Hack:
In the Driving Seat of Organizational Agility: translating strategy and execution into traction in turbulent times.
Change has changed. The nature of change itself has changed. It has become much more like a dynamic journey on a shifting landscape. We are supposed to be In the Driving Seat, of things, translating strategy and execution into traction, with the organizational agility to cope so that nothing gets lost in translation. With increasing turbulence, uncertainty and volatility that gets increasingly challenging, we can easily lose traction and suffer wheel$pin, which costs us a fortune. Sometimes with life and death consequences. When there is less and less we can count on with any certainty, we must be able to count on our organizational agility to cope no matter what.
Leadership and management is a three dimensional challenge. It always has been and always will be. But many managers, executives and CEOs are stuck in a two dimensional mindset. Our education, training and development systems tend to reduce things into 2D – just pick up any business book, and more than likely it will be full of 2D flow charts, models and frameworks. Yet, In the Driving Seat of our cars, we are mastering a whole person challenge in 3D, including an acute orientation to the third and longitudinal dimension of our journey which is unfolding real-time. We are able to be strategic and operational, a leader and manager, long-term and short-term oriented, all at the same time, with hardly giving it a second thought, while changing the channel on the radio, making a cell phone call (hands-free, of course), talking to a passenger and thinking about life, usually arriving at our desired destination, safely, on time, and ready for what’s next. We generally have the organizational agility to cope, no matter what. Amazing!
So, when we park in the lot outside our office and walk inside, what happens to these natural abilities? How do we help managers, executives and CEOs be in the same mode In the Driving Seat of their businesses as they are when they are In the Driving Seat of their cars?
The speed of business, the pace of change and the unprecedented turbulence, uncertainty and volatility of our business landscape these days will drive us crazy, up the wall and around the bend! How many managers, executives and CEOs do we know in that state of overwhelm, at least to some degree?
Think of it like a movie for which the frame rate is increasing all the time. It all started with a “flick” – a series of cards we “flicked” through with incremental changes between each which would create a motion picture. A low frame-rate (maybe 2 or 3 per second) between one frame and the next, one two dimensional picture and the next. Then we invented mechanical technologies which increased the frame rate with such devices as the zoetrope, mutoscope and praxinoscope. With the development of celluloid film technology, the frame rate increased still further, initially to about 5-10 frames per second. The problem is that the flicker-fusion point of our human visual system, where we shift from seeing flickering to a seeing a fusion of a continuous flow occurs at around 30 frames per second. With the invention of TV we moved up to 24 frames per second, then 30 frames per second with video. Now in the era of large screen, high definition TV, we are moving up to 72 frames per second, 120 with some video games and even 300 for some high speed and slow motion playback applications. And now, of course, we are also moving into the era of 3D movies and 3D TV, immersing us more in the flow of the fast-paced action.
That is also how change has changed. Change used to occur with a slow frame rate, moving from one fixed state to another fixed state, for which a 2D picture sufficed as a snapshot of things. We used to consider ourselves “change agents”. But the frame rate of change has increased exponentially. It is now well beyond the flicker-fusion point of our leadership visual system. There is no fixed state. We can’t discern one 2D picture from the next. Things have fused into a third dimension of the longitudinal dimension of the storyline, as the continuous flow of our unfolding journey in real-time. We have moved from being “change agents” to being “travel agents”, helping our organizations travel better, with the organizational agility to cope, no matter what. The emergence of 3D movies and 3D TV reminds us the regain a true 3D perspective for our new leadership and management challenge, In the Driving Seat of our businesses, just like we have In the Driving Seat of our cars.
As a manager, executive, or CEO, of any kind of organization, our responsibility is to be In the Driving Seat of our organizational agility. Individually and collectively, like never before, we must be fully filling that seat. Any shortfalls are increasingly likely to become evident, very quickly, very fully, and very finally, with few second chances. Just look at the carnage we have seen in business over recent years – banks, retailers, and automotive manufacturers, amongst many others you know of who don’t make the news. Even Toyota, with its safety issues, recalls and crisis of public confidence. Then British Petroleum (BP) Gulf of Mexico oil spill, clean up and aftermath, causing the plummeting of its share-price and CEO.
While organizational agility is a timelessly old problem, our new reality is placing new and unfamiliar demands upon us and our skills. It is asking new questions of our executive strengths, which are being tested in new ways. To be passing the test, we need new answers. Where do we get those new answers from? That was a question I was constantly asking myself when I was a manager, senior executive and then CEO, running small-to-medium sized and fast-moving businesses in a corporate environment. I ended up running an aerospace division of such businesses, as part of a British public company. I am originally British, having become an American Citizen a few years ago.
Looking for those new answers, I experienced an increasingly frustrating “sense of void”. A vacuum. Something was missing. It was evident to me that most coaches, consultants, and trainers who came into my office, offering to help me, didn’t really understand what it was like to sit in my seat. Also, despite being an avid reader of business books, most of them only partly illuminated my challenge, often from a high altitude without much pragmatic advice which I could apply for immediate effect. Or they were too complicated to be implemented and sustained. Or they were just too static for the dynamics of my challenge. None of them seemed to put it all together, addressing the whole challenge, the whole problem and the whole solution of being In the Driving Seat. I decided I might have to wait a long time for others to fill the void, so I decided to fill it myself.
I now facilitate organizational agility with client CEOs, executives and their teams and with the members of my Vistage groups which I Chair. Vistage International is a global membership organization for CEOs, executives and managers, founded in 1957and now, at the last count, with fifteen thousand members in sixteen countries, growing rapidly all the time. Those members come together in small peer groups which are facilitated by a Chair and there are about six hundred Chairs around the world, many of whom are ex CEOs, Presidents or General Managers like myself (also see my Story entitled, "The Power of a Peer Group: no one of us is as smart as all of us"). So I am now lucky enough to work with members and clients from a wide diversity of industries and businesses, from start-ups to public companies, young and old, large and small, for-profits and not-for-profits, of all types, shapes and sizes. At the last count I have facilitated more than 500 group sessions and 1500 one-to-one coaching sessions with CEOs. My experience is that they all share the same “sense of void”, to some degree or another and are fearful of pilot error. Let me illustrate with a story.
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December 29,1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 is at 2,000 feet on final approach into Miami International Airport. It’s nighttime and the aircraft is an L-1011 TriStar, the latest generation technology jet of its time, with three crew members in the cockpit. They reach that phase of approach in which the captain pushes the lever to get all three landing gear down (the nose gear and the two lateral gears), expecting three green lights to confirm the gears are down and locked. Instead, the captain sees two greens and one bulb fails to illuminate.
The captain pulls out the checklist and turns to that page, where it instructs him to recycle the gear and try again, in case it was just a transient fault. He does so, but no luck. Still two greens and one bulb fails to illuminate. So the captain says, “Put this darn thing on autopilot and let’s figure out why this light won’t go on.”
Let’s pause at this point. I ask you to consider the sequential path of goals that the crew had in mind at this point in their journey:
Goal #1: Fix the bulb
. . . and after that . . .
Goal #2: Recycle the landing gear and get three greens
. . . and after that . . .
Goal #3: Land safely, relatively on-time, and ready for what’s next, with passengers none the wiser and everyone continuing on with their journey, and after that, having a nice life.
Let’s resume our tragic story.
With the autopilot engaged and holding altitude, all three members of the flight crew began to focus on the detail of fixing the bulb, as their sequential goal #1. It’s a little bit tight in the cockpit and, as they converged their focus on the bulb, one of them nudged the yoke. In those days, nudging the yoke disengaged the autopilot from its altitude-hold mode. Kind of like dabbing the brake when you are in cruise control in your car. The autopilot obliged.
The plane went into a very gradual, imperceptible descent. It’s nighttime and by now the plane has been diverted out into the darkness over the Florida Everglades. They can’t see the horizon as a reference point but, sure enough, the altimeter is showing that they are slowly losing altitude. The crew remained focused on the detail of fixing the bulb. The imperceptible descent continued.
