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January 3, 2004 By Uncategorized

From the comments on improvisation, Andy has added a provocative thought:

We talk about “The Organisation” as though it exists as an entity. But what makes it a unique, coherent, singular whole? It is after all a collection of numerous individuals, maybe numerous business units, probably diverse goals. Is it one CEO? One set of corporate accounts? Common shareholders? IMHO the thing that makes an organisation truly a coherent single entity is none of these – it’s having a vision that is truly shared.

Now I am going to propose something. I believe that an organization’s vision is as messy and apparently incoherent as the organization itself. Ask around in organizations with which you work and see if anyone actually has the vision statement committed to memory. They generally don’t. Which isn’t to say that individuals don’t have a vision. But ask them what their vision for the organization is and maybe what they think the organization’s vision is, and start a conversation about the difference between the two.

When I run Open Space meetings, and we are doing visioning, and the agenda gets set, I point the sponsors to the wall and invite them to look at the two dozen or 40 or 50 topics there and say “There is your vision.” The sum total of where everyone in the organization wants to go IS the vision for the organization. Diluting these nuggets of intrinsic motivation down to one fairly empty statement in an effort to extrinsically motivate people does nothing to work with the actual vision that is there.

Vision is a personal thing. In Ojibway culture, one needs to spend a lot of time cultivating a vision. In Ojibway cosmology, humans were given the unique gift to dream and have visions. In fact, human self-fulfillment comes through visioning. It is something which lives deep in the person. When groups of people come together, the vision that motivates them is their own. If that vision connects with others, then you have an organization. If not, then people don’t come together to work.

You can point to commonalities in the visions of people within an organization. For instance, a development NGO might have a motherhood vision statement that says “we’re here to help” because that is a component of nearly everyone’s personal vision. But to say that “this is our vision, and everything we do is motivated by that” isn’t really true. Actions are undertaken by individuals for a greater purpose that simply the “organizational vision.”

So I guess I’m saying that organizations aren’t in fact singular, coherent wholes. They are networks of individuals that come together and come apart all within the frame of a larger mission such as “making cars” or “providing medical care” or “loaning money.” These little networks appear and disappear as they are needed, not because of a vision created to extrinsically motivate behaviours.

What do you think?

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January 3, 2004 By Uncategorized

I’m not sure, but Matthew Baldwin’s experience of a rare medical condition might just be the funniest thing I have read for a while.

And then I read the comments:

“Dang me! Sorry you were in pain. Btw, I’ve had a kidney stone and been through childbirth (twice). It’s true. You do NOT want the kidney stone.”

What a Christmas he had. Here’s hoping 2004 is considerably meeker.

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January 1, 2004 By Uncategorized

mysterium points me to an e.e. cummings poem, which makes a compelling way to start a new year:

all nearness pauses, while a star can grow

all nearness pauses, while a star can grow

all distance breathes a final dream of bells;
perfectly outlined against afterglow
are all amazing the and peaceful hills

(not where not here but neither’s blue most both)

and history immeasurably is
wealthier by a single sweet day’s death:
as not imagined secrecies comprise

goldenly huge whole the upfloating moon.

Time’s a strange fellow;
more he gives than takes
(and he takes all) nor any marvel finds
quite disappearance but some keener makes
losing, gaining
–love! if a world ends

more than all worlds begin to (see?) begin

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December 28, 2003 By Uncategorized

It’s year end, and I’d like to publicly thank the many clients who I have had the privilege of working with this year. It has been a great year full of learning, collaboration and interesting work, and it is largely due to people from these organizations:


I’d also like to thank my colleagues Chris Robertson and Michael Herman who have co-conspired with me on a number of really interesting projects this year. I am looking forward to the new year which may bring travel to New Zealand among other places. Thanks for joining me on the journey so far.

And Happy New Year.

