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The art and science of the possible

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The art and science of the possible

Tag Archives: culture

How subtle is the psychology of communication

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in business, Communication, complexity, consulting, human capital, learning, Organizational Development, society

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Coercion, Communication, Complex Adaptive Systems, complexity, culture, Cynefin, Dave Snowden, Human Behavior, Language, Leadership, Psychology, Resonance, SenseMaker, Slogans

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I ran into this blog by Dave Snowden and I was absolutely impressed with the insights he introduces on communication being a double edged sword: illuminating on one hand, or having the potential to be used to coerce. He proposes that context-devoid slogans found on corporate posters and value statements don’t serve any educational or inspirational purpose, and rather quite the opposite: they often become tools for coercion driving a compliance organizational culture.

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Can we stop already with management by popular opinion?

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in management, society

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

business, Celebrity, culture, Hollywood, Leadership, Marissa, Mayer

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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.

The buzzword culture or how our confusion remains constant relative to progress

17 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in complexity, society, technology

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Tags

culture, problem solving, Society, Technology

buzzwords

Recently a Washington Post article explored the proliferation of obfuscatory language in our culture (see http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-06/lifestyle/37026527_1_initiatives-internet-web-site). An excerpt follows below:

“Before the Internet, obfuscatory language was mostly limited to the small world of the interoffice memo, where everyone conspired to be as vague and process-driven as possible — promising nothing concrete while sounding businesslike. Today, however, terms such as “optimize,” “prioritize,” “initiative,” “parameter,” “implement” and “effectuate” have become common parlance on the Web, used unabashedly in endlessly intriguing combinations. There are hundreds of instances of “prioritize the implementation of,” “implement the prioritization of,” “effectuate the implementation of,” etc. The expression “implementation of prioritized initiatives” alone appears on the Internet 2,100 times, more often than some of Pablo Neruda’s lesser-known love poems.”

I would single out as the biggest culprits in promoting useless jargon the big consulting companies and business schools. The big consulting houses sell in theory the same services but try to contrast and compare their offerings and you can get easily lost in a myriad of catch-phrases.

Alongside the business Illuminati, the IT revolution also resulted in an endless list of buzzwords to describe what is essentially “process efficiency”. It’s really funny when IT is sold as a capability to drive strategy, and in general to support or even replace highly creative activities that only humans can perform.

Which brings me to my law of the constancy of the human predicament: as more technology and know-how becomes available, we manage to somehow stay ahead of the simplicity curve so our confusion remains constant relative to progress. And that means there will always be prophets and oracles, i.e. consultants in modern day parlance, as a natural extension of our emotional self.

Everything has changed and nothing’s changed.

So if we were to eliminate all the buzzwords that the consulting and IT industries continue to produce, what would be left? I would venture to say: “problem solving common sense”. As long as there are humans, there will always be problems, and common sense will always be in short supply. Which explains why buzzwords will also always be around: to compensate for the lack of common sense, for which the demand is and will remain bigger than the supply.

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

27 Saturday Oct 2012

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

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Tags

business, business strategy, culture, personal success

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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.

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