Endless Knots

GeekDoctor: Leading by clicking around

I'm doing a webcast on virtual leadership in a couple of weeks for eighty people, all situated virtually and all around the world. The link between the executive sponsoring the event and me  will be via Cisco's Telepresence -- though for everyone else, thank heavens, I won't be in high def.

In preparing for the webcast, I asked a few questions of one of my virtual leadership role models (scroll down for some great pics taken the same day this one was), John Halamka, CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, whose answers I thought others would enjoy seeing:

Q: You're on the move constantly. How do you maintain strong relationships with your direct reports?

*I live by Blackberry, laptop and conferencing technologies (Webex, iChat, Telepresence)

Q: What do you find most difficult as a "virtual" leader?

*Managing communications while constantly traveling is challenging.   My goal is to reduce the hours spent in airports through more virtual work

Q. What do you find to be easier when you're virtual?

*I eliminate many hassles - Parking, traffic, airport security lines, delayed flights, and lack of places to recharge my devices

Q. In terms of your reporting to your boss, how has your non-face-to-face presence affected your relationship?

*Paul [Levy, BIDMC's CEO] is just as virtual to me - we live in the world of social networking and web connectivity

Q. What advice on maintaining virtual connections with customers do you have for others who are very tech-savvy but whose customers may be less so?

*It's a journey. Start by eliminating as many face to face meetings as you can and set a goal of less travel/less in person meetings each year.

"Voluntary Simplicity" and "The Living Universe"

By Jeff Stamps, guest blogger for Endless Knots

This is Sunday morning, a time when people in my culture are used to receiving or giving sermons on the greater meaning of life and the practical applicability of the Golden Rule ("do unto others.."). Today's modest effort has been stimulated by a recent book, The Living Universe, by an old friend, Duane Elgin, whose 1981 book, Voluntary Simplicity, still resonates almost 30 years after its publication.

Our first book came out at about the same time as Duane's. In Networking: The First Report and Directory (see our books), Jessica and I recognized networks as a new form of organization in the grassroots movements of the 1970s. In the "report" part of the book, we chronicled the emergence of groups that were to become the centers for today's nonprofit world. So we often crossed paths with Duane and soon became friends.

Duane is a big thinker and a simple liver, and has devoted a lifetime to the notion of human transformation and inspiring positive change. He was a futurist researcher with SRI International in the 1970s, and worked on a number of cutting edge projects including Changing Images of Man, a stunning report with Joseph Campbell, Willis Harmon, and O.W. Markley.

His latest book hinges on a simple question, one you can take a moment to answer yourself before you go on:

Is the universe dead or alive?

Deadness is the prevailing scientific view, a container of inert matter that is the physical layer upon which the miracle of life grows. However, most people answer quickly, intuitively--in a "blink"--that of course the thing-as-a-whole is more alive than dead.

For me, it crystallized another question to pose about human beings, which you might also answer:

Are our organizations dead or alive?

Deadness is the prevailing view. The deadness of inert matter is found in our conventional "machine model" of organizations, particularly Big Ones, and most especially government ones. Many of our friends who promote networks dismiss the physical hierarchy as an antiquated machine relic rather than an evolving human organization that is becoming more networked. Our organizations are our greatest unexploited resource for addressing the confluence of disaster, change, and opportunity that defines our transitional time, so the answer "dead or alive" really matters.

While organizations cannot live without people, they are also different from people, yet still distinctly human--and alive. Two great networks--one social, the other organizational--intersect in the interrelated configuration of jobs, positions, and roles. Together, we get stuff done that as individuals we cannot do alone (see our Working Papers for some deep diving on this theme).

GM was the epitome of the industrial model, the archetype of the impersonal machine organization. 'Nuf said with Chrysler already in bankruptcy and GM headed there shortly.

Our organizations never were machines, but regarding them as such ensures a failure to adapt and learn and grow.

So this is where The Living Universe took me. If you enjoy a mix of religious and scientific views on the how the universe lives and why it matters, you should read Duane's newest book.

