Seth Godin:: Two questions behind every disagreement

There is no getting away from the fact that communication and consistency are critical but so is understanding. If all parties have the same goals [a common purpose] but the language is different, the means of communication unreliable or poorly structured*, the scope for progress is, seriously, hampered because the information-flow between individuals – interdependent components or processes – is impaired and vital signals can become confused or lost.

If the goals diverge, for whatever reason, the purpose may remain similar but the interdependence that is fundamental to a resilient enterprise, strategy or system is lost. This is how organisational silos can occur:

inter-connectedness is a less resilient state than interdependence.

*hierarchical structures  were NOT created to manage information in the Digital Age but to manage people and process in a past era.

Are we on the same team? and

What’s the right path forward?

Most of time, all we talk about is the path, without having the far more important but much more difficult conversation about agendas, goals and tone.

Is this a matter of respect? Power? Do you come out ahead if I fail? Has someone undercut you? Do we both want the same thing to happen here?

Read more

Related articles

• Interdependence:: Seth on civilization (fitforrandomness.wordpress.com)
• What lessons can organisational culture take from nature? :: Guardian (fitforrandomness.wordpress.com)
• Legal & Professional services:: Reconnecting Pricing to Cost, Profit, and Value (fitforrandomness.wordpress.com)
• Revisiting “networked networks”:: setting the scene for epic failure! (fitforrandomness.wordpress.com)
• Don’t manage – Lead your team! (slideshare.net)
• Business Fractals: THE MEANING OF COMPLEXITY (fitforrandomness.wordpress.com)

Stakeholders and Complexity in the project management environment

Project management writings of the last few years suggest that ‘people skills’ and leadership are important attributes of a successful Project Manager and effective stakeholder management is definitely seen as a major item in delivering project success[2]. Within this emerging people centric paradigm, complexity theory helps us to understand the social behaviours of teams and the networks of people involved in and around a project. The idea of complexity applies equally to small in-house projects and large complicated programs; in this regard, ‘complexity’ is not a synonym for ‘complicated’ or ‘large’.

Link

How complexity spilled the oil

Image via Wikipedia

 

Notice for regular readers (thanks!) I did not write or influence this headline in any way. If you follow the link you will see it is all the work of one of the most authoritative sources global research companies, Forrester, via the, ever reliable, Computerworld who will keep you up to date on IT and general “geekery”.

If the subject matter looks familiar that is precisely because IT IS! I have written about this specific incident in the blog on several occasions and from a couple of perspectives, going back to the days when it wasn’t fashionable NOT to have a daily dig at BP and poor wee Tony Hayward: a man whose, now legendary, gift for miscommunication, could have been learnt at piñata finishing school!!!

They had just placed themselves, respectively, in the positions of “Big bad Corporate” and “sacrificial lamb” for an outraged global population and US administration desperate to find someone to BLAME. WE already suspected that so much of that rhetoric was about deflection…we ALL knew, from the collapse of global banking, that, when it came to Corporate activities, regulation was a fallacy, only an effective smokescreen and that risk management perceived a mere drain on potential profit and bonus potential…therefore tax revenue!

Current societies…are characterised by their extreme complexity at a moment in history in which traditional political institutions have lost much of the power, a power which has now passed into the hands of multinational companies with their relocation strategies. In this situation, a growing deregulation can also be observed which, in turn, redounds in the appearance of new risks and uncertainties.

Ulrich Beck

The best any of us concerned citizens could hope for was that this incident would be, not so much a disastrous oil spill as an inglorious watershed.

The Gulf oil spill of April 2010 was an unprecedented disaster. The National Oil Spill Commission’s report summary shows that this could have been prevented with the use of better technology.

BP Report: Black Swan …or just a bird covered in oil!?

Does complexity guarantee “system failure”? (revisited)

Even before this event became highly politicized it was shaping up to stand as a 21st Century monument to a culture of Corporate mismanagement: Economy before ecology! The incentives to “cut corners” were simply too great. I have argued before that, all too often, sound risk management comes a poor second to generating profits.

It tends to be “dressed up” as compromise…until it hits the fan!

Anyone care to draw a line?: Global financial meltdown – Toyota – Gulf of Mexico spill – ???

This was/is a hugely complex operation requiring enormous financial and human resource. A tight chain of command communicating and coordinating across several companies. Undertaking a range of interdependent functions as part of a feat of engineering that would not have been possible just a few years ago. NO SCOPE TO TAKE CHANCES, TO CUT CORNERS OR TO BE ABLE TO CONTEMPLATE GAMBLING WITH THE ECOSYSTEM OF A VAST AREA.

Even a company like Toyota (Lexus), whose reputation for quality was well-deserved, were tempted by the lure of $100m per annum savings! I’m sure someone better informed than me has already worked out what their direct financial losses have been, in addition to fines, settlements and the long lasting reputational damage for a proud brand.

BP said in a statement that the report, like its own investigation, had found the accident was the result of multiple causes, involving multiple companies.

Complexity: A new, comprehensive, metric for project management

Project Management is, to me, a “Art form”! I am full of admiration for people who have the responsibility for, in particular, major construction contracts and recently had the privilege of meeting “the man” with the job at Heathrow T5…now that sounds like enormous pressure to me.  Apart from the range of skills, tools, materials and plant required and, often, widely sourced, there is the small matter of UK weather problems and the looming shadow of penalty clauses.

There is a lot to watch, even with a good team and a detailed Gantt chart. But what does a good PM do about complexity?

The reaction of most would be tell me exactly what to do or where to put complexity!

But what if, by managing project complexity the PM’s role was actually simplified?

That couldn’t happen…could it? Really!? Well think about it. Such projects demonstrate the inter-connectedness of a wide range of tasks and disciplines. They are interdependent components of a “system” created to play their part of the ultimate success of a single project. The common goal.

Well read this article, the result of a collaboration among three of my colleagues at Ontonix.

If you are an experienced Project Manager I would welcome your feedback or any questions for my colleagues.