Developing more energised, empowered, and innovative workers - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/developing-more-energised-empowered-and-innovative-workers/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/developing-more-energised-empowered-and-innovative-workers/

Developing more energised, empowered, and innovative workers: using power of amplification to achieve new levels.

 

Extract from HBR Blog Network – Marina Gorbis:

We live in a world in which amplified individuals — people empowered by technologies and the collective intelligence of their social networks — can do things that previously only a large organization could. Indeed, they can do some things that no organization could do before. For better and worse, this is the world in which weekend software hackers can disrupt large software firms, and rapidly orchestrated social movements can bring down governments.

Amplified individuals include artists, musicians, community organizers, and techies working alongside nontechies. For a glimpse of how their talents are “amplified,” visit, for example, BioCurious — a well equipped biology lab in the San Francisco Bay area that is actually a former garage full of apparatus bought on the cheap on eBay. Most of us think of biotech as the province of multinational pharmaceutical corporations and well-funded ventures, but the founders of BioCurious believe (as they say in their mission statement) “that innovations in biology should be accessible, affordable, and open to everyone.” The most capable synthetic biologists in the BioCurious community work not only on their own pet projects; they also help others learn to do so by offering classes in subjects like Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, and Bioprinting. Unlike in traditional university settings, the classes are open to anyone; you don’t need to fulfill requirements or take a long list of prerequisites in order to attend. All you have to bring to the class is interest and curiosity.

To use a term I introduced in an earlier piece, people like these are engaged in “socialstructing” — that is, bypassing established institutions and processes for building new things, and instead working to create what they find missing in the world by communicating the need to their social networks, mobilizing whatever resources they have at their disposal, and pursuing solutions collaboratively. Amplified individuals are an especially formidable force because the hard work they do is work they choose for themselves, and it is the focus of the strongest of their talents.

This is the kind of amplification that plays out daily at the Tech Shop, where people are pioneering new manufacturing models. Hanging around there, you might come up with an idea for a product, then quickly prototype it at Tech Shop with advice and support from the larger community. You could get funding on Kickstarter, then manufacture it through a flexible network of small-scale producers in China and elsewhere around the world. Voila! No large-scale manufacturing facility required. A small group of individuals, amplified with connections to each other and access to resources previously available only to large organizations, can create at scales they could previously only dream of.

Given that energized innovators like these are disrupting many existing products, and the business models behind them, you can feel threatened by them. Or you can learn from them and work to turn your own organization into a collection of amplified individuals. The latter is the path we’ve chosen at the Institute for the Future (IFTF). Based on what we’ve learned so far, I can offer a few tips for other organizations hoping to amplify their workers’ talents and energy for greater innovation capacity and impact:

Change how you measure performance. The value you seek from employees, and should recognize and reward, can’t be measured only by focusing on their internal contributions. It also depends on their connections to and their standing in external communities that are important to your organization. At IFTF, several of our staff members run organizations of their own or contribute actively to other networks’ efforts. These activities contribute to our organization’s impact and increase the range of views and ideas we encounter. This is why we encourage our staff to expand and create their own external idea and knowledge networks.

Design the organization to support individual initiative, not control employees’ actions. We proudly show people our unusual organizational chart (more a constellation of project networks than a linear hierarchy) because it casts IFTF as a platform on which project teams and other work structures can self-organize, tackle issues, and solve problems. “The value of self-organizing structures is that they can act quickly, responsively, and creatively from the edges,” we explain in our vision statement. “The guiding concepts in this view of leadership are openness, self-election, continuous prototyping, robust platforms, and low coordination costs. Leadership skills focus on community building, consensus building, mediation, commitment, and humility.”

Socialize your underused assets. Under the traditional logic of management, it would make sense to jealously guard the use of any productive assets a firm has invested in. But in reality, nearly every organization has a surplus of resources of one type or another. Some have an abundance of physical space, others have equipment and tools that are rarely used, and still others have talent that is not fully engaged. A few years ago my colleagues and I decided that we could donate our surfeit of conference space to be used on weekends and some evenings by various communities whose work we want to encourage. We now regularly open this space to meetups, hack days, science bar days, and other informal gatherings of people with similar interests (science, biology, coding, 3D printing, and such). In the process we learn from these external innovators, extend our network, and engender a lot of goodwill. Think of the resources you have in abundance and how you might “socialize” them to build your organization’s social capital and enrich the flow of ideas.

