Evolving Web

Privacy in a Post TMI World

Lisa Hickey has a nice piece today about the bit of our private lives that we are discussing publicly.  The crux of the matter is trust and expectations.  Lisa says:

Anyone who has been on Twitter for a while has seen this phenomena: Spouses, children, boyfriends, girlfriends will say to someone who Twitters a lot: “You’re not going to put that on Twitter, are you?”

Yes, it’s funny. A sign of the times. My kids say it to me all the time. But here’s the thing: there’s a trust issue going on here.

There’s an interplay here.  I trust you with information that I’d rather not be distributed via Facebook.  To the point now that we have FriendDA which was originally created, such that it is, to let friends talk about business ideas, but is now routinely employed as a statement of “Don’t put this on Twitter.”

FriendDAs usually aren’t printed out, people are tending to say, “So I’m invoking FriendDA here….”  The counterpart nods, and the conversation continues.

So, socially, we are creating new conventions to plainly demark where privacy begins and ends.  Whereas privacy was previously assumed, it is now transparency that is assumed.  Information we’d like to keep close now comes with a wrapper.

Photo by Hamed Masoumi

Technorati Tags: Lisa Hickey,Facebook,Social Media,FriendDA,Hamed Masoumi,transparency,privacy

Voting With Our Feet – The Ethics of Sponsored Conversations

Today, Jeremiah Owyang posted “A running list of sponsored conversations”.  He has a laundry list of sites and products that engage in various forms of advertising and paid content. 

The article and its comments bring up the ethics of paying for supposed user-generated content.  With user-generated content, the assumption is that objectivity comes from personal experience unhindered by conflicts of interest.  If someone pays for a post, there is an immediate and obvious conflict of interest.  As a reader, you start to lose trust in the blogger and her content.

This ethical question isn't a new one, to blogging or any other form of communication.  All writers and all media have found themselves dealing with this.

Pick up any magazine and there's a good chance you'll find an article that turns out to be an advertisement about half way through.  Other publications run press releases, slightly edited, as stories.

Watch the morning “news” and you’ll find your NBC news staff telling you about new NBC programming.

I agree, Jeremiah, this is growing - it is an obvious win for both marketers and bloggers.  The bloggers are the ones who have the questions to ask of themselves.  How far along the shill-line are you willing to walk?

This is a personal question. 

As readers ... do we wish to read these? If not, we'll vote with our links and our attention.

Update: Read Write Web has an excellent response to all this.

Marshall says:

We respectfully disagree with Forrester's recommendations on this topic. In fact, we think that paying bloggers to write about your company is a dangerous and unsavory path for new media and advertisers to go down. We recognize that it's a complicated question, but we don't feel convinced by Forrester's conclusions regarding those complications.

Defenders of the tactic argue that it doesn't differ substantially from traditional advertising, that it's effective for advertisers, that bloggers want to profit from their writing and that with proper disclosure there's no loss of credibility for either party.

Technorati Tags: Jeremiah Owyang,conflicts of interest,blogging,shilling,shills,spam,splogs

Blogged at Modus Cooperandi, in Seattle

Lean Management and The Pull of Goals

Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.

~ Viktor E. Frankl

In lean management, a pull system is a natural flow of activities driven by the natural pace of the work that produces value.  Today I stumbled across this quote from Viktor Frankl, whose book Man’s Search for Meaning is surely one of the top 10 influential books on my world view.  In this quote, Frankl suggests that goals are a pull system.

Goals are indeed a pull system.  Goals come from internal processes.  We have individual and shared goals that motivate us to act.

In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.

~ Sid Caesar

Goals pull us, we ideally act based on goals.  These individual actions are tasks.  The tasks we take on are in service of the goals.  However, if we don’t actually enjoy what we’re doing in service of these goals or, worse yet, act contrary to our goals – we are squandering our lives.

In a business context, if goals are clear amongst teams and the organization, the work involved in achieving those goals is more likely to be rewarding.  We are happier in doing it.  And this is a pull process.

