Complexity Thinking vs. Systems Thinking

Complexity thinking is a stage of optimization in systems thinking.

In today’s digital dynamic with VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) characteristics, both system thinking and complexity thinking are crucial for crafting business strategy and solving business problems, complexity thinking vs. system thinking, are they the same, or the different thinking processes?

Complexity thinking is a stage of optimization in systems thinking: Systems thinking is a way of knowing the complexity and bringing certain level of simplicity to the existing complexity (complex problem) to be solved or attended too. Complexity is that point where the collaborative and parasitic forces within a set of processes find a balance by which its resources, the dynamic action of the whole, and external pressures of its environment, become the controlling behavior by which the subset of processes that make it up, come to be aligned to the best interest of the whole. Point being, complexity is that critical mass point of optimization for the system in question, such that it is an integral stage in a systems life-cycle. It’s not a question of complexity thinking versus systems thinking; but a stage of behavior in systems thinking. 

Complexity thinking adapts to digital dynamic, while system thinking emerged from industrial discipline: Complexity theory shares a common vocabulary with systems theory. Terms such as emergence, complexity, and adaptation appear in both domains. Despite the similarities, complexity theory is not a misnomer for systems theory. Several points of departure exist in complexity's research agenda and methods. Moreover, while systems theory appears to have embraced interpretive and critical philosophies, complexity theory remains firmly in the positivist camp, despite claims that it is a postmodern science. 

“An old wine in new bottle”: Complexity Thinking developed independently of grounding in System Thinking - suggesting that "many of the central concepts in complexity theory are simply old wine in new bottles. Some systems are complex - indeed most of the systems that are 'interesting' are complex. System dynamics takes a little further into uncertainty by dealing with probabilities, you can seek resolution that depend on the conditions and change over time, rather than solutions. If most flavors of System Thinking have rigorous ways to describe the relationships between Self-organization, including emergence, relationships, feedback, adaptability, nonlinear events, feed forward, constraints. The trick is to understanding the context in which one needs to operate and by implication understand what might be useful, without being blinded-sided by your own constrained perspectives (or group-think).

System thinking looks at the whole pictures, the interaction and relationships holistically, and involves the sequential alignment of a series of steps in already identified strategic approaches. Complexity means increased uncertainty in things outside our control and uncertainty in the results of implementing strategies. Complexity thinking is best thought of as a form of perspectives, continually generating multiple perspectives on issues. There are five capabilities that form the pillars on a development bridge that can close the gap from your current mindset to the complexity mindset, which are dynamic attention, synthetic understanding, integrated capacity, strategic clarity and cohesive collaboration. These capabilities expand system thinking, improve performance, understand complexity systematically and support high-impact relationships. 

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Three Aspects of Business Transformation

Business strategy has to drive transformation.

There are too many organizations with transformation programs that are not driven by the digital strategy. So they end up being silo transformations with no systems thinking applied. How to manage a successful business transformation, such as digitalization or globalization, here are three aspects.

1 Two Significant Factors

There are two significant factors behind successful organizational changes. The first is organizational change capability. The second is around the appropriate bounding of roles and responsibilities of those working in the organizational change space. There is always a first step needed and that is analysis and identification of the issues met by any particular organization. From this diagnosis, approach/solutions/ methodology can be defined and customized more precisely and in a more relevant manner. These diagnosis/solution definitions are key to the future degree of success. The solutions will most probably cover standard aspects such as culture/behavior change, support resources for the design/build/ implementation of the change (what mix of internal/external resources /capabilities), planning and control, etc, but also very specific technical/functional aspects. For those, the constitution of internal capabilities is the key to each change, just call for the next one and that history/memory of the change stream is quite essential for greater efficiency. Change is mostly driven by technological or operational innovation.  

2 Three Questions to Navigate

There are three key elements to delivering a successful transformation. Whatever is the rate the embedded assertion remains true "it is important to remember you can make all the changes you like, but unless people change their behavior, the change will not be embedded and will not be successful?" In most circumstances, you should consider the "degree of success" of a change, keeping in mind that the objectives may have been set very optimistically and that reality is always more complex to put in place and assess. So there are three perspectives to navigate transformation: 

• WHY: There must be a clear and compelling reason WHY? Almost all organizations are focused on WHAT and HOW - but forget the WHY. 

