HR 2.0 - How To Retain "Agent" Relationships In Organisational Systems

Within the Australian educational landscape, we have seen the evolution of the Universities Admission Index to the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) which aims at aggregating and creating a single universities admission rank that fosters not only transparency, but more so 'fluidity' in the Educational System.

However, regardless of how prolific the new 'system' is - it still 'ranks' you on a set of 'quantitative data' which is based on a 'statistical model of inference' that does not account for a) the desire for undergraduate students to express their key strengths in alternative projects (such as web development or mobile-web development) and b) the incorporation of their 'unique abilities' to create the right type of 'career succession' programme that ties in with their goals and ambitions to allow their interests to be fostered and inter-woven into a process that enables them to progressively integrate their key strengths across all bands (whether its of a technical, systematic or dynamic nature).


The level of insight into this spectrum is a clear-cut articulation of how, within the nature of 'cybernetics', one can use the precedents rooted in the 'control cycle' to asses and visualize 'career succession strategies' that employs not only their academic interest, but also their Entrepreneurial interests which codify the natural flow of what I call as 'alternative career path planning'.

Alternative Career Path Planning would mean that once students are in a respectable and mature level of justification for their career intentions, they then 'test' or 'model out' scenarios which allow them to 'mix and match' even very relatively difficult subjects - in which cases at Universities, they often require 'prerequisites' - to suitable pathways that enable them to bring their core ideas and projects to fruition. This process will require the fusion of 'theory focused planning' together with a 'task-force' that employs and nurtures the evolving undergraduate intentions on incorporating empiric, up to date examples of their ideas with emphasis on historical or empirical evidence with a criterion 'measure' that utilizes a weighted-average approach to identify and validate the 'agents' capabilities with requisite skills that collectively ebb and flow with their 'ever evolving career intentions' as the fundamental principal of Human Resource strategy is to keep 'staff' as their most 'valued assets' in the organisational system - a key vantage-point for HR Managers who often struggle with 'retention' and 'turnover' ratios in their organisations as obviously, its very hard to keep the N-Gen niche motivated in industries which can from the start influence the 'agent' but then as time goes by - sway the agent to look for other 'opportunities and interests' which complement their 'motivational drivers for success'.


The core challenge here would be how can we create the relevant 'system' which not only measures data quantitatively, but also qualitatively ranks the relevant 'human capital input' within the 'organisational system' to fuse a) business intelligence initiatives with b) a 'Mentoring' initiative that propels and differentiates each 'agent' in the 'organisation' as an 'individual product' or 'product base' that aims at differentiating the various 'learning styles' in combination with a 'knowledge management platform' that not only harvests their potential; but enables them to contribute 'ideas' to members at the very senior level of the organisation (regardless of legal nature) so that they can also contribute to the 'organisational wide projects' which often require collaboration of very senior project managers (in the case of Matrix Styled Organisations) or your direct report (in the case of small business and sole trader initiatives). Personally, I believe that all organisations should respect every 'agents' input into the system, measure it with reference to something I stumbled accross in the Harvard Business Review as "experience curves" and re-concile it with a rich framework to retain, evolve and develop participants in the system.

thealphaswarmer insights: The Neuro Linguistic Programming Model

Some time ago, I was acquainted with an 'individual' with a Doctorate in Linguistics by the name of Dr Cross - and whilst this was during a very 'short term assignment' I did at the NAB - he did shed a lot of light into the 'nature of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)"

Essentially, NLP aims to look at the three modes of writing, the kinaesthetic, the auditory and most of - the visual elements of writing.


NLP is an excellent model for framing 'methodologies' in the Emerging Knowledge Economy, something that intrigues me dearly as a result of a book I have just recently completed which is highly recommended by INSEAD Professors and which prophesies the 'emergence' of 'magnets' in the global knowledge pool - something that ties in intrinsically with another article I wrote in detail on how participants in the "Network Economy" can leverage tools inlaid in this book - together with a comprehensive and detailed model of  something called  'network incubation' to enable drivers of innovation, which are primarily rooted in leadership and cultural variance, together with the fusion of collaborative work practices with either physical, virtual or more significantly distributed teams.


