The Purposeful Enterprise: Communities, Collaboration, Kanban, and Tribes

The Purposeful Enterprise integrates Communities, Collaboration, Kanban, and Tribes.

As background,

• “The Smart Growth Manifesto: Creative People Collaborating to Create Value” recognizes Umair Haque’s “The Smart Growth Manifesto” and John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison’s Big Shift / Collaboration.
• “Teams: A ‘Good’ Thing or Instruments of Command-and-Control?” emphasizes the notion of authentically voluntary participation.
• “From 1.0 to 2.0: From ‘Moral Imperative’ to ‘Business Imperative’ and the ‘Calm Before the Storm’” recognizes a tapestry for disruptive forces involving Tribes, Leadership, Communities (of interest, practice, and purpose), Culture, Collaboration, and other profound ways of being and becoming.
  • Gary Hamel‘s “Moon Shots for Management” with “25 Stretch Goals for Management”
  • Seth Godin’s “Tribes”
  • CultureSync’s (Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright) “Tribal Leadership”
  • CultureSync’s (Dave Logan) & Vanto Group’s (Steve Zaffron) “The Three Laws of Performance”
  • Enterprise 2.0 (along with “The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration” and the “What, Why and How”)
• “Modern Management: The Prophet, First Lady, and Fathers” emphasizes the notion of fellowship around common purpose.
• “Scrum, Lean, and Kanban: Is ‘Kanban’ the ‘New Scrum’ or the ‘New Lean’?” emphasizes Kanban and its relationship to the notion of collaboration.
• “Leanness, Agility, Competitiveness, and Kanban” version-1 and version-2 interrelate these bodies of principles and values.

Additionally, consider Etienne Wenger’s Communities of Practice and David Cushman’s profound insights around Communities and Business (Communities of Purpose being the Business Units of the 21st century).

From all this (among more ideas) emerges the notion of the Purposeful Enterprise (or Tribal Enterprise) that integrates Communities, Collaboration, Kanban, and Tribes.

Organizations Today

Today, an organization or enterprise is a “system” that is statically composed of structural units (business units, divisions, departments, etc.) and dynamically operates using processes. Its structures and processes are integrated and organized around externally- and internally-facing products & services as well as projects and teams.

• Products & services establish targets as ends (or “bundles of value”, authentic or otherwise).
• Projects are institutional instruments to manage effort, targeting products & services.
• Structural units are institutional instruments to organize people and resources as means.
• Teams are institutional instruments to organize people, integrating structural units and projects.
• Management is an institutional instrument to compound human effort.

While Gary Hamel explores if we have reached the end of Management due to being limited by our DNA, we must also explore if we have reached the end of our Organizations (Product Management, Project Management, Product Development, etc.) — we are all “prisoners of our paradigms”.

The Purposeful Enterprise

The Purposeful Enterprise is a Community-of-Communities or Constellation-of-Communities or Tribe-of-Tribes.

• A community is a group of people with a common passion through identity, engagement, and meaning.
• A community of interest (CoI) focuses on a common interest.
• A community of practice (CoPr) focuses on a common area of practice or something that members do, generally known as a discipline.
• A community of purpose (CoPu) focuses on a common purpose, which emanates from common values, vision, and passion.
• Tribes emerge as a community of purpose with a leader and voluntary members.

The Purposeful Enterprise integrates these social aspects.

• A Kanban system is a simple “synchronization” tool for maximizing throughput.
• Collaboration involves purposeful contribution and confirmation using flow and pull. (Passion, Engagement, Purpose)
• Leanness, Agility, and Competitiveness focus on competency, culture, observe-orient-decide-act cycles, and value.

Towards the Purposeful Enterprise

Today’s organizations may progress towards becoming Purposeful Enterprises by fostering Tribal Leaders, including Value Champions who represent Markets & Business (generally from the Product Management, planning and marketing, side-of-the-house) and Innovation Champions who represent Technology (generally from the Product Development/Engineering side-of-the-house).

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Vision of the Purposeful Enterprise

As today’s organizations further progress towards becoming Purposeful Enterprises, Tribal Leaders will need to embrace Markets & Business & Technology (generally from every side-of-the-house).

Every aspect of the Vision of the Purposeful Enterprise is “grounded in reality” (derived from more-empirical and less-anecdotal evidence). Consider Google, Yahoo & Microsoft, and Microsoft vs. Yahoo.

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Maturity Models: Leanness, Agility, Competitiveness, and Collaboration

Maturity Models describe “degrees (or a pattern) of evolutionary stages (of essential elements) toward a goal”. A valuable maturity model is one that is “grounded in reality” and is context-aware but not context-sensitive. Being “grounded in reality” means that a maturity model is derived from more-empirical and less-anecdotal evidence. Being context-aware but not context-sensitive means that a maturity model is flexible such that it may readily be adorned to account for context but not so extremely sensitive as to be perverted. For example, perhaps founded on values & principles to foster emergent practices in a given context. Notice, that brittle would be “breakable” and rigid would be “inflexible”.

