derek abdinor

The first duty of an organisation is to … anyone? anyone?

If you answered “to secure sustainable competitive advantage” or “create shareholder value” I would argue that you’ve identified the second duty. Your answers would have won first prize between 2002 and 2007, but they have been shifted due to lessons currently being learnt about ignoring risk.

Drucker says “The first duty of business is to survive, and the guiding principles of business economics is not the maximising of profits, it is the avoidance of losses” which we’ll agree with here.

If you are revising an organisational strategy, as you should be doing all the time, the avoidance of loss would therefore be a good and natural  place to start. This is a negative position, however, and does not address growth or competitive response. So lets rework that a bit and say:

Originate your strategy from your evaluation of risk

Risk can be destructive and threatening or rewarding and fortuitous – it all depends on how it is addressed, mitigated and what the appetite for risk in the organisation is.

1. Define the organisation and the environment
2. Identify and assess risks in and to the organisation
3. Address negative risks and responses to opportunities
4. Plug these in to the current strategy and determine modifications
5. Action, monitor and review

You see, as negative and conservative as risk does sound, it is one of the only organisational analytical methods that force management to focus on the future. When asking management to innovate, forecast or develop scenarios one will get a poor response from untrained executives. By changing the focus to risk management is more comfortable with their business drivers, shortcomings and opportunities rather than untethered blue-sky thinking.

One could say that a person’s preoccupation with the past or the future can point to a dissatisfaction with present circumstances. In an organisation the same is true, although it is not unhealthy. Historic and future analysis help determine direction in a dynamic environment. Fixation on the present is fine for operational and support personnel, and these people look to the past to establish precedent and the future to gauge risk. Therefore to get people to think strategically the process has to be couched in terms of risk.

Focus on the past or future indicates dissatisfaction with the present

Everyone has a Dream in their lifetime, some have a few. They are so intensely personal that only you really know what your Dream is. Don’t you?

To define these Dreams are tricky as dreams are an overused, perjured term. What occurs in your mind when you are sleeping is not the Dreaming I mean. The Dream I mean is more aptly defined as an urgency to do something important to you. It is a feeling that you have even before adolesence and it is against this that you measure your purpose and success all your life. It is important to adhere to all those cliches when you are young about doing your best, doing what you love because they define the Dream and, more importanly, discard what is not the Dream.

At the individual level these Dreams are usually not specific such as “to be a ballerina” but more general as “to be a dancer” or “to be a builder” or “to be president”. One can hold these dreams and change them as circumstances dictate. So the ballerina Dream may change to becoming a mother. Even while many people die without fulfilling their Dreams many more give up on their Dreams. To truly know someone is to know what they have to become. It could be argued that your Dream is a function of the circumstances you grew up in and your earlies success, failings and influences by role models. It could be influenced strongly by culture or religion.

I’m purposefully steering clear of New Age thought on dreams as that methodology is to accept without qualification every and any idea*. Nevertheless it is important to point out that the Australian Aborigines believe their values and laws are shaped in the Dreamtime and Laurens van der Post was told by Kalahari San that “there is a dream dreaming us”. These ideas of imperatives arrived at by non-rational thought is in keeping with the idea.

Now I’ll take it as given that any performance activity is enhanced if the person doing it is fully engaged in it. They love the job. They are committed to the process. They have strong personal stakes in the outcomes.