Mapping the recovery - "follow the money" - part 1

AIG. Again. Let us add our voices to the outcry over the bonus scam. Outrageous. Worse than outrageous is the damage it does to the Obama agenda, particularly the still critical moves to come on the economic rescue plan, as Tom Friedman pointed out in a March 18 opinion column in the New York Times.

What to do? On the recipient side of bailout funds, it will always be difficult to get real transparency and build trust. However, on the input side, the government itself, there is a lot that can be done.

But there's something even more disturbing than the AIG bonuses themselves.

It has to do with an aspect of transparency that is getting a bit of short shrift, in our opinion. There's a lack of visibility into the clear responsibility within government for overseeing the use of so many billions, this oversight, so to speak, from no less an authority than President Obama. Jennifer Loven and Martin Crutsinger's AP story reported in today's Boston Globe quotes the president: "Nobody here was responsible for supervising AIG and allowing themselves to put the economy at risk by some of the outrageous behavior that they were engaged in. We are responsible, though. The buck stops with me. And my goal is to make sure that we never put ourselves in this kind of position again."

Responsibility is the flip side of accountability, two roles in one relationship. While AIG is accountable, the government is responsible. Clarifying--making transparent--the structure of responsibility, aka the org chart (see our dynamic map of the top levels of the US Government in your browser, which takes a moment to load), is one way the government can directly increase the public's trust and govern more effectively. This is a much more direct route to developing trust, and will apply much more broadly across the multiple complex agendas of this administration.

To this point, we've written "Mapping the Recovery," another NetAge Report, this one on transparency, accountability, and responsibility particularly as they apply to tracking the recovery spending as laid out by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). We are posting Part 1 today (after the break below). In this first part, we describe the network of accountability and responsibility, and how the accounting system IS NOT the organizational system, although it sort of looks like it. In the second part, which we'll post tomorrow, we  look specifically at how OMB has set up the data to track the recovery funds, how its multiple elements can be mapped, and, most important, what's missing (hint--responsibility).

-- Jeff Stamps

Transparency and open government - Obama's midnight memos

At the stroke of midnight on January 21, 2009. five "Presidential Actions" went into force (see White House press statement), establishing a clear foundation of organizing values and principles for the new Obama Administration. The "Midnight Five," with their links, are:

Presidential Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government

Presidential Memorandum on Freedom of Information Act

Executive Order on Presidential Records

Executive Order on Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel

Presidential Memorandum Regarding Pay Freeze

The capstone action is the one we list first, the memo on "Transparency and Open Government," a remarkable document that lays out the fundamental reason we need openness and how to achieve it. This understanding of the central role of transparency is vital at this extraordinarily critical moment in the still-accelerating economic crisis. Transparency is both necessary and beneficial. To paraphrase Judge Brandeis again, things get better with sunlight.

The president doesn't mince words in his preamble to the memo:

"My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government."

How are these open government benefits of efficiency, effectiveness, and a stronger democracy to be achieved? The memo outlines three imperatives ("shoulds"):

• Government should be transparent.
• Government should be participatory.
• Government should be collaborative.

Lest you think transparency and openness apply just to government, listen up all you leaders in organizations of every size in every sector who are feeling and dealing with desperate challenges. We can only get out of this mess by all of us being smarter and contributing to the overall solution.

We are posting the whole transparency memo after the break below, inserting in brackets words that indicate its applicability to all organizations, thus, the revised title and what follows. Please take a read and see if you might be able to endorse the same statement in your organization.

-- Jeff Stamps

Transparency and Open Governments [Organizations]

Transparency at Treasury - The case of the missing org chart

Following yesterday's post on how the Geithner bailout plan did not provide the transparency required to fill the enormous trust gap, I checked out the Treasury page on the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" (EESA) which is where "details" about the TARP program hang out. First thing to notice is that it looks broken, i.e., the entire left hand column is blank. Strange. It's been this way since this section of the Treasury site was launched in October, 2008. Otherwise, since the new administration has come in, nothing has changed. A few press releases have been added. This stands in stark contrast to the White House site, which is, shall we say, nothing like what was there before January 20.

