Ikujiro Nonaka - Knowledge Management

Ikujiro Nonaka is a Japanese organizational theorist and Professor Emeritus at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy of the Hitotsubashi University, best known for his Study of Knowledge Management

According to Nonaka, knowledge-creation is a core source of competitive advantage for the organization.

Explicit And Implicit Knowledge & SECI process:

Successful Japanese companies are able to convert and "amplify" implicit knowledge to explicit knowledge, so that knowledge acquired by individuals becomes organizational knowledge shared among colleagues. There are four methods of knowledge conversion known as the SECI process:

Socialization : Physical face-to-face experiences

Externalization: Where individuals' mental models and skills are converted into common terms and concepts

Combination: Interaction & exchange  in the virtual world of cyberspace and intranets

Internalization: Training with senior mentors and colleagues

Nonaka and Takeuchi argue that the two traditional Western management styles, "top-down" and "bottom-up," fail to foster the dynamic interaction necessary to create organizational knowledge.

The role of the middle management is important to the success of companies . They are "knowledge engineers" of the knowledge-creating. They are the knowledge transfer agent in both directions taking the top management vision of "what should be" and the frontline employees' realistic sense of "what is," and facilitate and bridge between them

The ideal organization structure for innovation and knowledge creation is called the A "hypertext" organization consisting of interconnected layers an example of such organizations are Kao and Sharp

To become knowledge-creating companies. Management should :

• Create a knowledge vision
• Develop knowledge teams
• Build Collaboration fields
• Adopt middle-up-down management
• Switch to hypertext organization
• Construct external knowledge network with the outside world (stakeholders partners and customers).

Frederick Winslow Taylor - Scientific Management

"In the past the man was first. In the future the system will be first." (Fredrick Winslow Taylor)

Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 – March 21, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. Taylor was one of the intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement and his ideas, broadly conceived, were highly influential in the Progressive Era. From an unskilled job at the Midvale Steel Works, to general manager of Manufacturing Investment Company (MIC), he built his knowledge and his theory “The Principles of Scientific Management". Taylor's pioneering work in applying engineering principles to the work done on the factory floor was instrumental in the creation and development of the branch of engineering that is now known as industrial engineering.

Scientific management differed from traditional "initiative and incentive" methods of management, where the whole problem is 'up to the workman'; while under the scientific management, fully one-half of the problem (planning & supervision) is 'up to the management'…

The four overriding principles of scientific management are as follows:

Each part of an individual's work must be analysed "scientifically," and the most efficient methodology for undertaking the job is devised and the maximum amount of "first-class" production is measure in a day. Workers are then expected to do this much work every day.

Everyone, has the ability to be "first class" at some job.  It is management's role to find out which job suits each employee and train them until they are first class.

Managers must cooperate with workers to ensure the job is done in the scientific way and according to the "first-class".

Managers take care of planning and supervision of the work, and workers carry it out.

In Taylor's view, it was pointless to involve the shop floor workers in end-of-year profit sharing schemes. Taylor proposed a form of improvement feedback incentive for workers by giving them full credit for the improvement, and be paid a cash premium as a reward.

Many consider his scientific management had a major impact on quality standards. The procedural documentation used in the ISO 9000 series of quality standards is very close to scientific management.

Henry Gantt (Henry Laurence Gantt) - Project Management

Henry Laurence Gantt, A.B., M.E. {May 20, 1861 – November 23, 1919) was an American mechanical engineer and management consultant who is best known for developing the Gantt chart in the 1910s.

"Whatever we do must be in accord with human nature. We cannot drive people; we must direct their development…the general policy of the past has been to drive; but the era of force must give way to that of knowledge and the policy of the future will be to teach and lead, to the advantage of all concerned." (Henry Gantt)

Henry Gantt's legacy to management profession is the following:

    The Gantt chart: Accepted as the most important project management tool until today. It provides a graphic mechanism of planning, controlling work and recording the progress of workers toward the task standard. The Chart also led to its modern variation - PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique).

