The only way we can make ourselves is through making each other. And we always have a choice in how we make others. Do we do it using generative, both/and, mutually thriving stories, thoughts, and language, or do we do it using narcissistic, better ...
“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” -Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
“After I used the term sympoiesis in a grasp for something other than the lures of autopoiesis, Katie King told me about M. Beth Dempster’s Master of Environmental Studies thesis written in 1998, in which she suggested the term sympoieisis for “collectively-produced systems that do not have self-defined spatial or temporal boundaries. Information and control are distributed among components. The systems are evolutionary and have the potential for surprising change.”” -Donna Haraway, Staying With the Trouble
It’s not a stretch to say that people are complex. We are. We are staggeringly complex. Whitman’s idea of the “I” as a container of multitudes is apt, and each of those multitudes is shaped by interactions with others. We become ourselves as parts of sympoietic systems.
The only way we can make ourselves is through making each other. And we always have a choice in how we make others. Do we do it using generative, both/and, mutually thriving stories, thoughts, and language, or do we do it using narcissistic, better-than, zero-sum ideas? The choices we make for how we make others drives who “we” are.
All this might sound a bit abstract, but it’s really important. Think about all of the networks that you belong to, and all of the interactions that make up the culture of these networks. These interactions often fall into patterns, and then might even firm up into protocols.
We have these protocols in all of the groups of which we are members. This can be small groups of just two people – a partner, friend, child, parent, or co-worker. Or even a nemesis! This can be larger groups of people – a family, team, club, or group of friends. If we’re lucky, some of these groups will be crews that help us create new things, and that help us thrive. This can be even larger groups – a clan, congregation, movement, or state.
In all of these different types of groups, we have our protocols for interacting. This is culture. We can view these protocols as constraints, as things that act to control us. And the protocols that we have at the large group level influence how we interact as pairs. If we meet in public, there are protocols for how far apart we stand, which directions we face, whether or not and how we touch each other, what we’re expected to say. And all of these protocols are different for each of our groups. Sometimes subtly different, and sometimes shockingly so.
Even as simple a question as how far apart do we stand when we meet for the first time has very different answers in Stockholm, Manhattan, and Tokyo.
You might say that each of us is the sum total of all of the protocols that we know and can enact in all of the different contexts that we might find ourselves in.
But – and this is very important! – we aren’t just made by protocols. We make them. We make them all the time – creatively, joyfully, sneakily, fearfully. There’s constraint, but there’s also enablement.
And if we don’t like the way one of our larger systems (cultures) is working, the only way to change it is by changing the protocols that we use.
Here’s a practical example. When we were building the ON Program to increase research impact, the core tool was stakeholder interviews. We asked each research team to have in depth conversations with, ideally, at least 100 stakeholders – people that could use their science, one way or another.
This ended up changing a lot of protocols for the researchers, including: • Who to talk with – added “stakeholders” to the more normal “other researchers.” • Who talks to stakeholders – changed from “Business Development people” to “everyone on the research team.” • What do we talk about – changed from “pitching our ideas” to “learning about the needs and desires of the stakeholders.” • Where do our great ideas come from – added “stakeholders” to the more normal “our team” and “the research literature.”
These changes in protocols ended up changing the emergent outcomes of the research process/culture. One big change is in impact. The number of research-based spinouts from the hundreds of teams that have gone through the program is over ten times higher than what we would normally see from the same number of teams doing business as usual.
This also ended up re-making who the researchers are – they changed too. They are more widely and deeply engaged with their broader network of stakeholders. They feel they have more agency in driving impact from their work. In other words, their culture has changed. Consequently, their impact on the world has also changed.
That’s a business example, but the same things happen as we interact within all of our networks. And so – we’re made by protocols, and we make protocols. We’re made by ourselves, we’re made by others, and we’re made by making each other. It’s why we have the potential for surprising change.
*Note* this post has been influenced by lots of conversations I’ve been having recently with Nilofer Merchant, Jason Fox (and The Coterie), Kim Lam, Joe Lightfoot, Kate Morrison, and Richard Bartlett and Nati Lombardo’s work on Microsolidarity, among many others!
The Herman Miller company became one of the world’s first manufacturers of sustainably-produced furniture almost by accident. Back in the 1950s, as the company became one of the biggest furniture manufacturers in the US selling now iconic designs from Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, and Alexander Girard. At the time, DJ de Pree, the founder of the company, made a couple of key decisions that still influence the way the firm operates today.
