Nested Is The Word To Describe Our World...

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The SEO makes a better CEO?

This post is part of a series on enterprise longevity and good product architecture. 

At TEDxBoston, Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen said, “The world is, in many ways, organized in a nested system. So we have nations, within those we have industries, within industries we have corporations, within those we have business units, within those we have teams, within the teams we have people, and within the people we have brains.” (TedxTalks, 2012)

To ensure enterprise longevity, we need to recognize that the world we are living in is nested. Almost everything (if not everything) is part of a nested system. The company product must be seen as part of a larger system. Defining the boundaries of the product is crucial, because it determines the exact deliverables of the enterprise. Next is to identify the other objects in the nested system. Emergence is a property of nested systems, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. The product will be dysfunctional if it operates alone. 

Almost certainly, one of the objects in the supporting system will be the operator, who is the intelligent agent. Both the product and supporting systems have boundaries. Everything that crosses these boundaries needs to be coordinated and facilitated by interfaces. More importantly, holistic comprehension of the whole product system lays the foundation for further downstream tasks.

Why do we see more gasoline cars than electric cars? Think of the coordination and interfaces between the boundaries (see below). Which is better? Electric or gasoline?

Nest, Nests, Nested. 

Thanks very much for reading. 

Credit

TedxTalks. (2012, July 17). (TedxBoston, Producer) Retrieved December 9, 2012, from You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvos4nORf_Y

The SEO Makes A Better CEO?

It's been a while since I last posted. The past few months has been super busy, but filled with joy and fulfillment. I'm thankful. 

So who is the SEO and why does he make a better CEO? This post is the start of a series where I will write about the ingredients of enterprise longevity. 

All companies exist because there are jobs to be done. Automotive companies exist because they produce cars that perform the job of transporting people from place to place. Airliners exist because we need them to do the job of providing air travel. As long as companies can continue to do the jobs, and in some cases doing the jobs better than anyone else, they will survive and even prosper. 

Longevity is not simply about maximizing revenues and minimizing costs. Such an approach is extremely shortsighted. The fundamental driving force that keeps companies going is their abilities to fulfill the jobs to be done, or even create the jobs to be done. In essence, all that companies are doing are fulfilling needs. 

Every company exists because of its product that does the job. Good product architecture is key to enterprise longevity. The ingredients of good architecture are Success, Elegance, and Operations. 

I have taken the framework from MIT ESD.34 System Architecture class (Crawley & Cameron, 2012), and expanded it to incorporate the elements of longevity. 

Good architecture and longevity consist of three ingredients. Success requires understanding the world we are living in and stakeholders' needs, well-defined goals, and good concept selection. Product elegance is determined by modularity and simplicity. Operations must be given due consideration. I assert that the CEO/SEO needs to understand the elements of success and operations in order to deliver elegance, and hence enterprise longevity. 

The SEO is the Systems Executive Officer. Does he make a better CEO? 

More to come for this series. 

Thanks very much for reading.

Credit

Crawley, E., & Cameron, B. (2012). ESD.34 System Architecture Class. MIT, ESD.

How Will You Measure Your Life?

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Dynamics of Happiness and Practicality
Dynamics of the Quality of Life
Architect Your Life

The road is longer than you think...

I finally completed the book "How will you measure your life?". It's a great read and I highly recommend it. 

For me, the completion of the book brings a very nice closure to Summer. Summer has had many takeaways but something really stood out.

Short-term gains almost always create long-term trouble. Yet, many people choose immediate gratification, perhaps even in the absence of adversity. Some knowingly choose short-term gains, thinking that long-term trouble would never come and haunt them. 

Life is short, why be so hard on ourselves? Take the easy way out. It isn't going to matter in the end, anyway. It's not worth it. The marginal cost is too high.

A child intentionally left an assignment undone till the last minute. The loving parent stayed up the entire night to help his child ace the assignment, so that both can be proud parent and child. 

This process repeats itself once, twice, and so on. A culture is built. The child doesn't accumulate the "schools of experiences" required to succeed in life.

Eventually, the parent (plus the child) ends up paying the full cost of his marginal thinking and actions - When the going gets tough without the parent, the child reveals who he really is...

Don't measure success and happiness with the wrong metrics. It's extremely dangerous as they drive the wrong behaviors...

Thanks very much for reading.

Works Cited

Christensen, M. C., Allworth, J., & Dillon, K. (2012). How Will You Measure Your Life? New York, NY, USA: HarperCollins.

Dynamics of New Hires

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Part of a class project (ESD.74 System Dynamics) in Summer, the picture illustrates the “premature demise of new hires”, which happens time and again, regardless of industry, geographical location, and the size of the corporation.  

