As the honeybee swarming season is ending, I have been reflecting on the four swarms we have caught this season and the phenomenon that some call “swarm consciousness”. In researching more about the subject, I came across this short set of PBS videos describing a new way of thinking described as “emergence”. It not only describes the magic forces of nature that science somehow struggles with, it also gives a great explanation on how we learn. It is encouraging to hear that current computer design has a long way to go – and that the human brain still wins on its “connectedness”. Encouraging to think that swarm intelligence in humans is FAR greater than any political leader or dictator. Worth watching both clips and reflecting on them:
Although this is almost exactly a year old and quite US-centric, the video below “Innovation at the Edge of Electricity” was made. It has some great stories that may well make the minds of anyone living in the US or Europe boggle at how true innovation is happening in the developing world without any “help” from regulators or lawmakers.
As technology is forcing industry convergence, it is not just the Western-style Telecoms regulation that is getting in the way, but the rules and regulations from the Electricity and Banking Industries too. For instance, look to Africa, not Europe or the US if you want to see what true innovation is on mobile payments.
Many of the stories are particularly helpful when we think at how we should rollout faster broadband to the so-called “Final Third”. Innovation has always happened on the edge of the network. Surely it is time for us to include some of these new ideas from the “edge of electricity” and adapt them to our own requirements. Or will we let the regulators carry on regulating our service industries to die a slow, painful death?
Although I use an Apple iPhone and heard today that Apple overtook Nokia (in revenues) on mobile phone sales, you have to hand it to Nokia that they still think big. Just watch this:
and then see the background story:
Just hand it to Nokia – Apple might have the “i” – but Nokia’s Dot takes the day for me!
With the debate about what “best” looks like as in “The UK will have the best broadband in Europe by 2015”, I looked up some famous quotations on “best”:
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.”– Helen Keller
“Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.”– Dale Carnegie
“The government is best which governs least.”– Thomas Jefferson
“It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”– Sir Winston Churchill
“One of the best ways of avoiding necessary and even urgent tasks is to seem to be busily employed on things that are already done.”– John Kenneth Galbraith
“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”– Buddha
“Sometimes the best gain is to lose.”– George Herbert
We have all had it. That frustrating blankness that hits you when you want to write something. Those who know me, know that I have been trying to write a book on bees since 1986. I am not sure if this is worthy of an entry in the Guinness Book of Records – but this work of art has been a long time in the womb!
Coincidentally today, I had an extraordinarily energetic meeting brainstorming out a new marketing strategy for a company. We really got “in the flow”. At the end of the meeting I had to take 5 minutes out just to re-tune to normality. One of the people at the meeting started talking about left-brained and right-brained thinking – and pointed me to the work and theories of Gabriele Rico. Gabrielle has written a book that has sold over 500,000 copies called “Writing the Natural Way”.
On investigating the theories, I was struck by how similar they are to many of the methods I use in my work. I use Spider Diagrams or Mind Maps a lot to brainstorm-out ideas – and then clump or cluster them into patterns or blocks of ideas – before finally looking for a natural sequence or flow that works well for the problem set in question. I really liked Gabriele’s names for the two sides of the brain – “Sign Mind” and “Design Mind“. Sign mind (left hemisphere) thinks linearly, parts-specifically, logically, one step at a time, while the Design mind (right hemisphere) thinks in whole patterns, drawing on images, emotional webs, sensory patterns, as in a memory that suddenly flashes into consciousness as a complex whole. So similar to the attributes missing in the Organisational Caetextia article I wrote with Mark Richards last year.
So it got me thinking – why don’t I actually use this very effective technique to help me write the book? And it made me realise that my my work and other activities at home are so time-consuming that the real issue wasn’t so much writers block, but time deficiency! Although I have already created the chapters, the themes, the plot, I just need to sit down and write. But I am not a natural writer. I prefer telling stories aloud. I prefer drawing pictures. Anything but writing. Gabrielle’s theory says I should be using my right brain (or Design Mind) first – and then start writing…
Actually, this problem is really why I started to blog. Because I thought: if I write regularly in small chunks about things that interest me, then I hope to overcome this writer’s block that I have. I set up another blog – http:/beelore.com – a few years ago. And it really does seem to work – this blogging thing. Little and often is better than being blocked and producing nothing at all.
