Reports from the Knowledge Labs about our recent findings, research topics, and interviews with lifestyle leaders who are creating their own futures.
|
|
| |
How to stimulate your own powers of foresight. Consider the following thought provokers. Ask yourself, in these categories what are the brand new trends and forces? Which are the ones growing in importance? Which current forces are loosing their steam? Which have peaked or are reversing themselves? Which are the "wildcards" about to disrupt us in the future? POLITICAL AND TECHNICAL thought for food: Electronics, Materials, Energy, Fossil, Nuclear, Alternative, Other, Manufacturing (techniques), Agriculture, Machinery and Equipment, Distribution, Transportation (Urban, Mass, Personal, Surface, Sea, Subsurface, Space), Communication (Printed, Spoken, Interactive, Media), Computers (Information, Knowledge, Storage & Retrieval, Design, Network Resources), Post-Cold War, Third World, Conflict (Local, Regional, Global), Arms Limitation, Undeclared Wars, Terrorism, Nuclear Proliferation, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Governments (More/Less Power and Larger or Smaller Scale), Taxes, Isms: Nationalism, Regionalism, Protectionism, Populism, Cartels, Multinational Corporations, Balance of Trade, Third Party Payments, Regulations (OSHA, etc.) Environmental Impact, U.S. Prestige Abroad. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC Food for thought:
Labor Movements, Unemployment / Employment Cycles, Recession, Employment Patterns, Work Hours / Schedules, Fringe Benefits, Management Approaches, Accounting Policies, Productivity, Energy Costs, Balance of Payments, Inflation, Taxes, Rates of Real Growth, Distribution of Wealth, Capital Availability and Costs, Reliability of Forecasts, Raw Materials, Availability and Costs, Global versus National Economy, Market versus Planned Economies, Generations: Y, X, Boomers, Elderly, Urban vs. Rural Lifestyles, Affluent vs. Poor, Neighborhoods and Communities, Planned or Organic Growth.
Got Knowledge?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
The Journal of 2020 Foresight
|
|
| |
|
Thursday, July 24, 2003
Outpost Expeditions: Inside Tourist Cell Networks
Chapter Three: The Outpost
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
“The Lewis and Clark Expedition is one of America’s great sagas. It touches the American spirit. It appeals to the adventurer and explorer in all of us… Just as its mission was to acquire knowledge two hundred years ago, we have the opportunity to gain knowledge of it and our heritage today.”
James J. Holmberg
Journal of 2020 Foresight: My first impression? This is a lot different than waiting for Trailblazer and gasping for oxygen on a Ridge high up at a mountain resort in the eastern Sierras.
Now, I’m doing all my waiting in lines. Showing my passport. Getting patted down by anti-terrorist security agents. My belt buckle and Levi’s buttoned-down-fly set off the bells and whistles.
Finally, off the ground and cruising at 30,000 feet on the Alaska Airlines run down the coast from Los Angeles and LAX. Stretched out below, the Pacific Ocean and the Baja desert.
I’m looking forward to seeing Lone Eagle again. Let’s see. I pull out my laptop and fire-up my e-mail. Here’s his note from the Outpost.
“I’ll pick you up at the Airport after you get your clearance through customs. Pack light. And, by the way, expect a 90-minute presentation on timeshares. You’ll see why. Lone Eagle.”
I wondered if I’d finally get to meet the elusive Grey Owl.
Lone Eagle: Welcome to Cabo. How was your journey?
J2020F: Quite an adventure – getting through LAX International Terminal under a homeland security code Orange alert. But, once in the air I caught up on my reading and reflection.
Eagle: What did you read?
J2020F: Oh, a series of articles on the 200th anniversary and celebration of the Lewis and Clark expedition. I forgot Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery after failing three times earlier, dating back to 1783.
Eagle: Interesting. Didn’t they begin their expedition up the Missouri River in 1804?
J2020F: Well, actually they began sooner than most people remember – having set up their base camp in what is now known as Clarksville, Indiana on the Ohio River in October 1803.
The group that left the Louisville, Kentucky and Clarksville, Indiana base camp on October 26, 1803 formed the nucleus of the Corps of Discovery.
Eagle: Talking about discovery expeditions, how is Trailblazer? We see less and less of each other, although we’re both active in the tribal territories’ virtual community. At least we get some face time at our exotic quarterly gatherings.
J2020F: Brilliant. We covered a lot of territory on that snow-capped peak overlooking the Great Basin and the four corners territories -- Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. I absorbed a lot and welcomed the reflection time on the flight here.
Eagle: Trailblazer and Lost Explorer love the summer backpacking country and the winter skiing and snowboarding. Pathfinder and I share an affinity for the beach and tropical climates.
J2020F: Which explains why you chose to be interviewed here in Cabo San Lucas. Did you and Pathfinder choose Dana Point for our first group meeting?
Eagle: Actually, Lost Explorer lives somewhere in south Orange or north San Diego counties – not too far from the Camp Pendleton marine base. But, we all met originally, as you recall, for the first Baby Boomer Boot Camp at a Dana Point resort.
J2020F: And, you and Lost Explorer formed your own expedition in the Outpost back in 1997?
