Method Hexi vs SAFe

So, what do you think about the new Method HEXI initiative of Dave Snowden and The Cynefin Co.? 

Will it end the method wars? Will it make even more fuss and add to the already existing complexity in the method arena? Will it start ego wars? Ah, excuse me, they already started a long time ago :) Are these old tricks refurbished? Is there a point to fighting against SAFe?

I am sharing my first impressions on Method Hexi here briefly, after listening to a couple of webinars about it. This one in particular:

Here are my initial thoughts as of today. Let me revisit the topic in some time to see how my understanding evolves.

• Honestly, from my perspective, there are more important issues that need to be solved beyond how effective is SAFe or whatever other method... The meaning of the whole business world and the purpose of the economy are more important to me these days. More about it can be found in my book. I wish Dave Snowden refocused on what is more important. It looks like he is engaged in method matters more than wanting to influence the future of humanity. Imho, it is not time to concentrate on what we do best, on optimizing ways of working in this case, it is time to focus on the meaning dimension of reality and our existence. We need leaders there!
• It has been an existing practice for decades that people were mixing techniques and tools and methods to get best results. The idea that mixing needs to be introduced like a discovery of the 21st century with a special blessing from Snowden, sounds strange. It lacks respect, and faith in the intelligence of practitioners. Honestly, I rarely meet ideological individuals who stick to one method or tool. Of course, one can sell everything to bureaucratic and politically steered companies, but that won't be fixed by Hexi. The real question is why decision-makers choose a particular solution, what drives them and how this driving forces can be balanced or reframed. These are questions that Snowden and most of Agile community ignore to answer while focusing on accusing SAFe of being at least controversial in terms of its value.
• SAFe is what it is. It is as good a starting point for your journey as anything else, as long as you start to customize it for your needs on the first day! 
• The problem is not about SAFe - it is about what bureaucrats do to it, and in fact what they do to any method, which distorts their original sense and value.
• The metaphor of object-oriented programming, polymorphism, method overriding, etc smells 90s... I don't like it. It does not feel right in this context - it speaks to IT people not to businesspeople who are decision makers. 
• And as an off topic only: I spent years on OO design and programming and need to challenge the metaphor: same concept can be introduced simpler, my gut feel says, without a need for polymorphism. This is what I learned about dealing with complexity when programming in C++.

My post-release experience with the Good Companies book

This is what happened since the Good Companies book was released at 3:00am on 18th January 2023 when I pressed Publish buton at KDP self-publishing platform:

• my wife Julia reorganized her day at work and came back home earlier to celebrate! I can't remember it happening ever before! 💕 
• my father, Jerzy, said over the phone: Congratulations! I never knew any author in our family, it is a new experience for me. And then he called me three times during the day with specific advice and ideas related to book publishing and marketing. Amazing feeling to hear him engaged so spontaneously!
• my uncle, Henryk, who was to celebrate his 90th birthday that weekend and I managed to ship the first physical copy of the book to him just a day before: I like the book but most importantly I love dedication. The dedication goes like this: To Henryk Kmieciak, my uncle, who showed me the mountains and, more importantly, what a fruitful and fulfilled life looks like. 
• my kids: How much are you earning per copy of your book? What?? amazon charges you that much? That's a rip off!  And then: Look, there is a dedication for Grace! Grace is our beloved dog, a two and a half years old Irish setter.
• my wider family got interested and congratulated me, naturally, and
• my friends congratulated me
• a few friends bought the book instantly
• some others asked for a copy with a dedication, etc.
• I am experiencing a boost in social interactions and renewing my relationships with many of you from various projects we used to work together. Omg, I feel grateful.

While I was getting all those epic reactions from the world, I was also feeling deeply grateful to myself inside. Thanks to the effort of the last five months, I have been able to deeply renew myself, get closer to myself, and re-discover who I am. The work was full of meaning. It was not work - it was an amazing adventure for me. Authoring the book was a dream job - because it was not a job :)

I was waking up every day happy that I would be writing. I also needed to do some research, so it enriched me. It helped me structure and make sense of the clouds of information I had accumulated in my mind for years of work and reflection.

Whatever the critics will say, I just had to say what I wanted to say. To be fair with myself. Or simply to be one-ness (?) with my true self. I found so much meaning in this work, it refreshed me spiritually!

