Shift Happens
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Transcript of Shift Happens
The Biggest Story of the 21st Century
Different organisational models are more important than technology – or shift happens
Leon Benjamin
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009
The Biggest Story of the 21st Century?
> The end of command and control• Massive advances in technology• Prosperity to millions
> But at what cost to humanity, equality, society and the environment?
• Anglo-Saxon model has outlived its ‘usefulness’
> Network organisation as the model of choice• There is a spectre haunting the world. The spectre of peer-
to-peer> Open source production> Collaborative capitalism *not* managerial capitalism
• The future is about less
> Africa’s response> Almost exclusively in the hands of entrepreneurs
• “The antibodies”.
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009
What do these need to survive?
> Orders> Order > Stability> Continuity> Rules> Fear> Withholding
Information> Measurement> Incentives> Competition
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009
The Cost of Command & Control
> Modern Ways Open India’s Doors to Diabetes• Got the cash but it comes with ‘issues’
> Western diet/lifestyle• 35m type 2 diabetics. 75m by 2030
> Work Rage• France Telecom’s suicide rate
> 21 since Feb 2008• One more last week despite ‘interventions’
• 2.6m people in Britain on incapacity benefits > Over 60% there courtesy of workplace stress
> Inequality• USA 1950, CEO earns on average 40 X lowest paid worker• In 2009, CEO earns on average 4,000 X lowest paid worker
> Frequently as high as 200,000 X • 47m Americans without health insurance• In the UK poverty is almost at pre-war levels
> Environment• The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment
> The Story of Stuff, An Inconvenient Truth, etc, etc
> The West: Signs of cracking?• US infant mortality, UK & US drop to 17th & 19th (out of 19) on preventable deaths• 30m Americans on ‘low food security’• Education disparity
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009
What do these need to survive?
• Everyone is a leader
• Everyone sensing, responding,
• Transparency• Trust• Peers• Agile• Adaptable• Self-organising
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009
The Value of Peer-to-Peer Production> Open Source Software
• Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay could not exist without Open Source technology
• Linux & Coase’s Penguin
> P2P lending• Grameen bank, Kiva, Zopa...many others
> Prosperity without growth• Steady state economies• Fractional work
> Creative commons• Crowdsourcing is solving some of the world's intractable
problems• NASA Clickworkers
> Open democracy• The future of a country depends less on the nature of its issues,
and more on its capacity to create social structures able to solve them
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009
A Guide for Entrepreneurs
> Think differently about ownership structures• Visa – A Chaordic Model
> “Complex rules and procedures lead to simple and stupid behaviour. Simple rules and regulations lead to intelligent and complex behaviour” – Dee Hock
• Ricardo Semler’s employee contract at Semco> The 7 day weekend & work/life balance
> Think differently about labour models• Fractional work
> The unit of work is no longer a whole job• The future is about less
> Progress will be based on being rather than having• Rate of change
> “We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.” - R. D. Laing
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009
Antibodies
> That’s what we should be looking for, antibodies; some peaceful idea that binds us.......because we can all agree that this King of the Mountain shit has got to go; a lucky few get to spend a bit of time on top, but everybody spends most of their existence getting pissed on from a great height. So why do we continue doing it?
• Ubuntu> “I am because we are”
• In companies, leaders get their power from the top• In networks, leaders get their power from the bottom