It's a kind of serendip(ity) - with an open mind not
fixed on certain special fields of interest, one often
explores new fields an future comes in via surprise.
Storytelling in the serious sense can be very useful
in the business context. Instead of just reading the
number in a balance sheet the mutual conversations
between persons enable a flexible flow of thoughts.
What stories do you remember well from around your
workplace that helped you to understand processes
or human behavior?
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Five minutes thought standstill
Aren't you driven by the fast pace of business
and life in general?
When and how do you take time to think about
how to improve current processes or even about
redesigning it?
Why not take roughly five minutes out of your
schedule and watch and listen to THIS(*) (together
with your peers, employees, bosses or family).
What does this piece to your mind and thought process?
Mine has been: some tear drops (should I really folishly
admit that it emotionally struck me?) and open mind for
is going to come
(*) JohnCage the creator of this.
and life in general?
When and how do you take time to think about
how to improve current processes or even about
redesigning it?
Why not take roughly five minutes out of your
schedule and watch and listen to THIS(*) (together
with your peers, employees, bosses or family).
What does this piece to your mind and thought process?
Mine has been: some tear drops (should I really folishly
admit that it emotionally struck me?) and open mind for
is going to come
(*) JohnCage the creator of this.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Unintended Surprise
Who do you think is the real "designer" of a firm?
Supposedly you think it is the management team up
in the top ranks. Right they have the overview from
above but can they see what really drives action?
How often do we see the C-level folks down in the
lines working side by side with the operators? How
often is the engineer (or specialist) talking to the C-
level or operators and in which attitude?
The operators within the three cultures of a firm (executives,
engineers, operators) are the ones who tackle the un-
certainty of daily work that could not predicted by
engineers 100% in advance (EdgarSchein, MIT Sloan
School of Management, The Cultures of
Management - The Key to Organizational Learning). They
are probably the most underrated people within the organization.
To cope with the challenges of the 21st century EdgarSchein
proposes the following (which I can underwrite through own
experience within the three cultures at an automotive plant):
We certainly have the chance in our hands as executives, engineers,
and operators to co-create our future together - dialogue will be the
first step. For doing the dialogue it needs time we should put into
place a "new" management philosophy. On that in my next post in
about week.
Cheers and looking forward on what positive experiences you have
done yourself within your own organization with the "three levels
of culture"
Supposedly you think it is the management team up
in the top ranks. Right they have the overview from
above but can they see what really drives action?
How often do we see the C-level folks down in the
lines working side by side with the operators? How
often is the engineer (or specialist) talking to the C-
level or operators and in which attitude?
The operators within the three cultures of a firm (executives,
engineers, operators) are the ones who tackle the un-
certainty of daily work that could not predicted by
engineers 100% in advance (EdgarSchein, MIT Sloan
School of Management, The Cultures of
Management - The Key to Organizational Learning). They
are probably the most underrated people within the organization.
To cope with the challenges of the 21st century EdgarSchein
proposes the following (which I can underwrite through own
experience within the three cultures at an automotive plant):
"Until executives, engineers, and operators discover that they
use different languages, make different assumptions about what
is important, and until they learn to treat the other cultures as
valid and normal, we will continue to see failures in organizational
learning efforts. We will see powerful innovations at the operator
level that are ignored, subverted or actually punished, we will see
technologies that are grossly under-utilized, we will see angry
employees railing against the impersonal programs of re-engineering
and down-sizing, we will see frustrated executives who know what
they want to accomplish but feel impotent in pushing their ideas
through complex human systems, and we will see frustrated
academics wondering why certain ideas like employee involvement,
socio-technical systems analyses, high commitment organizations,
and concepts of social responsibility continue to be ignored, only
to be reinvented under some other label a few decades later."
(taken from the above article)
(taken from the above article)
We certainly have the chance in our hands as executives, engineers,
and operators to co-create our future together - dialogue will be the
first step. For doing the dialogue it needs time we should put into
place a "new" management philosophy. On that in my next post in
about week.
Cheers and looking forward on what positive experiences you have
done yourself within your own organization with the "three levels
of culture"
Friday, November 12, 2010
influencers build the social field from outside to inside
How far is your voice reaching to be understood?
How far and broadly can you sense the world around you?
How many connections to other people can you handle?
When does passion come into play?
..... influencers will spark the passion in us as we become aware
of what is possible and emotionally connects with us. They will
be more influential in the near future than most of us may think.
Who are the influencers within your organization and how do we
recognize them?
How far and broadly can you sense the world around you?
How many connections to other people can you handle?
When does passion come into play?
..... influencers will spark the passion in us as we become aware
of what is possible and emotionally connects with us. They will
be more influential in the near future than most of us may think.
Who are the influencers within your organization and how do we
recognize them?
