Innovation Garden

Expert political judgment (book by Tetlock)

Expert Political Judgement

Philip Tetlock

Expert Political Judgment

This 2007 book made a splash when it was released because it tested the ability of experts to predict outcomes in various areas of finance, economics, and politics. Experts did very poorly, in fact they did worse than chance alone. Well-informed people actually did better than experts, though still worse than chance. This book describes, in great detail, how this conclusion was reached.

A curious mind (book by Glazer & Fishman)

A Curious Mind

Brain Glazer & Charles Fishman

A Curious Mind

Brain Glazer is a producer of movies and televisions shows. This book is the story of the role curiosity, in many forms, has been a force in his life. He did not set out to work in movies but a summer job taken before law school became the entryway to this career. Looking back, Glazer recognizes that he was always curious and this curiosity was fostered by his grandmother in particular. It is clear from reading this book that Glazer has a degree of adventurousness that he has used to satisfy his curiosity.

Learning agile (book by Stellman & Greene)

Learning Agile

Andrew Stellman & Jennifer Greene

Learning Agile

Agile working practices have become quite trendy over the last few years, but the application of the word agile to these practices dates back to 2001. A group of 17 people active in software development had a meeting and published what they called the “Agile Manifesto ”. This was a set of four values and 12 principles to guide software development. It is worth noting that agile practices were around much earlier than this. This creates some confusion about what is or is not agile, which sometimes misses the point.

Improv wisdom (book by Madson)

Improve wisdom

Patricia Ryan Madson

Improv wisdom

This book describes how the method and mindset of improvisational theory can be applied to everyday life and business. We all have some urge to control our lives and this often means that we can’t react to events. Improvisation is the unplanned response to events and is a skill that can be learned. Improvisation in comedy gets a lot of attention but improvisation has also been part of music, conventional theater and visual arts.

Rebels at work (book by Kelly & Medina)

Rebels at work

Lois Kelly and Carmen Medina

Rebels at Work

This book is intended to help people who think differently navigate their organizations. The authors describe a good rebel as a person who observes things that are not working and suggests ways to change. A bad rebel just complains. The authors observe that rebels are not always the right people to actually lead a change, but they are often the right people to instigate the change. People become rebels in many ways and times in their careers. Some start immediately in their career and some become rebels later in their careers. Some rebels are “created” by a problem and retire as rebels when that problem is addressed. Other rebels find one problem after another to solve.

It doesn’t have to be crazy at work (book by Fried & Hansson)

It doesn’t have to be crazy at work

Jason Fried and David Hansson

It doesn't need to be crazy

The two authors were the principle co-founders of a company called Basecamp. The company produces software that is used by (mostly small) businesses for project management. The company was founded in about 2000 and has been profitable for every year of its existence. The company has not gone public and is itself quite small (about 50 people). It sells access to their software by subscription and has over 100,000 client companies. By most measures this is a successful entrepreneurial start-up.

Team of teams (book by McChrystal et al)

Team of teams

Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, Chris Fussell

Team of teams

This book describes the kind of organization required to cope with a complex environment. The lead authors uses his experience leads the US Special Operation Group (USSOG) in the Iraq during the early-to-mid 2000s. Modern business and modern business both organized around reductionist specification of work combined with delivery of explicit directions for its completion. This works very well in highly predictable environments where initiative and innovation create no value. An increasing portion of business life does not belong to that predictable world and requires new ways of working. Though the specific context of this book is military, the application is not just military.

Normal Accidents (book by Perrow)

Normal Accidents

Charles Perrow

Normal-Accidents

This is a book about complexity and how it leads to accidents. It was written in 1984, soon after the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident, and an additional section was written in 1999.  I became aware of this book in the week after the fire at Notre dame and the second crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8. An article (When making things better only makes them worse ) outlined how this book described the inevitability of such accidents. 

