What Helped Me Decide to Migrate?

I guess a trip back from Perth on a 737 can often elicit some strange thinking patterns.  I actually find that flying generally causes my brain to go off some tangents.  The trip last week home from Perth included some reflection on my decision to travel down-under and seek to forge a life as an Australian.   There were many factors in this equation but one in particular I wish to note here. Bob Hawke.  Yep – that’s right.  As a young man I alway perceived Australia as a progressive society with a can-do attitude to make things good for everybody.  It seemed to have a culture that was more concerned with ‘who you are’ rather that ‘what you are.’  My tipping point came when I saw Bob celebrating the America’s Cup win achieved by Alan Bond and his crew. I knew I had to live in a country that had a Prime Minister who stuck up for the working people by foreshadowing massive celebrations and absenteeism at work.  Bob was my kind of guy; in fact he was everybody’s kind of guy who expressed the most profound joy at the win his country had just achieved against the Yanks and particularly the NY Yacht Club. I liked his politics for the most part too.  Now – imagine that happening now- in 2009.  I am not sure it would be the same.

Does Process Kill Innovation?

I think this is a fairly common debate.  I tend to find a lot more Six Sigma types in resource and commodity companies.  In these environments they also tend to have more clout.  The mindset is conducive to the engineering process driven environment and hence like a hot house flower they thrive.  I am sure that process is not a bedrock for  excellent innovation; what I am not so sure of is whether process supports and sustains innovation.  I think this will form part of my next research project in Metacomm.  I have plenty of clients asking me these types of questions and I can draw upon my own business experience as a leader, owner and consultant.  I do think the paradigm will be either/or; it will be an ‘and’ paradigm- my forecast now.  Process is to many a comfort- to others a big brick wall.  Our environment as individuals and organisations demands agility- the world is changing quickly and big changes are more sudden than in the past.  My own bias is toward a non- process dependent collaborative environment with my colleagues.

Is Your Planning Short or Long?

We live in a short term world. The short term world is looking down the barrel of environmental, social and financial disaster. Oh yeah- another doom and gloomer. Well I see the reports that the economy is now lifting again but yet I can see no fundamental changes to the capitalist paradigm. I see business leaders sighing relief around the world but not really changing the way they approach sustainability. Sustainability across the interconnected environment we live in; healthy organisations tend to sprout healthy communities, more effective families and better educated and adjusted children. SImplistic? Darn right. I could spend a lifetime outlining this treatise but the principles that guide this universe (or at least our part in it) are indisputable. Have a look at this guy;  he gets it.  Whether his market forecasts are correct are not is not material; it just shows us how ridiculous it is to delegate our future to ‘the market.’   The recent financial meltdown is not the end.  It was a foretelling of some grander impacts we are going to deal with in years to come.  It was a great alert about hubris but unfortunately it was not enough to create lasting change.  I hope many people watch what happens in Copenhagen.