Organizing work, creating value: the story so far.

by Jack Martin Leith Bath, United Kingdom

jackmartinleith.com

92% of HR and business leaders

surveyed by Deloitte cited organization

design as their top priority. Source: Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2016.

Until we challenge our

foundational beliefs, we won’t be

able to build organizations that

are substantially more capable

than the ones we have today.

We need to remind ourselves that

bureaucracy was an invention,

and that whatever replaces it will

also be an invention.

Gary Hamel

Source: Bureaucracy Must Die, by Gary Hamel, in Harvard Business Review.

The Aristotelian-Ptolemaic

universe was a purposeful,

goal-directed universe.

Events such as planetary

motion were understood in

terms of a striving to fulfil a

natural purpose.

God played an important

“intimate” role in this

universe; His thoughts

(purposes) were the

continual, sustaining cause

of all motion.

Source: University of Hawai’i website.

Nicolaus Copernicus 1473 - 1543

Galileo Galilei 1564 - 1642

René Descartes (1596 – 1650)

Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727)

The industrial revolution 1760 – 1840

Organisation chart

Created by Daniel C. McCallum

for New York & Erie Railroad in

1855.

Max Weber (1864 – 1920): Bureaucracy

Job specialization.

Authority hierarchy.

Formal selection based on

qualifications.

Formal rules and regulations.

Impersonality (no favouritism).

Career orientation.

Source: TyroCity.com.

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 – 1915)

It is only through enforced

standardization of methods, enforced

adoption of the best implements and

working conditions, and enforced

cooperation that this faster work can

be assured. And the duty of enforcing

the adoption of standards and

enforcing this cooperation rests with

management alone.

Source: The Principles of Scientific Management

(1911), by Frederick Winslow Taylor.

Mary Parker Follett (1868 – 1933)

Lateral processes within hierarchical

organizations (led directly to the formation of

first matrix-style organization: DuPont, 1920s).

Authority of expertise.

Power with, not power over → Starhawk.

Coined the term ‘win-win’.

Embrace conflict as a mechanism of diversity.

Source: Wikipedia.

Alex Osborn

Creative director, BBDO advertising agency

Brainstorming

Diverge → Converge

Quantity → Quality

With Sidney Parnes:

Creative Education Foundation

Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving

Process

Read more on Wikipedia

Alexander Osborn in 1939, the year he

organized the first “brainstorm sessions” at

the innovative Madison Avenue ad agency

Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn

Evolution of innovation theory and practice

Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process.

Creative Problem Solving Group (aka CPSB).

NPD consultancies.

Synectics.

?What If!

Gary Hamel / Strategos: Shell GameChanger.

IDEO: design thinking.

Henry Chesbrough: open innovation.

Clayton Christensen: disruptive innovation.

Kurt Lewin (1890 – 1947)

Background: Gestalt psychology.

Resistance to change [see next slide].

Three-stage change process: Unfreeze,

Change, Freeze.

Force field analysis.

Authoritarian, democratic and laissez-

faire work environments.

Group communication.

Group dynamics.

National Training Laboratories for Group

Development → organisation

development.

Resistance to change

In the organisational realm, the concept was originated by psychologist Kurt Lewin in the 1940s and

subsequently misinterpreted.

The following text is the abstract of Challenging ‘Resistance to Change’, a peer reviewed academic paper

written by Eric B. Dent (Fayetteville State University; University of Maryland University College—Graduate

School of Management and Technology) and Susan Galloway Goldberg (The George Washington University),

and published in Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 35 No. 1, March 1999 25-41.

This article examines the origins of one of the most widely accepted mental models that drives

organizational behavior: The idea that there is resistance to change and that managers must overcome it.

This mental model, held by employees at all levels, interferes with successful change implementation.

The authors trace the emergence of the term resistance to change and show how it became received

truth.

Kurt Lewin introduced the term as a systems concept, as a force affecting managers and employees

equally.

Because the terminology, but not the context, was carried forward, later uses increasingly cast the

problem as a psychological concept, personalizing the issue as employees versus managers.

Acceptance of this model confuses an understanding of change dynamics. Letting go of the term — and

the model it has come to embody — will make way for more useful models of change dynamics.

Richard Beckhard

Change formula:

David Gleicher (1960s) → Richard Beckhard (1970s)

→ Kathie Dannemiller (1980s).

D = Dissatisfaction with how things are now;

V = Vision of what is possible;

F = First, concrete steps that can be taken towards

the vision;

Must be greater than

R = Resistance.

Read more on Wikipedia

Peter Drucker

Management by objectives (1954).

The knowledge worker (1959).

Employees are assets not liabilities.