Eagle: We had a lot in common. We both wanted to do what we loved. He fit the Trapped and Permanently Temporary scenario initially, while I fit the scenario that has my name – Struggling Lone Eagle – Overpriced for the Local Market.
J2020F: What takes place in the Outpost?
Eagle: The Outpost in one way is the third leg of our journey. In Basecamp, a learning expedition maps out a destination. They agree on a compelling vision of the future for them. They survey their past for insight and hindsight to better understand their collective strengths and weaknesses.
J2020F: Trailblazer told us at The Ridge, through the strategic exploration of 100 trends, a learning expedition scans the horizon to view the terrain ahead. Their challenge, before coming off the mountain, is to anticipate threats and opportunities.
Eagle: Here, in The Outpost, we have to figure out how to proceed into the great unknown while creating better opportunities for those individuals and teams who follow us.
J2020F: In 1997 you and Lost Explorer teamed up in the Outpost to lead an expedition focused on the doing-what-you-love story lines?
Eagle: Yes, he chose to shoot for the “Staying Put, Doing What You Love.” I challenged myself to target the “It’s Wired, Doing What I Want – Anywhere Anytime.”
J2020F: Trailblazer described Lost Explorer’s project with the HR Executives. We found out about the four talent scenarios and how they fit – or don’t fit – in different life stages of an organization. Was that the way you two figured out how to create better opportunities for the rest of us?
Eagle: Well, not exactly. Sure, we traded knowledge, but our two individual crossroads decisions differed.
J2020F: In what way?
Eagle: The path I chose leads to moving my primary residence to a resort community, while Lost Explorer remains in his local community – a resort suburb in a late growth cycle.
J2020F: As I recall, Lost Explorer dabbled in the consulting option, but found an internal position. So, he decided to “stay put, doing what he loved.”
Eagle: That’s right. Initially, we both focused on the Working-for-Self options, but he discovered consulting allowed his employer to “try before they buy,” and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
J2020F: Is that the position Trailblazer described, the one with the R&D group in an emerging high technology company?
Eagle: Yes, together they charted a highly uncertain 5-year laser technology and marketing roadmap using our story-telling scenario technique.
J2020F: So, he joined an organization offering a product leadership value proposition struggling with the breakpoint between start-up and early growth?
Eagle: Very good. Yes, while his work preceded the Talent scenarios, he had his hands full shaping the culture with all the tribal warfare among Agents and Associates, and Athletes and Academics – the so-called toxic talent clusters.
J2020F: How did he do it?
Eagle: Actually, he turned to us – Pathfinder, Trailblazer and me – for design principles.
J2020F: Design principles? What do you mean?
Eagle: Well, this was during the time when the war for talent in a knowledge intensive industry, like his, became cutthroat. He needed to integrate both the Work Life and the Life Work variables into a cohesive culture capable of attracting and retaining key talent.
J2020F: You’re referring to the “future-by-life-design map” found in the cabin?
Eagle: Yes, the variables we played with fit on the right hand side of the map.
J2020F: Such as?
Eagle: Work Life – a way of assessing an employer or a client organization:
Their position in their market --declining, growing, static
Gaining or losing core customers, appealing to new customers and retaining them
Reputation among investors, bankers and financial sources
Shareholders expectations, confidence -- institutional and small -- capitalization
Suppliers -- reliability, sole source, contracts
Alliances for innovation, distribution, marketing
Industry shifts in balance of power, regulations imposed
Entrance of new competitors, consolidations
Strategic inflection points, disruptive innovations
Multiple forces converging simultaneously e.g.: political, competitive, economic, technological, demographic -- perfect storm effects
Scientific discoveries - breakthroughs in basic science
Health of planet earth, environment
Universe and multi-universes - cosmology, physics, or metaphysics
J2020F: It would appear that certain of these variables might align around divergent industry indicators and others around convergent indicators. And from your collective assessment, you came up with design principles?
Eagle: That’s true. Later we’ll talk about how to apply Harry Dent’s Innovation (.1%, 1% and 10%), Growth (10%, 50%, and 90%) and Maturity (90% to 99.9%) research to the other half of the future-by-life-design set of variables for managing the third crossroads option -- our own Portfolio of Tangible and Intangible Assets.
But, the design principles we created apply to both Breakpoints in an organization’s lifespan – Start-up and Reinvention.
J2020F: So, you came up with a handful of principles to shape the culture in such a way to satisfy the industry and marketplace demands, attract and key talent, all in a turbulent environment?
Eagle: Well, seven principles, actually. But, yes. These principles build a highly resilient workforce committed to change and competition:
Succeed at the competitive challenge
Continue in business by making a difference
Achieve maximum results with minimum resources
Empower individuals to synchronize teams to synergize networks
Accomplish both short-term objectives and long-term initiatives
Produce the highest quality, customer-valued products & services
Maintain a CREATIVE Climate for Continuous Innovation
J2020F: By the way, are we going to stand and yak in the baggage claim area all day, or are am I actually going to get to enjoy myself in your Outpost resort?
Eagle: No, you’re right. Let’s go. I’ve arranged for transportation. See that man waving to us over there?
J2020F: Which one, everyone wants our attention.
Eagle: No, over there. Nearest to the exit and the ground transportation.
