Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on leadership http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic leadership Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Okay so what's next? Tue, 09 Jul 2002 20:38:57 +0100 Strangely enough being made redundant on Monday was not the most unnerving that has happened to me this week. What is more unnerving is my decision not to look immediately for another job.  Instead I have made the decision to see if I can make an adhoc mixture (as I see it now) of blogging, k-logging, knowledge management, intranets, collaboration and communities into a compelling business proposition and make a living from it. For some time now I have wanted to strike out in my own direction.  To lead rather than be led.  It seems fate just handed me my chance. This is not a risk-free strategy, and I'm just beginning to admit to myself what I'm letting myself in for. So from here onwards I will happily entertain any offers of work, suggestions about what works (and what doesn't).  Ideas, novel solutions, novel problems.  It's all good.   I've also got an acre of understanding to do, here goes! Suddenly I feel like I am growing into my weblog title. Matt   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000137.html Some feelings about starting a new venture Fri, 02 Aug 2002 11:22:22 +0100 This passage from <A href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1576750310/treeoflifecoa-21">Synchronicity</A> by Joe Jaworski so accurately describes what it feels like starting my new venture (my first): <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> "At the moment I walked away from the firm, a strange thing happened.  I clearly had no earthly idea how I would proceed.  I knew next to nothing about leadership curriculum and development.  I knew no one who could help me on the substantive side of things, no network of experts.  The resources necessary for a national effort would be enormous, far exceeding my own capacity.  I had none of this, only myself."</BLOCKQUOTE> As Jaworski goes on to discover, myself is enough for now.  Already I don't feel so alone, I've met a lot of good people.  I'm starting to find my feet, define my purpose and understand my goals.  It's daunting, but not impossible. Jaworski's book is full of insight and inspiration.  It was recommended to me by my <A href="http://www.treeoflifecoaching.co.uk/">life coach</A> as useful for someone starting a new business venture.  He wasn't wrong!   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000247.html Successful project management Sun, 09 Mar 2003 10:52:10 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://weblog.halmacomber.com/#90418727">The Management Secrets of the Brain</A>. M. Mitchell Waldop urges us to manage projects from the bottom up. In an article published in Business 2.0 in October 2002 (so I've been sitting on this one for awhile...) <A title="Business 2.0 october 2002" href="http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,43499,00.html">The Management Secrets of the Brain</A> he draws parallels to recent understanding of how our brains work to managing organizations. <BLOCKQUOTE>Your brain is the ultimate example of a complex, decentralized organization. And because we (usually) behave coherently, smoothly integrating new circumstances as they arise, the brain is also the epitome of an adaptive organization, a learning organization, a shared-vision organization -- in short, the ideal modern company. </BLOCKQUOTE>Waldop makes five claims: <OL> <LI>Never try to micromanage a large, complex organization. There's not enough executive attention in the world to ironmonger this level of activity. <LI>Don't let bottom-up self-organization go wild. Without leadership standard operating procedures are directionless and blind. <LI>The best way to control your subordinates is to just point them in the right direction. This new model...assumes that [leaders have] just one job, which is to generate a neural map of the [organization's] goals, strategies, and current situation. <LI>Be careful listening to the voice of experience -- that voice could be your own. Sometimes an organization has to break out of its rut and try a new approach. <LI>The organization can't succeed without passion. Unless we know what's important, what matters, then all the rationality in the world gets us nowhere. </LI></OL> Waldop makes a great case for managing projects on an agile or lean basis. The brain is ideally suited for project complexity, uncertainty, inevitable learning, and the underlying humanness of the endeavor. Why would we even try a different approach. [<A href="http://weblog.halmacomber.com/">Reforming Project Management</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Leadership & strong vision are the key to a successful project?  I'll buy that. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001264.html Leading change Thu, 27 Mar 2003 08:11:41 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE> <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/2003/03/26.html#a840">Creating change</A>. From <A href="http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/">Dave Pollard's</A> excellent new blog, <A href="http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/">How to Save the World</A>, comes <A href="http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2003/03/25.html#a136">a piece of advice</A> that could be helpful for people who want to effect change in just about any sphere of activity. It also hints at the challenge inherent in such an agenda. <BLOCKQUOTE> [...] Change Management is all about getting people to do different things, or things differently. In business, the guru of the moment on this subject is John Kotter. In his book <A href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0875847471/103-6457856-1821455?vi=glance">Leading Change</A> he describes the eight steps to getting people to do different things or things differently, and they are irrefutable: <OL> <LI>Establish a sense of urgency <LI>Form a powerful guiding coalition <LI>Create a vision <LI>Communicate the vision <LI>Empower others to act on the vision <LI>Plan for and create short-term wins <LI>Consolidate improvements  <LI>Institutionalize the change </LI></OL>The underlying principle here is that, in business as in real life, you don't bring about sustained, meaningful change by edict. You need to persuade, enthuse, and engage people in sufficient numbers to change behaviours, laws or processes. If you want to do this in your business, buy Kotter's book, since that's what it's focused on. But the same preconditions apply to political, economic, artistic, scientific, spiritual or moral change. Whether the change agent is a preacher or a politician or a philosopher or a post-modernist, the process is the same. [...]</BLOCKQUOTE> [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/">Seb's Open Research</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Kotter's to do: list is remarkably succinct.  This could be a manifesto for anybody at work (which reminds me of Gary Hamel's assertion, I think in <A href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452283248/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/202-0693406-4478229">Leading the Revolution</A>, that we can all be leaders, whatever our station). http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001327.html Powerful listening Mon, 31 Mar 2003 09:50:47 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> THE LISTENING LEADER "Lifting Listening Leadership Awareness and Action Worldwide" 03/31/03 -------------------------------------------------------------------- LISTENING-BASED INNOVATION Continuing success comes from value-creating innovation stimulated by disciplined listening. Occasional surveys are insufficient. Organizations need to build listening systems that capture, summarize, and disseminate the unmet dreams and unfulfilled wants of multiple customer groups, including existing, prospective, and internal customers (employees). Listening systems uncover fresh marketplace intelligence, help guide decision making, and nurture creative thinking. Effective listening systems involve both formal and informal methods, conversations with customers, the use of trend data to reveal changing patterns, the distribution of relevant information to all employees, and active discussion and application of findings in work groups. Listening leads to learning, which sets the stage for innovation. Innovation is more likely when employees are well informed about the customer, unafraid to try something new, and committed to the organization's success. Charles Schwab uses multiple methods to listen for customers' dreams that often start with the phrase, "I know it's not possible, but I wish....." Schwab's top management travels extensively to interact with customers in informal settings. Branches host monthly customer receptions, and at least once a week in different cities. Schwab holds town meetings to hear employees' ideas, suggestions, and concerns. Gary Hoover, who has created three innovative businesses (Bookstop, Hoover's Handbooks, and TravelFest) claims that the customers always get what they want. It is just a matter of who gives it to them when. Companies that sustain success continually search for new ways to create value for customers. They choose to lead rather than follow, to act rather than wait, to heed the customer instead of the competitor. Source: Leading for the Long Term, Leonard Berry, Leader to Leader </BLOCKQUOTE> More good stuff from the <A href="http://www.listeningleader.com/">Listening Leader</A> (one of the few daily e-mail shots that I subscribe to). For a company that is ready to hear (and encourage) real news from the front-line a network of internal action journals would mae a very powerful listening system.  