Stop to consider how these few managerial changes would support and extend an individual’s initiative in your organization, and you’ll soon start to think of other tactics as well. Undoubtedly the ideas you come up with will share the common theme of loosening traditional managerial reins. But don’t let that loss of control frighten you. By recognizing the power of amplification, you will be rewarded with more energized, empowered, and innovative workers, and be able to achieve a whole new level of reach and impact.

Author: Marina Gorbis is Executive Director of The Institute for the Future, a Palo Alto, CA-based think tank. She is the author of The Nature of the Future, just out from Free Press (April 2013).

Copyright © 2013 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved.

More … http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/04/the_new_kind_of_worker_every_business.html?

 

Saving species from extinction - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/saving-species-from-extinction/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/saving-species-from-extinction/

Saving species from extinction: inspirational video from Aardman Animations, Stephen Fry and Alistair McGowan.

 

Extract from Recent Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Email:

So, what’s this all about?

Well, it’s a cartoon by Aardman Animations (of Wallace and Gromit fame) with Stephen Fry playing a frog and Alistair McGowan impersonating a dodo! You’ll probably laugh… you may cry, but we hope you’ll be left with an idea of just how important it is to join us on our mission of saving species from extinction!

Click to watch the video

So, why is this important?

‘When asked, as I frequently am, why I should concern myself so deeply with the conservation of animal life, I reply that I have been very lucky and that throughout my life the world has given me the most enormous pleasure.

But the world is as delicate and as complicated as a spider’s web. If you touch one thread you send shudders running through all the other threads. We are not just touching the web, we are tearing great holes in it.’

Gerald Durrell 1925-1995.

More … http://www.durrell.org/

Evidence of severe financial contagion risk from weaker countries - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-strategy-implementation-consultants/evidence-of-severe-financial-contagion-risk-from-weaker-countries/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-strategy-implementation-consultants/evidence-of-severe-financial-contagion-risk-from-weaker-countries/

New research shows unexpected evidence of severe financial contagion risk from weaker countries in European Union.

 

Extract from University of Portsmouth Press Release – 16 April 2013:

Financial shocks coming from weak Euro zone countries are three times more likely to destabilise the region’s economies than shocks from richer Euro zone countries, according to new research.

Research by Dr Nikolaos Antonakakis, an applied Economist at Portsmouth Business School, is among the first to find compelling – and unexpected – evidence of a severe financial contagion risk from weaker countries in the European Union.

The results challenge the arguments for a single European currency and suggest a need to re-examine the single currency in the new post-economic crisis era.

Dr Antonakakis said: “The findings highlight the increased vulnerability of the Euro zone from the destabilising shocks originating from beleaguered countries in the periphery.

“This is the first study to have found evidence of a financial contagion effect where what happens in weaker Euro zone countries spills over to the rest of the region. Most people assume the effect is the other way around. It is counter-intuitive and suggests there is probably a need to reassess the effectiveness of the EU directorate economic policies.”

Dr Antonakakis studied the difference between the 10-year government bond yields  of nine euro zone countries – Austria, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain – between March 2007 and June 2012; a turbulent period encompassing both the global financial crisis and the Euro zone debt crisis.

The data from the nine states was compared with German government bond yields of the same maturity over the same period and all data was collected from Bloomberg. The results provide information on whether each country is a receiver or a transmitter of economic shocks.

Dr Antonakakis said: “These results are of great importance because, for instance, changes in government bond yield spreads in other Euro zone countries can be a good indicator of future changes and their repercussions.

“Shocks coming from the periphery have, on average, three times the destabilising force on other countries than shocks coming from the core, richer nations. This indicates a decoupling effect of countries on the periphery and those at the core that may challenge the argument for a single currency in the countries examined.”

Until now, very little was known about the interdependencies and complex links between Euro zone economies during the debt crisis and global economic downturn.

He said: “The results have important policy implications and can be used to change for the better how governments and regions manage the balance of austerity measures and growth-promoting initiatives.

“The cost of severe austerity measures is not just economic, it has human lives at its heart. If we can produce models which can be used to predict the effect of different scenarios they could be used to help stave off some of the more barbaric measures used to contain economic problems.”