At 150 feet, one of the crew spotted the altimeter (indeed, reading 150 feet) and disbelievingly said, “We did something to the altitude . . . we’re still at two thousand (feet) right?” . . . A few seconds later, the aircraft crashed, travelling at 227 miles per hour and 18.7 miles short of the runway. 101 crew and passengers died. Tragic. Thankfully, 69 of the 163 passengers and six of the 13 crew survived.
Recovering and listening to the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded in its final report that the cause of the crash was pilot error and specifically that, “the failure of the flight crew to monitor flight instruments during the final four minutes of flight, and to detect an unexpected descent soon enough to prevent impact with the ground. Preoccupation with a malfunction of the nose landing gear position indicating system distracted the crew’s attention from the instruments and allowed the descent to go unnoticed.”
My translation: the cockpit crew became so focused on the detail of fixing the bulb (“malfunction of the nose landing gear position indicating system”) that they became distracted from flying the plane (“monitoring the flight instruments” and “allowing the descent to go unnoticed”).
Their attention to their #1 goal on their sequential path of goals undermined their intention of the subsequent goals in their journey, with disastrous results, for which they were held responsible. Their organizational agility in that cockpit got tested that day, initially mildly (it’s just a bulb) and then brutally (at 150 feet). Tragically, they failed the test.
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How many Eastern Airlines scenarios of pilot error have we seen in business lately? Big banks (Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual), retailers (Circuit City), automotive companies (General Motors and Chrysler going into bankruptcy), Toyota (with its safety recalls and crisis of public confidence), and BP with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its subsequent handling of the crisis, are all current examples.
In the congressional hearing, Mr. Toyoda himself owned up to pilot error, saying, “Quite frankly, I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick. I would like to point out here that Toyota's priority has traditionally been the following: first, safety; second, quality; and third, volume. These priorities became confused, and we were not able to stop, think and make improvements as much as we were able to before, and our basic stance to listen to customers' voices to make better products has weakened somewhat. We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that. I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues described in the recalls we face today, and I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced”. My translation: we became so focused on “fixing the bulb” of volume, our third priority, that we weren’t “flying the plane” of our first and second priorities of safety and quality, which had gone into an imperceptible descent, which then became very perceptible. This is very real for me as I have served on the Board of a Toyota Dealership for six years.
In the congressional hearing, the CEO of BP, Tony Hayward, owned up to pilot error, saying “The explosion and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon and the resulting oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico never should have happened. I understand people want a simple answer about why this happened and who is to blame. The truth, however, is that this is a complex accident, caused by an unprecedented combination of failures. There are events that occurred on April 20 that were not foreseen by me or BP, but which we need to address in the future as lessons learned from this terrible tragedy. Based on the events of April 20 and thereafter, we need to be better prepared for a subsea disaster. Based on what happened on April 20, we now know we need better safety technology. We and the entire industry will learn from this terrible event and emerge from it stronger, smarter and safer”. My translation: we became so focused on “fixing the bulb” of being perceived as the leading innovator of deep water drilling and keeping the well on time and on budget, that we weren’t “flying the plane” of safety on-board and decent contingency planning (remember the famed 3 page contingency plan, reported in the news and apparently copied and pasted between the major oil companies), which has gone into an imperceptible descent, which then became very perceptible. Less than two months later, Tony Hayward was saying they already had masses of 20/20 hindsight about how to be much stronger, smarter and safer! This is very real for me as I used to be a Petroleum Engineer working on drilling rigs, for Shell International.
My passionate purpose is dedicated to exploring why we see Eastern Airlines scenarios in business, whether on a macro-scale (like those we have mentioned and, not least of all BP and Toyota) or on a micro-scale (like you experience everyday in your business), and what we can do to avoid them. My purpose is to help translate this learning into our everyday reality to avoid pilot error. While few of us can relate to sitting in a flying seat (although I am sure there are many of you out there who are pilots), practically all of us can relate to sitting in a driving seat. I want to help us fully fill our role In the Driving Seat of our business, avoiding these kinds of Eastern Airlines scenarios in our future, of any kind, of any magnitude, on any scale. I want to help managers, executives and CEOs differentiate themselves as having mastered organizational agility. This requires us to piece together the whole challenge, the whole problem and the whole solution of fully filling our role In the Driving Seat of our business, translating strategy and execution into traction, with the organizational agility to cope, no matter what. With nothing getting lost in translation for maximum traction and minimum wheel$pin.
The solution unbundles into a number of symbiotic components:
1. Regaining our 3D perspective on the whole challenge, the whole problem and the whole solution of organizational agility, with a unifying architecture, framework and system;
2. Developing our higher order executive strengths of journey-orientation;
3. Driving a mindful process of integration, alignment and attunement, from grey matter to grey matter.
From grey matter to grey matter? Yes, from the grey matter of our brain (and our three dimensional mindset of organizational agility) to the grey matter of the asphalt, between the rubber and the road (and our three dimensional reality of organizational agility). That’s the end to end process of integration, alignment and attunement we need for our journey as a business. Things can get lost in translation and wheel$pin can creep in anywhere in that process, resulting in a loss of traction.
1. Regaining our 3D perspective on the whole challenge, the whole problem and the whole solution of organizational agility, with a unifying architecture, framework and system;
When we park in the lot outside our business and walk inside, it’s like walking onto a set of a 3D movie, in which we are participating and for which we need to be wearing our 3D glasses. If we are watching a 3D movie without wearing our 3D glasses, we will miss the acuteness of the 3rd dimension. It will just remain a blur and we will be left wondering, “what just happened?” Think Eastern Airlines. Ask Toyota. Ask BP. Amongst many others. In business, the 3rd dimension is the longitudinal dimension of the journey, which is unfolding real-time. Putting on our 3D glasses In the Driving Seat of our business helps adopt the same mindset and be in the same mode as when we are In the Driving Seat of our cars, addressing the whole challenge, the whole problem and the whole solution of in the three dimensions of:
- Latitude (Wholism): This is about understanding the high-level concept and big-picture whole of our business, and the breadth of issues, problems, and opportunities we face at every level; it’s about looking at our business laterally and exploring the possibilities that present themselves when we do.
- Altitude (Pragmatism): This is about understanding the small-picture parts of our business and the depth of pragmatic issues, problems, and opportunities we face at every level; it’s about looking at our business vertically and translating high concept into the practical realities at ground level, between the rubber and the road.
- The Longitudinal Dimension (Journey-Orientation): This is about understanding our issues, problems, and opportunities longitudinally, across multiple time horizons, from the present forwards and the future backwards, in a journey-oriented way; it’s about looking at our business as an unfolding journey of the whole and the parts, in breadth and in depth, conceptually and pragmatically, all at the same time.
In addition, I use the red lens and blue lens (actually cyan) of the 3D glasses to help us resolve the two different kinds of complexity involved in a journey, which map into this 3D structure (see image at the end of this hack):
- Detail Complexity (looking through the blue lens, at the blue frame of detail complexity, in the static plane of thinking) i.e. “fixing bulbs” from our Eastern Airlines story.
- Dynamic Complexity (looking through the red lens, at the red frame of dynamic complexity, in the dynamic plane of thinking of the longitudinal dimension of journey orientation) i.e. “flying the plane” from our Eastern Airlines story.
Peter Senge said it well in his 1990 book, “The Fifth Discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization”, saying: “The reason that sophisticated tools of forecasting and business analysis, as well as elegant strategic plans, usually fail to produce dramatic breakthroughs in managing a business - they are all designed to handle the sort of complexity in which there are many variables: detail complexity. But there are two types of complexity. The second type is dynamic complexity, situations where cause and effect are subtle and where the effects over time of interventions are not obvious. Conventional forecasting, planning and analysis methods are not equipped to deal with dynamic complexity. The real leverage in most management situations lies in understanding dynamic complexity not detail complexity.”
