How to create positive and effective change at work and in life.
Ashely Revell sold everything he owned, including his house, car and clothes, and went to a casino to gamble all the money (135.000$) on red. See how it went.
Reminds me of John Freyer who sold everyhing he owns on ebay, and now travels around visiting the people who bought the stuff.
Is it art? Is it stupid? Is it brave? Is it living? I think so.
This story was sent to me by Maria Bakari, who I met at the Kaospilots conference in January. She’s greek and I’m half-greek, so we had an instant connection. Maria does not have a blog, so with her permission, I’m posting the story here:
Yesterday I had the special pleasure to meet Mr and Mrs De Montalembert. The parents of the Marc de Montalembert Foundation which has been established here in Rhodes in 1994. The Foundation was created in the memory of their son, Marc, who passed away in a sailing accident outside Rhodes, near the Turkish shores in July 1993. His parents, French-born Marc Renee and Italian-born Manuela, have made it their mission to carry on the ideals that they feel Marc would have wanted to promote. They say of Marc: “He had a vision of the world animated by tolerance and inter-cultural understanding”.
The Marc de Montalembert Foundation, offers young people under the age of 30 the opportunity to win a 7,000-euro grant to travel around Mediterranean countries and pursue research on their subject of choice. The winner of the grant is also given the chance to stay for a period of up to six months at the Foundation, located in the Medieval town of the island of Rhodes.
The couple believes that the grant enables young people from Mediterranean countries to bring down barriers and raise awareness of cultural similarities and means of communication with people who appear ‘too different’. “Young people are particularly able to bridge over differences and overcome the anxiety when faced with the unknown, they say. Overcoming isolation and ignorance is the greatest challenge. This is why a major activity of the Foundation is the annual grant, enabling a Mediterranean youngster to discover and study the cultures of the region”.
I truly felt privileged to be able to be in touch with this vision, this beautiful ?in many aspects- dream and the magnificent beauty of the summerhouse and gardens where the Foundation is hosted combining elements of the cultural diversity (particularly Byzantine, Ottoman and Medieval) of this blessed island. While being guided in the garden and listening to the story of the place being restored and transformed (from an abandoned property to an inspiring pavilion) I could feel the honour, the integrity and the respect that this space holds.
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April 21 is international innovation and creativity day. Do something weird and wonderful today.
Then be normal and boring for the rest of the year :o)
Almost a year ago, we started Arena in Copenhagen. It’s since become an interesting workplace and meeting place for lots of small innovative businesses in IT, architecture, consulting and much more.
A few months ago, we got a visit from 2 swedish guys looking to start something similar in Malmoe (in Sweden, very close to Denmark), and Thomas Mygdal and I gave them the grand tour of Arena and explained our thoughts and ideas.
It must have struck a chord with them, because they started Arena Malmoe, based on the same basic concepts. Of course we’re delighted to see our ideas spread, and will help them get going any way we can.
We had a meeting today with them and with Kent from United Spaces, which is a huge office Space in Stockholm. We decided to start a network, so that our member can use each others locations. This means, that I now have access to office facilities in Copenhagen, Malmoe, Stockholm, Oslo, London and Barcelona. and that people from those places can drop in at our Arena to work if they want to. How cool is that?
This is an excellent example of a good idea spreading almost by itself, simply because it’s allowed to. We might also have tried to franchise and license the Arena concept, but it very likely wouldn’t go anywhere. By simply releasing the idea “into the wild”, it gets a chance to spread, and so far it seems to be spreading.
If anybody else is looking to start a fun, creative office space, let us know. We’d be happy to help!
I was at a conference monday on the fourth sector. In case you haven’t heard about this term, the fourth sector is a way of organizing that combines the best of the three existing sectors, ie. private industry, governments and volunteer organizations.
Fourth sector organizations compete in the market like private companies, they work for a good cause and they often rely on a high degree of volunteerism.
