Hack

Hack: 1 Winner from 125 Ideas is so 1950

by Michael F Kelly - CEO at Techtel Corporation and Sr. Fellow of the Society for New Communications Research

July 18, 2011 at 11:58pm

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2 Ratings:

Overall 4
Innovative 4
Detail 4

Contribution Summary

Summary

There's a limit to Web 2.0 that shows up in all of its uses, including the M Prize process: it doesnt really produce effective new management systems that will work, just islands of good practice and hope. Suggested is a hack that will lead to assembling and integrating ideas from many sources, making a better one.

Moonshot(s)

Problem

The ideas presented for the M-Prize are about how to use Web 2.0 to move Management from 1.0 to 2.0, but there is a basic flaw in the ability of Web 2.0 to do this effectively. For all the talk about Web 2.0 as a place to collaborate, it has severe limits in producing effective collaboration (i.e. collaboration that works, as opposed to looking like a real meeting of minds is happening, but it is actually only at the surface level. )¹ For example, there are over 100 ideas submitted here, but the objective is still to find the ‘best one.’ That’s Management 1.0 thinking, at best. But it is the current reality of this limit of Web 2.0: From over 100 well thought out ideas for improving management, 1 is chosen as the winner because there is no way or intent to assemble the ideas into something better, of greater scope. The other 99 are presumably, not winners, at best or are losers, at worst. But are they? It’s unlikely the winner will succeed in changing ‘the system’ with much long term sustainable impact and spread like wildfire to other organizations, which would seem to be the real goal for the M-Prize. Why not? Because of other realities which get in the way, and are not considered in the solution, just like what happens so often in making changes in management. It may very well be that the other 99 ideas have parts of the solution that would make it work. I suggest a hack to quickly start to develop a better way to integrate ideas from many sources into a better system. The hack is to ask for a model of the results of the discussion, at each step. Not any model, but one that follows certain rules to assure it will reach the goal of an overall better concept, a better way to think about an issue and how to do it.

Of course, the M-Prize is just one handy case and its well done, but maybe next year ....
Another case:

You go to one of your LinkedIn Groups and take a look at the recent Discussions and decide to read one or two, then read through a few of the comments and make a comment yourself. What have you learned from this collaboration? What has anyone else learned from it? Whether there are 10 comments or 100, or even more to a discussion (most have none), there is no easy and effective mechanism to get a simple summary, much less an integration of the result.

The starting rules (as goals) for Management 2.0 Models
1. Basic and easy to understand and use
2. Common Words
3. Supports rich understanding
4. Able to be built upon
5. Makes the world better by untangling and managing complexity (2)
6. Implements serious science (2)

Solution

I suggest a hack to quickly start to develop a better way to integrate ideas from many sources and possibly suggest changing the rules for the M-Prize. As a by-product, it will ask for solutions to specific problems, perhaps getting more participation in communities from the brightest and quietest.

Practical Impact

At each meeting, whether online or off, and after each online Discussion and Comments, there is an attempt to summarize what has been learned by starting a new model or more often, updating a prior one, from the meeting discussion if changes have been made. The model will be made according to some rules that will emerge but start with those listed above. It's like a Wikipedia process, except for Business Models: where things are integrated into a model and current discussions, current issues and arguements, research findings, references to other discussions, books, papers, etc. are linked.

For example, a LinkedIn Group for Marketing Operations has a Discussion asking about the purpose of Marketing Operations: to make Marketing more effective or more efficient and after the Comments slow, a model is posted saying: is this what we have said?   Continued discussion then is either centered on or updates the model until concensus is reached.   That is posted to a Web 2.0 collection of models for marketing.

Applied to a M-Prize idea collection as an example - a model of Web 2.0 and Management 2.0 would exist when it was started, upon which to place and grow each idea.   Submitters are asked to submit specific questions on the 'So What' and where fit ideas and what is the function and role of the idea so that it is made relevant to the situation.

A meeting online would have someone assigned to bring the appropriate model into the discussion at the start, and then each person would be responsibile for saying what part of the model they were going to talk about and whether it should be changed or added to.   Unlike Wikipedia, it is best done at the meeting or during the active online discussion to become an interactive part of the discussion and contribute to its productivity.