• Can an organisation dream? Well, if we accept that a Dream is the urge to start something and carry on regardless whilst making use of the faculties at hand then the original Dream is that of the founders.
• A country can dream. The American Dream of the early 20th Century was well set out and coincided with the individual dreams of its people. People at that time, especially immigrants, had a long European dream of personal freedom, open spaces. To me, the strength of this collective agreement was that Americans of all backgrounds got together to fight ugly wars half way across the world. The American Dream went off track after world War 2 when the US saw itself as a global player until Martin Luther King brought it more or less back on track.
• A political organisation can Dream. It lays out its Dream as a manifesto in order to attract parts of the electorate. The electorate indicates a vote rather than the sum of individual dreams. Politicians may wax grandiloquently about “the Dreams of the People” but in reality its just a preference. Political parties that define themselves by being against a current view rather than for a new view are bankrupt of Dreams. The US Repbulicans and UK Labour spring to mind, being anti-Democrat and anti-Tory more than anything.
• A government department cannot Dream. It is a function. Even if the government should change it is likely the functionaries will remain. Individual Dreams of service are subordinated to process, which in turn is subordinated to policy, which is subordinated to the political organisation.
• A military organisation cannot Dream. Again it is a function that was set up. Individual members in the military often share similar Dreams which are taken for granted in the ethos: to survive, to stretch oneself, to achieve, to dominate, to belong. The organisation is therefore capable of performance greater than the sum of its parts.
• Can a business Dream? The founder has a Dream borne of a strong personal need. That need is personal and cannot be passed on. All that can be hoped for is that the dreams of subsequent employees may coincide with the relevant life-stage of the company. Employees can share in the founders Dream if it is clearly defined (think of Microsoft and Bill Gates’ vision of a PC in every home and business). Nothing spells a lack of a strategic plan for success than a dry mission and vision statement. Can a business have a Dream that is based in non-rational thought? Yes, it speaks of intuition if it is solidly backed up by the business case and the numbers.

In business environments I’ve yet it inquired of someone what their Dream is. Goals yes, but goals could include “to get through this week”. Dreams are personal and embarrassing because uttering them invites fear of failure.

Alignment of individual’s Dreams with functions could prove to be very powerful if we accept that an organisation that encourages Dreaming is highly switched on.

*  Provided that thinking did not occur in the Western world after the Dark Ages

I have no stake in the outcome but an amateur’s interest in a developed country which is steeped in ancient history and recent identity politics. Class, media, wealth, socialism, capitalism, liberalism and many ideas of the Enlightenment get an airing here, without the supernatural and supranatural factors of religion (Continental Europe) or race (South Africa).

Some characteristics that have appeared out of this election are important to gain a better understanding of, well, change management in particular.

1. The outcome appeals to me as a centrist libertarian – which means, apart from being pompous and different, that I believe the Left and Right of the political spectrum are just moods; there’s a time to vote Left or Right yet refusal to budge from ideological battles is dangerous. It also means I believe that better outcomes are normally guaranteed by increasing liberties of the individual. I do believe there is a place for state, state control and organisation which is where I differ with anarchists (of the Left and Right).
   The current result shows that Conservatives have had to come closer to the centre. This in order to grapple with existing Labour legislation as well as the media image of conservatives. It necessarily creates a vacancy on the right wing which will see disaffected conservatives occupy.
2. I hold that politics, metaphysics, history and management describe a pendulum effect. Too much in one direction creates a force for its extreme opposite. The swing to conservatism was natural after 13 years of Labour socialism and social engineering; the added boon to the Liberal Democrats was a response to the nanny-police state.
   While the Liberal Democrats polled few votes their influence was felt in the last month where voters indicated their support. More would have actually voted for them but for tribal politics built largely out of fear. It is probably fair to assume that the Liberal Left, who were Blairite or simply useful idiots, will identify themselves as Liberal Democrat during the coalition period.
3. I called it wrong. I believed that Clegg would be king-maker by making the deal with Labour to remove Gordon Brown on April 21st. It was a valid option once the Conservatives one it would have been remarkably cynical. While a week can be a long time in politics, reputations last a long time. Many tribalists will not vote Tory because they remember their parents grumbling about Thatcher, or they can image grandparents wearing cloth caps and therefore feel affinity to Labour.
4. Spin was the basis of Blairite NuLabour politics. Style over Substance, US presidential-style, ‘Cool Britannia” and the Spice Girls etc. It sold NuLabour to the rank and file union workers along with the promise of materialism. It was the glue that sold leftist politics to the middle class and trendiness to the uninformed. Where Campbell was the spinmeister, Mandelson was Machiavelli.
   Thatcher and the Conservatives of the 1980s divide the UK today still: conventional wisdom holds that they ruined society and trod on the poor. The myth was constructed and damaged the Conservatives since that time. The effects of spin also became the undoing of Labour in the campaign as distrust was rife within their upper ranks and the divisions between old Labour and Blairite Labour became pronounced.
5. Tribal politics is the groupthink of the electorate. Democracy is constructed ostensibly to create the outcome of various rational thoughts, “wisdom of crowds” if you will. When people have few choices and are pressured to vote for the lesser of evils one gets parties that are divisive on identity politics and blandly similar on progressive ideas.
6. Ideology is always dangerous. One of the species’ key takeaways from the 20th Century, perhaps because Labour straddled two centuries it allowed them to miss it. NuLabour was filled with educated and ambitious professionals who had the idealistic spark common to all revolutionaries. They were not Conservatives and therefore mobilised the rank and file of the existing Labour movement, bringing in new tactics of being media savvy and having a sound economic policy. They appealed to the middle class who felt guilty voting Conservative and built on that.
   However, there were elements of Marxism still in Labour that adhered to Frankfurt School principles which require society to be deconstructed to build something more fair, in the parlance of NuLabour. While that may retain some noble bearing it occasions problems when it has to be slipped into policy insidiously. See, no electorate likes to know it is being socially engineered. This caused the usual uproars against immigration and political correctness which can be managed. The recession was not factored in, nor was the disgruntlement of the white working class. Remember, fascism and socialism are but two moods of the working class, not the sworn enemies their controlling classes pretend them to be. Labour lost the confidence of its core vote and while there was a fear of defection to the extreme right wing the tribal loyalties remained.
7. Taxation and representation. The Home Counties (Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland) get a percentage of taxpayer spend in return for representation. They are overwhelmingly Labour constituencies in Scotland as Scotland is heavily subsidised by the state. Labour is a creator of the big state. Get the picture?
   The situation creates some flash but no bang, until the various nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales offered to join a Labour-Liberal coalition in return for more substantial state subsidies. This leads on to the debate about proportional representation which will have a political impact rather than an operational impact for the next five years.