J2020F: Is that Grey Owl?
Eagle: No, it’s Oscar.
J2020F: Who is Oscar?
Eagle: He’s part of Cabos’ tourist cell network. In the short term, he’s our transportation Trojan horse. For 90 minutes of your time what he’s offering is a glimpse into the next two decades from 2003 to 2020: correction, boom, bubble, burst, bust, correction, bear / depression.
J2020F: So we'll figure out guidelines for investing in the third set of options -- a portfolio of tangible and intangible assets.
Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
4:32 PM
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Table of Contents
The Journal of 2020 Foresight
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
Introduction
Since beginningless time people have wanted to know where life will take them. Today you and I are in one of those periods that occur every 200 or 300 years when people don't understand the world anymore, when the past is not sufficient to explain the future. Turbulent changes in the current of our life – its pace, pattern and scale – challenge our notions of what is real. Mastering new rules is like trying to cross a white-water river. If you can anticipate the whirlpools and the changes in the current, if you can anticipate the landing on the other shore, you have a much better chance of getting across that river successfully.
Basecamp Summary
When we come to a cross-roads in our lives, we can choose any one of 11 options: 1) Change positions in same organization: 2) Change organizations in same field; 3) Change careers; 4) Grow in same job, moonlight; 5) Start a business; 6) Buy a business; 7) Buy a franchise; 8) Develop a consulting practice; 9) Pursue a portfolio career; 10) Live on investment portfolio and volunteer; 11) Retire, yet freelance or consult to supplement income. Which one(s) will current markets and longer-term future trends support? Which ones will lead to dead ends and disappointment? The choice is yours.
The Ridge Summary
You must find your own role in that special part of the world that brings out the best imaginable in you. The future of five economic offerings – commodities, goods, services, experiences, and transformations – yields five very distinct possibilities, with tremendous ramifications for you, your business, your employees, and your customers. Those futures dramatically impact the quality of life in communities around the world. Already manufacturers and service providers see their offerings commoditized as more and more businesses charge explicitly for the memorable encounters they stage. To make a real difference in the lives of your customers – and to breathe life into new ideas takes determined individuals filled with foresight, Yankee ingenuity and good old-fashioned American know-how. What business are you in? What business do you really, really want to be in? And, where do you want to live -- any place in the world?
The Outpost Summary
Where will you be and what will you be doing in the next five years? Will economic cycles before and after 2010 support your plans? Will you be forced to live a lifestyle or work in a job you hate? Will your energy, vitality and health slowly drain away? Or will you be doing what you love, while living your own version of the new American Dream in a resort town, small college and university town, classic town, revitalized factory towns, exurb, suburban villages, emerging new city, large-growth city, or urban village?
The Tribal Territories Summary
Chapter One: Basecamp
In Hindsight?
Got Knowledge
Stories from the Creative Minority
Yogi Berra and Sun Tzu at the Crossroads
Memo from Basecamp
Hoodoo You Know, What’s That Calling?
The Bliss Man and This Mysterious Game of Life
The Gripping Stories of Human Life
The Way of the Adventurer
Learning Expedition – Answering a Call to Adventure
Future by Life Design
Wild Seeds and Fresh Perspectives
The Morning After, Ships Log 9:30 a.m.
At the Heart of the Journey
Abrupt Endings
Out-Of-Body Elevator Ride
Disorientation, Networking, and Self-Doubts
Beating Back the Beast in Sea of Cubicles with a Ship's Bell
TGIF
Back to Basecamp On The Fly
Winning by Creating Better Opportunities for those Who Follow
Spending Waves, Turning Points, and Strategic Breakers
Where’s the Real Rock When A River Runs Through It?
The Mind Swallowing Up the World
From Bob Hope to David Letterman: Innovation and Inflation
Oil Shocks, Japanese Invasion, Revenge of the ‘70s
Future Work: Social and Economic Drivers
A Hundred Trends on the Wall, If 10 of them Happen to Fall …
Be Nice to Your Niece, You Might Make it to 100
Mass Customization Boom and Deflation for the Next Decade
The Rise of Agents and Athletes – Professional Knowledge Workers
Overlay of Political and Technical Trends
New World Order, US Social Security Goes Belly Up
PCs, Telecommunications, Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, Alternative Energy TechnoWaves
DNA Construction Kits, Hydrogen Hybrid Autos
Warm, Resort Migration Shift Driving the Next Real-Estate Boom
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Forward to the Past, or Back to the Future: Where's the Anti-Murphy?
Anticipating Threats, Favorable, and Unfavorable Opportunities
Hannibal’s Prism Reframes our Perspective
Blips on the Radar, or Has the Big Bang Fuse Been Lit?