Decentralization and simplification.

Predicted the end of the ‘blue collar’ worker.

Originator of outsourcing concept.

Community advocate.

“A company’s primary responsibility is to serve its customers.”

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Eric Trist (Tavistock Institute) and Ken Bamforth

(trade unionist)

1951: Some social and

psychological consequences

of the longwall method of

coal getting.

Multiskilled autonomous

groups, interchanging roles,

and shifts with minimal

supervision allowed them to

mine coal 24 hours a day,

without waiting for a previous

shift to finish.

In spite of that era’s prevailing

belief that high productivity

came with doing the same

task over and over, productivity

soared.

Developed by Douglas McGregor at MIT Sloan School of Management during the 1960s.

Read more on Wikipedia

W. Edwards Deming

Genesis: Japan, 1950.

Widespread: 1980s.

Statistical process control.

Total Quality Management.

PDSA cycle.

14 Points.

System of Profound Knowledge

Four lenses through which to view the world:

– Appreciating a system

– Understanding variation

– Psychology

– Epistemology

Motorola: Six Sigma

Toyota: Lean manufacturing

Systems theories

General Systems Theory (Ludwig von Bertalanffy;

1940s).

Cybernetics (Norbert Weiner, Ross Ashby,

Warren McCulloch, Gregory Bateson; 1950s).

Second-order cybernetics (Living systems:

Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela; Autopoiesis—1972).

Management cybernetics (Stafford Beer; 1959).

System dynamics (Jay Forrester; 1950s).

Soft systems methodology (Peter Checkland; 1970s).

Socio-technical systems (Fred Emery, Eric Trist, Ken Bamforth; 1950s).

Complex systems (e.g. Ralph Stacey; 1990s).

Ecosystem metaphor.

Stafford Beer

Management cybernetics

Viable System Model

POSIWID

Fred Emery and Merrelyn Emery

Participative Design Workshop (1971)

Design Principle 1

Redundancy of parts

Design Principle 2

Redundancy of functions

Six criteria

1. Elbow room for decision making.

2. Opportunities for continuous

on-the-job learning.

3. Sufficient variety.

4. Mutual support and respect.

5. Meaningfulness.

6. A desirable future, not a dead end.

Read more

Participative systemic change methods

1985

Large Group Interactive Process

Ford Motor Company

→ Real Time Strategic Change (Robert W. ‘Jake’ Jacobs), aka Whole-Scale (Dannemiller Tyson Associates)

Future Search

Marvin Weisbord, Sandra Janoff

Precursor: Search Conferences (Emery & Trist, 1960)

Open Space Technology

Harrison Owen

Liberian tribal gathering

Third Annual Symposium on Organization Transformation

Download Creating collaborative gatherings using large group interventions, by Jack Martin Leith

Shareholder value

The idea that the sole purpose of a firm is to make money for its shareholders got going in a major way with an article by Milton Friedman in the New York Times on 13 September 1970.

View source

“The dumbest idea in the world.” – Jack Welch

(During his tenure at GE, the company’s value rose 4,000%.)

“Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for

a beautiful moment in time we created

a lot of value for shareholders.”

David Cooperrider: Appreciative Inquiry

4D model (1990).

Social constructionism: Reality is socially constructed. Organisations are created, maintained and changed by conversations.

See Wikipedia.

“The strategy for an alternative future is to focus on ways a shift in conversation can shift the context and thereby create an intentional future.”

Source: Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community: Changing the Nature of the Conversation, by Peter Block.

The design sector: Pentagram

Founded in 1972.

World’s largest independent design consultancy.

Multi-disciplinary.

Flat: 21 partners (“a group of friends”) + designers & architects.

No CEO, CFO or board.

Equal ownership.

Equal pay for partners.

Equal participation and control

of the group’s destiny.

Renewal: 1st → 2nd → 3rd

generation partners.

Source: Wikipedia.

Business process reengineering

Michael Hammer,

Reengineering Work:

Don't Automate,

Obliterate, in Harvard

Business Review, 1990.

Michael Hammer and

James Champy.

Reengineering the

Corporation:

Manifesto for Business

Revolution, 1993.

World Wide Web

Tim Berners-Lee, 1989.

Internal communications

Smythe Dorward Lambert (Wolff Olins breakaway – 1989).

Lotus Notes.

Sharepoint.

Intranets.

Enterprise communications.

Peter Senge (1990) System dynamics

Robert Tannenbaum and Warren H. Schmidt (1958)

→ Bryan J. Smith (1994)

Tannenbaum & Schmidt

How to choose a leadership

pattern, by Robert

Tannenbaum and Warren H.

