Challenging Monocultures via Crop Rotation

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Content in Context

Agricultural scientists are advocating a return to crop rotation. They argue that if farmers diversify what they grow each season, they can achieve more sustainable environmental and economic outcomes. Whereas, industrial-scale, intensive and single crop farming depletes the soil, and requires the use of expensive (and potentially harmful) pesticides and chemical fertilizers. In short, monocultures are self-limiting and ultimately self-destructive.

Indoor salad garden, Itoya department store, Ginza, Japan (Photo © Rory Manchee, all rights reserved)

The same concept applies to teams and organisations. If we only associate with people who look, talk, sound, think and act like us, we not only risk group-think, we also promote unconscious collective bias. While it might seem comfortable to only deal and interact with “people like us”, it creates unrealistic cognitive and cultural homogeneity.

I understand why we often talk about “finding our tribe”, but for me, I find connections and shared values among several tribes: partly because no single community can provide for all our needs; partly because at their worst, monocultures can result in in-breeding….

One antidote to organisational monocultures is to promote diversity (especially cognitive diversity), so you mix up the elements that make up a team or an entity. Another solution (a bit like crop rotation itself) is to alternate and rotate roles on a project, within a team or at the executive level. (Some corporate boards already practise this.)

I once had a marvellous CEO who liked to boast that he had worked in every department within the company, from editorial to production, from sales to marketing. Not only did he have a more complete view of the organisation, he also had a much better understanding of how to get each department to collaborate.

At the individual level, alternating roles within the organisation can help them to acquire new skills, develop fresh perspectives, build different networks, gain valuable experience, and avoid going stale.

If you are uncomfortable with the horticultural or biological analogies, then perhaps the work of Michael Simmons is more palatable. From his research, “simply being in an open network instead of a closed one is the best predictor of career success”.*

Another way of looking at this notion of “crop rotation” is through the lens of a corporate turnaround, or a company trying to move from start-up to scale-up.

In the former scenario, the owners, board and CEO recognise that they need to bring in different people, even if only on a short-term basis, to help them:

Review the status quo objectively
Identify new ideas and fresh thinking
Enhance in-house skills and resources
Apply a circuit-breaker to unblock the stalemate
Join the dots between different parts of the organisation, the market and the client base

In the latter situation, bringing in specialist advisers, or “pop-up boards”, can:

Provide an injection of strategic focus
Develop a dynamic business planning process
Ramp up capacity or capability in a very short space of time
Open up new networks or provide access to capital, resources and markets
Expand the team’s “bench strength” at critical times

As an independent consultant with a portfolio of interests, I provide an interim resource to my clients, fulfilling different roles depending on their specific requirements. I also serve on pop-up and advisory boards. And because I am naturally curious, and like to immerse myself in different ideas, I am an “open networker”, meaning that I engage and connect with different people across the various groups of which I am a member. Where I increasingly add value is in joining the dots between otherwise unconnected or seemingly disparate elements.

Next week: Latest #FinTech Round-Up

* Thanks to Jessica Stillman at Inc.Com for bringing this article to my attention

Finding purpose through self-reflection

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Content in Context

We hear a lot about “finding your purpose” these days, whether it’s to develop a personal career plan, or to validate a business idea. My colleague Carolyn Tate, founder of the Slow School of Business, spoke on “purpose” at the recent Huddle Design Fest drawing on her TEDx talk for Telstra entitled “Profit on Purpose”. During her presentation, Carolyn referenced the Japanese concept of 生き甲斐 (“ikigai” = “a reason for being”) which is sometimes represented in the following diagram:

“Finding the purpose of your life”. Graphic representation by @emmyzen (Emmy van Deurzen). Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons

Variations on this theme include, for example, the work of Lianne Bridges and Susan Biali. Earlier, more prosaic, interpretations might be found in the work of Richard N. Bolles (“What Colour is Your Parachute?”) or Spencer Johnson (“Who Moved My Cheese?”).

What it all boils down to is connecting with your values and interests, and finding a balance between what motivates you, what rewards you, what you can contribute, and what people want from you.

For me, a the starting point is developing a personal narrative, to understand how you have arrived at this particular point in your life and/or career, in particular your influences, achievements, challenges, experiences and insights. Through this self-reflection, some common themes should emerge that can form of the basis of defining your own purpose. This should include your core values, the things that are important to you, and your own particular passion.

