informal coalitions

'Corridor conversations'

In the middle of a chat about all things organizational, a client once told me that the Company’s CEO had said to him and other senior colleagues, “We’ve got to stop the corridor conversations.”  Leaving aside the naivety of the CEO’s comment, in the pre-COVID days when the possibility of in-person exchanges was ever-present, his remark also betrayed a basic lack of understanding of how organization works. In particular, it failed to recognise the fundamental role that informal conversations such as these play in determining the overall nature and quality of people’s individual and collective perspectives, practices and performance.  Ironically, of course, informal conversations would have been just as much a part of the CEO’s own practice as they were of everyone else's.

Organizational complexity – it’s not rocket science

When American astronauts first set foot on the Moon, in July 1969, tribute was quite rightly paid to the advances that NASA scientists had made in aerospace engineering and astrodynamics, which had enabled them to make the “giant leap for mankind”, as Commander Neil Armstrong described it. Landing on the Moon, and returning the crew safely to Earth was a complicated technical challenge of the highest order. It was enabled by multiple systems and procedures that were designed to facilitate the safe and effective organization and control of all aspects of the design, development and delivery of “the mission”. As such, success was seen as having arisen from the availability of appropriate scientific and technological expertise; coupled with the development and skilled application of structured approaches to direct and control the practice and performance of those involved. In short, this appeared to 'tick all of the boxes' of a well-designed, and expertly executed, response to a highly complicated management challenge.

Collaborating with AI

 

Is anyone else concerned about the increasingly pervasive notion of humans “collaborating” with AI? 

Relationship of mutuality

Collaboration - whatever its diverse motivations and means of expression - is a relationship of mutuality between living and breathing human beings. Properly perceived and applied, so-called “artificial intelligence” undoubtedly has a lot to offer us in support of the living of our lives. But it needs to be seen as a technological aid to our human being, doing and becoming; not as in any way equivalent to it.

The “And they all lived happily ever after” fantasy – Technology, complexity and the human condition

I  recently came across a LinkedIn blogpost by Tim Rogers entitled, Who should we insist wear Health Tech?  In it, he advocates the use of various wearable technologies as ways of improving individuals’ health, and then speculates about the potential benefits that these could bring to wider society. On the face of it, it all sounds reasonable and straightforward.

However, I find the use of the verb "insist" in the post’s title revealing. As often seems to be the case, there is also a "we" doing the insisting of some unnamed others.  So power and politics are very much in play here (as they always will be, of course)  even though these underlying dynamics of human interaction will rarely if ever be acknowledged when the use of such technologies is advocated. The same could be said about the morality of the whys, whats, and hows of their deployment. In a similar vein, the word “opportunity” usually features prominently – as it does here. But one person’s opportunity is another person’s threat, as they (almost) say.

Unquestionably good?

What concerns me most is that proponents seem to take it for granted that all such developments are unquestionably good - invented by 'good' people, with the intention of doing 'good' things, for the 'good' of other individuals, and thereby enhancing the common 'good'. The real-world dynamics of human interaction are conveniently ignored, in favour of a utopian view in which there is universal wellbeing, co-operation and harmony.  A similar pattern can be found in relation to a lot of the stuff that is advocated as a way of ‘dealing with’ complexity.

Mystic Megaproject – Predicting the future with Big Science and Big Data (or not)

I was struck by the following headline in last weekend’s Sunday Times,

"Virtual ‘mirror’ of world to help predict future".

I see the future as being perpetually constructed in the complex reality of people's present-day interactions. So the claim that it will be possible to make meaningful predictions by 'mirroring' these complex dynamics clearly merited attention. 

Digging a little deeper into the FuturICT project to which the article refers, it appears that a wealth of top-level European universities and other scientific institutions are participating in the project. So the enterprise carries a vast weight of academic credibility, based on participants’ expertise and methodological rigour. However, despite recognizing the complex and uncertain nature of human interaction, statements on the related website still make confident claims about the benefits that the project will deliver. For example,

"FuturICT will integrate different scientific areas and activities into a FuturICT platform that will enable participatory science and technology to manage our complex world in a sustainable and resilient manner (my emphasis)"

This prediction (as with others on the site) seems quite a bold one to make, given the inherent complexity and uncertainty of the process that the sponsors are seeking to model – and the absence of the very ‘tools’ of predictability and control that they are setting out to develop!