• WHAT: When the 'WHY?' is explained, communicated, and adopted by the staff – Ask them what needs to change. Whilst those in the C-Suite are very focused on the business performance, they do not actually do the daily work, so ask those that do the daily work and be amazed at how much they have to offer (only works if they have understood and agree with the WHY?) meaning that buy-in to deliver the change is infinitely easier to achieve. 

• HOW: Provide or utilize systems and technology that will facilitate the delivery of the change. For example, encourage collaboration by ensuring it is facilitated using the latest (and cheaper) technologies available for video conferencing and real-time collaborative working on documents, etc. Use easily constructed, simple Intranets to make it easy to keep everyone up to date with real-time information. Provide access to everyone - so that communication is easy, accurate, and with no delays.

3. Eight Critical Attributes

 Organizations that seem to be able to adapt at the right pace have eight attributes. An organization that has mastered these attributes is referred to as a customer-adaptive enterprise. Relatively few companies have reached this state. The remainders are therefore at risk of being disrupted and becoming irrelevant to their customers over time:

    (1) Visionary leadership: It places the customer at the heart of the organizational thinking, provides a strong sense of purpose, and appropriate values to drive desired behaviors - trust is a big issue! Not the command-and-control industrial age approach - that's too slow.

 (2) Workforce engagement: An engaged workforce that buys into the purpose and lives the values and makes judgments accordingly is empowered, enabled, and supported.

·           (3) Cross-functional collaboration: Ability to collaborate across and beyond the organization (not silos), with customers and partners.

·           (4) Insight and Foresight: Acute sensing capabilities to generate insight and foresight - anticipate as well as react.

·           (5) Customer experience: Superb customer experience irrespective of interaction channel, digital, human, or shops/stores. 

·          (6) Continuous innovation - It's important to build a broad-based, a culture of innovation/ experimentation where everyone is encouraged to chip in with ideas and collaborate, to create new value for customers. Customers usually play a direct part in this through co-creation as does the ecosystem of partners/suppliers.

·          (7) Process optimization: The simplified, lean, end to end processes that enable speed of execution and enables the organization to act in a coherent manner.

·         (8) Adaptive Enterprise Architecture: not the geeky techie stuff, but a coherent view of how the organization fulfills its pursuit of creating and delivering value to customers.

So do not limit the success factor for a change or transformation to any particular aspect, nor accept the pure success or pure failure assumption. The reality is that there are many contributing factors to change failure - and it is often a combination of these causes which has such a devastating impact on a change initiative. Therefore, the well-crafted strategy needs to drive transformation and manage change holistically through all aspects listed above.

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A Resilient Mindset

Leaders need to be tough, and they have such traits as resilience. 

Resilience refers to a personal attribute which enables one to press on and persevere despite difficult circumstances. Remember resilient people feel hurt and pain - they have disappointments, they sense failure... they just don't let the negative experience restrict them or scare them away. What do you think? Is resilience about bouncing back or bouncing forward?

Resiliency: Bouncing forward- includes bouncing back. The thinking skill of "putting things in perspective” can support the person to bounce back from disappointments and thus will provide the bigger picture for the person to move on from any kind of adverse situations? Resilience is another ingredient of a motivational component of the executive function. Practical reason operates within a dynamic domain characterized by uncertainty and variability; within the shifting landscape of human affairs, tragedy and misfortune or an economic crisis, to name a few, nevertheless, individuals have been able to bounce back from these difficult experiences. This is because such individuals possess resilience. 

Resilience is a property of an elastic component of a person. This indicates the person can undergo high dynamic stress and yet he/she is able to recover smoothly to he/her original situation without much degradation of him/herself. In short, we call this person a tough person in all predicaments. It's about a "system" (person, organization, whatever) being able to maintain its recognizable essential characteristics in the face of "disruption" - that could look like "bouncing back" or it could look like "growing around" obstacles. But a tree is still recognizably a tree even if it's all crooked to get adequate light or soil and we can be recognizably "us" even if we adapt to a difficult situation.

Resilience is about B.O.U.N.C.E. It’s about regaining one's footing which could be bouncing back, forwards or restructuring your life integrating the change in some way that works. Part of the issue of resiliency is how significant the adverse situation is to the person. It could be a relatively minor event or it could be something that turns their life up-side-down. Those events can fragment their life. The ability to respond to these events  are impacted by many things such as how they cope with loss, their history with the loss, their support systems, their ability to "understand" what has happened, their faith, etc.

