วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 29 ตุลาคม พ.ศ. 2552

In Sync and In Health

Last month I presented three examples of synchronicity with jogging, running and racing. I suggested that you should run the kind of model you want for your business: the 'random' lone series of joggers in the park that are not synchronized, because they have no reason to decide the "pack" in the runners as they synchronize to chat and run, or race, where runners synchronize in silence, until one breaks and sprints. The random jogger "model seems too risky - who wants"Persons"? We call them loose cannon, maverick, not a team player. But I suggested that you suspend sentence. Perhaps it makes sense to include in their individuality, finally, are the random joggers, the best of themselves, as opposed to 'pack', which look like a team, but can, by definition, some people who perform in the framework to can allow for this, the 't run as fast. Strictly speaking, and looked through the lens of the department, the reality is that the "packaging" of waste containing more than"random" model.

Finally, there is the "race", an image that clicks emotionally with our concept of the aggressive pace of company life. But while it sounds good, the majority of the runners in the race spend their time watching each and pace themselves to ensure that they avoid burn-out before the last round.

The world of synchronization is one that has much to say to us, from an organizational point of view. The analogies above are primitive, but hopefully thought-provoking. Lessprimitive is Steven Strogatz's book, "Sync: The emerging science of spontaneous order" that my idea of jogging, but is also full of other stories. The new science, as he calls it, is fascinating. The biology is an endless source of mysterious synchronicity. Advanced computing and mathematics - Strogatz's home ground - then come to understand the attempt to the "laws", so far with little success. How is it, ideas in development - whether or not a science - the important questionsthan the answers.

Here are some examples. Crickets make noise when you sync, how can assert my Mediterranean roots. Why? Who is responsible? Who decides that instead of hundreds of random noise, only one? Who's the leader?

The brain has its own rhythms; neurons are synchronized, but how? Where is the neuron command center? Specialized cardiac muscle cells fire in sync (arrhythmias) and if a sync has problems, the whole body) is a problem (arrhythmia. As they come insync? There are no "core" or center, which dictates the synchronicity. Fireflies, and some fish are popular examples of Sync fans.

At the level of human behavior, which I think we could call raises "the confusion to a higher level," we synchronize, without even thinking about it. At the end of an orchestral performance in a large hall, clap their hands, hundreds of people
and creates a single synchronous noise. Can you imagine the scenario of out-of-sync, random clappingAt the end of a concert? But as we do, how we can synchronize so effortlessly? Traffic experts who are regular computer simulations aware that even a few cars on the motorway chaos when they synchronize, they can more easily) create similar "blocks" (the 'pack' do joggers.

They acknowledged the confusion even greater, we touch sociology - fashions. Why in the world, millions of people in the 1970s have played with a Rubik's Cube? Why a special kind of pants are worn byShanghai to Palermo? Who decides that?

Sociology cousin, the "science of social networks, has some of the statements, but not all. An interesting perspective on this is offered by the actor Alan Alda on a weblog or website. It suggests that if we could understand how fads in the world to flood, from jeans to junk food, from verbal remarks to "ideas", then we could reverse-engineer the process and learn the laws. Perhaps we might put them to good causes, for example, convincing millionsPeople to wear condoms to prevent the spread of HIV, or used in other preventive measures against disease.

Emerging Sciences

The interesting thing is that the answers are no longer with the individual disciplines. Sociology and biology, the brain must now Computational Mathematics. People who live in traffic control, insect behavior, brain surgery, marine biology, mass communication and politics - who do not "talk" to each other - have traditionally been gradually achieving"Synchronicity" and other emerging sciences. We are quick to go back to philosophy in the original sense, but this time with a mathematics degree.

Sometimes, synchronicity fascinating phenomena explained at the end is, in other cases there is no good explanation. Between these two extremes is the case of apparent synchronization of menstrual rhythms of women, living together or working. Experiments with students and roommates have confirmed what has for many years, only an esotericFaith: synchronize the end of menstrual rhythms of women in close contact. It is not exactly in calendar terms, but gradually close the day of menstrual period is statistically significant. In this case, pheromones seem to be the vehicles for communication.

