𝗦𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀𝗲 Nested and networked. Fractal and fluid. Emergent patterns change. Inside looking around, over outside looking in. Acting in the space changes the space. You are the system. The whole > sum(parts). Coherence through coordination. Circular, not linear. Balanced outcomes for all.

An Order Giving and Order Taking, I Know Best, Do As I Say behavioural norm is soo last century. Taylor explicitly industrialised it with ‘Scientific Time Study’ (AKA Scientific Management) in the early 1900s. In Shop Management (1905) he writes:

From Mythicise, to Analyse, to Standardise, to Empathise, to Synthesise In the West: ▶️ 𝗠𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗲: Pre-Scientific. "𝘞𝘩𝘰 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?". Authority in scriptures: Aristotle, Plato and Christian religious texts. Circular re-validation of existing 'truths' (1100 to 1700).

The Certified Really AI Practitioner certification is now up for grabs on Youtube! Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=11s7... #BVSSH

It is 80% culture, 20% process with a focus on the outcomes. #BVSSH

The main source of failure is our failed attempts to avoid failure. Fearing intelligent failure is fearing learning. Fearing intelligent failure leads to unintelligent failure. Intelligent failure IS learning. We need to learn quickly, cheaply, uniquely and safely. #BVSSH

In order to get to growth, there is a need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, to pass through fear of failure, to get to early and often learning.

Did you know that Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton all had a hand in shaping the Gantt chart that you use in your company today? There is a direct link from the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment (1680 to 1804) to Gantt charts!

The Certified Really AI Practitioner certification is now up for grabs on Youtube! Link in the comments! #BVSSH

As a leader ask: 🎯 What is the desired outcome? 📚 What have we learnt? 🧠 What will we learn next? 💡 How soon can we learn it? 🤝 How can I help? h/t: Mike Rother, Improvement Kata #BVSSH

Incentives (explicit and implicit) drive behaviours which drive outcomes. "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity", Rita Mae Brown

Certified Really AI Practitioner (CR*P) now available on YouTube! Welcome to your training! This is your One Best Way, One Size Fits All, Playbook for AI Dominance Transformation.

Did you know that the word 'entropy' comes from the Greek words for in (en) + transformation (tropē)?!

From Productivity To Valuetivity. Productivity: number of units of output, per unit of input. This is an antipattern in the Age of Digital & AI. We don't want more 'stuff'. Valuetivity: the most value, in the shortest time, with the least effort. Balanced with quality, safety and happiness (BVSSH)

Building the wrong thing faster, makes you wronger. #BVSSH

Did you know that the word "priority" has only existed in the singular form, until relatively recently? From the Latin 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘳, meaning former or earlier, it referred to the "𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 that came before all others".

Great to see Myles Ogilvie and Tony Caink presenting on Speed AND Control at Fast Flow Conf today. Even more important with GenAI enabling more *stuff* faster. We need speed and control, not control without speed or speed out of control. #FastFlowConf #BVSSH

Great to see Chris Atkinson from Atom bank presenting on Automated Value Stream Maps at Fast Flow Conf today! #FastFlowConf #BVSSH

Your role is not your identity. Too often, we conflate our job title with who we are. But roles are temporary. Identity is enduring. Good people look after good people, agnostic of role. Your identity is defined by: ✅ How you show up ✅ How you behave ✅ The values you live by ✅ What you stand for

Our brains are wired for survival. We have Loss Aversion: we'd rather avoid a loss than seek a gain, which means that we'd rather avoid trying something that might fail. This is good from an evolutionary survival perspective when in the wild, however,

As a leader wanting to optimise outcomes, how should I behave? Align, Act, Reflect, Adapt (AARA) 🎯 Align: be clear on the Why and the direction (measurable outcome hypotheses). Limit Work In Progress.

In the previous 4 Industrial Revolutions work was mostly repetitive and *knowable*, with people as cogs in a machine, with narrow division of labor, work passing and detailed work orders coming from the Planning Department.

An emergent mindset over a deterministic mindset. The future is not knowable & linear in the context of unique change. There are unknown unknowns. There is no best practice.

Had a great evening at Skipton Building Society as part of the Leeds Digital Festival. with a focus on Past, Present and Possible. Enjoyed presenting and talking alongside Raj Fowler, Matthew Skelton, Dave Whyte and Jenny Wood. Great things happening at Skipton, building on the past 172 years!

Antipattern: order giver, order taker with low autonomy. Here are your tasks, do them without question, in your role-based silo.

"Every organisation is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." - Arthur W. Jones If you're happy with the results you're getting, don't change.