A beneficial by-product of pull systems is they reduce waste.  Pull systems do this by highlighting where we are operating in ways that stymie our goals.  Pull systems reward innovative thinking to remove these points which are constraining our goals.  Pull systems say “The constraint is here, it is obvious, are you going to do something about it?”

Though I still have no semblance of a life outside of Nine Inch Nails at the moment, I realize my goals have gone from getting a record deal or selling another record to being a better person, more well-rounded, having friends, having a relationship with somebody.

~ Trent Reznor

Trent Reznor here is saying, “Look, I don’t live to work or work to live.  I live to live.  I am a musician and it’s my life.  But my goals aren’t fame oriented, they are happiness oriented.”

Making music makes Trent happy.  Making people laugh made Sid Ceasar happy.  Understanding where people found meaning made Viktor Frankl happy. 

In an organization, creating good product or solving a problem may make us happy. 

At heart, though, the successful application of our talents is what makes most of us happy.  When our organizations have no clear definition of goals or work contrary to individual goal achievement – waste is the result.  We end up with, as Frankl says, the “push” of drive.

The push of drive is the artificial force necessary to apply to people to get them to work contrary to their own goals.

Enter here the concept of friction.  When you apply an external force to an object to get it to move, friction occurs.  The amount of friction is the amount of energy lost in the transfer of momentum from one object to another.  Loss of energy = waste.

In a pull system, things operate faster by removing friction or constraints.  In a push system, things operate faster by applying more force.

For Reznor, the push would be more money, the pull would be self-improvement.  Money may drive him, self-improvement motivates him.

When creating rules in organizations or devising ways to get things done – ask yourself “What are the push and pull elements here?  What motivates people, and what drives them?  Where is friction created?  How much friction can we withstand?  What friction can be avoided?”

Technorati Tags: Viktor Frankl,sid ceasar,trent reznor,management,lean software engineering,lean management,waste,muda,organizational psychology,pull systems,goals,yes I just quoted frankl sid ceasar and trent reznor what are you going to do about it

Blogged at Caffe Appassionato in Seattle’s Interbay Neighborhood

Powered by Muse

Applying the Principles of Agile to People other than Coders

Agile methods have been applied for the last decade or so to programming teams.  The goal with Agile was to take a group of people who were famous for poor communication, unrealistic expectations, and unpredictable deliverables and give them a structure that minimized these elements.

Agile primarily focuses on the following:

1. Acknowledging that change is part of any endeavor
2. Greatly increasing the frequency of discourse and review
3. Assumptions are the rope from which the noose of business is tied

Bill Anderson and I guest-hosted a Yi-Tan call covering how Agile was formed, what its central tenets are, and what it can teach the rest of business.

Listen to the recording of that call.

Technorati Tags: Yi-tan,Jerry michalski. Bill Anderson. Jim Benson,Agile principles

Blogged at Modus Cooperandi in Seattle, WA

Discussing Post-Agile on Yi-Tan on Monday Feb 16th

Monday February 16th at 10:30PST (1:30 EST) I will be doing my second talking-head stint on the Yi-Tan conference call.  This time with my good buddy Bill Anderson.  We’ll be talking about Agile methodologies and what might come next.

Corey Ladas will also be joining me on the line.  All are welcome.  Here’s the invite info from Jerry Michalski:

How might we use the precepts of agile programming in general (non-IT) business settings?

Agile programming has come a long way from its early incarnation as extreme programming on the first wiki. It's been influenced by lean manufacturing and spawned practices like Scrum.

Yet the agile community remains pretty insular. Only lately have people seriously explored how agile principles and practices might be used outside software development.

With agile practitioners Jim Benson and Bill Anderson, let's discuss:

• What does agile mean? What are its core practices?
• How do those practices and principles apply to general management?
• What virtues and new value can this bring?

As always, an IRC Chat will be available during the call, here. Let's continue tweeting, using #yitan. This page is on a wiki, here.

Date:    Monday, February 16, 2009
Time:    10:30 PST, 1:30 EST
Dial-in Number: 1-712-580-1100
Participant Access Code: 778778
Wiki goodness at www.yi-tan.com
Please feel free to forward this note to people you think would be interested in these calls. 