Organizational Style

So we live in sync, sort of. If this is true, then it is natural for us to have built a life around organizational sync. I told you, we want to pack and races. Our managementLanguage is built around sync: Let's have a "common sense", a team player, be on the same page, alignment of individual and corporate goals, singing the same song, are organized, cohesive, etc. And what is wrong with that? Not much. It is certainly better than the alternative, and I can not think of any CEO preaching the opposite. But the question is, it is always good? Is there a limit? Is there an organizational focus on pathology of over-over-the cohesion and team spirit? These canbe politically incorrect questions, but remember my jogger? There is merit in some non-aligned, random jogging?

I would like to point out that, although sync organizational life intrinsic value, we can have it overdone. Why all project teams must be constructed in the same way to make progress in the same form and with the same frequency, even if they are two completely different things? Other than the convenience of managing a synchronized 'a rush --Organization ", which the credit, and more importantly, what the liability?

Teamocracy what I call current organizational life, is always the best examples and questions. Why is it that we have synchronized team life around an event called 'team meeting'? Since our meetings are social pheromones? Picture this sync that I'm sure you are familiar with. "The meeting happens quickly. Frenetic, we need an agenda, e-mails for the input, prepare forestPowerPoint, read important documents the night before in the plane. The meeting takes place, is the climax reached, notes are taken. Then relax, go home, back to the office, nothing happens really, activity is low, there is a gap, an organizational nap for a few weeks. Hey, when is the next meeting? In two weeks? Here we go again, here comes the agenda, we want the actions to back a highlight of the frenetic activity. Thereafter, the same story was drawing to the activity curve up to aasymptotic existence ...

We live an organizational (teamocratic) life in waves. I bet I can be a graphical representation of information flow and activities to draw in an organization (and I've got the tools of social network analysis!), The looks like an electrocardiogram, the peaks are the social pheromone of the "Meeting". There is tremendous waste in the above-sync of, say, the development of new products. If, in principle, what you want is a constant flow of information, knowledge, decisions and actions,The logical thing is to ban "meetings", the killing of de facto "social pheromone. Absurd? Okay, let's re-defining" meetings ". Of all the technical exchange of information, make decisions and disciplinary actions are pursued, may 90 % Set to be done online with collaborative tools that work 365 days a year., updates can be written again and again as a weblog. The project is the traffic directly, time limits for decisions to seek input, call people on the phone, if necessary . A highlyprofessional, scientific and technical team will communicate and work seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Forget e-mails, I speak of a rolling (web log) and an On-Demand Update on a collaboration tool. If this team ever taken? Say yes, but for different reasons: the main purpose of the meeting will, I dare socially. To start to learn to understand each other, different work styles, listen to company presentations, ask the boss to receive verbal communication on the strategy and progress;Practice brain to brain-via-mouth-to-ear cause tacit knowledge. There are no decisions at this meeting, which had not been made before, the people concerned with the relevant information.

The virtual meeting

A better way would be to declare that "the meeting" takes place all the time - that "the meeting" 24 hours a day. Who does what should be clearly defined who is making the decisions, should be familiar with what information, who is responsiblefor what is clearly defined. Occasionally you meet face to face, but the agenda does not contain any "operational" issues, because they have been treated. Scary: A few random joggers do their best, no waste, and occasionally a "package" called by the leader, but only when and with whom is required. Would executives sit down with a 24-hour joggers?

I invite you now to imagine a new, that other "social pheromone" in the organization, such as the annual budget cycle, the artificial and oftenDrivers interfering in business. Collect whole armies of managers and employees on a regular basis, such as migratory birds, ready to change the numbers to numbers, they prepare again and to change them again. The means is sometimes the end, it's exhaustion, as glorified strategic planning.