The first is that he believed that the company should make the most of the unique talents held by each of their employees. This is embodied today in their value for inclusion and diversity, which says “We’re all extraordinary.” In practical terms, this value led de Pree and subsequent CEOs to implement a participative management structure within the firm. This meant distributing decision-making authority much further down the corporate power hierarchy than normal. It also involved giving all employees an ownership stake in the company.
These moves support a second company value – ensuring quality. This is done through a unique decision-making structure where many important actions and strategies are initiated by teams of ordinary workers and mid-level managers, who DJ’s son Hugh referred to as Roving Leaders.
The final two company values at Herman Miller are Doing Good Well, which sets corporate targets for community service from the firm’s employees, and We’re All in This Together, which includes a pledge that the company will be an environmental sustainability leader. DJ de Pree said in the 1950s that the company “will be a good corporate neighbor by being a good steward of the environment.” Today, the actions that the firm takes to act on this value are impressive.
It started in the late 1980s, when a small group of Roving Leaders formed to support their shared commitment to environmental sustainability. The group quickly ended up playing a bigger role in the firm than they expected when they discovered a very unsustainable process in building one of their most popular products. Bill Birchard tells the story in his book Merchants of Virtue: Herman Miller and the Making of a Sustainable Company:
Charles and Ray Eames sitting on their classic Lounge Chair & Ottoman
“Rosewood was the object of particular reverence. It adorned the celebrated Eames Lounge Chair a product so loved by designers and high-end furniture buyers that it still sold steadily after 45 years. A cradle of molded rosewood lined with irresistibly soft calfskin cushions, the chair was the company’s signature product. Though [expensive], its appeal luxuriousness, and iconic status – synonymous with Herman Miller – made changing its wood almost unthinkable.”
But the team of Roving Leaders did have to think about it. The rosewood came from trees that were becoming critically endangered in the rapidly dwindling Brazilian rainforest. It took several years, but the Roving Leaders Environmental team convinced first the CEO, then the Board, then the rest of the company that sourcing something other than rosewood was the right thing to do – even if it wasn’t required by legislation or a ban. If you buy an Eames Lounge Chair today from Herman Miller, or any of the other classic Eames designs that use wood, your choices in wood veneer are sustainably harvested cherry or walnut.
When the firm made the switch, they were concerned that it could kill the market for the Eames products. After all, they had been protecting these designs and manufacturing to them faithfully for more than 50 years – authenticity was a big part of what they were selling. The commercial results ended up surprising Herman Miller. Sales went up. A lot.
It turns out that a lot of their customers also care for the environment, and many of them will go out of their way to make sure that their purchases reflect not just style, and comfort, but the value of sustainability as well.
Over the next 25 years, Herman Miller continued to move towards more sustainable manufacturing. The first version of their famous Aeron Office Chair was made from 2/3 recycled materials. The proportion went up substantially in the second version of the Aeron, and this version was also 90% recyclable at the end of its lifespan – Herman Miller had instituted cradle to cradle manufacturing. Other environmental initiatives included eliminating solvent emissions, converting to 100% renewable energy, and the implementation of the Design for the Environment scorecard used to evaluate the sustainability of all of their products.
The drivers of this change were unusual, as Birchard points out:
“Surprisingly, the journey to sustainability at Herman Miller did not take root because a single top manager or the CEO demanded it. At Herman Miller, people like [the Roving Leaders], who worked deep within the organization, desired it. Because the company had a culture of giving its employees the power to make change – an approach it called “participative management” – the change emerged all over. Mid-level leaders, not just hot-shot bosses, led the campaign to bridge the sustainability gap.”
As they’ve done this, this devotion to their organizational values has led to great financial reward for Herman Miller. The company has continued to grow, even surviving the Global Financial Crisis more effectively than their competitors, in large part because they defend their values even more fiercely than the defend the legacy of Charles and Ray Eames.
Mary Parker Follett was one of the world’s first organizational theorists in a business school, and back in the 1920s she wrote:
“Leader and followers are both following the invisible leader – the common purpose. The best executives put this common purpose clearly before their group. While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom, there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others, the ability to make purpose articulate. And then that common purpose becomes the leader. And I believe that we are coming more and more to act, whatever our theories, on our faith in the power of this invisible leader. Loyalty to the invisible leader gives us the strongest possible bond of union, establishes a sympathy which is not a sentimental but a dynamic sympathy.”
