The Professional Outsider

Dan Pink: The Reincarnation of Kierkegaard?

2011-12-04T13:35:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, I spent four intense years studying philosophy at the University of Copenhagen’s Open University. The focus of my study was the most prominent of Danish philosophers, Soeren Kierkegaard. One of the most fascinating aspects of the Father of Existentialism was that he published his first book at 25, and each succeeding book was an extension of the thoughts of the first book. Kierkegaard claimed that his 20 books were all planned before he wrote the first one.

Kierkegaard was an ardent advocate of individual free will and responsibility. His work heavily influenced Jean-Paul Sartre and the French existentialists, as well as Carl Jung, Victor Frankl, and Erich Fromm. Much of his work was a counterpoint to the work of Hegel and Marx and their ideas of historic inevitability.

In a recent review of the work of Dan Pink, I was struck by the parallel in his work regarding one book building on the other. I have no idea if Dan has a Kiekegaardian vision of his next 20 books, but he seems to be well on the way. Judging by his work thus far, he stands out as one of the best predictors of the future of work.

Dan’s three major books show an extremely prescient path of organizational evolution in America. His first book, Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself (2002) describes the movement by business away from hiring employees, and replacing them with contract workers. Rather than whine about this trend, Dan advocates leveraging the change by building your own resume, and becoming a Free Agent. Today he encourages companies to treat those Free Agents at least as well as they would an employee.

In A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future (2006), he chronicles the acceptance of design as a strategic determinant in product development. He explains the right/left brain fusion, and the emphasis on design precluding engineering (see also Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson). Dan advocates for more attention to the creative process, and those who possess the ability to visualize the final product from an end-user perspective.

Building on those thoughts, Dan’s latest book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (2010) purports to be about motivation. Indeed, he builds a compelling case for recognizing that money and bonuses are counterproductive for creative workers. Most of the press about this book, including brilliant YouTube videos, focuses on this part of the book.

Much like Kierkegaard, the deeper underlying messages in all three books has been generally ignored. The much more significant revelations in Drive are:

1) A description of the Conceptual Worker – a person who not only possesses the skills to accomplish a task, but understands the relevance of that task to the larger vision of the enterprise.

2) The movement in organizational structure from Information Workers (skillset) to Conceptual Workers (mindset); allowing organizations to hire fewer workers at a higher level.

3) Implementation of Results Only Work Environment (ROWE), which eliminates the need for over-the-shoulder supervision of the workforce.

What this means in practical terms, of course, is a major shift from management to leadership. Indeed, Dan writes in Drive “Perhaps it’s time to toss the very word ‘management’ into the linguistic ash heap alongside ‘icebox’ and ‘horseless carriage.’ This era doesn’t call for better management. It calls for a renaissance of self-direction.” Kierkegaard would have loved this sentiment, reflecting conceptual workers willingly exercising free will and accepting responsibility for the outcome of their choices.

Much of what Dan has written has been widely discussed. Unfortunately, very few organizations have courage to fully embrace the cultural upheaval necessary for the transition to visionary leadership, personal responsibility for results, consequences for those who do not meet agreed upon expectations, and an emphasis on creating teams where failure is not an option (see Green Beret Leadership).

The final conundrum in the Dan Pink universe is where to find the conceptual workers we need. Please note that Dan intentionally uses the phrase conceptual worker not conceptual thinker. We are talking about people who can both think and implement! Where do we find them? Dan suggests liberal arts schools. He writes “The new MBA is the MFA.”

That is a good start. My experience in creating dynamic organizations leads me to believe that all of us with leadership responsibility must accept a much more active role in mentoring and developing talent. We are all in the race to acquire great talent. How do we find and keep them? Mainly through intense investment in their development, with a careful monitoring of the corresponding ROI.

So, is Dan Pink the reincarnation of Soeren Kierkegaard? I have no idea what Dan’s next book will explore and explain. My sincere hope is that it will, like Kierkegaard, be a further extension of his current body of work. I rely on him to keep us focused on the truly vital trends in the rapid transformation of our work culture.

