Inside Conversation

Vision – An idealized image of what you want the future to look like; The preferred future state of the organization
Guiding Principles – The fundamental shared beliefs of the organization; Values; The “right” way to do things
Mission – Vision plus Guiding Principles
Strategy – The part of an organization’s plan to achieve its mission that remains consistent even while other parts of the plan are changing, (a change in strategy means a change in the game; ALL tactics must be re-evaluated)
Goal – The measure of how the strategy fulfills the mission
Tactics – The set of projects and ongoing operational processes that support the strategy
Objective – The measure of how the tactics fulfill the strategy
—————————-
Lee

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

System Theory in practice within organizations looks like a conversation between functions and between levels, where barriers to communication have been eliminated and individual/functional agendas have been set aside, in order to serve the greater good. For this to happen, there needs to be a common, shared vision of the "greater good". The role of the leader is to host the vision and facilitate the conversation.

—————————-
Lee

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Guiding principles for building and organization capable of rapid adaptation:

• Frictionless Information Flow; up, down and across; A function of technology and culture: Driven by “information Pull”
• Decentralize operational Decisions; The How? decisions
• Clear vectors from the executive function
• Reward Learning
• Modular structure; Plug & Play Architecture; Focus on the interfaces not the objects
• Dialogue as the primary means of communication; Listening is essential

[K — Lee

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

There is a reinforcing causal loop between trust, transparency and productivity.

      +                     +
      —>Trust ——–>Productivity——
      |                                                     |
      |                                                     |
      |——–Transparency<————– |
                                            +
Of course the metric for "productivity" in this sense may be the subject of much debate, but I mean it in the sense that you are doing better, you are more effective and more efficient. So the loop says, if you increase your transparency ( as an individual or an organization) you generate increased trust among your stakeholders and increased trust increases your ability to perform, which in turn leads to an increased willingness to be transparent…   On the other hand the more you tend to obscure the situation (decrease transparency) the less trust you will engender, leading to reduced productivity since it now takes extra work to obtain trusted information (sign-off, approvals, verifications, etc.) and as your performance goes down so does your willingness to share that information.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

"Emergence is a characteristic arises as output of a system, that could not have been predicted from an analysis of the individual parts which comprise the system. "

This is why the study of systems is important. When something good happens, everyone wants the credit. In a linear thinking world each component piece of the system sees their contribution as the "key to success", when in reality the success was most likely emergent and could not have happened without the interaction between the constituent parts. Conversely when something bad happens, everyone wants to lay the blame elsewhere. Again the reality is that the unintended consequence probably was an emergent quality resulting from the interaction between parts of the system.

Only by studying the interactions between all parts of a system (system thinking) can a true understanding of the causality for success or failure be achieved.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Internalization of externalities is an essential ingredient in making the change to a “sustainability” mindset. What does that mean? Previously I talked about “individual utility” vs. “community utility”. Maybe a better way to express it is the distinction between “internal utility” vs. “external utility”. We “internalize externalities” by providing more and better information about the externalities. This is typically done via guilt, which immediately develops resistance. It is better to bring in externalities by showing how the externality can increase internal utility.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

A sustainable future is placed squarely on the shoulders of the consumer. The consumer ultimately makes the decisions that drive what and how products are produced. Given that, producers need to consider what the consumer looks at when making a purchasing decision. The consumer’s first consideration is individual utility, WIIFM. The consumer’s second consideration is community utility, “What is in it for the environment and those around me. If two products are comparable on the first consideration of individual utility, producers can create competitive advantage by delivering products that A) have superior environmental/societal qualities; and B) provide information to the consumer about these qualities.

In the current environment, not many producers are providing essential information about environmental and societal impacts of their products. Therefore it is incumbent on the consumer to push harder for that information.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Into the fray, it is time to join the party. This journal will be my musings about business, general management practice, organizations and how they work, systems thinking, etc.

Systems

A system is a group of things that are interdependent on each other. In essence everything is a system. The problem is that almost any system is too complicated to fully understand by any individual. In order to keep from being overwhelmed, we create simplified comceptual models of systems. These conceptual models are sometimes referred to as Mental Models. Through our experiences each of us develop unique mental models to understand the systems around us. Since each of us have a unique set of experiences, each of us have a different perceprion of the world around us. This leads to different opinions, and the common conviction that your own is correct, when in fact no one’s mental model is “correct” since no mental model is an exhaustive portrayal of reality.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »