kevin donaldson

A set of brief segments from an McKinsey Interview with behaviorial economist Dan Ariely on the topic of irrationality in the workplace.  My favorite clip from this set is on the topic of 'When to trust your Gut'.  Basically you can trust your gut if with lots of experience AND if you can control all possible influences that might impact the outcome of the decision... his point being - experimentation is the key, and he asks a great question - why don't companies do more experimentation?  We should always be testing leaps of faith.  Organizational agility is the mindset needed to support this type of continuous experimentation.  Agile software shops understand it.  Yes, there are costs to experimentation but the early learnings more than outweigh any of the costs.

Ariely has written a couple of books on irrationality.   One that I have read is Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions -  a really entertaining and worthwhile read. 

A few years back Booze Allen's Strategy+Business(Aug 2006) has a great biographical article about entrepreneur Joi Ito. In this article there was an interesting discussion about how his obsession with World of Warcraft - a MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game), allowed him to experiment with new org design and team management techniques through his WoW guild. This guild was made up of 250 members from all backgrounds from around the globe including a "raid leader" who is an emergency room nurse, and another important player who is an unemployed bartender.

Mr Ito: "I'm playing with all different kinds of management ideas I've had for companies, with a bunch of people who are actually very dedicated. They will set their alarm clocks for 3 a.m. to run a raid of 40 people. They are committed to each other like people in a normal company wouldn't be committed to each other. So as a test bed for these ideas this is actually pretty amazing".

While my wife is against having video games in our home, her view of these is based on what was around when we were kids.  Games have evolved significantly since the days of Donkey Kong and Super Mario.  Many games are  are no longer the mindless couch-surfing, single player games of the late 80's and 90's.  Games now get you moving, and thinking, they can teach strategy, encourage/require collaboration with other real people, and inspire creativity.

Furthermore, the best games win because they figure out how to intrinsically motivate the player to keep playing.  The question is how do they do this, and how can these patterns be used in both business and education more effectively?   Here are two presentations to consider.

The first is a TED talk about 7 ways in which games reward your brain.  (approx 16 min). 

The second is an interactive presentation about Playing to Learn, exploring the role of play in education.

On this blog I talk about topics related to what I feel are the 3 imperatives to managing a modern business

• Organizational agility
• Creativity through intrinsic motivation
• Customer development

What does it mean to be a modern business?  It's a new world out there and It means you deal with the following:

• The term Global can pretty much apply to any company now
• Disruption is happening all around you
• Wicked Problems are common
• Chaotic environments are normal
• The nature of employment is changing
• Intersectional Innovation blurs industry lines traditional business models

Your organization needs to match the relative stability of the environment you operate in.  Change is nothing new.  The Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (535 - 475 BC) said The only Constant is Change.  However what is happening to rock people's worlds is the pace of change. 

This weekend I came across this manifesto in the most recent issue of ChangeThis written by Allan Lewis, Chairman of Grand Circle Corporation, the largest U.S. direct market tour operator of international vacations for older Americans.  This manifesto summarizes Allan's learning's from being in an unstable environment.  It is titled Change is the New Constant.   It speaks to 5 key lessons learned by the organization, which map back very well to 2 of the 3 imperatives I list above (organizational agility, creativity through intrinsic motivation):

1. Flexibility trumps Efficiency

• efficiency-focused models are focused on managing predictable environments.  Over time, the relentless pursuit of efficiency will cut out the capabilities needed to respond to the unpredictable.  (see related post: Is Agile/Scrum the Process Mgmt Framework for the Creative Economy)

2. Mission and Vision creates Inspiration

• For a company to be adaptable and flexible, its associates must understand and be committed to its mission and vision. To achieve that commitment requires a compelling mission and vision; people will not commit emotionally to a mission that is only about achieving greater profit or growing sales.

3. Values, not Structures, drive effective organizations

• In uncertain environments, decisions are guided by values, not structures. If those values are not in place the wrong decisions will be made.

4. Investments in People and Learning create Advantage

• Structures and systems cannot adapt rapidly enough to unpredictable events. People can. Effective investment in people can create huge leverage and competitive advantages. In changing times investments in developing people are the most valuable.

5. Relentless measurement of Excellence is essential

• If you have a vision and mission you believe in, you must evaluate your people against them all the time, no matter how much you admire their energy or reputation, and no matter how much money they are bringing in. If you don’t, you will live to regret it.

It's worth the 20 minute read!

In the industrial economy, you came home at the end of the day physically exhausted.  In the creative economy you come home mentally exhausted.  Just like any other muscle your brain gets tired and loses its ability to perform.  What you want to find it the point of optimal performance and not just output but that point where mental stimulation creates optimal creativity.

The first thing you need to do is find work that you find mentally stimulating.  This isn't as hard as you might think.  If it is hard for you I suggest you read Linchpin.  Then, supported by intrinsic motivational factors (autonomy mastery and purpose) you will be able to push the curve up.  Of course it's hard to know where the top of the curve is, and it changes based on other outside factors, but being conscious about your objective of moving the curve up is the first step to making it happen.  Also, remember that not all of the stimulation needs to come from work activities. 

