Creating the Conscious Corporation

Jerry L. TalleyJLTalley & Associates

SBODNAugust 2006

The Corporation: misdirected documentary

Callous unconcern for the feelings of others Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships Reckless disregard for the safety of others Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning

others for profit Incapacity to experience guilt Failure to conform to social norms with

respect to lawful behavior

DIAGNOSIS:

Psychopath

An Exercise: The Intelligence of Groups

The Synergy Hypothesis

The LCD hypothesis

The Camel Hypothesis

The Brightest Person Hypothesis

The Averaging Hypothesis

Suppose you had a group composed of people with varying IQ’s:

What would

be the

intelligence

of the

group ..

as a

whole?

160

150

140

130

120

110

100

The Received View

CXOs

AnalystsBoard

Directives• Strategic plan• Priorities• Headcount• Budgets• Policies• Structure

Information on conformance to directives

The Data-Driven Organization?!

Track corporate performance against industry standards

Track process performance against process metrics

Track project progress against plan

Track individuals against quarterly “numbers”

Goals, budget and schedule are formed independent of capability or need . . often independent of each other!

Data collection, display, and distribution overshadows original purpose

Employees spend effort deflecting blame rather than understanding causes

Developmental efforts thwarted by contaminated data

Deteriorating performance motivates poorly targeted improvement efforts

Objective data squeezes out intuition, anecdotal data, or visioning

Good Intentions Gone Awry

An attempt to create collective intelligence through managed interaction of the pieces

Deliberate data collection

Structured data use Relies on cumulative

self-interest Rests on executive

design and oversight

A conscious company would pursue the same outcomes, but through a very different path

Support curiosity Emergent data uses Build collective

interests Rests on innovative

interactions and unfettered explorations

The Conscious Company?!

The ability to sense its environment . . and itself

A memory Widely shared

models for creating meaning

for external market for internal states for corporate purpose

Capacity to experiment to expand the model

CXOs

AnalystsBoard

Can you see the skull?

Our perceptions are organized around the models we have in our heads.

Can you also see the woman sitting at her mirror?

Do you see the old General?

Can you also find the two people talking under the arch? With a dog near by?

Filling in the blanks

Seeing only what’s there?

Stare at the grid. Do you see hazy

grey spots at the intersections?

Look more closely at any single intersection.

Perception

What critical external event does your organization routinely ignore or misperceive?

How does your organization sense its own internal state?

Morale? Engagement? Resilience? Willingness to take

risks? Strain? Burnout? Executive credibility? Strategic commitment?

At your table (hypothetically)...

Capture One interesting,

revealing example

One possible rule, trend, or lesson

You need not capture the entire conversation

Think and Share First answer the

questions on your own

Share your answers with each other

Memory

How does your organization “keep data” (even if people change)?

How far back does the memory extend?

How do (new) employees access the memory when needed?

Modeling

Military? Sports? Nautical? Mechanical? Family? Medical? Organic? Just financial?

What widely shared model does your company have of its place in the market? Of its internal operation? Of its customers?

Do you see models imposed that do not fit well with the data?

Do you see evidence of people working from distinctly different or even incompatible models?

Learning

In what areas has your organization shown consistent improvement based on experience?

Has your organization ever made the same mistake twice? How was the lesson missed?

What if we all wrote down . . . ?

I will do . . .

I will talk with . . . about . . .

I will investigate . . .

. . and then we walked by the

Stickies on the way back to

work?

The Essence of the Exercise

Elements Touches on all 4

components of consciousness

Asks for both the general and specific

Closing exercise bridges to beyond the meeting

Consequences Infuses large group

with overlapping conversations

Invites people to continue the interaction rather than coming to closure

Supports action by cultivating intention and developing consensus

The Conscious Company?!

Relies on a dense network of related conversations

An orientation of experimentation and learning

Action and reflection Leverages the self-

organizing capability of large groups

Consciousness is not a directed, constructed event

Can’t be “managed” Consciousness is an

emergent event An unpredictable

byproduct More than the sum of

its parts Self-regulating An act of faith

Thank you!

Jerry L. TalleyJLTalley & Associates

www.JLTalley.com(650) 967-1444