As was illustrated by our tragic Eastern Airlines story, a journey is a longitudinal “and” proposition of both the blue of detail complexity (“fixing bulbs”) and the red of dynamic complexity (flying the plane”); unfolding real-time, as a divergence and convergence of both blue and red; mixing blue and red, gives us purple, which is the color I use to convey the longitudinal dimension of a journey. How well did they do in that Eastern Airlines cockpit that day, wearing their 3D glasses, paying attention to the detail complexity (fixing bulbs) and the dynamic complexity (flying the plane) of their real-time unfolding journey? How well did they do in blending blue and red into purple and paying attention to their sequence of goals in the longitudinal dimension of their journey, not just the first one? Tragically, not very well.
Nor Toyota. Nor BP. What an ordeal. In many businesses, organizational agility becomes an ordeal, because it is an “or-deal” not an “and-deal”. It must remain an “and-deal” of detail complexity and dynamic complexity and the three dimensions of the whole challenge, the whole problem and the whole solution, for which we must be wearing our 3D glasses.
2. Developing our higher order executive strengths of journey-orientation;
As Peter Senge said, “The real leverage in most management situations lies in understanding dynamic complexity”. In my experience, our education, training and development systems don’t do a very good job of this. They do fine with detail complexity, which lends itself to book and classroom learning, but not dynamic complexity, and they tend to reduce things down to 2D. While my MBA at London Business School (1988-90) gave me a lot it didn’t give me these skills. We only really learn dynamic complexity the hard way, experientially and in the field, immersed in a 3D reality. Unless we have experienced the 3D of an acutely operational environment of a real-time unfolding journey (like a fighter pilot heading into a dog fight or a fire crew arriving at a burning building or a patient being wheeled into an ER), we have probably never been taught these skills. I was lucky enough to begin learning them working on drilling rigs as a Petroleum Engineer.
When was the last time that you had a class on dynamic complexity? That’s why this second component is so crucial, to recognize and teach the executive strengths of journey orientation we need to master dynamic complexity, not just detail complexity. These are not just basic, ordinary strengths. They are higher order strengths, aligned and attuned with an understanding of the anatomy of dynamic complexity:
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Higher Order Executive Strengths of Journey-Orientation: |
Understanding the Anatomy of Dynamic Complexity: |
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+ Execution Excellence |
The anatomy of a Vehicle which is fit for the journey challenge |
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+ Executive Intelligence, Intuition & Resilience |
The anatomy of a Journey and how it unfolds real-time |
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+ Path-Finding |
The anatomy of the Road and paths of least resistance |
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The Bottom Line |
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= Organizational Agility “our ability to deal with rapidly changing circumstances, while out-executing our competition and stakeholder expectations (of customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders)” |
The anatomy of Breakthrough Leadership & Architecting Breakthrough Journeys “ordinary people achieving extra-ordinary things, making possible tomorrow, what seems impossible today”
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Organizational agility comes from an understanding of the anatomy of dynamic complexity at 4 different levels and the summation of the higher order executive strengths of journey orientation required to achieve mastery. I have developed concepts, models and tools at each of these levels, too much to go into here. I will delve a little further though into the middle level of Executive Intelligence, Intuition and Resilience, and the anatomy of a journey and how it unfolds real-time . This level can typically be an oil slick in our end to end process, from grey matter to grey matter, causing lots to get lost in translation. In my experience, managers, executives and CEOs have a good macro understanding of a journey in a typical where-we-do-want-to-be, where-are-we-now-and-how-do- we-get-from-here-to-there” kind of way. They typically don’t have a good micro understanding of a journey and how it unfolds in a granular fashion, moment by moment, minute by minute, hour by hour. I help teams develop a micro, granular understanding of how we link and accumulate the traction “ions” of a journey (individual thoughts/cognitions, questions, decisions and actions).
When I speak, I love to illustrate this by telling the story of my wife and I going back to the UK (from where we live now in San Diego – yes, I’m British, American now) for a wedding in a place called Hazelwood. After linking and accumulating a great deal of traction “ions” (individual thoughts, questions, decisions and actions) into our journey, regarding dates, flights, hotels, cars, kids, friends and relatives, apportioning our time, costs etc etc etc, having a plan, writing it down, executing it flawlessly and travelling really well while doing so, at the very last moment, we discovered that we were 150 miles in the wrong Hazelwood! In linking and accumulating all those traction “ions” of our journey, there were just a few crucial ones missing and we linked and accumulated to the wrong place and found out about it at the last moment. Gotcha! Now think Eastern Airlines, Toyota and BP, amongst many other stories. In the plethora of traction “ions” they were linking and accumulating into their journeys, which few crucial ones were missing, which caused them to link and accumulate to the wrong place and find out about it at the last moment? Having a micro, granular understanding of how a journey unfolds is critical. This is a pivotal level in understanding of the anatomy of dynamic complexity and the higher order executive strengths of journey orientation we must be developing to master it.
3. Driving a mindful process of integration, alignment and attunement, from grey matter to grey matter.
Wheel$pin can cost us a fortune. What did it cost BP and Tony Hayward? What did it cost Toyota and Mr Toyoda? What did it cost those souls on that Eastern Airlines flight that day? It didn’t cost us much on our way to the wrong Hazelwood, except a few extra hours of driving and a little embarrassment which we laughed off. But the consequences can be very expensive, if not life and death. The life and death of our business depends upon a mindful process of integration, alignment and attunement, from grey matter to grey matter, to maximize traction and minimize wheel$pin. And just because we think we are in traction doesn’t mean we are. We may have a Wrong Hazelwood or an Eastern Airlines scenario in our very near future. I want you to be paranoid. As Andy Grove said, “only the paranoid survive”! I want you to be productively paranoid, not unproductively so.
Translating strategy and execution into traction means nothing can be getting lost in translation in our end to end process, from grey matter to grey matter.
From the Grey Matter of our Brain:
- Wearing our 3D glasses, getting both sides of our brain in the game as a whole brain proposition
- The left brain is good at looking through the blue lens at detail complexity (in its logical, linear, rational fashion, focused on the parts) and “fixing bulbs”
- The right brain is good at looking through the red lens at dynamic complexity (in its creative, non-linear, holistic fashion, focused on the whole) and “flying the plane”
- Leveraging our integrative thinking and opposable mind
- Roger Martin puts it well in his 2009 book, “The Opposable Mind – how successful leaders win through integrative thinking”, saying, “We were born with an opposable mind we can use to hold two conflicting ideas in constructive tension. We can use that tension to think our way through to a new and superior idea. Were we able to hold only one thought or idea in our heads at a time, we wouldn't have access to the insights that the opposable mind can produce. And just as we can develop and refine the skill with which we employ our opposable thumbs to perform tasks that once seemed impossible, I'm convinced we can also, with patient practice, develop the ability to use our opposable minds to unlock solutions to problems that seem to resist every effort to solve them.
- Facilitated by our Corpus Callosum, in natural alignment with the longitudinal dimension of journey orientation
- The corpus callosum is that white-matter structure in the longitudinal fissure between the left and right hemispheres of our brain (actually, the cerebral cortex upper part of our brain, to be more exact). It facilitates communication between the two hemispheres of our left-brain and our right-brain and much of the communication in the brain is conducted across it. Naturally aligned with the longitudinal dimension of journey-orientation, the corpus callosum facilitates our opposable mind, integrative thinking and whole-brain, In the Driving Seat of our car – which is one of the reasons that driving a car ultimately comes so naturally to us.
- Providing our three dimensional mindset of organizational agility
To the Grey Matter of the Asphalt, Between the Rubber and the Road:
- Through the integration, alignment and attunement of a new chassis of business acumen for Execution Excellence, around which we must reassemble the parts and the whole of our business vehicle to be fit for the journey challenge;
- Through the integration, alignment and attunement with the longitudinal dimension of journey orientation, and how a journey unfolds, real-time, with the Executive Intelligence, Intuition and Resilience to cope.
- Through the integration, alignment and attunement with finding evolutionary paths of least resistance and highest reward
- Through the integration alignment and attunement of the whole business educating all of our executives, managers and employees about the anatomy of dynamic complexity and the higher order strengths of journey orientation required to master it.