If we are trying to make our organizations more creative, and more innovative, shared purpose is essential. It is this that enables us to operate flatter hierarchies – and this empowerment of lower level employees is a key driver of innovation. Along with cognitive diversity, value-driven business isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the best way to excel.
The video is from an online course I made that is currently one of the three that the University of Queensland Business School is offering as close to free as we could make it. I know there’s a lot going on right now, but if you have the bandwidth and desire to build your skills, all three courses are worth checking out.
What’s the best way to respond to covid-19? There’s still so much uncertainty, it’s almost impossible to know. There are people and institutions that urgently need help – and first priority has to go them.
But there’s also value in taking a longer-term view in times of turbulence – I gave a talk last week on this topic, and you can see it here:
I won’t recap the whole thing, as it’s all there on the video. But here are some of the key points.
In the first half, I talk about some personal strategies we can use to think about things. One of the key concepts here is an idea that I raised in my last post: pace layers.
This is a great talk where Stewart Brand explains the origin and meaning of the pace layer idea, and then Paul Saffo expands on it.
There are two books that have helped me think about how to best take the longer-term perspective. One is How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell. She looks at how to connect back to your local region as a method for combating the attention economy. The book came out of this post, which is also excellent.
The other set of ideas comes from Tyson Yunkaporta and his book Sand Talk. He talks about how the current world looks through an Australian Indigenous perspective. It’s a good way to start thinking about the 1000 year view of things.
One of the ways to think about this is to use the Cynefin Framework, developed by Dave Snowden. He also hosted a fantastic session on addressing covid-19 challenges using complexity-based approaches with a great panel that included Alicia Juarrero, Valdis Krebs, and Ann Pendleton-Jullian, moderated by Sonja Blignaut. All five of them are top tier thinkers, and it’s an interesting session.
We also included information about two sets of resources from the University of Queensland Business School. The first is a set of three of our classes on the edX platform at a greatly reduced rate – more information here. One of the three is the course that I put together on Design Thinking and Creativity for Innovation.
Even though there are no clear cut answers to questions about what we should do right now, I hope that all these resources can help us think a bit more effectively about how to best proceed.
And I hope that everyone that sees this is doing as well as you can under the current circumstances.
Sur-veil-lance Cap-i-tal-ism, n. 1. A new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction, and sales; 2. A parasitic economic logic in which the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new global architecture of behavioral modification; 3. A rogue mutation of capitalism marked by concentrations of wealth, knowledge, and power unprecedented in human history; 4. The foundational framework of a surveillance economy…
Shoshana Zuboff – The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
The problem that Shoshana Zuboff outlines in her bookThe Age of Surveillance Capitalism is one of governance. As technology races ahead, the norms and institutions that we need to support (or contain) it lag behind.
Scott Brinker frames this problem as Martec’s Law:
When technology is changing rapidly, the fact that norms, managerial practice, institutions and cultures change at a much different pace creates substantial problems. The disconnect between technological change and organisational change (norms, managerial practice, institutions and culture) can be called a Governance Gap.
Bridging this Governance Gap is one of the core problems of management today.
I’ve used this diagram in classes and lectures, but as I think about it more, I think it’s incomplete. One important missing part is time.
Innovation and Pace Layers
Stewart Brand looks at what makes ecosystems resilient, and builds a model for societies as well in his book The Clock of the Long Now. The system has layers of differing scales, with differing rates of change. Some are shallow and fast, while others are deep and slow. He says:
Consider the differently paced components to be layers. Each layer is functionally different from the others and operates somewhat independently, but each layer influences and responds to the layers closest to it in a way that makes the whole system resilient.
From the fastest layers to the slowest layers in the system, the relationship can be described as follows:
Fast learns, slow remembers. Fast proposes, slow disposes. Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous. Fast and small instructs slow and big by accrued innovation and by occasional revolution. Slow and big controls small and fast by constraint and constancy. Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power.
All durable dynamic systems have this sort of structure. It is what makes them adaptable and robust.
Stewart Brand
The overall system looks like this:
“The fast layers innovate; the slow layers stabilize. The whole combines learning with continuity.”
When you think about it this way, then Martec’s Law makes perfect sense. Of course norms, managerial practice, institutions and cultures change more slowly than technology does – they are all part of the slower pace layers.
When new technologies or new techniques arrive, there are many different versions around as people try to solve the technical problems involved. This is technology operating at the layer of Fashion.
