The Secret waits for the insight of eyes unclouded by longing, Those that are bound by desire see only the outward container. This 2500 year old observation of Tao-Te-Ching defines the problem modern management must solve and gives a clue to the solution.
The problem is desire. However, desire is to be interpreted not as temptation alone but also the desire to survive. We all have defense mechanisms to protect our framework of beliefs that guide our daily living in comfort. Without these defense mechanisms we would find it difficult to live in sanity. For example we now ignore the threat of an atomic bomb in our midst though it is a real and present danger. It is defense mechanisms that lead the world to deny an innovation though it desires change. To succeed the change must produce a shift of mind – replace the perception of threat with perception of welcome benefits.
To get to the Secret is not a matter of talking or foofaraw as Scholtes would put it. We have to be able to step beyond our own comfort zones as a collective, i.e, emerge a commonly held perception of the Reality. We must learn to overcome our Learning Disabilities like the problem is out there and not here, or how dare they comment on our turf, to take the next step of responding with an action or innovation. A System is needed for a Collective to consistently evolve the Reality and act constructively in concert. The problem of Management is absence of an effective System.
A reliable System can be built only around a powerful force of human nature for it must pierce individual defense mechanisms and cultural Learning Disabilities to unite personnel. The MIX has thrown up two such forces. If I were to favor any one of them I would not be writing this hack but appreciating my choice at its parent site. My unique contribution is a combination of the two forces identified.
Bill Nobles, after many years of personal experience supported by Research, has identified the strong individual desire for Freedom amongst personnel and has fashioned it into a proven and powerful Management philosophy. In association with Paul Haley he has identified the following seven aspects of Freedom which explain the word and define its immense business value:
• Freedom to develop, to grow, to achieve one’s unique potential—a source of tremendous business value.
• Freedom to make mistakes and fail—essential elements of creativity and growth.
• Freedom to question and to investigate.
• Free access to all business information except that which is private.
• Freedom to decide and to act.
• Freedom from boundaries.
• Freedom from arbitrary limitations such as work hours, location, dress, etc.
The problem with Bill’s hack on Freedom: Personnel must invest their time and energy, after developing the volition, to self-organize, self-drive and be self-accountable. I am sure it will take considerable discipline and this makes it dependent on the top management. A maverick can overturn the apple cart as did happen with HP.
Raj Kumar has understood success and the power of Feedback to deliver it. He has harnessed IT to provide all the organization and discipline needed to drive Feedback! The killer appeal of his work is that the Management need only support Freedom at the outset. The System embeds itself thereafter as it is compelling for the daily work and interaction.
The problem with Raj Kumar’s hack on Compelling Energy for free-flow of Knowledge: While he has successful prototype implementations to prove his science he does not have enterprise scale proof points. It follows he has yet to develop a manual to guide his implementation.
My observation: Raj Kumar's free-flow of Knowledge translates into Bill’s Freedom. Bill is expending great effort to achieve it. Raj Kumar delivers it effortlessly with his compelling energy. Bill’s experience can drive Raj Kumar’s work forward within organizations. Their works are made for each other! The world needs them as of yesterday.
Bill Nobles
Raj Kumar
I pray they will appreciate this is to promote their objectives.
Interesting hack, Rohit and thanks for taking the time to scan my hack! Your comment that “The killer appeal of his (Raj’s) work is that the Management need only support Freedom at the outset. The System embeds itself thereafter as it is compelling for the daily work and interaction.”—sounds very much like what happened in the company I transformed except our “system” was cultural. From my experience people adapt to freedom like ducks to water and never realize they are investing “their time and energy.” “Self-organizing, self-drive, and self-accountability seem like innate human virtues which freedom releases and nutures—and which hierarchical control extinguishes. In addition these provide powerful intrinsic motivation. So once senior management unleashes freedom, their role is to lead, support, help and coach.
I tried to understand Raj’s hack but could not. However I led the IT organization for Exxon Corporation for a decade, so appreciate the value IT can add and also the problems in using it. I found that information flowed freely and knowledge was shared freely and openly—when management created the right freedom-oriented culture. I can envision how IT could facilitate the flow we experienced but quite honestly have a difficult time seeing how IT can become a compelling source of energy.
Regarding your comment about HP, a CEO or Board has the power to undo anything—which Ms. Fiorina did to HP. While I don’t understand Raj’s system I don’t see how it could be implemented without support from top management, and also believe that top management would have the power to shut it down.
Thanks again for reviewing my hack, Bill Nobles
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Hello Rohit,
Did you really understand my Hack or did you just accept it?
Does there have to be a link between understanding and accepting? Were Larry Page and Sergei Brin understood when they got their first infusion?
Questions like these make life fascinating. Will give Bill a few reasons for accepting. It is greater fun living with a possibility than spend life with yesterday.
Thanks for taking the time to build on the possible.
Regards,
Raj Kumar
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Hello Bill,
I think it is more meaningful to respond to your observations here instead of your hack.
Freedom in your work is a way of thinking. This intrinsic nature is both its strength and weakness. An insecure leader can set in motion a change in the way of thinking. It also may not be possible to extend the way to important suppliers and customers.
