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Mission Statements: The Challenge you create
“Actions speak louder than words.”
~ An old adage but oft quoted.
“Talk is cheap”.
~A less elegant but synonymous in message if not in tone.
What is a mission statement? Is it not a simple and elegant statement of an entity’s purpose, goals and philosophies? A mission statement can create a driving force, an organizational animus if you will, that gives focus to said organization as a whole. Mission Statements let not only your consumer base, but your stakeholders and partners know what you as an organizational entity stand for and hope to achieve. The big question now is, are you done defining yourself as an entity once you define your mission statement, or are you only beginning an organizational (R)Evolution?
After reading about Intel’s new “Mind Reading” technology I started to wonder about what could be interpreted about a company’s thought processes and action plans by looking at the different departments and processes in which decisions are being made. This is hardly a new thought, but what if approached from a different perspective? What if you put a high emphasis upon designing your internal processes to intrinsically reflect your mission statement? How much would your internal organizational model have to shift to meet your mission statement?
A better question, why doesn’t your current organizational model already reflect your mission statement?
A classic exemplar of this is modern public education. Most school districts include some variation of the theme “Educating one child at a time.” A lofty and important goal for education, but do their processes support this goal? High classroom populations, Overloaded curriculums, underfunded programs. By no means do I mean to demonize the educators, they have been given an impossible task, essentially educating students with a “personal education” philosophy with a “mass production” organizational model. The proof is in the pudding, how well is the “No child left behind” program really working in the United States?
I use education as an example because I am familiar with it, but the truth is there are companies out there who have stopped their work at the statement level instead of realizing that by creating a mission statement you have given yourself a challenge, to live up to that statement. Can you go through the internal “soul searching” and work necessary to live up to your own expectations?
If your organization values innovation, take a look at the process by which it is invited and fostered. Is there a lot of vertical support? Is there value placed upon individual contributions? Is there a fostered sense of community so that open conversations can happen between people of different backgrounds?
It all comes down to, is your mission statement really an end or a catalyst for your organization?
Here’s a great TED talk by Simon Sinek that helped me come to this idea,. The idea that inspiration and greatness can be achieved through a clarity of mission, of personal buy in to that mission. The idea that a Mission Statement shouldn’t be an End, but a Beginning…
~What do you think?
Google’s Next Big Thing
Chas Cooper posted an interesting thought experiment on his Blog
Like so many tech companies before them, Google now faces its greatest challenge yet: Finding the “next big thing.”
What is the next big thing for Google?
This is of course the big challenge for any organization, but for a company like Google who’s prime selling point is its momentum based upon innovation, it is crucial. Google’s monstrous success is quickly becoming a curse. If Google were to plateau as far as innovation or expansion, it would definitely be seen by some analysts as a red flag towards Google’s potential revenue stream for the next 3 quarters at least.
I originally posted my thoughts on Cooper’s blog but brought it over here so my readers could let me know what they think.
Originally posted on April 25th, 2010
The project it seems would be to do what has so far been the impossible, the holy grail for media outlets throughout history. That is to find an avenue to create a profit stream through media that does not center around paid for advertisements. The challenges ahead:
1) Paid for services: the net population has grown used to free hosting/services. It is not conceivable that any product created by Google would create enough momentum, and enough of a following to create the “Next Big Thing” level of excitement and profit that they are chasing after. As well this would be a fundamental shift (and a step backwards) in philosophies as Google has been opening up source codes and resources to the public.
2) Hegemony: Google is slowly gaining more and more attention throughout the media as the next “Microsoft” as far as anti trust and becoming the next dominant force to be put at arms length. The more Google expands their domain under one title, the closer they come to feeling the negative effects that Microsoft has been feeling both in North America and Europe as of late.
(an interesting video that highlights my point as to perceptions that exists of Google out there)
Possible avenue of evolution: My best guess as far as a good avenue of pursuit for Google would be to create an net architecture for developers. As Apple and Google has done with their respective phone OS’s, google needs to do something akin to this on a much grander scale to truly evolve and find the “Next Big Thing”.
Imagine if Google begins a small venture capital firm that exists only online. They host a realm in where web developers have a place to list their websites, their apps etc online and are funded in part by Google. By doing this, Google could create a MASSIVE infrastructure of R&D, a legal barrier that create a veritable society of freelance companies to buffer against any notion of antitrust and open code so that now Google could make a “All-In-One” Architecture so that companies who wish to purchase a closed access suite that is filled with personally selected apps that can be tailored to the needs of the company, updated with the latest innovations, and all under the Google brand.
