How effective ways of working could transform the enterprise
Unlearning, fear of Failure, Agile gone wild and clustering top talent
The are two ways to bet on the future: to bet that it will change or to bet that it will stay the same.
This post covers a lot of ground. Treat it as an opinionated view on how organisations approach work, results, growth and the race to the bottom, casually dropping hints about how the power utilities tackle all this.
The energy industry is surely massive and has grown over the last 150 years to deliver value in every area of our lives. Given its size and complexity, the consensus is that it can’t change as fast as…say, what we call as “technology companies” these days.
What traditional companies miss when deploying company wide transformations is that they keep the same mental models as if the world is static. Broken maps that substitute the territory.
I don’t necessarily think that it is 100% their fault. The only harder thing than learning is actually unlearning. In a way, to unlearn something is a way of rejecting yourself — your knowledge. And rejection is hard for organisations in which the fear of failure is crippling every initiative.
But what we now have are systems and methodologies that we can deploy in our work culture which improve the odds of innovation that follows the success of some large organisations today. Steve Blank explains it in the link below beautifully.
I’m also linking another longer article from Steve in which he has a go at the history of how Silicon Valley became what it is today.
Instant connectivity in today’s age means that entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship will stop being synonym to some singular place in the world and will follow the decentralization/distribution model — spreading to organisations that capitalize on cheaper than ever experimentation and value creation. Building the context around this, I’m paraphrasing some ideas from Steve Blank’s articles:
“we’re now Compressing the Product Development Cycle”
— no longer do we need one whole year of behind-closed-doors development before launching a product or a service
“…you can start a company on your laptop For Thousands Rather than Millions of Dollars”
— plummeting cost of experimentation/mistakes
“Starting a Company means you no longer Act Like A Big Company”
— now we empirically know through so many business wins and failure that a young company should not copy the big company
“perhaps the most profound and one students graduating today don’t even recognize. And it’s that Information is everywhere”
— someone who holds back on information loses a lot from not using and sharing all their knowledge and skills in order to climb higher on the value chain and escape the race to the bottom.
Dragos Nicolaescu says here that while there aren’t enough startup accelerators in Europe, the more pressing issue is that there is a lack of entrepreneurial education focused on the most effective methodologies like Lean Startup and Design Thinking. And consequently, there is a lack of entrepreneurial skills in people — see examples in his post.
“Design is still the new kid on the block”
As you can see, I’m tossing around entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial in the same sentence because I deeply believe that they are twins separated at birth. What do I mean by that is the fact that both big organisations and startups need to adopt methodologies and a mindset that helps them in the game of value creation to the customer. Of course, in large organisations it might happen slower and it would not be entirely valid for every employee. But it is still possible and the post above details a possible approach.
Wait, what about Agile?
The next common pitfall for large organisations where people are used to do things in a certain way is that they easily substitute a model with common-sense reasoning.
For example, with Agile.
Agile is no silver bullet, it is way of working, a method full of suggestion of how work could be organized and delivered and improved.
Sadly enough, most organisations as they grow, become so rigid and fragile that any attempt at change results in a long, seemingly unending period of restlessness and chaos. And so the Agile Manifesto morphs into this:
Here it does great justice to include this quote:
“All models are wrong but some are useful.”
— George Box
What we have to derive from here is that just because we seem to know about something (i.e. a methodology) that doesn’t mean we are proficient practicians and if we don’t fully commit to a system, we might end up with the worst of both worlds. This also links back to the idea of rejecting bits of yourself. Yes, it means to replace and update some organisational beliefs that not only are no longer true but they actively drag down the whole shop.
I am aware that while I preach to not abide 100% by one methodology I am also virtually scolding organisations for not going all in with that same methodology. There are finer nuances here, that I will go through in a later post.
Since we’ve briefly explored how it can go wrong, let’s find out how we can humbly turn it around.
Agile — meta principles
- Work in small teams
- Have the customer in a clear line of sight
- Network the teams so that they have line of sight of each other
Consider them as a higher level refinement as they closely follow the initial twelve agile principles.
However they get implemented, they should not be an end in themselves but just the means for a better performing, happier organisation. In effect, they are not only good for the businesses but good for the people that work there.
Coming back to the energy/utilities industry, dogmas, ideologies and methodologies do not have to replace thinking in the office. Blindly thinking the tool as the end goal only serves as a mental shortcut, as a silver bullet that never works. And in the few cases in which it works, it’s in spite of religiously following a recipe found on the internet.
Lastly, use your existing talent and don’t obsess over who’s “out there”
“The best companies used intentional non-egalitarianism.” This will ruffle some feathers but this is what works. The areas that are the most critical in a company, that have the biggest impact on company performance are filled by A-quality talent. After all, viewed through this lens, that is also how governments work. The key here is to treat star talent as a company-wide resource and that whenever a critical role is needed, that there is someone competent and talented to fill it first.
This doesn’t mean you should not care to develop everyone and look out for them. While it does a lot of good in terms of costs, at the end of the day it’s good for the people and that’s something no one should forget.
Credits to
for another hefty round of Agile exposure and the honest-but-true-sometimes Agile Manifesto.It would mean a lot to me if you’d recommend this post so that other interested people can read it. Thank you! 💨☀️⚡️
