Mike Hohnen

Jay Cross asks the question:

Here is Jay’s website with more on informal learning

[lang_en]For a while now I have been talking to friends and colleagues about this gut feeling that I have, that what we talk about as the economic crisis or downturn is possibly not a traditional crisis and/or downturn in the sense that once it is over things will return to normal.

I have this very clear feeling that a fundamental shift in many of the ways that we have been used to conducting business and interacting with each other is underway. (see also my previous post are you a frog in the pot) And that when the dust settles things will not return to what we have known previously as normal but will have undergone a clear shift. This is not a passing storm but fundamental climate change.

In pursuit of that theme I have been hunting for signs that would support this gut feeling.

This has led me to The 2009 Shift Index published by Deloite and presented on the Harvard publishing website.

Her you will find the following resume of key findings:

The 2009 Shift Index reveals a disquieting performance paradox in the US corporate sector. On the one hand, labor productivity has nearly doubled since 1965. During those same years, however, US companies’ Return on Assets (ROA) progressively dropped 75 percent from their 1965 level.

How can firms be getting lower returns even as they’re becoming more efficient? The answer resides in the heightened competition among firms. Competitive intensity nearly doubled between 1965 and 2008, forcing firms to compete away the benefits of productivity gains, which were instead captured by creative talent in the form of higher compensation and numbers of consumers through increasing performance/price ratios and wider choice.

It’s little surprise to find also that the highest-performing companies are struggling to maintain their ROA rates and are increasingly losing market leadership positions. Taken as a whole, the findings portray a U.S. corporate sector in which long-term forces of change are undercutting normal sources of economic value. “Normal” may in fact be a thing of the past: even after the economy resumes growing, companies’ returns will remain under pressure.

To respond to this performance challenge, U.S. companies will need to let go of industrial- era organizational structures (and the reporting relationships, incentive systems, and managerial processes that go with them) and operational practices in favor of the new institutional architectures and business practices needed to create and capture economic value in the era of the Big Shift.

Companies must move beyond their fixation on getting bigger and more cost-effective to make the institutional innovations necessary to accelerate performance improvement as they add participants to their ecosystems, expanding learning and innovation in collaboration curves and creation spaces. Companies must move, in other words, from scalable efficiency to scalable learning and performance. Only then will they make the most of our new era’s fast-moving digital infrastructure.

So what does this Big Shift entail in pratical terms?

John Hagel one of the co-authors of the 2009 Big Shift index does a superb job summarizing what he essentially sees as a shift from push to pull on his blog Edge Perspectives

What obviously caught my atention was this:

From knowledge transfer to knowledge creation
Most companies today will acknowledge the importance of knowledge flows, but they tend to focus on transferring knowledge more efficiently, especially within corporate boundaries. While useful, this is ultimately a diminishing returns game on multiple levels. The greatest economic value will come from finding ways to connecting relevant yet diverse people, both within the firm and outside it, to create new knowledge. They do this best by addressing challenging performance requirements that motivate them to get out of their comfort zone and come up with creative new approaches that generate more value with fewer resources.

This correlates well with the experiences that we have using action learning as our primary developmental tool in helping managers and organizations tackle the changes that they are in. It is not our job to teach but to help them learn – and that is a very different story.

But I urge you to read the full unfolding of this thinking here under the following headlines:

From knowledge stocks to knowledge flows.

From knowledge transfer to knowledge creation.

From explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge.

From transactions to relationships.

From zero sum to positive sum mindsets.

From push programs to pull platforms.

From stable environments to dynamic environments.

Lots of food for thought, and now I realize that my gut was telling me something important and I shall continue to pursue this investigation.[/lang_en]

Here is what Seth Godin thinks you should do instead:

Challenge the existing > Create a culture > Commit to leading

[lang_da]Politikken. dk har den 9 maj en rigtig god artikel med et velkendt budskab:

“Professor på Copenhagen Business School Henrik Holt Larsen mener, at manglende anerkendelse på jobbet giver mere sygefravær: »Det, der virkelig betyder noget i dagligdagen, er en god leder. Det kan afgøre, om man har lyst til at blive i jobbet. Manglende feedback giver tvivl, og det kan være en kilde til stress, som giver højt sygefravær hos mange virksomheder«, siger han.

Det svarer lidt til at bowle med et gardin midt på banen, forklarer han. Man kan anstrenge sig nok så meget for at kaste godt, men hvis bowlingkuglen triller ind under et sort gardin, kan man ikke se, om den rammer. Den tvivl og forvirring, det kan give ikke at ane, om arbejdsindsatsen er i orden, kan i sig selv føre til sygdom hos selv den dygtigste medarbejder.

For det handler ikke kun om, at chefen skal dele sukkermadder ud til de ansatte, men om, at de føler sig set, mener forfatteren til ’Førstehjælp til Feedback’, Anders Stahlschmidt: »Det behøver ikke være ros, men at man ser sine medarbejdere og interesserer sig for, hvad de laver.

Hvert år smider virksomheder millioner af kroner ned i et sort hul, fordi medarbejderne lægger sig syge eller siger deres job op. Det skyldes, at mange chefer enten kritiserer eller helt overser de ansatte, skriver Anders Stahlscmidt i en ny bog med titlen ’Førstehjælp til Feedback’, som udkommer 6. maj.”

Læs hele artiklen i Politikken
[/lang_da]

[lang_da] Den mest almindelige form for lederudvikling, man støder på i dag, er fokuseret på det, man kalder “right hand path” – hvor man lærer om den objektive og synlige viden. Det vi umiddelbart kan se og tage at føle på. Men fra et integralt perspektiv handler det i lige så høj grad om at udvikle ledere, der også kan inkludere ‘left hand path’, det indre ‘jeg’, fra den øverste venstre firkant og det intersubjektive ‘vi’ fra den nederste venstre firkant. For at udvikle sig optimalt som leder – såvel som personligt – må man starte med at blive bevidst om både de indre og de ydre realiteter.

Forestil dig 6 siders .pdf og en 20 minutters MP3 med ‘Big ideas’ fra store værker i en destilleret form og til at konsumere lige med det samme.

Lyder det for godt til at være sandt?

Det er det faktisk ikke. Prøv at se her på dette fantastiske tilbud fra philosophersnotes

“A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting”.
– Henry David Thoreau

Et citat som er meget i tråd med Action Learning, som er den gennemgående metode i alle vores kurser. Læs også mere om integralteori her.[/lang_da]

[lang_en]Most of the management training and leadership development that you can find today is focused on “right hand” path – teaching objective, empirical and behavioural ways of knowing. But from an integral perspective developing leaders capable of operating beyond the conventional action logics must also include the left hand path, the interior “I” of the upper left quadrant and the intersubjective “we” space of the lower left quadrant. Developing post conventioal stage capacities start with awareness of interior as well as exterior realities.

Imagine 6-page PDFs and 20-minute MP3s with the “Big Ideas” of great books distilled for immediate consumption and application to your life!

Sound to good to be true?

It’s not. Take a look at this amazing offer from philosophersnotes

“A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting”.
– Henry David Thoreau

A quote that is very much in tune with what we do Read also more about Integral Theory.

Enjoy the reading[/lang_en]