List
Print This Post Print This Post

Following on from Wednesday’s proposition, the new disciplines of management, ‘The New Classics’ are these 10:

1. Behavioural Economics
2. Political Marketing
3. Network Theory
4. Viral Change
5. Social Movements
6. Social/Corporate Anthropology
7. Digital Activism
8. Generation (and urban) anthropology
9. Social Media technologies
10. Critical Thinking

I introduced on Wednesday, very briefly, 1 and 2

As before, I will mention one single area in each, as an example, from where we can draw immediate learning and applications. It’s just one example of a rich learning from all of them, and by focusing on one aspect, I am conscious of trivialising too much. I am pointing to tips of icebergs.

3. Network Theory. Amongst other things it tells us that a Bell curve, normal distribution in the organization does not exist other than in an HR mind. Everything inside the organization (a network) follows a Power Law distribution. For example, there is a relatively small number of people with high influence and connectivity, and a large number of people with very little influence and connectivity. This can no longer be ignored. Don’t try to find a Bell curve of influence. It does not exist.

4. Viral Change. This is a trans-discipline that explains how to mobilize people: bottom up (not top down), behaviours-based (not information based), peer-to-peer (not hierarchical channels), bottom up storytelling (not top down ‘stories from above’) and Backstage Leadership, the art of supporting from the back, not upfront with PowerPoints. Plenty of this here.

5. Social Movements. Organizational culture is an ‘internal social movement’, or isn’t. So we’d better learn from people who have run these. Key learning: you have to cater for a multitude of motivations, but be very clear about the non-negotiable (behaviours). In traditional management, our obsessive ‘alignment’ needs to be redefined. Also, ‘Rebels’ need a cause and a direction, as opposed to the fashionable thinking that having passionate people, rebels and mavericks in a room, will change the company. Yes, but you may not be able to recognise it.

6. Social/Corporate Anthropology. Hardly new. However, life in the organization can be understood in terms of rituals, tribes, identities, kinship and other anthropological concepts. And, suddenly, it all makes sense! Anthropology is the forgotten discipline in management. A beautiful discipline if it were not for the anthropologists who often speak an incomprehensible language. Corporate Anthropology is also a forgotten discipline, more complex than doing a PhD on South Seas tribes to be followed by a post in consumer behaviour for Unilever.

7. Digital Activism. This teaches us about rapid mobilization and large scale effects. Also about the differences between champions, ambassadors, advocates (and click-tivists), and activists. These are differences that we don’t understand or use well in the traditional view of corporate life, where these concepts have been commoditised. I don’t want more ambassadors. The company is not an Internal  Diplomatic Service. Personally, give me activists, who actually act. But the only time we use the term (other than in Viral Change) is to refer to employees engaging externally on behalf of the employer. Activists are not ambassadors who click and ‘like’ and say how good my company is.

8. Generation (and urban) anthropology. There is less difference between a Chinese teenager and a French teenager, than a Chinese company and a French company. In organizations we are still stuck in rather old ‘cultural (national) distinctions’ and frames which don’t predict much anymore. How you handle Millennials, for example, is today more important than understanding ‘German’s power distance’.

9. Social Media technologies. Digital is not a suit of toys. We need to distinguish between building an audience and building a community, between push and pull mechanisms, and the differences between connectivity and collaboration.

10. Critical Thinking. Two things here: (1) It can be taught, and (2) in the traditional management of organizations we are in very short supply. At the very least it is about (a) learning the art of questioning, how to be disciplined in inquiring and (b) avoiding/managing fallacies and biases. It’s a praxis. It gets better and better when practising and when establishing some of these practices across the organization, at a scale.

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Critical Thinking Accelerator from The Chalfont Project:

 

Renew, transform, re-invent the way you do things. Organizations today need to look at better ways, alternative and innovative ways to change the status quo. It’s not about being radical for the sake of it. Only if you try radical ways will you be in a better position to find your ‘fit for purpose’ goals.

As Michelangelo said: ‘The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark’. He was a radical in the way we talk about it.

 

_____________________

At The Chalfont Project, we have crafted a short intervention on Critical Thinking:

  • Do you feel like you’re missing the time to reflect and makes changes?
  • Do you feel like your team has fallen into bad habits, business is unproductive and no one takes ownership to change it?

In this short intervention we teach you and your team Critical Thinking methods and questions that will help you focus your time on the things that matter, make good and fair decisions and escape the dangers of human biases. We will also help you apply these methods to your everyday challenges in your organization.

You will learn about strategy acid tests and many mind fallacies, including various biases, and the practical Critical Thinking methods that you can use to address these.

 

This high impact, short intervention will:

  • – challenge ways of thinking
  • – provide immediate and trackable actions
  • – drive change
  • – develop a better way of functioning across the team, department or organization.

 

Contact us to find out more information or discuss how we can support your business.

Keep up with the Daily Thoughts

Twitter Email

Would you like to comment?

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

To search my website, please use the form below.

  Daily Thoughts

September 27th, 2023

Redefining Talent Wealth

The war on talent McKinsey consultants started it with a book of the same title. By focusing on what it […]

September 8th, 2023

What I Learnt From The Monks: A Little Anthropology Of Leadership And Space On One Page

My friends, monks of a Benedictine monastery in the Highlands, Scotland, spend most of the time in silence. I mean, […]

August 23rd, 2023

Can We Rescue DEI From Its Trap (The Label)?

