Organizing the way to Excellence

 

Crossing The Last Frontier:
Creating Intelligent Energy For The Pursuit of Excellence
Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) on excellence:
 "Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."
His explanation for the excellence achieved by ancient Greece: Democracy allows collectively for the release of enormous energy and creativity, while channelling this energy to constructive pursuits.

Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt (June 22, 1767 - April 8, 1835)

Described language as a system which "makes infinite use of finite means", meaning that an infinite number of sentences can be created using a finite number of grammatical rules.

Perhaps the greatest German philosopher of liberty, he wrote on the role of liberty in individual development and in pursuit of excellence. As Prussian minister of education, he oversaw the emergence of Prussia as the strongest European power and the scientific and intellectual leader of the world. He was the first to clearly lay down that the character and structure of a language expresses the inner life and knowledge of its speakers.

Abstract
Man's progress is marked by development of various forms of energy - animal, steam, electricity, hydrocarbons and finally nuclear. The pursuit of excellence is a team skill that demands organization of knowledge interactions and drive, and is still driven by personnel energy. The heavy burden on personnel makes excellence very rare though it is universally desired and understood. IT is unable to drive the pursuit as unpredictability of teamwork demands personnel energy. The processes and practices that develop the collective mind are driven by knowledge free flow. My work creates the grammar for IT to assemble and drive the infinite composite processes of collaboration on each event with finite repeatable actions. Its compelling means for communication transform IT into reliable intelligent energy for driving the feedback, consensus and concerted action that leads to excellence.


Introduction - Collective Intellectual Ability
 Aligning the intelligence of a group on an issue is far superior than having a single person invested with the intelligence working on the issue. An individual working on an issue runs the grave risk of impairment in knowledge application due to ego, facades, hubris, delusion, division, etc. organization of knowledge flows imparts teams the power to overcome biases, test assumptions and emerge the reality. In teamwork there is also the possibility of stimulation of the intellect to a higher level with debate within the group.

Knowledge Free Flow Anchors The Pursuit of Excellence
 The seminal study of excellent companies by Peters and Waterman (P&W), 'In Search of Excellence' (T. Peters, R.Waterman, 1982), identifies the determinants of excellence:

# 7 S Variables Relation to Knowledge work
1. Shared values The variables decide business performance. They may be looked upon as constructs of the collective mind. The quality of the many-to-many knowledge interactions they initiate reflects the maturity of the enterprise as an organization.
 
2. Staff
3. Style
4. Skill
5. Strategy
6. System
7. Structure


The variables decide business performance. They may be looked upon as constructs of the collective mind. The quality of the many-to-many knowledge interactions they initiate reflects the maturity of the enterprise as an organization.

Table-1: The McKinsey 7S Framework for excellence variables

Eight practices, e.g., close to the customer, hands-on value driven, autonomy, bias for action, etc., distinguish the knowledge flows of Table-1 for the excellent companies. They understand that an environment of freedom, purpose, pride in values, winners at work, trust, efficiency, etc., elicits extraordinary application from ordinary humans by engaging the natural passion of personnel for meaning, truth and beauty, viz., harmony with experience and nature free of biases. The unrestrained flow of intellect and insights in dealing with an issue, and their channeling drives all the practices. P&W promote 'Management By Walking About' (MBWA), meeting rooms, experimentation and ad-hoc task forces for results, and suggest a learning organization for a creative culture. Senge's 'The Fifth Discipline' (1999) defines the culture. It urges four disciplines that emphasize individual and team learning for shared meaning, supplemented by the all inclusive fifth discipline of system thinking to see patterns and the truth. The disciplines foster sound judgments and innovation for acquiring the power to change reality. Tools like De Bono's (1985) celebrated Six Hats tool for raising the quality of thinking aid the disciplines. At the core of learning organizations is feedback supported by focused knowledge free flow and related access to enterprise wide experience.