Where I may differ in my interpretation of “purpose” is that I believe that our purpose can change over time. I don’t see purpose as singular or even linear – it’s multi-dimensional, dynamic, situational and contextual. Our needs and our circumstances don’t stay the same. Likewise, our relationships and the the external environment are constantly changing. So our purpose will likewise be different at different points in our life. For example:

Early in our career we may be technically qualified, but without relevant experience we may not be able to command the most senior roles or the highest pay – so our purpose may be to hone our skills and knowledge
Later, we may find that our focus on things like marriage, children and a mortgage means we may be willing to get well-paid for work that we don’t actually enjoy – someone I was coaching recently stated that “I’m caught in a job” which was preventing him from pursuing his passion (thankfully, he has since decided to pursue a portfolio of interests, rather than stick with a single job he no longer enjoys)
During the “third act” of our career, financial or material rewards may not be so important, but we still need to be engaged in work that we enjoy, that motivates us and which can still sustain us at more than just a basic level of food and shelter
Throughout, I think it is essential to keep connected to our true passions (especially creative outlets), in part to provide a counterbalance to work/financial/external imperatives, in part to explore alternative ideas, find linkages between our other interests, and even to connect with new technology – for example, in my own case, my interest in electronic music has led me to recording an album using iOS devices, releasing it via social media sites Soundcloud and Bandcamp, getting it broadcast on the ABC, and beta-testing new music apps

When working with clients to help them re-connect with their business or their career purpose, I like to do an audit of where they are now, and where they could be in 3-5 years time. Through a process of exploring what might be possible, and reframing the present to re-position it for future growth and development, we can discover ways to regain balance by prioritising what’s important, reconfigure or even abandon what isn’t working, and re-establish goals and objectives.

While it is important to strike a balance between the “four pillars” of the ikigai model, my experience is that rarely will all four be in equilibrium – at times they may even be in conflict with one another, or at least in a state of flux. But it’s the resulting points of friction, when we look at them objectively, that can be the source of ideas, context, clarity and resolution. Making time for regular self-reflection enhances our pursuit of purpose, and allows us to take stock of our current situation, without undermining our core values or abandoning our particular interests.

Next week: Challenging Monocultures via Crop Rotation

Whose IP is it anyway?

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Content in Context

Why should we claim ownership of our IP? This was the topic up for discussion at the recent Slow School dinner on Collaborative Debating presented by Margaret Hepworth. I won’t reveal how a collaborative debate works (I recommend you sign up the next time Slow School runs this class…), but I do want to share some of the issues and insights that were aired. In particular, the notion that shared knowledge is the basis for greater prosperity.

The use of Creative Commons means knowledge becomes easier to share (Photo by
Kristina Alexanderson, image sourced from flickr)

First, the discussion centred on IP issues relating to ideas, content, knowledge, creative concepts and theoretical models. Not surprising, as the participants were all independent professionals, consultants, bloggers, creatives, facilitators, teachers and instructors. So we didn’t address the areas of patents, registered designs or trade marks.

Second, as someone who has worked in the publishing, data and information industries for nearly 30 years, I believe it is essential that authors, artists, academics, musicians, designers, architects, photographers, programmers, etc. should be allowed both to claim copyright in their work, and to derive economic benefit from these assets. However, I also recognize that copyright material may often be created in the course of employment, or under a commercial commission or as part of a collaborative project. In which case, there will be limitations on individual copyright claims.

Third, the increasing use of Open Source and Creative Commons means that developers, authors and end users have more options for how they can share knowledge, access resources and foster collaboration through additive processes and “common good” outcomes. A vital component of these schemes is mutual respect for IP, primarily through acknowledgment and attribution. Equally, an online reputation can be established (or destroyed) according to our own use of others’ material, especially if we are found to be inauthentic.

Leaving aside the legal definitions of IP and how copyright laws work in practice, the discussion explored the purpose and intention of both authors (as “copyright creators”, narrowly defined) and end users (as “licensees”, broadly defined). There was general agreement that sharing our content is a good thing, because we recognise the wider benefits that this is likely to generate.

But there is a risk: merely acknowledging someone else’s authorship or copyright is not the same as accurately representing it. Obviously, plagiarism and passing off someone else’s ideas as your own are both copyright infringements that can give rise to legal action. Even with the “fair use” provisions of copyright law, a critic or even an acolyte can mis-interpret the content or attribute a meaning that the author did not intend or even anticipate. As one participant noted, “Copyright is not just concerned with what we claim ownership over, but what others may claim as their own.” Not for nothing have we developed “moral rights” in respect to authorship of copyright material.

Although we did not discuss specific issues of copyright remuneration (e.g., through royalties, licensing fees or financial consideration for copyright assignment), there was a proposition that establishing copyright protection can lead to social, intellectual and even economic limitations. The understandable, but often misguided need to protect our copyright (as a form of security) is driven by fear, underpinned by scarcity models. Whereas, a more generous approach to copyright can actually lead to greater shared prosperity, based on the notion of the abundance of ideas and knowledge. And since, as one speaker put it, “there is no such thing as an original concept because all ideas build on previous knowledge”, the inherent value in IP is in how we contribute to its nurturing and propagation.

