Why network leadership is like gardening - Gen. Stanley McChrystal talk - #netlit

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Gen. Stanley McChrystal | Commonwealth Club

His leadership credits during his 34-year career include serving as a four-star general, former leader of the Joint Special Operations Committee and a former Green Beret. Come hear him speak about leadership in our changing world.

The military is often thought of as the quintessential hierarchical organization. In this presentation to the Commonwealth Club of California, General Stanley McChrystal (Retired) talks about transforming his command into a team of teams or network, and why a rigid hierarchy is incompatible with todays complex environment.

If the military can recognize the problem and undergo such a transformation, why can't many other organizations?

Change vs. Stability - not a problem, a polarity - deal with it

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Are You Facing a Problem? Or a Polarity? - Center for Creative Leadership

A problem is something that can have a right — or best — answer; a solution exists. But a polarity is a dilemma that is ongoing, unsolvable and contains seemingly opposing ideas. We usually think of them in adversarial terms: growth vs. consolidation; short term vs. long term, innovation vs. efficiency, centralization vs. decentralization, change vs. stability.

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“A polarity is a pair of interdependent opposites — if you focus on one of those to the neglect or exclusion of the other, at some point in time you dip into negative unintended consequences,” he explains.

Too often we force people to choose sides, as if only one decision is the right one.

On the necessity of group boundaries for effective networks. #netlit

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In social networks, group boundaries promote the spread of ideas, study finds

But when group boundaries are eliminated entirely, people have almost nothing in common with their neighbors and therefore very little influence over one another, making it impossible to spread complex ideas.

Knowledge - something you add to information

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Knoco stories: Data, Information, Knowledge - a Marketing example.

In large organisations, and in organisations where people work in teams and networks, knowledge and know-how are increasingly being seen as a communal possession, rather than an individual possession.

This model, linking data, information, and knowledge, illustrates the challenge of the big-data hype. Without the knowledge, or know-how, to interpret the information that results from the data, it's worthless. Add to it that common knowledge is often wrong, or at least not useful, and you have an even bigger problem.

Diverse networks offer the possibility to get beyond the common knowledge and connect with people that have unique knowledge that you can apply. Finding the knowledge at the edge offers the best hope of actually making innovative use of information.

Organizational Network Analysis

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The Role of Social Power inside Organisations | simply communicate

Power can't be measured in the absolute, but only in its effects. This is why it's relatively easy to look at an organisation’s hierarchical chart and understand where structural power may lie. Until recently it was near impossible to do this for social power. However, organisational network analysis gives managers the ability to understand where social power sits within their organisation.

Understanding the difference between the hierarchical organization and the network.

Procrastination

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Finding Motivation on Important But Non-Urgent Tasks : zen habits

we know there’s something we should be doing that’s really important for our careers, personal lives, businesses … but there are other less important we do instead. We check our email, respond to messages, read news, find interesting things to read online.

Our problem isn’t that these important tasks are that hard … it’s that we don’t feel motivated. So we procrastinate.

I suppose writing this post is a form of procrastination for me - there are more time-sensitive things I could be doing!

I struggle with juggling multiple priorities, figuring out what I need to do right now, and finding blocks of time when I can immerse myself in one task. I don't expect to solve the problem for myself, but work towards managing it in a way that I don't feel like I'm letting things slide.

The linked post talks about some ways to address this tendency.

The end of work?

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Viewpoint: Why do people waste so much time at the office? - BBC News

Almost all of our institutions have been built around the mythology of work. Our very sense of self-worth is based upon it. It is almost taboo to even question work.

Taboo subjects are those that need to be questioned the most. As my brother likes to point out, we will find a different way to redistribute wealth - it is pretty clear that jobs and work are not an efficient way to do it.

The problem with generational stereotypes

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Whole Foods’ Misguided Play for Millennials - HBR

This is the problem with traditional segmentation approaches.  By relying on demographics to define a consumer base, executives are implicitly, or explicitly, saying that all people of a certain demographic (in this case the same age cohort) are the same and that they are also distinctly different from everyone in other demographics. As most people will tell you from their own experience, this thinking is fundamentally flawed. This flawed approach applies not just to Whole Foods but to any business.

The idea that there are monlithic cohorts, based on age, moving through the generational cycle has always troubled me. It's not that there aren't some characteristics that are more common within the different age cohorts, but that we paint with such a broad brush. We lose sight of the fact that these cohorts are creations of our own imagination and arbitrary ticks on a birth timeline.

Learning platforms

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Platform strategy: A new level for platforms | Deloitte University Press | Business Trends

As with social platforms and mobilization platforms, learning platforms critically depend on the ability to build long-term relationships rather than simply focusing on short-term transactions or tasks. Unlike the other platforms, though, learning platforms do not view participants as “static resources.” On the contrary, they start with the presumption that all participants have the opportunity to draw out more and more of their potential by working together in the right environment.

Shared by @k1v1n on Twitter.

#netlit

Process before moving on

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Knoco stories: The "working team" dimension in KM

Some of the more familiar methods for Knowledge creation and capture within a team/activity/project environment are the after action review and the retrospect. These are processes for structured discussions between the team members to identify any new lessons and new knowledge which has been created during the activity or the project.

Many large organizations are great at assembling work teams to address issues. What we're not so good at, is taking the time to learn from and share what was done differently. The retrospect sounds like a good way to do this - surely we can invest in the time now, if it helps us later.