My breakthrough is a process that rewrites the conventional wisdom that a single process for Knowledge flows is inconceivable. Once the pilot is approved my process for free-flow embeds itself. It is driven by the communication backbone I put in place to replace email over the intranet/extranet. The process rapidly becomes the way of doing things to become culture. Thus the Freedom culture is induced and driven by the infrastructure. To change it the leader/board would have to come together to uproot a successful infrastructure.
I hope to have the opportunity to invite you to Delhi to witness how IT actually drives free-flow and Freedom and that too in Government. I have done it earlier but on a small scale with my prototype. Now I am ready to take on the behemoth.
Regards,
Raj Kumar
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Raj, I am intrigued by your idea but puzzled how you persuade top management to try it--unless they had a freedom-oriented mindset. The hierarchical control managers we experienced viewed information flow on a "need-to-know" basis. Do you have a successful pilot in a high control organization?
By the way we agree fully that freedom in work so far has been intrinsic/intuitive--but feel one key value of our book is to make freedom explicit. By explicitly defining a role model for freedom and equally important the extraordinary benefits freedom produces, the culture has a better chance of surviving a new CEO who will understand explicitly what he/she is iinheriting and the value that culture produces. This is no guarantee against stupid CEO actions--but it should increase the chances for the culture surviving.
Bill
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It makes me happy to respond to your experience. I do not sell Freedom or the death of hierarchy. I treat them as my underlying philosophies, reserved for the mature. I sell what the person across the table desires and understands. It could be trust and teamwork, energizing of latent Collective Ability, creation of Time/Energy, collaboration with feedback, greater exploitation of IT, or Knowledge Application in place of Knowledge Management. In brief, any one or a combination of your twenty Moonshots and more!
I do not have an enterprise scale pilot because I have, after a journey of twenty years post eighteen years of management experience following an MBA and a B.Tech., only recently finished development of the required enterprise scale software. My prototype was proven in 1994. Both my prototype and its migration took time as I had to conceive and design the possible. I was not and am not a software guy.
I hope to embark on a pilot for the Government of India. I cannot think of a more high control organization or an organization more resistant to change. Still, I expect to succeed because my organization structure will map to the existing one. The operations will create family time, reduce anxiety, spread responsibility, improve thinking and encourage the administrators to evolve. My structure will deliver the security the management is comfortable with. The hierarchy can be changed and flattened in minutes.
The core value my work delivers is greater Collective Ability. It is anchored by the coordination my work organizes regardless of chaos. All other factors of Collective Ability like feedback, free-flow, Freedom, decentralization and flattening of the hierarchy are enabled by the architecture and add to the value. The work empowers the management to realize the greater value possible.
I would have liked to pilot first in the corporate world but it is conservative, and looks upon my work as tangential to its core competence. I find this sad because superior Collective Ability raises the calibre of judgments and delivers a powerful competitive advantage.
Your comment raised a question in my mind: Can Freedom be protected by making it explicit? Freedom is a characteristic of the mind. Linking it with speciific effects can be taken out of context to spawn excuses, trip the smart-talk trap and invite cynicism if not misinterpretation. The reality is that finally, in human affairs, politics prevails. The calibre of the “politicians” in pressure situations will decide what values will prevail. Besides, values can be served even by seemingly contrary actions and ruined by "correct" actions. Freedom perhaps is a wisdom and not a regimen.
Regards,
Raj
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Your summary is very precise. Well chosen. I am fascinated by your drawing together of two different philosophies: one of the mind and the other rather worldly. Seen from the perspective of the Management need yours is definitely a unique and a powerful solution. It harnesses technology to drive the intrinsic world! Not easy. As Raj Kumar has noted in his post of September 20, he does not sell Freedom. Up front I think the concept will scare Managements. They need to grow into it by Stages. Bill has the experience to create those Stages. I wish your hack the very best.
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Hello Rohit,
After reading your hack I spent time at Raj's hack. It emerges after you see the exhibits.
There may actually be only an accidental relationship between the hacks of Raj and Bill. They are promoting free-flow for different reasons. Bill has not really linked his work to free-flow. For him Freedom is a mental force to be urged to take over. Raj is driving free-flow to emerge the Reality. The example he has illustrated his hack with shows how the reality takes shape with the flow. For Raj Trust and Teamwork develop because of the emergence of Reality, i.e., the Collective engages in a constructive activity and that promotes Trust. Freedom of the Bill kind would be a consequence I suppose.
I write this cause my last post was a flush of excitement at reading about your intrinsic force. May be I am splitting hairs. It will be good to see both going full speed ahead.
Regards,
Dhiraj
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Dear Rohit,
Your hack focused my mind on Feedback. Failure to assure Feedback is the prime reason for Knowledge Management to fail in delivering its objective of Trust & Teamwork leading to superior performance. I have created a new hack on Feedback at http://www.managementexchange.com/node/10923 titled Achieving the ends of Knowledge with Feedback.
It leverages all my contributions to MIX to make the point that we need to proceed beyond Knowledge Management to the gainful application of Knowledge. Today we take this application for granted when it is the possession of Knowledge that is incidental.
Regards,
Raj Kumar
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