Challenges

Challenges:

1. How to start. Who will do the basic models?
Suggestion: We have done a few models that implement and provide examples of the models for a few typical business situations. What we have found is that the number of models needed is finite, possibly in the range of 20-30 for a function such as Marketing. This is possible because of the consistency of marketing functions and roles at most organizations. But it is also true because the systems models stress what is done, why and how to measure results - with stress on effectiveness (effects vs. goals) over efficiency (output vs. input.) These will shortly be applied to a number of LinkedIn sites to get started.
2. Who will do the models for each meeting online and off?
Suggestion: We need volunteers, much like Wikipedia, to learn how to do the models, from initial Sketch to final version as the discussions take place.
3. Can it be taught? Will it be adopted?
Suggestion: Concentrate on one or two functional areas to start, for example, marketing. Discuss the idea with IT, HR to see where the people are located now.
4. We have done research that shows that people who like to Connect ideas from multiple expertise areas are more likely to be effective at this process than people who want to be an expert in one area. This is important. Use the WeConnectors meetup site learnings to establish the initial people.
5. Recruit about 25 people starting with those who have submitted ideas to the M-Prize to set up initial models and start to use them for example, on the ideas submitted to the M-Prize as proof of concept.

First Steps

Examples of a few real world models will be available this month - July 2011.

The first possibly helpful diagram (PhD) will be the starting basic Management 2.0 Model and will consist of:

The basic cycle of Gap=> Goal => Do => Effects => Results => Gap
Output from Do vs Input to Do is efficiency.
Results vs. Goal is effectiveness
Quite simple, and this meets all of the rules!

The second model will build on the first, and be the Two Party Management 2.0 model where a second party, a buyer will have the same model as above, intersecting at the Effects.   Goal of one party: sell, goal of second party: find solution. It's now a rich model of communication and interaction between two parties and can be simulated on Systems Dynamics software to better understand the dynamics for Communication, Marketing, Sales and Customer understanding. We have this model ready to go.

An example of how it would be applied to the MIX Management 2.0 prize submissions could be done with the help from the advisors, judges and submitters.   We would coordinate it.

This would be an excellent chance to show the value, or not, of the hack.

We have set up a Meetup group of WeConnectors to start training by early September. It's open but we need to accept no more than 25 in initial class and they must be unusually qualified in the area, probably marketing, and with openness to understanding of systems concepts.   Our work for the past five years with Engineering Interns from Dartmouth College indicate these people can be found.   In the case of the engineers, they were systems engineers and thus predisposed to connecting and systems.   They did stunningly well and we can emulate this going forward with non-engineers.

Credits

As Gary Hamil notes: 'Of course, the web has its limits. Online collaboration, in its current state, is not a very good substitute for the sort of unscripted, face-to-face interactions that are critical to producing genuine breakthroughs.' But beyond that, there are problems even with face-to-face collaboration. The problem is that This is a problem of collaboration, of communication. And it exists with every organization, every group of humans because of the ways we think and act, emerging from the way the brain works. Solving this common problem would increase the effectiveness of every organization. Big problem and big value to a solution. MIX Website.
'Thinking in Systems', Donella Meadows (2008) White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing
'Systems Thinking for Curious Managers', Russell Ackoff, (2010) United Kingdom: Triarchy Press
'T Rex and the Crater of Doom', Walter Alvarez (2008) Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press
'Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger' Peter Bevelin (2007) Sweden: PCA Publications
'Better', Atul Gawande (2007) NY, NY: Picador USA
'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions', Thomas Kuhn (1996) Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago
'Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World', John Sterman, Boston MA: Irwin/McGraw-Hill
'The Power of Professionalism', William Wiersma (2011)
'Sociobiology: The New Synthesis', E. O. Wilson (2000), Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press'.
'The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization' Peter Senge (1990) Doubleday
Discussions with Professor Walter Alvarez of UC CA Berkeley, who, with his father, Luis Alvarex - Nobel Prize in Physics, first hypothesized that an impact from outer space killed off the dinosaurs. The father and son team had to leave the comfort of Geology and Physics and trespass, as he later wrote, into many other disciplines to determine how this hypothesis could work.. They are true Connectors and Walter's current teaching of Big History at UCB is a model of how to move out of one's expertise area and with great humility and intelligence, teach in other areas. It is a model for breaking thru silos.
Many HBR articles
Many other sources - list being worked on.