David Belden

Professional Outsider
ExecuVision International

dbelden@iexecuvision.com

Relieving Customer Anxiety

2011-09-11T10:32:00.000-07:00

In my facilitation practice, I have worked with a wide array of companies. My usual focus has been on aligning teams around particular challenges. I have also established mentoring programs, run values profiles, and examined supply chain optimization. Recently, I was asked to look at a different, and emerging, issue that I discovered is common to virtually all the organizations with which I am associated.

The client, a very large player in the government contracting arena, presented the issue to me as this: They have been working with a government agency for nearly eight years. The client has specified the work that needed to be done, and my client executed the work. For eight years, that was enough, and there were no significant problems in the relationship.

This year, however, the agency told my client that their expectations had changed. They said that, for years my client had provided the workforce to complete specified tasks. They want my client to continue providing the excellent fulfillment work. Now, they also want my client to provide innovative suggestions to improving the process; making it more efficient, faster, and ultimately, cheaper. More importantly, they expect my client to help them anticipate the future!

This took my client by complete surprise, and raised a multitude of issues within their organization. The main concern was that the people who had been performing their work for the past many years were now being asked to redesign the work. They were also being asked to collaborate and dialogue on the customer’s expectations...something that had never been required in the past. This became a transition from task fulfillment to problem-solving.

TWO COMPONENTS OF ANY ORGANIZATION

I believe that the core components of running any organization are a combination of two aspects, the first of which is process. Process is the delivery of the service or product for which a customer is willing to pay. I have learned two things about process:

1) Every process is designed to produce exactly the result that it delivers. If we are not getting the result we want from the way we do things, we must redesign the way we do them. The difficulty in process redesign is that the people who designed the original process often are locked into the system, and are not able or willing to completely rethink the process.

2) Eventually, all business issues will be solved by process. No matter what the business, we are all constantly refining our chain of supply to make it more competitive. We either shorten the chain by eliminating steps altogether, or we disintermediate some of the sub-suppliers to the chain by automating the work that in the past required human intervention.

Most of the companies I have worked with over the past 13 years as a Professional Outsider have focused almost exclusively on process. To their customers, they defend their own processes, believing them to be unique.

We often believe that our primary contribution to a customer is to convince them to trust that our process is superior. That engenders a belief that we have now taken our offering forever out of the realm of commoditization. We forget that a product or service is a commodity when the customer knows, or thinks he knows, enough about it to shop the specifications to competitors. We know that we are considered a commodity when we start selling to the purchasing department instead of the President.

What I am seeing in an ever-increasing trend since the economic shift in 2008, is that all offerings from all companies are becoming a commodity at a highly accelerated pace. No sooner has a company perfected a seemingly unique process than it is overtaken by a new, exciting, and even more intuitive technology that either makes the process irrelevant, or at best reduces it to a minor link in the overall chain of supply. It finally seems to be dawning on many of my clients that improving process only slows, but never stops, the slide toward commoditization.

If our process is well-designed, but we’re still not getting the results we expect, then we need to look at the second aspect of profitable and sustainable organizations;

PEOPLE

The client I mentioned in the beginning of this article faced the same challenge I hear from all my other clients. He said that they have great people for the work that they do. It is all technology, and they have some exceptionally skilled developers, programmers, network administrators, etc. The problem is that they are all doers. They are what Daniel Pink, in his latest book, Drive, describes as information workers in an era that requires conceptual workers.

The difference here is critical. Information workers are perfectly capable of performing well-defined tasks. The task may require great skill and ability. Task-based performance, however, does not require a great deal of spatial thinking, and is quickly perceived as a commodity. Problem-solving demands something other than skillset. It demands a completely different mindset.

