Archive for April, 2010
The Opposable Mind
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 by Hans Henrik H. Heming
What distinguishes a brilliant leader from a conventional one? In this insightful book, Roger Martin shows that brilliant leaders are skilled at integrative thinking – the ability to hold two opposing ideas in their minds at once, and then reach a synthesis that contains elements of both but improves each.
Most managerial decisions are made by examining the pros and cons of the presumed alternatives, then eliminating all but one. Conventional thinkers focus only on obviously relevant features, break problems into pieces and work on them separately, and settle for what they perceive to be the best available options.
But truly successful leaders try not to make “either-or” decisions. By seeking factors that are not immediately obvious, considering nonlinear relationships among variables, and seeing the problem as a whole, they are able to resolve tensions among opposing ideas and generate innovative outcomes.
Drawing on stories of leaders as diverse as A. G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble and Bob Young of Red Hat Software, Martin shows how, by refusing to accept unpleasant trade-offs and conventional options, integrative thinkers are able to find creative solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
But is integrative thinking a talent reserved for a fortunate few? Martin believes it is a “habit of thought” that all of us can consciously develop to arrive at solutions that would otherwise not be evident.
This is a GREAT book we strongly recommend you’ll read.
Tags: Integrated Thinking, Roger Martin
Posted in Integrated Thinking, Recommended reading | No Comments »
Recommended Reading
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
(Source http://bit.ly/a4IU13)
There’s no such thing as inspiration and new knowledge. That’s why we read a lot at Fourmation. We enjoy a number of blogs and websites on a daily basis (go to our lab to find some of the links that inspires us), but for the real in-depth and thorough knowledge, data and analysis, we turn to the good, old books.
We have made a list of 15 excellent books that we think everyone with an interest in business, networks, integrated thinking, management and business design owe it to themselves to read.
- “The Tipping Point – How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” by Malcolm Gladwell.
Excerpt: “The premise of this facile piece of pop sociology has built-in appeal: little changes can have big effects; when small numbers of people start behaving differently, that behavior can ripple outward until a critical mass or “tipping point” is reached, changing the world.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/42WbUh
- “Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means” by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.
Excerpt: “There is a path between any two neurons in our brain, between any two companies in the world, between any two chemicals in our body. Nothing is excluded from this highly interconnected web of life.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/5wodM
- “The Strength of Weak Ties” by Mark Granovetter.
Excerpt: “In marketing or politics, weak ties enable reaching populations and audiences that are not accessible via strong ties.”
Link to Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/BJ1o link to PDF: http://bit.ly/cg0lqx
- “Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems” by Jeffrey Conklin.
Excerpt: “In contrast to the use of agendas and restrictive structures, dialogue mapping is a facilitation technique that allows the intelligence and learning of the group to emerge naturally.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/GIaSz
- “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki.
Excerpt: “While our culture generally trusts experts and distrusts the wisdom of the masses, New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki argues that “under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/b7JljE
- “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell.
Excerpt: “Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of “thin slices” of behavior.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/9GXkuk
- “The Opposable Mind” by Roger Martin.
Excerpt: “In this primer on the problem-solving power of “integrative thinking,” Martin draws on more than 50 management success stories, including the masterminds behind The Four Seasons, Proctor & Gamble and eBay, to demonstrate how, like the opposable thumb…(…).”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/c9psva
- “The Future of Management” by Gary Hamel.
Excerpt: “Though this authoritative examination of today’s static corporate management systems reads like a business school treatise, it isn’t the same-old thing.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/bNHhlg
- “Wikinomics” by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.
Excerpt: “The word “wiki” means “quick” in Hawaiian, and here author and think tank CEO Tapscott (The Naked Corporation), along with research director Williams, paint in vibrant colors the quickly changing world of Internet togetherness, also known as mass or global collaboration, and what those changes mean for business and technology.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/9nLl8O
- “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More” by Chris Anderson.
