6 Inclusivity

Maybe you did not notice it, or you were too young to pay attention at time, but In 2006 you were selected as “person of the year” by Time Magazine. By “you” the magazine meant the more or less anonymous crowd that controls the information age in creating sharing knowledge and information, sometimes fake, through social networks and a growing number of collaborating platforms. Interestingly, this nomination was later listed among the magazine’s ten most controversial People of the Year choices (Wagner 2014).
It turns out that, mediated by the proper technology and organized through the appropriate processes, the wisdom of the crowd can generate or leverage the knowledge that can by far exceed the capabilities of the best of its members. Did you ever wish to be a geologist? Through collective intelligence, you can be. NASA organized one of the first examples of harnessing collective intelligence in 2001 in a project where 85000 volunteers participated online to a joint effort to identify creators from pictures of Mars surface. The surprising result was that the analysis provided by the crowd was of comparable quality to work provided by a professionally trained geologist. Wikipedia provides a striking example of the potential of CI. According to traditional economic wisdom, an organization like Wikipedia, without advertisement revenues, no paid workers, no management structure, and no centralized control of the quality of information published should not function. The whole Internet relies on collaborative work of self-motivating distributed teams. Examples are programs like Linux or Apache upon which the Internet has been constructed. Bitcoin is more recent of a self organized structure, that has no conventional management, but controls billions of dollars worldwide.
How collective intelligence can achieve results way beyond the cognitive capacity of the individual is even better illustrated in the animal world. Migrating birds, for example, fly in structured formations that are not following a specific leader, as demonstrated by a somewhat cruel experiment where the leading bird has been shot and immediately replaced by another member of the flock ( See Malone chapt..)
Even more impressive is the example of honey bees. Contrary to alpha males like the leading wolf of a wolf pack, a queen bee does not exert control on the hive but plays a role that is critical and central that serves the hive-like any other role. The hive is managed through collective processes that every individual follows. The collective intelligence is so powerful that when the hive needs to move to a new location, it is capable of making the most optimal a selection and in an area spanning tens of square km.
Collective intelligence is not democracy or consensus. To express itself, the wisdom of the crowd needs a framework that will let the best option emerge. In a sense, market are an example of collective intelligence: the hidden hand of the market ( cit A Smith)t. But the framework that let the market express itself is biased towards monetary return. To quote Maslow: Classic economic theory, based as it is on an adequate idea of human motivation, could be revolutionized by accepting the reality of higher human needs, including the impulse to self-actualization and the love for the highest values.(Boyd and Reardon 2020, 55) .
As we have seen in the section introducing quantum thinking reality at the most elementary level, is best described in terms of average, while individual results can vary widely. We can see a parallel with Collective Intelligence, experiments, where the response of laypeople to specific questions can differ vastly, but the average can be surprisingly correct.
What of the mind extends to the network?(Clark and Chalmers 1998) (Belliger and Krieger 2016, 118)

(Belliger and Krieger 2016, 118)Culture is in part a Darwin machine that produces phenotypic variation and heritability at the group level (Wilson 2010, 121 see also chsp 1). “Cultures are defensive constructions against chaos …”(Wilson 2010, 339) As an evolutionary construction, cultures may lag behind our accelerating world. We need intentional actions to adapt our culture to the new exponential world. Practical realism my be more adaptive than factual realism (Wilson 2010, 353 chap 7)
Rational choice vs evolutionary adaptive functionalism explanation
Building solutions on complexity may mean letting them emerge from the system itself in a non linear way. But thesis requires methods : Ullab, Sociocracy , …
How can an organization benefit from collective intelligence and share economy? There are two complementary options one internal and one external. Promoting internal collective intelligence is related to agility, the objective here being to encourage collaboration and co-creation. We will address this in the Agility chapter. Externally, organizations can turn to Crowdsourcing to distribute tasks to the talent pool available worldwide, reducing cost and increasing flexibility, or even using collaborative development platforms like Innocentive to complement internal R&D.

