Economic Resilience Zone:    Resources    Mega-Maps (under development)

Events:

11 August 2011, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel MD:  “EMP: Threat and Opportunity”

8 June 2011, The Tower Club, Tyson's Corner, VA:  “It doesn’t do you any good if you’re open for business and your customers and suppliers aren’t”

Events (archive):

Recommended reading:

An Opportunity for Real Change:  Steps You Can Take Now (continued)¹

by Dr. Art Murray and Jeff Lesher

Transformation #1 - Make the move from hierarchies to networks once and for all

Hierarchies can remain.  But to create and leverage the benefit of communication and collaboration in your organization, the social and value networks must become clearly visible and more efficiently connected.  Social networks are akin to Linkedin^®, which enable you to see who is connected to whom.  The value network reflects what is being exchanged across the social network, such as information-sharing, monetary transactions, and exchanges of ideas and opinions.

The org chart for the Enterprise of the Future looks a lot more like a digital fuzzball than a hierarchy.  This is a good thing as it reflects what really is going on in your organization and allows you to facilitate the creation and leverage of more and better connections.  This is where the essential knowledge is hidden – the knowledge that is needed to respond to the huge challenges we all face.  You can never really "know what you know" until you illuminate and enable your networks to function freely and efficiently.

Action:  Pull back the curtain and bring full transparency to your social and value networks.  This will allow you to better capitalize on your collective knowledge by design rather than by chance encounter, which is typically the case.  You can begin by:

• Clarifying your mission and strategic goals and making sure your people and systems are aligned with them.  Alignment helps ensure that you achieve the key results you desire

• Conducting a Value Network Analysis, by mapping where/how critical knowledge currently flows in response to problems and opportunities.  Make a note of what’s missing, which is often revealed by clusters forming around certain topics; yet these clusters might be isolated from others which are just as relevant.

Transformation #2 - Make the cultural shift from silos and knowledge hoarding to openness and knowledge sharing

Even after the network sees itself, nothing happens until knowledge flows freely across the connections.  It’s ironic that resistance is greatest at the very time when knowledge sharing is needed the most.  The common objection is, "Why should I share what I know when that's what makes me valuable?”   This is especially true in times such as these, with so many people worrying that they might not be around tomorrow.  There are several ways of responding to this – all of which encourage knowledge sharing:

• In many ways, a lack of sharing is a major contributing cause of our current predicament, and it only continues to make a bad situation worse,

• People who possess valuable knowledge are often required to perform the same function over and over, becoming trapped by the very knowledge that enabled their rise to their current role (see "Being the Go-To Person Can Land You In Day Jail"),

• The value of one person’s knowledge rarely is as great as the synthesized knowledge that evolves only when knowledge is shared.

From an organizational perspective (which benefits us all), the problems we are facing are complex and demand collective brainpower coupled with strong leadership.  On a more personal level, to paraphrase a popular adage, "Sharing knowledge will set you free!"

Action:

• Select a "do-or-die" goal or project that requires breaking down the silos to be successfully achieved or completed, 

• Communicate the significance of the objective along with each person’s contribution to its fulfillment, and

• Continue to communicate formally and informally as the effort progresses to ensure everyone clearly understands the organizational and personal benefits of their collective efforts, and as needed, the serious consequences of not sharing and collaborating.

Transformation #3 - Shift your performance focus from profits to value creation

Many will agree that the nearsighted emphasis on quarterly profits was, among other factors, a major contributor to the current economic crisis.  The old business models almost always start with profits and work backward.  Lots of innovation has occurred along the way, especially in the financial sector.  Unfortunately, most of it was directed solely at “making the numbers work,” as opposed to creating long-term value.

If we are serious about moving toward sustainable organizations, wealth should be viewed as a measure of the value you create, deliver, and receive.  Too often, such value has been ignored in favor of “growth” or “market capitalization” and other symptomatic measures. 

Enterprises of the Future, enabled by massive social networks with memberships numbering in the hundreds of millions, are listening to clients and rapidly and continuously filling their wants and needs.  Creating value requires you to get into your client’s mind, and let your client into yours.  Providing tools, platforms and knowledge to help clients build their own solutions allows them to become not only drivers but also key sources of innovation. 

This is where the notion of co-creation really comes to light.  If you play your cards right, you can take a client-built solution and morph it into other products.  Make sure your clients share in the reward.  They are now part of the team.

Measurement of the value of this inclusive, collaborative approach is discussed at length in C. K. Prahalad and M. S. Krishnan’s book The New Age of Innovation.  It means every client is unique and discriminating in their requirements, and helps replace mass and niche market mentalities with a process that makes it easy for clients to configure a solution tailored specifically for them.

Action:  Make a concerted effort to free up the hidden value in your knowledge assets, especially your client capital.

• Have an ongoing conversation with your clients.  Ask thought-provoking, open-ended questions, and listen actively to their answers (a great way to capture knowledge), 

• Focus on needs and desired results, and find the most efficient and effective way to achieve them, and

• Reward contribution that creates value for your clients.

When the going gets tough, the natural inclination is to hunker down.  Yet, business history demonstrates convincingly that recessionary periods are the breeding grounds for the next great successes.  Companies that do more than just try to hang on but rather define themselves for the future (Wal-Mart and Google are two stunning examples) are the winners of tomorrow because of what they do now.

It’s much like what NASCAR teams choose to do when the caution flag comes out after a racetrack accident.  While some merely take on additional fuel or stay out on the track to maintain their relative position, the real champions redraft their strategy based on what is likely to happen next.  This can involve a longer pit stop that includes four new tires and chassis adjustments.  The investment they choose to make by taking longer to retool their car has some short-term risk as they drop back a bit on the lead lap.  But innovative crew chiefs and their drivers understand that this risk is outweighed by the longer-term ability they gain to lead rather than follow when the green flag signals the drivers’ return to full speed.

All of us are affected by the global knowledge economy.  We have the opportunity to adapt to it or – better yet – leverage it.  So, take a deep breath and start making these transformations now.  To paraphrase a favorite movie line (Al Pacino in the climactic scene of Scent of a Woman), “We’re just getting warmed up!”

More big changes are on the way, so you might as well help co-create them and be among the first in line to reap the benefits.

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¹Portions of this article were taken from various editions of KMWorld’s monthly feature:  The Future of the Future

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Last modified: 07/19/11