And this is the crux of the matter. In the Vistage group I facilitate, all 17 companies are in growth mode. They are all seeking to hire more employees. The one thing they all agree upon is that they are not willing to hire the same quality of mediocrity they had prior to 2008. They are looking for problem-solvers and solution providers. They are seeking conceptual workers, not just conceptual thinkers. This means that it is not enough to have great ideas. We also have to find people who can execute them. And they are not finding them in anything approaching abundance.

In an age where customers expect that we are going to provide more than basic services; that we are going to suggest improvements, shorten delivery time, under-promise and over-deliver, etc. etc., where do we find the people who can do this?

Part of the problem, as various writers and speakers are pointing out, is that our educational system is geared to graduate people who have learned to execute, not to think. Many of our employees possess a very significant tool bag. They come to us with impressive university degrees in a variety of disciplines. They have all the certifications that we stipulated in our recruiting advertisement. They have fulfilled all vocational prerequisites.

What they have in skillset, they often lack in mindset. The mindset we require today is innovative and collaborative, not specialized and isolated. It is no longer enough to be able to do a job. We now have to be able to solve problems, and even more importantly, anticipate challenges that will emerge in a highly dynamic future.

Once this question of changing client expectations emerged from my government contracting client, I began researching the subject with all my other clients, as well as several Vistage members in the Baltimore and DC areas. Vistage provides me with a database of over 400 small to medium sized local companies, and a total of 15,000 companies globally.

It turns out that what my client was experiencing is a universal trend! Every single company I talked with has confirmed that their customers are raising expectations, desiring a forward thinking response from their suppliers rather than a simple reaction to a request.

Customers are increasingly expecting suppliers to anticipate needs and changes in their area of expertise. It is now incumbent upon the supplier to propose new technologies, end-to-end supply chain management, new social media venues, new forms of advertising, new space designs for virtual offices, new communication possibilities for remote locations, new ideas for lines of business, new potential partners for collaboration. And the list goes on... Our customers expect us to relieve the pervasive sense of anxiety permeating the marketplace!

While there is general agreement in my client base that a new type of employee is needed, there is no agreement on where to find them. Dan Pink suggests hiring liberal arts majors for their generalist knowledge, then training them for skill. At the same time, enrollment in Liberal Arts majors is at a record low at universities. Seth Godin encourages young people to become “linchpins” wherever they are employed.

Yet, Clay Shirky tells us that our current employees are brimming with “cognitive surplus”, and usually devote their problem-solving skills volunteering online. He describes the millennial worker coming home from a boring job as an information worker, then dedicating all their creativity to editing articles for Wikipedia without compensation. Wherever these young people are, we certainly need more of them.

The first retreat I facilitate with new clients is focused on the dilemma described above. I use a tool called the Core Values Index™ (CVI). It is an improvement over the Myers-Briggs genre of assessment tools in that it measures what Carl Jung described as the innate self, rather than the personality. The Core Values Index™ gives us a viable indication of what a person will most likely succeed at over a long period of time. A colleague of mine, who is a technology genius, collaborated with me to use the CVI as well as a number of other indices to provide an assessment that can predict the probability that a person can function as a true conceptual worker. The tool is specifically designed to differentiate between conceptual thinkers and conceptual workers.

The retreat we facilitate around this data usually creates quite a stir. Everyone would like to be considered a conceptual worker, yet very few people possess the combination of intelligence, intuition, creativity, focus, and stamina required. And while most people would like to be considered conceptual workers, a company consisting only of conceptual workers would not be the ideal structure. Helping organizations find the most effective mix of core values is a major part of the work we do.

At ExecuVision, we also work with a tool for measuring whether an organization is geared toward innovation and creativity. The Management Innovation Index™ (MIX) is a survey taken at three levels; executive, managerial, supervisory, to determine the discrepancy in perception of innovation and creativity within the organization. With that assessment, we can then institute metrics to chart innovative progress.

It seems to me that the entire area of identifying, attracting, and retaining creative and innovative people is the key to meeting ever higher customer expectations. We must also create an organizational structure and culture that supports creativity. My experience is that the companies that focus on these elements are doing well, even in this challenging economy. As business owners, I believe our greatest difficulty will be to find enough people who can fill measure up to this challenge. The danger, of course, is that if we don’t, our competition somehow will.

