I have just finished The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems by Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin) a book I have been waiting for some time to come out. I am very glad to say the wait has been well worth it.

Positive deviance has received a lot of attention since the concept was laid out in a series of articles way back in 2000 – one in the Harvard Business Review and the other in Fast Company. The concept has recently received a new boost since it was covered in both Influencer: the Power to Change Anything and by Chip and Dan Heath (where they called them ‘bright spots’) in Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.

Positive deviance is based on the observation that in every community or organisation, there are certain individuals or groups (the ‘positive deviants’ or ‘bright spots’), whose uncommon but successful behaviours enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers. Positive deviance identifies these individuals or groups, who have access to exactly the same resources and face the same challenges and obstacles as their peers, and examines their behaviours and attitudes, which help them avoid problems that plague the rest of their community.

The concept of positive deviance is therefore relatively simple. It involves the identification of people who manage to thrive in a situation where most fail; figuring out what those people are doing that is different from the majority; and then getting everyone to engage in the same actions, thereby solving the problem. Sounds simple enough right? The book shows the challenges encountered in trying to use positive deviance to make a difference to a wide range of seemingly intractable problems.

The book is based around six in-depth case studies (a chapter each) on the use of positive deviance to address childhood malnutrition in Vietnam, stopping female circumcision in Egypt, reducing hospital infection rates in the US, reducing infant mortality in Pakistan, boosting sales within the pharmaceutical firm Merck, and helping reintegrate girl soldiers in Uganda.

Each of these chapters is an in-depth analysis of the power and limitations of positive deviance and how they have learnt and adapted the approach as they have gone along. These case studies really bring to life the context, situation and challenges they faced in each scenario. They are detailed, have a lot of information in them, and I've gone back and re-read most of them a number of times, and each time something new has jumped off the page for me.

Some of the key lessons I've taken, or had reinforced, from these case studies include:

1. We focus too much on the ‘what’, and not enough on the ‘how’.

We are drawn to the 'technical' stuff – the 'what', the specific practices and tools that make the individual positive deviants successful;

“That's the easy part – and only 20 percent of the work. What matters far more is the 'how' – the very particular journey that each community must engage in to mobilize itself, …discover its latent wisdom, and put this wisdom into practice.” This point really made me think about the number of articles I have articles about positive deviance, and how the vast majority of them focused on the ‘what’ the solution – not on the ‘how’ the solution was found and integrated into a community – from my experience the hard stuff.

2. The danger we bring as ‘experts’ in the change process:

As the authors say: “The greatest barrier to the success of positive deviance approach comes not from the members of the community themselves but from the “experts” who seek to help them...” There is fantastic story of how a suggestion around the use of tongs for Fried Chicken fundamentally changed an expert’s view on how to deal with, and beat, MRSA

3. Creating compelling and concrete portrayals of the problem at hand.

I absolutely love the story of using chocolate pudding to bring to life MRSA and its impacts in the VA Hospital in Pittsburgh

4. Change starts with changing practices

The conventional wisdom is that knowledge changes attitudes and attitudes change practice. Positive deviance reverses that. It starts with changing practice. As people see that changes make a difference, their attitude changes and they internalise the knowledge.

As the authors say; “its easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than to think your way into a new way of acting… Once positive deviance behaviours have been discovered, the design must provide those who seek to learn with both the opportunity and the means to practice the new behaviour. A focus on practice rather than knowledge has proven to be a key element in bringing about lasting behavioural change...”

5. Use Deliberate Practice to practice the new behaviour

There is a lovely sidebar headed ‘choreographed conversations’ about training positive deviance participants in Egypt to start conversations around female circumcision. It is a great example of some of the key elements of deliberate practice.

6. Positive deviance is not the same as ‘Best Practice’

What comes out of the positive deviance process should not be confused with ‘best practices’ that we all are familiar with in our organisations. ‘Best Practices’ are typically identified by those at the top and then presented to everyone else for adoption. Positive deviance, on the other hand, is based on discovery by the practitioners themselves, which promotes buy in, acceptance, and change.

The book finishes with some absolute nuggets in how to undertake positive deviance work in a section called the ‘Basic Field Guide to Positive Deviance’. It provides a step by step guide (as much as you can within a process as fluid as that of positive deviance) on the key activities within a positive deviance initiative, as well as some really practical tips they have picked up during all of their work. My favourite one is; “Let silence speak! (Pause for twenty seconds after asking a question. That’s long enough to sing happy birthday!). Try it, you’ll be amazed how long twenty seconds actually is!

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed The Power of Positive Deviance (http://tinyurl.com/2vykgaz). It is detailed, it’s in-depth, and provides a huge amount of information about positive deviance and the challenges to apply it to solve real world problems. It did take some effort in parts to relate the chapters back to my world. Not always easy to link stopping female circumcision in Egypt with and the challenges that I face in creating change within organizations, but the links and the lessons are there.

Lastly, a word of advice. If you want to easily understand the concepts and principles of positive deviance and get excited about it and how it has been used – start with Influencer (http://tinyurl.com/yuvg54) and Switch (http://tinyurl.com/37bnsoz). If you need to get senior stakeholders and sponsors excited about the concept, do the same. If you then want to try and use positive deviance in making a difference to the challenges you face, read The Power of Positive Deviance (http://tinyurl.com/2vykgaz).


About the authors:

Richard Pascale is an academic at Oxford University, and author of numerous books including Surfing the Edge of Chaos (http://tinyurl.com/334ceb3). Jerry Sternin was the world's leading expert in the application of positive deviance before his death in December, 2008. Monique Sternin has been an equal partner in these efforts and now heads the Positive Deviance Institute (http://tinyurl.com/kmqjb9) at Tufts University.

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What if a single warrior could have the knowledge of thousands?

Two weeks ago I gave an after dinner speech to the Australian Army Knowledge Management conference. Just before the speech I was introduced to the guy that has responsibility for running the Battle Command Knowledge System, which hosts CompanyCommand along with fifty other forums, Colonel Charles (Chuck) Burnett. I was a bit taken aback as I had a copy of CompanyCommand in my hand and was intending to use it as an example during the talk.

I was fortunate to spend some time talking with Colonel Burnett the next morning and he was very generous with his time. I was particularly interested to hear that one of his greatest challenges is continually justifying the value of the forums like CompanyCommand to his chain of command. Not that having to justify the value of a community of practice is a new thing; its just that having to justify the value of one of the most visible CoP success stories in the world seemed remarkable.

To tackle this, he conducted a survey last year to collect examples of how the communities of practice were making a difference. There were 2500 responses; problems overcome, mistakes avoided, money saved ... lives saved. The collected stories are now a key part of communicating the value of the CoPs (we have previously blogged about this technique here and here).