Once the technology becomes relatively stable, a new business model emerges – this is the conversion of the rapid, almost frantic level of innovation going at the Fashion layer into a more stable version at the Commerce layer.
Infrastructure moves even more slowly. If you were an early user of Twitter, you’ll remember the Fail Whale – this popped up every time Twitter’s servers crashed. Up until about ten years ago, just getting enough servers online to support a rapidly growing website was close to impossible. Then, Amazon came up with Amazon Web Services, and other Server-as-a-Service businesses emerged. When this happened, the Infrastructure layer had caught up with the Fashion and Commerce layers.
The problems that Zuboff outlines in her book are the ones that arise when the Governance and Culture layers have not yet adapted to the new business models generated by firms like Google and Facebook. Her book lays out the case for the problems that are being caused by the rapid technological change that is out of synch with innovation in governance – a perfect example of the Governance Gap.
Innovation happens at all of the layers except Nature. Nature is the generator of change to which all the other layers must respond. So what happens when innovation at all of the layers is synchronised? According to Carlota Perez, that’s when we see a Golden Age.
Bubbles and Golden Ages
So here’s how I think we need to use Martec’s Law a bit differently. We need to realise that it’s true over the short term, and it describes the challenge of synchronising change between pace layers.
But if we take a longer-term view, a couple of things become apparent. The first is that technological, or any kind of change, never accelerates exponentially forever. It eventually flattens out – it follows an S Curve.
The second thing is that, as discussed, once change flattens out at one of the faster layers, the slow layers innovate to stabilise, and they catch up.
This process is documented very well by Carlota Perez in her absolutely brilliant bookTechnological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages. In it, she looks at how major technological revolutions get embedded at the deeper, slower Governance and Cultural layers.
The argument in the book is summarised by this diagram:
Following the so-called “big bang” of each technological revolution, there comes a period of ‘installation’, lasting roughly 20 to 30 years, in which the economy, as it were, explores the new space of possibilities. This is a period of ‘creative destruction’ marked by an increasing concentration of wealth and rising levels of inequality, i.e. a ‘Gilded Age.’ All the capital flowing into the new technologies eventually cause a bubble that bursts into a crisis and recession in the middle of the cycle. This variable period is characterized by high levels of financial speculation. After this turning point, there comes a period of ‘deployment’ in which capital finds its way back into production thus leading to a widespread application of the new techno-economic paradigm in society at large. This is a period of ‘creative construction’: a ‘Golden Age’ characterized not only by sustained growth but also, most importantly, a more equal spreading of the benefits across society.
Jorge Camacho
It’s important to remember, however, that none of this happens automatically. There are no deterministic rules that say “the slower layers always catch up to the faster ones.” We need to actively work to bring that about.
What Should We Do Now?
All this long-term thinking is fine – but right now, today, we have a lot of Governance Gaps to deal with. The technical change curves haven’t been flattening out yet for things such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity, robotics, autonomous vehicles and drones, blockchains, industry 5.0, the internet of things, and augmented and virtual reality.
The fact that some of these have applications are still in the very frothy Fashion layer means that a lot of the ideas around these technologies are just noise. The first thing we need to do is to get better at figuring out for which ones this is true. One clue to look for here is emergent business models – these are a sign that a new technology is starting to coalesce around a dominant design, that may well have some legs.
The second thing to do is to get better at business model innovation. This is the avenue over which new technologies get embedded into the normal function of our existing organisations. If we’re in an industry experiencing change, business model innovation is a core skill.
Finally, it makes sense to think about how to use these new technologies responsibly. It’s been well-documented that when new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning are used in areas such as hiring and other HR functions, the provision of healthcare, and access to education, there is a strong tendency for the algorithms to reinforce existing social inequalities. At the personal and organisational levels, we must ensure that our use of new technologies decreases existing inequalities rather than increasing them.
At the social level, we can use these technologies and approaches to try to achieve fairer outcomes through work on increasing sustainability in management, or addressing disparities in opportunity. These are the areas that Perez has moved to now, with an emphasis on the role of the state in addressing these issues.
If we think about these issues as we deploy new technologies, and use them responsibly, it makes it much more likely that our organisation’s business model will synch with the deeper, slower layers that will ultimately determine how these technologies will be used over the long run.
And this is crucial, because, over time, slow has all the power.