What Technology Wants

2011-07-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

“The proper response to a lousy idea is not to stop thinking.”

Kevin Kelly

Every so often a book appears that unexpectedly changes everything. For me, these books are usually accidental. I frequent Politics and Prose, a local, independent bookstore in Washington, DC. It is one those rare places where authors still present their works, and take questions from the literate and thoughtful audience. Come to think of it, it was here that I first met Dan Pink.

A couple of weeks ago, Politics and Prose held their membership appreciation day, where all books are discounted by 20%. This is always an expensive time of year for me, and also deeply rewarding. As I wandered amongst the plethora of arcane literature, I happened upon an incredible book that turns out to be my most important read of several years.

The book is What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly. Kelly is a former editor at Wired magazine. He also spent 8 years wandering around Asia with nothing but a bedroll, has lived in Amish communities, and, it seems, has truly questioned every premise of modern life.

Kelly makes several observations about the nature of technology that were completely new, yet absolutely resonant with me. His view of technology, or the technium, as he calls it, is that it is a near-living system, subject to the laws and inevitability of all living things. The view of a vast system of technology creating the conditions for its own further development is a fascinating, and sometimes unnerving concept.

Yet, here it is. Kelly is an amazing and interesting writer with a compelling message. He tells us that by embracing the technium as our ally, we can maximize our utilization to solve a wealth of challenges of this and future generations. The greatest challenge for us is to steer this technology towards benevolence and equity, and not allow it to be controlled by a few institutions, whether private or governmental.

It is no accident that Kelly makes his case that Information Wants to Be Free. He worked with Stewart Brand at Whole Earth Catalogue, and is an eloquent advocate of technology as a liberator. If you are looking for a stimulating, entertaining, and brilliantly written book, I would suggest picking up What Technology Wants. You won’t be able to put it down until you are finished!

The Four Uncertainties

2011-06-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

As I talk with my clients, who represent a highly diverse cross-section of businesses, from virtual consultants to blue-collar, mid-market operations to Fortune 100 telecoms, I sense a consistent reluctance to move confidently into the future. As I explored with each of them the source of their reluctance, we uncovered together a pervasive anxiety about the future.

The most predominant anxiety we explored was an encompassing uncertainty. For each of my clients, this usually takes one or more of four forms:

1) Uncertainty of the consequences of political decisions (or lack of same): This is not about party politics. It is simply the confusion generated by an inert Congress and an increasingly polarized society. The unbelievable ineptitude of political leaders of all persuasions has resulted in a gridlock that prevents any future planning on the part of business. This leads, of course, to the second uncertainty;

2) Uncertainty of the economic future: Even though most of my clients are doing exceptionally well, the fact that the global economic news is contradictory and complex means that orders are not being placed in a timely manner. The lack of clarity and conflicting news about future growth engenders reluctance to commit investment dollars. The results are inefficiency in planning and execution.

3) Technological advances that can game-change an entire line of business: Phenomena such as iPads, virtualization, Skype, Mechanical Turk, eLance, the death of Web 2.0, social media, etc., etc., have created massive confusion regarding investment, hiring, relocation, outsourcing, and even the hope of strategic decision-making.

Advances in the popularity of cloud computing have caused many of my clients to hesitate to make any major purchase. They are concerned that an investment in new servers or software licenses today may be wasted. Apple’s introduction of iCloud in the fall is one more game-changer. iCloud is the first major business-to-consumer use of cloud computing. Because it is Apple, we will see a massive acceptance of cloud computing by consumers, as well as by commercial interests, creating instantaneous ubiquity. The movement skyward will be accelerated exponentially.

Technological advances have also mandated organizational restructuring into totally non-traditional forms. We are already seeing everything from virtual assistants to virtual CEOs. We see more and more employees working remotely, without offices. I was talking last week with an attorney who has created a virtual law practice with other attorneys on a global scale. Technology has made all of this possible, if not inevitable.