Then I looked for the Treasury org chart. Not to be found. A review of the site map confirmed that none was listed.

Curious, I checked out the other departments. Most have the Bush-administration org charts still posted. Notably, Steven Chu, the Nobelist Secretary of Energy, has already posted an updated DOE chart. And, Arne Duncan's Dept of Education site has the most interesting interactive chart, which, because of its design, is naturallly up to date. The Treasury Department is the only agency that has no org chart at all. Curious.

When I was assembling our OrgScope map of the US Gov, Treasury's org chart was the first one I keyed in, necessary because I was mapping the network of consultants, contracts, and bailout recipients associated with EESA (which you can see in our Rescue Map). I eventually collected and keyed in all the departmental org charts, posting them together here. As a good archivist, I had the url to the (old) Treasury map here. You can click to see for yourself where that takes you now: "We're sorry...file cannot be found..."

Surely an oversight, so as a public service we offer a link from our site to what is in all likelihood exactly the same Treasury org chart today. Moreover, we have added the organizational structure of EESA to the Treasury chart in our US Gov map. (Treasury is at 11 o'clock, then go to the Deputy, then Office of Domestic Finance, from which hangs the Office of Financial Stability.)

Treasury needs to set an example of transparency itself. Remarkably, they have become less transparent than their Bush administration predecessors. Unintentionally, I'm sure. I hope.

-- Jeff Stamps

Bailout plan fails to instill trust

Where is the new thinking?

With all due respect, I (Jeff speaking) don't think Tim Geithner gets it. Nor, apparently does the market think he gets it, as the Dow began to tank (losing almost 400 points) as soon as the new Treasury Secretary started outlining his plan for economic recovery today. 

According to Stephen Labaton and Edmund Andrews's page-one piece in today's NY Times ("Geithner Said to Have Prevailed on the Bailout"), Geithner opposed placing tighter curbs on executive pay, didn't endorse directing how the banks would use the bailout money, and refused to challenge the retention of current management -- the brilliant folks who brought us this mess.

The Times article also said Geithner "expressed concern that too many government controls would discourage private investors from participating." And, the Times piece indicates that not everyone in the President's office agreed with Geithner's approach, specifically David Axelrod, who "did not deny that there were differences of opinion as the policy was being crafted or that he had taken a harder line on issues such as executive pay restrictions, as other participants to the discussions recalled."

Obviously, we are not privy to conversations in the White House but, along with millions of other Americans, we too experience the effect of every decision made regarding the economy--and thus care deeply about the choices Geithner is making.

In announcing the plan today, Geithner said he would restore "lost faith" in the bailout. Instead, he apparently did the opposite. His plan unsettled precisely the group he didn't want to offend, private investors. No thank you, said the market.

In a word, what Geithner doesn't get is trust.

We have been following the TARP (Troubled Assets Recovery Program) saga on our site and here on the blog since the program began in October, 2008. Likewise, we've created an OrgScope overlay of the Act I TARP and related programs on our map of the US Government. From the beginning, we said it was all about "transparency for trust," which we titled our online essay about this subject. We have written numerous posts on the subject.

Trust is not a nice to have. It's a need to have. The Obama plan needs to restore trust for private investors, for the American public, and for a Congress that will be asked to come up with billions and probably trillions more before this is over.

And the only route to trust is transparency. Sunlight. Geithner's plan thus far offers little in this regard.

-- Jeff Stamps

Nodes and links, technically speaking

Like the economy, old mental models of our organizations are bankrupt. We've been developing a new model of organization for many years, one we believe is fit for these times. We're collecting and posting the more technical aspects of this new model, a small book's worth, as NetAge Working Papers, of which we're posting the second today. We'll post several more over the coming weeks.