By integrating the tenets of NLP together with something I am working on known as 'the four fold method of self organistion' - organisations, communities of practice and perhaps even industry focus groups - which are long term but informal collaborations; can yield very significant tangible benefits to their 'bottom line' - which manifest in terms of ROI, Sales Performance Optimization, Effective Project Managment and perhaps even 'running effective team meetings' 


The biggest problem here, would be identifying the core behavioural dilemmas together with the intrinsic nature of ground rules in an Enterprise System - considering the 'system' wishes to integrate certain 'individualities or personalities' for the development of its a)social entrepreneurship or b) legislative variants.

thealphaswarmer emergence: Insights Into The Nature Of Entrepreneurial Change

I have been thinking for a long time now about some of the endogenous principals that are often distinctively exhibited by Entrepreneurs from all dimensions; whether they are already established executives from large corporations or even aspiring ones which require the right framework and most of all tool set to create and most of all sustain their vision in Entrepreneurship.


My experience so far in this domain is that most of all - Entrepreneurs or Venturepreneurs - I must add - often fail at making their start-ups or established businesses 'happen' because they are often in a cycle of Failure or Discouragement - the two of which are appreciated by Lao Tzu and Dale Carnegie in an interesting pdf file I have on my PC titled "Business Coach - Mastering Your Entrepreneurial Leadership Skills and Building a High-Growth Business".


Although its only a brief presentation on the essential framework in which to inspire Venturepreneurial activity - something that every student or perhaps even full time workers in Australia truly appreciate; it provides us with invaluable tools in the field of stratetgic innovation which is a unique culmination of a tapestry of ideas, principals and most of all "effective working practices rooted in quality management" that unify through an alchemy of industry trends, modes of thinking and most of all - an entertaining 'behavioural framework'.

The core message here to all aspiring Entrepreneurs who are interested in possible creating what Kiyosaki calls in his book "The Cash Flow Quadrant" as passive income is to create a mode of thinking or to fix your mindset on a plane which requires you to not create 'attachment to the fruits of your action' - a philosophical metaphor that guides alot of Entrepreneurs out there in their ever-ending "self pursuit of happiness".

A significant portion of Kiyosaki's books explain the modes of thinking that tie in well with what Stephen Covey writes about in his book "The Seven Habits Of Effective People" and in this light - its probably a good idea to introduce a graphical manifest to inspire all kind of activities on the internet or perhaps even in your own organisation, especially if you have the a) skillet and most of all the mindset in getting 'savvy with the politics of hierarchy' - which is naturally earned through respect and disciplinary succession in large and endemic corporations here in Australia - but one which is definitely a challenge to the 'status quo' of the organisation and a testament to the inspirational models of 'systematic change'.

The diagram on the left is definitely very useful to alot of IT and 'Excel savvy' people out there as it enables you to create what I appreciate as "what if" and "contingent" scenarios which are reflections of 'metrics' or 'front line data' in the organisational system. Currently, I am going through with some insight a book which was delivered to me through Amazon titled "Patterns Of Entrepreneurship" by Jack M Kaplan - of which an interesting video can be found on the infamous YouTube.

The core challenge that I think is for many aspiring entrepreneurs is the development of The Business Plan - a document that should be developed 'collaboratively' after first 'profiling a strong team and assigning some ground rules to the team to identify the elements of a) information sharing and b) task scheduling. As a tip - it should reflect three dimensions, the first being the focus target group or market niche, the second the strategic alignment of 'business cases' and thirdly - the incubation of their 'enterprise system'.

thealphaswarmer business development protocols

The rise of business intelligence, data mining and information systems coupled with the explosion of social media through Twitter, Linked In and most of all - Facebook create amazing insights into the nature of distributed teams - which is an over-riding testament to the evoloution of 'work practices' in the 'connected age'.