I will finish this post with a quote from the CompanyCommand book:

It became clear to me...that CompanyCommand.com was not about the website. Rather it was about a community of professionals sharing and learning in a fast-paced dynamic operational context; the technology simply enabled the process. In fact, the more I thought about and observed the...forum, the more I realised that the core technology of the forum was the people and the conversations, not the computer.

Now, I just need to wangle an invitation to the US Army KM conference in October this year ☺

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Carolyn runs a company, Connect Marketing, focussed on helping small businesses be brilliant at marketing. We met in 2008 when we were both guests on the Sky News Money Makers program hosted by David Koch. We were speaking on various aspect of collaboration.

And in case you are wondering, we met at Coogee beach.

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Our mind is full of beliefs, assumptions and values which affect what we do and how we do it. Much of what we assume comes from our experiences, especially if we've told ourselves and others the story of what happen and what it means for us. Our stories help us remember and embed our assumptions.¹ If we want to change our actions we need new stories that create and embed a new belief, assumption or value. We need to see it and feel it before we will change.²

One can take a systematic approach to triggering these new stories by first uncovering the assumptions you or your group live by and then designing simple experiments to test these assumptions. Kegan and Lahey do a terrific job describing a process for uncovering assumptions in Immunity to Change.³ They don’t mention stories in their approach but as I was reading their practical chapters at the end of the book it was screaming out to me that what they were advocating was a systematic way to trigger stories that could replace the unhelpful ones. The aim is to create new stories for yourself that help you to act in a new way.

Our assumptions and beliefs nearly always serve a purpose because if they didn’t they would have gone the way of the Dodo. But sometimes these same assumptions hold us back. Here is an example of a big assumption that really seemed to limit what this person thought was possible.

It was clear she’d had a bad experience and was operating under the assumption that you must be guarded and careful with whatever you say to those in power otherwise you might loose your job. Now here was an assumption worth testing.

The first step is to start to think like George Costanza from the Seinfeld sitcom when he decided to do the opposite of everything he would normally do. As Jerry says in the episode, “if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” So take the assumption “I assume if I’m frank and open with my boss, he will get angry” and design a test that does the opposite of what the assumption would advise and do the opposite. It’s important to note that your experiment should be safe. Avoid tackling assumptions where you believe an action will result in death, being fired, losing a relationship etc. Break down these more dramatic assumptions into smaller, less dramatic ones and test around the edges at first.

Then, most importantly, notice what happens. Kegan and Lahey suggest you plan for the results and think about the things that will indicate what happened and whether they tell you something new about the assumption. What did you think and feel? What did others think and feel? Which outcomes would really lead you to question the validity of your assumption?

Strong assumptions are unlikely to yield in a single test. You will need to conduct a series of experiments and reflect deeply on the results. Each experiment will create a new story for you and the ones that produce something counter to your preconceived ideas, the ones that are unanticipated will be the ones you will tell others and a change in mindset and behaviour will follow. Of course all this assumes you really want to change.

References

1. Schank, R.C. & Berman, T.R. 2002, 'The Pervasive Role of Stories in Knowledge and Action', in MC Green, JJ Strange & TC Brock (eds), Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahway, New Jersey.

2. Kotter, J.P. & Cohen, D.S. 2002, The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts.

3. Kegan, R. & Lahey, L.L. 2009, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome it and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, Harvard Business Press, Boston, Massachusetts.

4. Patterson, K., Grenny, J., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R. & Switzler, A. 2008, Influencer: The Power To Change Anything, McGraw Hill, New York.

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It was going to be difficult to surpass their last book, Made to Stick, where they showed us that people wont pay attention unless our message is simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional and a story. And it was going to be even harder practising what they preached to make Switch stick. But I'm delighted to report that they've pulled it off and have created an engaging and useful work on how to change things when change is hard.

Switch is arranged around an analogy (immediately visual and sticky). When we are making a decision we're often torn between our rational, logical reasons and our emotional, intuitive feelings. Chip and Dan ask us to imagine an Elephant and its Rider (the mahout). The Rider represents the rational and logical. Tell the Rider what to do, provide a good argument and the Rider will do it. The Elephant, on the other hand, represents our emotions, our gut response. The Rider might like to avoid that hamburger and chips but there is very little the Rider can do if the Elephant really wants it (OK, so I'm telling you what happened last night). To complete their analogy they include the Path they are travelling along. If the Rider can direct the Elephant down a well prepared Path then there is a good chance for change. The Path might represent, for example, access to user friendly technology or effective office space design. Switch is arranged in three parts: Direct the Rider, Motivate the Elephant and Shape the Path.

On Saturday in 2000 ... In 1990 ... A doctor was asked ... Crystal Jones joined Teach for America in 2003 ... These are the first few words of the first four chapters and apart from the last chapter each starts with a story. And within each chapter are more stories. These stories are well chosen and illustrate the behaviours we need to adopt to effect change. The whole book is focussed on behaviours and rightly makes the point that change comes from changing people's behaviour. That's the level you need to take. A leader cannot afford to stay aloof. For change to occur they need to get into the detail as well as stay strategic.

As a business storyteller Switch is a treasure trove of stories to be retold in organisations. Last week I was running a strategy workshop and I wanted the group to identify a set of guiding principles for their organisation. So I told them the story of the Brazilian railway that was going broke and how Alexandre Behring and his CFO created four rules to guide everyone's spending behaviour to get them out of debt. I shared the rules with the participants and they knew exactly what I meant and were able to easily create their own guiding principles. Strategy execution is a change initiative and Chip and Dan advise us to script the critical moves.

Here is the structure of the book. Notice how each section is a pointer to behaviour.

Direct the Rider: Find the bright spots; Script the critical moves; Point to the destination

Motivate the Elephant: Find the feeling; Shrink the Change; Grow your people

Shape the Path: Tweak the environment; Build habits; Rally the herd

On page 58 we encounter our first clinic and I must admit I groaned slightly when I bumped into it. Getting me to do exercises while I'm reading is normally a pain. I was going to just skip the clinic but decided to have a read and the thing I noticed was that the repetition of the ideas in another context was really helping me to remember. I knew repetition is important but I guess the story approach sucked me in and reinforced it.

One the first things I check when I get a book like Switch is to see whether it is comprehensively referenced and what type of studies are being referred to (if any). Switch passed with flying colours. The endnotes are expansive and they share a swag of evidence for each point they make and often used the psychological experiments as stories rather than just presenting the facts.

Switch is a book that will be read by senior leaders. It's engaging, well written, funny in parts and insightful. If you're an change practitioner in an organisation I recommend you buy a handful of copies and give them to your leaders. In my experience they wont read it right away but then they'll jump on a flight and start and wont stop. At this point you'll not only have a supporter but someone who will compel your involvement. Malcolm Gladwell has served me well in the past and Switch is in the same league.

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Dan and Chip Heath have a new book coming out (Feb) and they sent me a copy of the first chapter. The title is Switch and like their last best seller, Made to Stick, it promises to be a keeper. It's all about how to motivate people to change. The first chapter has left an indelible impression because of the strong image they conjured to explain what we need to consider to influence change: the Mahout (they call it The Rider), the Elephant and the Path.