Which means that I don’t currently plan to finish the book – because by the time I have done everything else, I actually don’t want to find the time to write the book.
I would rather work, play and blog; and go with the flow. For the moment – anyway. Than write a massive book. On bees. That probably few will read. And certainly not over 500,000! The rough numbers that read Gabriele’s book!
In fact I called beelore a “blook” – sort of cross of a book and a blog. So maybe I havn’t got writer’s block…..I have simply replaced it with a new age, Web 2.0 writer’s blook!
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?
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……
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.
I have posted on the DCMS website, commenting on their recently published Business Plan for Broadband. Interesting to see if they actually publish it. In any case, they cannot vet what I put on my own blog – so here is what I wrote:
“A perfection of means and confusion of ends seems to characterise our age” as Einstein so rightly said.
These milestones are mere inch-pebbles…..
Jeremy Hunt’s ambition of only five months ago that: “within this Parliament we want Britain to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe” has been diluted to a set of muddled objectives and easily-achievable short-term meetings, studies, consultations and (yet-to-start) round tables. And the heading of “super-fast” has been subtly changed to “universal” which is muddling the Universal Service Obligation with what the best superfast broadband network in Europe should really be…
Meanwhile, BT has gone public on a very effective campaign which is designed to create a very un-level paying field for Next Generation Access. BT, Virgin Media and the other so-called ISPs will continue to compete in the same (urban and semi-urban) areas that they have on the current LLU regime. A “completed” milestone of examined barriers has clouded the fact that the recently announced business rates regime has put more barriers in place for new networks – not removed them. We can examine barriers until the cows come home. We need the barriers removed, not examined!
Ambitions for open access infrastructure (ducts and poles) are riddled with practical issues that will mean BT will continue to play a waiting game.
Openreach is not “open’, yet we continue to use the word “open” without defining any new structures required for the fibre revolution and relying on old structures that were created for copper networks – simply because it is easier.
And the market testing community-led pilots are out-of-phase with the infrastructure sharing milestone – such that BT is far more likely to be able to give a compelling bid for each scheme and wipe the slate clean than if the infrastructure was truly open. Well constructed plans need to understand that certain milestones will have dependencies on others. The project plan needs to be laid-out rather than created as a list, so that these dependencies can be understood and the milestones phased accordingly.
We MUST get our purpose, objectives and milestones better aligned in this critical programme! This is a matter of national survival on the increasingly competitive landscape of the global internet economy – and we have very little time (perhaps six months to a year) to get our act together.
These milestones are very unlikely to achieve what we need by when we need it.
However, not to be over-critical, there has been some good work. The recently published Digital Scotland report for a far more ambitious and coherent plan with some great ideas on how to connect Broadband to Big Society and provide speeds much closer to what “the best superfast broadband network in Europe” might look like. But it is not clear that Westminster can hear Edinburgh down the communication lines of two countries with different political parties in leadership positions and with Scotland coming up to Elections and the rest of the UK trying to work out what they actually voted for!
It is time to wash-away these inch-pebbles and create a national debate and a coherent joined-up plan on this important subject with real, competitive milestones that will create a national, shared, fibre infrastructure (such as has recently been announced by Italy) as well as to bridge both the geographic and social digital divides with real connections and real training and participation rather than the political verbiage that we have become used to over the past few years.
We will be challenging the current thinking at the NextGen ’10 conference in Birmingham on 22-23rd November.
If Big Society is to happen (and be supported by the necessary digital infrastructure required), then this part of the Business Plan needs re-thinking – particularly if we are really going to deliver on the excellent ambition set out by Jeremy Hunt in June.
Thank you for being open enough to allow me to comment and please take the comments as a constructive contribution to what is a truly vital part of the government’s business plan.
