Book review: 'Fast/Forward, make your company fit for the future' by Julian Birkinshaw (keynote speaker at KIN Workshop Spring 2018)

There's been some push-back recently regarding the benefits of the digital revolution. Julian Birkinshaw's book Fast/Forward suggests that organisations that embrace 'adhocracy', make smart intuitive decisions and act decisively will be the best prepared for uncertainty. Whilst it would seem that this almost defines small, agile firms, the book is full of examples of large corporations that have done this successfully.

The core principles of Fast/Forward are built around what he calls 'The four paradoxes of progress'. 

1. Creative destruction. A heretical idea challenges orthodoxy (Darwin or IKEA), disbelief of the establishment (Nokia), followed by the innovator becomes the establishment (Microsoft).

2. The more we know the less we understand. 'Whilst the human race is becoming collectively more knowledgeable every year, each of us (as individuals) is becoming relatively more ignorant'. 'Relatively' is the key word here due to the exponential increase in digital information available, compared to the linear rate of learning by us as individuals. Birkinshaw makes the case that team and networking can to some degree mitigate this paradox.

3. Connectivity and unpredictability.  Competing on computational power has become a race to the bottom when it comes to solving complexity. 'There is a risk that the combination of new technology and old questions means that you end up with answers that are exactly wrong, rather than roughly right'. This is where the book makes the case for more agile management, particularly experimentation and learning.

4. Knowing and believing. Ironically, the torrent of data pouring into our lives may mean that we may inadvertently be making decisions by 'appeals to our emotions, our intuitive beliefs and our hidden values'. Fast/Forward suggests that this is no bad thing and may be a way of business leaders differentiating themselves. The example cited is Apple, where product design was as much about beliefs and emotions as it was about hard-headed business.

The concept of 'Adhocracy' is not new. Alvin Tofler explored the idea of flexibility in dealing with uncertainty in his 1973 book Future Shock. Birkinshaw updates the concept for the big data and machine learning age. He also neatly contrasts it with meritocracy and bureaucracy. 

I was glad to see that rather than dismissing bureaucracy as an outmoded concept, he considers the merits of each and proposes a 'Trinity in Reality' model. 

The main call-to-action for me is in the chapter 'Linking Strategy Back to Purpose'. 'Leaders need to make a stronger emotional connection to those around them, rather than allowing sterile, data-driven decision making to dominate their actions, reactions and responses'. Birkinshaw suggests that organisations should put 'pro-social' goals first, for example hire for attitude and train for skill (most organisations do the reverse). There are many examples cited of large organisations that clearly instil a sense of moral purpose (Tata, Arla, SouthWest Airlines) whilst innovating to break orthodox organisational models. 

With all the excitement (and fear) around AI, big data and machine learning, it is easy to lose sight of vital business principles and values. The first half of Fast/Forward can be seen as a useful playbook for leaders wanting guidance on how to meld a technology revolution, give a clear sense of purpose for their organisations in an increasingly complex world and to embrace disruption.

Julian Birkinshaw is keynote speaker at the KIN Spring 2018 members' workshop 'Reimagining the Innovative Organisation'. This will take place at The Shard in London on 22nd March 2018.

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Fast/Forward 

Authors: Julian Birkinshaw, Jonas Ridderstrale

Published 2017 

Stanford Business Books 

ISBN 9780804799539

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Why efficiency

One of the simple definitions I like in work is that effectiveness is doing the right things, while efficiency is doing things well. The best world has us doing the right things, and doing them well. (I have seen this attributed to Russell Ackoff and a number of other thinkers.) And yet, we somehow only seem to focus on the "doing it well" part - leaving whether we are doing the right things to chance.

The Ministry of Ideas podcast has a recent episode of the idea of (In)Efficiency. It was also excerpted in yesterday's Boston Globe, Long Before Uber, Efficiency Was Divine.  

It turns out the term efficiency goes all the way back to Aristotle. Over time, the term developed some religious connotations. But more recently, the engineering idea of efficiency (output / input) came from the "world's first civil engineer," John Smeaton, did detailed experiments on the waterwheel - the first big powersource of the industrial revolution. The experiments showed how to design and use waterwheels to prevent lost energy - how to be most efficient.