Changing behaviour involves a struggle between our rational and well-reasoned thinking and our emotional urges. The mahout represents the rational and reasoned. If the mahout clearly understands where he needs to go he'll direct his charge that way.

The elephant represents emotional urges. While the elephant might be happy to go the way the mahout directs, if she decides to go another direction there is not a single thing the mahout can do about it.

The path represents anything that might impede or assist the mahout and the elephant to get to where they are going. You want the path to be as easy to follow as possible.

So how does this translate to a business setting? Imagine you're a leader of an organisation that's decided to compete on exemplary customer service. To engage the mahout you need a clear rationale describing why customer service is so important. You would find the research that shows the factors that influence customer service and illustrate to the mahout in everyone the concrete actions you want them to take. Engaging the Mahout, however, is the easy part and the one most organisations spend most of their time doing. The hard bit is the elephant.

Engaging the elephant, the emotion, will take action and stories about things that happened. You might start by telling some stories of customer service blunders to grab their attention. Here's one that happened to me recently. It's important you find stories from the organisation. Real life examples. Negative stories, however, often in themselves wont change behaviour, partly because people don't know exactly what they need to do to get it right. So you also need to find stories of great customer service from your company. We call them Gibson stories because William Gibson (the sci-fi writer) once said: "the future is already here; it's just unevenly distributed." You just need to find these stories that represent your company's future. Tell them. Get people to discuss them. Inspire that elephant.

After engaging the mahout and the elephant you need to pave the path and remove anything that's getting in the way of progress. This might be a rewards system that's encouraging the wrong behaviour. Or it might be an IT system that is unintegrated and hard for call centre staff to use slowing down their support for customers. There are a myriad of obstacles to remove from the path.

Don't forget, the Heath brothers were the authors of Made to Stick which dedicates a chapter to the power of stories. Chapter one is full of great stories. Some you might have already heard, such as the 424 gloves that save a company millions or the 100,000 lives saves by the Donald Berwick and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

The Heath brothers conclude the chapter by saying:

Whether the switch you seek is in your family, in your charity, in your organization, or in society at large, you’ll get there by making three things happen. You’ll direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path.

Photo credit: goofball12

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Seth Godin has a new ebook out called What Matters Now. It consists of 80 or so thought leaders each with a page to talk about an idea that matters to them. Each idea is summed up in a single word such as Dignity, Autonomy, Attention, Difference. You can download the ebook here.

Dan and Chip Heath have a page with the title, Change. They incorporate three ideas in their one-pager that is dear to our work: stories, positive deviance and changing behaviour. Here is what they wrote.

We’re wired to focus on what’s not working. But Murphy asked, “What IS working, today, and how can we do more of it?”

You’re probably trying to change things at home or at work. Stop agonizing about what’s not working. Instead, ask yourself, “What’s working well, right now, and how can I do more of it?”

Chip and Dan Heath are the authors of Made to Stick and the soon-to-be-released book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.

It's not a coincidence that the Heath brothers decided to tell a story to illustrate their idea and try and persuade the reader to adopt a different approach to change. They dedicate a chapter to the power of stories in their book, Made to Stick and conclude the book saying that most of the other effects described in the other chapters are encapsulated in stories. So let's look at some of the features of this story and why it might be effective.

The simple story structure creates an image for us of both Bobby and Murphy (and let's not forget Ms. Smith). I can see Bobby sitting on a swivel chair restless and bored. If the story creates vivid images for us there is a good chance it will grab our attention and we will remember it. We've all seen Bobbys in our life, so it's easy to picture him in this story.

Names are important. Humans care about other humans. We want to know the names. Case studies often lack names and suffer for it. Again it creates attention through authenticity and empathy for people.

Also notice how they start with the story and then provide the advice. They didn't want the reader to slip into a confirmation bias where we automatically discount suggestions as our first instinct. The story first allows us to pull the idea to us, own the idea ourselves before a suggestion is made by the experts.

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Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities by Etienne Wenger, Nancy White and John D. Smith

I’m often the technology steward for communities of practice (CoP). I create the Ning spaces and configure ‘em, I setup the email lists, I work out whether we should have a wiki or a blog or a discussion forum or some other combination of communication technologies. As you can see I’m quite a geek: I really do love it.

And whenever I get stuck I’ll contact my friends at CPSquare: Etienne, Nancy and John. And while I know they all have a deep understanding of CoPs I tend to ask Etienne the theory questions, Nancy the technology questions and John the group dynamics questions. Together they are a formidable team. Sadly I think their new book, Digital Habitats, will give them strong cause to suggest I should RTFM: Read The Flipping Manual.

Digital Habitats (DH) has a single goal: to help the reader understand the role of technology steward in cultivating a community of practice: what is it, why you would do it, are you are cut out for it, how to do it and where to find help. But it is not a shoppers guide nor a roadmap for technology selection.

There is a lovely photo of Etienne, Nancy and John in the preface and I feel that reading DH is like have a friendly conversation with them on a sunny balcony. They provide the context, a little theory, then lots of practical tips supported by real life stories to ground it and make it memorable.

For me there are three ideas in this book I have already put into practice with great effect.

Experience shows us that all know that communities of practice are different, and sometimes poles apart. DH introduces the idea of community orientations to help us understand where the emphasis might lie and therefore what technologies make most sense.

There are 9 orientations: meetings, open-ended conversations, projects, content, access to expertise, relationships, individual participation, community participation, serving a context. With my engineering communities, for example, I’ve asked the members where they see their current orientation and then ask them to identify where they would like to be. A community might start off very content focussed but realise that the real benefits will come from providing access to expertise. By understanding this orientation gap the technology steward can start introducing tools to facilitate the future orientation needs.

The second idea I find useful is how my friends (I was going to say ‘the authors’ but it didn’t feel right) describe the range of activities a community might be engaged in. The axis range from informal to formal and learning from to learning with. This diagram helps me ensure I’m thinking about the full range of possibilities when helping communities members design their CoP.

DH envisages three types of readers: deep divers, attentive practitioners and just do it-ers. The just do it-ers are directed to chapter 10 which contains an action notebook. It is a series of checklists to help you think about the role of the technology steward. What I love about chapter 10 is that I can jump in and start learning about the role by doing things and then come back to the descriptions contained in the rest of the book when it is more meaningful for me. DH makes the job of finding the relevant descriptions in the other chapters easy through a multitude of cross-links from chapter 10 to the relevant book section.

There are very few practical community of practice books available (I can think of 3 others) and Etienne has already had a hand in writing one of them. So Digital Habitats is a valuable addition to this exclusive club. It’s highly readable and practical and will definitely help make a difference to the quality of your technology support for your community of practice.