Hope to see you show up in the IRC and maybe hear you on the phone.

Technorati Tags: Yi-tan,agile,agile methods,corey ladas,bill anderson,jerry michalski

Blogged at My House in Seattle, WA

Volere è potere

Will is power.

Aggregated will is aggregated power.

Networked will is networked power.

As individuals we want to achieve.  As groups we can achieve.

Do our organizations reflect this?

Our relationships (professional or personal) should be designed to build networks of communication, respect, responsibility and value.   In organizations, those who lead are responsible for setting vision and culture.  This can be a group of two, where the two people involved understand their destination and are mutually working to get there.  It can work in organizations the size of Microsoft or GE – as long as appropriate leadership happens in appropriate places.

When organizations focus primarily on intangibles (profit, market dominance, public perception), focus is necessarily removed from tangibles (what we do, how we do it, why we do it).  As the focus becomes diffused, the individual is lost.  She no longer has responsibility or a sense of belonging.

Productivity slips.  Attitude descends.

People naturally work for some goal.  If the goal isn’t to innovate or help the company achieve its mission, then their goal is personal.  Income maximization, maximum free time, minimum effort, maximum career path.  If these goals are made outside of the mission of the company, they probably happen at the expense of the company

The fortune cookie says “You never hesitate to tackle to most difficult problems.”  Why isn’t this true for everyone?  Because often we are told that our input is neither sought nor appreciated.

Organizational willpower comes from clarity of purpose and buy-in from those in the organization.  The members of your organization require the elements of the 10 Principles of Social Media.  They need to have an understanding of operations, a good feeling about their status, clarity of corporate governance, rewards for jobs well done, and access to the information and people they need to do their jobs and improve process.

When your org allows for these, your org may earn this fortune cookie.  It too will never hesitate to tackle the most difficult problems.

Technorati Tags: leadership,10 social media principles,social media principles,management,tribes

Written at the Sai Oak in Ocean Shores, Wa.

Photo by Tonianne

Pushmi Pullyu Management & the Dolittle Organization

"Lord save us!" cried the duck. "How does it make up its mind?" – The Story of Doctor Doolittle by Hugh Lofting

The Pushmi Pullyu

The Story of Doctor Dolittle tells us that the Pushmi Pullyu was an animal that is now extinct, which means it’s not around any more.

Its genetic structure lives on in many businesses and relationships, however.  Note the Pushmi Pullyu’s main characteristics:

• Two heads in opposing directions
• One very firm body
• No visible way of cleanly eliminating waste

Hugh Lofting wrote The Story in 1920.  At this point, stovepiping and arbitrary specialization was a new art. So, for Lofting, the best way to solve the inherent conflicts in a Pushmi Pullyu structure was … stovepiping and specialization in the service of organization and civilization.

“I notice," said the duck, "that you only talk with one of your mouths. Can't the other head talk as well?"

"Oh, yes," said the pushmi-pullyu. "But I keep the other mouth for eating--mostly. In that way I can talk while I am eating without being rude. Our people have always been very polite."

This might have satisfied us when we were 7 and reading Dolittle books, but now it raises all sorts of obvious questions.

• What if the other mouth decides it wants to say something?
• How can an object with two distinct brains and skulls be an “I”?
• At a moment of panic, how do you not rip yourself in half?
• With two pairs of legs facing in opposite directions, don’t you find knee bending a bit challenging?

And we begin to see some of the inherent difficulties in an entity or organization that designs itself with multiple heads and structurally opposing viewpoints.

Opposing Heads

Stovepiped organizations are Pushmi Pullyu by nature.  Cost centers that have opposing goals (funding, staffing, power, flexibility, subservience, etc.) create Pushmi Pullyu dynamics.  Marketing squares off against Product Development.  Manufacturing against sales.

Decisions are made not through collaboration of heads moving in the same direction – but are made by combat between groups that see themselves as the true “head” of the company and making no effort at alignment.  Alignment would bring the other “head” in line with their “head” – thereby taking away their assumed importance.