Mobile KnowCos and Talent Brands
Stories for Skipping Across the Valley of Despair
The Fools on The Hill See the World Spinning Round
Over-Specialized, Obsolete and Temporary -- But Not By Choice
Staying Put, Doing What You Love
Struggling Lone Eagle, Overpriced for Local Market
It’s Wired, Doing What You Want – Anywhere, Anytime
The Future for Individuals and Organizations Entering a New Life Stage
Driving Down Main Street, It’s Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile Any More
Disruptive Innovation, Emergent Knowledge and Just-in-time Human Capital
Agents: Me Go-Go Fast
Athletes: Running Together Scenario
Associates: Welcome Back Kotter / Learning Together Scenario
Academics: Absent Minded Professor / Out to Sea and Treading Water
Lifework Solutions: Templates to Extend an Organization’s Life Expectancy
180 Degrees of Separation: Vital Signs for Innovation or Efficiency
Start-ups: Paradoxy-Morons and the One Percent Solution Gang
Early Growth Athletes, Bowling Pin Strategy, and Incremental Do’s and Don’ts
Late Growth, Divisional Associates, Tighten & Leverage Organizational Brand
Yin and Yang Turning Points: Divergent or Convergent Industry Indicators
From Matrix to Network: Expand Horizons and Drive for Differentiation
Years to Shed Old Habits and Learn New Functional Skills
The Danger of Playing that Old Game of Resistance with Leadership-by-Committee
Revitalizing Status Quo into Change Agents for Broad Change
Renewal: Cascading Stepwise Changes by Collaborative Leadership
Restructuring: Shock to Strategy, Structure, and Systems
Realignment: Building Organizational Resilience and Breakpoint Capacity
Forming Breakpoint Alliances to Fill Competency Gaps
Knowledge Creation, Innovation and Organizational Learning
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Outpost Expeditions: Inside Tourist Cell Networks
Toasting Lewis and Clark in Cabo – Where the Land Ends and the Fun Begins
Timeshare This: Correction, Boom, Bubble, Burst, Bust, Correction, Bear-Depression
All In The Family: Where the Rainbow Hits the Road
Search for the New American Dream: Where in the World is Grey Owl?
Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Or Doing What You Love with Other Birds of a Feather
Out of Dana Point, Parker and Austin with Doc Holiday and the Flying Norseman
Springing Into Pagosa for Lifestyle and Community Fit with Trend-setting Neighbors
Big City Incomes Discover the Up-And-Coming Boondocks
Three Overlapping Lifecycles: Individual, Community and Organization
Outpost Itineraries: Kitchen Sinks and Wally World, or Routes Less Traveled
Lewis & Clark, MacKenzie, Hudson's Bay Co., Father Serra & the Mother Lode
350 Years of Trading: Missouri River Sources to San Francisco Bay
The Company of Adventurers: Commodities Exploration and Development
Mark Twain, Washoe’s Big Water, Comstock Lode, and Trophy Homes
New Eco-topia Explorers Hitting the Overland Trail at Starbucks
Emerging Westward Destiny: Whiteman's Fly, the 100-Mile Migration Indicator
Astoria and Sleepy Hollow, Indian Giving, Roots Along the Big Muddy
With the Right Pass, All the West is a Stage
Presidential Politics and Shifting Perspectives in the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas
Napoleon's Guest Ranch, The First Bush, Jed & Joe
The Fish-Eating Messiah and the Ghost Dancing Horse
Never the Twain Shall Meet: Branching Out from the Main Trails West
Near Fatal Curiosity, Camping Angels and Penniless Wanderings
McCoy’s Model-A-Ford-Rope-Tow, Fools and Compassionate Conservationists
The Confluence of Eves Dropping, Geo-caching, and Zip Coding in the Volcano
Retracing Jedediah Smith’s Trail: Bishop, the Mojave Desert and Laughlin
Grand Canyon Expeditions, Life Zones, Tribes, and the Watch Tower
“My God, Why Would Anyone Live Out Here?”
Grant, Sherman, Kit Carson and the Navajo Peach Tree Incident
Four Corners, Seven Directions, But One Wakan Tanka
Journeys of the Heart, Mesa Verde Collapse and New Mexico Expeditions
Purgatory, The River of Lost Souls, and the Stony Point Trail
Colorado’s Mother Lode: 17 Resort Communities to Fit Lifestyle Profiles
Uncle Billy, the Earl of Dunraven, Pearl Street & Emaciated Mountain Goats
Trading the Great Lakes for a Mile-High Lifestyle the Utes Left
Green River Geo-Rendezvous, Sabbaticals, Bridgers and Dinosaurs
Hurtling Through the Universe with the Wild Bunch and the Buffalo Soldiers
Awe-Inspiring: Stirring the Imagination and Kindling the Mind
Vegas Reflections on the New American Dream
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
Greendale’s Double Nickel Rendezvous
What’s It All About? Two Bits for an Adventure on the Way to Greendale
The Big Blue Marble Going Up in Smoke While We Eye-Ball a Milky Way
Migration Road Trips: 40,000 Year Old Footprints in Mexican Volcano Ash
Sedona to Manhattan, Same 30,000 Year Old Play Performed in Local Costumes
A Path of Original Experience: Where Only Fools and Heroes Dare to Tread
Predictable Crises and Awakenings for Idealists, Reactives, Heroes and Artists
Unraveling All in the Family: Boomers, Their Parents, Gens X, Y & Z
Boomer Transcendentalists: Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith and John Fremont
Making Census out of Generational Breakdowns and Psychographics
Will Boomer Nest Eggs Survive the Economy’s Big Bang Crack Up?
Is there a Major Dent In Your 5-Year Plan?