Resiliency - bouncing back and forward is what one sees in a person. Modern leaders must have a resilient mindset in order to adapt to the continuous digital disruption either in career or personal life. The person lives in a grounded and centered place, being flexible and adaptable in the midst of adversity, threat and stress. It's the ability to respond to change, to recover quickly from setbacks, as well as the capacity to respond to the unexpected in a way that increases gain and/or minimizes loss. Of course, it's also about being able to keep working and focusing, even during stress and disturbances, rather than reacting to stressful situations. It presents the true character of leader and the high quality of leadership. 

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Making Innovation happen

Innovation must be part of the organization's DNA.

"Innovation is the process with the latent capacity to change the prevailing behavior of a group of people that initially has a stable behavioral platform." Is that overly complex enough? What takes to make innovation happen?

Keep it simple. Making innovation happen is not hard, indeed too much nonsense it talked about this. This is not rocket science but, to be frank, it's very simple once people know management is on board and there is a process in place and some basic training has been undertaken. Some thoughts on internal communication and project management as key enablers of innovation. 

Risk-taking attitude: Many organizations are not fertile ground for ideation, they hate taking risks, and seldom learn from their mistakes; their internal politics and fears kill creative projects by means of senseless KPIs, while they push down the innovation funnel; those tend to rely on competitors presence in the marketplace as a necessary condition for launch. They forget brand dilution, customer, and consumer relevance, then they start price promoting just to support the launch a bit longer. All of the above make the innovation practice everything but simple. Just on the matter of the fine organizations, can you name any product they have actually ever developed, brought to market and successfully commercialism, except their brand? Of course, it may be wrong, and no doubt they would respond with the argument that no, they don't do that, what they do is show other companies how to do it. It is reminded of that old saying, "those that can do - those that can't teach." 

Innovation must be part of the organization's DNA - Culture: Innovation is not that difficult, but this is not to say the generating great new idea is not hard. Large successful organizations once have established themselves as thought leaders or indeed product leaders often trade on their brand. Innovation will happen when people are given free space to be creative without rigid structures and without holding them back. The overriding mindset in many organizations is to kill new ideas, leaders and managers must diffuse innovation through the organization and include everyone in crafting the innovation strategy. The difference between invention and innovation lays in the ability to economically and commercially develop a new product and a new service in the marketplace. New ideas not in the market, do not build brands, do not connect with consumers and customers, and do not touch the bottom line. 

Hence, making innovation happen starts with a mindset, build risk-taking culture, and keep the business process as simple and flexible as possible, as the creative environment is an incubator for innovation, the harmony of people and process can orchestrate the impressive innovation symphony.

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Digital Trend: IT Matters More

A new way of management is management by information technology.

Information technology is penetrating into every core process of the organization; companies that lacked the skills to manage information technology effectively suffered compared with competitors that had mastered those skills. IT does matters more, but how to manage IT more effectively?

As a first step, IT must be given a “seat” at the table: While no one can question that IT can be a key for the business efficiency. It all depends on the business leaders how to use it. It is as relevant as any other technology. Put it to a good use and it shall deliver. Unfortunately, some organizations are still keeping their IT in their back rooms. Unless IT leadership and organizational leadership work together collaboratively, the perception of IT is going to get worse before it gets better. The issue is not whether IT matters as it clearly does. The issue is whether most business leaders understand how IT matters. The debate about the IT Function is sterile as it only examines the issue in the context of a hierarchical silo organization. Whether one wants to organize IT as a functional silo, the reality is that digital is all pervasive. The IT leaders change the thinking from 'aligning business' to 'becoming a business'. This would go a long way of changing the perception of IT. 

The issue is the business context definition: Can your company rely on an IT system that is a commodity (standardized usage of technologies), or is the IT system the core of your business? The approach depends on the company business and the role that IT plays in defining its positioning in the market. Technology is merely another goods to sell, just like everything else. If you don't have a specialist who knows what (s)he is doing, you are going to end up listening to (and believing to) salesmen pitches that do not necessarily fully conform to your needs, and most of the time they don't have the best price/performance ratio. We all know that IT is a core component of any organization. It is not how much a company invests in IT but how. A company can invest a lot in IT, but it does not mean that it has to have it all in-house. The pressure to reduce costs and optimization of the cloud business models make the cloud paradigm to become more interesting for companies. 

