Tag Archives: business

Can we stop already with management by popular opinion?

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in management, society

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Let me start by asking: aren’t you tired already of seeing Marissa Mayer’s face on every online media channel every single day? Since when did management become a popularity contest in the court of public opinion? Do we all have nothing better to do? It seems to me we are slowly transforming the profession of management into a circus, complete with soap drama. If we are looking for role models, I would say we are looking in the wrong place. We have a new breed of executives, namely the “celebrity” CEO. I am sure she is a good human being and of above average competence and intelligence, but to me a role model has to have done significantly more than taken full advantage of the opportunity of being at the right place at the right time. Role models to me have to somehow embody that Greek tragedy hero quality of fall from grace and resurrection.

Now management is an endeavor that aims for long term results. Results speak louder than words, and long term means that an observer shouldn’t judge one micro-decision at a time. So if I were Marissa, I would respectfully ask everyone to please abstain from having an opinion about the duration of my lunch, or my working hours, or other similar triviality. But to me she appears to at least partly enjoy the attention. CEOs are not alone in the quest for “celebrity”. CNN anchors and many others are helping to spread the Hollywood phenomenon outside of the entertainment industry.

Counter-intuitive management tips: excessive transparency can lead to anarchy

02 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in management, Organizational Development

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The brain is a problem solving device. It is in a constant pattern search, even when there are no patterns to be found. This reality has a heritage in survival anthropology: the fight or flee decision had to be computed even with incomplete information. Waiting for all information to be available could be fatal (by the time one of our ancestors would pause to carefully analyze whether a moving bush meant there was a tiger behind it would have been too late). And so the brain, if it has to, will make up fictitious information to fit a pattern.

But this ability presents an inherent risk: we all have the potential to reach incorrect conclusions by forcing the wrong pattern to a situation we don’t understand. The leap from conclusion to strong opinion is effortless, as is attaching emotional value to a certain opinion. And with strong opinions comes the potential for questioning authority. Want proof? Consider how often you hear the conspiracy theory. What is the conspiracy theory if not a pattern that provides a simple way out for complex situations which are beyond the ability of simple comprehension?

So what does this have to do with management, transparency and anarchy? Well transparency is seen as a key ingredient of enlightened modern leadership. But consider this; the leader has an additional ability for perspective, which is why he or she is the leader in the first place. Call it a more powerful pattern fitting ability. And so, if the leader shared all the information he is exposed to with his subordinates in an effort to build consensus and rally the team around a purpose, the opposite may happen. That is because, given access to the same information the team is likely to fit simpler patterns to a given situation. And regarded from a simpler perspective, the leader’s actions won’t make sense. Questioning the leader is only a step away, and anarchy is always close by. Consensus may indeed be reached, against the leader’s authority.

And so, the solution? Give people an inspiring vision and share with them enough so they can do their jobs effectively in support of the vision.

The insights presented have to be of course tailored to the situation at hand. Office situations are seldom heated enough to qualify for the “anarchy” appellation. Also, in organizations where politics trumps competence, leaders are often less competent in perspective than their subordinates. In other words an incompetent leader may give the team good reason to question his or her decisions.

The generalized fingerprints of profound value: simple terms, logical clarity and tacit mechanics

16 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by in business, Communication, Investment, knowledge, society

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I’ve often wondered whether there is a way to discern value in a piece of writing, without being a specialist in the particular domain. This is a pertinent issue as the proliferation of social media has exponentially increased not just the amount of specialized writing, but the preference for short and succinct writing. And as “more” is not necessarily “better”, it would be useful to have a way to gauge whether our highly technologized world is more value-full in terms of communicating meaning.

I propose that the generalized fingerprints of value can be detected by the non-specialist possessing the right lens.

Simplicity and clarity are two unmistakable signs of intelligence. No matter how complex the subject introduced, an intelligent specialist will reduce it to simple, generalized explanations. And the logical clarity of the message “architecture” will reinforce the simplicity of the content.

Still, simplicity and logical clarity are a necessary sign of intelligent writer but not sufficient to prove the value of the message itself. Another ingredient is needed, which I tentatively term “tacit mechanics”.

The best illustration of the tacit mechanics feature is a concrete example.