Wow. What a great three days at the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit! I enjoyed presenting Certified Really AI Practitioner (CR*P2!) and learning from others 😀 Key takeaways:

✨ A fascinating two days exploring sites of the 3rd Industrial Revolution (Age of Steel and Heavy Engineering) in Pennsylvania, walking in the footsteps of those who laid the foundations of Systematic Management and later Scientific Management. 🏭 Bethlehem Steel, PA

Unique work is unknowable. The only way to learn is by doing. We need to minimise time to learning and value, to make the unknowable, knowable. We need to have hypotheses and run experiments, which are safe to intelligently fail (cheap, fast, safe).

Changing how we do change is hard. Better ways of working surfaces the impediments, so that you feel and see the pain. You fix the pain points. In absence of incentive, purpose, clarity of why, servant leadership, support to alleviate the impediments and coaching: some teams give up.

Minimise threat and anxiety Invite over inflict Provide support Communicate (x 3) #BVSSH

Today, when using the word incentives in the context of work, the vast majority of people assume that it is referring to *financial* incentives.

Measure for learning and action (which requires a regular cadence of reflection). #BVSSH

Leverage emergence to maximise outcomes. #BVSSH

People -> Process -> Tools, in that order Not just tooling. Not just process. Not just process and tooling. Tools and processes can't continuously improve themselves. #BVSSH

Four dimensions of psychological safety: 1. Attitude to risk and failure: the degree to which it is permissible to make mistakes 2. Open conversation: the degree to which sensitive and difficult topics can be discussed openly

Communicate, communicate, communicate. Communicate three more times than you think you need to and you're a third of the way there. Change is social. Data, storytelling, incentive (it's a priority, the outcomes are better, the water is warm!). #BVSSH

I'm looking forward to the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit, 23rd to 25th September, Las Vegas! It's always great to hear learnings from large, traditional organisations, the horses not the unicorns!

GenAI antipattern: primary measures are usage, output and or cost reduction. Pattern: business outcomes measures. e.g. Lead Time (time to value), First Call Resolution (FCR), Abandonment Rate, Customer Satisfaction, Colleague Engagement, etc.

As a leader, if you want better outcomes, what is needed from you is really quite simple: ▶️ Incentivise, recognise, reward everyone Continuously Improving (as measured by a balanced set of outcome metrics for the How such as Better Value Sooner Safer & Happier)

From UX (User eXperience) to AX (Agentic eXperience). In the future, products won't compete for eyeballs, they will compete to be invoked. The products and services you are selling will be discovered and consumed by AI Agents in the future. Are you designing for that now?

"We needed a mechanism that moved beyond the traditional KPIs" I really enjoyed my conversation with Willie Stegmann, CIO of Corporate IT Services at Vodafone Group, and Alena Keck, Head of Lean and Agile Center of Excellence. We dove into the transformative journey of implementing OKRs at Vodafone

I'm looking forward to the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit, 23rd to 25th September, Las Vegas! It's always great to hear learnings from large, traditional organisations, the horses not the unicorns!

Separated by a common language. Meaning is important. Definition of terms is critical. For example use of the term "Value Stream". There are origins from Toyota, references from James Martin (1995), Womack & Jones (1996), Rother & Shook (1998) and Porter with use of the term Value Chain in 1985.

Myth: Adam Smith was the first to write about Division of Labour in the Wealth of Nations (1776). There's just one problem: Adam Smith never set foot in a pin factory!

Often it’s not skills that hold teams back, it’s safety. Even the most talented group underperforms if people don’t feel safe to speak up or to experiment. People hold back, not because they don't care, but because they don't feel safe to be wrong or to challenge. There is a learned helplessness.

"How do you manage and steer systems to different outcomes?" I really enjoyed my conversation with Willie Stegmann, CIO of Corporate IT Services at Vodafone Group, and Alena Keck, Head of Lean and Agile Center of Excellence. We dove into the transformative journey of implementing (OKRs) at Vodafone

The Viable Systems Model by Stafford Beer, is a great mental model to understand scaling of complex systems (people and machines). It is a model of a viable system(!). Ashby's Law: "Only variety can absorb variety". Complex environments need complex responses.

Start with Why, focus on measurable outcomes, have a data feedback loop, incentivise continuous improvement, invite > inflict, think big, start small, learn Fast, enjoy the journey #BVSSH

Product development is emergent. Organisations are complex adaptive systems, they are not predictable. There is no knowable straight path from an organisation's current condition to the desired outcome. #BVSSH