It all depends on how the business processes are leveraging IT: IT is highly relevant. You may split IS and IT as the two require different approaches. Both are enablers to business change as they facilitate the cycle to move from data through information to intelligence. Business leaders require information to provide intelligence to make the right decisions, and as businesses embrace change as a constant, more will be asked of IT and IS to move quickly and efficiently to keep on top of the agenda. In organizations who are optimally using IT for innovation and leverage, it is highly relevant. In organizations who are still doing the business the old way and using IT in limited fashion will have the only limited impact on IT. data and information needs. All this must also be done within the confines of GRC, as the same information being used to make key decisions can be used by others to do more harm than any other competitive strike.

IT is a business strategy: In almost every business environment, IT is an enabler / a tool that needs to be used efficiently and treated as an asset like any other capital investment specified and used accordingly- you would not purchase machinery to only have it used 50% of the time!  In 2014, there is still a debate over whether IT is important; a unique data was produced than the previous 5000 years. Why does this matter? Because the tsunami of technological change, from Internet of things to changing relationships Gen Y employees have to work and IT, is about to envelope every business. IT is a business strategy. So what we do have going is a relentless enthusiasm for change. We know our world get reinvented every few years and we just keep at it. We read, we try, we understand, we apply. 

IT impact is significant: IT is impacting every business unit and is becoming the driver of business change. Good forward planning and strategy are paramount as is business process alignment with any proposed technology - Every Budget is Becoming an IT Budget" (Gartner). There are still so many cases where businesses insist on customizing/adapting systems to match current working practices - opportunities are missed to review and/or re-engineer process and practices. After all, if you have a process that is "wrong," the application of technology will simply make getting "wrong" quicker !! In all seriousness, yes, of course, IT matters, just as much as any other key functional area within an organization. If IT is a problem, it's as much a reflection on the organization and its leaders as it is on IT and its leaders. It means that the organizations are not planning and executing collaboratively. Fix that and you'll fix your IT issues.

The reality is that business leaders need digital acumen as much as financial acumen: The digital revolution means that channels to customers, links with supply chains and even efficiency of the workforce critically depends on the information enabled by IT. Yet, many executives would prefer the IT could be dealt with like plumbing in some case, and IT in other cases is like the furniture in the office - it is just part of the deal. On another end, it is to be appreciated that it is a constantly evolving field requiring IT leadership and a sound understanding of how an organization can leverage it at any particular point in time. Again, organizations can choose to play small and big in this area. The results will be evident in either case.

Admittedly IT has come a long way to where it is today: Yes, IT does matter. But, not IT as a silo specialist function. From the days when geeks sat in the corner and talked with mainframes to where they contribute significantly and directly to the business model and direction. Embracing digital is inevitable as that is now part of the deal.... IT is no longer that island, or corner and those who still want to stick in that corner or periphery are living in a fool's paradise! Businesses need people who are passionate about exploiting information enabled by information technology to work at the heart of the enterprise. As organizations that do not respond to external environmental changes will quickly outcompete as more innovative enterprises take their customers. Both private sector and public sector ultimately respond to the external environment as geopolitics, rapid innovation, and social expectations change the business landscape.

IT is, and will continue to be, a critical department: The real question is whether IT is seen as a necessary expense - a provider of devices and software - or a true strategic business enabler - a group that creates tools for individuals to do their jobs dramatically more efficiently. That is exactly why IT is a team effort where members of the team work together to accomplish common goals. IT professionals and IT teams need both an internal as well as external focus when it comes to staying up to date with advances in technology. This is where your business partnerships come to play a role, as does being active in technology organizations is crucial. Whilst "every budget becomes an IT budget" and the business feels increasingly enabled to free itself from the constraints and limitation of IT, moving to new siloed solutions, now empowered by XaaS, it has become more obvious that data and information stored and processed in the IT boxes is the real source of business innovation. The question being, who is best positioned for ensuring that data, whatever big it may be, is made available as consistent, quality checked information to the business, especially for the analytical purpose.

So the answer to this simply sounded, but intriguing question: Does IT Matter? IT not only matters but also so critically, many times, it is a determining factor of success for your larger business strategy to achieve the fast growth and long-term sustainability of large organizations. If you are a senior decision maker and you are afraid of Digital, then how can you be a well-rounded leader? All business leaders need Digital Acumen! Does IT matter? - try pulling the plug on IT and see where that gets you. 

