Last night I went to see the Clint Eastwood directed movie – Hereafter. I thoroughly enjoyed it as I had a near-death experience in the 1980s – and it sang true to many of the things that happened to me at the time – but which I have not really been able to articulate since.
The ironic thing was that I had attended a parents evening the night before and found that my son was struggling with his History and English essay writing. I took my son out to dinner before the film and explained to him that when I sit down to write something of any length, I always do it back-to-front. “Begin with the end in mind”. That sort of thing. I also use this very powerful tool in the work that I do. Some call it envisioning. I call it “Back-to-Front” Thinking. I then thread the important threads through the storyline to create drama, interest and tensions that get resolved at the end (which I have already written). I am no great writer – but I find this technique is so powerful, it has allowed me to express my ideas much better than any technique I was taught at school. I suppose in tech-speak it is like reverse engineering….but on original work and not copied from someone else.
Now when we got out of the film, the two pieces fitted so neatly together! The writer of the Hereafter movie, Peter Morgan, must have written the script back-to-front. How else could he have done it?
Like reading a good book, the film has three threads – a man with psychic powers, a woman writer-journalist who lives a near-death experience and a young boy who….well I don’t want to give too much away! The three threads dance through the film until they resolve each other’s tensions and stories at the end. What good movie or book doesn’t?
So back to Homework. I wondered why I was never taught this technique at school? I think of all the painful experiences where I had to sit down and write – without being told how it important it is to design before doing? I wonder why we don’t talk about the “how” of the structure to produce fine art – and make it much easier for young folk to succeed in what is really quite a simple technique.
Thinking of the UK government and the UK economy, I wonder if it is time for a bit of back-to-front thinking there too?
Once upon a time in a land not so far away there lived a Queen. The Queen had ruled for many years in a land that had plentiful supplies of food and fuel. She was a good ruler and let life carry on beneath her.
However, in the last 10 years, times had become hard because the Exchequer had not been managed the country’s finances at all well and the country was at war in a foreign land.
In the past year the First Minister had been replaced with the day-to-day matters of state being handled by two brothers – David and Nicholas. They had put their efforts into a new vision for the country called The Big Idea…..but few really understood what the Big Idea was or how it could be made to happen.
One of the most critical matters of state was the control of information and each of the six Barons – each with their own Baronial Halls were constantly battling each other to control the information to the masses. The six barons were:
House of Hunters – led by Baron Jeremy – who was closely related to the Prince of Com and had a good degree of influence in matters of government House of Living – nominally led by Baroness Liv – but the real power was with her uncle Baron Stone House of Virgins – led by Baron Branson who had many interests and many females dressed in long red dresses House of Skydivers – led by Baron Murdoch – who also owned many newspapers and town criers House of Oxygen – led by some Spanish guy who had no name and lived far away House of Chatter – led by Baron Dun of Stone – (but no relation to Baron Stone in the House of Living)
The rules under which these six Houses were controlled was led by one of the Queen’s Princes – The Prince Of Com.
Now the Prince of Com actually had very little power over the barons because the Queen was weak and the barons were strong.
========
continuation of the story suggested by David Brunnen…..
And, moreover, the country was only just recovering from a plague of rational meerkats who had, over the past ten years, destroyed the infrastructure of the country so that anyone intent on building new foundations for the future found that the ground kept collapsing beneath their feet and that no end of short-term fixes could solve the problem.
Then came the day when the Barons battling over control of information to the masses suddenly found that the citizens were not listening or reading because their old copper connections had collapsed and (to make it worse) the libraries had all closed down. And the Bossy Barons said ‘We are agrieved – the Prince of Com has been delinquent’.
But Baron Hunter said he had a plan to banish the Prince of Com to outer darkness (or at least beyond the visible spectrum) – but only if all the other barons stopped arguing and pledged their loyalty to the Queen and David & Nicholas’s Big Idea.
And the story might have ended happily right there except that one of the Baron’s underlings (from the Isle of Mob) got wind of this secret agreement and made headlines.
