The idea of co-working spaces
February 4, 2012
Although work today is primarily digital, most organizations still have a spatial dimension, and most of those spaces have a designated organizational role. Even in the digital age we still think in terms of space. The key thing is that both the organizational structure and space greatly influence the patterns of work. A few years ago, the typical organizational design meant that work was divided into multiple parts that were simply added together to create the product. Individual workers did not need to know much more than what was specific to their individual tasks to complete their jobs.
Today, the results of work are not brought together at the end but are communicated throughout the process. A growing number of people are involved in generating ideas and information and bringing those ideas together in collaborative sense making. Work is interaction. Communication is not talking about work. Communication is work.
There are three archetypes of communication in firms. The first type is communication for responsiveness and coordination. This creates the need for transparency. The right hand knows what the left is doing. The second type is asymmetric following. It is about a Twitter type of information sharing to help people keep up with new developments. The third type is serendipitous inspiration. It is spontaneous and helps people to come upon the unexpected. The third type of interaction often occurs between people who work on different things and draw on different disciplines. These people don’t often meet in traditional work arrangements. They don’t normally have a lot to do with each other.
Most managers will acknowledge the role played by the organizational structure, but few understand that physical space is equally important. Structure and space both influence how we work and where communication takes place when we meet.
The goal is paradoxically to increase the value of work and at the same time save costs. This means that you can expect to see more of the clubhouse type of co-working spaces. Clubs are places where only members and their guests are allowed in. The rooms are defined according to a function, such as eating, reading, and meeting. These rooms are open to all, rather than being assigned to a single worker. You can book a more private room for a specific purpose, but in a clubhouse, you cannot put your name on the door.
Members of future organizations will use these new co-working spaces for networking and for concentrated individual work but they are not going to have spaces to fill with their personal belongings.
Many people bemoan the loss of a personal designated space. However, I believe that they are going to learn to appreciate the value of freedom of choice and the escape from the control system of being seen in the office nine-to-five.
If you are in the middle of a conversation with someone, you seldom pause to talk about the conversation itself. But today, it is time to pause and consider how we work together and where we meet to do that. Although work is digital, we are still going to meet, also physically!
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The inspiration for writing this came from meeting my good friend @elsua face-to-face for the first time a few days ago. Thank you @villepeltola and @sakuidealist
Advice on how to manage off-site workers
Winning games
December 20, 2011
In most games who wins and who loses is the whole point of playing. It would be hard to imagine a more unpopular outcome in a reality TV series, than an announcement that all the players ended up as winners! It is, of course, beneficial that better-motivated and more enterprising players take the place of the lazy, the incompetent, and the unmotivated.
But zero-sum thinking and the winner-takes-all philosophy do not serve us any more. As there are more losers than winners in our games losers multiply as winning behaviours are replicated in the smaller winners’ circles and losing behaviours are replicated in the bigger losers’ circles.
The biggest problem is that as losers are excluded from the game, they are not allowed to learn. The divide between winners and losers grows constantly. This is why, in the end, the winners have to pay the price of winning in one way or another. The bigger the divide is, the bigger the price that has to be paid. The winners end up having to take care of the losers, or two totally different cultures start to form, as is happening today in many developed countries and cities.
Psychologically, competitive games create shadow games of losers competing at losing.
The games we play have been played under the assumption that the unit of survival is the individual, a team of people or a company. However, the reality is that the unit of survival is the players in the game being played. Following Darwinian rhetoric, the unit of survival is the species in its environment. Who wins and who loses is of minor importance compared to the decay of the (game) environment as a result of the competition.
We need a new concept of games in the creative economy. The players and their contributions in the real world are, and should be, too qualitatively different to be compared quantitatively. Unless all the players are comparable and want the very same thing, there cannot be a genuine contest.
Zero-sum games were the offspring of scarcity. In the era of creativity and abundance, new approaches are desperately needed.
As there simply cannot be pre-existing rules for every conceivable situation that might arise, we have to move beyond seeing the players and the rule-makers as separate parties. Real-life games are too complex to be governed totally from outside. We need participation based on values- and strong ethics as a prerequisite for taking part.