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What Proportion of Managers are actually Strategic Thinkers?

Some leaders likened strategic thinking to “picking up an elephant and making a right turn.”!

Being able to think strategically is a specific skill that perhaps not everyone has. There are definitely people who are more operational than strategic. Statistically, only 5% of the population is nature strategic thinker. Given that, the importance of diversity and formulating a team that has complementing skills cannot be understated. An organization needs people that can turn that strategic thinking into reality. These same people though probably struggle with the potentially "fuzzy" nature of strategy. So what is the strategic thinking all about, and is it nature or nurtured anyway?

Strategic thinking is a little bit like being an orchestral conductor. Some people can do it, some people can't. Everybody can improve their skills in the sense that anyone can learn to wave their arms in the prescribed manner, but that doesn't make you a conductor. Similarly, you might pass an exam on strategy, but that doesn't make you a strategic thinker. Still, strategic thinking is a skill that most can learn; but these things cannot be taught, which explains why so many strategic plans are poorly designed and carried out. Just like all skills, some people have a greater aptitude for it than others. The challenge is to find the right balance in a leadership team between strategic thinking and operational competence. A good leader will recognize their own strengths and weaknesses, and those of the team, and recruit or train accordingly. It does, of course, mean that there is a demand for those who can and do think strategically, which is a good thing. The real misfortune is to be found when those who cannot work in this way insist on doing so.

The good balance of strategic thinking and execution. The majority of people are comfortable 'thinking' today versus 'outside the box'. Sometimes the Board or senior executives struggle with this issue because they do not think strategically themselves. There also needs to be a balance in the strategic types and the people good at execution..too much thinking and not enough action is not good. Most managers - most people - are essentially not capable of independent strategic thinking. This is fortunate since it enables one to make a living. A substantial minority of managers, although unable to do the 'strategy thing' themselves, do understand that it is not merely important but essential to long-term success. Consequently, they will cooperate at a certain level. The real problems are the ones who do not understand on any level - they can be very obstructive. This means you have to create a strategy to bypass their influence.

Strategic thinking needs to become an integral part of the corporate culture. Companies that encourage strategic thinking as an ongoing pursuit are more nimble, more adaptive and quicker to capitalize on opportunities. However, for that to work, strategic thinking needs to become an integral part of the corporate culture – no small challenge considering that strategic thinking, by its nature, threatens the status quo. Some leaders likened it to “picking up an elephant and making a right turn.”

The ability to think strategically involves certain attributes; some of which are simply inherent in people: 
(1) Spatial thinking and visionary recognition, which only a very few people have 
(2) Matrix thinking and interactive connectivity, which only a few people have 
(3) Data analysis and interpretation, which only a few people have 
(4) Creativity, which declines from 95% at 5 years of age to 5% at 30 years of age.

At many levels, there are limited people that are strategic thinkers. Just like leadership as a skill set that is needed at every level. Although not everyone needs, nor should they be strategic thinkers. The key is to understand who the strategic thinkers are and provide them the ability to utilize these skills to help in discussing the direction and various options a company can go. The general misnomer is that executives are leaders, strategic thinkers, and more simply have the right answers. It's the companies that find a balanced workforce and understand people's skillsets and optimize them that greatly enhance their chances for success.

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The Articulation of Predictive Analytics

Research, planning and specific visual (visual-aid) examples are keys to de-mystifying predictive analytics for non-techies.

Analytics is a very broad topic. Although considered by many to be commoditized, data warehousing, master data management and business intelligence (BI) are still evolving. In a "non-techie" way, predictive analytics uses large amounts of asynchronous and sometimes not apparently related data, cultivate it into information, and identify key drivers that can be monitored and recalibrated to impact change within the enterprise. 

Predictive analytics enables decision makers to predict with confidence what will happen next so that they can make smarter decisions, solve problems and improve outcomes. Here are a few perspectives to articulate predictive analytics:

Research, planning and specific visual (visual-aid) examples are keys to de-mystifying predictive analytics for non-techies. To really show a potential customer how predictive analytics will benefit them requires an understanding of what data is available from their product usage and consumer behavior. Sometimes, the conversation requires a starting point that explains how measuring product performance can improve their business. If you are past that point, providing creative and visual examples of how their data insights can guide and contribute to the product management and business development processes is the next step. There are a number of use cases available for demonstration, but the most effective step would be to show exactly which parts of their product and their customer experience could be impacted, as well as indicating how revenue in each area could grow. 