It is clear that focused free flow of knowledge initiates and progresses excellence. The seminal works do not establish a reliable mechanism for distributed and changing team members to practice feedback, develop open minds and have focused knowledge free flow.

A reliable process to drive knowledge free flow in a chaotic and fast moving environment, compounded by distributed and changing team members, is today held to be impossible since knowledge resides in the head and its flows are discretionary. The conventional wisdom has been articulated by Drucker in Managing For The Future, (Drucker, 1991): "In making and moving things, capital and technology are factors of production. In knowledge and service work they are tools of production."

Appendix-1 lists some of the outstanding problems of uniting distributed intelligence on an issue.

Waykm
The paper http://www.waykm.org/101_of_Better_Administration_With_IT.htm introduces an IT driven language for the daily Business Communication. It unites the intelligence of a distributed group on an issue by progressing the focused free flow of knowledge. Dialogue is adopted as the method to bring about feedback and the pooling of intelligence. The result is intelligent energy to create a whole greater than its parts.

 

Intelligent Energy Drives A Language For Free Flow

Today, “ You can reach people around the clock, but they won't think any better or any faster just because you've reached them faster. The give and take remains a limiting facto r” (Andy Grove to Business Week in 2000). The need is for a compelling language of interactions that goes beyond expressing the inner life and knowledge of its participants. It must deliver the feedback loops of decision-making. Freiherr von Humboldt (Wikipedia), the first to clearly lay down the character and structure of a language, described language as a system which " makes infinite use of finite means ", i.e., creates infinite sentences using finite number of grammatical rules.

 

Collaboration with Web 2.0 tools is not governed by grammar. Seeking in place of spontaneity drives the interactions. Dependence on self-organization and tool skills makes Web 2.0 akin to sign language. Web 3.0 (Davis Mills, 2008) is expected to improve information coding for access but will not provide integration with the enterprise structure or drive free flow of knowledge for convergence with the daily work. Enterprise wide free flow requires fluent use of a common language by all. As a rule, knowledge leaks in the direction of shared practice and sticks where practice is not shared (Brown, & Gray, 2003). Only a self-driven language can evoke the commitment of busy administrators to be shared practice. Waykm's science creates a unique language for systematic dialogue. The following comparison illustrates its maturity:

( KEY: Parameter : English language – Waykm as language for interactions within teams)

Purpose: Communication among individuals – Teams interactions with reliable feedback

Goal: Sentences for exchanging thought – Coordination for effective collaboration

Vocabulary: Words – Handling actions cum expectations (Opinions accompany actions)

Assembly basis for goal: Grammar – Norms derived from evolution of teamwork

Focus: Subject – Business event (meta data + content, e.g., email, letter, idea, etc.)

Parsing: Parts of speech – Pre-defined categories (meta data only)

Driving energy: Educated mental energy – Processing and driving power of IT

 

Conclusion: Team Ability And The Concept Of Intelligent Energy

 

The effort to drive success with better application of knowledge is perhaps older than Sun Tzu and Confucious. The path for dealing with change amidst uncertainty and for superior perception of reality is now well charted but a reliable means for teams to follow it remains possibly the most elusive goal of business administration. Senge (2006) presents proven patterns and team disciplines to surface the reality but does not apply his system thinking to explain their limited adoption. He falls prey to the ‘parable of the boiled frog' in ignoring the low and depleting level of available personnel energy. Few invest the energy required for driving the free flow of knowledge to develop the skills that get results. Perhaps the inconceivability of supplementing personnel energy for stretching the comfort zone prevents him from recognizing the energy problem, and he ‘shifts the burden' of poor team learning and system thinking to low interest among leaders. The ancient paradigm for the driving energy has outlived its life and is the real problem for greater success.