- Reflecting our three dimensional reality of organizational agility
Maximizing traction and minimizing wheel$pin depends upon this mindful process of integration, alignment and attunement, from grey matter to grey matter, broadly and deeply throughout our organization. We need every seat on our bus to be a driving seat, from which we are getting traction and in which we have people with the organizational agility to cope, no matter what.
When we have that, the modality of our organizational agility can evolve:
- From Organizational Agility 1.0: Post-Adaptive. If we are post-adaptive, we are largely reactive. Things happen and we react to them after the fact, behind the curve. We are constantly running to catch-up with what just happened, reacting to it as best we can, post-adaptively. We will call this post-adaptive mode, “Organizational Agility 1.0”.
- Through Organizational Agility 2.0: Adaptive. If we doing better, we may be adaptive on more of a real-time basis, reacting a lot quicker and being more proactive to be on the curve. We are pretty much keeping up and we will call this adaptive mode “Organizational Agility 2.0”.
- To Organizational Agility 3.0: Pre-Adaptive. Now it gets a little trickier, as we consider what we mean by “pre-adaptive”. Surely, keeping up with real-time is as good as it gets and we can’t do any better than that can we? How can we go beyond that, getting ahead of the curve and getting ahead of real-time?
The concept of pre-adaptation comes from Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Gary Hamel explained its relevance to business well in his 2007 book, “The Future of Management”, saying, “Evolution occasionally equips organisms with apparently superfluous, reproductively neutral features that turn out, quite by accident, to be highly useful when conditions change. This is known as pre-adaptation. To be resilient, a company needs a lot of lightly scripted pre-adaptation – policies that give associates the chance to pre-adapt rather than react. Too much of what gets done in most companies is in response to some already pressing issue; there’s no slack, no space for improvisation, and no way to defend projects that aren’t immediately useful. That’s why so many companies end up on the wrong side of the change curve. Your job as a management innovator is to make sure that the management systems in your company encourage strategic pre-adaptation.”
The whole solution to the whole problem of organizational agility and the whole challenge of being In the Driving Seat of our business, requires a symbiosis of the three components we have reviewed:
1. Regaining our 3D perspective on the whole challenge, the whole problem and the whole solution of organizational agility, with a unifying architecture, framework and system;
2. Developing our higher order executive strengths of journey-orientation;
3. Driving a mindful process of integration, alignment and attunement, from grey matter to grey matter.
When we progress our modality from organizational agility 1.0 through 2.0 to 3.0, we experience the following beneficial impacts:
- Improving cash-flow by reducing wheel$pin and increasing tra¢tion, for cents on the dollar.
- Unlocking, uplifting and unfolding a higher road of breakthrough leadership beliefs, behaviors and results
- Future proofing our business, at least to some greater degree
I identify 13 driving disciplines to help managers, executives and CEOs brew up a BREAKTHROUGH! with their organizational agility and begin moving the needle with a 90 day plan:
Bringing Journey Orientation into focus.
Reinforcing a Mindset of Operations Management.
Enhancing Strategic Productivity.
Accentuating Short-Range Culture.
Keeping our Flight Planning envelope expanded to our full Execution Excellence agenda.
Tackling Operational Productivity.
Holding a Recurring, Rigorous & Rallying Strategy Process
Re-engineering Structures, Processes & Systems.
Orchestrating a Goal-Setting Cascade & Review Process.
Unlocking & Challenging Mental Models.
Guiding Leadership/Communication Skills & Style.
Handling Accountability for Long-Range Culture.
!ntegrating our Enterprise Execution Capability & Capacity.
The execution capability and capacity of our enterprise is more than the sum of the above parts – often all of the parts are there but the whole hasn’t emerged – some integration is required, to combine the art and science of a unifying architecture of execution. This doesn’t happen by accident (hence the “!” in “!ntegrating” our Enterprise Execution Capability & Capacity) and includes recognizing and teaching execution as a system and a discipline, of accumulating knowledge, tools and techniques, broadly and deeply throughout the organization.
Roger Martin, 2009, “The Opposable Mind – how successful leaders win through integrative thinking”
Gary Hamel, 2007, “The Future of Management”
This article is among the worst I have read on this website. All it has to offer are a bunch of metaphors and buzzwords, typical corporate "PR-speak" or "management-speak" (where I mean "Management 1.0") and absolutely nothing practical. This should be hidden away somewhere in a Pure Theory or Philosophy section, not in the Hacks section, because it hacks nothing and it offers no real method of doing anything.
What's worse, most of the positive comments on this thing look very much like eachother: they're way too hyperbolic in their praise, they're posted by users with no avatars, all of whom joined the website at around the same time - the time this article was posted. I'm willing to bet none of these accounts have posted anything else anywhere else on this website except the underserved praise at the bottom of this page.
At best, this whole article is nothing more than a commercial teaser for something more substantial that the author is keeping somewhere behind a paywall.
Dislike.
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I haven't seen this before!! Completely agree that it's pure commercial. Also dislike!
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An informatine & interesting mindset. I like the concept of sense making in a 3D format. Coming from a problem solven profession I can empathise with the model & the barriers it identifies.
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Wow, groundbreaking ideas. Mike has such a deep understanding of these concepts and a truly innovative approach. I love the Driving seat analogy. I can't wait to learn more.
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Mike has a unique talent to look at the "whole" of the business and life by helping us uncover and dig deeper into our thoughts (left and right brain). The driving seat metaphor works well for all of us as we do use some form to get to our destination and experience the joys and the pains of getting there. Are we there yet?
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Mike, gaining traction in our business, professional and personal lives (after all, they are all entwined with each other) is an ongoing process and with your tools and your ability to deliver a visual image of how best to navigate allows me to see the whole picture and what the real roadblocks are and how to best navigate thru them and gain traction to achieve the desired outcome. I do agree that change itself has changed and we move at a much faster pace. Your tools and concepts help me to keep up with each change I encounter as I travel the many freeways, side streets and back roads of my life fully present and in the driver’s seat.
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Mike, the concepts of being in the driver's seat or paying attention to more than just the red light are nothing new....but your way of bringing these ideas and several other key concepts together is very effective and a must read for anyone wanting their firm and leaders to stay ahead of the curve. Getting traction for agility and ability function in 3-D is not easy, and I appreciated the way you have broken things down into simple areas of clarity and focus, building blocks for everyone to be able to follow. Thanks Mike.
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Mike, the concepts of being in the driver's seat or paying attention to more than just the red light are nothing new....but your way of bringing these ideas and several other key concepts together is very effective and a must read for anyone wanting their firm and leaders to stay ahead of the curve. Getting traction for agility and ability function in 3-D is not easy, and I appreciated the way you have broken things down into simple areas of clarity and focus, building blocks for everyone to be able to follow. Thanks Mike.
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Mike has a unique gift of describing complex ideas into visuals that are not only are simple to understand, but are impactful and inspirational. Mike challenges people to dig deeper into themselves and challanges them to better themselves.
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As a human resources/training professional, I appreciate the metaphors used to create a straight-forward (if not quite simple) way of structuring the complexity of business and its challenges. I can take some of these ideas and infuse them into training for our employees to stretch people's thinking. Using metaphors and structures build alignment as we develop a language that is consistently understood across the organization.
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what I really like about this is the metaphor of ""in the driving seat," it makes me think about what I need to do in new way.
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Mike has made a big difference in not only my company, but my life as well. Getting traction on things has been helpful since I was spinning my wheels on so many things. Mike has inspired me to get off my butt and set goals and reach for the stars and get my tracction plan in place. In these raging waters we live in, traction is the key to my success. We have made it though the Class 5 waters and preparing to see growth while others are struggling. Thanks for the great leadership and teaching Mike!
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Mike helps me view the business superhighway in a whole new way. His strategies are better than a "road map" he gives you a traction plan for success!
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This hack really helps me connect all the dots... to really get my head around the integrated whole- Integrating the sometimes opposing challenges of "running" and "building" my business. I now realize I am constantly struggling to manage the "and" of fixing bulbs and flying the plane. I use the "AND" proposition daily with my team, in my professional and personal life. Thank you for the inspiration.