The players have the responsibility not only for adhering to the existing rules, but also for developing the rules further – specifically when the game (environment) decays as a result of the actions of the players.
In creative games the winners would be all those whose participation, comments and contributions were incorporated into the development of the game.
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High performance (social) business
December 10, 2011
In our view of the world, we often think that competition creates and secures efficiency. But it may be that high performance is incorrectly attributed to competition and is more a result of diversity, self-organizing communication and non-competitive processes of cooperation. Competitive processes lead to a handicapping of the higher-level system that these processes are part of. This is because competitive selection leads to exclusion: something is left out. Leaving something out means a reduction of diversity. The resulting less diverse system is efficient in the very short term, but always at the expense of longer-term agility and viability.
Our assumption has also been that by understanding the parts of a system in detail, we understand the whole. This is simply not possible! What happens in the interaction between the parts is much more important than the parts. The whole is the emergent pattern of the interaction, not the sum of the parts. The focus of the high performance organization should be on communicative interaction: what is going on?
Enriching interaction and interactive energy
Higher performance patterns may occur through the very simple combination of different experiences and enriching interaction.
Chaos theory explains how the patterns form. A parameter might be the flow of information in the system. At low rates, meaning no input or more of the same input, the system moves forward displaying a repetitive, stuck behavior. At higher rates and more diversity the pattern changes. At very high rates the system displays a totally random behavior. The pattern is highly unstable. However, there is a level between repetition/stability and randomness/instability. This level where simultaneous coherence and novelty are experienced is called the edge of chaos.
Classical physics took individual entities and their movement (trajectories) as the unit of analysis in the same way we have lately analyzed individuals and firms. Henri Poincaré was the first scientist to find that there are two distinct kinds of energy. The first was the kinetic energy in the movement of the particle itself. The second was the energy arising from the interaction between particles. When this second energy is not there, the system is in a state of non-dynamism. When there is interactive energy, the system is dynamic and capable of novelty and renewal.
Interactive energy may be the single most important factor in business performance.
Every interaction is meaningful
Interaction creates resonance between the particles. Resonance is the result of coupling the frequencies of particles leading to an increase in the amplitude of motion. Resonance makes it impossible to identify individual movement in interactive environments because the individual’s trajectory depends more on the resonance with others than on the kinetic energy contained by the individual itself. We are the result of our interaction.
The lesson is that every interaction of all of the particles is thus potentially meaningful and can lead to the amplification of the slightest variation. Interactive systems with even the smallest variations take on a life of their own. The future form and direction of the system is not visible in the system at any given time. The future is not in the system and it cannot be chosen or planned by anyone.
The conclusions are important for us:
Firstly, novelty always emerges in a radically unpredictable way. The smallest overlooked variable or the tiniest change can escalate by non-linear iterations into a major transformative change in the later life of the system.
Secondly, the patterns of healthy behaviour are not caused by competitive selection or independent choices made by independent agents. Instead, what is happening happens in interaction, not by chance or by choice, but as a result of the competitive/collaborative interaction itself.
The new social technologies have the potential to change the patterns of connectivity as much as the sciences of complexity have changed our perspective and thinking.
Richer, more challenging, more exploratory conversations leave people feeling more alive, more inspired and capable of far more creative action. The focus of the high performance organization should be on communicative interaction creating the continuously developing pattern - a life at the edge of chaos.
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Thank you Pekka Himanen and Doug Griffin
The future under construction
October 31, 2011
The approaches of industrial management have given us remarkable material well-being over the last few centuries, but are increasingly being criticized for not being suited to handling the needs of today. Organizations need to excel in innovation. Companies also need to embrace rapid change and uncertainty. Some of the most creative ones have even gone so far as to take a “let’s just do cool things and see what happens” approach, trying to avoid traditional governance systems. Is this yet another sign that management is in crisis?
