How did they know? The only one I talked to earlier that day was Sara. Did she inform the authorities? Noooooo. Impossible.

The Project Prophecies were three “truths” or “insights” that would alter peoples perspective on projects. They were described in some crappy, new age narrative that had an unbelievable storyline. Something like the “The Celestine Prophecy“, but only much shorter.

I had this manuscript in my briefcase. Well. It was a plastic bag from the grocery store. A briefcase would be too obvious. People would suspect I have something important in a briefcase. Why would I have a briefcase, if I wasn’t carrying something important?

Earlier that day I had explained to Sara the first insight.

First Insight. It’s a balance. Really.

Sara was sitting on the opposite side of the table. She drank coffee. She always did.

“You know,” I told her, “My focus has always been projects that require resilience. Projects that have to handle many disturbances and uncertainties.”

She knew. For years I just would not shut up about this. Really. She knew.

“Yeah. yeah. And you assume diversity as the key element in creating resilience. Diversity creates different viewpoints, different ways of problem solving, other ways of looking at the world in general. This clash of perspectives produces creative solutions. I know,” she yawned.

“Great. Glad you remember.” For a short moment I considered if I was boring her with this topic.

“Well,” I continued, “this diversity operates on two levels. In the group, where you seek people with cognitive diversity. And the mind. Being able to use multiple mindsets, handle different viewpoints.”

“Yeah. So. Why is this so important to you?” Sara said with her eyes closed. I couldn’t tell if she was meditating or asleep.

“I found an ancient manuscript that talks about this. When the world is ready for it, it will know that there is more to it than just diversity. It’s a balance. That’s the first insight. It’s a freaking balance!”

I was screaming. People were looking. Sara woke up.

“A what?”

“Do you remember the days when every body wanted to be in IT? When it didn’t matter what your background was, as long as you were intelligent?”

Sara remembered. She was herself a celebrity chef turned supply chain management consultant. She had found her true passion.

“Of course you remember. You would end up with a craftsman that was used to feel with his hands how much he could get out of a log of wood. He would turn out the be a fabulous developer with a feeling of how to mold the code. Truly. Do you remember the girl with a background in martial arts that could really kick the crap out of a system? She was natural when it came to testing.”

“Yes. Yes. I do remember.” I got Sara’s attention. For the first time. Ever.

“Great times! As I recall the key with this diversity wasn’t that you were selecting it. You aren’t selecting a martial art fighter and a wood craftsman to implement software. I think the essence is that we discovered the cognitive diversity within the team and used it to our strength.”

“Exactly!”

“Being in hotels and spending lots of time together created a close team. We embraced each others diversity. It was so incredible interesting to talk about all our different background and interests. And by sharing and working on a common goal we also created something unique for our group. Something that made our team our team.”

“Wow. This is exactly what the first insight is about. It formulates it like this.”

I showed her a piece of paper that read:

The balance between homogeneity and cognitive diversity among tribe members. Cultural diversity can provide different interpretations of situations resulting in creative problem solving. Homogeneity makes sure the group operates as one. In a resilient tribe you need both.

However, if you put stress on this balance, people either lean towards diversity (“not being like them”) or homogeneity (“being among your own people”).

“Oh yes.” Sara said. “In the end there is always a mix between “we are the world” and “I want to go home”. The magic doesn’t last forever. People are always getting on my nerves in the end.”

I remembered getting on her nerves.

“This is an incredible insight on the team level. Does the manuscript say something about resilience on the mental level?”

“That is the awesome part. It does! Think about the times you were tired or in a noisy room and had to write a report. How good was the report?”

“Not good. Actually, very bad. When I’m tired I switch to auto-pilot and start using the theories that people expect me to use. So I actually start writing what people expect me to write. I miss the open mind and creativity at that moment to get to the true spirit of things.”

“How do you solve that?” I asked.

“Sleep and isolation. Sitting in a quite room after a good nights sleep will do the trick.”

“That’s the second part of the first insight.” I yelled, while handing her another piece of paper.

There is a balance between a closed mind and an open mind. If we are putting stress on ourselves, if we put fear in your mind, if you are exhausted, we will lock into one dominant mindset. This is great for focus. An easy reference frame to make decisions against. But it also makes a bad problem solver and communicator.

Having an open mind, being able to switch context, to use other mental models or mindset helps you to be more creative in problem solving. You are looking at the same problem from multiple perspectives. It also allows you to see other peoples perspectives faster and with that improving your communication effectiveness. An “open mind” also has drawbacks like a lack of focus. Lack of opinion. Unable to make decisions.”

“That last sentence is so true. If everything seems possible, it is very hard to make a choice.”

From the corner of my eye I saw a suspicious looking man observing us. It was time for me to go.

I said goodbye to Sara and took a taxi.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - The Project Prophecy. The First Insight. is a post from: Project Shrink.

That was fun. Glad it is over. Let’s do this again sometime.

I’ve done some fantastic organized travel tours. Traveling for a month with people you have never met before through a strange continent.

Awesome.

At first everyone is on his own. Getting comfortable in the group setting.

Over time a cohesive group occurs. You find out you have common hobbies, know the same people, went to the same college. You also learn about the different backgrounds, life stories that make the people who they are. Great stuff when you are drinking beer in the dessert.

In the end you shake hands and say goodbye. Just before little annoyances become big problems. Just on time.

It was fun. Looking forward to the next trip.

Groups are temporary.

There is a point when groups are created and when they collapse.

Projects are interventions in a larger organization. After your project is finished things have changed. You altered structures, processes and people’s lives inside the host organization.

You do this with a temporary team: the project team.

You do this with a temporary organizational structure: the project.

While creating change in the host organization, people will push back to the project. People will interrupt. People will ask question. People will have strong opinions.