Excerpt: ”Wired editor Anderson declares the death of “common culture”—and insists that it’s for the best. Why don’t we all watch the same TV shows, like we used to?”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/b7j1oi
- “Groundswell” by Charlene Li & Josh Bernhoff
Excerpt: “Corporate executives are struggling with a new trend: people using online social technologies (blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, podcasts) to discuss products and companies, write their own news, and find their own deals. This groundswell is global, it s unstoppable, it affects every industry and it s utterly foreign to the powerful companies running things now.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/9D0hYs
- “Good To Great” by Jim Collins.
Excerpt: ”Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, “Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/8X1jhc
- “Teori U” by C. Otto Scharmer.
Excerpt: “In a world burdened with too much information, we are occasionally blessed with a genuinely new idea about how to perceive, think about, and act on our overly complex world.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/9BrNxn
- “Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity to Ways of Thinking About Organisations” by Ralph D. Stacey.
Excerpt: ”Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics by Ralph D Stacey is renowned for its unconventional thinking and it continues to be a refreshing alternative for those teaching and studying strategic management who are looking for ’something different.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/a4gyMU
- “Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity” by Etienne Wenger.
Excerpt: “This book presents a theory of learning that starts with the assumption that engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we get to know what we know and by which we become who we are.”
Link to Amazon: http://bit.ly/azRogJ
So, this is our list of recommended reading – and it’ll be followed by a series of blog posts where each book will be more thoroughly reviewed. We hope our recommendations can inspire you.
Do you think we miss any essential works? If so, please let us know!
Tags: Chris Anderson, Crowds, Freemium, Groundswell, Malcolm Gladwell, Roger Martin, The Long Tail, Tipping Point, Wicked Problems, Wikinomics
Posted in Business design, Integrated Thinking, Networks, Social capital, Technology, Transformation | 2 Comments »
Airstream Trailers and Social Media
Monday, April 19th, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
(One of the first Airstream Trailers. Source: http://bit.ly/cKlaay)
On January 17, 1936, Wally Byam, founder of the Airstream Trailer Co., introduced the Airstream ’Clipper’ trailer. The ‘Clipper’ was the first Airstream Trailer – and it marked the beginning of a well-known American brand and icon.
At that time, more than 300 trailer builders operated in USA and the competition was fierce. Out of these +300 trailer builders, Airstream Trailer Co. is the only company that’s still alive. And why is that? Because Wally Byam and his team were focused on extremely high quality and innovative solutions and kept on enhancing the quality of the trailers. Today, more than 60% of all Airstreams ever built are still used to grant their owners luxurious accommodations when travelling.
(Airstream owners on a joint adventure. Source: http://bit.ly/dbCqYB)
But what has Airstream Trailers got to do with social media?
Social media has revolutionised the Internet, and there are no limits to the omnipresent homage of how social media has reinvented contact, interaction, communities, communication, user-driven content, innovation and collaboration. Just to name a few. And, don’t get me wrong, we fully recognise that social media are absolutely brilliant tools in strengthening these concepts. No doubt about that. But social media didn’t invent these. Social media is but a mere tool for these notions.
The Airstream Trailers, known as the ‘aluminium skinned, gleaming silver bullets’, became a massive success despite their relatively high price. Why? Because what Wally Byam and the Airstream team did, was to offer more than just selling a product:
- They established a community around the trailers – the The Wally Byam Caravan Club (www.wbcci.org). What we today would call a brand community.
- They created long-lasting relations with their customers. What we today would call relationship marketing.
- This club would meet up several times a year in several different areas in the US, traversing the highways together. What we today would call a tribe.
- Furthermore, the WBCCI generated more rallies, annual trips and loads of feedback on improvements to the trailers. Result? Byam’s idea of “Let’s not make any changes – let’s make only improvements” allowed his team to use the ideas of their customers to enhance the trailers – based on the experience from the customers. What we today would call user-driven innovation and idea generation.
These things, combined with Byam’s and his teams’ width, resulted in a massive number of improvements to the trailers. Due to this, Byam managed to secure a vast number of patents. All because he and the Airstream team engaged with their customers and responded to their feedback. And this all happened in the 1940es and 1950es. Our point? Social media are excellent tools, but what they do is nothing new. The technology is but a mere enabler. The idea and the people empowering it are the real drivers.