The industrial theory of management is based on top managers choosing the future of their organization and guiding its development in the right direction. The belief is that managers can make useful forecasts and set goals. Their daily responsibility is to monitor activities to identify gaps between the goals and actual outcomes so that the gaps can be closed. Uncertainty plays a minor role. Managers know what is going on.
Every business is a set of assumptions that are taken as given, thus reducing the perceived uncertainty. The whole plan–execute cycle is a process designed to prove those assumptions correct. But assumptions are never totally right most often not totally wrong, either. Accordingly, it is quite seldom that ideas are turned into a successful business in just the way described in the business plan. Things change.
In conditions of rapid change and uncertainty, there have to be systematic processes indicating progress and new opportunities as they emerge. This is much more important than forecasting or planning. It is about testing the assumptions continuously and signalling which assumptions are helpful and which are not. It is about finding out repeatedly which of the efforts are creating value and which are wasteful. Are we on the right track? Are we progressing? What new possibilities have become visible?
Lean thinking defines value as providing benefit to the customer. Anything else is waste. But what if we really don’t know? Then the most important business process is to find out. We have to learn what creates value for different customers in different situations. “Anything that does not contribute to learning is waste” as Eric Ries puts it. The business challenge for a creative company is to learn fast and cheaply!
Management theory needs to leave behind the industrial, mechanistic model of reality and the belief in linear if-then, causality. The sciences of complexity, non-linear dynamics, uncertainty and creative learning are the foundations of modern, human-centric management.
The task of managers is not the reduction of uncertainty but to develop the capacity to operate creatively within it. Ilya Prigogine wrote in his book “The End of Certainty” that the future is not given, but under perpetual construction:
“Life is about unpredictable novelty where the possible is always richer than the real.”
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Thank you Eric Ries, Stu Kauffman and Ralph Stacey
Designing a life
October 8, 2011
Apple design was not about Steven Jobs alone, but about Steven Jobs and the lead designer Jonathan Ive. The way I see it, their collaboration in Apple followed a bit the story of another design icon, Braun. The key people then were the industrialist Erwin Braun, his brother and the designer Dieter Rams.
Jonathan Ive has described his first encounter with a Dieter Rams design: “No part appeared to be either hidden or celebrated, just perfectly considered and appropriate in the hierarchy of the product’s details. You knew exactly what it was and how to use it.”
“Good design is as little design as possible” is one of Dieter Rams’ most famous phrases. The meaning behind it was that a well-designed product should be so good that it is barely noticeable. By leaving the unnecessary out, the essential factors rise to the foreground. The challenge is that the design may be simple but the path taken to create it highly complex.
Dieter Rams was one of the first people who made the distinction between consumers and users when he talked about the people at whom his designs were aimed. The term “consumer” corresponds to someone who uses things up. Consumption is then a process of reducing the value that is built into the product. Rams preferred to use the German term “Gebraucher”, which translates as someone who uses something. The consumer is turned into the modern notion of a value-creating customer. If the design is useful, if the product facilitates value creation, it makes sense that it lasts as long as possible. For Rams, the term “Verbraucher”, the consumer, had a negative meaning, implying waste and short-term thinking.
Another concept that Dieter Rams suggested was “re-design”. What he meant was to turn away from an addiction to novelty towards iterations, to improving what we already have.
“Less, but better” was the ultimate motto of Dieter Rams. The motto follows the idea of “less is more” of Mies van der Rohe and Peter Behrens. The original idea of Behrens was improvement through reduction, reducing quantity, waste, and excess and at the same time increasing quality, value and the effort to create a better world in a human centric way.
Dieter Rams formulated his ideas about good design into a set of principles to explain what makes a good product:
The first principle was: good design is innovative. Technological developments always offer new opportunities. Innovative design develops in collaboration with innovative technology.
The second principle: good design is about usefulness. A product is bought to be used. Design is about emphasizing usefulness whilst disregarding everything that could be a detraction from it.
The third principle: good design is beautiful. The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to functionality.
The fourth principle: good design makes a product understandable. At best it is self-explanatory.
The fifth principle: a good design is honest and does not try to make a product more innovative or valuable than it is.