Boomer Prosumers, Revolutionary Wealth and a Flat Earth
Surfing the Third Wave: Wildest, Fastest Ride into the Future
Dealing with Disruptive Wildcards from the Outer Circles
Follow Your Dreams, But Plan for Climate, Lifestyle and Growth Changes
Time for Doing What We Love, Where We Want, While Leaving a Legacy
The Adventure Always Starts from Within
Future-Proof What You Love, Strike It Rich and Mine the Mother Lode
Staking Your Claim: Four Corners for Thinking Inside the Box
Affluently Elite Neighborhood Secrets: What Do They Know, That I Don’t?
“I Used To Be Somebody, Damn It!” -- Trapped and Permanently Temporary
Rustic Eagles: Country Comfortable and Rocky Mountain High
Landed Gentry: Wired to Live, Love, Work and Play Anywhere You Want
Finding Your Best Fit: Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Choices
Moving to Wireless Premier, Maturing, Suburban or Exurban Resorts
Vacation Lifestyles in Pristine Communities
Interim Managers Starting Over with Trapped Urban Cutters
Live, Love, Work and Play in Four Wealthy Dream Communities
Finding and Investing in Your Own Greendale
“X Marks the Spot” -- Panning Knowledge Nuggets in Multiple Income Streams
Banking Your Hidden Knowledge Assets in a Brain-Based Economy
Birds-Of-A-Feather Cultures: Choosing Organizations by the Talent They Keep
Talented Tribes: Speed to Disrupt and Emerge, Mastery to Sustain and Embed
Agents: Breakpoint Inventors, Innovators, Thought Leaders and R&D Lab Rats
Marketing Athletes, Resilient Teams, Core Groups and Operationally Excellents
Change Agents, Tiger Teams, Analytical Specialists and Loyal Survivalists
University R&D, Professionals, Academic Institutions and Brand-as-Experts
16 Ways to Increase Your Career Equity and Marketability
Encountering Support or Resistance to Your 100-Day Initiatives
Circling the Borders for the Path of Least Resistance
Talented Crisis Management: Leadership, Autonomy, Control, and Red Tape
Start-up Tribes: Breakpoint Inventors and Commercial Innovators
Leadership Crisis: Bonking into the Closed Garage Door
It Takes Resilient Athletes To Turn the Corner on High Growth
No More Head Banging: Tightening Operations Opens the Garage Door
Looking Into the Eye of the Tiger or Bonking at the Border
Loosen to Groom More Chiefs As a Bridge Over Autonomous Waters
Associates Multiply and Agents Leave Divisions for Redder Pastures
The Matrix: Tightening and Controlling Complexity with Expert Systems
Injecting Disruptive Reds: The Art of Skipping Tracks to the Inner Circle
Avoiding Red Tape Decline for Crash-Test Dummies
Reinvention Chef: Mixing the Right Talent Ingredients in Recipe for Growth
Internal Change Agents: Not Too Tan, Not Too Red to Reinvent on a Flat Earth
Every Organization Has a Stage, Pick the Right Cast for the Next Act
Customize Before You’re Commoditized: Premium, Differentiated and Relevant
Wild West Tales and Products More Valuable Than Commodities Extracted
Stepping Stones for Rebuilding Mountains Out of Flat Earth Mole Hills
Ultimate in Personalization: Staged Experiences to Transform Customers
Custom Reinvention Process: Develop, Link, Modularize and Renew
Customer Suspense: Untouchable Interplay Between Mystery and Nostalgia
Reinventing Customer Service: Explore, Experiment, Gratify and Discover
Winging It: Improvising the Reinvention of Customer Experience
Value Creation: Something New, Done, Improved or Applied
The Intangibles of Service Staged as Memorable Experiences
Masters of the Youniverse: Who Do You Need to Become?
Engaging the Four “E’s” of Experience Engineering
Experiencing the Round Worlds of Today, Yesterday and Tomorrow
Opening Gates to New Ideas, Technologies and Best Practices for Prosperity
Rediscover Your Drive Running Into the Sun
Mining Your Silver Lining on Google’s Earth
Internet Logging Tools for Thinning the Forest to See the Trees
Make a Spectacle of Yourself: Gather Inside Intelligence to Follow Your Nose
What’s In Your Quiver? Targeting the Inner Circle with the Right Arrows
Building a Web of Relationships One Strand at a Time
What’s the Sound of Two Hands Clasping?
The UnInterview: Presenting Business Intelligence to a Receptive Executive
Making it Easy to Buy Your Brilliant Ideas
Negotiating a Soft Close Takes a Village
Creating a Position: the Most Rewarding but Hardest to Buy
CNN with Your Six Thumbs Agenda
Jargon Translations: the Last Thumb Filtering for Fit
Finding the Right Combination for an Authentic SPIN
New Lenses for 2020 Vision: Insights Turning Hindsight into Foresight
Which Direction Will Your Life Take?