 

The application of knowledge is a complex issue. Its over-aged paradigm for the driving energy develops an intricate web of downstream human problems that sharing of knowledge with normal language rarely penetrates. The web of problems obfuscates operation of the comfort zone. Instead, the obvious mistakes and their symptom, the Knowing-Doing gap, that arise due to rigid comfort zones, divert attention from the root causes of problems.

 

Drucker's opinion of 1991 that technology can only be a mere tool of production for knowledge and service work is the reigning wisdom today. Accordingly, enterprises believe an instilled culture for voluntary collaboration is mandatory for success. The Science of Interactions develops the infrastructure to anchor professional free­dom as well as transform the IT paradigm from ‘IT is a tool' to ‘IT is inexhaustible intelligent energy'. The natural cum systematic free flow and feedback of opinion driven by the compelling language for interactions assembled by the intelligent energy developed by Waykm easily converges Business Communication with knowledge, structure, best practice, passion, and wisdom. Like a river's flow swept away the original Augean problem, the inquiry, advocacy, reflection, openness, team learning and system thinking fostered without incentives by the focused free flow of knowledge sweep away the hurdles to superior thinking. The flow induces a culture for pursuing excellence.

 

Intelligent energy for knowledge work delivers more than the means to unite and focus distributed intelligence for greater team ability. Its conduct of the disciplines of success eases pressure by progressing learning, surfacing reality, and distributing responsibility, all amidst chaos, to liberate minds from limiting comfort zones for the enthusiastic pursuit of excellence. However, all its delivery may not create the Learning Organization or prevent Knowing-Doing gaps or transform enterprise performance. It only simplifies the work of leaders to foster an ethos for truth, and to mobilize minds with values, direction and inspiration for leading change.



The References introduce some of the major ideas incorporated in Waykm.

Appendix-1: Some outstanding Problems of Knowledge Application By A Team For Greater Collective Ability
How to get administrators to work regularly beyond their self-interest?

1. How to ensure personnel understand effective collaboration and pursue it with passion on each issue?

2. How to consistently coordinate administrators distributed in time and space on unpredictable processes covering multiple issues?

3. How to develop purpose and direction in the thinking of distributed administrators?

4. How to increase the time and energy of the trusted, the experienced and the talented?

5. How to create momentum on an issue to effectively initiate change?

6. How to promote ingenuity and the breaking of moulds?

7. How to get administrators to test their assumptions and review their perspectives?

8. How to foster system thinking amidst the daily chaos?

9. How to implement security and foster trust?

10. How to measure performance and ensure objective management audit?

11. How to liberate the personnel from system chores?

12. How to treat teams, structure, procedures and product lines as temporary?

(See Appendix-2 for requirements of structure)

13. The "how" must deliver results without incentive support within 2-3 years.

Problem Summary: How to ensure the collective exploits its potential for superior knowledge application to gainfully pursue excellence?


References

1. Bain & Company, (~2006), Research results and views stated at http://www.bain.com

2. Bohm David, (1991), Dialogue - A Proposal

http://www.david-bohm.net/dialogue/dialogue_proposal.html

3. Booz Allen Hamilton, (November, 2005), http://www.boozallen.com/publications/article/981623?lpid=657903

4. Bossidy,L., Charan, R., Burck, C.,(2002), Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, e-book, Published June 2002

5. Bryan, L.L, Joyce, C, (2005), The 21st-century organization, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 # 3, http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?ar=1628&L2=18&L3=30&srid=6&gp=1

6. Buckingham Marcus, August 2001, Marcus Buckingham Thinks Your Boss Has an Attitude Problem, Fast Company, Issue 49, Page 88 http://www.fastcompany.com/online/49/buckingham.html

7. Calgon Carbon, (~1999), As reported by Davenport, T., Cantrell, S., (2002), The Art of Work, outlook Journal, January 2002, http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/outlook/By_Alphabet/TheArtofWork.htm

8. De Bono, E., (1985), Six Thinking Hats - Looking at a Decision From All Points of View, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_07.htm

9. Drucker, P.F., (1988), Coming of the New organization, Harvard Business Review, Jan.-Feb.

10. Drucker Peter, F., (1991), Managing For The Future: The 1990s And Beyond, Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd. (1992)

11. Drucker Peter F., (1999), Management Challenges for the 21st Century, Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd.