Red team (book by Zenko)

Red Team

Micah Zenko

Red Team

This book contains a series of examples of the use of red teams to do alternative or adversary analysis for a variety of organizations. Most of the examples are quite extensive and beyond the scope of summarization. The book does little to explain how red teams work, but more to explain the environment in which they work.

The surprising power of liberating structures (book by Lipmanowisc and McCandless)

The surprising power of liberating structures

Henri Lipmanowisc and Keith McCandless

Liberating Structures

This book is about making human interactions more productive. Most people complain about meetings, whether they are organizers or participants. The authors suggest that one reason is that we have a very limited “alphabet” for structuring meetings. A larger vocabulary would enable meetings to be structured in ways that were more satisfactory to both organizers and participants.

Red Teaming (book by Hoffman)

Red Teaming

Bryce Hoffman

Red teaming

This book describes some of the practices associated with so-called “Red Teams”. A red team is a group of people who set out to deliberately challenge a plan or decision as a way to insure better plans or decisions are made. They are designated devil’s advocates. The practice began to assume its modern form in the 1800s after the Prussian Army suffered defeats against Napoleon. A group of senior Army officers was appointed to a “General Staff” with the assignment to challenge the plans of Generals. Plans improved and the Prussian Army became quite potent. Since the Prussian Army’s colors were blue, the opposition team was called the red team.

Contagious culture (book by Cavanaugh)

Contagious culture

Anese Cavanaugh

Contagious Culture

This book is for those who think that the culture of the organizations in which they work could be better. The author presents two basic ideas. First, you are an agent of culture change through the groups in which you participate. So, you are in a position to change the culture around you. Second, you can create a change through a combination of intention, showing up and maintaining a presence.

Messy (book by Harford)

Messy

Tim Harford

Messy

There is a strong drive to get organized and efficient. The premise of this book is that disorganized mess has an important role in making us effective, and that in many cases organization does not even work as advertised. A number of examples shows that embracing the messy elements of life can increase the long-term potential for success.

Business Model Generation (Book by Osterwalder et al)

Business Model Generation

Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith

Business Model Generation

This book describes a visualization approach to the creation of a business model. The visualization addresses all aspects of a basic business model and can be used to explain the model to others. The visualization is called a business model canvas and it can fit on a single standard piece of paper. Obviously, it is not very detailed; rather it is a distillation of the essential features of the business model.

The Founders Mentality (book by Zook and Allen)

The Founder’s Mentality

Chris Zook & James Allen

The Founders Mentality

This book is based on the proposition that the big difference between successful companies and companies that are doing poorly can be traced to use of a founder’s mentality. The founder’s mentality comprises (1) having an owner’s mindset, (2) an obsession with the front line, and (3) a sense of insurgency. Combined, this sets a focus and energy for the organization that makes it better at serving customers and better at outdoing potential competitors.

Deep work (book by Newport)

Deep Work

Cal Newport

Deep Work

Work is becoming more complex, which requires more focus and attention. At the same time, the variety and prevalence of distractions has been rising. This book advocates that success, where knowledge work is increasingly critical, requires people to create conditions for deep work and to minimize shallow work. This is a significant challenge in modern organizations.

Nonsense (book by Holmes)

Nonsense

Jamie Holmes

Nonsense

This is a book about our reaction to ambiguity and the potential negative and positive effects of “ambiguity setting” on our behavior. The title itself seems ambiguous and it took me some time to relate the title to the content. My understanding of the title is that we divide our experience into sense and nonsense (think non-sense as opposed to silliness), and we deal poorly with the nonsense. In fact, our brains work very hard to make sense of things with sometimes odd results. Ambiguity can lead to clearly undesirable outcomes or surprisingly positive ones. Understanding how we respond to ambiguity and how to “manage” it might result in more positive outcomes. As the book expresses it, “I’ll hope to convince you of a simple claim: In an increasingly complex, unpredictable world, what matters most isn’t IQ, willpower, or confidence in what we know. its how we deal with what we don’t understand.”*

Intelligent disobedience (book by Chaleff)

Intelligent Disobedience

Ira Chaleff

Intelligent Disobedience

The central theme of this book is that people need to have a strong capability to resist the orders they are given – under some circumstances. Society, and any organization, requires a considerable degree of compliance from its members, but trouble arises when the compliance becomes unthinking and automatic. Throughout the book, the metaphor of a guide dog is used. The guide dog must follow the instructions of its person, but must know when to disobey because obedience will lead to the person’s harm.

