New Book
Charles Ehin
I would like to announce that my new book, The Organizational Sweet Spot: Engaging the Innovative Dynamics of Your Social Networks (www.UnManagement.com or
http://www.springer.com/business/business+for+professionals/book/978-0-387-98193-2 ), was just published a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.
The organizational sweet spot is like the sweet spot on the strings of a tennis racket. In a general sense, the sweet spot of the racquet is the area of the string bed that produces the best combination of feel and power. In an enterprise, the sweet spot is created by the overlap of the formal and informal systems of the organization. That is, under the right conditions the informal components of a venture will begin to overlap more and more with the formal elements of a business.
This overlap is a very desirable state for any venture. That spot, in essence, represents the area where the formal and informal systems of an organization have reached “a meeting of the minds” over the fundamental goals, policies and processes of an organization. What is particularly noteworthy about this agreement is that it’s not reached through any sort of formal negotiations. Rather, it is emergent.
Cheers, Charlie
Charles (Kalev) Ehin, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of Management
The
Gore School of Business
Westminster College, Salt Lake City
kal...@msn.com
www.UnManagement.com
borisj
(the magazine's most popular article to date!)
Unmanaging knowledge. How to tell the boss to back off
Abstract: You’ve got a pretty good boss, yet he or she still heeds the
traditional creed of command and control. But it doesn’t work for you.
You’re engaged in knowledge work and you’d like to tell the boss to
back off. What do you do? Explain it to the boss first chance you get.
Here’s a good way to do it.
Link: http://www.smartpeoplemagazine.com/2009/05/unmanaging-knowledge/
It's FREE (like the magazine's first issue (April 2009) and all
sections' lead stories in subsequent magazines)
Boris
P.S.: Smart People is a new media project led by well known Jerry Ash
(founder of the Association of Knowledge Work and former editor of
Inside Knowledge magazine). It is about personal knowledge management/
work with the support of new media:
"Smart People was developed in collaboration with 60 some
volunteers ... It turns corporate knowledge management inside out,
brings the power of knowledge work to the mainstream and applies it to
living, learning, choosing, creating and working. Smart People tells
you the who, what, why, when and where – and, most importantly, the
how of personal knowledge work."
Further it is stated, that Smart people is more than a magazine but a
network with communities on the major social networks (linkedin,
facebook, ning, twitter - more to come).
The best way to follow the network updates of Smart People is via
their twitter presence (http://twitter.com/Smart_People) as the
updates from all the Smart People communities (except linkedin) are
appearing there.
On Jun 19, 9:50 pm, "Charles Ehin" <kal...@msn.com> wrote:
> I would like to announce that my new book, The Organizational Sweet Spot: Engaging the Innovative Dynamics of Your Social Networks (www.UnManagement.com<http://www.unmanagement.com/> or
>
> http://www.springer.com/business/business+for+professionals/book/978-...<http://www.springer.com/business/business+for+professionals/book/978-...> ), was just published a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.
> The organizational sweet spot is like the sweet spot on the strings of a tennis racket. In a general sense, the sweet spot of the racquet is the area of the string bed that produces the best combination of feel and power. In an enterprise, the sweet spot is created by the overlap of the formal and informal systems of the organization. That is, under the right conditions the informal components of a venture will begin to overlap more and more with the formal elements of a business.
>
> This overlap is a very desirable state for any venture. That spot, in essence, represents the area where the formal and informal systems of an organization have reached "a meeting of the minds" over the fundamental goals, policies and processes of an organization. What is particularly noteworthy about this agreement is that it's not reached through any sort of formal negotiations. Rather, it is emergent.
>
> Cheers, Charlie
>
> Charles (Kalev) Ehin, Ph.D.
> Emeritus Professor of Management
> The Gore School of Business
> Westminster College, Salt Lake City
David Meggitt
I've found Professor Ehin's "Hidden Assets - Harnessing the power of
informal networks" to be a most valuable aid to leadership of the
controlled and shared access ways of looking at things (systems).
THE "sweet spot" within an organisation is a powerful metaphor.
Further, is it possible to claim that we can identify MANY potential
sweet spots within an organisation and cultivate a competition to grow
and connect them!?
I hope so, because that is just what I'm going to do and see what
emerges!
Best wishes, Charles.
David
John Maloney
Yeah, lotsa good stuff so far from "The Organizational Sweet Spot: Engaging
the Innovative Dynamics of Your Social Networks" -- and I haven't even read
it yet! Sign of good things to come... (When my order arrives.)