The people revolted – saying ‘What’s the Big Idea?’ and ‘The government is revolting’ and from that day onwards they all went round and round in circles until someone put up his hand and said ‘Excuse me, but I have a very Small Idea’ and they all stopped to listen.
And, for the first time in ages (well, as far as anyone can now remember) the entire country was very very quiet –
Thanks, Chris, for the next contribution:
until one small boy (whose mother should have kept him in doors) said “Why not build a network ourselves?”
All the councilors in Mordor were horrified.
You could hear their squeaks through middle earth, but the little boy persisted, and soon others started to listen, it was like a fairy tale, but soon the people started to realise it was a dream that could come true when he explained how it would work.
He put it in a pdf so everyone could read about it:
Now the Prince of Com and the House of Hunters were keen on this small boy’s ideas, but many of the Baronial Houses were not so sure as they would lose power to these new upstarts. So they started to develop new strategies so that they could keep control of their lands in the future.
In the meantime, the small boy decided to go into the countryside and talk to many folk in the land about the opportunities that these new ideas presented. The small boy, whose name was Lux, was accompanied on these travels by his loyal dog, Fico.
Everywhere that Lux went, his dog, Fico, was sure to follow.
Now, as Lux travelled the land, he discovered many people had the same problems. They were all fed up paying taxes to their barons for little in return and many were becoming very interested in leaving serfdom to become Free Men and Women – if only they could be brave enough to do it. Some small villages in the borderlands started to declare independence and the Barons became concerned. The House of Living – which had tremendous powers over many parts of the land was particularly concerned at the declaration of these new “Free Communities” – and the Prince of Com became ever more worried about the eventual outcome that this new way of thinking would bring.
There was deep unrest in the land.
Thanks to Guy Jarvis, for the following addition to this exciting story!
Much was the talk and grumbling in the digitally deprived communities, known as Notspots, for they had neither bit nor bucket.
The first community to break free from the Baron Telecom’s thrall was an ancient place, settled since Roman times and in all likelihood well before.
Abandoned by Baron T, anyways beyond the reach of his digital dog whistle, the good folks of Ashby de la Launde decided that action was required.
The question was what to do and the answer provided by the Wizards of Witham (South) seemed too good to be true:
“There is a 4th utility enterprise looking to invest in the first community ready to dare to reject the old copper gods and turn towards the light”
And thus became nextgenus.net/bookplus and that is another story.
Baron T fretted lobbyingly about choice and adoptability in the hope that the House of Living and Prince of Com might yet lose faith in the pure glass path and return to the coppery legacy of yore.
The stakes were high and the standoff Mexican until Baron T gained a taste for the FiWiPie and learned to share and that is another story too.
Please add your ideas on how the story continues in the comments block below!
It is the time of year that many of us make New Year’s Resolutions. As the snows have melted and the weather has warmed, tiny spears of spring-green shoots from the bulbs that I planted in the Autumn are now starting to appear in the garden.
It is a time of the year to reflect on some of the natural cycles as we (in the Northern Hemisphere) move from shorter, darker days to longer, brighter days. We also have the confluence of a New Political Cycle, a New Decade, a New Earth Year as well as many companies having New Financial Years. The beginning of the current cycle is also probably one the most fundamental shifts that we have seen in a while – exacerbated by the very cold winter spells and financial crisis. Some would see it as a the start of a revolution with the new coalition government (in the UK) which is set on decentralisation and localisation.
It is strange that the term “revolution” has become to be associated more with revolt than with revolving. Yet the two ideas of revolution and resolution are inextricably linked. Yet there is only one letter that is different in each word and that one letter changes everything:
From my own point of view, I have one New Year’s Resolution: I have resolved to reduce my body weight. Nothing new there, you might say! After the excessive eating I have done over the holiday period, I now weigh more than I have ever done. The position is unsustainable and I have now decided to go on a diet. But a diet with a difference. Actually, I prefer to call it conscious living, rather than dieting.
I have downloaded this great application onto my i-Phone called My Fitness Pal (www.myfitnesspal.com) and I am already shedding pounds – just by being conscious about (and recording) everything I eat in the day.
So by becoming conscious of the food we eat (and where it comes from), we can really make a difference – one letter at a time.