6.1 Why old managerial models are not fit

Today the most common organizational structure is hierarchical, based on a well-defined chain of command, with roles, tasks and responsibility associated with specific individuals in the organigram through a title and a job description. In 2016 Accenture surveyed how 1700 managers spend their time. They found that only 7% and 10% respectively of their time is devoted to strategy and innovation, and to developing people, which would be the tasks associated with the notion of leadership. 30% of their time is committed to solving problems, and more than 50% to administrative and coordination.

The four trends described in the previous chapters make this traditional organizational paradigm consisting of isolated organizations that see themselves as well oiled machines increasingly obsolete and inefficient. On the other hand, we have noted the emergence of organizations that see themselves as living organisms, driven by a common purpose, with flexible internal structure and a sense of participating in an ecosystem of diverse stakeholders. How will be the organizations of the future managed?

We would expect a taxi company to own cars, a media company to create content, a retailer to carry inventory and a hotel to own or manage real estate. We all know this is not the case any more thanks to the creative use of disruptive innovation driven by technology, mainly information technology.

The future of work will bring us many surprises. Many, or most, of future jobs are yet to be invented. On the other hand, many jobs are expected to disappear soon. Truck and taxi drivers are designated as early victims, but the list is long and growing as the impact of AI and robots become more evident. Are managers jobs safe? What if the managerial function itself is to fall victim to disruptive change, and one day we will see organizations managed without managers? Sounds crazy? Only 10 years ago, a driverless car on the street could only have been a prank.

Even if things will not evolve so dramatically, it is evident that in a digital world the way we regulate and maintain administrative control has to change three trends push towards a dramatic change in the managerial function:

Social. There is a growing need for independence, meaning, purpose and happiness at the workplace, in particular among the younger generations. Hierarchies and bosses are hardly considered conducive to wellbeing at work, and flexibility from both employers and employees make traditional hierarchical structures hard to maintain.
Economic. Managerial layers are expensive and inefficient ( see the Penrose effect). Companies have been steadily reducing management and control layers for decades.
Technological. Since several years notorious examples like Semco, Buurtzorg or Favi have showcased alternative managerial models. New “managerial technologies”, like Holacracy, offer standardized approaches that make the transition to a flat organization replicable independently from the anecdotal experience of a visionary manager. Information technology in the form of pervasive networks, artificial intelligence and blockchain can support this change and make different organizational models possible.

Is it reasonable to assume that organizations will maintain their current structures and deliver new services in a different world while continuing to be managed classically? It seems likely to expect significant changes in the management as well. We will conclude the book by presenting three practical solutions to bring your organization forward in the context of the current rapidly changing world

6.2 The collaborative Economy

The rise of the knowledge economy helps understand the emergence of new forms of organizations that rely on CI and collaborative economy.(Oecd 1996; Azuelos 2016; Foucault 2004; Cukier 2017). Already several new “economies” are springing up, here a list from (Rinne 2017)

Sharing economy: focus on the sharing of underutilized assets, monetized or not, in ways that improve efficiency, sustainability and community
Collaborative economy: focus on collaborative forms of consumption, production, finance and learning (“collaborative consumption” is closest to the orthodox sharing economy definition)
On-demand economy: focus on “on-demand” (i.e. immediate and access-based) provision of goods and services
Gig economy: focus on workforce participation and income generation via “gigs”, single projects or tasks for which a worker is hired (limited overlap with skill sharing).”The gig economy…is now estimated to be about 34% of the workforce and expected to be 43% by the year 2020,” Intuit CEO Brad Smith said Wednesday on an earnings call. “We think self-employed [work] has a lot of opportunity for growth as we look ahead.”(Gillespie 2017). Indeed the freelancing economy in the US is growing at three times the pace of the regular economy. Interestingly freelancers are more likely to believe their job will be taken over by Ai or robots in the near future.(Upwork 2017). (Torres 2018)
Freelance economy: focus on workforce participation and income generation by freelancers, also known as independent workers and self-employed (limited overlap with skill sharing; freelance engagements are often longer and/or deeper than gigs)
Peer economy: focus on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks in the creation of products, delivery of services, funding and more
Access economy: focus on “access over ownership” (overlaps with sharing, though sharing is by no means requisite)
Crowd economy: focus on economic models powered by “the crowd”.Crowdsourcing, that offers platforms where simple tasks can be outsourced to remote workers globally
Digital economy: focus on anything powered by digital technologies
Platform economy: focus on anything powered by tech-centric platforms