    Industrial Efficiency: Industrial efficiency can Only be produce by  the application of scientific analysis to every aspect of work. and industrial management role is to improve the system by eliminating chance and accidents.

    The Task and Bonus System: He linked the manager bonus to how well he teaches his employees to perform better. 

    The social responsibility of business: He believed that the business had obligations to the welfare of society that it operates in.

If You Think You Have Problems Think about This Man..

His family was forced out of their home. He had to work to support them.

His mother died.

Failed in business.

Ran for state legislature - lost.

Also lost his job - wanted to go to law school but couldn't get in.

Borrowed some money from a friend to begin a business and by the end of the year he was bankrupt. He spent the next 17 years of his life paying off this debt.

Ran for state legislature again - won.

Was engaged to be married, sweetheart died and his heart was broken.

Had a total nervous breakdown and was in bed for six months.

Sought to become speaker of the state legislature - defeated.

Sought to become elector - defeated.

Ran for Congress - lost.

Ran for Congress again - this time he won - went to Washington and did a good job.

Ran for re-election to Congress - lost.

Sought the job of land officer in his home state - rejected.

Ran for Senate of the United States - lost.

Sought the Vice-Presidential nomination at his party's national convention - got less than 100 votes.

Ran for U.S. Senate again - again he lost.

Elected president of the United States.

He Humbly signed his name 

Abe Lincoln

Willing Suspension Of Disbelief - Coleridge to Walt Disney

The temporary acceptance as believable of events or characters that would ordinarily be seen as incredible. Willing Suspension Of Disbelief is a term coined in 1817 by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative. Suspension of disbelief often applies to fictional works of the action, comedy, fantasy, and horror genres.

According to the theory, suspension of disbelief is an essential ingredient for any kind of storytelling. With any film, the viewer has to ignore the reality that they are viewing a two-dimensional moving image on a screen and temporarily accept it as reality in order to be entertained. Black-and-white films provide an obvious early example that audiences are willing to suspend disbelief, no matter how unreal the images appear, for the sake of entertainment. With the exception of totally colour blind people no person viewing these films sees the real world without colour, but they are still willing to suspend disbelief and accept the images in order to be entertained.

Animations and comics

One contemporary example of suspension of disbelief is the audience's acceptance that Superman hides his identity from the world by simply donning a pair of glasses, conservative clothing, and acting in a "mild-mannered" fashion. Not only is the disguise so thin as to be ridiculous. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen constantly suspect Clark Kent of being Superman, yet when obvious evidence was right in their faces – such as times when Clark was missing his glasses – they never see the resemblance. Walt Disney comics are a classic example Mickey( mouse) has dog as his pet (pluto).

Psychological critic Norman Holland points to a neuroscientific explanation. When we hear or watch any narrative, our brains go wholly into perceiving mode. They turn off our systems for acting or planning to act. With them go our systems for assessing reality. That’s why humans have such trouble recognizing lies. We first believe, and then have to make a conscious effort to disbelieve.

In a nutshell, the willing suspension of disbelief means  the audience know that what they are seeing on stage or screen is a pretend reality, but they are pretending that they do not know that.  They accept the given premises of the story being told in order to empathize with the actors.  An example would be knowing that Superman cannot, in reality, fly – and then pretending that you don’t know that.  The storyteller tells the audience that, in this story, a man can fly. The audience suspends its disbelief and goes along with that premise.

H. Igor Ansoff - Strategic Management

H. Igor Ansoff was a Russian American applied mathematician and business manager. He is known as the father of strategic management.

"Structure will become a dynamic enabler of both change and unchanged, the ultimate model of organizational chaos." (Igor Ansoff)

Igor Ansoff was the originator of the strategic management concept, and was responsible for establishing strategic planning as a management activity in its own right.