Another value of this book is that I intensified communication with a couple of colleagues who were early reviewers of the material. In parallel to getting friendly feedback, discussions, and referrals to other sources, it refreshed our relationships. I am truly thankful for this experience.

Now that the book is released, I feel responsible for building and maintaining the dialog based on the ideas from the book and to build the snowball for action!

There is also a financial aspect - I need to start earning... Yet, as they say: the path to success leads through happiness, not the other way round. And I am happy indeed. I am rebuilt, fulfilled, and feel ready to take on a new meaningful job.

Thanks for being a part of this journey with me. I will remember this moment for the rest of my life. 

Stay in touch or get in touch!

Good Companies - book released!

Good Companies

How to reinvent the economy and create companies that will drive us into a meaningful future?

Release date: 17 Jan 2023

The book's homepage is here.

Good Companies book on amazon.com

We are living in an era of great anxiety and great disconnect. Civilizational debt calls to be paid off while CEOs continue to pursue profit and return on invested capital for shareholders.
If we do more of the same things that we have been doing, where does it lead us to?

In recent decades, this question has grown into the #1 most important question in the public domain. I call it the Great Challenge Question.

The Great Challenge question is a manifestation of the growing anxiety of individuals and societies across the globe. It exposes our current weakness and a crisis of humanity.

If you accept The Great Challenge, then there are natural follow-up questions that you need to ask yourself. What do our actions say about our current ways of thinking? What do they say about our beliefs, habits, and assumptions we make? What do they say about the goals we pursue?

Let’s look beyond the current well-established role of business and the principles of the economy. How do we need to transform the business world to start serving what is important to us?

In the just-released book "Good Companies: How to reinvent the economy and create companies that will drive us into a meaningful future?", I invite you to explore the current landscape of business and humanity. The book offers an aspirational alternative and constructs a vehicle for the necessary change to drive us toward a meaningful future.

My humble request to you is to wait no longer and act! Sometimes it is easier than we think, even if the task at hand looks daunting! Let’s engage in a collective effort, be the change we want to see in the world and be proud of our legacy for future generations!

I express special gratitude to Andrzej Ostrowski and Mariusz Kreft for enriching the book with their friendly challenge.

#goodcompanies #goodorganisations

John Vervaeke - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis

 Thanks to Mariusz Kreft I have recently discovered the series of lectures by John Vervaeke, Awakening from The Meaning Crisis. 

It is the most powerful material I heard so far on why there is so much human disintegrity, we feel so much of absurdity and are so disconnected from the reality.

What is wisdom, what is meaning, how do we pursue it, what is the vehicle that awakens our virtues, how do we become the most human, how do we fulfil ourselves?

Please find here a sample transcript as a teaser for the series:

Aristotle points out that there is this deep form of foolishness that comes from a lack of character. He calls it AKRASIA. Akrasia is when you know what the right thing to do is, but you don't do the right thing. 

Why you behave foolishly? Ignorance is when you do the wrong thing because you don't know. A part of foolishness is when you know what the right thing to do is and you still do the wrong thing. Here's Aristotle answer: You do the wrong thing because although you have the right beliefs (aka impotence of beliefs), you don't have sufficient character. 

You have not trained things, skills, sensitivities, you have not created the virtual engine that is regulating your growth and development, such as you will not live up to your potential. For Aristotle you become a good person if you actualize, if you in-form your being with a virtu-al engine that realizes those things that are distinctive of our humanity.

What makes us different from the plants, the animals, and other species with minds? a.k.a. Why am I more valuable more than this table? What are those characteristics that are unique to us? Here is where Aristotle gives the axial revolution his answer: Your capacity for overcoming self-deception, your capacity for cultivating your character, for realizing wisdom, and for enhancing the structure of your psyche and your contact with reality. That's what rational means. 

Your purpose is to become as fully human as possible. How are you cultivating your character to do so? This is what Aristotle is going to ask you again and again. How much your live is dedicated to recognizing and cultivating those rational capacities, those things that make you most human in contrast to all the other things around you.

by John Vervaeke.