Perspective (book by Mirocha)

Perspective:

John Mirocha

Perspective

The success of a company depends on many things, but it is generally understood that a key purpose of a company is to harness the benefits of people working together (to reduce a variety of financial and non-financial transaction costs). This may sound like a trivial observation, but it was significant enough to win the Nobel Prize in economics for Ronald Coase. “People working together” is one description of culture, and leaders of organizations hoping to get better performance from their people need to develop some appreciation of the organization’s culture. The study of human societies and cultures is the domain of anthropology (in contrast, the study of individual people is psychology) and one of the big ideas in anthropology is that every culture must be understood from the inside-out. This book is devoted to explaining how anthropologists would approach the problem of understanding a culture by creating a perspective on the culture through observation.

Simplexity (book by Kluger)

Simplexity

Jeffrey Kluger

Simplexity

Two trends seem to dominate much thinking in business and society. One concern is excess simplification and the other is excess complexity. Not much thought is usually given to the conditions that characterize complexity. This book suggests that complexity arises between two states: chaos and rigidity – complexity is the combination of chaos and rigidity or maybe it is better described as partially chaotic and partial rigid. The following chart illustrates the core concept of the book. On the left is chaos dominated by random action and unpredictable behavior. The book uses a gas one example of a chaotic system. At the other extreme is a rigid system, like a crystal dominated by regular structure and complete predictability. In between are areas of varied complexity. The example used in the book is a guppy which is obviously quite complex. When confronted with complexity, there are two routes to simplification. One route is to formalize things and increase order. The other is to remove order and let things “take care of themselves”.

Six Simple Rules (book by Morieaux & Tollman)

Six Simple Rules

Y. Morieux & P. Tollman

Six Simple Rules

The premise of this book is that the hard (Theory X) and soft (Theory Y) approaches to management are no longer suitable in our increasingly complex business climate. The hard approach tries to manage complexity by controlling employees through policies, incentives and structures. This creates inflexibility, “complicatedness” and waste. The hard approach also assumes that people are the problem and need to be controlled. The soft approach assumes that people are the solution and simply need to develop the mindsets to obtain the desired outcomes. Managers often blend the two approaches by setting clear roles, structures and objectives while also spending time listening, hosting team building exercises, and encouraging engagement. In the end, the authors point out that these are just two different approaches to controlling employees in order to obtain the desired results.

Give and Take (book by Grant)

Give and take

Adam Grant

Give and Take

 

This is a book about the role of reciprocity in our lives. Imagine that there are two kinds of people at work. One group is most concerned about helping others and does things to benefit them without worrying much about themselves. The second group gives to others because they expect to get much more back from them. Giving is only the means to get more for themselves. This is a world of givers and takers.

 

Innovation and Entrepreneurship (book by Drucker)

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Peter F. Drucker

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

 This book was originally published in 1985. Despite being 30 years old, the book’s currency shows clearly the classic value of Drucker’s insights. It also shows that a large number of books basically re-package the content of this book to discuss innovation and entrepreneurship. Drucker provides both a definition and a rational for studying innovation and entrepreneurship together. Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service….Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation, the changes and their symptoms that indicate opportunities for successful innovation.* The key concepts here is “exploit change” and “search purposefully”.