The discussion then jumps into the modern day version of efficiency: companies and people designing tools and services to help the world become more efficient. And this is most easily seen in the people themselves: busy people striving to be (individually) more efficient.  Of course, sometimes, there is a big assumption that just because we are busy, we must surely be producing useful results.  

Efficiency is a problematic concept though. This is touched on to some extent in the podcast: we all need personal downtime to decompress and let the juices flow. Organizations and business too need "space" - in particular, we need to be able to handle the normal ebb and flow of the demands on our time and attention. Variability exists, and it cannot be wished away.  If we plan every activity to within inches of its life, the first little hiccup will cause the entire network to fall apart.

I often see this in organizations where efficiency is applied to each sub-organization independently. There is an assumption that the organization is merely the sum of its parts. But these parts are interdependent. Changes in one area will have an impact on another - and often "efficiency" in one can create serious damage in another. A simple example is the idea of batch size: for one work center (or person), efficiency drives larger and larger batch sizes. (It's easier, less changes, etc.)  But those large batch sizes cause problems in the hand offs to the next work center. At the very least they have to wait for the entire batch. Even worse, problems are only discovered after the entire batch is processed.  In knowledge work this often translates to time and the people upstream having forgotten what they did a few weeks ago. Which leads to rework loops. Which leads to overall system inefficiency, even though each of the work areas might appear to be "efficient" - certainly they are always busy.

The podcast doesn't mention Frederick Taylor, but his work is discussed up and down the networks I follow, whether in knowledge management or process improvement.  He is credited with some of the first time-and-motion studies and the start of "scientific management." 

The biggest question I have on listening to the podcast and reading the summary article, is why efficiency is such a strong driver for EVERYTHING we do. Is it because, like Taylor, efficiency is something we can see and measure? Is it truly that difficult to think about the larger system and whether the whole system is being effective - doing the right thing AND doing it well?  

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Leadership Matters #ILTALead

Not a day goes by without yet another stark reminder that leadership matters. And, that good leadership is not as common as one might wish. For this reason, I am so grateful that the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) sets aside time and resources annually to develop leaders.

One of ILTA’s signature leadership programs is its Leadership NEW.0 conference. It is held every year in honor of the late Chief Warrant Officer 5 Sharon T. Swartworth, a beloved volunteer leader at ILTA. This conference brings together current and future leaders from law departments, law firms, and the US Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

At this year’s conference, we will be looking at a model of leadership that does not seem prevalent but should be: servant leadership. Originally articulated by Robert Greenleaf in 1970, the principles of servant leadership are a vivid contrast to some of the selfish power grabs and lack of integrity we see too often across organizations and society. For Greenleaf, a servant leader is driven by a desire to serve the greater good. That drive causes the leader to focus on the development, growth, and health of that leader’s team.

In his preface to the 25th anniversary edition of Greenleaf’s book, Steven Covey makes some strong assertions about what is wrong with traditional approaches to leadership and why we need servant leadership:

A low-trust culture that is characterized by high-control management, political posturing, protectionism, cynicism, and internal competition and adversarialism simply cannot compete with the speed, quality, and innovation of those organizations around the world that do empower people. It may be possible to buy someone’s hand and back, but not their heart, mind, and spirit. And in the competitive reality of today’s global marketplace, it will be only those organizations whose people not only willingly volunteer their tremendous creative talent, commitment, and loyalty, but whose organizations align their structures, systems, and management style to support the empowerment of their people that will survive and thrive as market leaders.

…the old rules of traditional, hierarchical, high-external-control, top-down management are being dismantled: they simply aren’t working any longer. They are being replaced by a new form of ‘control’ that the chaos theory proponents call the ‘strange attractors’ — a sense of vision the people are drawn to, and united in, that enables them to be driven by motivation inside them toward achieving a common purpose. This has changed the role of manager from one who drives results and motivation from the outside in, to one who is a servant-leader — one who seeks to draw out, inspire, and develop the best and highest within people from the inside out. The leader does this by engaging the entire team or organization in a process that creates a shared vision, which inspires each person to stretch and reach deeper within himself or herself, and to use everyone’s unique talents in whatever way is necessary to independently and interdependently achieve that shared vision. [emphasis added]

If you are in the Chicago area on Thursday, November 2, I invite you to join us for a day of learning how you can become the kind of leader who draws out, inspires, and develops the best and highest within people from the inside out.

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