"Understanding Nodes and Links: Core Concepts of People, Positions, and Relationships," the second working paper, provides the technical background to the idea that all organizations, including hierarchies, are networks. This is a topic we've been beating to death in our writings and on this blog. So for you deep conceptual divers, this one's for you. (Download Understanding Nodes and Links)

A little more formally put, this paper contains the foundation for a management science of networked organizations. Networks are known by their nodes. Key to this approach to nodes is the idea of the position, the central ingredient integrating the ephemeral organization with the flesh-and-blood people who populate it. Connecting the nodes in networks, of course, are links. Here we lay out a taxonomy for these relationships: directed links, both horizontal and vertical, with strong and weak versions. Nodes and links together generate dynamic representations of organizational realities. These ideas contribute the conceptual basis for the design of OrgScope, our tool for mapping, navigating, and analyzing organizations as networks.

Here are the opening paragraphs of "Understanding Nodes and Links:"

What Are We?

A formal organization is an emergent network of positions, a configuration of roles filled by people.

Simple idea, yet significant in consequence. Who or what are we? What is the us that works together as an integrated whole, from families and teams to enterprises and nations. It takes but a small shift in perspective to see individual people working together as an organization that is tangible, knowable, and measurable. An organized us happens when we step into roles and bring a particular configuration of positions to life.

An organization is its people—simple and obvious.

Yes, but…is that all? Is there something more, or different, something that is human in essence but separate from the people who comprise the organization?

Every organization tells a story, is its own play. It has a cast of characters and a plot. To perform their parts, actors step into their roles. Different personalities and capabilities emerge, depending on which actor plays the role. Whether great or poor, an individual’s performance takes place within the same set of formal relationships any actor playing that role must contend with. Thus, the role or position is part of the play’s structure, existing quite independently of the person playing that role. King Lear is William Shakespeare’s play, King Lear is a role in the play, and Sir Lawrence Olivier played the King Lear role to great acclaim. Shakespeare and Olivier are dead. The play—and the King Lear role itself—lives on, and has for four hundred years.

When people step into positions, they take on roles that link into a network of other roles. But that doesn’t prevent them from being the people they are, who come to their jobs with their unique preferences and idiosyncrasies. Organizational life is both:

Formal, with its the network of positions, constituent units, and working groups that stand apart from the people; and

Informal, with its social interactions among particular people, who stand apart from the roles they occupy in and around the organization.

These two kinds of networks--organizational and social--are inextricable (see Figure 1). When we think about all the relationships relevant to organizational life, their entanglement contributes to our sense of chaotic complexity. But we can distinguish these two types of networks. By clearly defining and specifying the organizational network of positions, we can more easily identify relationships that make up social networks of people.

Currently, social scientists and management theorists are trying to understand group life largely by examining the network of relationships among the group’s members. Social relationships are not only highly complex themselves, but they are especially obscured because the formal organizational framework is itself dynamic.

The network of positions moves to its own beat while the entwined people network has its own different rhythms.

The complexity of these two fundamental sorts of human networks is awesome, understandably hindering our ability to develop social and organizational sciences. New insights from network and complexity sciences, however, help us establish a new management science of organizational networks.

(Download Understanding Nodes and Links)

-- Jeff Stamps

Data Behind Principles for Reorganization - A NetAge White Paper

"Principles for Reorganization: How To Mix Levels, Span, and Size to maximize Communication and Decision-Making" offers a more detailed look at the data behind the theory we presented in NetAge Report #4, "Organizing at the Edge of Chaos," and blogged here. It provides greater insight into the metrics that those responsible for enterprises can use to reduce risk of failure, extend leadership circles, and improve organizational designs. (Download Principles for Reorganization.)

NetAge Working Papers set out a new theory and practice for organizations. We feel compelled to publish these more technical papers now as an urgent response to the collapse of traditional hierarchies and bureaucracies as evidenced by the current economic debacle. As the economic crisis deepens in 2009, we believe that now is the time for new ideas, new frameworks, and new theory to come forward, approaches that will allow all kinds of organizations whether large or small to reorganize in smarter, better, and faster ways. 