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It took me a little while to work out what was happening. I snapped my first photo of the motor scooter with clip board attached in Soho but I only got a fleeting glance and then he was gone.

But my next sighting was far more informative. This time the motorcyclist was parked so I asked about the clipboard and what he was doing. It turned out he was learning to become a London taxi driver; he was learning was they call, "the knowledge."

It takes between 2 and 4 years to learn the 320 routes (they call them runs) required to pass the tests. The student is given 20 runs at a time to memorise and they ride their scooters along the routes remembering the vagaries of one-way streets and where the traffic jams happen, as well as the notable sights a tourist might want to see. The guy I was chatting to said the first 20 runs seem like a jumble but when you learn the next set of 20 patterns begin to emerge as one run partially coincides with another.

I've just finished reading Geoff Colvin's book, Talent is Overrated. His central theme (which I believe is shared by Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, which I haven't read yet), is that high performers are not merely naturally talented (and perhaps talent has little to do with it), but they also engage in deliberate practice. That is, they design and perform a program of activities focussed on developing specific skills. For these future black cabbies they were deliberately developing their navigation skills in the pursuit of passing a test and at the same time actually enlarging part of their brain.

In Colvin's book I was taken with the story of how Benjamin Franklin developed himself a program for improving his writing skills.

This has got me thinking about what would a program of deliberate practice for developing your storytelling skills look like. Any suggestions?

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The authors of Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath, point out that there are three story plots we humans dearly love:

• the creativity plot where the protagonist solves one or more puzzles through shear ingenuity, persistence and always with a dash of dumb luck. The DaVinci Code is an example.
• the connection plot where people come together from different walks of life: different race, class, affluence, nationality, power. This week Sheen and I re-watched the movie Notting Hill which is definitely an example of a connection plot: famous celebrity connects with impoverished book store owner.
• the challenge plot where the protagonist faces a daunting challenge, everyone is sceptical whether is can be done, and especially by our hero, but in the end she triumphs. You might not have heard of Susan Boyle but this video is a classic example of a challenge plot told in 7 minutes.

Now you might be thinking, "how does all this relate to stories in a business context?"

Successful leaders are people who are able to change the minds, feelings and ultimately the actions of people who follow their lead. And stories play a fundamental role in helping people change their minds. Don't just take my word for it. Howard Gardner, the Harvard psychologist and author of Changing Minds wrote: "The principle vehicle of leadership is the story: The leader affects individual behavior, thought, and feelings through the stories that he and she tells."

So to succeed as a leader it's important to build your repertoire of stories but you don't want to recount just any story. You want to be mindful of the things that happen in your life that others will find interesting, inspiring and meaningful and by knowing these three plot types you can be on the lookout for these experiences. Let me finish with another quote from Gardner: "One of the most powerful weapons in the possession of leader-storytellers is the lives that they lead. To the extent that leaders embody the stories that they tell, the leaders' examples will increase in power."

Gardner, H. (1999). "The vehicle and the vehicles of leadership." American Behavioral Scientist 42(6): 1009-1023.

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For years the field of neuroscience, much like the field of management, has been held back by a metaphor: the brain is a computer (machine) with each part playing a specific role. If one part of the machine (your brain) is destroyed it's impossible to fix. The Brain That Changes Itself (by Norman Doige) is the remarkable story of how a handful of pioneering neuroscientists challenged and eventually overturned the machine metaphor and clearly showed how the that brain is changeable throughout your life.

One of the featured scientists is Michael Merzenich. He obviously has an entrepreneurial flair because he's started a couple of businesses to apply his research findings. A recent business venture is called Posit Science which focusses on helping elderly people improve and maintain their brain function. And by elderly Merzenich points out that by the time we get to our 40s we have established a pattern of doing things to the point that are thinking is automatic. This autopilot ossifies our brain connections and new ones are less likely to form. To keep our brains nimble we need to keep learning. Apparently crosswords don't do too much for our brains, so forget that as a strategy.

Here are 7 things you can do today to keep your brain in tip top fitness. There are a part of a list of 14 provided on the Posit Science site. Follow the links to find the reasoning for each suggestion.

1. Visit a museum. Take a guided tour. Listen carefully to what the guide said and when you get home recall what you learned
2. Memorise a song. Pick a song you don't know. Listen to it enough times to get all the lyrics down. Then learn the song off by heart. Sing it to some friends.
3. Learn to play a new instrument. Maybe it's a good time for me to take up the harmonica.
4. Do a jigsaw puzzle. At least 500 pieces.
5. Step it up a notch. Take something you do regularly and increase the level of difficulty. Yachtmen are now getting their yachts towed to speed far greater than winds will take then so they can speed up their reactions to better cope with normal conditions.
6. Turn down your TV. Turn down the volume to a point you have to concentrate to hear it. When you can keep track turn it down again.
7. Eat dark chocolate. This one is for your Nancy White (also known as choconancy)

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I just opened the book "Semper and Score: Enhancing Organisational Effectiveness" by Tom Graves and was taken by the elegantly simple answer to this question on page 2. Effectiveness consists of, or arises from, four distinct dimensions, plus another sort-of dimension that ties the others together:

• efficient - makes the best use of available resources
• reliable - can be relied upon to deliver the required results
• elegant - supports the human factors in the context
• appropriate - suports and sustains the overall purpose
• integrated - linked to and supports integration of the whose as whole

I like this sentence as well..."the point here is that efficiency is neither the same as effectiveness, nor separate from it, but a subset of what's needed for overall effectiveness". The book is self published and is available from Tom's website.

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I'm thoroughly enjoying reading Influencer at the moment and the story of Dr Everett Rogers grabbed my attention. After finishing his PhD his first job was to help Iowa farmers adopt a new strain of corn which promised much higher yields. He spoke to many farmers and couldn't get a single one to try out the new strain. They just didn't trust this researcher who was so different from the farmers. He was a city slicker who was naive about farming practice, so what would he know.

Dr Rogers persisted thinking, if only he could get one farmer to try it out and then they could influence everyone else. After a time he did find someone to try out the new corn, a hipster dude who wore Bermuda shorts and fancy sunglasses. He enjoyed a bumper crop but the other farmers were unimpressed. This maverick farmer derided their way of life, he was an outsider and there was no way they were going to adopt anything from a Bermuda short wearing weirdo.

This failure springboarded Dr Rogers into a career of studying why good ideas are not adopted.

"Rogers learned that the first people to latch onto a new idea are unlike the masses in many ways. He called these people innovators. They're the guys and gals in Bermuda shorts. They tend to be open to new ideas and smarter than average. But here's the important point. The key to getting the majority of any population to a adopt a vital behavior is to find out who these innovators are and avoid them like the plague. If they embrace your new ideas, it will surely die."

It turns out it is a much better strategy to get on board the early adopters, the opinion leaders (about 14% of the population). Mind you if the opinion leaders don't like your idea, then you are sunk.