Strategy and improvisation

December 23, 2003 By Leadership, Organization 2 Comments

George Nemeth got riffing on my post about project management as jazz and a really cool conversation evolved in his comments (scroll down). One of the comments from John Galt challenged the idea that strategy can be created in an emergent and improvisiational framework:

The jazz metaphor is apt for improvisation. Not for strategy as we are speaking about it. One nice definition of improvisation in strategy is the act of �creating strategy as it is being implemented� or making it up as you go along. Now, classic strategy is a process for thoughtful managers in mindful organizations. Mindful � is a phase that Karl Weick, a strategy guru at U of M has discussed at length. In fact, Weick�s article outlining lessons for organizational strategy from high-performance firefighters in HBR may be a good read in the present context.
Nonetheless, a key point I would suggest is to keep straight that the improvisation idea is great for implementing strategy NOT for developing strategy. Two separate processes � currently there is no strategy for implementing, it appears.The new organization and its projected final shape appears to fit some of the criteria laid out in earlier comments � strong nodes, intersections of energy and resource networks, proven leaders rather than retreads, midsize and large corp. players who will not tolerate chatter masquerading as action, etc. So, it appears to have the right make up to finally help strategy development happen, with or despite the local political leadership.

Also, strategy cannot be a networked concept or a movement based idea. No matter how flat an organization is, it needs a head � a leader � to ultimately forge strategy � a direction � and lead the rest of the organization. It cannot be a multi-headed hydra or a shapeless amoeba. Sure, individuals and all-comers may �feel included� but it will not go anywhere soon.

Organization-wide exercises in appreciative inquiry, for example, have not taken off after years of pushing the idea, in comparison to classic strategic planning (or its cousin, contingency planning). Appreciative inquiry may be best for pushing organizations – who have reached a steady state of �good� � to higher planes of �excellence.�

This is an interesting post on several levels. I want to instincively challenge the notion that traditional strategic planning has actually worked. I mean it’s probably fine for actually making a building, but the moment there are self-organizing processes involved (markets, networks, groups) then rigid top-down strategic planning goes out the window. I might not be giving John enough credit here, but I feel like strategy for process, like the plan for a city, could stand to incorporate a lot more improvisation.

In the context of a city, the thing about having someone “in charge” of developing strategy is that it’s kind of a mug’s game. For one thing, the basic fact that 2.5 million people will improvise its implementation should be enough to make planners give up the notions of tight control of its development. Howdo you anticipate the hive mind of 2.5 million people? You can’t do it by decree, not in a democracy at least (and not truly in a dictatorship either, or so says Jonathan Schell). Instead, you need to create spaces where improvisation can flourish and thereby invite the citizens create their own city.

The same goes for organizations too by the way. This is not a case of the “lunatics running the asylum” either. It simply acknowledges that self-organization and improvisation are critical to success and incorporating these dynamics into planning anticipates the kind of outcomes that create and sustain robust enterprises.

Strategy is usually very vague, especially for big cities, and that’s not necessarily a problem. Citizens will claim space, enterprises will emerge, residential units will get developed, markets will spring up and disappear. For sure some people in local government have the power to set parameters, be it by zoning or by laws or taxation, but I don’t think of this a classical strategic planning. If an area next to an industrial area is zoned residential to improve its character and developers don’t want to touch it and the market stays away, then all the strategy in the world isn’t going to get housing built there.

So now you need to think about including many more people in the development of strategy so that you can make good decisions based on the values of those that actually control things: the citizens. Power acting alone is dumb power. Power acting with heart, as represented by the values and meaning that citizens bring to a place is smart power. And that informed power can rely on good planning to help it make the smart move in one direction or another, so that power, plan and people are moving together.

When you start tipping in that direction, then strategy development starts to get quite imnprovisational, and that is not a bad thing. In fact it seems to me that it makes the whole project more robust because it acknowledges right off the top that there are deep self-organizing principles that will come into to play whether they are built in or not. So better to build them in in the beginning.