4) Customer uncertainty: Customer expectations have radically changed. I have surveyed all of my 22 current clients. Without exception, they have confirmed that their customers have come to expect new and different services from all of their vendors and suppliers. What I hear most often is that a long-time customer that has been fully satisfied with my client’s services in the past now expects both the current service and an additional service that includes advice on anticipating the future.

The major challenge this generates is the need to provide innovative solutions from a staff that has traditionally only provided task completion. Some of my clients welcome this as a fantastic opportunity to define new service offerings to current customers. Others see it as an incredibly challenging change in the direction of today’s business model.

The result of these four uncertainties is that businesses are hesitant to invest, hire, train or develop staff. They are also resistant to creating new, venturesome lines of business. Furthermore, since everyone is uncertain and hesitant to invest, when a decision is finally made, the expectation is that the product or service will be delivered immediately. Only a few years ago, most businesses had a substantial backlog, which made production of product or provision of service orderly and predictable. No longer! Now, everyone puts off any purchase until the last possible moment, then expects immediate fulfillment. This precipitates surges and lulls, which makes strategic planning and efficient execution all but impossible.

Are you seeing the same trends? I would love to collect your examples, and hear your opinions on other uncertainties that are slowing us down. The inexorable forward movement toward efficiency and automation can overcome the most stubborn human resistance. For that to happen, though, humans must first recapture the courage to invest and embrace risk. How can we help make that happen?

Denying the Paradigm

2011-02-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

I recently heard a Vistage (Vistage.com) speaker admonish members for believing that there is anything special or unusual about this historic moment. His benign take on the world is that we are in a simple economic correction that is no different from every other recession. His position was a little surprising, given that he otherwise seemed to be quite intelligent.

What I found to be most naive in the presentation was his thesis that nothing in the technology of today in any way differentiates this age from others. His point was that technology has always existed. One of his examples was that the tomahawk was a technological advance, as was the Trojan horse. People, he said, have always used technology to their advantage, and today is no different. He openly ridiculed any concept of a paradigm shift.

What he, and a considerable number of economists and supposed historians seem to be ignoring is the enormity of the social impact that these technological advances are introducing. We have, of course, experienced similar massive upheavals in the past. I think a look at just one example, utilization of the assembly line in manufacturing, can help us get an idea of technology as social, as well as, economic game-changer.

Henry Ford had a problem. He had designed a reliable car that used mass-produced, inter-changeable parts. The car was better-made and simpler to operate than its predecessors. Ford realized that with all those advantages, he could make his car available and usable to a mass market.

The problem he had yet to solve was purely financial. He needed to produce a car cheaply enough so the people who built the car would be able to afford it. The car was, of course, the Model T.

When the Model T was introduced in 1908, assembly time was 728 minutes, and the price was $950. After implementation of the assembly line production in 1913, the assembly time dropped to 93 minutes, and the sales price decreased to a low of $280.

However, the problem of mass market remained. How could the factory worker afford the car? Ford solved the problem by doubling the going rate from $2.50/day to $5.00/day. This, combined with credit financing by the company, allowed the common worker to be able to afford the fruits of his labor, and the consumer economy was born.

The economic impact of this development was enormous, and relatively speaking, immediate. The mass production and availability of the automobile set in motion a global demand for steel, oil, and rubber. Since many of the raw materials came from outside the United States, the shipping industry experienced an immediate increase in volume.

Prior to 1919, the main use of refined petroleum was kerosene for lamps. After that year, the major use of petroleum was conversion to gasoline for automobiles. This increase resulted in a natural demand to build pipelines. This demand exacerbated the need for mining more iron ore for pipe.

Aside from the increased demand for natural resources, the number of cars on the roads created a predictable demand for more of the same…roads! An interesting historic aside is that also in 1919, Dwight D. Eisenhower crossed the United States from Washington, DC to San Francisco in a military convoy. It took more than two months for the trip. This is supposedly the catalyst to Eisenhower’s advocacy of a National Highway System during his presidency.

