It is clear that what organizations now do and deliver are wanting.
They ignore the new realities we now face, and continuing to do so will serve no one well. If we are ever going to transform business and the way we do our work, we now have a rare opportunity; a crisis is indeed a terrible thing to waste.
To get viable transformation, we have to rethink some core drivers that might have served us in the past but if continued will likely continue to become the seeds of our destruction. Among the traditional myths under which many of us labor are
(1) the organizations with which we work are organized appropriately,
(2) the tools for organizational and performance improvement will work well if we only apply them correctly where we are asked to work, and
(3) what business does and delivers is useful for all citizens of today and tomorrow.
These will not work.
It is time to transform ourselves and our organizations and turn away from these myths to create today’s business so it will create our future legacy; to create a successful tomorrow.
Are we headed in the right direction for organizational success?
Can and should we change?
Economic hard times ebb and flow but are now flowing into what we call a crisis.
We can choose to fail or we can take the opportunity to transform ourselves and those with whom we work.
The reality is that the world has changed dramatically—a paradigm shift, or a “sea change”—and what we have always done, no matter how good we are at doing that, will no longer suffice. We have to look to new and responsive ways of thinking, doing, and contributing.
Business reality is not divided into work units, sections, departments, divisions, or markets, and these silos must not limit the contributions that can be made by performance improvement specialists.
Our fragmented performance and performance improvement efforts and tools are based on the myth of the primacy of individual performance and performers.
And our organizational objectives are largely based on expert opinion and not upon what data demonstrate is required to contribute and survive.
We do not routinely link and align what we use, do, produce, and deliver with the added measurable value to all, including society. Thus, our business objectives are suspect.
Transformation, Not Just Change Shift happens, and change happens.
The choice is to be the master of change or the victim of it.
Conner suggests that only crisis—he uses the analogy of standing on a burning oil platform in the North Sea with no hope of rescue—will make people change. And we currently have something akin to our standing on a burning oil platform and realizing that the normal solutions, including our favorite approaches, just will not work.
What is called for is nothing less than transformation, a dramatic shift from ordinary change and business as usual.
This is not the usual “change” that is trumpeted by management experts and offered in the literature and in workshops; it is not just tinkering with the status quo.
Some Concepts and Tools for Transformation
One model for dealing with transformation demanded by new realities I term Mega planning.
It urges that everything any organization uses, does, develops, and delivers is based on adding measurable value to and for external clients and society.
This is quite different from the conventional and widely applied models of strategic planning where the primary client and beneficiary is the organization itself.
In addition, most conventional planning models, at best, look to outside of themselves and do environmental scanning and shape their business to be responsive to sensed external realities so they can do a better job of selling—a reactive process that assumes that one’s organization is viable and one only has to find reactive ways to make all work cheaper, faster, and better to justify itself to external funding and look good to current or potential clients.
This alone is not sufficient in and of itself. In organizational transformation, one does not only react to current realities but seeks to create new initiatives and even unique organizations to add value in the new realities.
One must justify his or her organization in terms of creating the future, not simply reacting to it.
Based on a societal needs assessment—gaps between current and desired results and consequences in terms of the survival, self-sufficiency, and quality of life of all people—the organization can identify needs (not wants) that should and could be met.
And these data might even guide dramatic change of the mission of the organization or even close it down or replace it if it does not add any societal value. Mega planning can be both market creating as well as market responsive; both proactive and reactive.
This aspect, which differentiates it from conventional approaches, is ideal for creating success in crisis conditions.
Rejecting Failure: Some Guidelines Rethink and reject obsolete paradigms.
Realize that what worked yesterday may not continue to work in the future.
Do not assume that current problems are linear and logical extensions of what we have experienced in the past and attempt to apply the concepts, tools, and models that have worked for us before.
Do not get lulled into using the conventional methods of “strategic” planning.
Use a holistic paradigm for thinking, planning, and doing where the primary client of your and any organization is tomorrow’s child and citizen.
See your organization as a means to productive societal ends; Mega thinking and planning.
As Dale Brethower notes “either you are adding value to society or you are subtracting value.”
Additional support for a Mega focus is from Ian Davis, international practice director of McKinsey & Co., in his call for a core strategic planning focus on societal value-added for any organization as vital; at the nucleus of strategic thinking and not something at the margins.
When we do not focus on measurable societal value-added, we get the crises that swirl around us today.
Where is the societal value-added—Mega thinking and planning—primary concern in federal, state, and local legislation and oversight for the last several decades?
Where is Mega in the objectives and performance criteria for today’s public and private business organizations?
Do not throw out your competence in “standard” human performance technology (HPT) but apply it if, and only if, you have validated that the tools and concepts will add value to the entire organization.
But do not start with them, but prove their usefulness in terms of external and internal value-added. (ISPI calls this the RSVP—results, system thinking, adding value, and partnering. This suggested transformation approach will first validate any applications of HPT tools and approaches.)