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In the business world we seldom come across a solid aplicable stratigic process that has imediate positive results!!!! Mike R has developed
TOM
CAMPANARO PRES / CEO
TOTALGYM .COM
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Organizational agility and 3-D thinking are elegantly simple concepts. This helps a great deal in getting them implanted in a company's mind. Many books make good points but are less applicable when implementing them in an organization. Mike's real world experience having run a company, refined through many years of helping other organizations, makes this work the right message at the right time. We no longer live in a time where working on issues sequentially is an option. The "And Proposition" so aptly illustrated in the Eastern Airlines example requires the organizational agility Mike is preaching. His concepts are so elegantly simple that it's hard to believe that no one has put them on paper this succinctly before!
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great stuff! let's not forget to "fly the plane".
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Organizational agility is critical in the current economic tempest. Richardson provides clarity and purpose for his methods and infuses his approach with a sense of urgency that is both rare and appreciated. He reminds all of us that we have a great deal of work to do.
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For me your perspectives bring together two key components for my journey - agility and mindfulness. So many of us spend time getting the right tools in our box, the right people on our bus, and the basics of a road map for the long journey ahead. Each time I revisit your approach and use the tools I am reminded to take a step back, analyze the situation from a different perspective (or dimension!) and regain my mindfulness. I loved this article and am inspired to put these strategies to work in a bigger way with my team!
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I have reread your article and have gained even more insight. In business, you need a vehicle to be in the game. You have outlined the journey and given us the tools to navigate an intelligent path with little wheelspin and tons of traction. This journey helps us to remember the dynamic complexity we live in, but if mastered, a big bottom line. Thanks again Mike for a detailed and well thought out body of work.
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Mike has a real talent for framing up very complex challenges. This article is an example of why Mike's national reputation as an innovative business strategist continues to grow. The fact that business has become much more dynamic and complex is no longer news. However, this framework is the first tool that is comprehensive enough to allow us to get our arms around the increasing challenges.
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Insightful and thought provoking! Richardson's Wheel$pin while simplistic in nature carriers a deeper meaning of organizational agility that is seen through the lens of the 3-D glasses. These 3-D glasses help organizations, managers, leaders, and work teams move from Wheel$pin to Traction!
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Great article, Mike
I feel blessed to have found your material. Also, feel lucky to live in your hometown and be able to have you guide me and MyOffice, Inc.
Having worked for the largest of multi-national corporations and started my own bootstrapped venture - I have read all the books, listened to all the "guru's", and hired the best consultants. Your approach is "elegantly simple" and truly applicable. Our business works in the dynamically complex realm everyday. Aligning the team and giving them simple and effective tools has allowed the team to earn Fastest Growing in San Diego 4 years running, and it seems the team has been practicing more and more, gaining more traction and growing 36% this year. Most suit and tie wearing consultants puke theory - you share battle tested techniques THAT WORK. Thanks for sharing!
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Ellen will question the tone of my comment stated earlier. I request you to focus on the last para:
"Our starting point is the same, i.e., Peter Senge. We differ in our diagnosis. You believe the solution is superior thinking.while I believe it is a better way of working to assure Feedback. My thinking is explained in my hack 'Solving the age-old problem of the ignorant diagnosis' at http://www.managementexchange.com/hack-32 ".
My purpose is to stimulate thought to progress thinking.
Regards, Raj Kumar
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Hello Mike,
Your query on Ellen has been on my mind. It needed more than a simple reply. Ellen represents a thought.
Some time back in my hack ‘Achieving the ends of Knowledge with feedback’ I had reviewed the submissions in the MIX in relation to use of Knowledge as the use was central to the conduct of Management. Looking back now in light of our exchange I find my review imprecise (In my defense I would like to say that it is only recently that MIXers have begun to use the Feedback concept to anchor their thoughts). As opposed to Knowledge Management which focused on Knowledge sharing for Trust & Teamwork (there was no mention of Feedback) the present thinking seeks to promote Feedback though you are the first I have come across amongst the prevailing schools who recognizes dynamic complexity. The others have not explained the importance they attach to Feedback. I would now classify the prevalent thinking as follows based on the reason for sharing of Knowledge:
- Sharing to develop Feedback for superior thinking and management action. Main proponent: You.
- Sharing to sustain Tone for Feedback. The emphasis is on a culture for Tone. Feedback follows. (From the writings of Ellen Weber, who uses the idea of Tone extensively, I liken Tone to a determined and well informed effort to progress goodwill).
- Sharing to sustain Trust. The emphasis is on a culture for Trust. Feedback follows. Main proponent: Dan Oestreich.
- Sharing to progress a culture of Freedom. Feedback follows. Main proponent: Bill Nobles.
In each of the above schools for Knowledge work the attempt is to create an over-riding reason for the individual to engage in sharing of Knowledge so that there is Feedback. Personnel must still self-organize and self-drive their Knowledge work.
I regard my work as a departure because it harnesses IT to drive a culture for Feedback by progressing the formation of a dynamic team, drawn from pre-defined communities per the organization structure, on each decision event.
Regards,
Raj Kumar.
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I felt the simplicity slipping away while reading your interpretation of dynamixc complexity. Perhaps one may interpret it in multiple dimensions as you have done. For the human mind I believe it means listening, seeing beyond one's own framework, and accepting the interpretation could still be blind. The situation is dynamic and complex because the dimensions are unknown till they emerge. It is for this reason that a single person taking a decision is myopia, and a culture that encourages incestuous thinking is dangerous.
Your airlines example, Toyota and BP, all fell into the incestuous thinking trap as did Ford over their SUV problem and Kodak over their loss of the color film market. Thus the real problem of judgments is possessing Knowledge, being in the driver's seat and seeing the obvious instead of the real till it is too late. It is a universal problem that has afflicted mankind since millenia. No change there. It is amplified by pressure of results and shortage of time and energy, the prevalent scenario. I call it the problem of the ignorant diagnosis. Children suffer from it - they see only their temptation. Adults suffer from it - they are unable to grow out of their assumptions and generalizations and tunnel vision.
Senge wrote his five disciplines to assist managers see the reality. His one word solution was Feedback and for this he promoted Dialogue. Dialogue or free flow of Knowledge has been promoted by sages and practiotioners alike, ranging from Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy (see their Execution) to Welch. The pity is that no method has emerged thus far to practice Dialogue on each business event. The immense energy needed is beyond personnel. Without this energy Trust & Teamwork, which forms the core of performance, is just a dream.
Our starting point is the same, i.e., the work of Peter Senge. We differ in our diagnosis. You believe the solution is a method for superior thinking.while I believe it is a way of working that assures Feedback. My thinking is explained in my hack 'Solving the age-old problem of the ignorant diagnosis' at http://www.managementexchange.com/hack-32 .
Regards,
Raj Kumar
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Thank you Raj - I love your perspectives and suspect we are much more on the same page than you realize with our respective diagnoses.
I liked your opening comment of "I felt the simplicity slipping away while reading your interpretation of dynamixc complexity" as that's part of my point, which I suspect you will probably agree with - in my experience most managers, executives and CEOs haven't got the perseverence to move through the complexity of underdstanding dynamic complexity! I speak to this in the "challenges" section of my hack, in particular mentioning "Stupid Simplicity this Side of Complexity" and "a Journey to Mastery". Consequently, they are not developing their "capacity" (which you speak of in your hack: "the immense procedural energy required for a constructive collective is beyond the capacity of personnel") and are swamped, buried, overwhelmed or whatever else we might call it. I urge them to shift their diagnosis framework and interprestation from being "over-whelmed" to be "under-organized" and I help them get organized to develop their capacity.
I love your comment that "the dimensions are unknown till they emerge". I guess that's what I am saying with my sense of void and filling it. From my experiences as CEO, now with my clients/members and from my research, the three dimensions I outline are those which have emerged for me progressively over the years of pondering this. They provide a meta model/architecture for the general nature of the whole challenge, the whole problem and the whole solution of being In the Driving Seat of a business these days. I agree with you wholeheartedly that specific situations are dynamic and complex because the dimensions are unknown till they emerge. The meta-model/architectuure I am innovating and the framework, system and tools which go with it, seem to be helping managers, executives and CEOs build their capacity to cope, suggesting some efficacy to the dimensions which have emerged.
