Author: naomiorgdesign

I'm wondering if there is any reliable information that assesses whether time spent developing organizational career ladders and lattices is worth the organizational investment. Do we really know that people's careers follow a plan along a path or is the reality much more chaotic? Would a free internal labor market work just as well and be much more cost/time/resource effective than having countless hours spent on succession planning, career/talent management discussions, and so on?

The last time I developed a fully-fledged career paths system was in 2002. I know it was that year as this week I looked at the employee guide we produced as part of the implementation because I was being interviewed by someone in an organization that is 'launching research into developing common career path frameworks (lateral and vertical) within organizations'. In return for giving my views I will be provided with 'a full copy of our research report'.

Looking at this 11 year old document it struck me as being hopelessly old-fashioned for now, even though it contains many of the design features of what is currently known as a 'lattice careers paths' that are individually determined. For example, in guide we said that career development is:

'About opening up options which enable you to progress in the business. Ultimately it will be about deciding and agreeing the path your career will take. It is a partnership between you and your line manager in which you have personal responsibility for driving your career and your personal development.

You will be supported with honest, realistic feedback on your performance and capability from your line manager and will be given access to relevant development opportunities. To career plan effectively you need to understand the potential career paths available.'

The guide then outlines 8 possible career paths:

• Moving up in the same area e.g. category merchandiser to category manager
• Moving across in the same area and then up in the same area
• Staying in current role for enrichment/development
• Moving across into a different area
• Moving across in the same area e.g. buyer to supply chain project manager
• Moving down into a different area and then up
• Moving upwards into a different area
• Moving to an external opportunity

This seems remarkably similar to the 'model of career progression [that] allows for multiple paths upward taking into account the changing needs of both the individual and the organization across various intervals of time' as described in a Deloitte document on mass career customization and lattice career paths that I've just read and which were the same topics that the interviewer was interested in.

The telling word in this Deloitte description is 'upward'. I don't think that fits with what many people are now looking for. Room at the top is limited and many people don't want it anyway. As an example I was talking with a lawyer in a large partnership. He is surprised by the number of high performing employees who turn down the partnership route because they don't want the risk and responsibility. And think of the numbers of people who give up on corporate life to move into something entirely different. You may have done it yourself, or look for stories of people who have – they're often illuminating on the restrictions of corporate 'careers', or read Po Bronson's book 'What Shall I do with my life?'

It is possible that lattice career paths may be better than the more traditional route that – often in the absence of technical career progression routes – take people into management and the climb up the corporate ladder but even so lattices have limitations. Could they work or am I mistaken in thinking that the evidence that they add organizational value is flimsy at best? Is it better that we imagine and then create a world with development opportunities but not career paths – ladder or lattice?

What would that world look like? Here are some things we could be designing in that have the potential to be more valuable than designing career paths.

• Building generic skills for future jobs so that people can take on new roles. Look at the list of 25 jobs people will have in 2025 according to Fast Company. How many organizations are developing digital detox specialists, or urban shepherds both require ability to make sense of mountains of data and solve highly complex problems.
• Linking to ideas that 'everyone is self-employed' or 'portfolio careers' – both of which may be suspect terms, but they recognize the reality of a trend to shorter times in roles and a lot more job hopping from organization to organization, as the Deloitte paper notes: 'While not visible to most managers, much of the challenge they face today likely comes from the fact that knowledge workers are already building lattice like careers by moving in and out of organizations and up and down hierarchies, albeit often without support or structure from their organizations'
• Developing opportunities around skills not roles and then helping people develop the 'portable skills' that they can take from role to role. Portable hard and soft skills are things like – Building relationships/networking, technology skills, influencing, information analysis, inspiring others, openness to change, people management, planning and organizing, project management, resource management, strategic thinking, supplier management, and competitor and market scanning.
• Recognizing that people have commitments and needs that conflict with traditional ideas of employment – one of the students I mentor asked for 6-weeks unpaid leave to conduct his research interviews and was refused. He decided to leave the company (after 7 years and several promotions there). Conversely in another company an employee wanted leave to sail around the world and was welcomed back to the organization on her return. Far better to reap the investment of goodwill and a sound employee than lose the investment for holding out on unpaid leave.
• Staying at least abreast or, even better, ahead of changes in the nature of work, our competitive market, and the unexpected nature of things – who of Cisco's about to be laid off 4000 employees have had solemn discussions on their Cisco careers in the last few months? Similarly those at the now sold to Jeff Bezos Washington Post? I bet a lot of them. Let's forget the idea that we can predict with certainty what specific jobs/roles we'll be trying to fill within a time period beyond one year max – and maybe not even that – and that we can put people on a path to filling them.
• Considering different types of reward and recognition frameworks that reflect stops and starts in work, don't penalize breaks in service, give credit for various types of learning and development and enable people to appropriately grow their jobs (and be rewarded/recognized for this) without having to move to a different job within or without the organization.
• Accepting that the organization cannot hold onto people who don't want to stay, no matter how much has been invested in career routes. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in January 2012 'The median number of years that wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 4.6' and for workers in the 25 to 34 it was 3.2 years.
• Considering whether career path planning and implementation is worth investing in.