The company calls itself "a company” but a little examination reveals that the company is a group of discrete adversarial units with no choice but to do business together.

One Very Firm Body

The Pushmi Pullyu’s physiology won’t even allow it to re-org into a forward facing unit.  Its spine would snap.

Many companies, through years of policies, procedures and power moves, are hopelessly mired in Pushmi Pullyu architectures.  We see policies:

• forbidding inter-group communication. 
• making it difficult for staff to transfer within the company. 
• overly restricting decision making to managers that centralize power.
• creating highly regimented rules around information dissemination.

The policies make organizations inflexible and destined for extinction - which means they soon won’t be around any more.  Slight changes to the ecosystem of a rigid organization can yield exquisite damage.

Waste Elimination

The Pushmi Pullyu’s whimsical design is good for story telling and power hoarding, but it is not so good for sustainable management.  The Pushmi Pullyu doesn’t even have the equipment to rid itself of waste.

Businesses are not immune from this seemingly impossible oversight.  Many of the self-professed problems coming today from the big 3 auto makers are not dissimilar from those described in some of the companies in Jim Collins’ book Good to Great.

Scott Paper is one such case study of Collins’.  The company was hopelessly mired in a Pushmi Pullyu dynamic.  Product lines that were part of the company history but untenable in an overly commoditized marketplace. There was a lot of internal political capital in those existing products.  Scott Paper’s leadership, however, knew that those products – while known and comfortable to the organization – were not an avenue for either stability or growth.

The waste eliminated here is massive.  Political waste, policy waste, underperforming product line waste.  That is Olympic medal winning waste elimination.  The Big 3 Automakers, like Scott Paper before them, will need to not just re-org, but entirely re-invent their corporate physiology in order to survive.

To achieve this, goal alignment and transparency are paramount.  Opposing heads cannot be part of the corporate architecture. 

(This does not mean disagreement isn’t good, it does mean that institutionalized opposition will not be tolerated.) 

Your So-Called Pushmi Pullyu Life

So, you are in a Pushmi Pullyu situation (or maybe more than one).  What do you do?

The answer is simple.  Subversion.

the act of subverting : the state of being subverted ; especially : a systematic attempt to overthrow or undermine a government or political system by persons working secretly from within

- Websters on line dictionary

Nothing short of subversion will undo such deep structural divisions within a company.  They were there before you and people don’t know enough to change them.

I vote for social subversion in the service of positive change.

Talk to people you’re not supposed to. Form alliances between you and “enemy” groups in the company.  Work to create win-win funding opportunities for projects that involve both groups.  Find ways to share staff.  Increase intra-organizational involvement.

Find areas of obvious success, execute and be successful. 

You will get flak for this.

Your alternatives: Acquiescence or Unemployment.

Technorati Tags: pushmi pullyu,doctor dolittle,hugh lofting,subversion,jim collins,social media principles

Blogged at Modus Cooperandi in Seattle, WA

Karma is Real – Social Media Principle #6

This post is fifth in a series of my Social Media Principles.  The base post is 10 Social Media Principles.

#6: Karma is real – You give more, you get more.

I was much amused to find that Doug Haslam’s mention of An Bui’s remix of the 10 Principles focused specifically on this principle.  He says:

Not that this was An Bui’s intent for the blog, but I have trouble imagining saying “Karma is Real” when trying to ask the Big Boss for more social media budget.

Well, it certainly was our intent and I welcome the conversation.  I personally have found most upper management (Big Bosses) prefer arguments that are both in and out of the box.  Concepts like this rupture the box from the inside.

Reap What You Sow

If Doug is worried about non-western religion, he can use Reap what you Sow

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.- Galatians 6:7 

or perhaps B.B. King

I do everything you tell me to
You won't do anything baby but try to make me blue
Baby, you ought to treat me right
Oh baby, you're gonna reap just what you sow
-- B.B. King, Treat Me Right

or Emerson

"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trust me, the invocations are inexhaustible.  Karma is not a concept owned by any culture or religion.

