This blog is about the relationship between organizations and the people who work for them. And, it’s dedicated to the millions of people around the world who go to work every day wanting to do a great job.
Collaboration
Decisions based on compromise
Sometimes compromise is a good thing. Â And sometimes… Â you end up with decisions that just don’t make sense.
What do you think? Â Open/closed office space concept or closed/open space concept?
Do you have any examples of compromise decisions gone wrong?
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Grey zones are costing your organization big time
There’s a lot of focus in organizations on moving fast to meet customer needs and shifting market conditions.  We’re encouraging employees to be more involved in defining and delivering organizational success. People from all levels and all functions of the organization are getting together to ‘hack’ solutions to important business problems. Collaboration is our mantra. Innovation our goal.
When the formal structures and systems of the organization aren’t supporting what we’re trying to do we’re finding ways around them. And this is a good thing. But, in our rush to collaborate and democratize our organizations we’re losing clarity.  While we’re busy crowd sourcing hacks: Who’s got the responsibility? Who’s got the authority?  And, how do we know?  Will we only find out once whoever it is pops out of the wood work to disagree with what we’ve been working on/towards?
This lesson came crashing home last summer when I discovered that, on a not-for-profit project I’d been working on for several years, I had all the responsibility and no authority. Â Since, I’m in the business of clarifying, helping make the grey zones black and white, this was a shocking revelation. But it was an informal volunteer thing, so… “These thing happen”.
Now I’m noticing grey zones places where I would never have expected. In a high growth, high success organization that completed a major restructuring and failed to make accountabilities clear for over a year. In a 500 year old institution where lack of clarity on roles and relationships and responsibility and authority is somehow seen as a good thing. And, in a global company where decentralization of decision taking was taken to such an extreme that their shareholders are now threatening to sue them due to lack of oversight.
The grey zones we create, intentionally or not, are costing organizations time, energy, and money.  They are increasing politics. It’s more and more about who you know rather than what you know or how well you do it.
Grey zones are decreasing transparency to the point where it’s virtually impossible for anyone to figure out who’s doing what, why, when and how decisions are being taken.
And, they are decreasing trust in the offering, the leadership, the institutions and, if you’re on the inside, in each other.
At high speeds, when we’re all moving fast to meet customer needs and shifting market conditions, new ways of working are imperative but grey zones may be costing us big time. Â Are they worth the risk?Â
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Innovation & collaboration: Strategic priorities or not?
For all the talk in Canadian business about innovation and collaboration, I just read a startling and rather disappointing fact from a talk given by BDC late in 2011: Â Canadian “businesses invest $2,400 less per employee, per year, in computers, software and training than American companies do.”
A few years ago that amount spent on information and communication technology wouldn’t have bought you much. Today it could set an employee up with enough technology and applications to be able to connect the way they want, when they want, with colleagues virtually anywhere in the world. It could create the opportunity for innovation and collaboration that we believe is so vital.
The United States have been hit harder by the recession than we in Canada have and yet they invest $2,400 more in the stuff that will make it easier for their employees to create new and more efficient ways of doing things;Â new products and services that better meet the needs of their customers; and a competitive advantage. Â This doesn’t seem right.
When we as leaders are out talking about the importance of innovation and collaboration to the future of our organizations and our country are we making it a priority? Â The numbers say we aren’t.
If innovation and collaboration are key strategic priorities, then we need to invest in them. If they aren’t, then we probably shouldn’t keep saying that they are. Â
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Connecting for big business benefits
This morning I came across three articles. Three different perspectives. Same conclusion. The more connected we are as leaders and as organizations the better.
Perspective 1 - CEOs. A study of 65 chief executives from around the world discovered that CEOs spend an average of 6 hours out of their 55-hour work week alone. The remainder of the time is spent in business meetings [virtual and face-to-face] and lunches and on the phone. CEOs may not like it, but it is how their work gets done and confirms Henry Mintzberg‘s seminal study “The nature of managerial work”  [1973].
Perspective 2: Leadership teams. In their new book Strategy & Business, Rob Cross and Jon Katzenbach describe how: “In most companies, the phrase top team is a misnomer…” Instead, they go on to say:  [P]ower comes from … members’ informal and social networks, their determination to make the most of those connections, and their ability to work well in subgroups formed to address specific issues… [A]s much as 90 per cent of the information that most senior executives receive and take action on comes throughout their informal networks – not formal reports or databases.” The conclusion: Enriching networks enriches organizations.
Perspective 3: Organizations. ”Web 2.0 … promote[s] significantly more flexible processes at internally networked organizations: respondents say that information is shared more readily and less hierarchically, collaboration across organizational silos is more common, and tasks are more often tackled in a project-based fashion.” This study goes on to demonstrate that the more networked an organization the more business benefits. If you, or your leadership team, ever had any doubts it’s worth taking a look.
Connecting is what we as human beings do. We’re social creatures. Our organizational work gets done with, and through, other people.