In a sense, mankind weighs more on the planet than it has ever done:
More people on the planet than history has ever seen
More consumption of raw materials (especially oil)
More overweight people than we have ever seen
More pressures of financial debt than we have seen in several ifetimes
Perhaps it is time for us all to start living more consciously…
Perhaps this is the start of the real revolution….
Anyway, the good thing about the beginning (and end) of any new year is that it makes you think…
Twenty years ago, I was sent by my company to do an MBA. It was a qualification that every young and inspiring manager wanted to do. I was fortunate to be selected.
Looking back, there are a few tools and techniques I remember being taught. One was the infamous Boston Consulting Group Matrix. The BCG matrix relates to marketing. The BCG model is a well-known portfolio management tool used in product life cycle theory. It is often used by big companies to prioritize which products within company product mix get more funding and attention.
It struck me that this tool is probably one of the things that has done most to encourage the other myth that I learnt on the course: Economies of Scale.
It has taken me the past 20 years to both challenge and prove these institutionalised models to be wrong. not just wrong, but actually very damaging.
So firs, the BCG matrix. The theory is that you should prioritise your investments into stars and further invest in your cash cows. You should divest questionable parts of your portfolio and kill-off any dogs you have.
I live in the country, and killing off dogs is definitely not the answer. Although we don’t have one, I think my neighbours would be very upset with me if I went on a dog-killing spree.
And therein lies the problem with the Matrix. It has encouraged what one of my City friends calls “rolling up” or aggregation. It creates industry consolidation and actually destroys innovation. A good example is Toyota – and this article which is well worth reading.
The matrix also creates right brained caetextic thinking (see previous entry “Why do some organisations drive us totally bonkers?” ) as Fat Cats sit on top of Cash Cows and ultimately caused the corruption that turned into the financial crisis. I saw this picture of fat cats this week and laughed:
At the same time, the cash cows were herded into larger and larger fields with more and more cows to create the financial equivalent of modern “economies of scale” farming techniques in the US milk production industry. The industrialisation of cash-cows and the murder of dogs.
It might have made some bankers and investors a lot of money – but has it left the planet a richer place?
We have a similar struggle with Broadband in the UK. The government, by all accounts, has given into the “economies of scale” argument that BT has produced a plan to protect the cows and kill the dogs (local schemes). Cash cows don’t innovate. Only Dogs and Question Marks make Stars. BCG didn’t understand the true value of dogs.
And this economies of scale argument is probably the myth that is at the centre of the whole melt-down of both the financial framework AND the way in which the UK government has been mismanaged in the past 10 years.
No clearer was this brought out for me than when I attended the Vanguard Leaders Summit a few weeks ago. If we continue to believe in the myth of economies of scale and encourage the industrialisation of cows and the murdering of dogs, we are surely doomed. Images of witches being burnt at the stake in the middle ages come to mind.
John Seddon of Vanguard says it is Economies of Flow, not Economies of Scale that actually deliver true growth and sustainable, effective organisations. So rather than cows and dogs, perhaps a better model is a fish in water?
But if we have to choose between cows and dogs, then I’m for the dogs. And in the case of broadband and media, it is the dogs I support. New, local organisations that don’t want to scale. New social enterprise structures to do local things that are not necessarily highly profitable. Voluntary organisations that are creating new energy in societies that have been sucked dry by global industrialisation. They are changing the world for the better far quicker than the industrialised cash cow machines. They will become the more interesting investments in the future and some will become stars.
I would rather kill the cows off and have a dog as a companion. For starters, you can’t keep a cow in your sitting room!
At the end of the week where Julian Assange was locked up and everyone has been commenting on the value (or threat) of Wikileaks, I thought I would reflect on what I see is going on here.
Assange is a deep thinker – perhaps even an Autistic Savant.
In researching the subject I came across a quote which summarises what Assange is trying to do with Wikileaks (from piece of writing (via) (via):
“To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us, and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not. Firstly we must understand what aspect of government or neocorporatist behavior we wish to change or remove. Secondly we must develop a way of thinking about this behavior that is strong enough carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity. Finally must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling, and effective action.”
