Review of 2010 and commitments for 2011 (part 1)

By Johannes Joergensen | Published: 28/12/2010

The Christmas Holidays is an excellent time for reviewing and reflecting. #In this post, I will make a review of 2010

When I look back at 2010 a lot of things comes to mind. I have been fortunate to meet and work with some very inspirational people, I have worked on some very challenging and innovative projects and had a great deal of fun.

Let’s have a look at my 2010 keywords and see how it measures up.

The first keyword “value” was a highly aspirational goal, and something I have been really focusing on this year.
One indicator that I did something right though is that the customers we have been working for at Wemind have expressed a higher level of satisfaction than previous years. The result has been that a number of clients have returned with additional work, as well new interesting clients coming in based on the goodwill built up.
A key learning point is to ask more direct questions in the early phase of an opportunity to expose the potential (or lack thereof). This is highly important in order to save time and energy for the valuable opportunities.

The second keyword “clairvoyance” has been quite successful – although not in the traditional meaning of the word. But I have definitely been better at eliminating distractions and have set aside time for structured reflection, which I feel has been of great benefit.

Third keyword: Well being….ouch. I am not quite satisfied with the level of physical exercise this year and see this as a major improvement area for 2011. This one is key to enabling everything else I do.

Fourth keyword: Polyphony.
I have been involved in many interesting things in 2010. Apart from Wemind and my teaching at CBS, there have been many cool side-projects.
In the spring, I launched Lokalevarer.dk, a site for local farmers and producers in Denmark. It introduced me to new networks and new shops are being registered on the site on and ongoing basis.
Another culinary initiative, Spicyfactory was launched together with my wife during the summer and has been quite busy in q3 and q4.
Finally, I have been involved in a new community project soon to be launched (more about this later)
It was also a great year for my music project “Polyfon” with a number of great live jobs and a lot of new material produced – not to forget the addition of our new bass player, Morten Barnekov.

It all ads up, however. A brief calculation shows that I would need around 100 hours a week to do everything in an outstanding fashion, which leaves almost nothing to flex. So “focus” needs to be on the list for new the new year. More about this in part II.

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Privat sphere ahead of corporate sphere

By Johannes Joergensen | Published: 14/12/2010

Yesterday, I my friend @andersfind provided a very insightful observation. “For the first time #in history” he said, “the private sphere is ahead of the corporate one in terms of technology adoption”. “We use a thousand apps and communication tools for leisure, while struggling with our inbox at work”. Great stuff, Anders!

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Social change – lecture at Copenhagen Business School

By Johannes Joergensen | Published: 10/11/2010

I recently did a lecture on Social Change at Copenhagen Business School (video #in Danish). Below is a short summary of the lecture

1) Existing models of change management are outdated and have proven inefficient:

  • The top-down transformational model is based on erroneous assumptions – that the executive management team has full information about the external environment, are able to define efficient strategies and persuade internal stakeholders to accept and implement changes through communication of benefits and retention of change issues though planned implementation programs. Reality shows that this model fails its objectives, resulting in time plan delays, overrun budgets and internal and external badwill.
  • The organizational development model has failed to effeciently involve employees and external stakeholders – a lot of empty team building exeercises without creating long lasting value to organizations

2) Snowdens’s contribution to understanding the relationship between environments and strategy

  • Complex environments require complex models of strategic change
  • In a complex world, the “right” answers cannot be found by expert analysis and decision making
  • What is need is efficient involvement tactics, to ensure a collaborative pattern of the now, the challenges and the required initiatives

3) Social change

  • Social change is based on optimizing networks and utilizing collective intelligence
  • Change is not a linear process, but a circular proces based on ongoing improvement
  • The role of the management team is to facilitate efficient involvement, rather than defining objectives and ends
  • The entire organization is involved through social media

4) Phases

  • Phase 1 – Probe: Stakeholders are involved in assessing the current state and defining the most important challenges
  • Phase 2 – Sense: Stakeholders are involved in defining the most relevant initiatives
  • Phase 3 – Respond: Stakeholders are engaged to define and act to ensure the implementation of defined initiatives
  • The three phases are repeated on a regular basis to define and implement necessary changes and improvements

5) Modes of engagement

  • Crowdsourcing
  • Networking
  • Sharing
  • Collaborative sensemaking
  • Engagement of individuals
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How good is your organization at stimulating networking and involvement?