The reality is that the masses will always out innovate the minority, instead Google can bring their immense resources and sponsor the masses to not only work for them, but to support them and their brand by being a small partner, one individual at a time.
Are you prepared for the Experience Bubble to Burst?
LinkedIn has proven to be a great place for me to see new perspectives to all sorts of issues. An interesting dialog has occurred on the “City of Edmonton” LinkedIngroup. Started by Steven Davidson, he asked the following:
An Average of 700 people are retiring every day in Canada, with 500 new people joining the workforce. How are you planning to deal with this?
While the economy is in a downturn this is not felt so dramatically, but over the course of every year in Canada there are about 50,000 - 70,000 fewer workers than the year before. These numbers spell doom for businesses that have not prepared a strategy to deal with this. What is your company’s strategy? What do you think it should be?
The rest of this post is the discussion that has taken place. Please feel free to join the discussion either here or on LinkedIn. I’ve quoted directly from the site without any edits.
Scott Chambers:
Beyond the broad spectrum effects on the economy, What I am curious about are the strategies of businesses to not only replace the large number of Canadians leaving the workforce, but the breadth of their skill sets too. An interesting idea was brought up in “iBrain” by Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan. The idea that although the growing workforce is becoming more technologically adept, it can be at the same time at a sacrifice of face to face skills, i.e. social interactions. Not so much to the socially illiterate but just a bit stunted comparatively to their peers 20 years ago. This is just one of many skill sets that will be lost by the exodus of experienced workers. So how will companies not only face a downturn in their labour market, but also a possible fundamental shift in available skill sets as well?
Dave MacAngus:
Over the 26 years I have been delivering the Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Communications & Human Relations there has been a shift from developing leaders to succession planning. The work place is becoming a mentorship environment, the transfer of the knowledge gained from experience can never be fully realized from conversation, the lesson can. In order for this to work and work well the transfer requires a strong relationship and therefor the people skills become a conduit. Currently one of the companies we work with have identified 12 key individuals who will lead the company in the next 10 to 15 years. Social skills, the ability to interact with each other was close to the top of the list of development requirements. There are many opportunites to develop these skills aside from training programs, trade shows and association meetings offer great opportunities for this information transfer as well.
Scott Chambers:
…Dave, Can you go into detail regarding some companies’ processes for how they hope to foster these skills within the workplace?
Steven Davidson:
Awesome dialogue guys, and I can speak to that last question. More companies are offering ways for their team to mentor and present ideas. Sometimes the ideas are out of left field, and sometimes the mentorships need assistance, but the practice of each is sound. One of the people I had the opportunity to take Carnegie training with developed a series of internal programs for her company’s team to use the training in team building. They give the opportunity for the prospective person to present on an idea they feel passionately about relative to the work that they do. The last I heard it was received very well by the staff and the best part is that through that process they are developing new ways to keep their team engaged. It’s funny though, that while some companies are looking for these new ideas to retain talent, others are ignoring it because ‘technology will solve the issues’. This is of course not actually true in every case.
However, that actually brings out a good idea because there is a large component of the workforce that is not utilized due to lack of flexibility on the partof companies. Stay-at-home parents can now be utilized within their own schedules with virtual offices, VOIP phone systems, and other flexible work arrangements. As more and more companies feel the pinch, look for this segment of the workforce to grow.
Dave MacAngus:
The company has selected 12 people and has a set of competencies for senior management positions. After a conversation with each, including a vision from the now president, each candidate has a shared series of training/education programs mapped—different for each individual in most cases. The similarity is that the mentoring with senior staff who have spent years in the trenches starts immediately with social/people skills training to solidify the trust/respect aspect in the mentoring process. One other element that is hoped to be transferred is the core values & commitment required to achieve the vision. This is reviewed with each participant through a month meeting with the president.
end postings
That’s where the conversation is currently at. My question is now, what are other organizations doing to innovate and continue to develop their human resources, especially with the coming significant changes within employee demographic and skill sets?
In my blog reading I also found an interesting article on “Workplace Learning Today” Entitled
Harvard Business Review Launches Six Week Series on Leadership
by RICHARD NANTEL on APRIL 27, 2010
~What do you think?
Metadata Mining: Beyond Adwords
The reality of Meta-data mining is that it is coming. The question I am curious about is how is it (if at all) going to be regulated, watched and utilized. Thanks to Facebook’s latest announcements we have an excellent case study in development.