As a word, Karma simply means “action”.  As a concept, it is tied to the laws of cause and effect.  If we give more, we get more.  If we act well, we are treated well.  If we are snarky, we get some snark back.

This concept upsets some people as being all hand-holding kumbaya-like. So, let’s examine how and why it is important for business and where it comes into play in social media.

Court of Public Opinion

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. – Warren Buffet

What other people think matters.  And it should.

The Brand

In business, people are judging your brand, your product quality, and your actions.  People are taking their money, their energy, and investing it in your product.  Your reputation is important.

Prior to now, business reputation could often be made through advertising and public relations slight-of-hand.  But the world is becoming more and more transparent and, simultaneously, elephant-like.  It sees more and forgets less.

Once trust is destroyed it is very hard to build back.  No one is rushing to give Bernard Madhoff more money.

An Bui’s post focused on this concept.

The Culture

Internal to a business, Karma is a major driving force as well.  For example, who is hired, promoted, and ultimately successful for your company is entirely a product of karma.

But whose Karma and what Karma?

Ideally, it would be bottom-up karma – a meritocracy of the best and brightest working their way up through the system and creating the best and healthiest company imaginable.

Why are you laughing?

You are laughing because we all know it doesn’t work this way.  Promotions are all-too-often the result of backstabbing, Peter Principling, incompetence reshuffling, ulterior motivating, politicking, etc.  Sometimes it’s due to corporate or union momentum – that inexorable force that promotes people simply due to longevity.

You are laughing because it’s inconceivable that we could create a business that would be healthy enough to actually reward and promote appropriately.

(This is why Buckingham’s first book is called First Break All The Rules. The current rule set doesn’t allow for bottom-up Karma).

Top-Down Karma

An organization most often derives its culture from management.  As we discussed with the mythical company Amalgamated Suckup (Jim’s version, An’s version), as companies become less introspective, they rely more on policy to govern the business.

Policies become a crutch.

Policies generally require stuff and most often that stuff comes in the form of information rigidity.  The right form at the right time – no exceptions.

As the form trumps function, people lose enthusiasm and stop working for the success of the company and more for the success of the policies.  “How the game is played". 

Karma being satisfied here is not from the bottom – or from the individual.  The karma being satisfied here is from the institution.

Now, follow the dots.

If a bottom-up meritocratic approach gives you the best and the brightest – what does a top-down bureaucratic approach give you?  It gives you people skilled at satisfying your bureaucracy and navigating your politics.

Karma in Social Media

 

"Realize that everything connects to everything else."
- Leonardo DaVinci

Now, unless my history is inaccurate, DaVinci didn’t have a Powerbook.  (though he probably sketched one)

Karma is certainly not an invention of social media.  But social media highlights how people react when healthy social reinforcement is in place.

Karma in social media is everywhere.  Whether explicitly stated, as in this screenshot from Plurk, or more implicit, understanding the notion of Karma is what makes a good social network.

First we have the notion of a “friend”. The liberal definition of Friend in social media upsets a lot of people.  (Some people like to be outraged, it makes them feel important).

But, as used in social media, friends are people you have contact with.  The term friend is … friendly. Networks form.

People in these networks do things.

To the left here we have my Yelp statistics. I’ve given this company 140 reviews, gone to a bunch of their events, and I’ve amassed about 100 friends.

Why?  Why would I spend my time adding to the intellectual property of this company?

The reason is entirely Karma based.

I gave them 140 reviews, these reviews were good enough to get them to make me an “elite” member. This means I rose through the meritocracy to get special perks.  (Hosted dinners, etc.)

You will also see that people vote on each review.  It can be useful, funny and / or cool.  This is done by readers.  Any reader.

Compliments are from fellow Yelpers who can leave a compliment under any of 9 categories.

Good behavior on Yelp can be noted by anyone at any time and in many different ways. 

Social media has shown us repeatedly that sites that provide ample rewards for good behavior see more good behavior.  Those that penalize bad behavior see people leave and go to other sites.

