Shift to the Future

I believe in teaching people to 'fish' rather than 'fishing' for them.  In practice I have found this philosophy when working with my staff and 'clients' to be a powerful way to grow people and their capacity.  It takes time and patience and you have to hold yourself back from just doing 'it' your self. Some years ago, my wife Shelley decided to create an online business where she needed to learn a ton about a variety of technologies, in a hurry.  She would call me with lots of questions and although I think it frustrated her at the time, I would respond with questions, not answers.  I would ask her what she thinks she should do and in a round about way, help her get to the answer or possible answers.  It didn't take long for her to stop calling... :-)  I often do the same with my staff and the clients I support.  It would be so much easier just to answer the specific question or do it for them but then they would be dependent on me which does no...

I am increasingly aware of the complexity of “the system”.  Think about your place in the world and then consider the layers and walls around you that have been built up over time in “the system”.  Those of us that work for “the education system” would view things differently then say a plumber, electrician, or politician might.  Regardless, we all encounter complexity whether we choose to or not.  I’m primarily thinking about organizational complexity here.  Organizations tend to naturally become complex over time.  They become very difficult to work within, to accomplish things through, and become very expensive to operate. “Few things can doom a “system” faster than excessive complexity, which then collapses into chaos.”, Is America in Danger of Collapsing (Feb. 5, 2012) I probably read to broadly, too many obscure articles and books, but I see a pattern emerging: complexity is making our systems unsustainable.  Think of the costs of health...

It’s Sunday, the day after the intense 2010 World Future Society conference and it’s time to reflect.  I bumped into Ken Shepard this morning whom I met on Thursday in Holacracy class and we debriefed for about an hour.  I’ve got to admit, there’s a lot of disturbing aspects to what I heard this week in presentations and conversations.  I am an optimist but am finding the views of others about possible futures to be challenging to accept.  To start off, here’s the titles of the sessions I attended and what has struck me most about this week: Organizing at the Leading Edge: Introducing Holacracy Keynote: Navigating the Future: Moral Machines, Techno Saplens, and the Singularity Sustainable Innovation: A Strategic Road Map to the Future 2010 Humans in 2020: The Next 10 Years of Personal Biotechnology Oceans and Our Global Future Internet Evolution: Where Hyperconnectivity and Ambient Intimacy Take Use Keynote: Building the Human Mind Levers of Change in High...

Day 1 at the World Future Society has come to a close.  Today I attended an all day workshop “Organizing at the Leading Edge: Introducing Holacracy”.  The speaker was Brian Robertson from Holacracy One with the motto, “Liberating the soul of organizations”. You know how after lunch during a full day workshop the afternoon seems to drag on, you get sleepy,…  well that didn’t happen today.  The entire group (12 of us) were totally engaged past 5pm the scheduled end time.  It was really that good. So what is Holacracy.  Disclaimer: my one day exposure to this “movement” doesn’t qualify me to speak intelligently about it but I’ll give you my take on it.  Brian Robertson talks about it using a software engineering metaphor: it is a new operating system for organizations or a fundamental upgrade to the core organization.  The organization gains new capabilities and capacity that all processes can leverage.  It is a practice, not just a model ...