Facebook’s main lever to get all this data funneled to them is a simple “I Like” button, which websites can embed on their pages with very little effort. When a user clicks on that button, they signal to Facebook to add their vote on their user stream that they are a fan of this NFL player, this romantic comedy or that blog. Websites that embed some smart metadata (geared mostly for Facebook) into their pages let Facebook know what kind of thing a user likes, so Facebook can automatically add it to the relevant section of that person’s profile — with a link back to the original site
http://tiny.cc/frgxn
Read More
What I am curious about now are the following:
1) How can this Metadata be mined for more than just ad revenue? How could mining networked information like the wide breadth that is available thanks to the social focus of Facebook be harnessed beyond targeted Ads?
The possibilities are endless. Imagine polling groups buying access to this information. Right there they would have a wealth of real time information where combined with the “I like” Button and the information already placed on FB, they could see voter/consumer trends developing as they are happening. It would be simple enough to create tools that would instantly collect data on different demographics and data mine them for what news is being read, what stores, products are being not only bought but viewed, which connections are being made to other demo pools etc etc etc. This could be the holy grail as far as information goes because it is instantaneous, it is demographic specific and it can be done without even being perceived by the audience.
2) Along those lines of thinking, I’d be curious about the amount of information that is being made available to sites that host the “I Like” Button. instead of a cookie in their servers that might give a small blip of information as to the visitors of their sites, they might very well have access to a much more robust data stream. I’m curious as to how Facebook will deal with outside parties wanting to not only pay for the amount of information they would now be privy to, but to the very tempting security threat of hacking FB for this information as well. This could be a Pandora’s box.
3) It would be irresponsible not to mention the dangers that something like the “I like” button and other attempts to Data mine the combination social networking and consumer/news/ government websites. The ACLU has created a though provoking presentation of a very real scenario that could be faced in the near future as well.
~ What do you think
Mass Collaboration & the death of the “All-in-One-Resource”
My morning routine is pretty set in stone at the moment. I wake up, clean up and set up in front of my computer. There I log onto my rss reader search through the different resources I’ve slowly accrued over the past few years (magazine articles, news sites, blogs etc.) whilst I listen to my itunes. It started to dawn on me just how many resources I was using at the same time and the fact that not one of these resources comes from the same producer.
The pace in which which resources are developed by producers online is blazing by at such an incredible speed that the “all-in-one-resource” (AIOR) is becoming a pursuit. Development time is too precious of a resource to spend in perpetuity trying to cover all bases. This trend is one that needs to be looked at much closer by organizations that want to not only stay current, but be effective, efficient and cost effective. What were are seeing as the next generation of resource management is not looking for the one solution, the one resource to solve problems, but looking to a combination of highly specialized.
This trend began to crystallize in my own mind this morning after reading the following two articles:
1. SMS Fights Malaria Scourge in Africa
2. Social Learning Tools Should Not Be Separate From Enterprise 2.0
What I found interesting about the first article is that there wasn’t an aior used/developed to help organize relief efforts. Instead it was the ingenious combination of freely available specialized resources that was used to really create a difference.
Using a mix of text messages, Google Maps and cloud software, organizers of a pilot program backed by IBM, Novartis and Vodafone believe they saved hundreds of lives in a few short months on the malaria-wracked African continent. Simply by tracking inventory in remote areas with greater efficiency, the anti-malaria groups were able to increase the chances that any given clinic would have life-saving medicine on hand by 300 percent.
Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/sms-fights-malaria-scourge-in-africa/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29#ixzz0m2VKfSZe
The idea that a combination of such simple tools could make such a large impact upon the world is not only inspiring, but a challenge. A challenge not only to resource innovators, but also to end users. Instead of looking to one resource to develop the entire solution, it is now not only possible but much more cost effective for an organization to look at the multitude of small tools that are available (and a majority for free) to create a winning combination. An interesting side note to this is that throughout an organization’s company directory you have a list of highly specialized networks of people researching and vetting the tools already, the trick will be creating an environment where those vetting processes can be tapped effectively.
Below is a graphic that shows two different models of eLearning (I’ve borrowed the graphic straight from the second aforementioned article). However, if you look past the specific context of eLearning, the models are clear and present a straightforward choice. Do you wish to build any aspect of your organization’s communication, learning, decision making practices around one specific resource or do you want to diversify?
The reality is that the future of the AIOR’s days are numbered. By looking at ourselves and our own processes (even our morning routines), we can see this. Now the question is, can we bring what we’ve already learned at our homes and in our daily routines to our organizations?
~What do you think?