 

The Toyota Way (book by Liker)

The Toyota Way

Jeffrey K. Liker

The Toyota Way

 Toyota is well known for its system of manufacturing called the Toyota Production System (TPS). From just-in-time inventory and pull-based production planning to the “lean” philosophy of continuous improvement (kaizen), companies all over the world have adopted elements of TPS in hopes of improving their own manufacturing. The majority of these efforts fail to deliver a significant benefit. The book attempts to explain how TPS is much more than a set of tools and processes by explaining 14 management principles that surround the TPS tool set. The author was able to interview many of the Toyota executives who were part of the system’s development and who provided their personal insight into what was important in the development of TPS. With the increasing deployment of continuous improvement systems inside of companies, it is worth examining the TPS as a complete system. When people describe “systems thinking”, this is an example of that approach.

 

The Lean Startup (book by Ries)

The Lean Startup

Eric Ries

Lean Startup

 Lean methodology is generally associated with manufacturing – not entrepreneurship. This book proposes that entrepreneurship is a kind of special case of management and that Lean principles can be applied to this special case. The author was part of two startup failures and one success, and these experiences guide his perspective. One of the main questions that he asked was “why do most startups fail?” and his answer was this counter-intuitive observation. The first problem is the allure of a good plan, a solid strategy, and thorough market research.* These inputs might be important in established situations, but not in a startup. The second problem is that after seeing traditional management fail to solve this problem, some entrepreneurs and investors…adopted the “Just Do It” school of startups. This school believes that if management is the problem, chaos is the answer.

The Designful Company (book by Neumeier)

The Designful Company

Marty Neumeier

 The Designful Company

 This book describes some features of organizations that put design thinking at the center of their approach to business. A relatively short book, it is written in a very concise form for high impact.

 The central thesis of the book is that companies today face a set of “wicked” problems that differ from the traditional problems that companies have faced. These problems are unlikely to be solved, but they can be addressed. Some solutions are better than others, but none are “right”. Failure to confront these wicked problems will cause damage in the long run, so companies must take them on. Examples of wicked problems identified by 1500 CEOs and listed in the book are:

• Balancing long term goals with short term demands
• Predicting returns on innovative concepts
• Aligning strategy with customer experience
• Multiplying success by collaborating across silos
• Winning the war for world-class talent
• Protecting margins in a commoditizing industry

A wicked problem is a puzzle so persistent, pervasive, or slippery that it can seem insoluble.*

The Carrot Principle (book by Gostick & Elton)

The Carrot Principle (2007)

Adrian Gostick & Chester Elton

This book is about the effects of purpose-driven recognition as an accelerator of performance. The book to a great extent is also about leadership, and the role that recognition plays in the exercise of leadership. The following notes attempt to capture some of the main points in the book.

Riding the Blue Train (book by Sayle & Kumar)

Riding the Blue Train: A Leadership Plan for Explosive Growth

B. Sayle & S. Kumar

 A company can’t expect to change its goals and expect to achieve them without changing its people. This is not so much a question of skills as it is of attitudes and behavior. Ways of thinking that were successful in the past may limit the possibility of thinking differently in the future. Many companies conduct themselves under the impression that they are not “broken” and so don’t need fixing. This may be an incorrect assumption, but they can’t or won’t see it.

Partnering Intelligence (book by Dent)

Partnering Intelligence (2^nd Ed)

Stephen Dent

 In a world increasingly dependent on information and skill, the ability to gain access to more information and skills will be a big competitive advantage. Success in this effort requires a capability for partnership. Analogous to other sorts of “intelligences”, this book is about partnering intelligence.

 6 attributes contributing to partnership intelligence are:

1. Self-disclosure & feedback*
2. Win-win orientation
3. Ability to trust
4. Future orientation
5. Comfort with change
6. Comfort with interdependence

Making things happen (book by Berkun)

Making things happen

Scott Berkun

 

This book is primarily about project management, especially software development. It does not discuss the detailed techniques of project management as much as major principles to guide project managers. I skimmed the book, reading some chapters more than others. This might be a more interesting book for people starting into project life to read as a whole, but I thought there were a number of interesting observations (in no particular order) worth sharing.

