How, how how?

I’ve loved this blog site within TT.biz as an organisation. 20 odd people invited weekly by one person to participate. I’ve sniggered at the ‘marketing’ strategy, the promotions and sweetners, the threats and begging. The net result is that never before has so much been written to so many by so few. And then I read a blog this evening (this morning) submitted by Graeme (click to read) and it hits me again. That darn question. The one I’ve not ever seen solved (for too long anyway) How do you get all the team, most of the team to play in a similar space for a prolonged period of time?

We have a virtual organisation that’s more fluid than most. We change regularly, and we regularly change. This is exciting, and even spectacular. But it can be dangerous. Very dangerous. People move on, and leave other people behind. Not on purpose, but because we were playing in different spaces. One day you can see everyone, and the next day you find yourself out there all alone.

So how do you get similar thinking and conversation around similar things? The question again. I don’t know the answer, but I recognise the importance.

Nuf Sed

Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will understand.

Updated, February 2010

If you copy and paste this saying into Google you’ll get 3520 hits attributing the saying either to Aristotle, Confucius or some native American wizard. Yet it is just as true today as it was hundreds of years ago. Perhaps it’s even more true today. We live in a world where information abounds and where people from diverse backgrounds are more in contact with each other than ever before. This post-modern world is one where traditional views are challenged and authoritive statements are doubted.

Why should I believe you? Who says you are right? My Japanese friend says they’ve been doing it differently for centuries and he believes they are right. But they look wrong to me.

It is in a world like this one where a social constructivist approach becomes critical. An approach where people develop their own meaning from experiences and from interacting with each other. Using experiences. Based on relationships.

This is one of the keys to TomorrowToday’s approach to helping our clients get more out of their people – their leaders, staff and customers. We agree with Ron Heifetz, legendary leadership guru at Harvard, that “leadership can be taught” and that a key to doing so is to help people to become “adaptive” in their approach to the world.

In 2010, we will be launching an exciting new initiative aimed at integrating adaptive intelligence with leadership and strategy development and implementation in organisations. You will be able to find out more about this from March 2010 at http://www.strategicleadershipintelligence.com.

Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to developing these capabilities. But the path is certain, and the benefits well worth the effort.

TomorrowToday.biz Core Values

In the past few weeks, we have attempted to pin down and codify our core values. At a gut level, we know who we are, but we need to ensure its more than just a gut level. We also need to be able to let others know about who we are, and what we stand for. People who want to connect with us need to know what they’re connecting with. For all these reasons we have tried to “freeze frame” our values.

This is not a “wish list” of what we want to do. It is a statement of our current reality, and what we want to live by.

We will use this list to help us remain focussed on who we are, and why we do it. These are helpful when we ask the question, “Is this a TomorrowToday person?” or “Is that what TomorrowToday is?”. That will in turn help us to define what we do, who we do it with, and why. Because we work in a virtual, fractal network, it is the adherance to these values that will ensure an indivdual connects with us and stays with us.
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Gatekeepers

Within a fractal, virtual, networked team, its critical to create hubs for various functions and information flows. We call these “hubs” gatekeepers, and we have allocated people to these roles. Their responsibility is to “push” information to the team on the area they’re responsible for. They are also the first port of call for any questions related to this area.

The list for internal purposes is below (included is a picture of our current structure)…
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Walking in your shoes

by Barrie

There is a saying that suggests you should never insult someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. That way you’re a mile away from them, and you have their shoes. Wise words certainly.

We’re working in a geographically, culturally, racially, generationally, etc diverse organisation (TomorrowToday.biz). ‘Multi-National’ may be a phrase that describes us? Is there a difference between how our ‘multi-nationalism’ works it’s way out, in a small company like ours, against the giants that traditionally are thought about in that space? GE, Coke, Genral Motors, etc.
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