Julian Assange, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies”
It struck me that Julian Assange’s reasoning above was very similar to some of the ideas of another great thinker of our time – Chris Argyris.
I often use Argyris’ ideas (particularly single loop and double loop learning) in the work that I do – and I know that they have helped many others in creating effective change over the past fifty or so years.
For those who are interested, there is a good summary of Argyris’ work HERE.
Basically, Argyris outlines two two models – Model I (Single Loop Learning Organisation) and Model II (Double Loop Learning Organisation) to highlight the potential for organisational learning:
The governing Values of Model I (Single Loop Learning) are:
Achieve the purpose as the actor (or boss) defines it
Win, do not lose
Suppress negative feelings
Emphasise rationality
Primary Strategies are:
Control environment and task unilaterally
Protect self and others unilaterally
Usually operationalised by:
Unillustrated attributions and evaluations e.g.. “You seem unmotivated”
Advocating courses of action which discourage inquiry e.g.. “Lets not talk about the past, that’s over.”
Treating ones’ own views as obviously correct
Making covert attributions and evaluations
Face-saving moves such as leaving potentially embarrassing facts unstated
Consequences include:
Defensive relationships
Low freedom of choice
Reduced production of valid information
Little public testing of ideas
Most of the larger organisations that I consult with exhibit many, if not most of these Model I characteristics and I am sure that most governments around the world are not that much different. It is not unsurprising, therefore, that the current concerns over the latest Wikileaks are clouded in language that is imprecise and have overtones of Julian Assange being a “traitor” as well as the actions of Wikileaks being seen to be threatening to existing command and control establishments.
Aristotle had a similar set of ideas in his ethics.
He differentiated between technical thinking and practical thinking and the similarities with Argyris and Schön are striking…
In the article (Aristotle’s Etihcs) the two types of thinking are described:
“The former (technical thinking) involves following routines and some sort of preset plan – and is both less risky for the individual and the organization, and affords greater control.
The latter (practical thinking) is more creative and reflexive, and involves consideration notions of the good. Reflection here is more fundamental: the basic assumptions behind ideas or policies are confronted… hypotheses are publicly tested… processes are disconfirmable not self-seeking….”
So, in one sense, the Wikileaks drama is acting-out an age-old problem: How can we rise above the inadequacies of what Aristotle called “technical thinking“ within an organisational system and encourage more “practical (or ethical) thinking”. This is what Argyris called the attributes of Model I organisations and what Assange calls “the aspect(s) of government or neocorporatist behavior we wish to change or remove”.
Aristotle’s view was that the development of “practical wisdom” cannot be acquired solely by learning general rules. We must also acquire, through practice, those deliberative, emotional, and social skills that enable us to put our general understanding of well-being into practice in ways that are suitable to each occasion.
Interesting. Try and explain those ideas to someone with autism…
So enough of the analysis. What makes an effective learning organisation?
Argyris cites the following attributes for a Model II organisation:
The governing values of Model II (Double Loop Learning) include:
Valid information
Free and informed choice
Internal commitment
Strategies include:
Sharing control
Participation in design and implementation of action
Operationalised by:
Attribution and evaluation illustrated with relatively directly observable data
Surfacing conflicting view
Encouraging public testing of evaluations
Consequences should include:
Minimally defensive relationships
High freedom of choice
Increased likelihood of double-loop learning
Which brings us back to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. It is clear, for me, that Assange’s has developed a reasoned approach to changing the attributes of what might be called Big Government and Big Business. The main question for me, is, could he be more effective? Has he created his own Model I organisation to effect the changes he outlines he wants to achieve? Or is Wikileaks a new model II organisation for journalism that uses the internet to help change the belief system of the organisations that information is leaked about?
Argyris & Schön (Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978) Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective, Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley) say that change only comes through a collaboration between the change agent or interventionist and the Model 1 organisation. They suggests moving through six phases of work:
Phase 1
Mapping the problem as clients see it.This includes the factors and relationships that define the problem, and the relationship with the living systems of the organisation.