And this is precisely true of the happy at work project. We make our money just like any other consulting company out there (we haven’t recieved a dime of public money, and we don’t want any). We strive to make people happy at work. That’s why we’re here. And we’re a volunteer organization, where everyone interested can join and contribute towards the cause.
The conference was arranged by my good friends over at grasshoppers.dk and was refreshingly different, with nice little touches like a clown welcoming guests and yoga-breaks throughout.
My main learning from the conference was, that the term “fourth sector” is flawed. There is no new sector and the organizations exhibiting fourth sector traits are found in the traditional three sectors. A fine example would be Kjaer Group, a danish company comitted to “making a difference”. They’re definitely a private company making money in the market, but they also work to make a difference in the world, individually and together.
So rather than being a matter of sector it’s a matter of intent or approach. Here’s my definition of a fourth sector organization:
A fourth sector organization, is one that does not see a contradiction between making a profit, improving the world and working voluntarily.
So all we need now is a better term than “fourth sector”. Any ideas?
What would the world look like, if we all didn’t do stuff we didn’t want to do? Let’s say you’re a college student and you don’t feel like going to classes today and you simply stay home or do something else. Or let’s say you don’t want to go to work today and instead stay home and play with your kids? What would that do to society in general?
Common wisdom has it that nothing would get done, or at least only the stuff that everybody likes to do. We’d be knee-deep in garbage because nobody wants to be a garbage man, and we’d all have to walk or drive ourselves cause nobody would want to drive the busses.
In short, society would collapse according to common wisdom. Once again, common wisdom is dead wrong.
If we all do more stuff we enjoy, we’ll end up liking more things. Going back to the college student who doesn’t want to go to classes today, let’s say he forces himself and goes anyway. He might have a great time, but odds are that he doesn’t. This probably also means that he feels even less like going the next day and the next. If he’d given himself a day off, his desire to go would return faster than if he forces himself.
Doing stuff you like to do increases your energy and makes you more open to new experiences. “Pulling yourself together” to force yourself to do something you hate saps your strength and makes you less willing to try new experiences. So if we all avoided doing stuff we don’t want to, we’d all want to do more different things. Of course, the enthusiasm you put into a job you really want to do, and the resulting quality of your work is usually much higher – giving you even more energy.
There are a few things to consider: First of all lots of people have a hard time knowing what they want to do. They’ve become used to doing things whether or not they like them that they’ve lost the sense of what they enjoy. This sense probably returns with a little practice. Secondly, we’ve all been raised with the idea, that when faced with an unenjoyable task, the right and honorable thing to do is to clench your teeth, put your nose to the grindstone, pull yourself together and get it done. The idea that “if it’s not enjoyable, don’t do it”, can cause some guilt. Obviously feeling guilty is not enjoyable either, which ruins the whole point. This probably takes some practice also.
Furthermore, some things need to get done, and if I don’t do them who will? This requires organizations to build up diversity to such a level that almost any task will find a person somewhere in the organization who will actually enjoy doing it. Or at least not totally loathe it.
Remember, every time you force yourself to take on a task that you really hate, you’re stealing that task away from another person who would enjoy it – and who would consequently do a much better job of it. Remember, there are people who enjoy collecting garbage and driving busses. If you have any doubt that almost any job can be enjoyed by someone, read this article.
Notice also, that I’m not saying that people should do whatever they want. I’m simply saying:
Rule #1: “Don’t do stuff you don’t like doing”.
Once in a while it’s good to challenge yourself, so as an addendum to the above rule, I’d add:
Rule #2: “Once in a while, do something you don’t know if you’ll like. If you don’t like it, see rule #1”
Just imagine the kind of world that would build!
The brazillian city of Curitiba is a model of innovation. They have pioneered many solutions that at first glance seem almost too simple to work, but which have nevertheless helped create a city with a high standard of living and a high level of environmental consciousness. An example:
Curitiba’s citizens separate their trash into just two categories, organic and inorganic, for pick-up by two kinds of trucks. Poor families in squatter settlements that are unreachable by trucks bring their trash bags to neighbourhood centres, where they can exchange them for bus tickets or for eggs, milk, oranges and potatoes, all bought from outlying farms.
