Project Soft Power”? 6 March at 7:30pm!

Don’t miss my public talk on the 6 March 2012 at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business in Singapore at 7:30pm!

Jeremie Averous giving a public speech — Jeremie in action during a public speech!

This talk is hosted by SPMI, the Singapore Chapter of the Project Management Institute. More information on this event on the website of the SPMI.

Pencil already this event in your agendas to discover Project Soft Power, the Secret of the Great Project Leaders! in a unique occasion before the publication of the book later this year!

I have been preparing this show for some time now, come and participate to a mind-changing occasion!

“The most successful project leaders rely not only on their technical and analytical skills, but also on strong personal and interpersonal practices. This speech will allow participants to understand the 5 practices of Project Soft Power, and how everybody can learn and practice them.”

Even if you are not involved in project management, this talk can still be of interest to you as it will describe those skills that are indispensable today for the K.E.E.N., as part of his leadership skills.

Come to attend this unique occasion!

We don’t think ourselves into a new way of acting, we act ourselves into a new way of thinking

This is a powerful quote, which got me thinking. It is interesting because of the ambiguity of the word “acting”: acting as in “doing”, or acting as in “actor”?… This ambiguity is great because it creates suddenly a greater understanding.

child learning biking — act into a new way of living

At some stage one needs to dive in a situation. Take the bike and try. And fall. And try again. And fall. Until such time where biking will become a skill that will change the view on the surrounding world.

Much better and more effective certainly than staying at the side of road, looking at the bike, and over-thinking how to make it work.

An other practical example I know is influencing one’s posture to change one’s mood and outlook on things. Not by thinking – but by doing, by acting in the sense of the actor, can we change the way we think!

Basically, whatever you want to do, don’t over-think it. Just go and do it. Even if you fall a few times, you’ll get on to something. And your outlook on the world will change. And so will the world.

[This great quote’s origin is a bit hard to trace. Some internet sources mention Millard Fuller, and it has been repeatedly and widely quoted since it appeared in the book “Execution: the Discipline of Getting things done” by Cassidy and Charan.]

Projects that are too easy, are not worthwhile

Any worthwhile project will encounter resistance. Because it tries to change the status-quo. Because if it is worthwhile, it changes its environment significantly.

Here are some contrarian thoughts about this effect:

your project does not encounter any resistance? Reevaluate if it is worthwhile!
your project does not go through hard and difficult times? Reevaluate if it is worthwhile!

Now obviously there needs to be a measure of resistance in the process. It must not be so hard as to be impossible to overcome. Still it must be hard enough so that not so many people do overcome it.

Reevaluate your current personal and professional projects. Are they difficult enough? Are they too difficult?

Most importantly, drop those that are too easy. They are probably not worthwhile.

3 useful ideas for real entrepreneurs

Once in a while I see an interesting idea for entrepreneurs and I note it down – I sometimes lose its origin though. Here are some words of wisdom for the would-be entrepreneur. Funny enough they could also apply to all of us individually.

“Profit in a business is like gas in a car. You don’t want to run out of gas, but neither do you want to think that your road trip is a tour of gas stations” – Tim O’Reilly in a post about Steve Jobs, ‘A focus on things that matter most‘. In the same post there is an quote from Steve Jobs: “My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products, the products, not the profits, were the motivation“. The lesson is that if you want to build a great companies, focus on the clients and the products first. Profit will come, as a consequence.

A useful piece of advice about cash flow management: Cash flow is like the depth of water below the keel of your ship. You don’t care if it’s more than what you need to move forward. It can be 100m or 2,000m and it makes no difference. But make sure you have enough to never run aground!

A fantastic concept from the last Jim Collins’s book, Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All: “shoot bullets before you shoot cannonballs“, or in clearer terms, don’t commit large amounts of resources to a new project before you’ve tested it at small scale. The small scale experiments – the bullets – will give feedback and will allow to decide whether and where to shoot a cannonball that will commit lots of resources from the company. Do a lot of small scale experiments and shoot cannonballs rarely on those opportunities that are proven.

Do you have any useful piece of advice to add?

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