At the end of the discussion, and reflecting on my own recent experiences with copyright infringement and geo-blocking, I found I had shifted my position – from one that tends to take a more absolute view on copyright ownership, to one that identifies the need for some further modification to the current copyright regime, along the lines of the following:

Copyright ownership should not entitle the owner to abuse those rights – if anything, the copyright holder ought to be placed in a position equivalent to a trustee or custodian, to ensure that they act in the best interests of the IP asset itself, not merely their own interests. That should not preclude the owner from being compensated for their work or being allowed to commercialize it, otherwise, why would anyone bother trying to create new ideas or content?
Establishing copyright in ideas and creative concepts needs to be supported by a notion of “intent” or “purpose” (a bit like mens rea in criminal law). For example, if the intent is to merely prevent anyone else using or sharing the idea, then any copyright protection might be limited to a much shorter duration than the usual “life of author plus XX years” model.
Equally, under a “use it or lose it” provision, if copyright owners (and/or their publishers, distributors and license holders) elect to take their content out of circulation from a market where it had been widely available, then they would need to establish good cause as to why the copyright should not be open to anyone else to use and even commercialize (subject to reasonable royalty arrangements).
If we accept that all knowledge is additive, and that the proliferation of collaboration and co-creation is because of the need to share and build on what we and others have already created, how can we ensure the integrity and mutual benefits of open source and creative commons initiatives? One analogy might be found in the use of blockchain technology to foster contribution (adding to and developing an existing idea, concept, model or platform) and to support authentication (to validate each idea extension).

Perhaps what we need is a better IP model that both incentivizes us to share our ideas (rather than rewards us for restricting access to our content), and encourages us to keep contributing to the furtherance of those ideas (because we generate mutual and ongoing benefits from being part of the collective knowledge). I’ve no idea what that model should look like, but surely we can agree on its desirability?

Next week: Finding purpose through self-reflection

More In The Moment

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Content in Context

In an earlier blog on “being in the moment”, I confessed that I often find the prospect (and practice) of meditation to be daunting and somewhat overwhelming. I forgot to mention that there is a park bench in one of Melbourne’s inner-city gardens which I have found to be a useful starting point. It features a quotation from Dr Ainsley Meares:

“Sit quietly, for it is in quietness we grow”

"clinamen" by Celeste Boursier-Mougenot (2013), purchased by NGV Foundation (Photo © Rory Manchee, all rights reserved)

The significance of this insightful instruction has been driven home by some recent experiences:

Through my involvement with the Slow School of Business, I have participated in some Slow Coaching, where I was a Listener. The practice of “deep listening” really does require you to be present in the moment, to focus on what is being said by the Speaker, to observe how it is being expressed, and to give constructive feedback on what you have heard without judging or critiquing. It’s an extension of “active listening”, a technique I learned many years ago as a counsellor helping clients with their consumer debt problems, and I later used it as a manager to provide employee feedback during performance reviews. The key difference is that deep listening is not so concerned with exploring a linear narrative or identifying specific solutions, and is more about giving space to the Speaker to articulate what concerns or issues they are currently facing.
At a concert the other week I was struck by the number of people in the audience who were avidly taking photos and videos on their smart phones, or busy talking at the bar rather than appreciating the live performance in front of them. It made me wonder why some people bother going to gigs at all – it often seems like they are not there to watch and listen to the musicians! Apart from being disrespectful to the performers and other members of the audience, the happy snappers and the chatty drinkers can’t really be in the moment because they are too busy trying to capture a transient event for posterity (and who actually watches shaky live concert footage shot on a phone?). Or are they so self-absorbed that they are actually oblivious to what is going on around them?
Similarly, last weekend I visited the Twelve Apostles and was dismayed by the ubiquitous selfie-sticks and constant preening and posing at every vantage point. As the sun went down, hardly anyone was actually observing the dusk, let alone being still and listening to the waves below. Instead, everything was being reduced to a diluted digital experience. Again, who goes back and looks at all those photos (and do they do so more than once)? How do these images enhance the experience of simply being there? Did these visitors really appreciate the natural beauty and breathtaking views in front of them? Is a digital camera the only way to interpret the scene for themselves? Is it only “real” when they take a picture? Can it only “exist” as a bunch of pixels?

To underscore quite how significant “being in the moment” can be, I’m reminded of the Above All Human conference in January, where theoretical astrophysicist Dr Katie Mack scared the living day lights out of the audience when she discussed the impact of vacuum decay theory. In (very, very, very) short order, a shift in the current state of the Universe would wipe out life as we know it in a millisecond. It would happen so quickly, that no-one would see it coming. The effect would be catastrophic, but we wouldn’t know it was happening. As Dr Mack so eloquently put it, there would be no point in worrying about FOMO, because:

(a) there would be nothing left to be missing out on;

(b) no trace of your existence would remain; and

While I understand the need to validate our existence through “capturing the moment”, if we are too pre-occupied with taking photos, rather than focussing on our actual presence, we risk surrendering our experience to mere digital simulacra.

Next week: Whose IP is it anyway?