Making ideas happen (book by Belsky)

Making ideas happen

Scott Belsky

 The central position of this book is that creative people have lots of fine ideas, but their inability to focus on execution of the ideas prevents these ideas from having any impact, either on the individual or society (or organizations). The author discusses three things that can increase creative productivity: developing a bias towards action, tapping the forces of community and developing leadership capability. Getting more/better ideas does not increase productivity, executing those ideas does.

 

Creativity, Inc. (book by Catmull)

Creativity, Inc.

Ed Catmull

Creativity Inc

 

Pixar is a company that started as a computer hardware maker, morphed into an animation/movie studio and eventually reinvigorated animation in movies. Ed Catmull was one of the founders of Pixar and has been its chief executive for its entire existence. From an essentially non-existent industry, 3D computer animated films have become a billion dollar business with much of the innovation coming through Pixar’s development and application of graphic technologies. Catmull’s own background is computer sciences and he was responsible for some early developments in graphic animation, but his role as executive at Pixar had forced him to consider how creativity must be managed to create a sustainable culture. In particular, he became concerned with the large number of companies that followed initial success with failure. Why did innovative forward-looking companies become weak followers whose products no longer appealed to customers?

 

Buy in (book by Kotter & Whitehead)

Buy*in

John Kotter and Lorne Whitehead

 

This book is about how to defend an idea or proposal against illegitimate attacks. Often, perfectly good ideas are rejected because opponents create confusion, seek delay, promote fear or engage in personal attacks. Resisting these attacks involves a straightforward process too.

 

Thinking Fast and Slow (book by Kahneman)

Thinking Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Thinking Fast and Slow

 Daniel Kahneman is a psychologist who shared a Nobel Prize in Economics for the work he did (with Amos Tversky) on the processes people use to make decisions. This work was the foundation of what is now called behavioral economics. This book explains their view of how we see the world and react to it. This is a big book with some big ideas. Here is a quick summary of some of these big ideas. (1) We react to the world with two thinking systems. The first is quick, easy, efficient and always functioning; it makes mistakes of a certain kind. The second system is slower, effortful, and what we usually associate with “thinking”, but it makes a different class of mistakes. Understanding the difference helps know when to “go with your gut” and when to “slow down and think about it”. (2) People are not as rational as they think they are, or as rational as some economic models assume they are. People are both rational (logical) and irrational (intuitive), but they do not know when they are irrational. Policies that depend on consistent logical behavior by people fail to account for their human behavior. This contrast might be called Econs vs. Humans. (3) We operate with two “selves”. The experiencing self is mostly concerned with the present, while the remembering self is concerned with the past. People routinely remember the past incorrectly due to failure to consider the duration of events (we don’t remember long painful episodes), and thus undertake things that their “experiencing” self would reject. This same problem makes it difficult for us to practice empathy with others in many circumstances.

Start with Why (book by Sinek)

Start with Why

Simon Sinek

Start with Why

This book starts talking about marketing, but the central premise applies far beyond marketing. Sinek observes that most companies communicate WHAT they offer and sometimes HOW they deliver it. Customers find this slightly motivating. A more compelling message expresses WHY the company is doing what it is doing. Two good examples of “why” messaging are Apple and Southwest Airlines. Apple is not a computer company; it is a lifestyle company (think differently and a focus on the individual) that sells electronic goods and services. Southwest is dedicated to helping you to “feel free to move around the country”. Starting with “why” attracts peoples who seek the same “why” and thus sets the stage for loyalty.

 

Borrowing Briliance (book by Murray)

Borrowing Brilliance

David Kord Murray

Borrowing Brilliance

 Most creativity is not exactly original; it is the reapplication or combination of older ideas to a new context. This book asserts that most practical and creative problem solving is based on borrowing the ideas of others.

 

Creating a Kaizen Culture (book by Miller et al.)