Dr Antonakakis, a senior lecturer in economics and finance, has been invited to present his research alongside world leaders in the field at the SIRE Econometrics Workshop in Glasgow in May. Fellow presenters include Cambridge Professor Hashem Pesaran, editor of Journal of Applied Econometrics, one of the top five econometric journals in the world; Professor Paolo Zaffaroni, Imperial College; Professor Valentina Corradi, Warwick; and Rod McCorie, St Andrews.

More … http://www.port.ac.uk/uopnews/2013/04/16/weak-european-neighbours-have-immense-power/

World Risk Day 2013 schedule announced - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-risk-management-consultants/world-risk-day-2013-schedule-announced/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-risk-management-consultants/world-risk-day-2013-schedule-announced/

World Risk Day 2013 schedule announced: free webinars with world’s leading experts on project and risk management.

 

Extract from World Risk Day 2013 Communication:

On 14 May we will hold the second World Risk Day virtual summit. This is a series of free webinars taking place at set times throughout the day, which will feature a presentation, and in many cases a live question and answer session.

As the centerpiece of World Risk Day, the Virtual Summit on May 14, 2013 will bring together the world’s leading experts on project and risk management, from the world’s largest and most complex mega projects to share their insights through ‘live’ webinars and ‘on-demand’ content.

Presentations this year include:

New concepts in understanding and managing risk in projects – David Hillson, The Risk Doctor

Making the business case for risk management – Lieutenant Barry McNally & Lieutenant Cdr Steve Lee, Royal Navy

Developing an holistic approach to risk management – Christoph Schwager, EADS

Strategies for successful collaborative risk management with contractors and the supply chain – Rob Halstead, Crossrail

Shattering the project myth – managing cost and schedule alone doesn’t = project success – Chris Bell, Active Risk

What lessons can be learned from the world’s Top 100 infrastructure projects – how can knowledge be shared? – Norman Anderson, CG/LA Infrastructure

What makes a great risk manager and how can risk and project professionals collaborate more effectively? – Michael Lopez, Booz Allen Hamilton

How to register for virtual summit sessions:

1. Click here to access the virtual summit schedule and start selecting which sessions you wish to attend

2. Complete the registration form which will give you access to the schedule

3. Click on the individual sessions, enter your contact information and receive log in details for that presentation via email

More … http://worldriskday.com/virtual-summit/

How to make organisations more adaptable - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/how-to-make-organisations-more-adaptable/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-business-transformation-consultants/how-to-make-organisations-more-adaptable/

How to make organisations more adaptable: ways to enable HR to become true catalyst for proactive change.

 

Extract from Management Innovation eXchange Communication:

Today, the most important question for any organization is this: are we changing as fast as the world around us? For most organizations, the answer is no. And no wonder—our organizations were never built to be adaptable. Change tends to come in two varieties: the trivial or the traumatic. It’s time to change the way we change.

We believe HR can play a hugely positive role in helping companies to become adaptable at their core. HR is already a partner to business in many change management efforts, but HR’s impact would be many times greater if it played a lead role in eliminating the barriers to adaptability and in building new capabilities that facilitate proactive change.

To this end, we’ve teamed up with our friends at CIPD, the world’s largest chartered HR and development professional body with over 135,000 members around the world, to launch the Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage management hackathon. Over the next few months, we’ll be working with hundreds of progressive HR and business leaders to identify, develop, and eventually implement new ideas for making proactive change a reality in our organizations.

More … http://www.mixhackathon.org/hackathon/cipdhack/why-adaptabily-matters-now?

Top risks that threaten company’s strategy and business model - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-risk-management-consultants/top-risks-that-threaten-companys-strategy-and-business-model/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/from-our-risk-management-consultants/top-risks-that-threaten-companys-strategy-and-business-model/

Top risks that threaten company’s strategy and business model: should be foundation for board’s risk oversight.

 

Extract from Corporate Compliance Insights – Jim DeLoach:

Of particular interest to executive management and the board of directors are normal and ongoing business management risks, emerging risks, and critical enterprise risks. In this column, we focus on the last category, which we define as the top five to 10 risks that can threaten the viability and/or execution of the company’s strategy and business model. These risks should be a significant focal point for executive management and the board as they provide an important foundation for the board’s risk oversight.

