Extracts taken from my new book ‘The Flipping Point‘. [1] A flipping point in the trend for adopting absurd management ideas needs to be reached. ‘The Flipping Point‘ [1] contains 200 short vignettes exploring what ’deprogramming management’ may look like. Read a recent review [2].
When managing an organization’s internal complexity, is a greater problem than managing the complexity of the environment.
When organizations grow, their systems and processes grow. When organizations grow, they are better able to address their complex, external environment. To react to that complex environment, the organization’s internal systems and processes become more complex. At some point, managing the internal complexity becomes a greater problem than managing the complexity of the environment. The airtime becomes internally consumed. The word customer is suddenly an inwards looking concept. The new, more complex internal systems attract even more internal complexity. The escalation is fast. 10 guys is a start-up. At 20, an entire HR department comes from nowhere. At 200, a new internal enterprise digital customer blah blah blah system is bought. From here on, the possibilities are endless.
I feel very strongly that these lenses explain a lot of self-inflicted problems. My solution: (1) stay in beta; (2) stay small or break up into small units [Dunbar’s number of 150? Bezos’s teams of one pizza feeding?); (3) Never try to reproduce in small what a big company is.
Autoimmune disease, organizations have a similar disease.
Autoimmune disease is when ‘the body produces antibodies that attack its own tissue, leading to the deterioration and sometimes the destruction of such tissue’. Organizations have a similar disease. Self-inflicted problems such as increasing complexity and ever-increasing decision-making processes. Give people on-the-spot permission to solve anything. Get 3 people, not 30, to make a decision in 3 days, not 30 days. Suppress the immune system with a high dose of common sense. In fact, listing self-inflicted problems is not that hard for any savvy manager.
Autoimmune disease. Listing self-inflicted problems is not that hard for any savvy manager. In fact, I ask clients to do this and create lists such as ‘problems that do not exist, but we seem to love to have’; ‘good problems to have’; ‘little problems with the voice of big problems’; etc.
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The Flipping Point [1] – Deprogramming Management. This book asks you to use more rigour and critical thinking in how you use assumptions and management practices that were created many years ago. Our real and present danger is not a future of robots and AI, but of current established BS. In this book, you are invited to the Mother of All Call Outs!
Available from major online bookstores [3].
[1]
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New webinar series launching this month.
Feed Forward webinar series – the organization now, under new management
Machines work on feed-back. Minds work on feed-forward. We don’t need thermostats; we need new compasses. There is no ‘back to normal’. Normal has not been waiting for us. Leandro Herrero
To change to ‘the new normal’ we must think and act differently in the management of our organizations. Join Leandro Herrero and his team of organizational architects for these 5, free webinars as they debunk uncontested assumptions and uncover the alternatives, whilst considering why this is even more relevant today in the current exceptional environment. Join us and bring your critical thinking brain, switched on. It’s a serious business. It may also be fun.
All attendees receive a complimentary copy of The Flipping Point.
Webinar topics:
- The myths of change.
- Can we put the company in an MRI? Can we diagnose its health in terms of its internal connectivity, communication and collaboration?
- The myths of company culture.
- The myths of management.
- High touch and high tech in the digitalisation era
Request [4] more information about these webinars.