It is time to launch thealphaswarmer business development protocols - a releaser on the intricacies of business development departments and cross-functional teams which should operate as a 'single entity' to engage information across organisational silos and create what Don Tapscott would appreciate in his ground braking book Wikinomics as "architectures of participation".

This mirrors the evolution of the world wide web into a complex - self organising and intricate network of 'nodes' and calls for the dire need of what thealphaswarmer project appreciates as Inter-Business-Intelligence, a system which is definately the core to any organisations Intra-Business-Intelligence units such as Human Resources, Fraud and Performance Analytics and most of all - Administration and Customer Service; the front line function of any organisational unit which aims to identify inherent inefficiencies in the work environment which could be detrimental if its not critically evaluated.


Alot of Six Sigma Projects to promote a 'Lean Methodology' often fail at looking at what Six Sigma Champions call the Pareto Efficiency - in which twenty percent of the work yields eighty percent of the results.

My experiences with Six Sigma specialists are often contradictory - as they do not really understand how to create that 'self sustainable' system in the first place. Which is a stark contrast to their so called 'ambitions and goals' to create 'zero defects' in the organisational system - something that cannot be achieved without fully appreciating what I understand is the interplay of the 'turnover' or 'retention' ratios of the N-Gen - a new type of employee - one that has an amazing level of Emotional Intelligence and one that is very well equipped to handle information flows from the top down or the bottom up - in what I call - a Complex Adaptive System.

thealphaswarmer insights: Reciprocal Concessions

Dr Robert B Cialdini - a master of psychology in his engrossing book titled Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion systematically defines the rules of "Reciprocal Concessions" which is a natural fit to the evoloution of new working practices in the "connected age".

Dr Cialdini argues that "a second way to employ the reciprocity rule [is] to get someone to comply with a request" which is much more 'subtle' than "the direct route of providing that person with a favour and then asking for one in return".

What Dr Cialdini talks about relates to the fundamental rule of Compliance Techniques and that "one way to increased your chances would be first to make a larger request of me, one that I will most likely turn down. Then after, I have refused, you would make the smaller request that you were really interested in all along. Provided that you have structured your requests skill fully, I should view your second request as a concession to me and should feel inclinced to respond with a concession of my own, the only one I would have immediately open to me - compliance with your second request".

However, Dr Cialdini's book is very useful for not only high level marketing executives, but also marketing analysts whom often collect quantitative data on the development of their marketing plans - which comprises the Marketing Mix dimension of their business plan.

In this respect, another book which defines the powerful tenets of Experiental Marketing with a rich framework for Sales Task Forces or Distributed Teams (known as the Connect, Explore, Leverage, Resolve and Act model) fits quite well with the uptake of emerging practices in the Sales Process Engineering domain - in which the a) variability and b) the capability model are often in sync with fundamental business practices such as lead generation, appointment setting and most of all, creating "active prospects" in the sales system architecture.

With the proliferation of a variety of free working tools that manifest on the internet together with the unprecedented changes in "mobile" and "web" technologies which are achieving what I call as high-market disruption, there will be a call for utilizing these two complementary channels in a variety of way - whether it be for Customer Relationship Management or perhaps even the facilitation of best known collaborative work practices in 'fast performing teams' , which can be easily found here

thealphaswarmer insights: The Learning Challenge

Most Enterprises that take on Enterprise 2.0 initiatives often fail at integrating a value-laden learning model that ties in naturally with the ‘tempo’ of the organisation’s strategic and operational goals.

                 

In an ever changing corporate landscape (or fitness landscape I must add) – there is a dire need to reconcile “new modes of working” with simple principals of the Learning Organisation Model – which has references back to Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble’s Book 10 Rules For Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution

The idea of strategic innovation is covered in brief in this article with the focus on innovation being housed as an ‘umbrella term’ in its three main domains (Continuous Process Improvement, Process Revolutions and Product/Service Innovations)

In this light, the idea of the learning organisation in today’s complex Network Economy needs to employ these models to foster a collaborative working environment that will never be possible without the full appreciation of another article I wrote on ‘network productivity’ – which signals the need for employees at all levels in large organisations to communicate effectively to senior executives and perhaps even the board on their intentions or ambitions for a) organisational change or b) micro business (on a part time basis) opportunities.