Schmidt, in Harvard Business

Review (1958)

Bryan Smith

The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies for

Building a Learning Organization, by Peter

Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Rick

Ross and Bryan J. Smith (1994)

Leadership

Tao Te Ching (4th century BC).

Tannenbaum and Schmidt (1958).

Managerial grid (Robert Blake and Jane Mouton, 1964).

Situational leadership (Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, 1970s).

Outdoor leadership development (1990s).

Leadership Development Framework (Bill Torbert & David Rooke, 1990s).

Servant leadership (Robert Greenleaf, 1991).

Host leadership (Mark McKergow, 2014).

Stephen Bungay: The executive’s trinity —

management, leadership and command

NASA Mission Control Center, Houston

The executive’s trinity—management, leadership and command,

by Stephen Bungay, Director, Ashridge Strategic Management Centre

Coaching

GROW model:

Timothy Galwey: Inner Game

Sir John Whitmore

Alan Fine

Graham Alexander (1980s)

NLP coaching.

Gestalt coaching.

Systemic coaching.

Narrative coaching.

Somatic coaching.

Action learning

Reg Revans.

Genesis: 1950s.

Widespread: 1990s.

Director of education, National Coal Board.

Collaborators: E. F. Schumacher and Eric Trist.

Revans Academy, Manchester Business School.

Read more on Wikipedia

Organisational culture

The idea of culture as shared

beliefs or values goes back at least

to Tom Burns and G.M. Stalker

(1961). View source

In Search of Excellence, by Tom

Peters and Robert Waterman

(1982).

Edgar Schein (1985).

Social constructionism:

“Culture is conversation.”

Edgar Schein

Values

Values and Lifestyles: VALS Group, SRI International (1978).

Spiral Dynamics—Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change: Don Beck

and Christopher Cowan (1996).

Strategy

Sun Tzu, Chinese general; The Art of War (544 – 496 BC).

Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian general (early 1800s).

Michael Porter (1980s).

Strategy can be framed as a plan, a pattern, a position, a perspective, or a ploy. Source: Henry Mintzberg, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (1994). Read more

Strategy innovation (Gary Hamel, late 1990s)

Business model innovation (Alex Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur, 2008).

Strategy: an organising idea

The Prussian General Staff, under the

elder von Moltke, did not expect a

plan of operations to survive beyond

the first contact with the enemy. They

set only the broadest of objectives and

emphasized seizing unforeseen

opportunities as they arose. Strategy

was not a lengthy action plan. It was

the evolution of a central idea

through continually changing

circumstances.

Source: The return of von Clausewitz, in

The Economist.

SpaceX mission and strategy

Read more: How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars, by Tim Urban, Wait But Why, from his

interview with Elon Musk.

John Kotter

Book: Leading Change (1996).

8-Step Process for Leading Change:

1. Create a sense of urgency.

2. Build a guiding coalition.

3. Form a strategic vision and initiatives.

4. Enlist a volunteer army.

5. Enable action by removing barriers.

6. Generate short-term wins.

7. Sustain acceleration.

8. Institute change.

Read more

Engagement

1970s, 1980s: Employee satisfaction.

1990: Employee engagement (Psychological conditions of personal engagement and

disengagement at work, by William A. Kahn, in Academy of Management Journal).

1990s: Gallup Q12 employee engagement measurement tool.

2015: KPMG drops annual engagement surveys—“Not evidence based.” (Source:

KPMG dumps ‘abused’ staff surveys, by Agnes King, in Financial Review.)

Engage in what, and for whose

ultimate benefit?

The Agile Manifesto (2001)

The Business Case for Purpose

Deloitte Global 2015 Millennial

Survey

Deloitte 2016 Global Human

Capital Trends

IDT Survey 2015: Skills for

digital transformation

Purpose

Is your company worth believing in? The

most successful companies are those who

have a purpose shared by all stakeholders,

which motivates everyone involved to

greater success.

Source: Wake Up & Shake Up Your Company, by Andrew

Campbell and Richard Koch (1993).

Employees Business leaders

See Putting Purpose to Work: A study of purpose in the workplace, by PwC.

Additional information

The Talent Factor

77 percent of Millennials believe that businesses must be driven by more than profit , and

choose their place of work based on their employers’ purpose.

Source: Deloitte Global 2015 Millennial Survey.

In almost equal measure, Millennials, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers have the career goals of

“Help solve social and/or environmental challenges” and “Do work I am passionate about.”

Source: IBM Institute for Business Value—Myths, Exaggerations and Uncomfortable Truths: The

Real Story Behind Millennials in the Workplace.

Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and author of Why We

Work, is optimistic. When I spoke to him recently, he observed that as “the millennials

ascend, they will change organizations” because “meaning is an important part of their

agenda” and “workplaces are going to have to listen or else [they] are not going to get the

best talent.”

Source: Paychecks with a Purpose, by Susan Cramm, in strategy+business.

Purpose

At the leadership level, there is a sizable disconnect between how important purpose is claimed to be for business and how central purpose actually is to business decisions.

79% of business leaders believe that purpose is central to business success and to an organization’s existence; yet, only 34% agree that purpose is a guidepost for leadership decision-making.

Without purpose as the bedrock of an organization, all efforts to build purpose constructs upon it will prove futile.

Source: Putting Purpose to Work: A study of purpose in the workplace, by PwC.

Purpose

Purpose is not an initiative; it is a way of business.

It must be core to the decisions, conversations, and behaviors across all

levels to be authentic and deliver the wealth of advantages it promises.

Now, more than ever, companies must cultivate the power of purpose if

they are to succeed in a world where the opportunities—and

responsibilities—of business have never been greater.

Source: Putting Purpose to Work: A study of purpose in the workplace, by PwC.

Frederic Laloux: Reinventing Organizations (2014)

Former McKinsey consultant.

Teal organisations.

Fundamental characteristics:

Self-management

Wholeness

Evolutionary purpose

Worldview Aristotelian-

Ptolmaic

Newtonian-

Cartesian Pre-systemic Systemic Post-systemic

How world is seen God’s work Machine Network System Web of life

Wilber colour code Magenta

Red

Amber

Orange Green Teal Turquoise

How the org is seen Machine Family Living system

Frederic Laloux (based on Ken Wilber and Spiral Dynamics)

Jack Martin Leith

Holacracy

A comprehensive practice for structuring, governing, and running an organization. A complete system for self-organization.

Originated by Brian Robertson, a former software engineer.

Named and introduced in 2007.

Dynamic roles replace static job descriptions.

Distributed authority replaces delegated authority.

Rapid iterations replace big re-orgs.

Transparent rules replace office politics.

Tensions drive everything. A tension is a person’s felt sense that there is a gap between current reality and a potential future, between what is and what could be.

Holacracy

Holacracy: generic roles

Lead Link A Role that holds the Purpose of the overall Circle. The Lead Link is

responsible for assigning people to Roles that have been created through

Governance Meetings. The Lead Link also allocates resources and defines

Priorities, Strategies, and Metrics within the Circle.

Rep Link An elected Role used to represent the interests of a sub-Circle to its

super-Circle. Also note that the Lead Link of a Circle may not serve as the

Rep Link of that Circle. Rep Links allow Tensions from the sub-Circle to be

processed by the super-Circle when the issue seems to extend beyond the

sub-Circle’s current authority.

Secretary An elected Role with the Purpose of aligning Circle Governance and

operations with the Constitution through maintaining Circle records,

scheduling meetings, and interpreting Governance upon request. The

Secretary works actively and collaboratively with the Facilitator during

Governance and Tactical Meetings.

Source: A glossary of key Holacracy terms.

Home-grown self-organisation operating systems

Examples:

Spotify

Morning Star Company

W.L. Gore & Associates

Patagonia

Buurtzorg

Medium

August How Spotify organises work

Agile + Lean Start-up.

Squad: A development team with a long-term mission.

Tribe: A collection of squads working in related areas.

Chapter: People with similar expertise.

Guild: A cross-tribe community of interest.

Product Owner

Download Scaling Agile @ Spotify with Tribes,

Squads, Chapters & Guilds (pdf), by Henrik

Kniberg & Anders Ivarsson

Ultimately, and somewhat ironically, the next

generation of self-managing teams is demanding a

new generation of leaders—senior individuals with

the vision to see where it is best to set aside

hierarchy for another way of operating, but also

with the courage to defend hierarchy where it

serves the institution’s fundamental goals.

Source: Beyond the Holacracy Hype, by Ethan Bernstein, John Bunch, Niko Canner, and

Michael Lee, in Harvard Business Review.

Jack Martin Leith provides whole systems innovation and change

services to leaders of progressive businesses and nonprofit

organizations.

He is the originator of generative enterprise, an organizational

philosophy and accompanying set of theories, models and

practices that enable a business or nonprofit organization to bring

its world-enriching purpose to life, moment by moment.

He is also the architect of Rich Co-creation, the principal means by

which a generative enterprise gets things done, accomplishes its

mission and translates its purpose into action.

Jack is based in Bath, United Kingdom.

Email: jack@jackmartinleith.com

Phone: 07583 601234 (+44 7583 601234)

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jackmartinleith

Web: jackmartinleith.com