“It’s Been a Long Road Behind Me, and It’s a Long Road Ahead”
Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
toc123
8:28 AM
Monday, July 21, 2003
The Ridge Summary
Chapter Two
By Steve Howard, CKO
The Knowledge Labs
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Basecamp
Chapter Two: The Ridge
Chapter Three: The Outpost
Chapter Four: The Tribal Territories
Chapter Two: The Ridge Foresight Journals
As you gaze out over the landscape far below you gain a new appreciation for all of the dynamically changing forces. Looking out on a time horizon is no different. Between now and the year 2020 the terrain, threats and opportunities will mix in much the same way as these storm fronts intermix with highs and low pressure zones. While there are no guarantees, we can anticipate several ways our future story may unfold. We can select signposts, signals, or indicators which, when monitored, foretell which contingency plan to activate.
Threats are external conditions, people, and forces that appear to act against our intentions and aspirations. They hinder our progress along our journey and may force us to back track over past trails. They may be real or imagined and they typically emerge and dissolve over time. Threats remain threatening as long as we ignore their presence, have not anticipated how to handle them, or lack the will to confront them. And, threats, like opportunities, can be discovered during environmental scans of technology, political, economic, and social trends.
If you try to track all the macro forces – political, technical, social, and economic trends – you fall victim to “analysis paralysis.” By the time you come to a conclusion the window of opportunity has already shut or the threat has nailed you between the eyes. What we really need to discover is what are the growing, brand new forces? Which of the current forces are loosing their steam? Which trends have peaked and are reversing themselves? What are the "wildcards" about to disrupt us. In an 8-step process of strategic exploration, instead of looking in from the macro sea of changing trends to your decision, we start on the inside and work out.
We all enter a crossroads in our lives, each from our own, unique life experience. Even those in the same life stage come to seek a different set of options depending upon their current situation. Our goal is to better understand the dynamics shaping our future. The shift in perspective opens our awareness to the hidden long-term forces shaping today and tomorrow. The variable, wildcard forces likely to have a major impact on our decision get ranked, or sorted into clusters. We’re after four logically plausible, yet qualitatively different screenplays of the future.
One learning expedition chose “Do What You Love, And the Money Will Follow.” They didn’t want to wait too terribly long before the cash began to flow. So, they applied their scriptwriting skills to these four future storylines: “Staying Put, Doing What You Love;” “It’s Wired, Doing What You Want – Anywhere, Anytime;” “Struggling Lone Eagle, Overpriced for Local Market;” and “Trapped & Permanently Temporary.”
Major disruptions in our lives force us to change our normal habits. We know from “change experts,” that we respond in one of two ways. The so-called valley of despair -- the death and dying model of shock, bargaining, denial, anger, depression, and acceptance. Through selective filtering we miss the clues that suggest just how close we’ve come to the edge of the cliff. The second is a process of anticipation. The first drains all of your energy. The second feels more like an adventure.
While largely a creative writing project, you can rely on typical plot structures as catalysts for developing story lines. The story plots revolve around the actions of, not individual people, but of larger organizations and communities. We almost always work in three: Zero-sum game of winners and losers; Adventure stories of challenge and response; and Growth and decline through evolutionary change. Usually we throw in cycles and infinite possibilities. In the latter, the accelerating growth leads us to higher and higher plateaus. Booms lead to bubbles and then cycles exert themselves – usually in politics and in the stock market.
The “Trapped and Temporarily Permanent” boomers forced to work without much of a pension or retirement savings of their own, find themselves over qualified, over specialized, and discriminated against in a vicious economic spiral. Social Security, Medicare and private pensions -- which had been included in calculations of the Bob Hope generation's wealth will not transfer to their boomer adult children.
In the“Staying Put, Doing What You Love Scenario,” baby boomers only have a passing interest in the Internet. It remains generational and gender driven. The smaller 30-something generation spends the more time on it in chat groups and game playing. The Internet doesn't seriously replace other forms of entertainment, communications, and financial services in a broad, mass market way. Because, this story takes place in a geographical region capable of supporting boomers, and anyone else, as they answer their calling with non-conformist career changes and lifestyles, boomers feel little pressure to move according to somebody else’s schedule.
Unlike the first two, this one -- “Struggling Lone Eagle, Overpriced for Local Market” -- introduces the mobility theme. While the motivation may be similar to Trapped and Permanently Temporary – a layoff or some other event -- a mid-life baby boomer, or anyone else for that matter, leaves the region for a less expensive and more self-sufficient lifestyle. They blend environmental restoration, community building, whole systems thinking, and medical self-care with backyard biodiversity, electronic mail, eco-tourism, and green investing.
The underlying force in “It’s Wired, Doing What You Want – Anywhere, Anytime,” is fueled by impact of the global information economy. Specifically, how it primarily transforms industries into knowledge networks. The network is the computer. Organizations undergo reengineering and restructuring to continuously leapfrog the competition. Collaborative tools and networks bring together project teams of experts from around the globe on behalf of an enterprise. With the ability to operate anywhere there is a" wired" infrastructure, the boomers begin their move to smaller towns and rural regions, the penturbia migration.
Even the big, solid companies, the pillars of the society we live in, seem to hold out for not much longer than an average of 40 years. In this new era, that means we must involve more ideas and more ideas at all levels in strategy, innovation and value creation. Addressing the future of organizations at a cross-roads, an HR learning expedition spin four Talent Scenarios: “Agent: Me go-go Fast Scenario;” “Athlete: Running Together Scenario;” “Associate: Welcome Back Kotter / Learning Together Scenario;” and “Academic: Absent Minded Professor / Out to Sea and Treading Water Scenario”
The HR expedition played a card game that led them implication-by-implication to organizational life phases, issues of fit, talent portfolios, disruptive innovation, emerging knowledge, sustained excellence, transitional stages, embodied knowledge, business cycles, intangible assets and internal brands.