Creating a Kaizen Culture

Jon Miller, Mike Wroblewski, Jaime Villafuerte

Creating a Kaizen Culture

 Many organizations profess to be continuous improvement organizations. This book addresses the characteristics of a truly continuous improvement culture; one that does not just use some tools associated with Lean or Six Sigma efforts, but uses the mindset at every level of the organization. The term kaizen is adapted from the Japanese term for “change for the better”. Many people go further as assert that kaizen implies a progression of changes for the better (continuous improvement).

 

Humble Inquiry (book by Schein)

Humble Inquiry

Edgar Schein

Humble Inquiry

 This book is a continuation of Schein’s thinking about how people interact. In particular, Schein has been thinking about people who are working together on complex tasks where there are differences in cultural background, social or professional rank, or expertise that lead to status differences. These status differences make trust-dependent open discussion difficult. The way to build trust that allows good, clear communication is to ask questions. It is the “higher” ranking person who needs to initiate the process because they need to “level down”.

 

Management of the Absurd (book by Farson)

Management of the Absurd

Richard Farson

Management of the Absurd

 I read this book for the first time in the late 1990s. When reading it again, I was struck by how much of this book stuck with me, in some cases almost word for word. The book is about paradoxes in management, and one paradox is that the book is so concisely and clearly written that this summary won’t be as good as the book.

 

Unleashing Innovation (book by Snyder & Duarte)

Unleashing Innovation

Nancy Tennant Snyder & Deborah Duarte

Unleashing Innovation

 This book describes some of the elements of the effort to embed innovation in Whirlpool, and some of the lessons learned in the process. At the time of this book’s publication, the journey was not complete, but one thing had become clear. Systems to support innovation are necessary, but not sufficient. Without an equal engagement of people’s attention, innovation will not be sustainable. This is a book about the real world of corporate life where history and expectations both influence the effort and the results. This also constrains the book a bit. Some stories that would illuminate the process can’t be told without breaching confidentiality. Some of the methods employed in Whirlpool’s effort are the property of the consultancy Strategos, so can’t be described either. Despite these limitations, this book describes a balanced and clear approach to innovation that deserves attention.

 

Group Genius (book by Sawyer)

Group Genius

Keith Sawyer

Group-Genius

 The central concept of this book is that most innovation is the result of some sort of collaborative action. Numerous anecdotes are used as a backdrop for examples of how individuals in groups interact and demonstrate a number of “rules” in action. The author trained as a psychologist with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and combines observation of groups with concepts developed to explain “flow” states in individuals. What becomes clear in reading the book is that groups cope with problems both better and differently than individuals do, and that organizations might improve their performance if they established a number of practices to facilitate group creativity. In particular, groups that engage in improvisation-like behaviors demonstrate greater innovative potential.

The Starfish and the Spider (book by Brafman & Beckstrom)

The Starfish and the Spider

O. Brafman & R.A. Beckstrom

Starfish & Spider

 This is a book about decentralized human systems and how they differ from centralized systems. Centralized systems struggle to dominate decentralized systems, which can be more robust, agile and innovative than would be expected. The advent of the internet has created a new venue, in which decentralized systems can emerge and the consequences of this are not yet clear.

The Knowing-Doing Gap (book by Pfeffer & Sutton)

The Knowing Doing Gap

Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert Sutton

 

This book from 2000 examines the question: Why don’t managers act on the knowledge they have to improve performance or achieve their objectives? The authors assert that managers know what to do, but don’t convert that knowledge to action. They go further and assert that this is not because of individual “failings” but organizational failings. It is hard for almost any individual to overcome organizational norms that favor the status quo. Some of the possible reasons are explored in the book.

The social psychology of organizing (book by Weick)

The social psychology of organizing

Karl Weick

The Social Psychology of Organizing

 This 1979 book describes a number of concepts related to organizing and systems. To a great extent, the book describes business organizations and the interdependencies in them. The book provides an analogy for two main aspects of the description. On organization is a structure – a noun. Organizing is a process – a verb. People organize and in this organizing invoke consensual validation. In other words, people agree that the structure created by organizing is real. This implies that organizing is an act of interdependence.

