February 2015: The Flexible Organization Animation
To watch the animation from the February 2015 gathering please click the image. If you would like to read the script for this animation, click the following document: READ SCRIPT
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Welcome and Framing: February 2015
This is the presentation that Daniel Wilson provided to participants of the February 2015 gathering. It covers the ideas and speakers who to date have provoked our thinking on the theme of Flexpertise. -
Improvisation Capability and the Flexible Firm by Dr. Dusya Vera
In the LILA October 2014 meeting, we argued that flexible experts have certain skills and abilities, dispositions, traits, metacognitive and self-regulatory skills, and experiences. Dr. Vera suggested that improvisation is one of those competencies that people develop at an individual, a team, or an organization level. She began the lecture by proposing the following questions: Is it enough to have a few people improvising? Or do you need an entire organization to improvise? -
How to run a company with almost no rules – Ted Talk by Ricardo Semler
What if your job didn’t control your life? Brazilian CEO Ricardo Semler practices a radical form of corporate democracy, rethinking everything from board meetings to how workers report their vacation days (they don’t have to). It’s a vision that rewards the wisdom of workers, promotes work-life balance — and leads to some deep insight on what work, and life, is really all about. Bonus question: What if schools were like this too? -
Building Dynamic Capabilities by Maurizio Zollo
In this first talk, I’ll go into what dynamic capabilities are and why they are important… and then how. How do you know you have a dynamic capability and how can they be developed? I’ll also juxtapose different directions for strategy. As learning academics and practitioners, we need to make distinctions between the various strategic directions. You can apply dynamic capabilities toward multiple strategic directions and goals; how do you determine which to pursue? Finally, I’ll bring in sustainability. That is the ultimate challenge. It doesn’t get more complex than that. -
Flexpertise: A 10,000 Foot View as of February 12, 2015
This is a talk shared by David Perkins at the February 2015 LILA gathering. The idea is to provide a wrapper for some of the things that were shared at the October and February LILA gatherings. As David described, the talk has 4 themes: defining flexpertise, understanding it (why would we want it), valuing it (what is it worth), and fostering it (what do we do to get more flexpertise, when we want more of it). -
Genesis of GPS as Flexpertise
"An environment that encouraged people to think broadly and generally about task problems and one in which inquisitive kids felt free to follow their curiosity." Equally important, it was an environment wherein kids with an initial success could turn to colleagues who were broadly expert in relevant tasks, because of the genius of the Laboratory Directorship, colleagues who were also knowledgable about hardware, weapons and weapons needs. Finally we agree that it probably couldn't have happened without Frank McClure and Dick Kershner. They were unique." -
Transparency & Unlearning with Ethan Bernstein
Transparency – there is a gospel of transparency in leadership in organizations. The concept went from ‘being able to see’ to a broader definition of openness and freedom of information. But there was an unanswered question in this assumption of transparency as good - does transparency increase productivity? Ethan conducted a field experiment in a factory in China that was, at the time, following all best practices. -
Innovation Adoption as Unlearning with Janet Pogue
Key Questions/Themes: What behaviors currently inhibit innovations that need to be ‘unlearned’ and what new behaviors need to be supported or encouraged? How can ‘triggers’ and/or the physical environment be leveraged to reinforce behavioral change? How can we engage early adopters in making the innovation their own? And then, foster to go viral? Summary of Session Content Janet Pogue is a Principal in Gensler’s Washington D.C. office. She co-leads the firm’s Workplace Practice and is a frequent writer and speaker on the critical issues affecting the design of high performing work environments. In this session, she shared on her views... -
Thriving at Work
Christine Porath from Georgetown shared her thinking and research on what does it mean to thrive at work in order to create sustainable performance? She shared that her personal journey in her first job was working in a toxic culture and what she learned that those early experiences strongly shape the way we learn and develop in the workplace — do we stay and thrive? stay and whither? Leave for greener pastures? Her research shows that thriving depends on learning, engagement, and performance. Through her work with Gretchen Spreitzer, they have defined thriving a joint experience of vitality and learning which...