So far, we have only focused on the automobile. It is important to remember that once Ford proved the efficacy of the production line, it spread to all other industries. Once Ford introduced the extension of credit to employees so that they could afford the product of their labor, that practice, too, became the norm. Wringer washing machines, refrigerators, water heaters, and radios are among the myriad of products suddenly put within the reach of the average wage earner, creating a unique, American phenomenon: a substantial middle-class.

The economic consequences of a change in a method of production are measurable. We could include more and more data points to further elucidate the thesis, but I think you get the point. One major change in the organization of the assembly line had enormous impact on production, price, buying power, expectation, and the global economy.

The secondary aspect of this change is equally important, and probably had even more influence on the lifestyle of most American workers. Prior to Henry Ford, automobiles were mostly toys for the wealthy. They were a hobby, built by craftsmen who enjoyed the artistry of designing and building a few cars a year, usually against a direct order from the new owner. The teams that built the cars were inventors, mechanics, hobbyists, and other skilled workmen.

What was required for the assembly line was a very different type of worker. The beauty of the assembly line was that it mimicked the product it produced. The products were interchangeable and could fit any machine. The workers, too, were interchangeable.

There is a very telling quote from Henry Ford that has been largely misinterpreted. Ford said, “Why is it every time I ask for a pair of hands, they come with a brain attached?” I have seen this variously quoted as praise of the intelligence of the American worker. In fact, it was a complaint that the workers hired to be interchangeable machines on the assembly line actually had ideas about how that work should be done.

The assembly line was a place for pure efficiency. The less energy people spent on any activity not directly devoted to production, the better. It was, therefore, Ford’s policy to fine anyone on the assembly line for the crime of laughing, talking, or whistling…all of which, Ford believed, diverted energy from production.

The conversion of skilled craftsmen to interchangeable cogs has had an immeasurable impact on the history of work in America for the past hundred years. That, coupled with the huge social displacement of a rural, agrarian population to an urban, industrial workforce had the added effect of further denying the majority of people the opportunity to contribute at their highest level of ability in any job.

Until very recently, Ford’s practices had a stranglehold on the workplace. It is only in the past few years that employers have begun to open their offices, factories, and retail outlets to leverage the creative energy of the people generating the income. The good news is that we have a new tool as powerful as the assembly line that is transforming the workplace back into a creative, productive, and fulfilling place to be for those with the courage to embrace it.

Today, by focusing on the blinding flash of the obvious popularized by Jim Collins in Good to Great, getting the right people in the right seats on the right bus, we have taken the first step. The next step is to recognize what Dan Pink calls Conceptual Workers, and Seth Godin refers to as Linchpins in our organizations. The final step is to create an organizational structure that celebrates the competence and beauty of the minds and hearts of everyone. Rather than follow Ford’s practice of punishing people for showing any lack of focus to the singular task at hand, we create workplaces that encourage us all to be productive because it is enjoyable and rewarding.

I have focused on the impact of the automobile to illustrate a paradigm shift, full of both intended and unintended consequences. I could have used electrification, the steam engine, or the printing press to make the same point. Occasionally, a new tool introduces an energy so powerful that it completely transforms the way we live.

The ubiquity of the internet, collaboration tools, cloud computing, crowd-sourcing, mobility (of people and information), shows us that we can return to the best aspects of work: contribution at our highest level. With these tools, and an intelligent attitude toward a dynamic organizational structure, any CEO can create a workplace that leverages the best of all possible worlds without the burden of imposing his or her own personal prejudices on the rest of the organization.

All that is holding us back is the inertia of rest; the resistance of business owners to create a workplace where we encourage creativity. It should be obvious to everyone that the assembly line is not coming back. The workers who are hired to be human machines have been replaced by actual machines. How will your company find and attract people who are willing to be more than a machine? How will you create an organization that supports that kind of worker? How will you find and develop executives who have the courage to not always have to be in control? These are the challenges we face in this new, exciting, and challenging paradigm.