By Johannes Joergensen | Published: 13/09/2010

I his legendary article, “Organizational design, fashion or fit?”, Henry Mintzberg described the interaction between the external environments and organizational structure – and how organizations must adapt their structure to handle environmental pressure.

As explained by Dave Snowden, an increasing number of industries are facing complex and dynamic environments, which according to Mintzberg would drive organizations towards adhocratic structures with a high degree of decentralization and coordination based on mutual adjustment.
Mintzberg and Snowden – coming from very different backgrounds – seem to have reached the same conclusion. When enviroments turn complex and dynamic, organizations need to respond by reflecting this complexity and dynamism in their structure.
However, many organizations seem to retain hierarchical and bureaucratical structures,  based on the need for economies of scale and managable spans of control

Networking and involvement are powerful tools by which organizations can benefit from the strengths of adhocracy – while at the same time retaining the formal structure required.
How good is your organization at stimulating networking and involvement?

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#Social Media Update @ Soho Copenhagen – Part 2

By Johannes Joergensen | Published: 23/06/2010

Here comes part 2 of the report from the Social Media event last week at Soho, Copenhagen. Illustrations can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/boetter#p/a/u/0/ntqhKQuJNcU

Employee driven content strategy: Jakob Wickmann, Chief Strategist at DR Media

Jakob described his experiences of a “employee driven” content strategy process at DR. He stressed 5 critical success factors for open innovation:

  • A real need for ideas: If there is already plenty of ideas, it the exercise should perhaps be directed towards evaluating ideas, rather than creating new ones
  • Simplicity: the process needs to be simple and transparent
  • Community management: the process should be open, but leadership is required to set expectations, create engagement and sustain momentum
  • High visibility: management attention and communication is critical to generate awareness and incentive to contribute
  • Follow-up and feedback: it is critical to provide feedback on the continued decision and selection process

Online brand conversations – Kim Møller Elshøj, CEO Scuttlebutt

Kim provideded an interesting case story of a mayor Liquer brand and the reorientation of its brand strategy after a deep analysis of online brand conversations. The analysis gave a strong indication that brand perception was very different from the companies self perception of the brand, and that there were a hidden potential which could be unleashed by internalising these conversation into the brand universe.

Open Service 2.0 – Peter Larsen, CEO Larsen Data

Peter explained how Larsen Data manages more than 50.000 customers and 100.000 products with only three employees, among other things through a userdriven support forum, where users can find frequently asked questions and help each other through a help wiki.

Nordea M-book and Nordea Alumni Forum – Martin Bergholz, Head of Communication, Nordea Markets

Martin presented the Nordea M-book and Nordea Alumni Forum – two social media platforms developed to support networking and sharing of knowledge in the bank. He stressed the role of management as critical to success of networking platforms – as well as the need for ongoing community management.

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#Social Media Update @ Soho Copenhagen – Part 1

By Johannes Joergensen | Published: 18/06/2010

It’s been an early morning – hosted a 7:00 Social Media Update at Soho Copenhagen with 70 high ranking participants from a broad selection of Danish companies and public sector organizations. Below is a short summary (part 1 of 2)

Lars Kolind, Chairman of Unimerco, Wemind, and KeepFocus @kolind

Lars introduced by emphasizing the enourmous socio-economic changes that organizations are facing, and the need for a shift from traditional management disciplines (the boss), to a new leadership paradigm that needs to be applied to efficiently navigate in the new world disorder (the un-boss)

Jacob Boetter, Managing Partner of Wemind @boetter

Jacob followed up with a short version of his “Einstein to Wikipedia” presentation, explaining social capital – and the opportunities and challenges it means for organizations.

Anne Hodal, Wemind  @annehodal

Introduced Sociability Factor – Weminds new Social Network Analysis tool

Kasper Laursen, Head of Section, Finance Division, TDC

Kasper described the challenges of improving collaboration and sharing of knowledge among a team of financial analysts, and how the Social Network Analysis tool Sociability Factor had helped gathering attention and momentum around these issues in his department

Helle Busck, CEO, Arnold Busck

Helle explained how blogging has helped her keeping in touch with employees across locations and organizational divisions, and how she has facilitated an employee driven development process towards the “bookshop of the future”.

Stephan Sander, Project Manager, Danish Road Safety Council

Stephan elaborated on the transformation from a traditional public information agency, towards a facilitator of mindshift and co-created advocacy among citizens. Stephan mentioned three social media campaigns – two campaigns aimed at reducing drunk driving by encouraging facebook users to have the courage to ask questions and plan ahead – and and a campaign aimed at increasing awareness of road safety among youg scooter drivers (http://www.scootertv.dk/).