Sunday, November 7, 2010
The Future of Entrepreneurship - ... into Blue Sky!
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1416513... in which way will it affect the future of consulting?
What are the next Biggest Changes in entrepreneurship arena?
My very personal view based on 12 years of action research
right in the middle of the changing workspace arena and
entrepreneurship for the last seven years mainly at BMW internally.
- System Dynamics, will be essential to understanding and design complex and interconnected organizational systems
- Entrepreneur in the role of process consultant, not giving advice (as this is free of charge and ubiquitous availabe on the web for anybody)
- Entrepreneurs will be transparent in the various social networks, giving advice of general concern (Freemium Business Model)
- Collaboration and sharing of experiences transparently on the web (on places such as Facebook, GoogleBuzz, GoogleWave, TitanPad, and others)
- Intercultural consulting journeys similar to the learning journey of CharlesVanDerHaegen and VilleKeraenen, http://bit.ly/cFEz3R
- Shared benefit model based on the long-term benefit of the consulted client, similar to http://bit.ly/a2DK21(TeamLea(r)ningExperience)
- Onflight consulting sessions, sponsored by airlines (Consult & Fly, Travel & Improve will be the first players in this field based in Dresden)
- Hourly consulting (doing about two dozen clients at once, learning from diversity, cross-fertilization)
- Co-Consulting as lived by http://mindbroker.de/wiki/CoConsulting already
- Pattern recognization based consulting and entrepreneurship based on data provided by smart organizations providing online data as on the Tesla Roadster, http://bit.ly/d1yJh8, or through intelligent sensor/ RFID-based production systems (either in production areas or office environments where flow of paper, electronic files is done) - some general applications laid out and implemented during my past work at BMW Plant Leipzig and Kombiverkehr KG Frankfurt (can be also applied to other fields of interest)
2012-07-18 Startup Accelerator for Dresden
2012-07-07 Jay W. Forrester's vision for the 21st century (and in large my own)
2010-11-20 Some links updated above
2010-11-20 Some links updated above
.... so a visionary future is awaiting us.
Would you like to be amongst the first movers to make the future a reality today step by step? BMW Plant Leipzig has already taken some significant steps in Saxony as well as AMD (now Global Foundries) and there is yet more to come.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Opportunity Space Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurial spirit is probably the most important driver for future economic drive. The world is changing too fast in forms of new competitors, new markets, new needs, new challenges (facing the world). Entrepreneurs look for the new find solutions where nobody else is looking or taking the future chances for real.
And yet the entrepreneur often tends to resent the "real" chances of her/his innovative approach. PeterDrucker in his 1985 book "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" writes about the German chemist who developed Novocain the first local anesthetic. But the doctors he approached didn't want to change from full anesthetic to this.
Then suddently dentists used to practice this - and liked it. He got made on that and travelled up and down Germany to give speeches about not using Novocain in the dentist field.
The learning from that: you don't like what you have not planned for. Even as an entrepreneur (!)
What could be the reason for that: when having found something interesting to build a business around one often closes in just to not let the information spill in the larger mass and focuses on just a single field of use. The fear of scaling it up, or having worked for the "wrong" purpose sets entrepreneurs under stress - still 25 years after PeterDrucker's writing.
The way to overcome the "thinking stuck": talk with people who are not your possible competitors, ask people in the restaurant, train, conference what they may think of the idea of encounter this or that (the innovation you have in mind) - spread it in as widely context you may can.
Especially if it is a new idea, not yet in use you may feel uneasy telling people about an idea.
Just dare to do - you can only win :-) Some call it S E R E N D I P I T Y or Innovation on the Edge
And yet the entrepreneur often tends to resent the "real" chances of her/his innovative approach. PeterDrucker in his 1985 book "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" writes about the German chemist who developed Novocain the first local anesthetic. But the doctors he approached didn't want to change from full anesthetic to this.
Then suddently dentists used to practice this - and liked it. He got made on that and travelled up and down Germany to give speeches about not using Novocain in the dentist field.
The learning from that: you don't like what you have not planned for. Even as an entrepreneur (!)
What could be the reason for that: when having found something interesting to build a business around one often closes in just to not let the information spill in the larger mass and focuses on just a single field of use. The fear of scaling it up, or having worked for the "wrong" purpose sets entrepreneurs under stress - still 25 years after PeterDrucker's writing.
The way to overcome the "thinking stuck": talk with people who are not your possible competitors, ask people in the restaurant, train, conference what they may think of the idea of encounter this or that (the innovation you have in mind) - spread it in as widely context you may can.
Especially if it is a new idea, not yet in use you may feel uneasy telling people about an idea.
Just dare to do - you can only win :-) Some call it S E R E N D I P I T Y or Innovation on the Edge
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