Green Beret Leadership

2010-12-24T04:56:00.000-08:00

I am sick of hearing about the new normal. I reject the idea thatcompanies need to do more with less. These are both ludicrous clichés that provide easy excuses for doing nothing or clinging to the past…a past that is more myth than reality. The vast majority of the companies I work with are doing well. They are successful because they are doing things differently, and having fun making the changes.

For the past 12 years, I have had the great privilege of working with some of the most adaptable and progressive companies in the country. As a Vistage Chair (www.vistage.com), I facilitate monthly meetings of 16 CEOs/Presidents/Business Owners/Managing Partners in a peer-group think tank setting. I also meet with each of them individually for a dialogue beginning with some variation of the question “What’s the most important thing we should talk about today?”

During that same 12 years, I have worked with five or six companies every year to facilitate the complete restructuring of their organizations. As a Professional Outsider with ExecuVision International (www.iexecuvision.com), I lead a series of retreats for the senior leadership of companies, focusing on working at a very deep level to mold highly functioning teams.

What I have written above is no surprise to anyone in the business community. Skilled practitioners have facilitated retreats and mentored executives since at least the time of Sun Tzu. What I believe is different today, however, is illuminated by three recent books and two very different military models. Each of these events individually are important; taken together, they represent a new model for organizing the chaos of the world around us.

The three books are Daniel Pink’s Drive, Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus, and Seth Godin’s Linchpin. In the first, Daniel Pink describes the transition from Information Worker to Conceptual Worker. The basic premise is that we are finished with just throwing more and more mediocre workers at every challenge that comes along. Successful companies have realized that we need to hire fewer and fewer people at a higher and higher level.

The undeniable truth of this insight is the basis of the jobless recovery. Of course it is jobless! The fact is that production no longer requires significant numbers of no- or low-skilled workers. What Pink demonstrates is that information workers fall into this category right along with factory workers. In good times, when money is flush, we tend to simply throw more and more people into the fray, hoping that somehow they will finally get the job done. No longer, says Pink. What we require are conceptual workers who can envision the larger issues, and devise (and implement) a plan to address them holistically.

Clay Shirky adds insight about the astounding number of hours people are willing to volunteer on projects outside of their boring, pay-the-bills job. He cites Wikipedia as the premier example of global collaboration by a large group of very intelligent people to create a useful tool where no one is paid for the work. This same phenomenon is alive in the non-profit as well as the for-profit world. Shirky’s observation is important to all of us concerned about the state of business organizations today. The tragedy is that we are leaving huge, untapped intellectual and creative manpower to the vagaries of internet contribution, rather than creating organizations that fully utilize this energy.

Finally, Seth Godin weighs in with Linchpin. He makes essentially the same case that Pink does in Drive, but from a different vantage point. Drive is written more from the business owner’s perspective. Pink asks the question, “How do I motivate my employees to use their creative problem-solving skills to help this organization?” Godin asks, “How do I find an employer who values my creative problem-solving skills?” For Pink, the quest is identifying conceptual workers. For Godin, it is becoming a linchpin for change in whatever situation you find yourself. For Shirky it is the challenge of creating an organization that allows people to contribute at their highest level of ability.

All three authors focus on the most important question anyone running an organization must answer today: What kind of organizational model will help me find the best people, and allow them the freedom to use all their talent in creative and productive endeavor?

Counter intuitively, the answer may just come from the military. Until recently, the military has seemed to be the least likely model for adaptive change. Ever since WWI, and particularly since WWII, companies were structured around the traditional military model of chain of command. This made perfect sense in a world where information was not easily accessible.

I remember my first managerial position in a large Danish company. My department consisted of five people. I was, as the supervisor, the only one of us who had all the information from our small unit. I reported that information up to my manager, who reported it to a vice president who reported it to the president. It all made perfect sense. It was orderly, static, reliable…and totally boring for all concerned, because the president was the only one who had access to all the information.