Predictive analytics is the powerful output of IoT (Internet of things) and big data analytics. It is that kind of output that makes people understand the power of big data analytics. It is power of distributed computing. It is the power of the IoT and BIG data that is available all over and the infrastructure that helps to aggregate all possible data and derive patterns among them. Understanding the data, business and building good models are all very significant in predictions. 

Good statistician and a good programmer can build and predict almost anything. For some, that's analogous to forecasting, while for others it is a set of metrics used to measure their progress or performance. Ask "what is measured?" in these forecasts or metrics (the data collected and measured -- usually a variety of data and data ranges (numerical or textual). Then ask "how are these forecasts / metrics formulated?" – there are usually different combinations of data and data ranges (these represent predictive models in the organization). One can then move on to the "analytics" ... If an organization has a sufficiently sound and complete corpus of data, one can apply a variety of analytics to calibrate the models previously discussed ( using more or less data types, or different ranges) in order to change the fidelity of the metrics or forecast; start discussions regarding the fidelity of the metrics from the "false positives" and "false negatives" perspectives, since most people can relate to these concepts. And once you get through the deterministic aspects of predictive analytics, one can start conversations about applying stochastic analysis to discover new aggregations and clustering -- which can lead to new or improved predictive models the organization never thought of.

Predictive Analytics is a great space to come up with new business for any kind of customers. In non-technical perspective, you can come up with practical use cases and with sample data, you need to make them understand the benefits that would be derived from the output that you generate. So first, you need to demonstrate how accurate these models are. Can you make the future trend data actionable, or is it just another appealing but irrelevant visualization? when you don't see the wood for the trees it is difficult to see what the question is. Where does predictive work hit a company's bottom line? In production? Distribution? HR? Etc. Basing major decisions on predictive Analytics seems like walking a tightrope 9000 feet in the air. You could make it across and land in the Fortune 500, or of course, you could fall, and another senior manager will be left with the same dilemma.

Getting accurate predictive results will be the key to selling to customers. The main concern of top execs is ACCURACY. Any exec would love to be able to predict future trends based on current and historical data. Are your customers ready? Do they need education? Are you ready to invest in education? For example, if the predictive financial forecast for a month or so ahead is not close to actual, it will undermine the credibility of forecasts over a longer period. Here is external system called predictive analytic that identifies the customer/prospect category. Now salesman with self intuition and also with additional info of prediction from system decides the approach to engage/connect with prospects/customer. When you feel that you have answered the value for money question you can visualize it, write it up and or present via multiple digital and face to face channels. The main consideration when identifying how to demystify real technical breakthroughs for non-technical audiences is their own level of sophistication and maturity. You must understand the application of technology across their own business and where is it in the spectrum of the digital technologies. 

With regard to ethnicity and language preference, the best possible methodology is predictive. It provides an unbiased view of data and predicts ethnicity, language and a number of other related data elements based on proprietary predictive software. The software contains name tables, naming rules and algorithms, enhanced neighborhood analytics. The first step is to understand what you are trying to get across - if their question is philosophical - that is how you explain in general about any complex idea, structure or product, then you can expect the plethora of answers you have seen. But if they are value driven and customer focused, then the question is how they can present their solution to their customer base. For example, in Education, you can generate a model based on the history of scores that students obtained. Based on the analysis on the scoring patterns, it can be derived to predict the students scoring aspects in future. Further, it also helps on determining which students would need little supervision, more supervision or complete supervision. Another case in Retail segment, similar model can be injected and come up with Sentiment Analysis of customers and correlate with the cost and accordingly take business decisions to boost the sales. Similar things can be applied in almost all industries possible.

Predictive Analytics is an emerging arena and the broad topic, it plays significant role in both bottom line cost efficiency and top line business growth. Therefore, it has been put to the top project priority list in any forward-looking organization’s agenda, and it has full of potential.

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Agile Mind Tuning: Is it a Loss of Diversity

Orchestrating a diversified team can indeed enhance the higher level of harmony!


Agile philosophy advocates collaboration and “working together” to cheer customers. An interesting debate would be: Is it a loss of diversity as sometimes “working together” can be translated as “don’t make trouble for anyone than expressing conflict.” Or even “don’t take any risks, don’t come up with new ideas…”. Accepting that this is a problem for a moment, the next question is how big a problem is it?