A given service platform can fall under multiple categories. For example, TaskRabbit is arguably part of the on-demand, gig, collaborative and sharing (assuming the Tasker’s skills were previously underutilised) economies. Airbnb’s home-sharing inventory is part of the sharing economy, while full-time, short-term corporate rentals are not necessarily so, and more likely are in the access economy.

Three factors have been fueling the development of the sharing economy :

Digital trust. Consumers have learned to trust “digital institutions” to mediate transactions. For example, eBay’s feedback system on buyer’s and sellers has established the trust necessary to exchange goods and payments between strangers. Airbnb host and guest mutual ratings facilitate the process to welcome strangers to one’s apartment. The development of blockchain will reinforce further this trust.
Urbanization and globalization. The growing urbanization of the world’s population is a natural incentive for sharing resources. It is sufficient to consider the connected problems of air pollution, of overflowing parking and traffic jams of single users cars to realize that the scarcity of the resources does not determine the sharing needs
Ecological considerations. Along the lines of the “consciousness” petal, more and more people embrace the “sharing economy” as a way to reduce their environmental footprint.

Technological and social innovation will not just bring new and more effective ways of performing the same tasks, replacing or improving single steps in a value chain. Still, it will create entirely new value chains that will require different ways of work and therefore, totally different types of organizations and different, if any, ways to manage such organizations.

Bitcoin as an example of autonomous organization

6.3 The Agile Movement

A group of thought leaders in software development who were looking for better ways for developing software introduced the concept of agility at the beginning of the year 2000. They identified four areas where they advocated to shift the focus of traditional software development and assembled them in what they called the agile manifesto. The four elements they wanted to focus on :

* individual and interactions take precedence over processes
* the creation of working software is more critical than the comprehensive documentation accompanying it.
* the notion of customer collaboration takes precedence over contract negotiation and
* the ability to respond to change is more important than the idea of following a plan

It is essential to stress that what is listed on the right is not of little interest; what is meant is that precedence should be given to the point listed on the left.

From the area of software development, agility moved to management supporting a long line of thought promoting leaner organizations structures. Already in 1998, Peter Drucker was advocating organizations composed of specialists who direct and discipline their performance through organized feedback from colleagues, customers and headquarters. In the managerial context agility can be defined as : “The capability of an organization to react, change or adapt to changes in its environment.”

While there are precise prescriptions to implement agility in software development, like scrum, no generally accepted template to implement an agile organization are available. Companies that wish to pursue agility tend to adopt their solutions and approaches.

Management consulting McKinsey has been extensively researching agility and has reached conclusions that resonate with Laloux’s concept of teal organizations. They found that agile organizations should:

Break rigid hierarchy
Break silos that separate the different areas of activities
Provide distributed leadership
Be based on a continually changing soft structure of self-management
Change the paradigm on which the organization is designed from machines to organism

McKinsey’s research identified typical characteristics and common practices adopted by agile organizations and grouped them in 5 trademarks :

A clear strategy representing a true north star embodied across the organization and made clear and shared at all levels and among all stakeholders
A flexible structure composed of a network of empowered teams
Simple, flexible and light processes: that allow rapid decision and learning cycles
A model created around people that can ignite passion
Wise use of Technology-enabling communications across the organization and transversal through organizational layers

Mc Kinsey identified several practices adopted by agile companies that promote at the same time dynamism and stability. Stability is achieved not through rigid hierarchy but by promoting a shared purpose and vision, the definition of a standard way of working and the creation of a community. Dynamism, on the other hand, is achieved not through aggressive objectives imposed from the top, but through transparency, flexible roles and the freedom for everyone to see and sense opportunities and the adoption of technical systems that facilitate communication. Even more important is that the research highlighted a direct correlation between agility practices and financial performance.