More intelligence (and potential for automated news gathering) could be added to this by using simple topic map techniques (e.g. annotating each post with 1 or 2 topics describing the business area/project, tone of each post, etc...) http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001340.html Looking for leadership in all the wrong places Fri, 28 Nov 2003 16:16:47 +0000 <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><a href="http://weblog.halmacomber.com/2003_11_23_archive.html#106991075620813432">Fingerprints of Unhappy Companies All Look the Same</a>. </div> John R. Brandt writes the column Brandt On Leadership for <a href="http://www.industryweek.com/">Industry Week</a>. His latest article <a href="http://www.industryweek.com/columns/asp/columns.asp?ColumnId=979">Come On, Get Happy</a>, is another gem. Brandt says, <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><cite>It never ceases to amaze how completely the managers and employees of unhappy companies -- whether actively failing or merely mired in mediocrity -- can convince themselves that their troubles are unique.</cite></div> <cite>Invariably, I'm told that their predicament is due to: difficult market conditions beyond their control; wholesale customer defections based on currency fluctuations or unfair trade; a particularly toxic or strangled culture that prevents change.</cite> <cite>Please.</cite> Brandt claims all unhappy companies look alike sharing five fingerprints: <ol style="margin-left: 40px;"> <li>A belief that employees are dangerous and lazy.</li> <li>A conviction that customers cannot be trusted.</li> <li>A focus on policies, not principles.</li> <li>An obsession with today, not tomorrow.</li> <li>Leadership in all the wrong places.</li> </ol> Brandt does a good job elaborating on each of the five fingerprints. <a href="http://www.industryweek.com/columns/asp/columns.asp?ColumnId=979">Take a look</a>. While you're there, see if you recognize any of those fingerprints for your company or project. [<a href="http://weblog.halmacomber.com/">Reforming Project Management</a>] I just love Hal's blog.  Every post is a gem. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001778.html At a cross-roads Thu, 04 Dec 2003 08:00:40 +0000 There is definitely no way I am voting Labour next time around.  I cannot, in good conscience, vote for this party and it's leader.  Whilst I have been disappointed by Labours delivery of policies and it's abondonement of government reform I am most perturbed by recent events in Afghanistan and Iraq.  I accept that some response to the events of 9/11 was required but what has transpired is not it.  I did not give Blair/Labour a mandate for the actions they have taken, nor do I support those actions. As a child of the Thatcher years I still bitterly resent the conservative party:  Listening to Michael Howard & co., they have not changed.  <a href="http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tories2003/story/0,13807,1058241,00.html">Asylum island</a>?  Might as well be next to cloud cuckoo land.  I hope Britain has not become so frightened and narrow minded as to hand our government over to such people. Of the mainstream parties that leaves only the <a href="http://www.libdems.org.uk/">Liberal Democrats</a>.  I guess I am going to have to take them more seriously and learn whether they are a party I could join.  I am interested to see how they are engaging with people, what use they are making of weblogs, and how they are encouraging community around their policies.  I guess I'm looking to see whether they are awake to what is happening in the US right now with <a href="http://www.deanforamerica.com/">Dean</a> and others. Anyone know any active lib dems? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001785.html Adapt faster Sun, 15 Feb 2004 20:22:57 +0000 Watching a programme about the <a href="http://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1982FALKLANDS.htm">Falklands War</a>. Task force commander, Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse put his job this way: <blockquote>This war is not going to be like the last. My job is to adapt faster than the opposition.</blockquote> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001893.html 3rd Gurteen Knowledge Conference on Managing Organisational Complexity Wed, 03 Mar 2004 20:13:46 +0000 Spent today at <a href="http://www.gurteen.com/">David Gurteen's</a> 3rd Knowledge Conference on Managing Organisational Complexity. It was a great day and I took lots of notes and photos (to the extent that I annoyed most everyone!) Sadly Dave Snowden was not able to attend in person due to personal circumstances, however we got virtual Snowden which was still very good. Today certainly added a new layer to my thinking and i'm going to be percolating all this stuff for days and weeks to come. Right now I'm up to my ears in a market research exercise for K-Collector so expect blogged notes & photos probably Friday. Plus I got to meet Ian Glendinning of <a href="http://www.psybertron.org/">Psybertron</a> which was cool. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001954.html