Harmony is not opposite of diversity. In general, the overriding principle of agile practices seems to be "the customer may not always be right, but the customer is always first". Considering that to be the case, there is nothing wrong with the team being in complete harmony and thinking as one mind. In each of the cases, the customer or product owner has no complaints. Why would they? They are getting the product delivered. Orchestrating a diversified team can indeed enhance such higher level of harmony - the creative harmony through the diversified thought or thinking processes; the strategic harmony based on the alternative options or multiple choices; and the overall business harmony built through better integrating diversified functions and teams to run as a holistic organization which is optimal than the sum of pieces.

The team needs a challenge. If ideas aren't being challenged, it is likely they are sub-optimal. Faulty assumptions are unspoken and become a weak foundation for implementations. If there is no push back against the status quo, it becomes the stagnant quo. Perhaps the issues include: Would they be open to picking one for themselves, or would they need one foisted upon them from outside? Teams would think "nearly impossible"; treading the line between not getting buy-in and not making a significant improvement. In the spirit of “only the paranoid survive”, you likely have competition or soon-to-be competitor who is learning/advancing/improving more quickly than these teams and that is eroding your competitive advantage. Best solutions aren’t usually arrived at without some disagreement to drive the details. The problem might happen if you create a team of individuals who don't want to challenge themselves. You may want to move team members around until you create a team with at least few people who always wants to challenge themselves. Once all the teams have few members of that sort you will never face this particular problem. Why is it that they don't express conflict? Why do you assume they fear making trouble? Perhaps when they have, they haven't been able to resolve differences or expressing conflict had a negative effect on their career. Coming to a resolution in a conflict situation is a skill in itself. So take a look at how conflict is viewed in your company. Are they really afraid to make trouble? If so, why?

Building high-performing team: Innovation and high performing teams may not necessarily come from creative conflict, it can even come from motivation and willingness to innovate. The teams, regardless of the meeting, including retrospectives, seem more concerned about collaborating and "working together" (translated as don't make trouble for anyone) than expressing conflict. But what is really worse is that in what have been observed, there does not seem to be any conflict. They just don't take any risks, don't come up with new ideas, and don’t reach; they continue to do the same old in the same old way. The bottom line is that you are getting a routine set of features delivered in a routine way. However, the better way is to continue to improve and optimize solutions to delight customers.  

Diversity itself is not a goal; it is the means to execute strategy more effectively.  It is rather a means to get all specialists working together towards a common goal; to limit the communication issues etc. But if you have an issue in complacency, lack of creativity, lack of eagerness, or anything else, then it is easier to come up with solutions. Maybe it could also be worth looking into what you are afraid of that might happen. What is the outcome you do not want to happen? The central question remains: do you have a problem? And if so, what is that problem? This may lead you to some clues of what is really going on. Ideally, you could use some retrospectives for this. The retrospective *should* be the point where the team takes a step back and a look from a different perspective; it's there to try and find *different types* of the issue by thinking in different ways. Indeed, this discussion is all about one such issue, because one person took a step back and in doing so perceived a potential problem. It's not only okay, but *good* to ring the changes within the retrospective; and in keeping the "shake-up" there and more-or-less ring-fenced, you have much lower risk of upsetting the good parts of the status-quo. Ask the following questions: 
(1) Are more senior staff mentoring junior staff, growing junior team members skills and building leadership skills in senior staff? 
(2) Do you have cross team member collaboration, especially with senior team members where they can learn from each other? 
(3) Do you challenge and/or reward team members to excel or go beyond their daily role? 
(4) Do you have career paths clearly defined and all team members know what they need to get to the next level? 
(5) Are you following all software development best practices? If not, are you challenging teams to adopt them? 
(6) Is the team allowed to inject their own improvement ideas into the process, retrospectives? 
(7) Are the teams allowed to try improving ideas and fail? 

Diagnose the root causes for the lack of skill diversity: If you want to encourage skill diversity, streamline process to encourage collaboration, also provide an opportunity for members of the team to expand their expertise, perhaps in a different area. Be willing to provide the necessary training for them to expand in a new direction. And reward staffs who take advantage of the opportunity. Diagnose the issues upon business process, governance, talent management, or more issues such as:

     (1)   There is no technological or business need for much interaction with other teams. 

(    (2)   There is no formal process cross team collaboration.