Stephen Kann’s “Microcap Investment Strategies” blog article is a brief overview in simple terms and clear logic of the microcap investment algorithm. I propose this article is a value-full piece of writing based on the simplicity-clarity-tacit mechanics logical construct.

In this particular case, simplicity and clarity alone demonstrate an astute writer. But there is more to this article than coherence; there are the fingerprints of fundamental value.

Stephen references in this blog two flavors of tacit mechanics associated with microcap investment that demonstrate a profound  and value-full understanding of the topic: “information arbitrage” and “inflection points”.

Information arbitrage for microcap investment can be related to a universal mechanics of commercial operations: success of any commercial operation is dependent on exploiting physical, or in this case informational market differentials.

Inflection points also are a proxy for an appreciation of the non-linear business growth process that is particular of smaller enterprises, and the dynamics of which cannot always be derived from historical performance and statistical trends. The dynamics implied in Stephen’s inflection points are in fact aligned with the latest management and business strategy thinking that embraces complexity science and system-theoretic principles, which go much beyond standard economic and financial modeling.

The reference to the article follows:

http://microcapminute.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/microcap-investment-strategies/

Manifesto against the “5 steps to [topic of your choice]” recipe to success

27 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by in business, Communication, consulting, human capital, Organizational Development, problem solving, society

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Let me start with a telling quote from Russell Ackoff: “the appeal of gurus lies to a large extent in the simplicity of the doctrines they put forth. They are simple no matter how complex the problems at which they are directed. They provide a life raft to those who are incapable of handling complexity.”

In today’s fast paced life, the “5 steps to…” recipe for success is pervasive. This type of headline template dominates both mass media and social media.

I will pick just one of the many examples to make a quick argument for the “5 steps to…” template being intellectual noise at best, and dangerous advice to follow at worst. One of the newly minted “thought leaders” on the LinkedIn social network recently posted the 6 lessons he lives by. Number one on his list is: “surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and move out of their way”. My assertion is that this basically tells us nothing. It is an incomplete statement devoid of context. It sounds great but doesn’t provide any meaningful path to wisdom.

I picked this one example because I usually take issue with the “people smarter than you” leadership anecdote. It’s insufficient in that it doesn’t tell what the leadership still adds to the mix. Your employees can be “smarter than you” in terms of information, knowledge, and even understanding. The leader still has to supply the wisdom, which is synthesized knowledge and understanding, and it is future oriented. Russell Ackoff proposes a clear hierarchy of mental content value going from data to information to knowledge to understanding and finally to wisdom, which is the hardest to acquire in life. These simple classifications of reality that start with “5 simple ways to…”, “the ten traits of…” and so forth are counterproductive to understanding the full beauty and complexity of life. In Ackoff’s words, they provide a false life raft. The modern world, not unlike the ancient world, is full of false prophets. The problem of calling their bluff remains.

Russell Ackoff: the Albert Einstein of Management

24 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in consulting, knowledge, learning, management, problem solving, strategy

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Russell Ackoff is likely the Albert Einstein of management. The reasoning is this: he created what is in essence a Generalized Ontology of Problem Solving just as Einstein created the Generalized Theory of Relativity.

By comparison,  most management gurus, consulting principals and executives only master a special case problem solving heuristic. Lower level managers and consultants are only able to reproduce a priori defined special case problem solving algorithms.

Professor John Geto of Krasnow Institute of Advanced Study cautions that without an ontology we are liable to continually reinvent new terms for existing knowledge, making it difficult to achieve a strong foundation on which to build. Management in general and management consulting in particular can in large part be paraphrased as problem solving common sense; yet, the generalized problem solving ontology carefully crafted by the genius of Ackoff has not been widely adopted. In a hierarchy management masters Ackoff’s generalized and universal thinking pedestal is permanent and situated on significantly higher ground than the altars at which most of us currently worship: innovation and Clayton Christiansen, Design Thinking and Roger Martin, Gary Hamel and Management 2.0, etc.

As in the popular “Matrix” movies, Ackoff is “the one”. But, it appears we may need a Morpheus character like advocate within the management discipline. And we need to overcome our latest infatuation with progress only possible in teams; the Theory of General Relativity could not have been a crowd sourced innovation on Facebook. Sometimes it takes “the one”.