Sunday Quote : John Hagel
May 12, 2013
Our point of view is that the rationale of scalable efficiency is becoming less and less compelling, and the alternative rationale is scalable learning. The reason we have institutions is because we can learn faster as part of an institution than we could alone.
This quote is taken from a great John Hagel interview by Stowe Boyd. The co-chairman of Deloitte Center for Edge innovation shares here a profound idea.
In Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky suggests that the core purpose of organizations, as defined by Nobel prize Ronald Coase, (the cost of transaction) is no longer relevant in our networked economy. In order to demonstrate his statement, Shirky draws on complex distributed projects such as open source software or wikipedia. So this has left us wondering : what is the core purpose of institutions in the 21st century ?
John Hagel proposal is inspiring : it is to scale learning to the whole organization for faster individual learning and (I may add) to develop organization intelligence as the network of individual knowledge. Which brings us back to the Knowing-Doing Gap : once the company has accumulated learning and knowledge, how does it turn it back into action ?
The Knowing-Doing Gap
May 7, 2013

Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton are both professor of organizational behavior in Stanford University and this book, written in the late 90′s, remains as relevant as ever today.
In The Knowing-Doing Gap (How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action) they attempt to address one of the main root cause of the problems organizations face in 21st century economy : why the ideas that are widely known and proven to be useful remain unimplemented ? How to bridge this knowing-doing gap and what are the results of companies succeeding in doing so ? How to tackle the paradox of companies that know too much and do too little, and who fails in transforming knowledge into action (and action back into new knowledge) ?
This is one of the most powerful book I’ve read about management together with Toyota Kata by Mike Rother. Both books have this thing in common : these are proposing meta-processes to address systemic issues faced by companies today. The objective is to align thinking and action and, while doing so, it is to deeply transform organizations into dynamic entities able to tackle any new problem arising.
Another classic reviewed by #hypertextual and another very long post (+2000 words – 10 mns read) …
Social Neuroscience, SCARF Model and Change Management
April 23, 2013
I have been quite intrigued by the intersection of neurosciences and management / leadership lately. It all started on the Organizations Change Practitioners community on LinkedIn.
No disrespect for the other groups I’ve joined, but it probably is the one I find the most inspiring amongst the ones I’ve joined. Luc Galoppin, Bill Braun and Jennifer Frahm are making a fantastic job moderating it. Jen twitted this article about Neuroscience and Change Management that got my attention. A link leading to another, I’ve ended up discovering the SCARF model by David Rock and this has opened my eyes to the topic. I have also been reading and viewing other related materials. This article comes as some sorts of wrap-up of this research work.
I have been discussing about Social Business Vs Social Status lately, looking for solutions. Well, Social Neurosciences may just prove to bring the required tools to address this.
If you are interested in bringing conscious awareness to otherwise non conscious processes, then read further (be warned it’s a long one) … Read the rest of this entry »
Sunday Quote : Dan Ariely
April 21, 2013
The bad news is ignoring the work of people is almost as bad as shredding the result of their work in front of their eyes. The good news is simply looking at what somebody has done and scanning it and say “aha” that seems quite sufficient to dramatically improve people’s motivation.
Dan Ariely is an Israeli American professor of psychology and behavioral economics. He teaches at Duke University and is the founder of The Center for Advanced Hindsight. He describes in this TED talks some experiments that have been carried out to investigate the inner mechanics of personal motivation. Thnaks to Vincent Ehrhart for sharing this.
Cet article est tiré de #hyperchange – petit guide de la conduite du changement dans l’économie de la connaissance, e-book publié par #hypertextual le 13 Mars 2013.
Il s’agit ici de la synthèse du livre, synthèse qui propose un plan d’actions suivant 4 phases (vision, élaboration, mise en oeuvre et pérennisation) qui correspondent à 4 axes : leadership, stratégie, management et culture.
#hyperchange : éloge du management visuel
April 2, 2013
(Cet article est tiré de l’ouvrage #hyperchange – petit guide de la conduite du changement dans l’économie de la connaissance)
J’utilise quotidiennement le management visuel depuis plusieurs années et je ne cesse d’y trouver de nouvelles vertus. Il rend le processus actionnable et permet de rendre visible les modes de fonctionnement et les interactions. En cela, il redescend la ligne de flottaison des élements explicites de la culture de l’organisation (cf éléments de la culture des organisations selon Schein [EN]). Ainsi, il contribue à la transparence et, par voie de conséquence, à la confiance au sein de l’entreprise. Enfin il permet de rendre visibles les problèmes, de les traiter et de garantir une adéquation entre les activités des équipes et la réalité opérationnelle.
Ce qu’on sait moins, et que nous a rapporté Pierre Masai le CTO Europe de Toyota Motors, c’est que le management visuel apporte une approche cognitive différente qui permet une relation plus efficace entre le manager et le collaborateur. Il s’agit d’un élement essentiel dans la conduite du changement. Read the rest of this entry »




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