As we have said, there is no one-size-fits-all template to transform n any organization into an organization any organization into an agile organization. Still, there are several tools recognized and adopted that will help you go into that direction. Examples of these tools are: Product reviews, Hackathons, customer journeys, design thinking processes, adopting a different way of setting objectives for your organization like okr objectives and key results.

An organization’s capability to innovate is a critical component of its strategy and, in some cases, essential for its survival. Innovation is driven by the seemingly unstoppable development of technology in particular in the information and communication areas and is changing many aspects of our lives. A plethora of courses, books and consultants offer ways to foster innovation and creativity in organizations.

Although managers are urged to promote innovation, the way organizations are managed today is still primarily based on the traditional, hierarchy ( or at best matrix ) based, “command and control” approach advocated by early management thinkers like Fayol (Fayol 1949) or Taylor (Taylor 1911). Peter Drucker predicted and recommended the advent of a more straightforward, flatter organization already in the 80’s (Drucker 1988). Studies show that indeed the corporate world has been delayering its management systems over the last decades (Rajan and Wulf 2006). However, it is safe to imagine that a manager travelling in time from the first half of last century, while overwhelmed by the social and technological evolutions, encompassing gender equality and information or travel technology, would find himself relatively at ease in a boardroom or an executive meeting.

The traditional approach to implementing change in an organization consists of deploying large training programs designed to promote a change in employees behaviour. However, as pointed out by Beer et al. in their paper on the failure of leadership programs (Beer, Finnström, and Schrader 2016) , training programs are ineffective at modifying behaviours if they are not supported and preceded by organizational changes that take into account candid employees’ feedback.

Recently, some radical approaches that involve a disruptive change in the managerial process by abandoning the “command and control” and hierarchical structure in corporate management have been flourishing, with the adoption of such unconventional approaches by companies of hundreds of employees. These real-life experiments have been welcomed with reactions ranging from born again enthusiasm to annoyed scepticism.

6.4 Future of work

(Ng n.d., sec. 1 video 4)

6.5 Co-responsible leadership

elaborate

6.6 Rearranging the organization inside

6.6.1 Promoting Co-responsible leadership

The silos breaking trend is a reality in the surroundings of the organisation as well as within the organisation itself. The major difference is that for what concerns the outside world, there is not much the organization itself can do in the short term. Many of those who are convinced that new organizational paradigms are important also believe that organizations, including business ventures, have a duty and actually an interest in contributing to the common good rather than just focusing on maximising shareholders’ value. Some are also actively contributing to social and political movements pushing for a more open, inclusive, free and democratic world. Organizations however, do necessarily need or can afford to wait for society to change in order to adapt to the new trends. The good news is that they can take action to tap into their own collective intelligence by breaking internal silos and fostering agility.

Management and consulting approach are innumerable in offering path towards agility and managerial techniques ranging from authentic leadership, serving leadership, agility consulting promise to foster employees engagement.