Do not assume that since you work at a level below the corporate level that you cannot get change or even listened to.
As Don Tosti notes, what we know how to do is “scalable” and can be generalized to help the decision makers ask and answer the “right questions.”
Show them how linking everything to Mega results and payoffs is both practical and ethical. R
Resist being limited by the conventional business case model. One current weakness in conventional business case frameworks is that they just include the conventional bottom line.
For rational and ethics reasons, that defies rationality is why we don’t, in everything we do, whether we are at the top of an organization or just one of the staff, additionally include external and societal value added.
It can be done, it is being done, and the data support the viability of doing so as provided by Bernardez (2009) in his double bottom-line business case, which uses a conventional bottom line as well as a primary societal value-added bottom line.
Reexamining Our Conventional Ways of Thinking About and Designing Business
Below are some “conventional wisdom” ways in which we plan and deliver business and a comparison for each in terms of what transformation will embrace and allow for future success.
Antidotes to Failure—Embracing Transformation
They ignore the new realities we now face, and continuing to do so will serve no one well. If we are ever going to transform business and the way we do our work, we now have a rare opportunity; a crisis is indeed a terrible thing to waste.
To get viable transformation, we have to rethink some core drivers that might have served us in the past but if continued will likely continue to become the seeds of our destruction. Among the traditional myths under which many of us labor are
(1) the organizations with which we work are organized appropriately,
(2) the tools for organizational and performance improvement will work well if we only apply them correctly where we are asked to work, and
(3) what business does and delivers is useful for all citizens of today and tomorrow.
These will not work.
It is time to transform ourselves and our organizations and turn away from these myths to create today’s business so it will create our future legacy; to create a successful tomorrow.
Are we headed in the right direction for organizational success?
Can and should we change?
Economic hard times ebb and flow but are now flowing into what we call a crisis.
We can choose to fail or we can take the opportunity to transform ourselves and those with whom we work.
The reality is that the world has changed dramatically—a paradigm shift, or a “sea change”—and what we have always done, no matter how good we are at doing that, will no longer suffice. We have to look to new and responsive ways of thinking, doing, and contributing.
Business reality is not divided into work units, sections, departments, divisions, or markets, and these silos must not limit the contributions that can be made by performance improvement specialists.
Our fragmented performance and performance improvement efforts and tools are based on the myth of the primacy of individual performance and performers.
And our organizational objectives are largely based on expert opinion and not upon what data demonstrate is required to contribute and survive.
We do not routinely link and align what we use, do, produce, and deliver with the added measurable value to all, including society. Thus, our business objectives are suspect.
Transformation, Not Just Change Shift happens, and change happens.
The choice is to be the master of change or the victim of it.
Conner suggests that only crisis—he uses the analogy of standing on a burning oil platform in the North Sea with no hope of rescue—will make people change. And we currently have something akin to our standing on a burning oil platform and realizing that the normal solutions, including our favorite approaches, just will not work.
What is called for is nothing less than transformation, a dramatic shift from ordinary change and business as usual.
This is not the usual “change” that is trumpeted by management experts and offered in the literature and in workshops; it is not just tinkering with the status quo.
Some Concepts and Tools for Transformation
One model for dealing with transformation demanded by new realities I term Mega planning.
It urges that everything any organization uses, does, develops, and delivers is based on adding measurable value to and for external clients and society.
This is quite different from the conventional and widely applied models of strategic planning where the primary client and beneficiary is the organization itself.
In addition, most conventional planning models, at best, look to outside of themselves and do environmental scanning and shape their business to be responsive to sensed external realities so they can do a better job of selling—a reactive process that assumes that one’s organization is viable and one only has to find reactive ways to make all work cheaper, faster, and better to justify itself to external funding and look good to current or potential clients.
This alone is not sufficient in and of itself. In organizational transformation, one does not only react to current realities but seeks to create new initiatives and even unique organizations to add value in the new realities.
One must justify his or her organization in terms of creating the future, not simply reacting to it.
Based on a societal needs assessment—gaps between current and desired results and consequences in terms of the survival, self-sufficiency, and quality of life of all people—the organization can identify needs (not wants) that should and could be met.
And these data might even guide dramatic change of the mission of the organization or even close it down or replace it if it does not add any societal value. Mega planning can be both market creating as well as market responsive; both proactive and reactive.
This aspect, which differentiates it from conventional approaches, is ideal for creating success in crisis conditions.
Rejecting Failure: Some Guidelines Rethink and reject obsolete paradigms.
Realize that what worked yesterday may not continue to work in the future.
Do not assume that current problems are linear and logical extensions of what we have experienced in the past and attempt to apply the concepts, tools, and models that have worked for us before.
Do not get lulled into using the conventional methods of “strategic” planning.
