Four Groups

Archive for the ‘Teams’ Category

The ability to connect innovation, or the lack of it, directly to people within an organisation is key to ensuring that such innovation is delivered. While lots of people (Dave Pollard and Mark Madsen for example) are looking at disruptive innovation, we haven’t seen much that attempts to link the innovation process directly to individuals.

We’ve been working closely with Allan Engelhardt at Cybaea and have been exploring the impacts of innovation, collaboration and related themes. We’ve recently published a joint article called “Actions for Enterprise Collaboration”. Feel free to read the text online, or register and download it as a pdf. As a summary, I’ve added some extracts from the article below.

The business literature has recently been focusing on managing the direction of innovation, especially through the works of Clayton Christensen. However, if innovation is a car, then Mr. Christensen provides the GPS satellite navigation system to tell you how to steer to where you want to go, but gives little insight into how to start the engine.

Companies need to innovate relentlessly to even stand still in an increasingly global and competitive economy. No longer is it sufficient to deliver incremental improvements at a leisurely pace. Instead disruptive innovations of the type that fundamentally alters markets and business processes must be sought out and delivered regularly and predictably. Disruptive innovation must become a core business process.

However, substantial innovation happens in the organizational white space between departments and functional units. The activities in these spaces are almost per definition unmeasured and unmanaged, and therefore not repeatable.

[In order to link individuals, organizational white space and the innovation process directly] 4G first looks at the quality and specific dynamics of relationships and culture within the group. In particular, it is possible to not only see how existing relationships manifest themselves but also to predict the outcome of new relationships should roles and responsibilities change, or people’s work bring them into contact with new people. 4G also offers insights into different cultures and again, these can be modelled, predicted, and referenced against optimal conditions [for innovation].

There is lots of talk about Social Software at the moment. While this ranges from sites like Ecademy and Linkedin through to the growth of blogs and knowledge management software, what is clear is that the people aspect can’t be left behind.

While there is no substitute for people in this process, The Work Foundation have emphasised this in their own report “You Don’t Know Me, but… Social Capital & Social Software“.

Successfully marshalling human and technological resources in tandem is the key organisational and social challenge of our times. Organisations have been mystified as to why ICTs have failed to deliver promised productivity benefits, only to find that they have paid insufficient attention to the social infrastructure in which these new tools are embedded.

This report has already been picked up by Centrality and I think these ideas add weight to the people agenda within organisations which should really been seen on a par with processes and systems, if not a priority!

I’ve been brainstorming with Allan Engelhardt recently and one of his well received recommendations was a book called “The Hidden Power of Social Networks” by Cross and Parker. Bill Ives and Suw Charman have also posted reviews to this here and here.

Having made a start on Sunday morning, I was immediately struck by the opening quote from chapter 1 and how much it captured the spirit of management and its inherent difficulties.

It has taken us years, and I think we are still not sure if we are getting things right even after substantial reengineering projects, a move to teams, new HR practices, two acquisitions, and a ton invested in technology. By now, we should have reduced costs and created a more nimble company without a focus on hierarchy and fiefdoms. But it’s tough to ensure that this is really happening. Most of us in this room have thousands of people we are accountable for stretched across the globe. It’s impossible to manage or even know what’s going on in the depths of the organization. I mean, each of us can fool ourselves into thinking we’re smart and running a tight ship. But really the best we can do is create a context and hope that things emerge in a positive way, and this is tough because you can’t really see the impact your decisions have on people. So you just kind of hope what you want to happen is happening and then sound confident when telling others. Executive Vice President, Commercial Lending.

Talk about a problem statement! I think what’s so telling about this quote is that it clearly identifies with the fact that trying to manage people on a large scale is tough. There are just no hard and fast rules to measure and account for decisions and change. This of course is exactly the piece that Social Network Analysis addresses. Furthermore, whilst SNA gives a qualitative picture, Allan and I think that 4G can add to the quality of the relationships too. In other words, we’re trying to make the unmeasurable, measurable and therefore manageable.

Keywords: Social Network Analysis, SNA, 4G, Change Management, Management

I came across this entry and article which seemed to chime quite nicely with some of our thinking at Four Groups. The article starts off with a great opener…

One secret to the success of many professional service firms is treating their business relationships the way that investors treat their stock portfolios. Successful investors look at the investments in their portfolio and decide which ones to buy more of, which ones to hold, and which ones to sell. You should do the same with your business relationships.

This chimes in with our own thinking around the central idea of the importance of understanding the nature of relationships in the workplace. The key issue here is how to place a value on relationships. Share prices are easy, as they are highly transparent, can be quickly compared and valued, This is far harder when it comes to business relationships. This is primarily because:

• There is no common currency to describe the nature or value of relationships
• Relationships are inherently subjective and different people will have different perceptions of the same relationship

This also reminded me of another post by Johnnie Moore, entitled Relationships before Ideas.

I’ve witnessed quite a few businesses doing brainstorming and other creativity sessions on awaydays/offsites. If they’re lucky, they have an exciting day… then they return to their offices, the adrenalin rush long past, and revert to their normal, much less inspired, ways of working together. Sure, they went somewhere and had a few ideas. But they haven’t really changed the way they relate to each other.

Both of these articles hit the spot but leave you with the question – how? How do I act on this? It’s these sorts of situations that allow 4G to excel and really make a difference. Because 4G makes it possible to predict the nature and type of relationship that two people will have, more valuable interventions and approaches are possible.

Keywords: Social Relationships, Business Relationships, 4G