12. Gates Bill, (May 17, 2006), Beyond Business Intelligence: Delivering a Comprehensive Approach to Enterprise Information Management, http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/archive.asp

13. Knowledge@Wharton, (April, 2007), The Man Who Would Change Microsoft: Ray ozzie's Vision for Connected Software http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1698

14. KPMG (1999) Knowledge Management Research Report 2000, Item 1.6.

http://www.kpmg.nl/Docs/Knowledge_Advisory_Services/KPMG%20KM%20Research%20Report%202000.pdf

15. Kotter, J.P., Heskett, J.L., (1992), Corporate Culture and Performance, Free Press (1992)

16. Kumar, R., (2003a), Using IT To Assure A Culture For Success, Ajith Abraham et al., Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, USA, Springer Verlag, Germany, 2003, Pg.353

17. Kumar, R., (2003b), An Autonomous Perpetual Mechanism For Collective Knowledge Work That Redefines Knowledge Management, Peter Smith, Journal of Knowledge Management Practice, December 2003, http://www.tlainc.com/articl57.htm

18. Kumar, R., (2006), A Reliable Mechanism For Superior Judgment, Productivity And Answerability In Governance, Published The Indian Journal of Public Administration, october-December 2005 Quarter

19. McAfee Andrew, (April, 2006), Does Web 2.0 guarantee Enterprise 2.0?, Blog http://blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee/index.php/faculty_amcafee_v3/does_web_20_guarantee_enterprise_20/

20. Mittelstaedt, R. E. Jr., (Spring 2005), Correcting a Culture That Breeds Mistakes, strategy+business Magazine http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/05114?pg=0

21. Marcum, D., Smith, S., (2003), Making The Wrong Decisions, Steve Barth, DestinationKM.com, october, 2003 http://www.destinationkm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=1099

22. Naik, A.M., (2002), Retrieved March 28, 2007 from paper, Arthashastra, Lessons for Management Theory and Practice, The Bombay Chartered Accountant Journal, (September 2002) http://esamskriti.com/html/inside.asp?cat=637&subcat=636&cname=arthashastra

23. Nonaka, I., (1991), The Knowledge Creating Company, Harvard Business Review, Nov.-Dec. 1991

24. o'Reilly, T., (2005), What Is Web 2.0 http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

25. Peters, T., Waterman, R.H.Jr., (1982), In Search of Excellence, Profile Books, 2003 (First published 1982 Harper & Row)

26. Peters, T., (2003), ReImagine!, Dorling-Kindersley, 2003, pp 304-317

27. Pfeffer, J., Sutton, R., (January 15, 2000), The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action, Harvard Business School Press; 1st edition

28. Senge, P. M., (1999), The Fifth Discipline, Random House, (1992 by Century Business)

29. Scott Elliff, A., (1998), organizing for Excellence: Five Case Studies, Supply Chain Management Review, Winter 1998

30. Tucker Mark, (1999), Dark Matter of Decision Making, Intelligent Enterprise, September 14, 1999, Volume 2 - Number 13, http://www.intelligententerprise.com/db_area/archives/1999/991409/feat1.jhtml

31. Voelker M (2004), 'Into Thin Air', Transform Magazine, August 2004 http://www.transformmag.com/shared/cp/print_article.jhtml?articleID=23904776

32. Waddock, S., Bodwell, C., (2004), Managing Responsibility: What Can Be Learned From The Quality Movement, California Management Review Vol 47 No:1 Fall 2004

33. Zara olivier, (2004), Managing Collective Intelligence, Axiopole Publishing http://www.axiopole.com/pdf/Managing_collective_intelligence.pdf