I also agree wholeheartedly with your comment about "feedback", which is also implicit in my work but I didn't double click on that part in my (already very long) hack. It's embedded in the second of my higher order executive strengths of journey orientation, namely, "Executive Intelligence, Intuition & Resilience" and understanding the dynamic complexity anatomy of a journey and how it unfolds real-time. As I briefly touch on in my hack, I help teams develop a micro, granular understanding of how we link and accumulate the traction “ions” of a journey (individual thoughts/cognitions, questions, decisions and actions) - that's what I call the "work" of leadership and manageement these days, and feedback is implict in this "linking and accumulating process". I further outline in my barrier ebtitled, "Fast-Cycle Teamwork" - thank you for the inspiration to write this next contribution.
So I don't sense the dissonance between us that you speak of in your last comment, "Our starting point is the same, i.e., the work of Peter Senge. We differ in our diagnosis. You believe the solution is a method for superior thinking.while I believe it is a way of working that assures Feedback." For me "work" is thinking and actions (with questions and decisions also in the mix as I outlined above) as a constant loop of feed-back and feed-forward. That's what creates "traction". Thinking without action is wheel$pin; action without thinking is wheel$pin; thinking and action without feed-back and feed-forward is wheel$pin. And wheel$pin can cost us a fortune.
Thanks again for your inspiration and I look forward to continuing our dialog.
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To my consternation I find we now have no disagreement in principle that we can debate . All the difference we are left with is on the ground. You have columns of thought and arrangement of ideas ready to be thrown into battle from the driving seat. Frankly they scare me. Are they necessary? I was head of projects in a large and fast growing construction company and I sought to begin each day with a clear mind to catch trends before they became changes. It is difficult to plan strategy with the mind cluttered by the priorities of the way to be followed rather than the priorities of the work to be done.
In my way of things IT drives all organization and interaction and the discipline to exchange Knowledge in context. Thus all the disciplines identified by Senge are managed by the infrastructure. This service is performed both online and offline in a transparent way, quite like email. When the User connects all updates and protocols are executed automatically. There is thus a great generation of both time and energy that the User can use to make sense of the exchange that has taken place, i.e., emerge patterns, investigate hypothesis, etc., and catch up with the thinking downstream of the actions that he has taken. Since all this can be done at convenience there is a great reduction in anxiety. In effect the User gets the opportunity to be above it all and diagnose problems without having to manage his way. There are no rules he need remember for following. he need only concentrate in developing his pattern recognition skills.
Thank you for reading my hack and your appreciation.
Regards,
Raj Kumar
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For me its all an "and" which I embed into the idea of putting on our 3-D glasses, looking through the blue lens (of detail complexity which the left brain is good at) and the red lens (of dyanmic complexity which the right brain is good at) at the 3rd dimension of the longitudinal dimension of the journey (mixing blue and red, gives us purple, which is the color I use to convey this longitudinal dimension of a journey), planning forwards from the present and backwards from the future. Too much forwards from the present and not enough backwards from the future and our journey can easily veer off track (like my Eastern Airlines story). Too much backwards from the future and not enough forwards from the present is equally problematic. Too much blue and not enough red or too much red and not enough blue, is equally problematic. When we fully unpack the "and", its about being loose and tight, chaotic and ordered, unstructured and structured, divergent and convergent, planned and unplanned etc etc etc, all at the same time.
I find that managers, executives and CEOs become cluttered when they lose track of that "and", becoming unbalanced, stressed and overwhelmed. I invite them to think that they are not "over-whelmed" but they are "under-organized" for agility. I resonate very strongly with the idea that getting organized is hugely to do with IT and the ability to "synchronize" (just like docking my PDA with my desktop) the exchange of knowledge in context in a transparenmt way offline and online, which you speak of. In my experience, especially in small-to-medium sized businesses/mid market companies, which is a core of my focus, they don't have this IT sophistication and so that "synchronization" has to happen through online/non-IT means (hence my "barrier" called Fast-Cycle Teamwork: revving up our communication, collaboration and coordination as a team which positions the idea of a daily/morning meeting to achieve that. Even big/sophisticated companies (like Ford, which I mention) can use this too to achieve that incremental synchronization and dialog, of very latest information, issues and shifts, which their IT can't replicate as well. I resonate hugely with the idea that these morning meetings are equally about developing our pattern recognition skills.
When we harness the best of these approaches, it allows us to achieve the calm, composed and uncluttered state of flow which I sense you are speaking of. Thanks again Raj - I am finding this dialog incredibly valuable.
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You have found how to stretch the comfort zone, cease lazy thinking and overcome complacence. My difference of opinion with you was given half a chance the human mind shuts down. Who is trhere to wake up somnolent minds that are good at perpetuating themselves? Thus in the Airlines case it is possible a culture operated in the presence of the leader: follow his lead. This is the underlying problem of a bureaucracy. How to create the means to break it? All the team members are individually good thinkers. But in the presence of the leader the cat gets their tongue. My work emphasizes that the team members are expected to be different and brings their diversity to the table. The focus on assumptions and facts in the flow encourages this. The organization and drive of dialogue by inexhaustible IT creates the dynamic collective, builds trust & teamwork and guards against complacency. The incestuous loop is broken. The group can derive the benefit of your props for better thinking.
Regards,
Raj Kumar
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That word 'disciplines' intrigues me. Anything that is a discipline can perhaps be simulated by IT since discipline is repetitive. There has to be a pattern somewhere in repetition. That is how I unearthed the science to assure dialogue in context, or Feedback, across the enterprise.
Cheers to the possible,
Raj
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You clearly have created a well thought out and integrated roadmap around the challenges of constant change. You mentioned a book you were authoring and wondered if it will include any worksheets/exercises I can use to help break down these concepts? Also, when and where will the book be available?
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Mike - the airline incident you discussed is a PERFECT analogy for what was going on in my business. I used the case study in a company wide meeting, and it has now become a sort of "level set" in subsequent interactions in my company. Just the other day, I heard one of my employees say, "Let's not just focus on the red light." I didn't understand his reference at first - then I realized that your wisdom is spreading - thanks for the leadership!
-Dean
Dean Rosenberg
CEO, AIRSIS, Inc.
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Mike,
Great article and video (good job, Ron!). You always cause me to think about the business world with a different twist and use analogies that put it all in perspective. The business world IS changing and you help us flow with that change!
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Mike, First I want you to know that I appreciate very much the opportunity for dialogue. I have prepared a response to each of your point and would love to "dialogue" , but the character limitation prevents me from being able to fully respond. I am new to the MIX and may not be aware of the method for a more substantial response than is allowed in this comment section. If there is another avenue to provide you my feedback and have a dialogue, please let me know. It would be nice if this site provided a section that was more conversational. Similar to online school discussion boards.
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Well, It appears that I can reply to your comment and can reposnd without a character limit:
1. I certainly resonate with the idea that some core needs remain the same: Clarity, Commitment and Competence. Indeed, duirng my own experiences as a CEO and now with my clients and members, my sense is that there is an acute lack of clarity, commitment and competence when it comes to understanding the anatomy of dynamic complexity and the organizational agility they need to cope - they don't know what organizational agility is, when they have it, where it comes from, how they develop it, who they need to be in the process and why its so crucial. That's what my work is about and I will soon be publsihing my book in answer those questions.
With respect to point one, we are in agreement. I am not sure what your (or the) definition of organizational agility is. I assume it has to do with the organizations ability (competence) to deliver on its promises in fulfilling its mission. I am also not sure what you mean by anatomy of dynamic complexity and assume you are referring to the intended and unintended consequences of making a change to one part of the system without even considering the affect this will have on the system as a whole or not knowing how to solve a component problem within the context of its environment. If this is what you are saying, I agree.
