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The art and science of the possible

~ A celebration of non-zero sum thinking

The art and science of the possible

Tag Archives: Innovation

What does an “innovation economy” really mean?

22 Friday May 2015

Posted by lnedelescu in human capital, innovation, management, Organizational Development, society

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Agile, Economy, Independent judgement, Innovation, Knowledge Economy, Knowledge worker

Prosperity

We have entered the knowledge economy, but are only dismally realizing its tremendous potential for accelerating human progress and prosperity. While we acknowledge human talent as the chief resource of the 21st century, we fail to utilize the creative potential for a majority of the workforce. In fact, the portion of the employed workforce which utilizes independent judgement has remained stagnant for decades [see Nilofer Merchant]. Regarded from this angle, our state of the art economy is only marginally efficient at turning knowledge into innovation.  Progress is only achieved painstakingly and convolutedly. The lost opportunity cost is tremendous [see David Nordfords].

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Leadership: between passion and lunacy

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by lnedelescu in business, innovation, management, Organizational Development

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Innovation, Leadership, Psychology, Risk

harlequin

I just came across an interesting article from CNN Money on the story of Microsoft’s Surface product line. Apparently somewhere along the path to the success that the Surface Pro 3 has turned out to be, Microsoft lost lots of money on intermediary product versions. Particularly, they were left with $1 billion worth of Surface 2 inventory. Microsoft never wavered in their support for the guy behind the Surface line, Panos Panay. That my friends, is the essence of leadership. You ain’t a leader until passion has gotten you in a position where you’ve either questioned your own sanity or been suspected of lunacy by others.

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Facebook vs. Nicolay Kardashev: the sustainable economic growth argument

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by lnedelescu in business, capitalism, democracy, future, human capital, innovation, Investment, science, society, technology

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capital, Clay Christensen, Cosmos, economic growth, Facebook, Innovation, Investment, Kardashev's scale, Knowledge, Prosperity, social networking, Unknowns, Zuckerberg

Image

I’ve often wondered whether social networking companies like Facebook qualify as innovations driving sustainable economic growth, i.e. fueling human prosperity.

As more of the world’s discretionary capital (equity, venture, etc.) is sunk into social technologies we should I think explore the link between virtual technologies facilitating human connectivity (i.e. social media) and vibrant economies conducent to democratic political systems, invention and human prosperity.

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A consulting industry first: strategy architected around complexity principles

25 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by lnedelescu in complexity, consulting, design thinking, innovation, knowledge, management, problem solving, strategy

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Alignment, complexity, Criteria, Innovation, Performance, Peter Drucker, phase transitions, Portfolio, Qualitative Leaps, Quantitative, strategy

Image

When people ask me what it is that I do, they often act surprised and sometimes suspicious upon hearing my answer: “I solve wicked problems with undefined parameters”; yes, really.

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Current HR practices killing innovation – an update

10 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in business, human capital, innovation

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HR, human capital, Innovation, Mavericks, Reliability bias, Risk

Image

About a month ago I argued in one of my blog entries that current HR practices’ bias towards reliability is killing innovation. This is a short update to provide further supporting evidence.

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Post-causality: a quiet global revolution in the making

05 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in business, capitalism, complexity, consulting, democracy, future, human capital, innovation, knowledge, management, philosophy, problem solving, society, taxonomy, technology

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Big Data, business, Categorization, causality, Cause and Effect, complexity, creativity, Cynefin, Daniel Pink, Dave Snowden, Drucker, Drucker Forum, Emergence, future, Imagination, Innovation, Knowledge, management, Methods, models, Motivation, Peter Checkland, Resilience, Revolution, Roger Martin, Russell Ackoff, Safety, Sense Making, Social Systems, Society

http://p.soledadpenades.com

If one were to cut a global cross-section through social classes, nationalities, ethnicities, ages, professions, genders, and so forth, very few commonalities would emerge. And yet, there is I propose just such a common thread: a shared causality mindset, a globally predominant belief in the supremacy of cause and effect.

Since it is people who run our institutions, this belief continues to shape our modern society and even influence to a large extent the technological outcrops of our knowledge economy. From business strategy to macroeconomic models, and from political debates to Big Data, causality is pervasive and its implications profound.

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The irony of supply and demand in emerging economies as seen through the eyes of design thinking

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in business, design thinking, Emerging Markets, human capital, society

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Abductive Reasoning, Absurdity, Advanced Economies, Centralized Economies, Centralized Planning, Design Thinking, Emerging Markets, Globalization, Ilf and Petrov, Information Technology, Innovation, Multinationals, Roger Martin, Supply-Demand, Validity Thinking

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Many of the countries now part of the emerging economies club can trace their recent history to totalitarian regimes and centralized economies. What centralized political and economic paradigms have proven to have in common is a proliferation of material shortages coupled with propaganda driven, unrealistic plans. And so, under such regimes, populations found creative ways to adapt by learning to by-pass absurd rules and plans and to find ways of obtaining much needed resources outside of official distribution channels.

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It all depends: the art of problem solving

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in consulting, design thinking, innovation, knowledge, learning, paradox, problem solving

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Chaos, complexity, Consulting, Dave Snowden, Disruption, Entrepreneurship, Globalization, Innovation, Intractable Problems, Introspection, Knowledge, Learning, Methodology, Open Mind, Relativity, Risk, Roger Martin, Russell Ackoff, Self-Awareness, Wicked Problems

It all Depends

Over the last decade, I’ve lived globalization, entrepreneurship, change and crisis, complexity and chaos. I must have run into at least a dozen intractable, impossible, show-stopper, nerve-racking, all-or-nothing situations and at least several orders higher magnitude wicked problems. I also ran into the entire spectrum of human behavior, what the Clint Eastwood character would call the “good, the bad, and the ugly” (I would actually add the “irrational”).

About five years ago I also started an in depth study of the cutting edge thinking related to complexity and disorder. Finally I also studied and noted my own behaviors and responses in such circumstances; like Hansel and Gretel I traced my steps into the wilderness in case I ever had to find my way back. This ability to not only act but rationalize the act has served me well, substantially increasing my awareness and lowering my stress when faced with the new and unfamiliar. It has also resulted in a problem solving and sense-making body of work which I think rivals the best of what’s available on the market. I have yet to capitalize on all this, but I have learned to be patient.

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A visualization of “discontinuous evolution”

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in complexity, design thinking, knowledge, management, Organizational Development, problem solving

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complexity, Discontinuous Change, Innovation, management, phase transitions, strategy

Image

In my blog entry arguing for a unified theory of management, I proposed that most top management reference a fundamental distinction between exploration of new knowledge (i.e. innovation) and exploitation of existing knowledge (i.e. efficient operations).

Business and indeed the entire society is caught in an evolutionary dynamic that balances exploration and exploitation – see David Hurst’s ecological perspective. While the exploitation cycle is amenable to incremental thinking, exploration appears to be prone to discontinuities – hard to predict leaps of logic.

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Towards a unified theory of management

07 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by lnedelescu in innovation, management, taxonomy

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ackoff, Christensen, complexity, Dave Snowden, David Hurst, Design, Fredmund Malik, Innovation, management, Management Theory, Peter Drucker, Roger Martin

Drucker-reading

Exploration vs. exploitation is a common thread amongst top strategy and management thinkers. Exploration is aimed at the future (strategy, innovation) while exploitation is more aligned with business operations, i.e. efficiency. Does this point to a unified management theory?

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