The book suggests the best way to find the opinion leaders is to ask everyone to list the people who they believe are most influential and trusted. When the same names keep being suggested (perhaps 10 times) they are the opinion leaders. I wonder about the practicality of getting this list made. Would it be done as a survey? A social network analysis survey would find this information as well as uncover those people who are most connected.

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I've started a new practice of jotting down, inside the front cover of a book, the anecdotes it contains. It seems to work best for modern business books that have a liberal smattering of stories throughout. It is a useful practice because, like most people, I can remember a story much better that facts and reasoning and the story index is a quick reminder of the key ideas. Here's an example from Clay Shirkey's book, Here Comes Everybody.

It would be terrific if publishers created a story index as a matter of good book publishing practice. Mind you, the act of creating your own story index is a tremendous way to crystallise your learning.

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As you can probably guess I like to read and manage to get through quite a few books in the year. I noticed Amazon allows you to list books in a set of categories, so I've put together a preliminary list of books I recommend on the following topics:

• change
• collaboration
• communities of practice
• complexity
• storytelling

Are there obvious ones I've missed?

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Garr Reynolds is the presentation guru and he's developed a series of book reviews done in an engaging and informative way using, you guessed it, presentations (search slideshare for Garr's presentations). Here's one on, Brain Rules.

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They are all written by single authors. Is it too difficult to write a book collaboratively?

By the way, the first and third books are excellent. Evan Rosen promises to talk about culture but spend most of his time talking about technology.

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I've just started to read Otto Scharmer's book, Theory U, and this passage grabbed my attention.

Twenty-three hundred years ago Aristotle. arguably the greatest pioneer and innovator of Western inquiry and thought, wrote on Book VI of his Nicomachean Ethics that there are five different ways, faculties, or capacities in the human soul to grasp the truth. Only one of them is science (episteme). Science (episteme), according to Aristotle, is limited to the things that cannot be otherwise than they are (in other words, things that are determined by necessity). By contrast, the other four ways and capacities of grasping the truth apply to all other contexts or reality and life. They are: art or producing (techne), practical wisdom (phronesis), theoretical wisdom (sophia), and intuition or the capacity to grasp first principles or sources (nous).

To date the primary focus has been on episteme and we are only beginning to see leaders valuing the other approaches in a systematic way.

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The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson is all about innovation, particularly that type of innovation which occurs when two or more different disciplines, mindsets, ways of doing things, collide and new idea emerges. It seems that Frans learned that "best-selling author Paolo Coelho boosted sales in Russia by uploading a pirate copy of his book, The Alchemist," and decided this was something he would try out but in this case with the permission of his publisher. Get the free version from the Medici Effect website.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Medici Effect and it's full of engaging stories and practical ideas. As an entrepreneur I was anxious to have confirmed that nearly every new business fails a number of time before it gets it business strategy right. Frans goes on to quote Clayton Christensen from his best-selling book The Innovator's Dilemma:

Research has shown, in fact, that the vast majority of successful new business ventures abandoned their original business strategies when they began implementing their initial plans and learned what would and would not work in the market. The dominant difference between successful ventures and failed ones, generally, is not the astuteness of their original strategy. Guessing the right strategy at the outset is not nearly as important to success as conserving enough resources (or having relationships with trusted backers or investors) so that new business initiatives get a second or third stab at getting it right. Those that run our of resources or credibility before they can iterate towards a new strategy are the ones that will fail.

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I’ll remember Strategy and the Fat Smoker (SATFS) by David Maister for two things: helping me realise that creating a resolve in a group to take action is more important than merely creating insights into what should be done; and putting me on to the weight-loss analogy as a way of talking about facilitating change in a business context.

I’ve put both ideas into practice. First, I’ve recognised that our storytelling work is an important way to create resolve in a change initiative, such as developing a knowledge strategy. Second, we have incorporated the weight-loss analogy in our workshops and seminars to help people to think more deeply about what’s required for people to change.

I have to admit, when I received my copy of SATFS I was in two minds about the book. I admire David’s work and I’ve read most of his papers, listened to the podcasts and watched the online videos (is this a little too obsessive?). So when I heard that SATFS was a compilation of articles written from 2005, I thought, “Oh well, I guess it will be nice to have all the articles in one place.”

So I was pleasantly surprised by just how fresh the articles felt and how many good ideas I rediscovered. David creates an appealing flow of topics reinforcing the main theme of getting people to take action. This action-oriented approach makes tremendous sense because, as the business environment becomes even more complex and the issues we try to solve don’t have clear answers (even defining the problems will become more illusive), a good way to proceed is to take action and see what emerges. Then nurture the good and disrupt the bad.

There are two specific writing habits David employs that I really enjoy: first he gives the nitty-gritty details and even provides examples of what you might say in a given situation. For example, when talking about being a trusted advisor and helping clients find a professional service they need when you are not best placed to provide it, David suggests saying something like, “We are not your best choice for that new need. We can do it if you insist, but you may be better served to go to a specialist who can focus on providing the particular client benefit you seek.” And then take the next step to help your client find that needed specialist.

I also like the way David peppers each chapter with questions that prompt us to think differently about strategy. Here are a couple of examples:
“If so many people have offered such practical wisdom, and their work has been so well disseminated, publicized and understood, why do so many managers fail to actually apply all this practical wisdom?”

“The essential questions of strategy are these: ‘Which of our habits are we really prepared to change, permanently and forever? Which lifestyle changes are we really prepared to make? What issues are we really ready to tackle?’”

Because each chapter was originally written as a standalone article, it’s easy to dip into the book at any point. I found myself reading from the beginning to about the middle of the book and then I jumped around following my current interests.

My only suggestion for improvement would be to add end notes so we can follow up references more easily.

David’s passion and field of focus is the professional service firm but this book has a much wider appeal and relevance. Personally, I was able to immediately translate many of the ideas in what we are doing in the field of knowledge management and the application of business narrative techniques. Strategy and the Fat Smoker has the main characteristics that I look for in a book: a good read, new ideas, practical, thought provoking, and most importantly, helping to create new conversations. I thoroughly recommend you to pick up a copy.

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Graham Harvey in his book 'Seducing the Vigilante Customer ' tells of his experience in a restaurant.

"Even though I sort of half guessed what the answer might be, I went ahead and asked the question anyway.

"Why do you have Cardiff, Wales written under your name?"

"Cardiff is where I was born." replied the waiter.

The conversation then continued for a couple of minutes centring on how long she had been in Australia, why she had left Wales etc. She also explained that everybody in the hotel had their birthplace inscribed on their respective name badges and how positive the idea had been in creating conversation between guests and staff."

Although Graham is looking at this from a sales and marketing perspective his point is relevant to any group that is trying to build relationships. A key step in establishing rapport is engaging in conversations on a first name basis as quickly as possible.