(    (3)   Team members are not rewarded or challenged individually since this is deemed un-agile.    

(    (4)   No career paths. The companies lack talent management plan about what to do with the team members from an agile team when the project is over. 

(    (5)   Agile principles are not being followed in the right way: The process has varied from vanilla Scrum due to various improvements they made over the years through retrospectives and adjustments to their styles, but they might not follow good engineering and software development practices effectively

The general sense in the agile community is that diversity is good and creativity and innovation come out of the conflict. Improving is usually good. On the other hand, change for the sake of change is not good. There should be a reason for shaking things up. Certainly the fact that a group is harmonious and well performing is not a good reason for forcing them to change. One needs to understand the problem and the expected results before making the change. 

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INNOVATION SMACK DOWN: Peter Drucker vs. Milton Friedman

Friedman and Drucker's thinking define 'the management thinking box," for better and worse. These two philosophies do not have to be polar opposites.

Peter Drucker was called “the greatest management thinker of the last century, the creator and inventor of modern management.”.  Indeed, in the 1950s, Drucker’s writings gave managers a handbook for managing the incredibly complex organizations. He was the prolific management guru.  He was known for his belief that organizations should operate morally and ethically within society. Central to his philosophy was the view that people are an organization's most valuable resource, and that a manager's job is to prepare and free people to perform. Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, is well known as well, he was an author of a famous 1970 article in the New York Times Magazine entitled, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”. Friedman and Drucker's thinking define 'the management thinking box," for better and worse. Twenty first century innovators will demonstrate what's possible in our new conceptual Age. We need to be fearless in our pursuit of new possibilities and embrace reasonable risks. It's clear there are some early winners in this space.

Friedman-type focus on profit; Druckersque emphasis of workplace ambiance: The fact that these two philosophies do not have to be polar opposites is probably the correct way to look at this. You support your case very well, and who can argue with the best of both worlds? A Friedman-type focus on profit, needed to survive in this hyper-competitive, global market, and a Druckeresque emphasis on workplace ambiance, stimulates innovation. Friedman opined on the inappropriateness of corporations to substitute its standards for its owners and employees. Drucker takes that a step forward and says that the whole notion of "business ethics" is flawed and can't be expressed effectively anyway. Two sides of the same coin. He argues for a context-dependent relationship view of ethics in which does not violate the above principles but can lead to interesting results. 

The entire concept, and discussion is not black or white, but countless shades of grey. Drucker thought that the corporation was one organ in a larger body, with responsibility to the world around it. As high performance teams were empowered, cross-functional employee groups that were given wide latitude in revising the way work got done in order to increase efficiency and performance. Those managers struggled with hi-performance teams back then the same way managers today struggle with innovation. There are some jaw-dropping examples of innovative products and services out there, but for the most part the majority of companies haven’t figured out how to make that happen for them.  There's no such thing as a free lunch. --Milton Friedman

The management philosophy has to be tailored at the different stage of business life cycle: Almost all great places to work fit smoothly into the Drucker model. Management in these companies pays attention to the employees, gives them encouragement, shows appreciation, asks their opinions, and genuinely cares about them as human beings. . Friedman's message as a company should be about what it is about. If it is a profit making company, then it is to make profits. The more complicated an entity becomes, the number of missions that it undertakes, the less accountable management becomes. Effective start ups are somewhat Friedman-esque. They have to be ruthlessly focused on what they are about. That's part of what makes them successful. While Drucker-companies foster a richer network of connections and free information flow. That can make them a good place to foster innovation as well, particularly in the early phases as well.

Ultimately the core of organization is not the economic rationale presented the outcome of its management decisions and goals, but rather the people who make this decisions and aspire to these goal. Assuming innovation continues to grow in importance during the first half of the 21st century, which type of organization would fit an innovative environment better: Friedman-influenced or Drucker-influenced?  Rather than summarize what Friedman said, here are his words, "The political principle that underlies the market mechanism is unanimity. In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all cooperation is voluntary, all parties to such cooperation benefit or they need not participate. There are not values, no "social" responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form." The essence of his argument is that voluntary action is superior to corporate compulsion (BTW, a view shared by Drucker). If an individual seeks to support a particular social goal he or she is free to do so. What is not appropriate in Friedman's view, is to extract funds from stockholders, or employees to support management's favored causes. Or as the Drucker’s quintessential quote well pointed out: Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

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