Organization in the Collaborative Age | The Fourth Revolution Blog

Good consulting or coaching is about simplifying complexity

What is actually good consulting or coaching? As a professional consultant and coach it might be time that I ponder on that question!

Zen Garden — Focus and reflection is often what people expect from external contributions

Reflecting on my most successful and satisfying moments, I can relate them to AHA moments for my clients, who were discovering an entire new perspective on things. This perspective was in fact often a way to simplify their life (or their organization’s) by providing new focus. Of course, consulting and coaching are not the same thing: consulting comes with advice and solutions; while coaching takes an open approach and lets the client come up with its personal solution. Still, again and again, the key of the intervention was to simplify real or subjective complexity. It often got realized through finding purpose, or what the actual, real, objective of the endeavor is.

Often enough most of the value is brought in when the coach or the consultant simplifies complexity, letting a clear path readily visible and less confusion as to the way forward. One consulting firm (KPMG) even has the tagline “cutting through complexity”. It can only take a few minutes – but the external eye, sounding board and independent perspective is essential in discovering that new path. I love these moments where coming with an independent, sometimes irreverent viewpoint suddenly simplifies years of artificially added complexity layers!

How did the coaches and consultants you’ve used performed in simplifying complexity?

Hat tip to Patrick Laredo, President of X-PM, a leading interim management company, for the thoughts and discussions on consulting and complexity

Is national investment in R&D a fallacy for economic growth ?

It is a commonly held belief that to create innovation, and hence economic growth and competitiveness, governments and companies should invest in R&D. R&D expenditure is an important indicator used at political level to evaluate the competitiveness of economies.

The first powered flight by the Wright brothers

However, there is plenty of substantial evidence, at least anecdotal, that the most impacting and most fundamental inventions were rarely created by government or centralized spending. For example, computers created in a garage; or powered flight invented by self-taught bicycle shop owners. Sometimes R&D spending creates something unexpected, not part of the original program.

The competition between the Wright Brothers and Samuel Langley, a well established academic with generous funding from government, is possibly the best example.

It went to the point where the US government denied the Wright brothers recognition for forty years, so upset were they that they had succeeded and not the program the government had funded!

Some details on that story can be found here, here. On this link there are some interesting thoughts about the effect of government and bureaucratic funding, with reflections around this story.

(Centrally planned) government or corporate funding might not be the most effective way to foster innovation. Letting an ecosystem of innovators create, destroy, fail and finally evolve into suitable innovations is certainly a much better solution. But central planning and bureaucratic management is unable to support or control such an arrangement.

The issue is more about creating a social context where failure needs to be accepted as part of the search for innovation, and where innovation needs to remain nested in action. It is not certain that the huge push of China in R&D and academic research will be effective if there is no possibility to experiment and to fail in Chinese society.

How can we release the inventive potential in a society better than spreading centrally controlled funds?

What Makes Great Organizations and Individuals different?

According to Simon Sinek, what makes the difference for great organizations – and great leaders – is that they know their ‘Why”. It is from their purpose that they derive how they do things and what they do in detail.

All individuals and organizations know their “What”. Some organizations know their “How”, but very rarely their “Why”.

Watch Simon Sinek give a great explanation with fantastic examples related to the Wright Brothers versus the establishment, and other great examples in this TED speech (if you’re a hurry, watch from 1:20 to 5:50 – if you can stop then!):

(Here is the link if you can’t see the video)

“People don’t buy What you do, they buy Why you do it” – Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle (Why-How-What) is an interesting approach. It triggers important questions for ourselves and for our organizations.

Is your personal “Why” clear and compelling? Is your organization’s “Why” clear and compelling?

If not, what are you going to do about it?

Why Conventional Organizations Are Not Adaptable

The basics of the ability of decision-making in uncertain environment is “confidence in the people and the flexibility of systems“. That’s the feedback from decades of military wisdom.

Did you realize that it is exactly the opposite of what large organizations do! They typically:

remove responsibility and initiative from the individual in the bureaucratic and hierarchical organization
build very inflexible systems (anybody has experience with an ERP system?) for the sake of ‘discipline’

It is amazing how much of my consulting work in the field of large complex projects can often be summarized in giving more confidence and empowering the people; and releasing them from the tyranny of complicated and inflexible systems.

I am almost keen to see a bit more of shake-up throughout the world to destroy those organizations of the Industrial Age that won’t be able to adapt because of these two basics principles which they have forgotten. Systems in particular are often used in such a complicated manner that organizations lose all agility to face unpredictable circumstances.

Maybe those organizations thought they could shape the world as a predictable world.