Dynamics of New Hires

Experienced hires tend to “Do it Myself” due to increased work load and schedule pressure. Though well-intended “Do It Myself” serves to meet deadlines, the new hires do not receive optimal coaching time from their mentors. Quickly, the new hire’s learning and experience saturates. “New Hire Engagement” is minimal as the new hire is not being “taught to fish”. “Teaching a man to fish” takes time and the benefits are not immediate (depicted by double line on arrow from New Hire Experience).

Say meeting deadlines is analogous to “feeding a man with fish”. Yes, urgent and important. “Teaching a man to fish” is important but not urgent.

Which is better in the long run? The answer is obvious but our actions often say otherwise. Why? Time for rethink and change. 

Thanks very much for reading. 

Works Cited

Gadewadikar, J., Teo, K. S., & Wong, M. F. (2012). ESD.74 System Dynamics Assignment 7: The Dynamics of New Hires. MIT.

Hindsight Bias and Fundamental Attribution Error

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"Why did you do this? You should have done that." Most of us (including me) are guilty of similar thoughts or words. 

This is a classic example of hindsight bias (knew-it-all-along effect). 

Accident investigators already know the accident outcomes and sequence of events. Hence, they tend to be biased and focused on significant data points leading to the accident. Instead of blaming individual actions, it would be more meaningful to understand why individuals took or did not take appropriate actions based on the information available and context facing them leading to the accident. Recommendations should focus on the changes and improvements required to help individuals make better decisions in future to prevent accidents. Of course, the underlying assumption is that humans do not possess malicious intent.

Another concept is that of fundamental attribution error. The observer overvalues his own point of view and undervalues the actual situational context faced by the actor being observed. If the roles of the observer and actor are swapped, the same fundamental attribution error is likely to occur. 

It is almost impossible to eliminate hindsight bias and fundmental attribution error. The takeaway is to  focus on systems rather than individuals.  Improving the design of the systems (including technical, social and sociotechnical systems) is certainly more productive than focusing on blame. For instance, performance measurement systems shape and drive the behaviors of employees in enterprises. Who is to blame when undesired outcomes occur? 

Again, even if the system in place is flawless (is there one?), human ingenuity, the very reason that differentiates humans from other living things on Earth, more often than not, is the very same reason that collapses the systems we built. Seems like "People" are stickier problems than "Technology". Leadership may be the best solution available.  

Thanks very much for reading. 

Dynamics of Happiness and Practicality

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Dynamics of the Quality of Life

Recently, I had the opportunity to hear Professor Jay Forrester lecture in my ESD.74 System Dynamics class. It was a great privilege. The content of Forrester's lecture was nicely summarized by my classmate Ming Fai. Forrester is the inventor of the random-access magnetic-core memory, and the founder of system dynamics. Though in his 90s, Forrester looked extremely sharp, and his talk was deeply enlightening.

My inspiration for this post came from remarks like "She can never understand the practical side of things", and "He's not as romantic like before during our courting days." Post Forrester's talk, I captured the remarks in the system dynamics casual loop diagram below:

A positive (+) sign indicates that two related variables change in the same direction. A negative (-) sign says that two related variables change in the opposite direction. More happiness leads to more love and that's a positive sign. More practicality leads to less love and that's a negative sign. 

The left loop (or the gal loop?) reinforces love while the right loop (or the guy loop?) balances (reduces) love. My previous posts "Languages of Love and Appreciation" reinforces the left loop, while "Dynamics of the Quality of Life" captures the essence of work-life balance.

Understanding the dynamics of these interactions ensures long-term happiness and quality of life. Do you think so?

Thanks very much for reading. 

Dynamics of the Quality of Life

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Languages of Love and Appreciation
Dynamics of Happiness and Practicality

This summer, I'm in the class "ESD.74 System Dynamics for Engineers" taught by J. Bradley Morrison. Systems Dynamics was created by Professor Jay Forrester of MIT in the 1950s. A true MIT heritage indeed. In essence, system dynamics is an approach to understand the behavior of complex systems over time. My inspiration for this post came from my assignments regarding causal loop diagrams. Casual loop diagrams are visual aids that illustrate how related variables affect one another. 

Instead of engineering or business systems, I created the "Dynamics of the Quality of Life". A picture paints a thousand words. 

The convention goes like this. A positive (+) sign indicates that the two related variables change in the same direction. A negative (-) sign says that the two related variables change in the opposite direction. For example, when we work harder, we have less freedom (more work, less freedom => -ve). When we have less freedom, our quality of lives will drop (less freedom, less quality of life => +ve). 

Most of us start with the reinforcing (R) fulfillment loop to increase the quality of our lives. Once we have more money and hence more spending power, we go into the balancing (B) commitment loop which makes us work harder, and have less freedom (balancing workaholic loop), resulting in a decrease to the quality of life. 

Simplistic this causal loop diagram may be, it captures the essence of work-life balance. Are your loops well-balanced?

Thanks very much for reading.

Works Cited

Sterman, J. D. (2000). Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World. USA: Irwin McGraw-Hill.