I’ve never heard of a person in a professional setting disclaim themselves as a team player. This in spite of two general views on the definition:

1. A team player always puts the needs of the team above their own. The tactics decided on by the team will be acceptable to this viewholder even if they are not aligned. The viewholder is likely to work well in the team as potential conflict is negated.
2. A team player works well within the team. Much as in sport, the team’s goals are almost always the same as the individual’s goals. When the team requires the viewholder to prioritise the team’s objectives in conflict, the viewholder has room to disagree.  Disagreement does not mean exclusion and it may resort to consensus or compromise.
3. A team player is someone who can be counted on to do their work and not let the process or other operators down. I discount this view as you have your KPI right there and I will assume the other views above naturally include these attributes in their definitions.

THE PROBLEM
These two viewpoints may seem largely similar until conflict arises and then it resolves to a dichotomy. Regardless of the reader’s feelings on free will or group dynamics it is impossible to hold both viewpoints.

Tribal party politics experience these problems, which is where the system of ‘party whips’ is evoked. Rationality and merit then disappears as game theory dictates the opinion holders to go for the predicable option.
In organisations with a strict authoritarian culture viewpoint 1 is more prevalent although some military structures famously included consensus decision makers (boers, ANZACs)

THERE IS NO I IN TEAM
In the first viewpoint the only reward for being a team player is inclusion. Inclusion may translate to safety, benefits or status. In the second system there is some scope for self-actualisation.

PREFERENCE
It may seem the case is being made for the second viewpoint only although it should be argued that they are different options at different times. One would not encourage viewpoint 1 in school, novice manufacturing or in some forms where accelerated decision-making is required (emergency services).

ANOTHER VIEW
A viewholder may hold the belief that they can work for the team best by being outside the team. They prefer not to be involved in group dynamics which often scupper rational and meritorious decision-making and find their position on the fringes of the group. They necessarily can’t be leaders yet are specialist peers. In sport they are likely to be the specialist coaches; in politics perhaps functionaries in the civil service and in corporates they are probably consultants, internal analysts, business development managers or some project managers.

These viewholders tend to be specialists or ex-specialists and carry management and organisational skills. They prefer not to use influence or informal channels as often the weaker decisions triumph in those settings. They twin their objectives with that of the team but expect to leave when the job is complete.

When you’re next asked the glib “Are you a Team Player?” question, ask them to define their terms