The advent of relational databases in the 1970s changed the need for the hierarchical structure forever. It has taken us over 30 years to even begin to come to grips with this reality. Access to information is no longer a problem. Instead, the overwhelming volume of available information now threatens our ability to make decisions. Progressive and successful companies work comfortably with this new paradigm.

The military faced the same challenges in a very different way. During the Korean War, military leaders realized that the military structure that had served them well for a couple of hundred years was no longer working. A new approach was needed. The creative use of Special Forces was born. In Vietnam, and now in the global war on terrorism, the use of Special Forces has increased to fight a new type of enemy.

The amazing success of the Green Beret model is based on the characteristics of the team. First of all, only the very best candidates are even allowed to participate in an assessment of their abilities. Second, once the few who make it through the assessment have completed it, they peer review each other. They must answer one question about the other survivors of the assessment: Would this man keep me alive? As my son, an active duty Green Beret (15 years in the Army, 11 in Special Forces) explained to me, “Dad, this is not about ability. We know that anyone who made it this far has the stamina and the skill. It’s not about skillset. It’s about mindset. It’s about trust!”

What further makes the Green Beret model so extraordinarily successful is this summary of features:

1) Trust

2) Clarity of Purpose

3) Mission First

4) No emphasis on rank

5) Flexible function (all members cross-trained – my son is both
combat medic and sniper)

6) Utilizing existing infrastructure for support

7) Self-directed teams

These teams fully embody Pink’s and Godin’s ideas of conceptual workers and linchpins in otherwise staid institutions. The Army has seen the necessity of maintaining a static organization for their normal functions, and enabling a small group of exceptional people to achieve phenomenal results. They also embrace Shirky’s emphasis on allowing employees to participate at their highest level of ability to resolve immediate challenges.

The second military model that has evolved to meet modern challenges is the Marine Corps. The Marines are not Special Forces. They are, rather, an assault force. Their structure was altered over ten years ago to focus on “the strategic corporal”. The idea, of course, is to push decision-making down to the level where the action is actually taking place. This is a new twist for the static organization – dynamic capabilities to respond to the actual situation.

These two models together offer us a solution for business. We create and maintain an infrastructure for existing business that pushes customer response down to the lowest level of the organization. We create a second group of strategic thinkers who are also tactical implementers. The two work in tandem to embrace the most innovative solutions to constant and unexpected developments caused by a rapidly changing world.

In 2010, I have received more and more requests to help companies redesign their organizational structures to address new realities. The most frequent push-back I experience is executives telling me that they don’t have any Green Berets, and that their corporals are not capable of being strategic.

Two thoughts on that belief: 1) How do you know that it is true? 2) If it is true, who was responsible for hiring mediocrity? To answer the first question, we have to take a risk. Let’s find out how innovative people can be. To answer the second question requires accountability at the highest level of the organization.

Of the companies I have worked with this year, three have gone virtual, reducing staff numbers from a high of around 50 to now from 1, 5 and 15 respectively, while increasing revenue…and, of course, profitability. With the added benefit of reducing stress! Another company is managing $40million in revenue with 31 employees, six of whom do not live in the employer’s state. Another company has embraced a bifurcated organization: the “regular Army” manages $40 million of commodity revenue, while the “Green Berets” generate and manage $20 million in new business.

To me, these are the most exciting and dynamic times imaginable. We are in an exhilarating time of growth, connectivity, virtualization, and interdependent globalization. We have moved rapidly from the Information Age (1960) to the Knowledge Age (2000) and have just entered the Conceptual Age (2010). Pink, Shirky, and Godin offer some unique perspectives that, taken together, can help us enter this age with confidence and enthusiasm.

Indulge yourself with the fantasy that you have a Green Beret team of conceptual workers. Imagine that you have linchpins constantly and consistently providing insights and plans for implementation of great new strategies to embrace an ever-changing world. What would it take for you to create that team? Do you have the courage to begin? Welcome to the conceptual age!