The sixth principle: good designs are neither decorative nor independent works of art. Their design should leave room for interaction and the user’s self-expression.
The seventh principle: a good design lasts many years rather than being short-term and fashionable.
The eighth principle: it is about attention to detail. Nothing should be left to chance.
The ninth principle: good design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It minimizes waste and it minimizes visual and physical pollution.
The tenth principle: good design is “as little as possible”: it is about less but paradoxically at the same time about better, more valuable.
The principles of a good design may be the principles of a good life.
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Thank you Dieter Rams, Sophie Lovell, Marco Steinberg and his team at Sitra. Thank you also @moia
More: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The Museum of Modern Art New York. Helsinki Design Lab. Guy Kawasaki on Steve Jobs. Jonah Lehrer on Steve Jobs. John Sculley on Steve Jobs. Technology and social change. Fast Company: 50 Most Influential Designers in America.
Miltä liikkeenjohtaminen näyttäisi jos se keksittäisiin tänään?
December 7, 2009

Liikkeenjohdon tematiikka, leadership/management, niin kuin me sen tunnemme tänään yritysten ja organisaatioiden maailmassa, syntyi 1800-luvun lopulla ja 1900-luvun alussa. Liikkeenjohto uutena tieteenä haki olemassa ololleen validiteetin tuon ajanjakson tieteellisestä paradigmasta. Erityisesti luonnontieteissä aika oli voimakkaasti kiinni valistuksen ajan ihanteissa ja Newtonilaisessa fysiikassa. Elettiin insinööritieteiden kulta-aikaa. Todellisuus ymmärrettiin objektiiviseksi, todeksi todennettavaksi maailmaksi havaitsijan ulkopuolella. Jos käytettiin oikeita havaitsemisvälineitä ja ajattelua, tuo, joskus hyvinkin monimutkainen maailma voitiin mallintaa ja siinä voitiin havaita rationaalisia syy- seuraussuhteita, jotka antoivat mahdollisuuden löytää oikeat tavat vaikuttaa.
Johtaja on tässä maailmassa rationaalinen toimija ja päätöksentekijä, jonka tehtävänä on tietää mitkä kausaliteettien ketjut tuovat organisaatiolle sen tavoitteleman menestyksen. Samalla tavalla kuin reduktionistinen tiede toimi, organisaatiot voitiin parhaiten ymmärtää niiden osittamisen kautta. Erilliset osat muodostivat puolestaan mekanistisen, systeemisen aktiviteettien kokonaisuuden, joka toimi johdon suunnittelemalla tavalla. Huomio johtamisessa tuli tämän ajattelutavan mukaisesti kohdistaa niihin olemassa oleviin ja tarvittaviin syy – seuraussuhteisiin, jotka toteuttavat organisaation menestyksen parhaalla mahdollisella tavalla.
Yhtä tärkeää oli motivoida mukana olevat ihmiset yhteisiin, johdon luomiin tavoitteisiin, sekä prosessien säätelemään vuorovaikutukseen. Organisaatioihanne jäljitteli konetta vaihdettavine osineen. Koneen toiminta taasen perustui tehokkaisiin input – output suhteisiin, joissa resurssit muuttuivat suoritteiksi. Työtä tekevät yksilöt olivat tässä maailmassa yksi resurssi muiden resurssien joukossa.
Organisaation rakenne ja prosessit kuvattiin tässä lähestymistavassa tavallisimmin yleistyksinä. Yleistäminen tarkoittaa, että rakenteet ja (vuorovaikutus)prosessit eivät ole tilanteesta, kontekstista, riippuvaisia, vaan yleisesti päteviä aikariippumattomalla ja tilanneriippumattomalla tavalla. Kontekstilla ei ole merkitystä. Yleistävästä ajattelusta seuraa myös, että tavallisesti voidaan löytää, usein organisaation ulkopuolelta uusi, paras tapa tehdä joku asia. Tämä uusi tapa voidaan sitten siirtää tilanteesta toiseen ilman, että historiasta tai paikasta tarvitsee välittää.