There are a number of major challenges facing the world
today. Poverty, climate risk, war – the list goes on. In 2015, the United
Nations released a list they called the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs.
It was an agenda of actions and targets to reach by 2030.
In announcing
the SDGs, the UN said:
This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognise that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind.
Pretty hard to argue with that. So hard, in fact, that all 193 UN Member nations have signed on to the goals – it’s one of the most truly global initiatives in history.
There are seventeen goals in the Agenda, with 169 targets, which include specific measures of progress. Vicki Saunders, the founder of an organisation called SheEO, calls the SDGs “the world’s to-do list.”
All of the goals are simple to
state, but challenging to achieve. For example, the first goal is “No Poverty –
End poverty in all its forms everywhere.” For this goal, there are seven
targets, and eleven indicators, or measures of progress. The first target is:
By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day.
And the target is for this is:
Proportion of population below the international poverty line, by sex, age, employment status and geographical location (urban/rural)
Each year the UN reports on
progress against the indicators. In the 2018 report, they say:
The proportion of the world’s workers living with their families on less than $1.90 per person a day declined significantly over the past two decades, falling from 26.9 per cent in 2000 to 9.2 per cent in 2017.
Each of the remaining sixteen
SDGs has a similar set of targets and indicators, as well as reports on
progress. The seventeen SDGs are:
No Poverty
Zero Hunger
Good Health and Well Being
Quality Education
Gender Equality
Clean Water and Sanitation
Affordable and Clean Energy
Decent Work and Economic Growth
Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Reduced Inequalities
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Responsible Consumption and Production
Climate Action
Life Below Water
Life on Land
Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Partnerships for the Goals
It’s an ambitious set of goals, to say the least. But if we can meet them, the world will unquestionably be a better place – for all of us.
Which raises an important question. If innovation is making new ideas real, to create value – then shouldn’t an important measure of the value we create be the contributions of our ideas to making the SDGs real?
This is an objective that
Saunders and SheEO take seriously. SheEO was started to address some of the
Gender Equity issues raised in SDG number 5. The program is designed to support
female entrepreneurs – specifically, to support women that are developing
ventures designed to address some of the other SDGs.
Here’s how it works:
SheEO is a radically redesigned ecosystem that supports, finances, and celebrates female innovators.
Rather than trying to fit women into the existing models and systems and level the playing field, we are creating an entirely new field.
The model brings together 500 women (called Activators) in each year’s cohort, who contribute $1100 in CAN, US, NZ and AU, and £850 in the UK, each as an Act of Radical Generosity. The money is pooled together and loaned out at zero percent interest to five women-led Ventures selected by the Activators. All Ventures are revenue generating with export potential and are creating a better world through their business model or their product and service. The loans are paid back over five years and then loaned out again, creating a perpetual fund which we will pass on to our daughters, nieces and granddaughters. The 500 women Activators in each cohort become the de-facto ‘team’ of the five selected Ventures bringing their buying power as early customers, their expertise and advice and their vast networks to help grow the businesses.
To me, this is one of the most interesting new business models for venture funding that I’ve seen in a long time. Since their launch in 2015, SheEO has signed up over 4000 Activators, and made over $4 million in loans to 53 new ventures. These ventures have on average grown very rapidly, and over 70% have gotten further impact venture funding – an incredibly high hit rate.
Overall, SheEO-funded ventures are addressing all seventeen of the SDGs!
The goals of Good Health and Well-Being, Decent Work and Economic Growth, and
Responsible Consumption and Production are all spaces where lots of
SheEO-funded ventures are working.
This quite substantially expands our set of stakeholders. And it’s not a completely new idea. People have been talking about triple bottom line accounting for many years now. This business approach includes specific objectives for achieving social, environmental and financial outcomes. More recently, the idea of a For Benefit, or B Corporation was developed. These are corporations that have triple bottom line objectives formally written into their articles of incorporation. Many of the SheEO ventures are following this route.
Value creation is at the heart of innovation. If we are going to innovate responsibly, we have an obligation to take things like the Sustainable Development Goals very seriously – I’m not sure we’re innovating at all if we don’t.
Doing this makes building our new business models even harder. But it also greatly increases the rewards and impacts we achieve if we’re successful.
Note: If you’re in Australia and interested in the SheEO program, the deadline to sign up to be an Activator or a Venture is December 3rd. And if, like me, you can’t join up yourself, you can still encourage and support the women you know in joining the program!