2. I have some dissonance though with the idea that "it is all relative", my focus being on the word "all". Many, many, many aspects are relative. Are they "all" though? I am making a case that the frame-rate aspect isn't relative, that we have passed through the flicker-fusion point of our leadership visual system and, as a result, we need to enhance our leadership visual system with 3-D glasses. I resonate with the idea that, to a large degree, supply-side technology evolves to keep up with demand-side challenges so that each generation feels and experiences that supply-demand balance and transition the same. The piece I struggle with is the evolution of the human aspects. My sense is that the human conduction doesn't evolve at anything like the same rate and technology advances are both part of our solution and part of our problem - they have introdcued wave after wave of dynamic complexity, coming at us thicker and faster all the time, at an inceasingly dizzying frame rate. Our mindsets, management models and means of leadership, management and teamwork haven't evolved to keep up. We need a revolution in "improving the technology of human accomplishment" (the purpose statement of MIX I see bottom right on my screen as I type this). Yes, in a self-fulfilling way to hitch our wagon back on your "its all relative" train.
I agree wholeheartedly that we, as beings, are not evolving nearly as fast as technology and therefore the environments we live in. As far as the waves of dynamic complexity go, I am not so sure it is any different for us today as it was for our grandparents. The problem is there is no way to either prove or disprove this because doing so would require living in both eras without knowledge or reference to the other. And I believe that most of us confuse the rate of technology changes with the complexities of our lives. And finally the term simple is also relative. I can tell you that my 20 year old son (computer engineering major) who is extremely comfortable with the current level of technology and pace of life would find it much more difficult to live in a time that did not include this technology. He may even find the pace of life more dizzying because he did had to do many things manually. Just take changing the channel on the TV. Having to get up and walk to the TV, bend over and push a button or turn a knob would be far more challenging to him than using his phone to find what he wants to watch and programming the TV.
I once attended a conference in the early 80’s and it opened with a quote about how busy life has become and how quickly change was now occurring and that technology advances were hard to keep up with. I remember reading it and thinking yes that is exactly how I feel and represents the current environment -- the quote was from the later part of the 1800’s or thereabout. I was shocked to learn that the people of that time felt exactly the same way about the rate and level of change they were dealing with as I was. Certainly it was an easier, less complex time back then, surely the complexity of our lives in the 1980’s was far busier that the lives of those who lived in the 1890’s – or was it?
Based on this quote and the way I have experienced change (personally) and observed organizations dealing with changes in the 80’s, 90’s and today, it is the same. It isn’t any more dizzying from what I see. I do though; believe that most people believe it is because there is a tendency to perceive what we are personally experiencing more difficult than others.
I have worked as an executive and consultant in several different industries and I am always struck by the perception of each organization that their industry or the problems they are wrestling with are different that other businesses and outside of a few exceptions what ails organizations and gets in there way of meeting customer needs in the most efficient, effective and innovative way is the same. It has to do with the extent to which employees have clarity about what they are to deliver and why, are competent as individuals, groups/teams and operationally and finally are individually committed because it is in their own personal self interests to achieve the team/org goals. Not because they get paid but for deeper reasons that give meaning to their lives.
3. How complex or simple is organizational agility or any other name we want to call it. From my own experiences as a CEO and now with my clients and members, it is very complex and very difficult, and the biggest pitfall managers, executives and CEOs fall into is over simplifying it (The Dangerous Detour I call, "Stupid Simplicity this side of Complexity"). We don't over simplify the "financial accounting" of our businesses (think about the people, processes, paperwork, software, systems, structures, time, energy and attention we invest in the financial accounting complexities our businesses) because its not optional and we would lose a lot of money real fast if we did. I help managers, executives and CEOs understand that the "strategic accounting" of their businesses is no different. It's equally complicated and over simplifying it can easily result in Wrong Hazelwoods, Eastern Airlines, Toyota and BP scenarios, on a grend scale and the equivalent on a smaller scale in our businesses.
On point 3, I am not sure I agree that it is complex which may just be an issue of semantics. When I worked as an analyst at the beginning of a project, the client always defines their problem as complex, and whne taken as a whole, every system is complex but when you are solving a problem you must isolate one item at a time which simplifies the issue. I later used this same approach with individuals and teams working to solve a problem who are frozen by the complexity and trying to consider every aspect of the issue simultaneously. This results in too many non-relevant variables being brought into the problem and frequently prevents them from understanding and solving the right problem. No matter what the issue it can only be resolved one step at a time. When a hiker attempts to climb a significant mountain they do it one step at a time which makes it doable. When an automaker builds a car, it is one part at a time. This is not complex to me. It does though require a clear understanding of the problem the environment in which the problem exists and an appreciation of the variables that affect both the problem and environment, with this it becomes relatively easy – assumes competence to solve the problem.
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Yes, my definition of organizational agility is “our ability to deal with rapidly changing circumstances, while out-executing our competition and stakeholder expectations (of customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders)", which, as you say, is the organization's ability to keep finding a path and to keep creating traction on a trajectory on itsjoureny to deliver its promises on its mission, to its different categories of stakeholders. The dynamic complexity of rapidly changing circumstances and, not least of all, its competition and changing stakeholder expectations, are always threatening to derail it from the journey. And yes, when I talk about "the anatomy of dynamic complexity", I mean understanding the dynamics of that journey as an organic, living, breathing thing, on multiple levels and multiple dimensions, on a macroscopic scale and a microscopic scale, which is why I choose the word "anatomy". I want people to understand, going in, that the dynamic complexity of a journey is very complicated, just like the study of the anatomy of the human body, for instance. On a sufficiently macroscopic scale it looks simple. On a microscopic scale its very complicated and, unfortunately, many journeys go wrong on a microscopic scale, as much, if not more, as they do on a macroscopic scale. For me, its an "and" and the microscopic scale needs a lot more inquiry, discovery and innovation.
I love your thinking that change in different generations is all relative and, by and large,they experience it all the same, to some degree, and that it is very difficult to really fathom. I am certainly very open to that and weaving that more into into my thinking. Thank you. When I open a written piece or a speech or a workshop with "change has changed" I am doing it, to a great degree, to get everyone's attention and to challenge the paradigm of "the only constant is change", because I believe this has an unintended interpretation that "the nature of change is constant", which I invite inquiry into, along the lines of our dialog here. I also have a 19 year old son at college who texted us a couple of months ago, asking if we could make him a doctor appointment when he was next home. We asked why and he said because he thought he might have ADHD! In talking things through, he was struggling with study habits/focus and he experimented with some ideas I shared (mind-mapping being one) which seemed to help substantially. Yes, while we live in a wireless/online all the time world, I wonder the degree to which we are breeding more and more symptoms of attention deficit? That is one of the deficits I explore when working with management teams - what are you not paying enough attention to?
I ceratinly agree that the parts of a system, items of a problem and steps of a journey must be isolated and considered sequentially. The trouble is, we have to keep track of the whole system, the whole problem and the whole journey, to make sure we are triaging our time on the right part/item/step, and re-triaging as circumstances change. If we don't, we can get into big trouble, just like with my Eastern Airlines story. They isolated "fixing the bulb" as the part/item/step to triage their focus on, losing track of the whole system/problem/journey of "flying the plane". They triaged their time/focus in a way which left them very vulnerable as circumstances changed. For me, that's the essence of dynamic complexity and an evolving new paradigm of focus in acutely journey oriented situations, which we increasingly face routinely in business. That's why the first of my 13 driving disciplines in the " First Steps" part of my hack is "Bringing Journey Orientation into focus", in which I explore a paradigm shift of what "focus" means for most people. That's why my passion is in thinking about acutely journey oriented situations, like I mention in my hack under part 2 in the "Solutions" section ((like a fighter pilot heading into a dog fight or a fire crew arriving at a burning building or a patient being wheeled into an ER), interpreting those, translating them into relevance in business and facilitating teams to execute the principles, practices and disciplines.
Enjoying this dialog very much, despite the challenges of it being asynchronous, so please excuse any prickly/rough edges in any of my input, which is unintended. Thanks again so much.