Helping your employees connect. A little idea with huge potential business benefits.
It’s a potentially beautiful thing.
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On becoming a zero email company
One year ago today, Atos Origin‘s CEO and Chairman, Thierry Breton, announced Atos Origin would [like to] become a zero email company within three years.
At the time, Mr Breton said:
“We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives. At Atos Origin we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution.â€
“The volume of emails we send and receive is unsustainable for business. Managers spend between 5 and 20 hours a week reading and writing emails. They are already using social media networking more than search, and spend 25 per cent of their time searching for information. At Atos Origin, for example, we have set up collaboration tools and social community platforms, to share and keep track of ideas on subjects from innovation and Lean Management through to sales. Businesses need to do more of this – email is on the way out as the best way to run a company and do business.â€
In their press release they also reported that:
- By 2013, more than half of all new digital content will be the result of updates to, and editing of existing information
- Online social networking is now more popular than email and search
- Middle managers spend more than 25% of their time searching for information
- 2010 : Corporate users receive 200 mails per day, 18% of which is spam.”
Atos Origin has created a page on their site that expands on their position and approach -Â here.
I’m curious about how they are doing on their mission to become a zero email company. Â Good, bad or indifferent there will be lessons here. Â So, I’ve asked them – by email [oh dear!].
As for the rest of us, over the past year I think we’ve all been feeling the pressure. Virtually all “organizational” men and women are increasingly tethered to email through their mobile devises 24/7. We’re initiating, receiving and responding more.
When you add email to all of the other ways we are sending and receiving information it can all be a bit overwhelming.
Let’s hope Atos has some good news and a few insights about their journey so far that they are willing to share! Standby.
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Let’s say goodbye to “collaboration”!
Words really do matter. Â I’ve been noticing something interesting lately. The word “co-creating” seems to be showing up everywhere in corporate conversation. Â I’m not sure, but it’s seems to be taking the place of “collaboration” and for me this change couldn’t have come soon enough.
Collaboration appears in almost every corporate value statement. Â In fact, collaborate has been paired with innovate to become a kind of institutional mantra, a rallying cry, of the past decade!
But, for me, the word collaborate has always missed the mark. Â It’s a process-focused word by definition. Â It’s about “the how” not “the what”. We’re going to collaborate to do what? Â And what are we doing when we collaborate?
Let’s revisit the definition. Collaborate means to: “1:Â to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavour;Â 2Â :Â to cooperate with, or willingly assist, an enemy of one’s country and especially an occupying force; 3Â :Â to cooperate with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected.”
There’s a pretty dark side in this definition [like "execution" another favourite business buzz word] and an implication. Collaboration is circumstantial – working with the enemy, connecting where there’s no obvious connection – and except for the first definition it’s ‘forced’. More problem-solving than creating. Maybe we should be thankful that most organizations are so bad at collaborating!
Co-creating is different. Â The focus is on both the process and the outcome, the creation. Â So here’s hoping that this change in the use of language is signalling more than a superficial label change and the latest flavour of the month. Â Here’s hoping that as leaders we can now get down creating and co-creating what matters in our organizations.
I leave it to you to decide whether Knute Rockne was talking about collaboration or co-creation in his famous team speech!
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Storytelling, media & me
Today, I read an article about the growing demand for people who are able to tell stories in every media - photographs, text, audio, video, alone or in any combination - and made the case for pr [read communications] professionals to build these skills. The medium, it seems, really is the message.
So, I thought it was a good time to check in and see where we stand in this world of ‘content’ production.
Me?  For the past couple of years I’ve been experimenting with different social media and getting used to writing and sharing ideas and stories online - here, as support to Michael for From Marshall and me, on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and FourSquare [which after much frustration I've stopped using] and by commenting on other blogs when I feel I have something to add to the discussion.  I’ve attended a two Montreal PodCamps and several Third Tuesdays to get a deeper understanding of what technologies and applications are out there, how they are used, and what opportunities there are for institutional communications. I’ve met amazing people - Mitch Joel, Julien Smith and Michelle Sullivan - who have advised, provoked and inspired.
In the past few months, I’ve been revisiting and rebuilding my structural thinking and consulting skills.  The most recent training was last week.  I attended a fabulous 5-day Advanced training with Robert and Rosalind Fritz.  The importance and power of structure to the creative process and in storytelling was clearly evident. I always knew this training was key to my professional consulting practice.  Now I know it is key to being a good storyteller.
Today, I’m officially committing myself to the next step in my journey to create compelling content and learning how to share it in different ways.  Sure, I will continue to blog and do the stuff I’ve been doing, and, over the coming months I’ll be learning and building mastery [OK getting competent] with as many communications technologies and applications as I can.
This is a pretty big step for me. As those of you who know me will attest I’m no geek!  Here’s my starting point.  What technology is usable and what’s not!
Ouch! Â And, it is a secondary choice to a primary choice to producing great, compelling stories that I can share. Standby.