The multiplicity of actors that we used to analyze the external world, comes andy to the understanding of the internal structure. First of all it is an approach that naturally lends itself to including multistakehoders reflection. Our organizations do not only have employees, managers, investors clients and suppliers to deal with. Moreover with the emergence of complex and ecosystems the boundaries among those players are becoming fuzziers. Also, the development of the crowd economy may mean that increasingly some persons may have multiple jobs, or the same shob can be carried in sharing mode by two employees. Tems and working group form incessantly and , if we look carefully, most of us int the organization carry multiple roles , that are hardly captured by the job description that was handed to us upon hiring. We participate to teams, projects and working groups that spans departments and in some case national or regional structures within the same company. The traditional hierarchical mangemerial structure , in it’s naive waterfall model distributing power, is increasingly inefficient in controlling this multitude of initiatives and complexity of relations.

Like we did for the outside world, the first step is to have a better tool to map our organization. One than can do justice to the real web of relations and roles without the illusion of the hierarchical job structure. The same theory can be applied to the structure of the organization (La w 1994)

A radical approach , is to distribute power broadly

On rounds
Strategies for integrating objections
The liberating effect of “good enough for now”
Sociocracy in large groups
The day I consented to a proposal I hated
The tragedy of a meeting. Meeting time as a commons<span style=”text-decoration:underline;”> </span>
“What if people don’t cooperate?” A systemic view of meetings

Sociocracy helps create a culture where decisions are made on evidence

See boecke and edenbourg on power and democracy in (Buck and Villines, 2007)

6.6.2 TRIMA for co-responsible leadership model

Continuity in change can only be supported if the very fabric of corporate governance is changed

Fairshare, for purpose organization, fairshare IPO

In the Fairshares model, everyone, not just financial investors, can receive shares as long as they provide qualifying contributions, including employees and customers. A qualifying contribution is a commitment to trade with a FairShares Enterprise in a way that meets the criteria for membership. Qualifying contributions are set for Labour Shareholders / Members and User Shareholders / Members only. Each FairShares Enterprise needs to define the qualifying contributions it recognises in its internal rule book (it is difficult to include in Articles of Association or ByLaws as it is so context specific).

Examples of qualifying contributions include:

One Labour Share for each 0.1 fraction of a working week (appropriate for conventional employment situations). 10 Labour Shares = 1.0 Fractional Working (i.e. full-time), five Labour Shares = 0.5 Fractional Working (half-time) etc. Labour Shares need to be issued or cancelled if a member changes their normal working pattern, unless there is a decision to permit accumulation of Labour Shares (not recommended).
One Labour Share for a given ‘output’ (appropriate where members are working to sell or produce a particular product/service). For example, at New Horizons Music (a musicians’ co-operative), one Labour Share was issued to each composer/band for each minute of original music contributed to the publisher’s music catalogue. In Indonesia, logging co-operatives admit new members based on their contribution of logs (not money).
One User Share for an ongoing agreement to use a given product or service. By doing so, customers who pay subscriptions will receive higher dividends and larger allocations of Investor Shares than those who pay as they go. For example, a leisure provider might issue User Shares to monthly subscribers, but not to casual customers. Mobile phone providers might issue User Shares to those with monthly contracts, but not ‘pay-as-you-go’ customers. A bank might issue User Shares to account holders. A housing provider might issue User Shares for long-term tenancy agreements, but not short-term agreements.
**User Share issues **reflecting levels of service. For example, in a health scheme, User Shares might reflect the plan purchased by a patient (or by their relatives or by the state). This way, patients (and/or their family) receive patronage refunds and Investor Shares commensurate with service levels they have committed to funding.

The number of Labour Shares and/or User Shares issued does not affect rights to speak and propose resolutions in meetings. Irrespective of the number of shares issued, a member still has only one vote. The number issued, however, does affect the dividends they will receive, and the investor shares (Member Shares) to which they will be entitled when the enterprise generates a surplus.

In associations and partnerships, the qualification is for membership rather than shares. Membership confers rights of governance, but - in the case of an association - no rights to share in the surplus of the organization. In an association, members gain rights to control a share of surpluses, but not receive them. <span style=”text-decoration:underline;”>http://www.fairshares.coop/wiki/index.php?title=Qualifying_Contribution</span>

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