Here are a few paragraphs from the "Principles" paper:

In this working paper, we present the data behind our theory of hierarchy as a network. We show how the complementary dynamics of communication and decision-making play out in the unexpected properties found in hierarchy. We provide more data detail because it allows a deeper look at the forces that shape the formal structure. These measurements of structures and forces enable organizations to predict and to prescribe, two hallmarks of science.

Accurate maps and data of organizational networks of positions help us see and understand the global configuration of relationships, which enables us to make better local decisions.

Our organizations are human. Humans organize themselves. They are self-organizations.

Self-organization, a term introduced in the 1940s by Ross Ashby, has been a foundation idea of cybernetics, systems science, and, more recently, complexity science. It refers to the ability to change and grow in complexity without outside guidance.

Self-organization is the only route to managing complexity writ large in a networked world. “It” must manage “itself.” Indeed, the organizational network is already managing itself, but remains largely unaware it is doing so.

As we said in NetAge Report #1, “The Digital Reorganization Chart,” start toward a conscious process of self-organization by mapping the current formal structure. Then assess the existing pattern of communication-decision dynamics as suggested by the Eleum example that follows here. This analysis is available to all organizations. It falls out of the reporting data already sitting in the enterprise data system, much of it gold-standard quality in terms of accuracy and completeness.

Use the global map to provide context for local mapping and design decisions. Bring local intelligence to bear on local questions of optimal fit for purpose. This is redesign from the inside out, local answers to factors of size, span, and levels to meet immediate conditions.

At the same time, local decisions roll up and effect organizational behavior at larger scales. It falls to the executive cadre, managers who are directing teams of teams, to balance the strategic direction of large-scale goals with the local tactical optimization solutions.

Simple sorts of size and span spotlight the hub positions and bring extra attention to those critical areas of the organization. In particular, an organization wants to highlight the hotspots. Is this dual-hub structure the right design for this set of circumstances? If so, are the right people in these high-stress positions?

As Eleum demonstrates, knowledge of the level, span, and size of every position is immediately useful information with many practical applications. And it’s not just about better, more adaptive organizational structures. It is easier to get the right people and skills into the right positions when you know the position’s multiple roles in the overall configuration.

For more, Download Principles for Reorganization

-- Jeff Stamps

Reorganization fever at the White House

Peter Baker has a great reorganization story in today's NY Times' Week in Review section, "And Now Let the Jockeying Begin." It neatly combines attention to the power of the position with the power of the person--twin dynamics that we've been writing about when discussing organization structure. Baker's story recaps many of the reorganization changes we've noted in posts over the past few weeks, and nicely platforms (stayed tuned) tomorrow's post, "Organizing at the Edge of Chaos." The Baker piece and those that we're adding here are not just about the Obama administration but also point to valuable insights for any organization facing redesign themselves in uncertain times, meaning now.

The Times piece notes, as have we, that Obama's government is becoming more complicated, with the appointment of "czars," special envoys, and task forces, which Baker describes as "overlaying an additional set of actors upon a bureaucracy already scratchy about who's in charge. Mr. Obama concluded that new high-powered figures are needed to force change but they pose a delicate management challenge."

These formal organizational overlays are precisely the virtual reorganization forms emerging to transform traditional bureaucracy. They represent a necessary "complexification" of government to match the complexification of problems we face. They also reflect the need for a more "leaderful" structure, a hallmark of the new networked organizations, whether hierarchies or more informal groupings. Such enterprises are, of course, more difficult to manage, but they're smarter. If there's one thing we need right now, it's intelligent organizations. Really, we have no choice.

The article notes the same new White House offices that we described in our recent "Reorganizing the Executive Office of the President"--offices to coordinate climate change and energy, urban policy, technology, and health. Vice President Biden's task force on the middle class is a great example of a coordination overlay that you can see in US Gov + Task Force map. We've also blogged about the unusual two-hatted organizational role assigned to the incoming HHS Secretary, who will also serve as an insider in the Exec Office of President, leading the Health Care Reform effort. This dual role is now threatened by a tax mess with an uncertain confirmation ahead.