Use a holistic paradigm for thinking, planning, and doing where the primary client of your and any organization is tomorrow’s child and citizen.
See your organization as a means to productive societal ends; Mega thinking and planning.
As Dale Brethower notes “either you are adding value to society or you are subtracting value.”
Additional support for a Mega focus is from Ian Davis, international practice director of McKinsey & Co., in his call for a core strategic planning focus on societal value-added for any organization as vital; at the nucleus of strategic thinking and not something at the margins.
When we do not focus on measurable societal value-added, we get the crises that swirl around us today.
Where is the societal value-added—Mega thinking and planning—primary concern in federal, state, and local legislation and oversight for the last several decades?
Where is Mega in the objectives and performance criteria for today’s public and private business organizations?
Do not throw out your competence in “standard” human performance technology (HPT) but apply it if, and only if, you have validated that the tools and concepts will add value to the entire organization.
But do not start with them, but prove their usefulness in terms of external and internal value-added. (ISPI calls this the RSVP—results, system thinking, adding value, and partnering. This suggested transformation approach will first validate any applications of HPT tools and approaches.)
Do not assume that since you work at a level below the corporate level that you cannot get change or even listened to.
As Don Tosti notes, what we know how to do is “scalable” and can be generalized to help the decision makers ask and answer the “right questions.”
Show them how linking everything to Mega results and payoffs is both practical and ethical. R
Resist being limited by the conventional business case model. One current weakness in conventional business case frameworks is that they just include the conventional bottom line.
For rational and ethics reasons, that defies rationality is why we don’t, in everything we do, whether we are at the top of an organization or just one of the staff, additionally include external and societal value added.
It can be done, it is being done, and the data support the viability of doing so as provided by Bernardez (2009) in his double bottom-line business case, which uses a conventional bottom line as well as a primary societal value-added bottom line.
Reexamining Our Conventional Ways of Thinking About and Designing Business
Below are some “conventional wisdom” ways in which we plan and deliver business and a comparison for each in terms of what transformation will embrace and allow for future success.
Antidotes to Failure—Embracing Transformation Enabled by Crises The Chinese have been at this civilization business for a long time. And they have the wisdom to show for it. Their symbol for “crisis” combines “fear” and “opportunity.” At, at the same time that everyone else is retreating into failure modes, opportunities exist. Do not waste the current crisis.
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Key Readings
- Bernardez, M. (April-May, 2009). Sailing the winds of “creative destruction”: Educational technology during economic downturns. Educational Technology,
- Drucker, P.F. (1990). The new realities: In government and politics/in economics and business/in society and world view. New York: Harper & Row.
- Kaufman, R. (2006). Change, choices, and consequences: A guide to mega thinking and planning. Amherst, MA: HRD Press Inc.
- Kaufman, R., & Guerra-Lopez, I. (2008). The assessment book: Applied strategic thinking and performance improvement through self-assessments. Amherst, MA. HRD Press Inc.
- Schumpeter, J. A. (1975). Capitalism, socialism, and democracy. New York: Harper & Row.
- Also see McCraw, T.K. (2007). Prophet of innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and creative destruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press.
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2 comments:
What´s the diference between Apollo 11 and the Titanic?
First, there are two means of transport that their goal was to reach a place safeguarding the lives of these people.
When creating, designing or transform an organization, it is important to keep in mind that a poor design, a miscalculation, bad decisions of the management team or board adviser to reach a tragedy. Megaplaning assumes that the positive social impact in organizations both profit and nonprofit generate a benefit for a socially responsible future, with an ideal vision.
ISPI doctorate in the Faculty at ITSON whith Roger Kaufman Phd, Mariano Bernardez Phd, Ingrid Guerra Phd, Dale Brethawer Phd, I learned the difference between titanic and apollo 11 in the organizations.
Truth be told, the Titanic had external events affecting their ability to reach its goal, the Apollo 11 mission had various external effects that could have impaired its ability to reach the moon and yet the mission was accomplished.
Why some organizations are aware that bad for an uncertain economic environment that surrounds them decide to behave like the titanic?
Other organizations such as Google, which behave like the space mission "Apollo 11"
From the perspective of a PhD student, everything focuses on 2 human emotions, pride and humility:
The arrogance of the Titanic as it was a frase "God can not kill it"
The humility of teamwork in achieving the goals as a very risky mission, with an impressive intellectual capital,human capital, which concluded successfully in place in the history of mankind as a sentence: "It's a small step for man, but one giant leap for mankind "
Our thinking is.... Would you like to be in the Titanic? Or Be a part of the apollo 11 space mission ?
Atte.
Tony :=)
Great analogy, Antonio. Implementing the vision requires to keep our eyes opened to make sure we can detect icebergs and obstacles in the way of our dreams.
And changing course requires certainly keeping in mind that errors and failure -think of Apollo 13- must be factored out and dealt with open minds and teamwork.
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