[Me & X] Organisational structure and population studies
X : Do you do much work on organisational structure?
Me : You mean cell based organisations, the use of different attitudes (explorers - villagers - town planners) that sort of thing? Sure, lots of practice on this over the last twenty years. What do you need?
X : I'd like to know how organisations are changing?
Me : Oh. That's a bit more tricky. I run population studies every decade looking for next generation phenotype. I've attached the last one (2021) if that's helpful. It compares traditional viewpoint & practice versus next generation viewpoint & practice.
X : When are you doing the next one?
Me : 2030 for publishing in 2031. I run these every ten years.
X : "AI replaces tasks rather than jobs", "outcome as the driver rather than output", "supply chains modelled", "orchestration through swarming"? in 2021?
Me : During 2020-2021, it takes me time to do these studies. But yep, the first signs of those characteristics had not only appeared but the signal was strong enough to pick up on them. Why?
X : How did people react?
Me : No different from the 2010/2011. They mostly thought it was nonsense but that's ok, I just wait 8 years or so. I reckon about now that people will start recognising them, might still be a bit early though.
X : Do you have the 2011 ones?
Me : Attached.
X : "Cell based structure", "Driven by Big Data", "Commodity infrastructure", "Continuous deployment" ... these seems pretty standard fare.
Me : Not in 2010/2011 it wasn't. Most people thought it was nonsense. Even today, for many companies it's more of an aspirational direction. Never forget the delta between the cutting edge and your more traditional enterprise organisation is about 20 to 30 years in management practices.
X : 20 to 30 years?
Me : Social systems take time to change. Practices take time to develop. Executives take time to learn.
X : But everyone's adopting AI.
Me : FOMO. And it's less adopting and more failing but padding out the CV. Nothing like Facebook offering $50M+ renumeration packages to get your average CIO demanding that their national funeral business needs to invest in AI for the future!
X : You don't think AI is useful?
Me : Quite the opposite. It's very useful. But you need some basics:
1) AI is a field not a thing.
2) Components of the field are industrialising.
3) Practices are co-evolving with the industrialised components.
4) Components and practices have important applications assuming you understand your economic and technological landscape.
X : Most execs understand this?
Me : You wish. Most corporate execs are like generals reading a survey that 97% of other generals are bombing hills. They then demand their army find a hill and bomb it. Not much situational awareness in corporate land ... however, it's getting better in that next generation.
X : If there's not much situational awareness, how do companies survive?
Me : Red Queen effect + Luck. You only need to be as useless as the person standing next to you.
Originally published on LinkedIn.