Welcome to Next:Land

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”

Isaac Newton’s formula is inspired by Bernard de Chartres, a 12th century Platonic philosopher who paid tribute to his illustrious ancient colleagues. It now inspires “dwarfs and Giants”, an Austrian transformation consultancy specialised in new ways of organizing, and a contributor to the upcoming The NextGen Enterprise Summit.The giants are all that existed, the dwarves are still small but will exist tomorrow, in a country called Next:Land.

Guided tour.

On the map, Next:land faces Now:Land, an inlet separates them: the “Mare Digitalis”. On the Next:Land side, we can distinguish the “self-management plains”, the „Highlands of Agility”, the “Startup Jungle” and the “Holacra-City” on the banks of the “Purpose River”… Opposite, “Bureaucracy”, “Standardization”, “Prediction and Control”… are the districts of Now:Land, bathed by a “River of Growth”, which is drying up. Here is for the graphic part, symbolic and playful. Underlying Next:Land is above all a new paradigm of organizing, based on five main principles derived from the various practices on this new continent.

Some broad lines and details.

The ultimate driver

Creating shareholder value has been the sole purpose of companies for centuries. Given that many of them are unable to make the right decisions and ensure their sustainability, it is fair to imagine that the problem is not necessarily contextual, but can come from within. When we decide, when we set a strategy, we do so taking into account contingencies and conjunctures, but is this the best solution? Are we looking inwards enough, are we looking at the company’s DNA? And by the way, what is this DNA?

It is essential to determine a clear reason for being for any organization, a real purpose that invites employees, customers or investors to identify themselves and find meaning to contribute. Success and the distribution of dividends to shareholders become by-products of the pursuit of the organization’s primary task: to express its purpose in the world. And since the context changes, the purpose can evolve over the life of the company. What remains unchanged is that it sets the course.

The purpose becomes the central point of reference for any further decision-making, and replaces linear routines established in advance that indicate that action X must be taken if event Y occurs. Even the most difficult decisions are made easier, since the purpose is a magnetic north that always makes it possible to distinguish what serves to express it and what does not.

As a cascade effect, the overall purpose is broken down into purpose contributions at team level, in terms of missions, and it is the hierarchy of purpose that replaces the hierarchy of power, which is also distributed.

Distributed authority

Filtering and processing relevant information, bringing it up to allow a few people at the top to make decisions, leads to bottlenecks, longer decision-making processes, the risk of information distortions or the risk of missing important signals. This is only one of the deleterious effects of verticality.

In Next:Land, decision-making power is distributed to the periphery, where the need for decision making arises, where the effects of the decision will be felt most obviously, where the elements that support the decision are located.

Note: the distributed authority is not a delegated authority. The latter is temporary, reversible, the distributed power is permanently so. One of the challenges of distributed authority is the possible confrontation of a team with the hierarchy that distributed this authority. Here again, the notion of purpose, that of the company as a whole, or that of the autonomous team in question could be used as a reference to decide.

It is also the purpose that determines the framework of power, its guardrail: the autonomous entity has all the decision-making power on how to achieve the purpose, but does not determine the purpose. The other framework of this decision-making authority is that of consent decision-making, integrating holacratic and sociocratic principles.

Transparency

In the past, scarce information, which was kept as a precious commodity, was a competitive advantage. The constant flow of information in our time makes it difficult to distinguish what information is really useful and how to use it. In this world of abundance, transparency acts as a filter, insofar as it also generates trust. Being able to observe the processing of information by such collaborators is a teaching and a time saving. Transparency must be active and therefore involves the distribution and sharing of information, both internal and external, to contribute to decision-making in the interest of the organization.

Transparency needs trust, they maintain each other. From trust comes openness to others, mutual support, honest and constructive feedback, which also implies that failure is part of the creative process, no need to try to hide it.

Transparency between employees, but also with the outside world: honest relations with customers and suppliers, and even competitors… like Tesla, which has put its many patents in open source. By opening its knowledge to competition, the company is betting on the progress of the sector in general, which will also be beneficial to it, and on maintaining its image and attracting talent to strengthen its position.

Transparency on salaries? It is the way to go in Next:Land, and it is often the most difficult point to solve, particularly in France, which is prudish in terms of compensation.

Evolutionary learning

Elementary adaptive principle: a structure is not designed to last, it is designed to adapt to last. Learning must be evolutionary as an organization accepts to become more and more complex.

Leaders are no longer required to define or prioritize the skills that need to be mastered, learned, developed. Each employee is the sensor of his or her learning needs, and consequently takes on the role of change generator.

Learning must be continuous, based on the detection of what is necessary to best express the purpose, and it integrates failure as a way forward. The structure and processes of the organization are not only designed to look for the right answers or decisions, but above all to accelerate the learning that will provide the answers. It also involves constant questioning: why do we do things this way? Is that the best way? Is it always appropriate to the achievement of the purpose?

In Next:Land, autopilot does not work. The biggest competitive advantage will be the speed of learning as an organization.

Autonomy in collaboration

Removing hierarchical layers in favour of more horizontal collaborations means structuring organisations as networks of interdependent actors, working with peers and serving the same purpose.

Horizontality does not lead to a lack of leadership in Next:Land. Leadership is also horizontal, a consequence of the authority distributed, and divided into roles. Leadership is temporary and lateral. Unlike conventional power hierarchies, these relationships are reciprocal, there is no total subordination of individuals. One actor directs another on certain missions, and that can be completely reversed on other missions, even simultaneously. Thus, leadership is a dynamic practice, not a manifestation of superiority.

It should be noted that the principle of autonomous individuals working together is more demanding when it comes to conflict resolution. There is no more escalation point that sorts our your problems. Once again, we will refer to the purpose to decide.

Once you have assimilated all these principles, you will be ready to leave Holacra-City and head for the “Terra Incognita”, and build your own model.

Welcome to Next:Land…