They realized that they uncovered a two-way interaction. They had been used to a training paradigm – in which an instructor conducts a class and imparts knowledge. The just-in-time requirements of an Agent and an Athlete frightened them initially, until they came to realize online tools, templates, and reference materials could significantly increase learning retention. The story opened the way for a training perspective to be turned into a learning and knowledge paradigm.
Extreme Agents -- the AGENT-Agents paradoxy-morons -- look at a well-established, mature approach from an offbeat perspective. And what they notice is how limited the traditional way solves the really complex problems. They don’t identify with the keepers of the tradition -- Associates on the one hand, and Academics on the other hand. Both of those groups gravitate to different versions of the Ninety Percent Solution clubs. The amount of time it takes Agents to move an idea from a .1% idea to a 1% prototype, and finally to a 10% niche in the marketplace (Innovation), is roughly the same amount of time it takes for that niche to accelerate up the curvilinear curve of market acceptance through 50% to 90% (Growth).
Agents and Athletes compliment each other bridging the challenges of survival, stabilization and rapid growth. Athletes, then figure out the formula for taking a prototype and turning it into a product on a repeatable basis. The emerging knowledge Athletes produce by building on the formula reduces the random experimenting required. Athletic organizations in early to growth stages can?t afford to staff up with more bodies. They contract with experts to eliminate the extra financial burden of benefits, but Athletes guard their organization?s core competencies while quickly managing increasing degrees of complexity.
During the hyper-growth period, extreme Associates come on board to fill in as expansion opens large cracks in the operations. Associates help Athletes build the organization as a brand, rather than the first product as the brand. As the organization grows, it becomes more complex. Functional structures evolve into looser divisional structures. Divisions tighten into matrix organizations which loosen into network organizations. Associates, through their loyalty, maintain the organization’s reputation. Through their behaviors they develop a trust mark that keeps bringing long term customers back again and again.
The Athlete’s emerging knowledge has become classified, categorized, tested and benchmarked - or embodied in an Academic’s system solution . Whereas the product leader value proposition is the best product, and the operational excellence proposition is the best total cost, the customer intimate proposition is the best total solution. the embodied knowledge becomes proprietary to the client. The customer intimate value proposition provides a learning laboratory for the Academics -- which is why they practically invented knowledge management. Because, they don’t have anything tangible to sell like a product.
The last two steps are to rehearse the future by playing out the original decision across each of the scenarios, and then to select relevant signposts or indicators to monitor. Those on the HR Executive team in mature organizations, responsible for thousands of employees and millions of dollars in budgets, examined their current talent capabilities. They questioned how long it takes to develop their talent pool to make up any gaps, and in worsening business cycles, how many of their surplus talent could they afford to let go? The critical challenge to HR executives is to find a new set of organizational initiatives that will become the basis for managing the next period of evolutionary growth.
Over the lifespan of an organization --the Start-up, Growth, Maturity, Decline, and Reinvention stages -- each phase is both an effect of the previous phase and a cause for the next phase. To move ahead companies must consciously introduce planned structures that are 180 degrees different than what worked in the recent past. Each stage evolves through a mostly incremental growth phase with only minor periods of upheaval, only to end with a chaotic period of turmoil. Every organization needs to master fundamentally two sets of competencies -- innovation and efficiency.
Taken together, the 8 scenarios (4 Lifework and 4 Worklife) help us figure out which organizations make the most sense for us to target as a potential employer, customer or client. We can figure out which might be the best fit for our current stage in our own lifespan. And by knowing the unique challenges to the potential organization based upon its state in its lifespan, we can propose several ways that we can contribute to the best of our abilities. AGENT-Agents, AGENT-Athletes, and ATHLETE-Agents team to bridge the leadership crisis from start-up to hyper-growth.
At the end of the start-up phase founders hate to step aside during this turning point, even though they don’t have the temperament to be managers. The early growth phase is about tightening and efficiency in the evolutionary part of the lifecycle. We see the addition of extreme ATHLETES, the so-called ATHLETE-Athletes. They form resilient project teams to accelerate new business formation. Initially, they convert their learning from experience -- the emerging knowledge about each new product -- into repeatable processes and a practical business formula. They become the experts at rapid product introduction. They form the foundation for stability. As the hiring ramp-up comes the focus shifts slightly to ASSOCIATE-Athletes.
In the late growth and early maturity stage,having weathered the challenges of rapid growth, the organization plateaus with significant advantages: size, financial resources, well-developed systems, and an experienced, competent staff. This is the time for two talent clusters to shine, both Associates. The first, the extreme Associate -- the ASSOCIATE-Associate -- takes on the responsibility for sustaining growth and innovation so the organization can survive. Extreme associates are particularly suited to build a culture based upon trust. Reputation matches external brand and is maintained through community-based values and informal knowledge sharing processes. ASSOCIATE-Academics provide analytical specialties, develop proprietary best practices and access external benchmark research.