When my son would say, we can fix the problem? Yes we can. Budgeting is an annual plan, which suffers from over-sync syndrome. What's more than 365 days, other than an artificial cut-off special? It is a very long timeCycle, anyway. If you simulate mathematically a budget, use a so-called "pulse function", which means once a year to inject money into (the peak of pulse) and do not repeat the process until the next year. With such a long gap, all events and activities are grouped around the pulse. You start spending after the first pulse and to go to zero or approximately just before the next one. This is often forced to postpone all decisions, including strategic ones, until thenext financial year.

Imagine now that your budget is the cycle, say, 100 days. You will receive a "pulse function", all 100 days, instead of every 365th The risk of delaying decisions are now much lower, you're playing with relatively shorter cycles budget. People who have made this a much more agile organization that is more real, where resources and portfolio options are repeatedly made experiments to maximize cost savings. With the dissolution of the traditional sync (annual cycle) Manage YourUse resources more efficiently.

As far as I can see, and advocates agree that the only reason why we do not do so because of the traditional accounting and Wall Street demands. It would be too much effort, they say. But of course there is nothing to 100-day cycles to avoid, even if the accounts they have legions in the 365-days to translate. It's just one of those ideas that are just crazy enough without having seriously thought about it, to dismiss the benefits.

Againstsync

The crux of cycles over-Sync Project and artificial budget is that we have fixed ideas about organizational life, most artificial synchronization run, which mainly seem to suit management. Only the exercise of avoidance of sync and explore what organizational life want to synchronize with another, and a synchronous rhythms are looking for is revealing. Project management or product development, for example, could run "asynchronously", the very nature adaptedClass or life cycle of products. That makes more sense than the synchronized 'all projects, all samples or products meeting the ritual of a committee for the development. Of course it is more complex and demanding for top management. But the question is, what is more important? Senior management convenience or the life of a project? In my experience, the former winning in many organizations.

The broader context of the "rhythm" in the organizational life is worth at, too.Rhythms are a socio-biological phenomenon (as well as a physics-one) and are very much connected to rituals. Social anthropology has not been a dent in the world business organization, but we can learn a lot from it. Most of the organizational life phenomena such as the dynamics of power and authority, the establishment and protection of areas or rites of passage have more in common with tribal life more than any other conventional approach taught in the class of Organizational Behaviora business school. We have reason to believe that there is a "science of management" that can be learned or taught, but in reality this is not more than one field of applied psychology, social psychology, sociology and anthropology. Plug in some modern economy, and by that I mean the behavior and not as a traditional business, and you should be a good curriculum for an MBA has concluded. Emergent "sciences", as the synchronicity or networks, the traditional disciplines have a much greater future thanManagement vehicles for the modern business organization than the traditional areas of, say, operations management and the traditional human resources.

Good vibrations

A healthy organization must be reviewed at regular intervals to their rhythms and to assess how much sync it needs. Too much sync may look good as "orientation" and "good governance" but it may have more built in than you think of the inefficiency. A slightly asynchronous organization may be more difficult to manage or lead to, but itcould be more effective, allowing for various individual and team-rhythms. Over the years I have made a point of business organization that looks terribly well organized and focused suspicious if, say, the CEO of the objectives cascade down to look pristinely linked to the troops, and all goals and geometric. A typical example is when the boss put the goals in your own goals, and seen the critical success factors, while your team goals, which has aTranslation of you, and so on. The idea is that when speaking at a low level employees, we could track the target system again and again to the CEO. Great on paper. I've never seen that in practice, and I still have one person who seriously believes in the system to be found.

This may seem an extreme example of a overaligned or above-sync-organization, but there are other, less obvious examples out there. If a business organization behaves like an army, you have to question whether theHave selected people in the law profession.



Thanks To : ทำบุญวันเกิด sabrinacatli.blogspot.com

ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:

แสดงความคิดเห็น