Most of the problems and challenges in organizations, together with most of the solutions, are behavioural in nature. It’s about […]

August 10th, 2023

Restructuring to force collaboration, is likely to create more anxiety than collaboration. Structural solutions for behavioural problems hardly work.

Sometimes restructuring is done with the intention of solving a collaboration problem. ´A people´ don’t talk to ´B people´; if […]

July 18th, 2023

The ‘Impossible To Disagree With’ School Of Management

‘Good leaders have empathy, respect employees and set the example. If you want to change things, you need to have […]

June 29th, 2023

Large scale change is not small scale change repeated many times. Small wins repeated are lots of small wins.

Large scale change, as a series of cascading small scale interventions (often under the philosophy of ‘small wins’) has dominated […]

June 6th, 2023

Culture change is not long and difficult. But we make it so…

I suppose the question is how long is long and how difficult is difficult? In general, business and organizational consulting have […]

May 19th, 2023

Value is an overused term in business and, as such, it’s becoming meaningless

Value, as usually used, means transactional monetary value. Usually it doesn’t mean intrinsic value, or value per se. For example, […]

May 4th, 2023

The importance of ‘critical thinking.’ Your own critical thinking is more effective at making your workplace better than any generic employee survey.

Build your own Employee Engagement argument for free. You can’t go wrong. Here are three baskets full of concepts: Basket […]

April 21st, 2023

´Busy-Ness’ Is A Trap

I went to a big conference where I was introduced by the chairman like this: “Welcome everybody. Lovely to have […]

April 14th, 2023

Training and culture change. The love affair that ends in tears.

It seems to be very hard for people to get away from the idea that if we just put individuals […]

April 11th, 2023

Teamocracies and Networkracies have different citizens: in-Habitants in team-work, riders in net-work

The old view of the organization is something close to the old concept of a medieval city, where citizenship was […]

April 5th, 2023

3 Ways To Get Approval From Your CEO Or Your Leadership Team

Way number 1: My team has developed these three options, A, B and C. Which one do you want us […]

March 29th, 2023

A Cheat Sheet To Create A Social Movement Tip = to shape organizational culture since both are the same.

Mobilizing people. This is another of the Holy Grails (how many have I said we have?) in management. Whether you […]

March 16th, 2023

Critical Thinking Self-Test: A 10 Point Health Check For Your Organization And Yourself. If any of these are a good picture of your organization, you need to put ‘critical thinking’ in the water supply.

Test yourself, and your organization. Do any of these apply? Doing lots, too fast without thinking. High adrenaline, not sure […]

March 9th, 2023

A culture of safety or a culture of training in safety?

Cultures are created by behaviours becoming the norm. Safety is at the core of many industries. Significant budgets are allocated […]

March 2nd, 2023

Empowerment is an output. If you can visualize it, you can craft it.

The real question is, what do you want to see happening so that you can say ‘people are empowered’? Employee […]

February 24th, 2023

A simple question will jumpstart your organization into change. It will also save you from months of pain spent reorganizing your people and teams.

The following line will short-cut months of (building) ‘alignment’, integration, reorganization, team building, coalition building, and any situation in which Peter, […]

February 20th, 2023

Lead Via Peer-To-Peer Networks – If you don’t lead via peer-to-peer networks, you’re only driving your car in first gear.

Peer-to-peer work, transversal, spontaneous or not, collaboration, peer-to-peer influence, peer-to-peer activities of Viral Change™ champions or activists, all of this is the […]

February 7th, 2023

Write a script, not a strategic plan

If you care about the journey and the place, you need a story. If you have a good, compelling one, […]

January 26th, 2023

3 self-sabotaging mechanisms in organizations

Organizations, like organisms, have embedded mechanisms of survival, of growth and also of self-sabotage. These are 3 self-sabotage systems to […]

January 10th, 2023

Who should be involved in culture change? All inclusive versus going where the energy is.

Many times, in my consulting work, I find myself facing a dilemma: Do I involve many people on the client’s […]

December 23rd, 2022

Tell what won’t change – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

In any change programme that any organization wants to start, they will start by thinking of the things that they […]

December 16th, 2022

Scale It – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

When creating effective change in any organization, there are 40 rules that, in my experience, are the key between success […]

December 5th, 2022

Assets & Strengths Base – Introducing 1 of my 40 rules of change

For more than 30 years I have been involved in ‘change’ in organizations. Again and again, some fundamental principles, and often […]

November 25th, 2022

Campaign It… is 1 of my 40 rules of change

When you filter out the noise, when you try to extract the core, the fundamentals, those ‘universal rules’ of change […]

October 31st, 2022

Hybrid or not hybrid? That’s not the question…

Culture is the new workplace If you want to have a conversation about the future of work, the nature of […]

October 24th, 2022

‘Powered by Viral Change™’: A Social Transformation Platform for the organization of the 21st Century

When we started to work on Viral Change™, as a way to create large scale behavioural and cultural change, and […]

October 14th, 2022

Corporate tribes, intellectual ghettos and open window policies

We talk a lot about silos in organizations usually in the context of Business Units or divisions. But these are not […]

October 7th, 2022

Peer Networks are the strongest force of action inside the organization

Peer-to-peer works, transversal, spontaneous or not, collaboration, peer-to-peer influence, peer-to-peer activities of Viral Change™ champions or activists, all of this is […]