The trash goes to a plant (itself built of recycled materials) that employs people to separate bottles from cans from plastic. The workers are handicapped people, recent immigrants, alcoholics.
Recovered materials are sold to local industries. Styrofoam is shredded to stuff quilt for the poor. The recycling programme costs no more than the old landfill, but the city is cleaner, there are more jobs, farmers are supported and the poor get food and transportation. Curitiba recycles two-thirds of it garbage – one of the highest rates of any city, north or south.
I find this particularly interesting for two reasons: First of all this indicates, that developing countries can raise the standard of living without impacting the environment negatively.
Secondly, the Curitiba initiatives are an example of what you can achieve with limited financial resources but with a high level of creativity and a willingness to try unconventional solutions. The man behind the initiatives, mayor Jaime Lerner, made all the projects small, cheap and participatory. My kinda thinking!
This all came from an article at the Global Ideas Bank.
I just hosted a session at the chaordic conference here in Aarhus. I talked about the practice of chaordic organizations, based on my experiences from Enterprise Systems, Arena and the happy at work project. I set myself the challenge of doing the presentation based solely upon practices – what is it that we do (or did) in these chaordic organizations. No values, no principles, no beliefs – just hardcore actual practices that will help a chaordic organization emerge. Not that these are the only practices that will support chaordism (chaordicity?), they’re what’s worked for me. This also gave me a chance to think about what the practices are, and here’s what I came up with:
Open space meetings
This is the backbone of the organization. Regular meetings which are open to the whole organizaton, This is where big decisions get made, and where responsibility gets delegated.
Workgroups
This is where the actual work gets done. Each workgroup is defined at the open space meeting, and then goes and does the work. A workgroup may have a budget and a charter, and as long as they stay within that, they don’t need to ask permission – they can do what they want. If they need to exceed what was decided at the ope space meeting, they must ask for permission to do so at the nect open space meeting. Workgroups are open to anyone who’d like to participate.
Wiki
Since decision making and work is distributed among meny people, it’s important to have a place to centralize information. We use a wiki site for this. If you don’t know what that is, you can read more about it here. Each ongoing project has a wiki-page with all the relevant information, and the names of the people working on it, so you can contact them if you have any questions.
Try it!
In a distributed organization, it’s very important to cultivate an attitude of “Try it!”, meaning that when decisions are made, you don’t need to analyze everything. Rather than planning for three months and then coming out with “the perfect plan”, you can outline some alternatives and then decide to try one. It may not work, but then you can try something else. No decisions are set in stone, if something doesn’t work, we’ll do it differently.
Yes, and…
Yes, and… is a very powerful method for meeting other people. It means saying Yes to new ideas and then adding your own input. It’s about not automatically saying no, which can otherwise be very tempting. You can read more about it here.
In my experience, these are the practices that have led to a chaordic organization. The big advantages of these organizations has been that they are:
Alive – people are enthusiastic and energetic
Efficient – Stuff gets done fast and well, because people work on the stuff they like
Dynamic – They can adapt to different situations
Fun – They’re great places to be!
This interview with Dr. Joseph LeDoux explains some basics of neuroscience and then goes on to examine what some of this may mean on the job.
In truth, most of what we do, we do unconsciously, and then rationalize the decision consciously after the fact. This doesn?t mean we do everything important without proper thought. Thought and emotion can both take place outside the consciousness. Consciousness is just the place where we find out about what we are thinking and feeling.
Next week (Monday to Wednesday), the Kaospilots are self-organizing a conference about chaordic organizations. The term chaordic was put forth by Dee Hock the man behind VISA in his excellent book The chaordic age.
To me, the implications of complexity theory (chaos theory) in business are most aptly realized in the concept of chaordic organizations, organizations that live in the thin and dynamic borderland between chaos and order. I look forward to meeting some of the people behind The Chaordic Commons, and to sharing my experiences in exploring chaordic thinking and practices.
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