Luckily giving back power and leadership to people is what worked and what will continue to bring us to the next Age. Why did people forget such basic principles during the Industrial Age illusion of scientific management?

Quote from General Vincent Desportes in his book “Decider dans l’Incertitude” (in French)

A great sample of applied Fourth Revolution’s organizational culture

Lately, a deck of slides about culture from a company called Hubspot has been quite popular. And it reflects very well what the culture of Fourth Revolution’s organizations will be. There are 150 slides but they are quite worthwhile for you to take a few minutes to scroll through:

Culture Code: Creating A Lovable Company from HubSpot All-in-one Marketing Software

“Culture happens. Whether we plan for it or not, culture will happen in an organization. Why not create a culture we love?”

This reminds me that it is our responsibility to create the culture we love in our organizations. What do you do about it?

8 Lessons from One Year into Entrepreneurship

It’s now a bit more than one year that I am really on my own as an entrepreneur and it’s time to look back and reflect.

Business Plan — Keep your business plan simple!

After starting my consulting company Project Value Delivery on my own as the single… everything (employee, director, accountant, webmaster, technical writer etc etc) we are now 3. Are a real Fourth Revolution company, we still have no office as in our consulting work we are mostly in our client’s premises. The market has been tested, and it is clearly there to sustain the company. The business model has been slightly revised but remains grossly what was anticipated at the beginning.

Here are 8 lessons learnt from this first year:

Entrepreneurship is not risky if you don’t over-develop before checking the market. The key is not to spend too much time developing a great glitzy product to find out nobody wants it. The philosophy is – do some homework to be sure you can do it but get the contract (i.e. a paying client) before you develop it!!
You need to define a niche where you are the best and only in the world – and have the discipline to stick to it! (say ‘no’ to other opportunities and to your other ideas if they are not aligned. Even if you are hungry, better say no to what is not aligned)
Don’t over-plan. Forecasts are wrong anyway. I am working with a 6 months plan that’s quite enough.
Be conservative in your finances. Keep sufficient money in the company. It will give you freedom: freedom to invest, to take time off to create, to say ‘no’ to an annoying client or because you want to stick to your niche.
Everything is in the relationship with the clients. Integrity and commitment are key to long term relationships
What prevents you from starting your activity (or asking for a client to pay the right price) is in your head, nothing else. It’s purely psychological. The lizard brain creates that fear of the unknown. Remember, today employment is possibly more risky than being on your own!
Make sure to have a permanent council of advisors you can rely on (if needed, get them interested in your business)
Once you have found a great idea that resonates with clients, the harder part is to figure out how to scale your idea (I am not yet there but working on it)

I am now looking forward working as a team with exceptional co-workers that have complementary skills, and not any more individually like we started working. Our biggest challenge for the year to come is to figure out how to scale and expand geographically. Stay tuned!

Shun the Critics. Create a Tribe and Connect with It

Seth Godin makes a great point in the Icarus Deception.

“Shun the non-believers. First you must pick yourself, then you must pick your audience”

Seth goes on to explain that the key is to grow your own tribe of believers so that you expose yourself often to people who know you and believe in your ideas. That’s also an other way to deal with critics. Make their voice disappear in the background of your tribe.

The thing is, it takes time, patience and consistent production and interaction to slowly create a tribe that is well connected with you to a point of supporting your initiatives. It is something that needs to be started early. Still it can be done. It must be done if you want to benefit from a louder voice in the world and from support for your projects.

It also requires to take a stand on a number of issues that are unconventional or outright contrarian. Because growing a tribe is like marketing: you need to define a narrow niche market where people that are particulary interested will join immediately.

How can you grow your supporting tribe to deal more easily with ever more difficult projects and endeavors? How can you define better your voice niche?

Complicated is not the same as Complex – and Why this is Important

Complicated is a very different concept from Complex. Yet most of us do not distinguish them. Even more, we try to manage Complex systems with Complicated solutions. And this turns out to be a very huge problem.

A watch: a complicated system - predictable and reliable — A watch: a complicated system – predictable and reliable

A watch is complicated. It is composed of a large number of pieces; yet they are carefully engineered to fit and move together. The system is very reliable (it’s a watch!). Most engineered systems are complicated, yet reliable. The more the components fit seamlessly together, the better the reliability.

A complex system: a representation of the situation in Afghanistan

On the contrary, a complex system involves a lot of different components or contributors; they are all interconnected and inter-dependent; but they all follow a different interest, and they make the system unpredictable. The now classical slide describing the situation in Afghanistan to General McCrystal is a classical example of the depiction of a complex system.