In the Australian Economic landscape, there are significant tax advantages for people that are interested in creating or working on a small business on top of their full time jobs. The specific tax advantages aren’t totally clear without a transparent reporting mechanism that fosters a) creativity and b) intuition with the goals of the small business in question as it is often argued that a lot of small businesses are engaged in the ‘black market’ spectrum without the comprehensive or detailed reporting of their real income flows.

Personally, a good place to start with small business is to engage and co-create with exhibition or conventions that are often sponsored by large organisations which host the right individualities for speaking, inspiration or providing  a workshop of ‘tools and techniques’ that facilitate the adoption of the plethora of social media and web based tools that can be totally conducive for their cost structure. 

In this respect, a useful point of reference (or starting point) would be the points and arguments I raise in this article; which clearly has some static figures to compare and contrast with hard variables in strategic management and strategic marketing planning such as ROI, Refferal/Churn Rate that synthesises the core business function of creating ‘conversations’ around a brand or organisation.All of this should be taken into account with the R.E.D Model put forward by Don Tapscott (Retail, Evolve, Develop).

thealphaswarmer insights: Research and Development Departments are "copy cats"

In her excellent research paper, titled The Ipodification of Education;, Tara Brabazon explains in quite some detail the evolution of education in the domain of technology and specifically how Socrates (a great philosopher of his time) resurrects the inherent notion of trust within your ‘general awareness’ of the environment in which we operate.

Clearly, this is a defining characteristic which is so impressively integrated in her research paper that it often perturbs us to think of it in this light.

With this in mind; we must all remember in how to approach modern wisdom with archaic business people – through a ‘natural rhythem and flow’ which so collectively defines our true organisational DNA.

Organisational DNA was an interesting viewpoint put forward by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble in the context of his rather interesting book "10 Rules For Strategic Innovators" which really signals us in the right directions for critical change.

Critical Change is an area of expertise in which thealphaswarmer project generally focuses on – for it is an aggregation of ‘movements’ within the social and cybernetic systems of sociology together with the power of simple principals rooted in contextual ‘reality’.

TO be more specific; thealphaswarmer project is really about ‘understanding’ the requisite skills and unique attributes which Ken Thompson so eloquently delineates in his article “The Team Brain” concept which has its references back to his individual area of expertise “organisational biomimicry”.

Biomimicry is a model inspired from ‘nature’ which draws its intellect from various different cultures, sub-cultures and contexts (that collectively ebb and flow with the natural ‘tempo’ of just-in-time decision making).

This may be of specific importance to a lot of Research and Development departments out there who are engaged in an ever-ending battle of ‘copy-catting’ which perpetuates in a vicious cycle of “tit for tat” in the form of what Economists would appreciate as “Game Theory”.

For example; to really understand Research and Development departments; we need to delineate the organisational properties of this system. This system operates in three dimensions; which inter-relate to the operation of the three brains that Ken Thompson draws insights into the ‘intuitive repulsion’ or more interestingly; ‘the butterfly effect’ on the mind.

To truly defend yourself in the ever evolving ‘fitness landscape’ – which is a property of cybernetic systems; ONE needs to completely focus on letting go from things that distract their cause.

To facilitate this; its probably better to simply just ‘understand’ rather than ‘ask’ why big executives at many endemic corporations have a regimented nature in their strategic and operational planning.

Wow – doesn’t this shed light into why China ( a manufacturing and efficieny and I must add ‘tech’ powerhouse) moves so fast in the regulation of online content (as we learn a lot of things online than offline) within an operational rubric (for its within the rubric that appropriations can be drawn out of and cannot be misunderstood).