What Goes Around Comes Around

The principle here is a principle: Karma is real.  As businesses plan projects, cultural changes, and their relationships internal & external, the fact that in a networked world people can quickly judge and mete rewards or punishments must be a guiding force. 

The community will judge your company based on your actions.  It’s that simple and it’s that complicated.

Or Perhaps Bob Dylan says it better:

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,
You may be workin' in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,
You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

-- Bob Dylan, Gotta Serve Somebody

UPDATE:  Here is a good, concise application of this principle by Hutch Carpenter correlating tweets to followers.

Image and Captions for the Image of the “bloke from Poland” courtesy of Donald H. Taylor. 

Technorati Tags: Doug Haslam,An bui,Bob Dylan,Ralph Waldo Emerson,management,10 social media principles,rewards,karma,karma is real,Donald Taylor,Plurk,Leonardo DaVinci,Marcus Buckingham,kumbaya,warren buffet

Written at my vacation house, in Ocean Shores, WA.

Agile Methodologies – One Size Does Not Fit All

Scrum, XP, etc. don’t work for everyone.  Does this mean that Agile does not work for everyone?  Well, if Agile is a process, the answer is yes.  But if Agile is a set of principles, the answer is clearly no. 

Principles are guides to help you create better process.

Bill Tozier (the taller one in the picture) pushed my buttons by leaving this excellent comment:

Pushing a little harder: I'm not sure but I think that there is often some set of circumstances for which any strategy will outperform any other. Some folks I know piss people off when they point out that Extreme Programming or "Agile" (whatever that is supposed to be) cannot be better in all cases.

It's a useful exercise to objectively explore realistic business cases where being (or becoming) "agile" or "lean" are bad ideas. There's nothing new in what we do, and we are not revolutionaries except insofar as we can understand more cases of the real world and arguably communicate them better.

The 21st century still involves moving metal objects around, and communication networks don't ensure efficient communication, and archives don't ensure knowledge capture, and politics don't transform smoothly into communitarian panarchy. And that's as it should be.

Nothing technological, cultural, social, or even philosophical happened after 2000, that didn't have a counterpart in 1900. Telegraphy and telephony and electrification and corporatization and stuff made Scientific Management possible... why should not our latest, super-enhanced versions of the same stuff not make Super-scientific Management the next big craze?

Or, shorter version: Every advantage from doing things "differently", for any difference, must have risks as well. And lacking universal adoption of the difference, there must be cases where these costs outweigh the benefits.

Posted by: Bill Tozier

Here is my reply:

Nothing is universally applicable. In fact, we don't presuppose any methodology is universally applicable.

We use principles to guide the creation of processes that apply to specific realities. Different teams require different processes.

Scrum or XP are fairly rigid in the out-of-the-box application. This ridigity is what people are bucking against - this one-size-fits-all approach.

The principles behind Agile - dynamic teams, frequent and short group meetings, ritualized communication, limiting work in progress - are all, I believe, universally applicable.

Some groups will want time boxed work-limiting mechanisms, others will be better suited for a kanban capacity style limitation. In the end, the principle is what needs to be kept in mind, and not the dogmatic application some guy invented for his particular project.

Technorati Tags: Agile methodologies,lean,scrum,XP,kanban,bill tozier

Blogged at My House before a day of errand running in Seattle, WA

Organizational Entropy and Information Abuse

My friend Jay Fienberg left a comment at the end of my Intellectual In-Breeding post that raised this point:

I think this is an interesting idea, but either overstated or in need of more exploration:

"Information is, by its very nature, subversive. Information tells you the right thing to do."

I think one could just as easily assert that "information is, by its very nature, oppressive. Information tells you the wrong thing to do."

As a conjecture: when has anyone every done the wrong thing without doing so based on some information? – Jay Fienberg (Jay’s Site)

I read this in the car, parked outside Top Pot Doughnuts in Seattle and laughed. It’s an awesome observation.

Cuts Like a Knife

I would argue that information in this context is an object.  A social object. Subversive, Oppressive, Liberating, Enlightening. 