A shifting environment refers to the expansion and contraction phases of the economic cycle. All you have to do is to figure out if the organization’s industry is currently in a divergent (loosening) or convergent (tightening) period, and then plan for the next cycle. In a period of industry divergence expect the turning point to be about efficiency -- cuts in total resource costs, optimization, productivity, and an improved competitive position. Efficiency turning points translate into consolidation, centralization, contraction, and tightening organization structures. When an organization survives the turning point ending the late growth and early maturity phase, it turns to the efficiency solution. The predominantly ACADEMIC-Associates and ACADEMIC-Academics -- the extreme Academic cluster -- take center stage.
The evolutionary and then revolutionary periods in the late maturity and declining organization: An overextension of COORDINATION triggers a RED TAPE nightmare that demands COLLABORATION for growth in the next stage. In that phase, if the organization doesn’t make it through the red-tape turning point it may go out of business. People in the system can’t see the changes that are happening in their environment this is so insidious that frequently the data that they ignore have to do with factors that could literally drive them out of business. These are the specialists who rely on data and analytical thinking. The AGENT-Academics pursue their own research and development as a think tank based upon original theories and multiple disciplines. To achieve growth the organization returns to loose control, COLLABORATION, and an evolved matrix to a network structure.
Options open to a maturing organization trending rapidly toward decline are: Old Game, New Game, Turning Point, and Breakpoint Strategies. Each addresses 5 change scenarios: No change, continuous change, sporadic change, discontinuous change, and collapse. Breakpoint strategies succeed or fail the last two scenarios -- discontinuous change and collapse. In the Old Game Strategy, an organization’s response to a major threat is to resist, so they don’t initiate any internal changes. They’ll be successful depending upon their ability to contain the change forces -- a disruptive innovation, technology, business model, or industry breakpoint.
Any organization that plans to survive longer than a decade in today’s environment will have to master most of them at one time or another. They’ll have to initiate old game, new game, turning point strategies, and breakpoint strategies. If they don’t they will succumb to a fatal breakpoint and collapse. The four options for leaders to mobilize their employees are resistance, revitalization, renewal or restructuring practicing four leadership styles: Committee, Cultural, Collaboration, and Commander.Leadership by committee is needed for old game strategies, because of the high degree of resistance. With a closed attitude towards change prevalent in the organization, the committee executives have to sell their decisions to the rest of the organization and then implement them in their respective business areas.
Revitalization is appropriate when resistance that is open to change must be adapted to a strong and growing change force. Under these conditions, lowering the resistance usually stimulates the change forces. By converting status quo advocates into change agents that results in a stronger force of change. The pace of change is slow, but continuous and all encompassing. The company's internal organization is mainly involved. The cultural style involves the delegation of both decision-making and implementation to frontline executives. The strengths of the cultural approach are also- it's weakness.
The Collaborative Leader capitalizes on both weaker resistance and weaker external industry change forces. Sporadic changes show up from time to time, but they’re only contained to parts of the organization. Renewal takes advantage of periodic of stepwise change. For renewal, using a collaborative leadership style, the chief executive and his team share ideas and facilitate decision making throughout the organization. Their subordinates are typically able and open to change but unwilling or insecure. The forces of change are weak, so it is not clear in which direction the company should change.
Breakpoint strategies respond to discontinuous change. A dramatic restructuring of strategies, structures, and systems can be implemented rather quickly within a few months because it does not attempt to change behavior and skills, nor the organizational learning process. Organizational restructuring via acquisition, divestment, reorganization, downsizing, and so on is a common way of trying to respond to an external breakpoint. The rapid, decisive style of the commander is needed to implement restructuring.
Reinvention is the most difficult period in an organization’s lifespan, assuming that the company didn’t fall victim to infant mortality – unable to bridge the breakpoint between start-up and hyper-growth stages. Unlike restructuring, realignment succeeds when companies have learned from their experience. Sustained excellence requires nothing less than the capability to create breakpoints developed by mastering strategic options aligned to internal innovation or efficiency paths and external stakeholder relationships.
Frequently the resources and competence needed to journey to the other side of a breakpoint gap cannot be developed in-house, especially under time pressure. The resource commitment may also be too large or risky for one company alone. Cultivating external relationships provide both missing capabilities as well as development opportunities for managers. The best way for selecting the right alliance is to complement the internal change processes – incremental or fundamental innovation and cost reduction or business process initiatives.
The future belongs to companies that can create competitive breakpoints by drawing on the talent and commitment of their people. They need to have 4 unique talent blends in place to master the internal innovation and cost reduction initiatives, while at the same time to cultivate the external partnerships necessary to fill competence gaps – ASSOCIATE-Agents, ATHLETE-Academics, AGENT-Associates, and the ACADEMIC-Athletes. It takes a special knowledge creation function – an information and intelligence capability to gather and evaluate the information for sensing the forces of change. The on-going fundamental innovation process is enabled by monitoring and scanning systems to trigger new thinking. The knowledge system has to be capable of supporting the scenario building process.
Got Knowledge?
Copyright ©2002 - 2006 Aarnaes Howard Associates. All rights reserved worldwide.
7:14 AM
|
|
| |
|
|
|