You? I’d love to hear about what you’re doing to build your storytelling and media skills?  What were your successes? What did you learn from your failures?  What can you recommend?
BTW: I’ve already started experimenting with my new camera [Canon S95] [no commercial relationship].  I’m still not working with the SLR  or video features, but I’m looking forward to that.  And, the scanner is plugged in and ready to go so that I can start a family project I’ve been thinking about for years.  An opportunity to experiment and learn to tell a different story in a new way…
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The [r]evolution of storytelling.
Unbelievably, yesterday was TED’s 5th anniversary. Â The TED talks have enriched our lives and learning over the past few years. Â For those of us who find it hard to break free of our bubbles – personal and professional – TED is an amazing gift and window on other worlds and other thinking.
Thanks to a good friend and a link on FaceBook, I celebrated this milestone in a special way.  This collage and animation of TED sound bites inspired in less than 2 minutes! So put your brand marketing, human resources, and/or communications professionals hats on, and think about this:
Are you part of the [r]evolution? Â If not now, when?
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Places worth caring about
“The emersive ugliness of our everyday environments… is entropy made visible. We can’t overestimate the despair we are creating…â€
James Howard Kunstler
Wow! Â ”Entropy made visible.” Â ”Despair we are creating.”
Nowhere is that more true than in our places of work.  These are mostly soulless places.  Nothing that would build hope or confidence. Nothing of the brand experience we talk about and expect our employees to be so proud of and to deliver to our customers daily.  Not even a hint of the business you’re in unless the corporate identity on the wall behind the reception desk gives a clue.
And, reception areas where the receptionist is missing. They lost their job two rightsizings ago.
Long characterless hallways. Rows of cubicles [no personal items please]. ‘Art’ that isn’t or motivational posters or nothing.  Overly sterile washrooms.  Kitchens where everything that matters – cups and cutlery are locked up. [You have to pay for your coffee as a cost control measure - my God you’re working 60+ hours a week at wages that were designed when people in your position worked 38.5].
Common areas that aren’t. No one wants to hang out there.
Boardrooms filled with chairs and designed for PowerPoint presentations not for people  or work we really do or the collaboration and innovation virtually every organization today is aspiring for.
By the way, this description is focused on white collar environments. But I have to say that I’ve been in smelters that were more human and more appropriate than most office spaces I’ve been in.
We say we want to engage employees.  What is there about the place you work in that is engaging? We say that the employee experience of the brand is a key element of culture. How does the design bring your brand to life for employees? If it’s not, then isn’t it time to get this on the Corporate agenda?  How?
__________
Thanks to Mitch Joel for reminding me about James Howard Kunstler’s inspiring and funny TED talk.
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On being professional
It’s sometimes easy to think that the professions – doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects – are the only fields that have professionals.
Today, our roofers finally arrived. We’re at the top of a 4-story condo facing winter in Montreal with a 21 year old peaked roof. To say we were glad to see them is an understatement.
It’s been a couple of months since we signed our agreement. Our contact has kept us in the loop [read managed our expectations] in terms of timing and weather issues, etc. Yesterday he called to say that the team would start today at 7:30am. Hallelujah.
They arrived at 6:45 and were ready to go at 7:30. Immaculate truck. Immaculate equipment. Hard hats and safety gear in place. One guy – the yellow hard hat guy – clearly in charge. They built a scaffold up the side of the building in record time. A truck with a hoist long enough to lift the materials up to the roof in place and ready to go.
We went out for a walk – there’s not much they can do about the noise so we might as well get a little exercise in… As we left, the shingles and other materials were being delivered to the roof. By the time we’d come back, they’d created a 4-story shoot to carry all the debris down to a huge container. On the roof they’d started pulling up the old shingles and piling them in one place on the lower level [it’s got two levels]. There one guy was in place at the top of the shoot. His job to make sure it all made it down the shoot to the container.
This team is more professional than many corporate teams I’ve seen. They’re doing what they said they were going to do when they said they’d do it. It’s obvious from here that each of them has a role knows what it is and has what they need to do it. And, you get a feeling that they take pride in the work they do. They also do it with joy [and a little fun – there have been a few good laughs from up there].
And, unless I am sorely mistaken by the end of the day tomorrow we’re going to have the best roof on the street.
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Recent Posts
- Decisions based on compromise
- Grey zones are costing your organization big time
- Saying goodbye to jargon
- Don’t leave them laughing
- A master class with Ed Sullivan
- Innovation & collaboration: Strategic priorities or not?
- The truth about the number 1 fear
- Want to know the secret to writing a great speech?
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Recent posts
- Decisions based on compromise
- Grey zones are costing your organization big time
- Saying goodbye to jargon
- Don’t leave them laughing
- A master class with Ed Sullivan
- Innovation & collaboration: Strategic priorities or not?
- The truth about the number 1 fear
- Want to know the secret to writing a great speech?
- Connecting for big business benefits
- Staying in touch with reality
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