The Airstream case is interesting, as it is an example of how ‘new’ thinking (or Integrated Thinking) already took place before the terms were even coined. Do you know of any other examples where ‘new’ thinking took place many years ago? If so, feel free to comment.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airstream, http://www.wbcci.org/ and http://www.diefahrbar.de/history/index.html
Tags: Airstream, Design Thinking, Innovation, Socialmedia, Transformation, Tribe, User-driven, Wally Byam
Posted in Business design, Integrated Thinking | 2 Comments »
Will Enterprise 2.0 Drive Management Innovation?
Friday, April 2nd, 2010 by Hans Henrik H. Heming
2 years back I bought Gary Hamel’s New Book – The Future of Management. VERY interesting and if I may say “spot on” when it comes to a description of what is necessary for companies to understand. Companies should organize them selfs as social systems, not as machines.
When reading through the book I experience page by page that I’ve got my self a new friend. I knew that already when reading Gary Hamel’s comment on my post about “beta mindset“.
His book is interesting because it links Enterprise2.0 to Enterprise survival.
“Look around you; what things have demonstrated their adaptability across decades, centuries and eons? What sets the benchmark for adaptability? From my vantage point, life, markets, democracies, faith and cities all seem surprisingly adaptable. Each of these biological and human systems has proven itself to be far more resilient than any large corporation. They must become the role models for 21st century companies.”
and
“Many companies devote 5, 10 or even 20 percent of their revenue to R&D. Why not set aside a small share of discretionary funding for ideas that don’t pop up at the right time, or in the right place, to make it into the formal budgeting process? My guess is that a community of hundreds of mid-level managers spread out across a large company would, in the aggregate, make better investment decisions than a few folks in a corporate new ventures unit.”
I do of course agree, but many managers doesen’t understand the dynamics that web2.0 unfold internally in organisations…..I’ll come to that in another post…
Do you have any takes on how the organization of a company would look like in the future? Which leadership competencies are in play? And what role does design play in the development?
Tags: Gary Hamel, Management Innovation, shift
Posted in Business design, Transformation | No Comments »
Is this shift for real? Even fundamental?
Thursday, April 1st, 2010 by Hans Henrik H. Heming
In 2008 I went to a course on Complexity, Knowledge Management and future Innovation – gosh it was interesting. Maybe you already know Dave Snowden – a real thought-leader in that specific field. And he knows…
Nevertheless Dave and Cognitive Edge is on the track of something “new” and VERY interesting. The Cynefin-framework is outstanding when it comes to some sort of explanation of what is happening in the intersection between traditionel Knowledge Management, Technology and future growth and Innovation. As a true believer in proper use of Social Technologies – aka Web2.0 – internally in companies, I strongly believe that the flow of information between people is THE way to enhance innovation capacity, not by putting everything into a rigid data structure on a server.
Dave describes the development by setting up opposites:
MOVING FROM
|
MOVING TO
|
Interesting – we see that every day and try to advice our clients to move away from the old paradigm of thinking. It’s a tough call, a mental journey for most people.
Last week I was educated as a Accredited Practitioner in The Cynefin framework and I would love to have a conversation with you on how to cope with complexity in an internal organizational setting an still manage to make positive bottom lines.
If you are interested in further reading – and in Dave Snowden’ thoughts – you may be interested in these podcasts:
KM Australia 2007 Keynote
Jon Husband interview with Dave Snowden on Web 2.0
KM World 2007
KM Asia 2007 Keynote
Oil & Gas Exchange Houston September 2007
or the blogsposts:
Reporting on sin…
sense-making & path-finding
Safe-fail probes
Whence goeth KM?
Natural numbers, networks & communities
Volunteer not conscript
If the world is flat, seek out the bumpy bits
Good judgement comes from experiences. Experience comes from bad judgement
Confusing story telling with narrative
How to you see the challenges in management of today – is the cure to find in the books written around the time of the industrial revolution or is there by any chance new insights hidden in areas where we haven’t looked, yet? What do you think, and which implications does that have on our view on how to conceive business and companies?
Tags: Complexity, paradigmshift
Posted in Transformation | No Comments »