BTW, even "The Onion" is after all those bossy jerks that practice command &
control.
http://bit.ly/pb99H (from http://twitter.com/faseidl of Blogsite)
Just no room for these toxic people in today's social networks and business
world!
Rob Cross ("The Hidden Power of Social Networks") calls these pathetic souls
'de-energizers.' De-energizers concentrate on the obstacles, do not listen
to the ideas of others, do not value other perspectives, and, above all,
tend to judge the person with whom they disagree, rather than the rich
ideas.
De-energizers are arrogant and narcissistic. They find their opposites, The
Energizers, to be polarizing figures.
It is remarkable how much damage these reprobates can do to the gossamer of
emergence.
BTW, I am looking for sweet spots that span organizations, not within
organizations. The challenge today is to master sweet spots where there is
no predicate control, brand or identity by definition. These are the fluid,
ephemeral and kinetic networks and markets that must be brokered, spanned
and optimized to achieve favorable outcomes.
One toxic person in the net pattern and the sweet spot turns sour. The
pattern and property can be merciless, travels like wildfire, crashing the
whole network.
The canonical model of all transorganizational sweet spots turns out to be
(guess?) - value networks. Sweet, emergent collaboration cannot be
conscripted, only volunteered; value networks aren't create, only revealed
and served.
-j
Charles Ehin
A point well taken, John, that "The canonical model of all transorganizational sweet spots turns out to be (guess?) - value networks. Sweet, emergent collaboration cannot be conscripted, only volunteered; value networks aren't create, only revealed and served." That's why the fundamental framework I advocate in The Organizational Sweet Spot also applies to transorganizational networks.
And yes, David, I propose that there are multiple sweet spots in an organization or network although I don't cover that in the book. After all we're talking about emergent complex adaptive systems. That means we are also dealing with network clusters connected to other clusters that have their own mini sweet spots.
Cheers,
Charlie
Stewart Levine
(Business of Paradigms)
Barker program about "The Verge" where collaboration between two seemingly
dispirate domains
produces extraordinary innovation. http://www.innovationattheverge.com ;
www.joelbarker.com
Stewart
Stewart L. Levine, Esq., Resolutionary
Author: Getting to Resolution
The Book of Agreement
The Cycle of Resolution in The Change Handbook
Collaboration 2.0
www.ResolutionWorks.com 510-777-1166 510-814-1010 cell
If you knew the secret history of those you would like to punish
you would find a sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all your hostility
- HW
Longfellow
John Maloney
Thanks. Always great to check-in with Joel. The video preview is highly
recommended for everyone.
http://www.innovationattheverge.com/
The remark on networks was spot on.
BTW, be EXTREMELY careful using 'the verge' (la verge) in French-speaking
countries and regions!
Stewart Levine
Joel has also done some great work with implications of action and decision
making.
I am pleased to say that he wrote the forward for the second edition of my
book
"Getting to Resolution" that will be released November 1.
Stewart
-----Original Message-----
From: Value-N...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:Value-N...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Maloney
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 12:14 PM
To: Value-N...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: New Book
borisj
Charlie in his Smart People magazine article, is also on the Smart
People bookshelf, where you can find an other bunch ob interesting
books with regard to smart people, personal knowledge management/work,
social media, and the digital generation. Just check it out:
http://books.google.com/books?uid=2112053305724786340
You wanna suggest some other books to add to the bookshelf? To do so
you maybe join one of the Smart People communities and make your
contribution.
http://www.smartpeoplemagazine.com/sp-network/
The communities are permamently scanned for such stuff.
Boris - 4SPmag
Btw.: Soon there will be a new Smart People community on www.orkut.com,
which is very popular in Brazil and India
>
> - Show quoted text -
John Maloney
Here is one for the shelf...
Driving Results Through Social Networks:
How Top Organizations Leverage Networks for Performance and Growth
-j
P.S. If you wish, you may make Value-N...@googlegroups.com an adjunct
listserv at SPmag. BTW, Smart People has Good People! -
http://www.smartpeoplemagazine.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: Value-N...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:Value-N...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of borisj
Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2009 2:00 AM
To: Value Networks
Subject: Re: New Book
Yes, very valuable read, David! Hidden Assets, which is mentioned by
Charlie in his Smart People magazine article, is also on the Smart
People bookshelf, where you can find an other bunch ob interesting
books with regard to smart people, personal knowledge management/work,
social media, and the digital generation. Just check it out:
http://books.google.com/books?uid=2112053305724786340
You wanna suggest some other books to add to the bookshelf? To do so
you maybe join one of the Smart People communities and make your
contribution.
/sp-network/