Epävarmuuden maailma
Arkikokemuksissamme korostuvat yllätykset, muutokset ja kehityskulut, joita ei ole voitu ennustaa tai joita ei ole edes suunniteltu kenenkään toimesta. Epävarmuus on elimellinen osa yritystoimintaa ja osa elämää. Epävarmuus ei liity pelkästään siihen mitä tapahtuu seuraavaksi, vaan myös siihen mitä juuri nyt tapahtuu tai hyvinkin erilaisiin tulkintoihin siitä mitä on tapahtunut. Yhteisten, ”ylempää annettujen” tavoitteiden ohella yksilöiden omat tavoitteet, omat agendat, arvot, tulkinnat ja suunnitelmat ohjaavat ennakoimattomalla tavalla sitä mitä tapahtuu. Rationaalisuuden ohella tunteet ja poliittiset päämäärät ohjaavat toimintaa ja päätöksiä. Väärinymmärrykset ja väärät tulkinnat vaikuttavat yhtä paljon kuin oikeatkin. Suunnitelmat toteutuvat hyvin harvoin juuri niin kuin oli tarkoitus tai kuten oli suunniteltu.
Johtamisen taustalla olevan rationaalisen, lineaarisen kausaliteetin ihanne on hyvin kaukana siitä arkitodellisuudesta, jonka tunnistamme. Näyttäisikö liikkeenjohtaminen erilaiselta jos se ottaisi lähtökohdaksi toimimisen epävarmuudessa ja jos sen tieteellinen maailmankuva päivittyisi tämän päivän tasolle?
Johtaminen kompleksisessa ympäristössä
Yritystoiminta on aina toisiaan tarvitsevien ihmisten vuorovaikutusta. Miltä johtaminen näyttäisi, jos lähtökohta olisi, että ihmisten välisessä vuorovaikutuksessa kausaalisuhteet ovat aina ei-lineaarisia: osittain tiedämme mitä tapahtuu seuraavaksi, osittain emme. Osittain voimme ennustaa, osittain emme. Toiminnassa on aina mukana epävarmuus, jota ei voida poistaa. Johtaja voi suunnitella mitä itse tekee seuraavaksi, mutta ei voi koskaan täysin tietää mitä muut tekevät seuraavaksi. Johtajan pyrkimykset kohtaavat kaikkien muiden, aina osittain samanlaiset, osittain erilaiset pyrkimykset. Mitä tapahtuu, on seurausta kaikista näistä toisiinsa vaikuttavista erilaisista pyrkimyksistä. Se, mikä on tulema kun erilaisten ihmisten erilaiset tulkinnat, pyrkimykset ja toiminta vaikuttavat toisiinsa on aina enemmän tai vähemmän piilossa ja epävarmaa. Kukaan yksittäinen toimija ei voi kontrolloida sitä, mitä lopulta tapahtuu, vaikka siihen voikin vaikuttaa.
Tästä seuraa että emme voi enää pitää erillään, eri vaiheina suunnittelua ja tekemistä, ajattelua ja ajattelun ”jalkautusta”. Suunnittelu ja toteutus eivät ole käsitteellisesti kaksi erillistä vaihetta ajassa, vaan saman asian kaksi puolta samanaikaisesti. Suunnitelma on suunnitelma, vain siinä määrin kuin se toteutuu. Tämä johtaa tilanteeseen, jossa suunnittelu on ehdottoman tärkeää, mutta joustavuutta vähentävät suunnitelmat eivät. Paradoksaalisesti, mitä paremmin suunnittelemme, sen paremmin voimme tarvittaessa toimia ketterästi muuttuneissa tilanteissa. Mitä paremmin osaamme ja tiedämme sen paremmin voimme improvisoida.
Koska emme voi perustaa toimiamme ja päätöksiämme täydelliseen tietämiseen, pitäisikö meidän paremmin ymmärtää miten toimimme silloin kun emme tiedä? Vaikka emme voi poistaa epävarmuutta, voimme varmuudella tietää miten toimimme, kun pyrimme elämään epävarmuudessa.
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