Don’t mistake poise for leadership
Category: Uncategorized Page 8 of 11
It’s hard to express this idea without resorting to this nonsense Escher-chart where the definition of each series changes over time and as they cross.
But I believe this helps explain the evolving relationship of the I.T. function with the rest of the organisation, the need to develop capability engineering disciplines, and enterprise information management’s role post-Cloud.
There is an organisational metaphor here somewhere.
Via io9:
If you place 32 metronomes on a static object and set them rocking out of phase with one another, they will remain that way indefinitely. Place them on a moveable surface, however, and something very interesting (and very mesmerizing) happens.
An interesting ambit claim by the marketing profession – and a good recognition that marketing must evolve to what I call “customer experience campaigns”… Mix up product customisation and the “lean startup” principles and everybody is starting to converge…
I can’t say enough good things about this story:
The truth turned out to be simpler: The employee had contracted a Chinese consulting firm to do his job for him for around one fifth of his salary
Now, I’ve worked in the outsourcing industry so I know you can’t promote the merits of outsourcing and at the same time suggest that this guy was somehow hurting the company. Well you can but it’s very hypocritical.
At any time, completely out of his control, his job could have been outsourced to China. But he didn’t wait. Sure – he’s clearly done the wrong thing under current contracts with his employer. But that will change over time.
Remember when the internet was new and everybody thought that it would mean “big companies” would be smaller? It didn’t happen because the same technology was available for big companies to use internally and thereby retain their size. This is the same – all of the technology to outsource is available to individuals as well as large corporations.
Information security is going to be extremely important because this stuff cannot be stopped. No organisation wants to waste time forcing individuals to be less productive by forcing them to do the work themselves.
Image above is from my MWT notes ~2005. Finally getting to build it out as a proposition.
“Here is a great story from the Netherlands. As in most cities, the consequences of increasing traffic were a major problem in the city of Drachten. Traffic jams and accidents in the town centre were steadily increasing, as did the doses of the standard medicine for this modern disease; more traffic lights and more signs to regulate and control drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. The same medicine as any other growing city would chose to combat its traffic problems. However, traffic authorities in Drachten found that increasing doses did not help. In 2003 the city decided to challenge accepted truth. A bold decision was made to remove all traffic lights and signs in the town centre, based on a belief that people pay more attention to their surroundings when they cannot rely on strict traffic rules.
Results were impressive. On the busiest intersections crossing times fell significantly, and accidents were reduced to almost zero.”
– From http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/end-performance-management-we-know-it
For reference this is the Digital Transformation blog at SMS:
http://www.smsmt.com/Social/Blog/Digital-Transformation-Goes-Mainstream
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION GOES MAINSTREAM
My ever-charming wife is currently in Tasmania “doing zoology like a boss” to help understand the impacts on behavior of the facial tumor disease that has decimated the Tasmanian Devil population over the last 15 years or so.
Amanda traps the devils, tags them, and ensures that a bunch of very relevant tests are performed. Just as importantly, she also helps name each of the devils trapped after a prominent “gay” actor: Portia, Rupert, Tom, etc.
In the week she has been away so far she has trapped the allegedly bi-sexual Warren twice. The first time he seemed quite afraid when they released him – uncertain of what might happen.
Interestingly, the second time they trapped him he wasn't scared at all when he was released. He seemed to know he was safe. He looked around a bit and just sort-of wandered off.
This is “pricing it”. It's the process of gaining clarity of the costs and risks. Once something is priced decisions can be made. The increased clarity of the price doesn't always mean incidents of it will go down – it doesn't always create a disincentive – it just creates a price.
The price for Warren eating the free lamb that the traps are deliciously bated with is that he has to spend a day or so in a plastic tube and get a couple of harmless tests done.
As the price is now known it can be used in decision-making. As the price is low, it will be paid more often. The reasonably priced lamb will be consumed more often than unexpected lamb, that looks suspiciously like a trap, with an unknown price.
This is of course just like the famous after-school child care example. In this case the child-care facility decided to charge people for being late to collect their children. This was because they got sick of waiting for late parents.
The only problem was that after they put a price on the late collection of their children the number of late pick-ups actually increased! Because they had priced the after hours care people could decide to use it with no guilt.
The second problem was that the when they stopped the trial and changed back to a zero-penalty policy for late pick up, the number of late pick-ups increased yet again! The parents treated the “new” no-fee policy like after-school care was now on sale! 100% off after hours child care!
(see original paper here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.37.1417&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
So, do you want to “price it”? Really?
Posted with Blogsy