 

The hidden power of social networks (book by Cross & Parker)

The Hidden Power of Social Networks

Rob Cross & Andrew Parker

Hidden Power of Social Networks

 The central premise of this book is that the real work of organizations is done via the social networks within the organizations. The tools developed to analyze physical network analysis reveal that social networks have features also found in physical networks. There are people with many connections who fill a central role and people who are essentially isolated. There are others who create bridges or bottlenecks between groups. One important feature of these social networks is that they may not be visible to casual observation, and consequently leaders may be unable to see when decisions disrupt networks or prevent them from forming.

 

A New Culture of Learning (book by Thomas & Brown)

A New Culture of Learning

Douglas Thomas & John Seely Brown

A New Culture of Learning

 It is a cliché that the world is changing fast and that people must change to cope with it. In this context, the predecessor to change is learning, but the common model of education may be unsuitable for this rapidly evolving world. The conventional model of learning supposes that knowledge is a fixed, permanent thing that can be passed from the knowledgeable teacher to a student. The mental model for conventional education is mechanical. For example, arithmetic or spelling is learned by memorization drills. Such knowledge is explicit. Increasingly, what we need to learn is not explicit, but tacit. Tacit knowledge can’t be taught, but it can be learned. Tacit learning is experiential and, potentially, social and cultural. An alternate to the mechanical education model, the learning environment, sets some boundary conditions within which students address problems and learn by observation and participation. A feature of the learning environment is that nobody is quite sure what the student will learn (or some cases, what the student learned).

 

Make Space (book by Doorley & Whitthoft)

Make Space

Scott Doorley & Scott Witthoft

Make Space

 

This book describes some of what has been learned in the Stanford University d.school about the design of spaces for teams. This group had to move into new facilities four times in four years. They had to teach and work in spaces that they remodeled knowing that they would be moving out soon. They scavenged furniture and made many of their own fixtures. The constant change and need to improvise helped them do many experiments on the relationship between space and behavior.

The Power of Positive Deviance (book by Pascale et al)

The Power of Positive Deviance

Richard Pascale, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin

 Positive Deviance

 Some problems are “technical” and can be solved by application of expertise. Some problems are “adaptive” and can only be solved when the “participants” in the problem change their behaviors. This book describes a method called “positive deviance” to uncover and diffuse solutions to adaptive problems. The book focuses on social problems, because it is people that must adapt.

 

Helping (book by Schein)

Helping

Edgar Schein

Helping

 Edgar Schein’s expertise is organizational development and communication. The thesis of this book is that helping each other is a central part of social interaction, and that many large and small social issues arise when somebody requests or offers help. Socialization insures that the majority of these interactions are useful and painless, but this is not always the outcome. Schein’s observations are summarized in seven principles.

• Effective help occurs when both giver and receiver are ready.
• Effective help occurs when the helping relationship is perceived to be equitable.
• Effective help occurs when the helper is in the proper helping role.
• Everything that you say and do is an intervention that determines the future of the relationship.
• Effective helping starts with pure inquiry.
• It is the client that owns the problem.
• You never have all the answers.*

Getting to Maybe (book by Westley et al.)

Getting to Maybe

Frances Westley, Brenda Zimmerman, Michael Q. Patton

 Getting to Maybe

 This book is primarily about social innovation in a world where problems are simultaneously simple, complicated and complex. What makes this book interesting in a business context is that a number of major business initiatives over the last two decades were essentially social innovations. Implementations of “lean manufacturing” or “Innovation System” are social innovations. A further point of emphasis is that the people involved in these social innovations may not be leaders in the conventional “heroic” sense, but more in a catalytic sense. They may not start with the skills, but they do start with commitment and learn the skills as they go.