    

The Ansoff Matrix, also known  as the "product-mission matrix" or the 2 x 2 growth vector component matrix," Ansoff Matrix remains a popular tool for organizations that wish to understand the risk component of various growth strategies including product versus market development, and diversification.

   

Published  "Corporate Strategy" . The first text to concentrate entirely on strategy, and it remains one of the classics of management literature.

    

Strategy Decisions & The 3S model. Ansoff identified four standard types of organizational decisions. He  developed a new classification of decision-making, and distinguished decisions as either:

•  Strategy:  Focused on the areas of products and markets);
•  Structure: Administrative (organizational and resource allocating), or
•  System:  Operating (budgeting and directly managing).

    Strategy Components: Ansoff identified four key strategy components:

       

•  Product-market scope - What Product for What Market?
•  Growth vector - How to grow?
•  Competitive advantage
•  Synergy - how opportunities fit the core capabilities of the organization. Ansoff explained synergy as how the whole is greater than the mere sum of the parts ("1 + 1 = 3")

    "Paralysis By Analysis". He Coined the famous phrase "paralysis by analysis" to warn against procrastination caused by excessive planning.

Power

“Your power is a function of velocity, that is to say, your power is a function of the rate at which you translate intention into reality. Most of us disempower ourselves by finding a way to slow, impede, or make more complex than necessary the process of translating intention into reality.

There are two factors worth examining in our impairing velocity, in our disempowering ourselves.

The first is the domain of reasonableness. When we deal with our intentions or act to realize our intentions from reasonableness, we are in the realm of slow, impede and complicate. When we are oriented around the story or the narrative, the explanations, the justifications, we are oriented around that in which there is no velocity, no power.

Results are black and white. In life, one either has results (one’s intentions realized) or one has the reason, story, explanations, and justifications. The person of power does not deal in explanations. This way of being might be termed management by results (not management for results but management by results). The person of power manages him or herself by results and creates a space or mood of results in which to interact with others.

The other factor to be addressed is time. Now never seems to be the right time to act. The right time is always in the future. Usually this appears in the guise of “after I (or we) do so and so, then it will be the right time to act”; or “after so and so occurs, then it will be the right time to act”; or “when so and so occurs, then it will be the right time to act.” The guise includes “gathering all the facts,” “getting the plan down,” “figuring out ‘X’,” “getting ready,” etc.

Since now is the only time you have in reality and now will never seem to be the right time to act, one may as well act now. Even though “it isn’t the right time,” given that the “right time” will never come, acting now is, at the least, powerful (even if you don’t get to be right). Most people wait for the decisive moment, whereas people of power are decisive in the moment.”

– By Werner Erhard, March 21, 1983

Peter Ferdinand Drucker - Founder of Modern Management

Peter Ferdinand Drucker {November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a leader in the development of management education, he invented the concept known as management by objectives, and he has been described as "the founder of modern management".

Several of these ideas run through most of Drucker's writings:

• “The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.”
• “Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right.”
•  “If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.”
•  “There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.”
•  “What gets measured gets improved.”
•   “Results are gained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.”
•  “So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.”
•  “People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.”
•  “Meetings are by definition a concession to a deficient organization. For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.”
• “Long-range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.”
• "Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things"

― Peter F. Drucker

The Man in the Arena

Theodore Roosevelt

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”

  Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship in a Republic"

  Delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

photo wikipedia Pach Brothers

Begin Now

Dream not too much of what you'll do tomorrow,

How well you'll work another year;

Tomorrow's chance you do not need to borrow -

Today is here.

Boast not too much of mountains you will master

The while you linger in the vale below,

To dream is well, but plodding brings us faster

To where we go.

Talk not too much about some new endeavour

You mean to make a little later on.

Who idles now will idle on forever

'till life is gone.

Swear not someday to break some habit's fetter,

When this old year is dead and passed away;

If you have need of living wiser, better,

Begin now.

Author Unknown