digitalNow

The only thing that really needs to be reorganized in the 21st Century is the way organizations think about what really creates their value.  The successful organization of the future will be organized around value creation that comes from the hearts and minds of people, human capital. Whether formal or informal every organization needs structural and strategic capital designed to support human capital that creates value which sustains relationship capital. Take out, diminish or destroy human capital and there is no need for structural or strategic capital because there are no relationships to build capital to support.

Even if it feels like your company's IT department are the ones forcing old tech down your throat, your best bet is to make friends with them. Odds are, they're in the same boat as you are, stuck managing old software, aging gear, and trying to squeeze all the life from it that they can. Put yourself in their shoes: You probably love technology and enjoy working with it on a day-to-day basis, but you're stuck working with obsolete tools when you know there's better, faster, and more functional equipment out there. You'd be first in line begging for an upgrade too.

Meetings are often the bane of many a creative’s existence, especially those working for a big outfit. “Death by meeting” is a common complaint, the lament usually being one of frequency, length, or lack of productivity. Despite the many books written on the subject, meetings remain a sore spot for many. There may be a practical solution.

While different theorists have different slants on the concept, most agree that:

1. Authentic leaders are self-aware and genuine. Authentic leaders are self-actualized individuals who are aware of their strengths, their limitations, and their emotions. They also show their real selves to their followers. They do not act one way in private and another in public; they don’t hide their mistakes or weaknesses out of fear of looking weak. They also realize that being self-actualized is an endless journey, never complete

A person usually will step outside of the box only to take a “giant leap” to a different box, or just to another box that is just bigger.

A Focus on Joy
Above all else, let joy guide you as a leader. When you spread joy by example, it cannot help but infuse itself into the recipe of your business. That means filling your day with what you love and hiring people to handle everything else. Every time I grew to dislike an aspect of my business, I found someone who loved it with as much vigor. When I hated scheduling appointments for our writers and illustrators, I found someone who loved to organize things. When I grew tired of managing the financials, I found someone who loved numbers. When editing manuscripts no longer fulfilled me, I found a lover of words. In each of these cases, I found someone who built their life around loving that role so I could continue to fill my own days with the joy of creating. That power is yours.

One of the things I want my students to know is that in addition to my classroom duties, I concurrently maintain a professional life as a writer and editor. I want them to know that I do these things because I enjoy them, but also out of a certain amount of economic necessity. Doing these things I enjoy requires a certain amount of hustle.

I also want them to see that my route to the classroom standing in front of them has been a journey with a couple of twists and turns, that I am, indeed, human and that my purpose in the world extends beyond being their “teacher.”

Data Integration

Data movement in one direction is the easiest (not always easy, mind you) type of integration. Yes, there are nuances, but overlooking these nuances puts the complexity on the low end of the spectrum. One directional data integrations are typically read-only (or a copy). For example, taking data out of an operational system and putting it into a reporting system (I am not talking about transforms just yet). If you desire the data more quickly, say real-time, slide the complexity to the right a bit. Want to be able to write/update and have this reflected in the source system; bidirectional, slide the scale bunch more to the right.

Action item: we need to progress from data integration to information integration, there is too much data, people need information.

The best leaders understand that usual and customary are not necessarily synonymous with healthy and thriving. The real key to innovative thinking begins with an open mind – recognition that those who think differently aren’t inferior, nor are they a threat. An open mind is a sign of confidence, which allows leaders to recognize diversity of opinion leads to better thinking, better discovery, and better outcomes.

Most business plans assume that most everything is already known up front – not the case, as the PayPal example shows.  As the famed American general in World War II, Douglas MacArthur, is reputed to have said, “No plan ever survives its first encounter with the enemy.”

The process articulated here is a healthy alternative to the straight-jacket of traditional business planning practices – to enable you to anticipate and move beyond a failing Plan A.  It is a process designed for learning and discovering, rather than for pitching and selling.  It’s a process that recognizes the cold, hard facts – most often, what ultimately works is not the Plan A that is so persuasively articulated in the original plan.  Instead, it’s Plan B.

Public universities have a long history of adapting to technological change, but they must speed up their embrace of online education -- and work together to do so -- to remain at the forefront of educating the citizens of their states and the country, argues a new report from two Washington research groups. "State U Online," from the New America Foundation and Education Sector, traces the history of public universities and of online education and suggests that major public universities have been slower than other sectors -- especially for-profit higher education -- to incorporate digital learning into their offerings. The author, Rachel Fishman of New America, argues that the institutions are best positioned to offer a high-quality, affordable digital education that is "grounded in public values," and offers a roadmap for doing so, including creating a clearinghouse where state institutions can "collaborate to provide an easy-to-search library of online courses and degrees," sharing contracts for digital platforms and online support services to meet multiple institutions' needs, and sharing credentialing beyond state borders.

As twenty-first century leaders, we need to understand that we are moving toward a NEW ethic, one that is built on duality.

In the OLD way of thinking, we based our leadership on a set of shared values and principles aimed at achieving moral perfection while maintaining social order and well being.

What got left behind in the old approach are the things that we are coming to value and seek out in the NEW: authenticity, vulnerability, unity.

The old approach was built on the duality of contradictory opposites. In or out. Black or white. Right or wrong. We divided things, labeled them, decided their value.

A funny thing about customers, they do not often follow a map. The customer relationship with their vendor or service provider, from first touch, to purchase and support is a journey. Some portions can be predicted, some are hard to predict. Even if you had all the correct data, personal information and preferences, what would you do? Is it possible to manage the customer journey?

If you have the time and inclination to coach these personalities into becoming able leaders, you should attempt to do so.

I have to say, it is not going to be easy.

First you will have to make them realize their weakness because they are not even aware and then help them overcome it.

Both of these processes could take years because they will have to first unlearn their current ways of dealing with people and then develop more healthy ways of leading

The surest way to disrupt the quantitative tyranny of predictive analytics is demonstrable self-improvement. Individuals and organizations alike have to move away from the notion of analytics as the key to insight and towards the belief that they're the GPS of transformation. Self-improvement, not self-knowledge, is the goal.

 every organization is a “whole-system.” Lean management is a whole-system. It is not 5S, teams, or process maps. It is everything from the organizational structure, the information system, the decision-making processes, the human resource systems, etc.

Most companies that have tried to adopt lean management have disaggregated that whole-system and implemented some pieces of it. They have implemented 5S, just-in-time, work teams or problem-solving groups and have often experienced failure. The human body is a whole-system comprised of separate organs or sub-systems, and they fit together as unified architecture. The heart relies on the lungs for oxygen, and they both rely on the digestive system for nourishment. If you remove any of those sub-systems from the whole, that organ will quickly die.