You could have a lot of fun with this. Here are a few possibilities from the conventional to the quirky:
* your nickname
* sports you love to play or watch
* the footy team you follow
* your favourite biography
* what's on the cover of your diary
* a thought provoking quote
* your personal motto
* the beginning of an interesting story

Can you suggest any better ones?

Add something interesting or unexpected to a name badge at your next seminar, conference or community of practice kick-off meeting and watch curiosity get those conversations started.

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The Democratic party in the US has had a pretty rough trot in terms of the number of Democratic Presidents that managed to secure a second term. In recent history Roosevelt and Clinton are it. Professor Drew Westen puts this down to the Democrats being too smart for their own good. They have a tendency to provides the facts, dazzle the electorate with ideas and craft intellectual arguments to garner support. But one thing is missing. Engaging voters' emotions.

Here is a good example from the Bush Snr and Dukaikis campaign from one of the debates.

BERNARD SHAW (MODERATOR): Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?

DUKAKIS: No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime.

And the audience thought, “What a heartless bastard. He didn't even mention how devastated he would be if his wife was raped and murdered.” Instead Dukakis gave the rational, intellectual response and according to Westen lost the debate at this point—in the first minute.

It turns out that 80+% of our decisions on who we vote for are based on our emotions not rational analysis.

You can fall into the same trap with your knowledge strategy. Your strategy report, which should be the result of extensive participation but often isn't, can easily be a rational account of what needs to be done having the emotional content of a wet tea towel.

Stories help. You can illustrate why your organisation needs to take action now and why a systematic approach to managing knowledge is important. You can use stories in at least two ways: including anecdotes throughout the report like this one:

“If we tried to find stuff on landholders beforehand you may have had to have made 15 phone calls, 14 emails, you know, try to track all that info down.”

And you can preface the report with a short history (3 paragraphs) on what brought the organisation to this point. This helps people understand why the strategy is being done and puts the activity in context. And if the story is strong people will recount it when explaining why the knowledge strategy is being done. Now there is some emotional content to what you are saying

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I came across the idea of the power law when I read Duncan Watt's Six Degrees. It's the one that best describes city population distributions, the size of hubs in networks, the popularity of blog sites, word frequencies and the Pareto principle, to name just a few. In power law systems there's one standout (the biggest city, the most frequently used word, the most popular blog) then the rest trail off into a very long trail. Imagine one of those fun drop slides where you hang from a bar, let go and enjoy a terrific slide to the end. The shape of a drop slide is the same as a power law if you graph these distributions. Quite a different shape to the normal, bell-curve distribution we were all told at university best represented the world we live in. Power laws tell us to notice the extremes. Bell curves tell us to remove the outliers and look at the majority.

Do you know the difference between character and characterisation when you are crafting a story? In Story, Robert McKee tells us that characterisation is what you can see, the observable qualities: a person's age, gender, occupation, how they dress. Whereas character is revealed by their action when there are tough choices to be made. In the final season of the West Wing, Bruno (the Republican campaign advisor) finds Senator Santos' (the Democratic presidential candidate) briefcase and Bruno brings it to his boss, Senator Vinnick who's running against Santos. Vinnick is presented with a dilemma: leak the contents of briefcase and gain an advantage in the campaign or return the briefcase to Santos. His actions in tough situations when there is much at stake reveal his character. Vinnick returns the briefcase.

Stories are told at the edge and from the edge. We recount remarkable events which in turn communicate those events that reveal our colleague's character. This is why stories are at the heart of organisational culture but they don't magically appear without a trigger. They come from remarkable things that are happening.

Sometimes people say to me, “does that story really represent the majority of what people think?” My first response is to say we are less interested in a single story than the patterns many stories reveal. But the question does reveal bell-curve thinking where the outliers don't matter, they're an aberration to be ignored. But think of every major breakthrough in how things are done. Each one came from the edges. The trap we make for ourselves comes from the wonderful minds we have and their ability to make sense and explain things after the event. “Of course Google had to happen, 911 was a foreseeable tragedy waiting to happen, the ability to show videos on the net would result in a multi-billion dollar purchase”—bollocks! In hindsight it all makes sense to us and we believe we can predict what is coming next by analysing past events. Those days are well behind us now. From now on we need to design for serendipity, furiously take action, make mistakes, but most importantly create situations where ideas can bubble up and and be tried out.

Stories are a double edge sword. On the one hand they deliver the messages from the edge. On the other hand they are the carriers of sensemaking, explanation and encapsulate the causes that brought us here today. Stories help us simplify what happened. We need to be both wary of and embrace stories. Get used to paradoxes. Charles Handy said it was the age of unreason and I think he is right.

While I haven't finished the book yet I'm finding The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb an inspiration that's generating so many thoughts. Last week I had the good fortune to have a hour long chat with Tom Peters at the AIM Convention. It turns out we both share many intellectual interests such as Karl Weick's work on sensemaking, a love of storytelling and a desire to challenge the status quo. In that conversation Tom said I was crazy if I didn't read The Black Swan. I'm glad I took his advice.

Technorati Tags: black swan, karl weick, nassim nicholas taleb, tom peters

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I've been keeping my eyes open for something entertaining to read on a long plane journey. I'm a fast reader and easily bored so the usual fare at airports barely lasts until I am flying over the West Australian coast. That leaves about another 20 hours of flying time to fill. So wandering past the Socrates store in Eastland last Sunday afternoon the cover on this book in the window display caught my eye. After a quick browse through the pages I decided I had found my travel companion.

I don't mind admitting I am an absolute Leonardo-phile. And I am not deluding myself into thinking any book can turn me into a Da Vinci equivalent. Since I took up scrapbooking in earnest in 2002 I have expanded my creative endeavours into book-making and mixed media art. But I have been continually frustrated by that little voice that tells me I can't draw and and I can't paint. I know when I was teaching, I never met a prep class child who could not draw, paint, sing or dance. Seek out a four or five year old of your acquaintance and ask them. Not only can they do it but they are more than willing to demonstrate it to you right there and then. And look at you oddly for asking such a silly question.

No, this is more about studying Da Vinci and learning from his work in order to utilise our potential to the best of our ability. And Leonardo's 500 year old techniques still work. Finding metaphors in nature was one of his favourites. Velcro was invented by someone who took a close look at a burr hooked to his trousers after a walk outdoors. The ease with which you can "open" a banana inspired the inventors of the ring pull tab on aluminum cans.

The book is centred around the seven fundamental principles (named in Italian) that Michael Gelb has drawn from his study of the man and his work. I'm struck by how they reflect much of what we at Anecdote believe and do.

1. Curiosita - an insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning
2. Dimonstrazione - a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence and a willingness to learn from mistakes
3. Sensazione- the continual refinement of the senses as the means to enliven experience
4. Sfumato (literally "going up in smoke") - a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty
5. Arte/Scienza - - the development of balance between science and art, logic and imagination. Whole-brain thinking
6. Corporalita - the cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness and poise
7. Connessione - a recognition and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena. Systems thinking.