Phase 2
The internalization of the map by clients. Through inquiry and confrontation the interventionists work with clients to develop a map for which clients can accept responsibility. However, it also needs to be comprehensive.
Phase 3
Test the model. This involves looking at what ‘testable predictions’ can be derived from the map – and looking to practice and history to see if the predictions stand up. If they do not, the map has to be modified.
Phase 4
Invent solutions to the problem and simulate them to explore their possible impact.
Phase 5
Produce the intervention.
Phase 6
Study the impact.This allows for the correction of errors as well as generating knowledge for future designs. If things work well under the conditions specified by the model, then the map is not disconfirmed.
.
Given that most of the work that I do is, in one way or another, trying to deliver effective (and collaborative) change, I wonder whether the latest developments in the Wikileaks drama will become the most effective way to use modern internet technology to bring about the changes so vitally needed in this world to challenge the corruption, waste and continuation of so many Model I organisations…..
…….or whether there is another, better, more effective internet-based Type II model which creates a collaboration between the change agents and the Model I organisations to make the change happen more quickly and effectively….
I suppose only time (and more thinking and action) will tell……
Whilst researching the great Buckminster Fuller, I came across a different way of looking at the world – which is called the Fuller (or Dymaxion) Map.
For all of the separation and differences we tend to create in our world, it is sometimes encouraging for us to look at the world through a unifying lens to realise that not only do we live on one planet – but that also we all live on (almost) one island! Makes you think….
I had a commute-from-hell to get home on Tuesday night with a train being broken down in front of mine and my train taking the side-track via a suburban frozen waste. Not fun. I decided to stop commuting for the rest of the week.
For the past two days I have greatly benefitted from the efforts in the past ten years to provide broadband to our country and community. It has allowed me to work from home and do email, Skype calls and productive work from my home office. When I had my own business in 1996 we had dial-up, the internet was very basic, and working from home was a combination of very slow email with very slow browsing on an internet that had very little information. It was so slow, in fact, that I had to go back and get a “proper job”.
Today’s internet experience is now very workable– even though my meagre 2-3Mbps kept on dropping in and out with the pressure of other home workers using the internet in the village. I was actually much more productive, spending the 4 or 5 hours that I might have spent on a train (had the trains been running) doing real work in the warmth of my home. That said, when I mentioned to a friend of mine (who lives in Reigate and gets 50Mbps) that we had only just got 2-4 Mbps and he laughed out loud as they now say!
In some senses, what we have now is SO much better than what we had before (in the mid 1990s), that there is room for complacency and a sense that we have enough broadband….
But in the new world – (the world we are now creating) – the jobs will have to be (globally) competitive and will require a completely NEW superfast broadband infrastructure for the UK. It will have many of the basic characteristics of what we have now – such as browsing, internet, e-commerce and video, but it will become safer, faster, more stable, much more interactive, have a lot more video (where you can see the people you are talking to) and have a far greater global reach. Smartphones and HDTV are likely to hasten the innnovation.
So we must invest in the Next Generation Broadband TODAY. That means putting fibre optic cables much closer – and eventually into the homes we live in and businesses we work in (often, as I proved today, the same thing). With climate change, the weather is likely to become more unpredictable (how many times in our memories have we had commuter-disrupting snow in November?).
Sure, some jobs, like food distributors can’t work on the internet alone. But many new jobs can be created that can take the shocks of climate change and economic fluctuations. Perhaps the Big Freeze will have made people think a bit more about the potential of new forms of work and the relationship between work and travel. Much like the Fax did in the 1980s when we had a postal strike.
I spent yesterday at Vanguard Consulting’s Leaders Summit on Systems Thinking. John Seddon chaired the day brilliantly, with eight case studies on Systems Thinking. It is not really systems thinking the way that Peter Senge created – it is more a method for improving service organisations – with roots in Demming and Taichi Ohno (the master behind the Toyota Production System).
It is difficult to describe each of the cases in such a small space, but one animated video was shown to everyone by Advice UK that is fun to watch and gives a real-life example of Systems Thinking as applied to the public sector. Enjoy!
It is so important that we get more organisations both understanding and using these ideas and I will be digging deeper into John Seddon’s work in later posts.