A second factor to consider is a dimension that is not really shown on this graph: time.  Be aware of how time factors into this equation for you.  Although everyone is different, you will likely find that the creativity/stimulation peak will likely occur at less than a standard 40 hour work week.  This inflection point will likely be quick and steep on the opposite side.  While many people will push themselves well beyond the peak, most will admit that creativity is the first to fall, followed by productivity.  It's not unlike other complex systems.  Core functions will continue but higher level functions shut down when the batteries run low.

There are however, ways to play with this equation.  Hours of sleep, increasing or decreasing the diversity of mental stimulation, exercise etc, but as with most theoretical curves, the most important part is the mental model and how it helps guide your behavior.

Education and innovative learning models are an area of passion for me.  It didn't used to be, but now having 3 young kids - I feel very strongly about ensuring that they will be ready for a lifetime of learning and the fun that comes along with it.  Our current mainstream school system is antiquated and like many other industries are cracking and primed for disruption.  If it wasn't a public sector/public funded system it would likely already look similar to the recording industry, but you can see many signs of disruption: charter schools, home schooling, alternative education systems (online high schools etc).    None of these are perfect, but it's like any market - things don't change overnight and it will take time as new models evolve.  If this is interesting to you, here are some resources to get you fired up and thinking about possibilities:

• Sir Ken Robinson - Do Schools Kill Creativity (TED 2006)
• Sir Ken's follow up from TED 2010 - Bring on the Learning Revolution
  

Some books I have read that hit on the topic of learning & education evolution

• Sir Ken's book - The Element (2009) which has some great chapters on the topic of innovation in education
• Talent is Overrated - G. Colvin (2008)
• Revolutionary Wealth A,H Tofler (2006)
• Linchpin - Seth Godin (2010)
• Rich Kid, Smart Kid - Kiyosaki (2001)
• Drive - D. Pink (2009)

Plus there seems to be an uptick in the number of people blogging some great ideas in this space.  See this post I just read by Dave Troy entitled "Will that be on the Test'.  Are there other insightful clips,books, blog posts that you would recommend?

I recently presented my thoughts on the 3 imperatives to a modern business:

1. Customer Development (WHO)
2. Intrinsic Motivation (WHY)
3. Organizational Agility (HOW)

These 3 elements act as a foundation for the 'WHAT' of your organization.  Your product, your service, whatever it is you deliver to your customers.  Interestingly I just came across (via Brad Feld) a great TEDx-Puget Sound talk by Simon Sinek that meshes very well with my ideas on this:

Simons excellently crafted talk focuses on the fact that WHY a company does what it does is more important than HOW they do it, which is in turn more important than WHAT they are producing.  He argues very convincingly that companies that focus more on the WHY rather than WHAT are more successful.  I think this fits in well with the model I have been working on, and has given me a new and different perspective to aid my thinking.  I wonder how organizations will start to shift as this type of thinking becomes more prevalent.  

Here are the slides from a presentation I gave last night to an MBA class at George Fox University.  I presented what I feel are the 3 imperatives for managing a modern business:

In my last post I referred to an excellent book by Dan Pink called Drive that talks about new science/thinking on the concept of motivation. Here is a fantasic audio visual exec summary of the concepts in 10 minutes:

In Dan Pink's Book 'Drive' he focuses on the three keys to motivating people in today's society which he refers to motivation 3.0:

• Autonomy – Give people autonomy to do what they want (task); when they want to do it (time); in a way they want to do it (technique); and to collaborate with whom they want (team)
• Mastery – the urge to get better and better at something that matters
• Purpose – the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

He points to many examples of moving people over to what he calles Type-I (Intrinsic) behavior including Googles 20 % program where engineering team members can spend 20% of their time on their own projects.  He also points out Atlassians Fed Ex Days where teams get together for one full day to bang out a new widget (fed ex = overnight delivery) to support intrinsic behavior in the office. (Generically referred to as hackathons)   However, these Type-I of events are not just limited to the workplace - informal self organizing hackathons are starting to become common in local developer communities.  There are even more formalized events such as Startup Weekend that are becoming hugely successful based on the same basic principals listed above. 

However i got to thinking that while there are some great example in the world of software this isn't the only place where Type-I events can be found that support autonomy, mastery and purpose.  For instance take the upcoming, 7th annual i48 event being held in Idaho.  i48 (modeled after a similar even held in Washington DC) is an event where teams of filmmakers from around Idaho will have 48 hours to write, pre-produce, cast, shoot, and edit, an original short film four to seven minutes long - essentially a hackathon for those interested in acting, film, and art.  Like startup weekend, these events can be amazing opportunities to cross pollinate with diverse individuals around a common purpose.   This has got me thinking that there are probably many examples of Type-I events are out there that support these motivational objectives.  What are some examples you know of?