Leonardo had the ability to see and live with paradox. Relentless hard work was not the solution. Taking time with a problem, sleeping on it and letting the solution incubate gave better results. As Michael Gelb points out - the ability to trust your gut when dealing with ambiguity is still critical even in the age of information overload.

I'm looking forward to reading more about these principles and the examples that Gelb provides, following along with, and doing the activities. I may even return from my holiday able to draw.

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On the recommendation of Johnnie Moore, I read A Perfect Mess by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman. I was really looking forward to this book because it held the promise of providing an interesting view of issues dear to my heart: chaos, complexity and messiness (I also hoped it might give me good reasons for maintaining my messy desk). Sadly I was disappointed with the book because the authors spent too much time trying to categorise mess and messy people (The archaeologist, the order prig, the mess distractor), relying on a single source for major arguments (see Corporation's Big Plan and their use of Starbuck's 1992 journal article), and relying heavily on newspaper sources (more that a 1/3 of the 50 sources).

Despite all these flaws I found one story about the renowned architect Frank Gehry and his firm which got me excited, but again I was let down.

Gehry Partners were engaged to design and build the new business school at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. Gehry is renowned for using models to convey how the building will look and feel. As told in A Perfect Mess, Gehry is mindful of how difficult it is to translate the emotion impact of the building when you collapse the model into a two-dimensional blueprint. Abrahamson and Freedman write:

“The school approved the design and brought in a small army of contractors to build it. The contractors duly admired, in a shocked and fretful way, the model of the God-awfully complex structure they were about to undertake, and then asked for the blueprints, to which Gehry's team replied that there weren't any. The contractors thought the group was joking, but Gehry and his associates assured the contractors they were serious. ... Gehry's group maintained that the contractors could derive the measurements they needed by studying the model of the building ...” pp. 87-88

The story continues and the contractors work together with Gehry Partners to co-create the building. The building in delivered on time, on budget and everyone is thrilled with the result. Furthermore, the contractors develop a multitude of new skills and techniques such as new ways to bend steel beams, survey sites, affix unconventional materials. Wow! I was impressed. This was very similar to our three journey approach. The first journey was Gehry and Partners creating the scale models, the second journey was involving the contractors in co-designing the building, and the third journey was its construction.

But something bugged me about the story, so I started surfing the web to see if I could find the source referred to in the book's end notes. I learnt that as the building was designed and constructed the academics from the Case Western Reserve Business School, lead by Professor Richard Boland, were studying the process. There were a number of papers written as a result and I read this one called Design Matters for Management. The first thing I was struck by was how Gehry Partners makes extensive use of computer models in their work. Hmmm, don't you need measurements to make computer models?

So I emailed Richard Boland and he seemed as surprised as I was. It turns out that Gehry does use models in lieu of blueprints a long time before a blueprint is created. The firm works with speciality contractors who are crucial to the success of the project early in the design phase and works with them to create the design. Gehry avoids the traditional approach of drawing something up and saying “here is the blueprint, go build it.”

I think Abrahamson and Freedman failed the plausibility test because that's what we listen for when we hear a story; is it plausible? You can see from the picture I included just how complex (and I think this is complex and not merely complicated) his building are. To think they were built without blueprints seem implausible.

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From the time of the first bound books, right up until the 17th century, books were shelved with their spines facing inwards and the pages facing out. There was a practical reason for this seemingly perverse practice. Books were typically bound in leather and the technology for decorating a book was primitive. Bookmakers applied embellishments to the front and back cover but avoided the spine because it had to bend and flex and created problems when you affixed adornments.

So how do you know which book is which on your bookshelf when you can’t see the spine? Well, you decorate the fore-edge (the paper) of the book—much like you did with your school books. And if you’re a renaissance book collector you engage an artist to decorate your outward facing pages. This is what Odorico Pilone did when he employed Cesare Vecellio to decorate 172 of his books. Here is an example of this beautiful work.

So how does all this relate to Kathy Sierra’s excellent post on how to use your Moleskine notebook to keep your life in order? I’ve been a Moleskine users for a few years now and have a small collection of completed notebooks. I found it difficult to label the spine on a Moleskine so I simply reverted to the pre-seventeenth century practice of shelving the notebooks with the fore-edge facing out and decorating my fore-edges with the dates I started and finished each notebook adding a simple label for reference. Here they are on the left.

Petroski, H. (2000). The book on the book shelf. New York, Vintage Books.

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Last week I ordered Conversation: A History of a Declining Art by Stephen Miller from Amazon. I’d heard the author interviewed by Phillip Adams on Late Night Live and it sounded interesting. Today I read Steve Denning’s stinging review which I thoroughly enjoyed. Denning didn’t like Miller’s inability to clearly make the case for declining conversations; his arguments lacked evidence according to Denning.

Denning, presumably based on Miller’s book, makes a number of useful observations about good conversation which are worth remembering when we sit down next to our next friendly chat.

• an open-minded exploration of multiple viewpoints makes for a good conversation
• a single-minded attempt to destroy others’ ideas kills conversations
• good conversations include amusing banter
• conversation works best among equals
• conversations have been a rare phenomenon

This is a timely topic for me because in one hour I will be recording a podcast with Patrick Lambe, Nancy White, Matthew Moore and Kaye Vivian where we plan to have a series of informal conversations on knowledge management related topics. I’ll let you know how we go. 

I would also say that I have noticed that people in organisation rarely seem to have (or make) the time for conversation. Most talking is done to achieve a task which must reduce the ability for people to explore new ideas, innovate and revitalise their thinking.

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I always like to hear what Dave is reading; he seems to pick up the most interesting books. The Cognitive Edge website (still under development) now has a list of recommended reads. You should check it out.

What are you reading now Dave?

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If I were to write a book laying out the argument for our Anecdote approaches, I couldn’t be happier if I’d written A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. This book makes a simple and powerful case: to thrive in a complex, outsourced and topsy-turvey world people need to augment their rational, linear and analytical thinking (how you got ahead in the information age) with  empathy, creativity, meaning and the ability to sense patterns (required to flourish in the conceptual age).

Pink wants us to increase our skills in 6 areas:

• design
• story
• symphony (ability to see the big picture and integrate)
• empathy
• play
• meaning

You can imagine my excitement when I read this list of what Daniel calls ‘the 6 senses.’

Here is a short article by Pink describing the basic argument of how outsourcing to Asia, the abundance of almost everything and automation are creating an environment where right-brain thinking (the creative, holistic side) increases in importance.

And here are a couple of mind maps describing the book.

But neither sources replace reading the book.

Of course I quickly flipped to the chapter on story and I was pleased with Pink’s reasoning for including story in his list of 6 senses, which includes the observation that facts are so ubiquitous that people need to place these facts in context and deliver them with emotional impact; a role served superbly by stories.