For example:

• The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition suggests maturity from Novice to Expert.
• The Four Stages of Competence suggests maturity from Unconscious Incompetence to Unconscious Competence.
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs suggests maturity from Physiological Needs to Self-actualization and Self-transcendence.
• The Tuckman Model suggests maturity from Form to Perform.
• The Cynefin framework or model suggests a taxonomy used to describe problems, situations and systems: Simple, Complicated, Complex, and Chaotic.
• The Competing Values Framework (CVF) suggests a model that integrates tensions and contradictions around Leadership, Effective Performance, and Value Creation.

And unarguably, maturity models may be abused, just like anything else!

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Agile Maturity Model (AMM)

0 – Dormant

1 – Speed: Focusing on being expeditious.

2 – Reactive: Focusing on acting relative to change from the perspective of the moment rather than a longer timeframe.

3 – Responsive: Focusing on acting relative to change from the perspective of the moment balanced with a longer timeframe.

With a few comments…

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Lean Maturity Model (LMM)

0 – Dormant

1 – Value Stream: Focusing on eliminating waste.

2 – Flow & Pull: Focusing on limiting work-in-process.

3 – Optimization: Focusing on balancing demand against throughput (around value).

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Competitiveness Maturity Model (CompMM)

0 – Dormant

1 – Technology-driven: Focusing on leveraging technology.

2 – Competitor-driven: Focusing on leveraging technology against competitors.

3 – Customer-driven or Sales-driven: Focusing on leveraging technology for customers and sales.

4 – Market-driven: Focusing on leveraging technology within the market.

5 – Market-driving: Focusing on Innovation and Advantage (Authentic Value).

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Collaboration Maturity Model (CollMM)

0 – Dormant

1 – Communication: Focusing on interchanging content.

2 – Cooperation: Focusing on operating in parallel.

3 – Coordination: Focusing on regular/rhythmic rather than irregular/intermittent points in time for synchronization (coordinating parallel activities and interchanging content).

4 – Collaboration/Co-Creation: Focusing on purposeful contribution and confirmation using flow and pull. Contribution involves “investing” content (as in return-on-investment) based on another collaborator’s pull for content. Confirmation involves oversight and attaining a “return” on content (as in return-on-investment) based on one’s pull for content. Collaborators pull content from one another as needed, but don’t push content unnecessarily. Collaborators foster the flow of content as needed, but don’t batch content unnecessarily. Notice the paradigm shift from batch-and-push to flow-and-pull. Furthermore, collaborators are purposeful to a goal its objectives.

5 – Harmonization: Focusing on sustainable collaboration, of which, conflict and respectful resolution are an essential element.

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The Art of Transformation

Transformation is not Transition! It doesn’t much matter if you are considering Lean, Kanban, Agile, Scrum, Product Management, Product Development/Engineering, Six Sigma, etc. Transformation is about DNA! Transformationists are a rare breed indeed!

Up to 75% of transformations don’t deliver the promised return on investment. Why? As Peter M. Senge explicates: “People don’t resist change. They resist being changed!” Consider the difference between a mechanistic and organic approach, and consider the underlying principles.

Mechanistic Approach

Margaret J. Wheatley explains:

A few years ago, we asked a group of Motorola engineers and technicians to describe how they went about changing a machine. In neat sequential steps, here’s what they described:

1. Assign a manager
2. Set a goal that is bigger and better
3. Define the direct outcomes
4. Determine the measures
5. Dissect the problem
6. Redesign the machine
7. Implement the adaptation
8. Test the results
9. Assign blame

Sound familiar? Doesn’t this describe most of the organizational change projects you’ve been involved in? We see only one real difference, which is that in organizations we skip step 8. We seldom test the results of our change efforts. We catch a glimmer of the results that are emerging (the unintended consequences,) and quickly realize that they’re not what we had planned for or what we sold to senior leadership. Instead of delving into what the results are, instead of learning from this experience, we do everything we can to get attention off the entire project. We spin off into a new project, announce yet another initiative, reassign managers and teams. Avoiding being the target of blame becomes the central activity rather than learning from what just happened. No wonder we keep failing!

Organic Approach

Margaret J. Wheatley explains:

Life changes its forms of organization using an entirely different process. Since human organizations are filled with living beings (we hope you agree with that statement,) we believe that life’s change process is also an accurate description of how change is occurring in organizations right now. This process can’t be described in neat increments. It occurs in the tangled webs of relationships–the networks–that characterize all living systems. There are no simple stages or easy-to-draw causal loops. Most communication and change occur quickly but invisibly, concealed by the density of interrelationships. If organizations behave like living systems, this description of how a living system changes should feel familiar to you.