Wandering vs efficiency by Jeff Bezos

I treat this quote from Jeff Bezos as another recognition of value of intelligence beyond rational intelligence and problem solving at work. Very much aligned with the direction I have been evangelizing towards :)

Sometimes (often actually) in business, you do know where you’re going, and when you do, you can be efficient. Put in place a plan and execute. In contrast, wandering in business is not efficient … but it’s also not random. It’s guided – by hunch, gut, intuition, curiosity, and powered by a deep conviction that the prize for customers is big enough that it’s worth being a little messy and tangential to find our way there. Wandering is an essential counter-balance to efficiency. You need to employ both. The outsized discoveries – the “non-linear” ones – are highly likely to require wandering.

Source: 2018 Letter to Shareholders

Leadership Development programs - the vicious cycle of solving the wrong problem...

 Why does the business world put so much effort and attention into the Leadership Development programs? Seriously. Have you ever wondered what problem these try to solve?

 

Let's do a round of all stakeholers involved to understand their perspectives and expected value. Clearly the intention of Sponsors is to develop leaders to be better leaders, to perform better, to be more effective and to build a stronger organization. For Participants, it's nobilitating to belong to the leadership cohort, they feel special and rewarded. For Trainers and Coaches, training leaders is nobilitating as well, it brings a lot of self-esteem, so they feel special and rewarded, not to mention remuneration aspect. Indeed I met whole flocks of consultants who dreamt about getting access to the leadership development level programs. This is the level where one can feel impactful. In this vicious cycle everyone feels happy, so it lasts.

My challenge is: Leaders know what to do, they do not need special trainings. We, human, are good and justice and ethical by nature, by design, we are equipped to make right decisions. The real question is why leaders cannot apply all the goodness and the knowledge in their organizations? Why do leadership efforts not blossom, and do not stick in spite of best intentions?

Here is my perspective: leaders cannot apply their natural goodness and wisdom, because the goal and the rules of the game of companies are different, leaders' goodness does not apply in this game, and is neither compatible nor usable in the context of the current purpose of companies. 

My call today is: Trust your leaders, do not try to change them, instead change the environment you need them to operate within - change the companies instead. Transform companies into good citizens of the world by redefining their social meaning and purpose.

Photo by Mathias Jensen on Unsplash

The Testament of a Furniture Dealer

The Testament of a Futniture Dealer, by IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad. 

A skeleton of thinking behind perceived IKEA behaviors. 

A masterpiece. 

An appetizer quote to build your appetite: 

“No method is more effective than a good example.” 

 

The Source: here.

A brief recap of Stephen Denning's Leadership Storytelling TEDx talk

As Stephen Denning says: 

The most important role of leadership is to tell stories. Why? Because nothing else works.

Characteristics of a good story:

1. Share a True Story - not a Titanic story that hides important negative details
2. Be Positive in Tone - share a story with a happy ending, not to trigger the reptile brain of your listeners
3. Be Minimalist in form - let the listener imagine, envisage and discover how to implement details, because it's when s/he internalizes the idea as her own idea. And that’s what you want, that’s when you are off to the races. If it’s my idea only, says Denning, nothing much happens. Once it becomes their idea it is when they become champions).
4. Contrast pre and post change worlds - the story need to contrast the situation before the idea was implemented with the situation after the idea was implemented.

With big complex ideas you can easily get lost in the story and miss the point of the story.

For the full story one definitely wants to read the Stephen Denning's book: The Secret Language of Leadership.

Professor Stefano Zamagni in Leaders For Humanity

A truly human perspective on how the world could do better.

I have learnt so much on human thought of economical systems and their relation to societies from this webinar...  A must watch for every builder of the future of work! Thank you Otti Vogt! 

The front-runners: We are not slaves of GDP - TED Talk of Michael Green

Another building block to raising awareness of sustainability and civilizational debt we have been creating - Michael Green's TED Talk back from 2015, just after the United Nations announced their Global Goals by 2030. 

I encourage you to watch the whole talk, let me just quote the breakthrough observation:

Social Progress Index representing the UN Global Goals by 2030 cumulatively can grow unrelated to growth of GDP per capita.

There are countries that prove it is possible to get lot's of social progress even if your GDP is not so great. 

(...)

Costa Rica has prioritized education, health and environmental sustainability and as a result it's achieving a very high level of social progress, despite only having a rather modest GDP.

(...)

And that's really important because it tells us two things:

First of all it tells us that we alreay in the world have solutions to many of the problems that the Global Goals are trying to solve. It also tells us that we are not slaves to GDP. Our choices matter. If we prioritize the wellbeing of people than we can achieve a lot more progress that our GDP might expect.