I have, however, one concern with the story chapter. A reader without a background in narrative techniques might believe the only use for narrative is how to craft a persuasive story to affect change. I’ve talked about the difference between storytelling and story listening before, and Pink provides examples of story listening, such as the use of narrative medicine. But these ‘listening’ example follow compelling stories of Robert McKee’s script writing workshops and Steve Denning’s World Bank storytelling examples. 

And because it’s a best seller you should be able to find a copy at your local bookstore. Or if you are like me, just pick one up at the airport newsagent.

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For those who enjoyed The Tipping Point and Blink you will be pleased to hear Malcolm Gladwell has a blog which will expand on aspects of his articles (found here) and other writings for the New Yorker. As he says:

And if you want to remember what you read in Blink and the Tipping Point, Malcolm has summarised the chapters (using Blink as an example) as a reading guide, provided a suggested reading list, and expanded bibliography.

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Ever since reading Edward Tufte’s book Envisioning Information way back when I’ve been fascinated with how to best present complex information. So today I made a great find, a set of  12 charts by Karl Hartig. Each one can be downloaded as a PDF so you can get a really good look at it.

[via Guy Kawasaki]

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Fast Company calls it an ‘idea-driven narrative’. This genre, made famous by Malcolm Gladwell, takes a simple (but important) idea and uses research, case studies, and personal experiences to enable the reader to see the world from a new perspective. Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki, is a notable addition to this enriching genre.

 

I enjoyed reading this book. The simple idea upon which Surowiecki builds is that, under certain conditions, groups of people make better decisions than any individual could hope to make. There are three conditions: the group must be diverse; the individuals should make their decisions independently; and the people must be decentralised, thus ensuring that decisions are based on local knowledge.

 

This book is essentially about the theme of complexity, and how group decision-making provides a way of tackling uncertain situations and solving apparently intractable problems. Three types of problems are examined, each with its own chapter: (i) cognitive problems: which have verifiable answers (such as calculating the weight of a bull after it has been slaughtered and dressed); (ii) coordination problems: in which people coordinate their behaviour, knowing that others are behaving similarly (such as buyers and sellers finding each other and trading goods at a fair price); and (iii) cooperation problems: which involve getting people to work together for a common good (such as paying taxes or reducing pollution), over and above their individual interests.

 

The first half of the book provides the theory, with chapters covering the three conditions and three types of problems. The second half presents a set of case studies that reiterate the key points—with additional factors, pitfalls, and flights of fancy thrown in for good measure. For example, Surowiecki points out that diversity and independence are important because “… the best decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus and compromise”. The author’s call for dissent in group decision-making is a recurring theme throughout the book.

 

It is apparent that Surowiecki has a strong interest in financial matters—as might be expected from an author who writes the popular ‘Financial Page’ for the New Yorker. Much of the research and examples in Wisdom of Crowds has an economic flavour—which would usually have put me to sleep, but which, in this book, was presented in an interesting and fast-paced style that maintains the reader’s interest.

 

My only criticism is that the second half of the book often takes the reader on circuitous routes. On several occasions the reader begins to wonder what this has to do with group decision-making. When the text does eventually return to the point, the connection is often somewhat tenuous. I was left with the feeling that I had put in the effort to go with the author on his various excursions, but had returned without any really clear pictures of the scenery. However, taking the book as a whole, this is a minor criticism; the fact that I zipped through the book is always a good indicator of how much I enjoyed it.

 

Wisdom of Crowds has had three major impacts on my thinking: first, I have always intuitively taken opportunities to use group decision-making in my workshop activities, but I now have a logical rationale for its usefulness; secondly, I can now differentiate between group decision-making and collective meaning-making; and thirdly I can understand why, as Surowiecki laments, few organisations have implemented group decision-making—because it removes power from those who have the authority and responsibility to implement the decisions. A book that gets you thinking like this deserves to be highly recommended.

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In Thomas Friedman’s talk to MIT (http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/266/) about his new book, The World is Flat, he argues that there have been three phases of globalisation. Phase 1 is between 1492 and 1800 and was dominated by nations spreading their influence across the globe. Phase 2 was well established by 2000 and was dominated by global corporations. Phase 3 was triggered by a fluke of investment around 2003–04. The dot.com boom fuelled an unprecedented investment in optic fibre communication infrastructure across the globe. Individuals from Mumbai to Moreton Bay were now collaborating in new way which were previously impossible—just think of Skype, Groove, wikis, blogs, Google. This 3rd phase is dominated by individuals.

Anyone reading this blog is probably operating in this 3rd phase. For myself I have numerous collaborators whom I’ve never met face to face in Canada, Spain, USA. It seems to me that new knowledge-based business ventures must immediately conceive themselves as individuals with global connections. Friedman provides many entertaining examples of how hopelessly ‘phase 2’ his think had been and that a new mind-shift if required to effectively operate in this current environment.

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Denham Grey points us to what appears to be a very interesting book: Michael McMaster’s  The praxis equation. Design principles for intelligent organisation. I Googled the title and found that a couple of chapters are published online.

I found one of the design principles quoted by Denham a little curious:

I would have thought that the problem with a starting hypothesis is that it creates a danger you will look in the wrong part of the possibility space and conclude the phenomena had either ceased or didn’t exist when in fact it could have just happened somewhere else. I’ve suggested an alternative approach based on multiple monitoring strategies. I’m now keen to understand Michael’s point and look forward to finding the rest of his chapters.

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CIO magazine recently published this article describing the now well-known argument that organisations will lose significant knowledge as baby boomers retire. There is reference to David DeLong’s book, Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce, which might be an interesting read. The piece concludes with a couple of ways IT can be used to retain this knowledge, which I must admit seemed like a pretty lame effort. The key suggestions revolved around conducting email interviews and running web-based surveys; both techniques are extremely limited in understanding or transferring what people know. How about coaching, mentoring, narrative capture, communities of practice? Surely these techniques are more suited to transferring, as Dorothy Leonard would say, an organisation’s deep smarts.

Have a look at some of the reader comments. There is an interesting post suggesting that the aging workforce issue is overstated.

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For one month Edward Tufte is making available a chapter from his upcoming book, Beautiful Evidence. Tufte wrote 3 of my favourite books which I love because of their simple beauty and their insightful portrayal of how to best convey information with graphics:  Envisioning Information , The Visual Display of Quantitative Information , Visual Explanations.

[thanks elearningpost]

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A story on Malcolm Gladwell is Fast Company's cover story. He has a new book out called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It's all about how we make split second decisions. I hope he makes reference to Gary Klein's work in this area.

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Denham Grey suggests 5 books to get you started in KM. I would add Nancy Dixon's Common Knowledge. Nancy provides a useful way of thinking about knowledge transfer.

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Downloaded Surely you're joking Mr Feynman from Audible on the weekend. What I've heard so far (300 pages retold in 12 hours) is one great story after another. Love the story about Feynman's radio fixing days at the age of 11. Not what you might expect from a Nobel winning physicist.

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