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I like this hack on organizational agility. I do believe it (organizational agility) is acquiring the status of a core competence that will differentiate between organizational success and failure, among a few other parameters, going forward. I liked the hack and its extensive coverage of the subject. One of the things required for agility though are strong feedback loops within organizations covering all corners and all domains of the organization, the premise being that in today's world a few at the top will not know it all. What are some of the organizational practices we are seeing which devolve decision making to points where rubber hits the road, where feedback loops and corrective action through empowerment at the points of delivery are constructed and where leadership is truly about showing the possibility and being the enabler?
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Thank you Pradeep - I'm glad it resonates with you and I am cerrtainly enjoying exploring the whole challenge, the whole problem and the whole solution of organizational agility - my work is about interpreting leading edge thinking and research in the domain from any walk of life, translating it into everyday terms which managers, executives and CEOs of small-to-medium sizedand fast-moving businesses can understand and facilitating them, their teams and their organizations to become more agile, reducing wheel$spin, increasing traction and being more future-proofed as a result. I have a book coming out soon.
So yes, I whole heartedly agree, agility has to be developed enterprise wide and enterprise deep. The way I have taken to saying it is that every seat on the "bus" (i.e. from Jim Collin's idea of the right people on the bus, off the bus and sat in the right seats on the bus) being a driving seat frojm which we need traction. In the Solution section of my hack, that's item 3. is about, entitled, "Driving a mindful process of integration, alignment and attunement, from grey matter to grey matter" as an end to end process and in particular, the bullet point: "Through the integration alignment and attunement of the whole business educating all of our executives, managers and employees about the anatomy of dynamic complexity and the higher order strengths of journey orientation required to master it."
It sounds like your experience might be the same as mine, that typically, executives, managers and employees are not well schooled in dynamic complexity, the higher order executive strengths required and organizational agility. My passion is to drive a management innovation to change that.
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Mike Richardson continues to deliver his message in relevant and meaningful ways. His tools and techniques not only work, they inspire new thinking that turnout consequential results.
Elizabeth Rice
President, IES Inc.
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Mike uses a somewhat different language (not just his lovely accent) that stirs a whole new set of mental models for his audience. One cannot help but be drawn to his analogies relating the CEO seat to the driver's seat of a car - so much going on at once, but learning to become one with the car and embracing the complexity rather than wishing it be gone. Mike / thanks for your passion and unique style and energy around your perspectives on leadership. It has permanently changed the way I look at managing.
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I find this hack both interesting and confusing. First I agree with the "systems thinking" approach to leadership and management and I agree that thinking is almost a lost art in our schools (all levels) and businesses. However, I don't agree that change has changed because is is all relative. Each generation is born into a certain level of technology (what is normal) and over their lifetime technology advances and that transition for each generation feels and is experienced the same. I also don't think the solution to improved organizational agility or any other name we want to call it is that complex. It is simply a matter of having Clarity, Commitment and Competence which isn't difficult and focuses on creating the conditions for success the rest falls into place.
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I sense some great learning dialog, inquiry and discovery down at least three avenues:
1. I certainly resonate with the idea that some core needs remain the same: Clarity, Commitment and Competence. Indeed, duirng my own experiences as a CEO and now with my clients and members, my sense is that there is an acute lack of clarity, commitment and competence when it comes to understanding the anatomy of dynamic complexity and the organizational agility they need to cope - they don't know what organizational agility is, when they have it, where it comes from, how they develop it, who they need to be in the process and why its so crucial. That's what my work is about and I will soon be publsihing my book in answer those questions.
2. I have some dissonance though with the idea that "it is all relative", my focus being on the word "all". Many, many, many aspects are relative. Are they "all" though? I am making a case that the frame-rate aspect isn't relative, that we have passed through the flicker-fusion point of our leadership visual system and, as a result, we need to enhance our leadership visual system with 3-D glasses. I resonate with the idea that, to a large degree, supply-side technology evolves to keep up with demand-side challenges so that each generation feels and experiences that supply-demand balance and transition the same. The piece I struggle with is the evolution of the human aspects. My sense is that the human condiction doesn't evolve at anything like the same rate and technology advances are both part of our solution and part of our problem - they have introdcued wave after wave of dynamic complexity, coming at us thicker and faster all the time, at an inceasingly dizzying frame rate. Our mindsets, management models and means of leadership, management and teamwork haven't evolved to keep up. We need a revolution in "improving the technology of human accomplishment" (the purpose statement of MIX I see bottom right on my screen as I type this). Yes, in a self-fulfilling way to hitch our wagon back on your "its all relative" train.
3. How complex or simple is organizational agility or any other name we want to call it. From my own experiences as a CEO and now with my clients and members, it is very complex and very difficult, and the biggest pitfall managers, executives and CEOs fall into is over simplifying it (The Dangerous Detour I call, "Stupid Simplicity this side of Complexity"). We don't over simplify the "financial accounting" of our businesses (think about the people, processes, paperwork, software, systems, structures, time, energy and attention we invest in the financial accounting complexities our businesses) because its not optional and we would lose a lot of money real fast if we did. I help managers, executives and CEOs understand that the "strategic accounting" of their businesses is no different. It's equally complicated and over simplifying it can easily result in Wrong Hazelwoods, Eastern Airlines, Toyota and BP scenarios, on a grend scale and the equivalent on a smaller scale in our businesses.
Thanks again for stimulating this learning dialog, inquiry and discovery and I would love to continue.
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Mike presents original and powerful new ways to stop the wheelspin and get control of your company. He is obviously a pioneer - the first author to go 3-D! Those of us fortunate enough to work with Mike and implement his concepts are living the Organizational Agility he teaches.
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Mike presents original and powerful new ways to stop the wheelspin and get control of your company. He is obviously a pioneer - the first author to go 3-D! Those of us fortunate enough to work with Mike and implement his concepts are living the Organizational Agility he teaches.
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I love the premise that business is moving faster today and our agility sets us apart. Mike's practical tools for managing our business are exceptional and work.
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The content is inspirational. Taking difficult concepts and simplifying them for everyday practical use. Mike, you have helped our business with your solutions and appreciate your passion and dedication. The video is awesome.
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I really enjoyed the article. Good information that I can use.
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I love the concepts here. My biggest every day obstacle is to get too buried in the detours of my business. I love Mike's approach to establishing principles that will help keep me focused and on track to what my vision and goals are.
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I like the Agility 3.0 concept. Isn't that what it is all about. Proactive management. Anticipating and responding to events before they happen. Just conceptualizing this on a day to day basis could help.
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Like it! Fresh approach and get analogy to driving.
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Mike hits a home run with his "Hack". The rules for running a successful company today are so different from in the past. Mike's information is critical for any business owner who wants their company to succeed in the future.
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We have been using the concepts from Mike's "Hack" for the last twelve months in our Company and it's the most powerful approach to working in and on the business we've ever used. People resonate with the simplicity of certain concepts and we've had the widest acceptance Company-wide of key concepts than any others we'd tried in the past. It's really helping us gain traction in the right areas and enabling us to truly leverage all the personnel talent we have on our team. Thanks Mike for your leadership and partnership in working with our Company.
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The driving analogy is great. It helps to quickly illustrate how complex the business world has become and how critical it is to have the right tools navigate the current business environment well. This piece does a great job of defining the challenges that businesses face and how many approaches to address those challlenges are two dimensional - one dimension shy of what is really needed. The video is a terrific summary and really drives the point home. The how to's also help to outline concrete steps leader's can take. Keep the content coming!
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Wow! Very thought provoking and fresh in content and perspective. I loved the driving metaphor, and when I watched the video, the 3D concept really came alive. Driving requires acute, yet unconscious, attention to the inside of the cockpit, at the same time that we externally scan for both immediate and distant danger. Transferring those skills to leadership would have a transformative effect on strategy and execution. These are rich concepts to work with.
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Love the video! Mike you are truly an inspiration and I look forward to learning more and more from you in the future. You have changed the way I think about my business and therefore helping to overall improve my business. Thank you!!!
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What a wonderful deconstruction of such a complex problem! There are so many great ideas here to implement. Where do I find more? Mike, you are clearly on to something...
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