And like a knife, it can slice a tomato or your throat.

When organizations lose shared purpose and principles – their sense of community – they are already in process of decay and dissolution, even though they may linger with outward appearance of success for some time.  -- Dee Hock, Founder of Visa in Birth of the Chaordic Age

The game of a new organization is to be noticed. To be noticed, you want to be the best.  Quality is job 1.  This is an expansive mode.

The game of an old organization is to continue to exist.  This is a protective or entropic mode – the focus is now inward.

What Mr. Hock is noting in this quote is that when an organization switches from an expansive mode, it enters an entropic mode. Maybe this is inevitable – that’s for further debate.

When you combine these two observations, the questions become: How do organizations in an entropic state abuse information?   And, perhaps, is information abuse itself a signal that an organization has entered an entropic state?  Can we use it as a diagnostic tool?

The entropic organization is readily recognizable by the dysfunction in how it exchanges information.  So, the last question, I’d give a yes.  The middle question I would give a probably – it’s certainly an indicator that you need to do an entropy check. 

The first question would take volumes.  Rules, policies, even outright fabrication in some cases.  Worldcom, Morgan Stanley, and the Bush White House can all provide ample examples of half-truths and lies being released in the form of information and information that has bowed to the whims of control.

But It Feels so Right

Why do organizations do this?  What is it about entropy that causes this type of bending of information?  Why do people feel that obfuscation and withholding information is useful?

We return to Dee’s Quote.  “When organizations lose shared purpose and principles – their sense of community – they are already in process of decay…”. 

Decay is pervasive.

Systemic.

Now the darkness only stays the night-time
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
Its not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
-- George Harrison, All Things Must Pass

Decay and rebirth are life itself.  Why are our institutions expected to be immutable?

Change requires acceptance. People leading large companies are already scared of tomorrow. Every day they fear someone will build something better, do something smarter, create something less expensive.

Keeping information hidden until the last possible minute is a natural reaction by people in power.  Power corrupts – but corrupt people are not evil.  They have been corrupted, often unbeknownst to themselves.  Retrospection is our teacher in this regard.

Feeling that they are protecting the company, they will hoard information.  There has been no handbook to tell them otherwise. 

The more information is withheld, the more purpose and principles are lost.  The gulf between the organization and the community widens.  And entropy escalates.

I coulda sworn we had it all worked out

Entropy is natural and inescapable. We’ve spent our entire history as human beings denying it. 

Does this mean things are hopeless?

No, it means that systems need rejuvenation and management.  Entropy should be anticipated and accounted for.

IBM has done an excellent job of reinventing itself.  Many governments have sunset dates for their ministries. And (thank you FDR) we have term limits on the US presidency.  With every new presidency, with every new reinvention of self, introspection and forward vision both happen.  Rebirth ensues.

Agile Methods and Lean Principles both dictate frequent reviews and check-ins. Information is designed to flow as freely as possible and create systems to quickly note when it is not. 

Human nature works for us and against us in this regard.  We naturally protect ourselves when under pressure – but we also naturally cooperate when goals are clear and shared.

Leadership becomes critical in open structures.  It’s not anarchy and it’s not communism. Open structures require strong leadership. Someone needs to be on-point to make sure all the members of an organization are comfortable.

This requires true leadership, not autocratic positional power.

Way beyond the shadow of a doubt

Society abhors an information vacuum.

The future requires an introspective organization.  One that won’t stand for misinformation or information being withheld.

Will it still happen?  As sure as the day is long it will.

But it will happen a lot less and be noticed more quickly.

Murphy’s Law stands.  Things going wrong isn’t the problem – it’s things festering.

(And for the record, I really can’t stand that Bryan Adams song and it’ll be stuck in my head for days now….)

UPDATE:  An Bui has posted a thoughtful extension of this conversation.

Technorati Tags: Jay Fienberg,Dee Hock,Agile,agile methodologies,lean,social media principles,social media,FDR,murphy's law,earworm

Blogged at Top Pot Doughnuts on Queen Anne in Seattle, WA – I’m free of the snow!