Complex systems are unpredictable. They are what happens in real life outside what can be carefully engineered. They are what creates the unforeseen, the adventure.

Because we mix all the time those two concepts we misunderstand a lot of what is happening around us. The way to tackle and repair complicated systems is completely different from how we can influence complex systems. The way these systems fail belongs to different realms. And when a complicated system encounters unpredictable complexity, it is where our engineering capabilities are overwhelmed. It is where our certainties become shaky. It is when catastrophes like Fukushima happen.

Bringing the World Closer: Real-Time Audio Translation is Live

While automatic translators on internet make it easy nowadays to understand at least the sense of a text in any other language, live audio translation between languages was only something of the future.

Is that really so? In that stunning demonstration, a Microsoft executive demonstrates both live text and audio translation between English and Chinese (if you don’t have time to watch the 9 min video, watch after 6:40 for the live audio – here is the link to YouTube for that part of the video):

More information on that technology breakthrough on this TheNextWeb post: “Amazing: Microsoft turns spoken English into spoken Mandarin – in the same voice”

The world just became smaller!

How Big Data Will not Help our Understanding of Complexity

It is not possible anymore nowadays to open a serious newspaper or a financial investment document without reading about the great prospects of “Big Data”: analyzing the troves of data progressively acquired by organizations when we surf, shop, spend money, etc., to create Value. And companies have been setup which raise money on the markets to exploit data like other exploit mines and oil wells.

Curve errors/ data size — The number of spurious correlations increase with the size of the data. Be careful when you read about discoveries from “Big Data”!

Be careful, says Taleb in his book Antifragile, lots of data also means lots of spurious correlations. The argument is detailed in the book and in this Wired Article “Beware the Big Errors of ‘Big Data’“, from which we reproduce the curve on the right (it is also in the book).

To translate the point in conventional language, the bigger the size of the data and the number of potential variables considered, the higher the probability that bullshit is produced when it comes to the identification of possible trends. From there to consider that all this “Big Data” trend is just a vast hoax, there is a step we won’t take (I don’t invest in this “Big Data” thing unless it is very focused application). However, this potentially shows that a high proportion of the ‘discoveries’ that people do analyzing “Big Data” will be spurious. Be careful next time you read about one of these new ‘discoveries’.

A further challenge: is it really possible to understand complexity through more advanced data analysis? Following Taleb, we can have high doubts about that. In particular because all data analysis tools will never consider anything than conventional statistical approaches, and will never consider those discontinuities and benefits from volatility which makes real life what it is: interesting!

Thrive Through Complexity by Leveraging Collaboration of an Effective Team

Not only is Collaboration the key to deal with Uncertainty; the extreme collaborative setup, the Effective, Performing Team, is the key to tackle Complexity. That’s in effect the meaning of the conclusion of Jim Collins we quoted in the blog post “How to Take Decisions in a Complex Environment“.

team table — Are you presently mobilizing an effective, performing team?

It is tough to reach the point of achieving a high performing, effective team. In effect, this is the ultimate model of collaboration, where connection between individuals reaches such an emotional depth that it allows to mobilize all of the participant’s resources for the sake of the team’s purpose.

Depending on the level of performance of the team, different levels of complexity can be tackled; but the most uncertain, most complex situations can only be dealt with a totally committed, effective team.

In my consulting work I often observe how getting the leadership team of organizations to work as a performing team is the first condition for any effective transformation. It should be the first focus, instead of launching initiatives all over the place (as most organizations stuck in a rut tend to do).

Do you have an effective, performing team to help you through complexity? If not, what are you going to do to get it working as it should? That should be your first priority, now!

How to Take Decisions in a Complex Environment

How can you take the (right) (best) decision in a complex environment? Rely on your team. Decide on the ‘who’ and not on the ‘what’.

That’s all. That’s so much.

How can you take the right decisions in a real, complex world?

Jim Collins reminds us in his foreword to the book “Fortune: the Greatest Business Decisions of All Times“: “The greatest decisions were not “what” but “who?”, they were people decisions.”

“Fundamentally, the world is uncertain. Decisions are about the future and your place in the future when that future is uncertain. So what is the key thing you can do to prepare for that uncertainty? You can have the right people with you“.

The next time, instead of spending too much time developing spreadsheet projections over the next decades (which mean absolutely nothing), focus your energy on getting the right people in. Not just people like you, but a diverse and complementary team. Then through conflict and discussions, you’ll make your way through this complex world.

Where is your team right now? When do you start building it to thrive in this complex world?

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