Some part of the system (the system can be anything–an organization, a community, a business unit) notices something. It might be in a memo, a chance comment, a news report. It chooses to be disturbed by this. “Chooses” is the operative word here–the freedom to be disturbed belongs to the system. No one ever tells a living system what should disturb it (even though we try all the time.) If it chooses to be disturbed, it takes in the information and circulates it rapidly through its networks. As the disturbance circulates, others take it and amplify it. The information grows, changes, becomes distorted from the original, but all the time it is accumulating more and more meaning. The information may swell to such importance that the system can’t deal with it in its present state. Then and only then will the system begin to change. It is forced, by the sheer meaningfulness of the information, to let go of its present beliefs, structures, patterns, values. It cannot use its past to make sense of this new information. The system must truly let go, plunging itself into a state of confusion and uncertainty that feels like chaos, a state that always feels terrible. But having fallen apart, having let go of who it has been, the system now is capable of reorganizing itself to a new mode of being. It is, finally, open to change. It begins to reorganize around new interpretations, new meaning. It re-creates itself around new understandings of what’s real and what’s important. It becomes different because it understands the world differently. It becomes new because it was forced to let go of the old. And like all living systems, paradoxically it has changed because it was the only way it saw to preserve itself.

Principles for Practice

Margaret J. Wheatley offers four “principles for practice” around the essential freedom to re-create one’s self:

• Participation is not a choice. Transformationists must invite people into the process. Its all about You (Management, Teams, and Individuals on the Business and Technology sides of the house)!
• Life always reacts to directives, it never obeys them. Transformationists must consider how people react as partners not merely comply to bosses. Its all about You (Management, Teams, and Individuals on the Business and Technology sides of the house)!
• We do not see “reality.” We each create our own interpretation of what’s real. Transformationists must always remain curious about the diversity of interpretation not merely convincing others of our interpretation. Appreciate, Appreciate, and Appreciate!
• To create better health in a living system, connect it to more of itself. Transformationists must have a profound respect for the system/organization. No one knows your house the way you do, and one must always respect your house!

Keep in mind, these are principles, not techniques or methods. Transformationists are a rare breed indeed!

Leanness, Agility, Competitiveness, and Kanban (2)

Note: More musings on “connecting the dots” between Lean, Agile, Competitive, and Kanban. This is just another “draft”. Constructive feedback welcome.

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Culture integrates People!
People with Competency produce Results via a Stream/Process.
Results in a Context may or may not be of Value.

Customer Value is the only Value.
Be Optimal by Eliminating Waste and Limiting Work-in-Process.
Be Responsive by Observing, Orienting, Deciding, & Acting.
Be Competitive by Leveraging Distinctive Competency.
A Stretch Culture focuses on Continuous Improvement.

Leanness, Agility, Competitiveness, and Kanban

Note: Musings on “connecting the dots” between Lean, Agile, Competitive, and Kanban. This is just a “draft”. Constructive feedback welcome.

(click figure to enlarge)

Culture integrates People!
People with Competency produce Results via a Stream/Process.
Results in a Context may or may not be of Value.

Our Purpose & Strategy must be driven by an Awareness of Value.
Our Focus & Structure must cultivate the ability to Observe, Orient, Decide, & Act and foster Continuous Flow and Level Pull through a Value Stream.
Our Discipline & Systems must be founded on the Centricity to Pursue Perfection.

Modern Management: The Prophet, First Lady, and Fathers

Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) is widely considered the “Father of Modern Management” (“the man who invented management”). Gary Hamel (1954-) is recognized as the “most influential business thinker in the world”. Both, Drucker and Hamel, recognized Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933). Drucker regarded Follett as the “Prophet of Management”. Hamel regards Follett as the “world’s most prescient management thinker”. Indeed, Follett’s influence is readily apparent in the works of both, Drucker and Hamel.

To appreciate Follett’s forward-looking perspective, consider the following quotes (and their emphasis):

• Vision and Leadership: “The most successful leader of all is one who sees another picture not yet actualized.”
• Purpose for Fellowship (Leadership and Followership): “Leader and followers are both following the invisible leader — the common purpose.”
• Empowerment: “The best leader knows how to make his followers actually feel power themselves, not merely acknowledge his power.”
• Context and Situational Awareness: “That is always our problem, not how to get control of people, but how all together we can get control of a situation.”
• Engagement: “It is not opposition but indifference which separates men.”
• Conflict: “Most people are not for or against anything; the first object of getting people together is to make them respond somehow, to overcome inertia. To disagree, as well as to agree, with people brings you closer to them.”
• Integration: “There are three ways of dealing with difference: domination, compromise, and integration. By domination only one side gets what it wants; by compromise neither side gets what it wants; by integration we find a way by which both sides may get what they wish.”
• Unity: “Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.”
• Progress: “The unifying of opposites is the eternal process.”

Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) is regarded as the “First Lady of Engineering”. Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856–1915) is regarded as the “Father of Scientific Management”. While Gilbreth was an associate of Taylor, Gilbreth believed that “scientific management as formulated by Taylor fell short when it came to managing the human element”.

Follett, furthermore, “bridges the gap” between Taylor and William Edwards Deming (1900-1993), who is regarded as the “Father of Quality Management”.