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A layer cake – real life social capital :)

By Johannes Joergensen | Published: 14/06/2010

The “kick” of the today: We went live with a new facebook app for the Danish Council of Road Safety during the weekend – and received the ultimate proof of appreciation – a wonderful cake from La Glace, Copenhagens finest cake shop. Thanks to Mikkel, Martin, Johan, Stephan, Michelle and Pernille for an exciting project!

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Personal strategies in the age of complexity

By Johannes Joergensen | Published: 12/06/2010

Snowden describes the age of complexity and how we need to let go of old management paradigms and use strategies such as crowdsourcing for decision making in a complex world.

And it surely feels like this complexity is actually escalating. Institutions are being torn apart, people around the globe refusing to obey authority, and bloggers are “debunking” official news stories, revealing the corrupt nature of major media corporations.


(illustration: http://www.bittbox.com/illustrator/complex-circular-design-techniques)

So we can all agree that things are complex and unpredictable – but what does it all mean at a personal level? I believe it means doing what you are truly passionate about and investing your time and money in things of unique value. Only with a lot of passion, you can overcome the challenges of a complex and unpredictable world. And only by investing your time in things that really improve human life – new value can be created.

It sounds very plain and common sense – but how many people do you know, who are really doing this?

What are you passionate about, and what unique value does it create?

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#Networking 101 – Eating lunch at a different table

By johjoergensen | Published: 26/04/2010

Working in the public sector in Denmark right now means budget cuts and layoffs. My mother works as a music and arts teacher in a primary school, and as her educational background a bit unorthodox, (she is a Heilpädagogin educated in Germany, and education not fully recognized in Denmark) she is first in line during times of downsizing. With only 4 years left until her retirement, she was really worried about her prospects. Based on my experience, I did a brief coaching session with her, including questions such as “what are you truly passionate about”? and “why would an employer benefit from employing you, rather than someone 20 years younger”.

The question that got her over the tipping point however was “who in your immediate or secondary network has access to potential employers”. For years, she has been eating lunch with the same 3 people at work – but the aforementioned question, made her eat lunch at a different table. Eating lunch with the colleagues that she did not usually socialize with, she got a lead about a vacant position in a school nearby, and one week later, she got the job! Congrats, Mom!

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Is HR #Shared #Services a good thing?

By johjoergensen | Published: 21/04/2010

I am currently tutoring a master thesis on HR Shared Services based on a case story from the public sector. The implementation has had a lot of challenges, including communication problems between the SLA owners and the Shared Services Center, stressed out business partners and duplicate HR administration growing in the corners.

Why is it, that this story keeps on coming up? From a change management perspective, there is a clear pattern that can be recognised:

1) Top-down implementation of a predesigned concept: While the basic idea behind HR shared services – to make admin more efficient and to free up resources for strategic development – is a noble one, it is a dangerous strategy to copy-paste solutions from one scenario to another. Doing exposes the organization to a number of risks, and makes the employees passive audiences of the change, rather than engaged self-developers.

2) Middle- and lower management are the big losers in many shared services implementation. First, they lose their local administrative staff. Second, they are overloaded with additional tasks through the introduction management self service. Third, they are stuck in inflexible SLAs handled by remote telephone operators with little understanding of the business

3) The HR business partners are, in many cases, unable to embrace their new role as strategic development partners of the business. One reason is probably insufficiencies around self perception, understanding and competencies, as recently concluded in a Economist article on the subject. Another is that the persistent narrative around support functions is centred on exactly that – support and not development. A third may be that the administrative tasks provide a hidden value. As expressed in this interesting blog post, the administrative tasks are the ones that provide insight into the needs of the organization and builds trust to the business.

So is HR Shared Services a good thing? The key to successfully transform HR may be to add a dimension to the transactional / transformational dialectic. This dialectic is part of the problem, as it downgrades transactional to something that can ultimately be done by a robot – when in reality the transactional holds the key to gaining insight and trust. The new dimension is simply “relational” – ie. how can we build and sustain value creating trust and relationships locally and virtually? If approached with the relational mindset, much more emphasis would be put on developing people and relationships ahead of the restructuring phase, ensuring self confident, well-connected, proactive HR partners and better co-operation between local units and the shared functions. Lets bring back the “Human” and “Relational” in HR!

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