Paring down the company’s risks to the ones that really matter is a test of the effectiveness of enterprise risk management. If therisk assessmentprocess generates a laundry list of risks, it’s “game over” in the C-suite and boardroom. What senior management and directors want to know is information about the risks that can make or break the company. It all starts with an appropriately designed risk assessment process based on the following principles:

- Periodically evaluate changes in the business environment to determine if they affect the critical assumptions underlying the corporate strategy (regarding such matters as technological innovation, competition, economic trends, regulation, etc.) and, when one or more assumptions are rendered invalid, ensure the corporate strategy is revisited in a timely manner;

- Consider an end-to-end view of the value chain when evaluating the most significant exposures to the effectiveness or viability of the business model in creating value for customers and delivering expected financial results. Consider the velocity or speed of an event to impact, the persistence of that impact over time, and the resiliency of the company in responding to the event creating the impact, in addition to considering the severity of the impact and likelihood of occurrence. Pay attention to the uncompensated risks the company faces across the value chain, e.g., the risk of significant warranty costs and/or product recalls, or environmental, health and safety exposures;

- Ensure the risk assessment process provides insight, promotes debate and adds to the collective understanding of what is really important for the business to be successful. Focus on identifying significant changes in the enterprise’s risk profile, with emphasis on identifying emerging risks and worst-case extreme events, along with appropriate response plans to such scenarios, on a timely basis;

- Involve the board in a timely manner in decisions involving the acquisition of new businesses, entry into new markets, introductions of new products or significant alterations of the corporate strategy;

- Review the risk assessments over the last three to five years and evaluate their effectiveness against actual experience.

To illustrate, one consumer products company filters its risks down to the vital few through a risk assessment process that considers velocity and persistence of impact in addition to significance of impact and likelihood of occurrence. Also, the assessment process focuses on upstream supply chain issues and on protecting the company’s brands. The risk assessment criteria are considered by various risk sub-committees that identify potential critical risks and provide input regarding such risks to the corporate risk management committee. Meanwhile, the operating units and corporate functions report critical risks (as well as emerging risks) to the strategic planning function. Based on their respective assessments using the inputs they receive, the corporate risk management committee and strategic planning function provide input on the critical risks to executive management which, in turn, reports “The Top Risks List” to the board. The company’s chief risk officer supports the process at all points. For example, he consolidates all potential critical risks identified by the individual risk subcommittees and submits a summary to the corporate risk management committee membership prior to the next scheduled committee meeting.

While management is responsible for addressing the critical enterprise risks, the board should consider the information it needs to understand them. Both might benefit from the following reporting:

- High-level summary of the critical risks for the enterprise as a whole and its operating units and the reasons why they are critical;

- Status of risk mitigation efforts, with input from the executives responsible for managing the risks, including significant gaps in capabilities for managing the risks and status of initiatives to address those gaps;

- The effect of changes in the environment on core assumptions underlying the company’s strategy;

- Scenario analyses evaluating the effect of changes in key external variables impacting the organization;

- Changes in the overall assessment of risk over time;

- Reliability and value added of prior risk assessments.

The above information is illustrative and is not intended to be exhaustive or applicable to every organization. Reporting to executive management and the board is an iterative process and is fine-tuned over time.

Author: Jim DeLoach has more than 35 years of experience and is a member of the Protiviti Solutions Leadership Team. His market focus is on helping organizations succeed in responding to government mandates, shareholder demands and a changing business environment in a cost-effective and sustainable manner that reduces risk to an acceptable level. He also assists companies with integrating risk management with strategy setting and performance management. Jim also serves as a member of Protiviti’s Executive Council to the CEO.

More … http://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/these-top-risks-can-threaten-a-companys-business-model/

Companion website just launched for our Senior Partner, Robert J Toogood - http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/news/companion-website-just-launched-for-our-senior-partner-robert-j-toogood/

http://www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk/blog/news/companion-website-just-launched-for-our-senior-partner-robert-j-toogood/

We are pleased to annouce that a companion website has just been launched for our Senior Partner, Robert J Toogood.  Check it out now to see how he might be able to help you overcome your current challenges.

More … www.robertjtoogood.com