According to Baker's article, John Podesta, who co-headed the transition effort, is an architect for many of these design changes. "There are things that cut across agency lines that needed real powerful White House cohesion, direction, and leadership," Mr. Podesta said.

These cross-cutting networks overlaying the hierarchy require new types of leaders who can operate in more complex environments. Thus, the choice of leaders follows the design requirements. "The structure that was built was done with due regard for the fact that there would be conflict. But the team we built was done with the idea that these people could work together," Podesta explained.

-- Jeff Stamps

Reorganizing the Executive Office of the President

While he has not used the word, President Obama's very first act, even before being sworn in, was to reorganize. As Jessica said yesterday, at the stroke of noon, January 20, 2008, the White House website changed, and with it a new, reorganized Executive Office of the President went into effect.

Having kept a close eye on the various Executive Branch charts over the past few months, I can now report on the major changes as I perceive them, including promotions, additions, and deletions to the president’s core staff structure. These reorganizations reflect profound changes in emphasis and priorities, adaptations to the external environment (literally), and a respect for the complexity of the job. All of this comes through in a number of new functions focused directly on the importance of organization itself.

Until today, our digital US Government organization chart used the Executive Office/White House structure of the Bush Administration as its basis. Each time, Pres-elect Obama made appointments and nominations, we entered those new names into existing positions, as we did when Larry Summers was named director of the National Economic Council. When a new position, such as Carol Browner’s remit to connect energy and climate, we engaged in some guesswork, trying to figure out how these new posts would hook together. Now we know.

President Obama's first appointment was Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff to the President, who now runs the Executive Office. From what we can tell, Emanuel has 19 people reporting directly to him--ranging from senior advisors such as David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett to James Jones, Director of the National Security Council. One of those 19 positions is that of the "White House Office" itself, which, in turn, is run, we think, by one of two Deputy Chiefs of Staff, either Mona Sutphen or Jim Messina. (This use of dual deputies is already a departure from the apparent Bush rule of one deputy.) While we can't quite determine yet whether Sutphen or Messina has this job, one of the two deputies has 23 people on staff, comprising a second group of advisors, offices, and councils that are two steps below the root of power.

Both the Chief of Staff and the Deputy Chief of Staff, with 19 and 23 direct reports respectively, are what we call “hub” positions in the US government, which we discuss extensively in our report and blog post on “Analyzing the Organization as a Network.”

Meanwhile, five organizations have been "promoted," their org-chart boxes having been moved up a level in the White House Office:

·        Domestic Policy Council (Melody Barnes);

·        National Economic Council (Summers);

·        Office of National AIDS Policy;

·        Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board; and

·        White House Military Office.

Then there are nine new boxes representing official functions that simply were not there before:

·       Chief of Staff's Office;

·       Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy (Browner);

·       Office of Management and Administration;

·       Oval Office Operations;

·       Office of Presidential Personnel;

·       Office of Urban Affairs Policy;

·       Office of Social Innovation (!); and

·       A splitting of the position of Advance and Appointments into two functions

And two organizations have been eliminated:

·        Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives; and

·        USA Freedom Corps.

Missing from the list (so far as I can tell) and unaccounted for is the announced, and highly unusual, Office for Health Care Reform and its Director, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tom Daschle.

Based on press releases from the Obama-Biden change.gov site and the newer, but not complete, list of Nominations & Appointments on the whitehouse.gov site, we've been able to map about 50 positions in the Executive Office of the President. This means that we've got about half of them as press accounts of the President’s January 21 briefing for his staff, (the one announcing a pay freeze and emphasizing transparency), indicate that the staff as a whole numbers around 100.

To carry transparency the next step and to set a good example for other government departments and agencies to follow, we believe that President Obama should immediately publish the org chart of his office. In our view, such a chart should include names and responsibilities, indicating where jobs have been filled and where there are empty spots still awaiting appointments. Although all the departments publish org charts (you can see these charts on our site), the Bush White House's chart never went deeper than the two-level structure we just discussed.

--Jeff Stamps