While creating change, the environment changes too. Reality is different than we thought it would be.

A group has to be able to cope with adjustments while still being able to perform its function. It has to have resilience. Resilience is the ability for a system (like a group of people) to absorb disturbances and still maintain its function.

In my view there are three balances that create resilience in groups. This are delicate balances. Unstable balances.

It’s hard to maintain the right balance, and that’s why a resilient group is always of a temporary nature.

The three balances are:

• Diversity – Homogeneity
• Open Mind – Closed Mind
• Public Information Flow – Private Information Flow (or Transparency – Secretiveness)

A resilient group has these balances right.

But.

The balances are unstable. You can only make it last a little longer. You cannot create it forever.

It is temporary. Always.

Balance One: Diversity – Homogeneity.

There is a delicate balance in groups. One of homogeneity vs cognitive diversity. (“Homogeneous (adjective) means consisting of parts or people which are similar to each other or are of the same type.” Wikipedia)

Cognitive diversity creates different viewpoints, different ways of problem solving, other ways of looking at the world in general. This clash of perspectives produces creative solutions. Diversity creates resilience.

Cultural diversity can provide different interpretations of situations. The difference is upbringing, history and personal experiences shape your brain, color your views, create your filters. It’s not the cultural diversity per se that is of importance, it’s the resulting cognitive diversity that is of essence.

Homogeneity makes sure the group operates as one. Providing a common understanding, shared beliefs and having a culture ensures the group stays together in rough times and communicates effectively.

But it’s a delicate balance.

Too much bonding creates exclusion from outsiders, the bullying of deviants, resistance to change and a strong risk of groupthink.

Too much diversity can cause a lack of coherence and low social support.

Why is this balance hard to maintain?

In general people prefer like minded people. In an environment that changes this means that homogeneous groups would become larger. It is more comfortable to be among “your own people”. So, a changing environment the natural balance would shift toward homogeneity.

Homogeneous closed social systems become less and less resilient. Because of their lack of diversity and lack of outside feedback. When the environment keeps on changing, these groups will collapse. These social systems cannot perform their function under the new conditions.

On the other side, if all the members of the group focus on their being different from the rest to become comfortable (deviancy), the lack of bonding will cause the collapse.

In the next post I will describe the other balances.

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Three Balances For Resilient Groups. Why Every Group Will Collapse. is a post from: Project Shrink.

This post is an early draft of a concept I am working on. It will focus on the supply and demand of information to nodes in social networks. People have a need for information (demand), some people have a need for an audience for their information (supply). I will use the notion of leaders (supply) and followers (demand). Inherent to social networks is the fact that you have way more followers than leaders. The system maintains this balance. Problems occur when boundaries make it difficult to ensure this balance.

Image by James Cridland.

Yes, this is a simplification of reality. It’s a model. It’s not The Real World… argh … don’t get me started about The Real World.

It needs references. It needs some examples and clarification. I am working on that. But I also was kind of hoping on your feedback

20% Holds 80% Of Information

Within social networks information is not distributed equally. A few have a lot. A lot have few. I think that information follows a Pareto distribution: 80% of the information is held by or accessible from 20% of the people.

When looking at the flow of information in organizations, you will find the existence of a few hubs: nodes in the network that are highly connected. In organizations not everyone has a relationship with every other employee. There are a couple of employees that know a lot of people, and most people in the organization know these few so-called “hubs”, leaders in information brokerage.

In networks you find many more followers than leaders.

In human networks you’ll find more people listening than speaking. Looking at the online world, we’ll see the 90-9-1 principle, which says that “in a community, the rule of thumb is that 90% of visitors only view the content, 9% only comment or react to it, and 1% create it.” Few people create, lots of people consume.

A person can be a leader and a follower at the same time, but for different topics. Leading in Project Management and following in SOA technology.

This is not some evil plot. It’s inherent to the social system.

From the information input perspective, you don’t want to be swamped in information. You limit the amount of sources. You want these few sources to be “the best”. “The best” being measured in popular demand skews the choice of information hubs towards a limited few. You want your sources easy to find, which also turns you to the more popular hubs. It’s similar to “the rich get richer”. If you are a popular hub, you become even more popular.

From the information output side you get a similar view. Leaders need demand for their information. A higher demand means larger influence, more recognition, a larger reputation. Leaders will behave to maximize the amount of followers. They need to be a very small minority.

Leaders are born with this urge. You really want to be a hub.

Within social networks there is a balance for the distribution of leaders and followers. There is an “natural amount” of hubs within a network.

Blue Ocean, Red Ocean

Once a follower has found a good source, it will remain connected as long as the need for the information exists. The relationship from follower-to-leader remains mainly stable.

What does a leader do without followers? It’s going to look for them throughout the network. Hubs move around to stay hubs.

For example, a couple of years ago a blog about Project Management was almost alone in its category. You could have quite a following with your blog. As more and more blogs come into existence about this topic, it gets harder and harder to build up your audience. Lot of leaders and not enough followers. An imbalance between supply and demand of information.

So, hubs start to move. They are leaving the red ocean, in search for a blue one. “Blue Ocean Strategy” is a business strategy book written by Kim and Mauborgne, that promotes creating new market space or “Blue Ocean” rather than competing in an existing crowded industry (Red Ocean).

In the case of Project Management blogs, you are trying to differentiate yourself. Looking for a different or more specific niche. Change the medium by adding video, audio and presentations. Looking for your fresh, blue ocean.

Next up:

What happens when boundaries prohibit movement and a leader cannot move throughout the network? What if you shrink to ocean into a pond (moving from organization to project)?

Bas de Baar helps people find ways to enjoy the diversity of human interaction in their organizations so that they can get out of their own way and achieve their goals. - Leaders And Followers In Social Networks is a post from: Project Shrink.