Bridges To Knowledge: A Blog by Barry Camson

A Parable of Potential

In a previous blog article, I set out a quote by Antonio Gramsci which provided a definition of hegemony. Gramsci said, "hegemony means that certain ideas, favorable to the dominant capitalist class were often so deeply ingrained in social and economic processes that it was hard for most people to penetrate the idea fog, and even to think about a new direction - to say nothing of contemplating whether another system is possible."

As I sit here contemplating all the different and hopeful initiatives we are daily creating to deal with climate change and the other negative impacts on our Planet, I get the feeling that I remain within the idea fog as perhaps are others. It seems to me that many of the solutions we are developing - however well-intentioned they may be still exist within Gramsci's idea fog. We cannot seem to move ourselves out of our old habits and paradigm.

Integrating Ecosystem and Value Chain Design in Sustainability Efforts, Revisited

How can one use the practice of design to implement sustainability approaches in organizations and in their surrounding ecosystems?

This is a daunting challenge especially with regard to ecosystems because the ecosystem of even a small polluter can be inhabitants of the entire planet or certainly a region of the globe.

One really needs to take a whole-earth perspective to fully comprehend this. This is vividly demonstrated in the recent "school-strike" catalyzed by Greta Thunberg of Sweden which involved 1.6 million young people in almost 1700 cities and towns in over 123 countries in every continent.

We do have to start somewhere in terms of organizations and one place to start is to gain a concept of the system with which we are dealing. This involves viewing the organization in terms of what may be a more linear, value-chain as well as seeing the organization as part of a larger ecosystem.

Adaptive Design For Collaborative Ecosystems

This article sets out a working description of a collaborative ecosystem in which value is co-created. It describes what needs to be attended to in the process of adaptive design for the ecosystem. It sets out a path forward in pursuing adaptive design for a collaborative ecosystem.

Are you an Ecosystem?

Being an ecosystem involves recognizing all those engaged in the co-creation of value and in ongoing relationships with one another constituting a larger network. This is qualitatively different from seeing your organization plus all of the business relationships it has with its different providers and stakeholders. It is different from seeing your customer or client as the recipient of the goods or services that you develop.

Discovering the Ecosystem Within: An Approach to Design

The great irony with regard to business ecosystems is that businesses are not organized as ecosystems while at the same time they are ecosystems. All of the components of an ecosystem may already be resident in and about the organization while at the same time not being recognized as such. This post describes the phenomena and then takes a step toward addressing how to intervene to bring the ecosystem into ascendance.

Let's look for some of the attributes of an ecosystem in the contemporary organization. They exist in various stages of development.

Creating Sustainable Value Chains

Taking a value chain approach is particularly helpful when addressing how to build in sustainability as an integral part of a large and complex organization. The overarching goal in such an effort is to make the entire organization as well as its ecosystem of suppliers and customers more sustainable. These approaches differ significantly from previous efforts of "greenwashing" the organization or creating a separate sustainability function divorced from the daily life of the organization. The current recognition reflects the importance of making sustainability part of the daily mission and work of each person in the organization.

This post sets out the steps that can be used to accomplish this.

These steps are derived from two Harvard and Stanford business cases, dealing with Unilever and Walmart respectively. The steps tend to be iterative and will apply differently depending on specific conditions.

 

 

The Emerging Practice Of Design

The practice of organization design like our sense of organizations is at a turning point.

Design as it existed in the last decades of the twentieth century is "dying out" and the global world is searching for a replacement just as we are experimenting with new forms of organization - virtual, networked, temporary. Even the global value chain that was the trend at the end of the twentieth century is breaking down as the carbon footprint from moving partially completed goods from one country to another is perceived to result in higher costs.

An Appreciative Approach To Working With Non-Profit Boards

How can someone working with non-profit boards both help members feel good about their work on the board while also challenging them to help make the board be more effective and resolve problematic issues?

Seven Enduring Principles of Change Management Applicable to Enterprise 2.0

There have been a variety of valuable presentations, posts and conversations lately as a number of us have been considering what are sound approaches to help create wider Enterprise 2.0 use in organizations. These are conversations about what is generally called "change management." In these conversations, many of us are speaking about the Enterprise 2.0 tools as well as the ways of working and structuring work that support optimum use of these tools. These ways of working and structuring include increased participation and collaboration and flatter organizations to name just a few.

I have been involved in large-scale change projects for many years. In most of these efforts, there has been a focus on implementing state-of-the art technological tools as well as on how to create a high performing, more collaborative organization. These two goals have been seen as mutually supportive. This is pretty much in line with the goals we are speaking of for Enterprise 2.0.

I would like to set out what I believe are some enduring principles of change management that were value-adding in the past and which remain so today. Discussing these cannot be accomplished in a single post, so I will cover them over several posts. In this post, I will set out the overall principles.

These principle are:

1. Respect the existing people and system.
2. Utilize an encompassing approach.
3. Have a clear path forward.
4. Increase participation by enabling many people to contribute to the change effort.
5. Provide active, visible and sincere leadership support.
6. Seek deeper personal engagement.
7. Factor in contemporary models of change.

Some People Believe.......A Story of Enterprise 2.0 Adoption and Use

Some people believe that all that is necessary for successful Enterprise 2.0 adoption and use is for everything to be built into the technology, itself. Their view is that all of the issues of deployment and adoption can be addressed by how the technology is designed. They hold that an organization can be moved to be a more "Need To Share"-type organization by virtue of what is embedded in the technology.

Other people believe that technology is only the nuts and bolts and is limited in what it can accomplish by itself. These people hold that what most influences deployment, adoption and successful use are organizational changes to the processes, behaviors, configurations and the resulting culture.

Six Important Conversations To Have To Bridge The Enterprise 2.0 Cultural Gap

There appears to be a growing recognition that successfully dealing with cultural issues is a critical success factor in the deployment and adoption of Enterprise 2.0 tools and the changes in ways of working related to these tools. Many of the presenters at the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston spoke of the importance of culture in Enterprise 2.0 deployment in organizations. A common comment was, "it's not about the tools, it's about the culture."

The change management challenge is to move the organization deploying Enterprise 2.0 tools from what may be a traditional, hierarchical, command and control culture to one that is less hierarchical, and more collaborative, agile, open and transparent - characteristics which are more congruent with Enterprise 2.0 tools.

Here are six conversations that I recommend occur in your organization that will help your organization bridge the cultural gap between the status quo and the organization as an effective user of Enterprise 2.0 tools. This builds on a previous post where I stated that "to optimize the technology and achieve improvements in organizational effectiveness...a focus on the overall organization is important."