And thus back to my original question: would the money be better spent in developing skills and enabling a free movement of labor within the organization without trying to manipulate it via career lattices and 'talent management'?

What's your view?

This week I've been thinking about the role of leaders vis a vis HR Business Partners – and HR more generally – in designing organizations. I get asked lots of questions on this topic and have just been asked again but the factor that makes this a more complex question is that it has come from some consultants in China.

The complexity arises because the bulk of the stuff written about organization design and HR that I come across is from a US or European perspective – a perspective that in my experiences of teaching organization design in China, and then talking with various people on the topic creates tensions for Chinese leaders and HR practitioners that are different from those created in western cultures.

Globally, there are five distinctive trends shaping organization designs:

1. Accelerating digital transformation means among other things that organizations are becoming more transparent (e.g. via organizational network mapping), work becomes what you do not where you do it, information is easily available to many rather than few, and more work can be automated
2. Increasing knowledge gains from bio and neuro science research is shedding light onto aspects of decision making, choice taking, behavior patterns, learning styles, social patterns, meaning making and so on,
3. Changing demographic profiles are leading to flexible working patterns, changes to incentive and reward schemes, recruitment and retention issues, and innovative talent and career management approaches
4. Developing concerns around resource use (water, energy, other natural resources) and environmental sustainability/climate change are impacting the ways buildings are designed, urban centers are laid out, and transport and infrastructures are planned
5. Growing anxiety about the widening rich/poor divide in certain economies is leading to calls for people to be paid a living wage and not just the minimum wage, anger at 'fat-cat' remuneration, civic unrest and in some organizations attention turning towards ways of adding social/community value

In a US or European culture there is a reasonable likelihood that business leaders and HR practitioners will work together to manage the implications of these five trends. It's relatively easy to see, for example, that a leadership decision to save money on corporate real estate costs would lead either to HR involvement in developing a framework for activity based working or some discussions on the costs/benefits of considering it. In some organizations HR might be the initiator of an activity based working strategy in response to employee demand.

In China business leaders typically set the strategy, determine the organization's structure, interact with governments, politicians, legal representatives, and other stakeholders and do many of the activities that a western HR function might do. This means that, as a generalization, the role of HR is seen less as 'partner' and transformative function and more as an administrative function. An article in the July 2013, McKinsey Quarterly notes that 'Even today, many [Chinese] HR functions do no more than oversee salaries and benefits.' This tension between what HR practitioners actually do and what they could do to support their business leaders is highlighted in China – though it exists in the US and Europe too.

When I wrote a chapter on workforce planning in China for a book I interviewed several Chinese HR Directors. One of them spoke on the difficulties she faces partly due to a lack of input into the business strategy.

'I have to manage the bottom line by reducing costs due to restricted market growth. Yet simultaneously I have to keep up with competitors in terms of compensation and benefits packages, the culture and environment offered to employees, and the career progression. It doesn't work not to have a voice in the business planning process. I feel as if I am being asked to do the impossible.'

Why are HR practitioners less able to partner business leaders in China than they are in some other national cultures? I've heard several reasons put forward, including:

• The prevalence of 'Hierarchical organizational structures where top leaders steer the company's direction. They lead managers and managers lead workers'. (From a blog piece). The author of the article Managing the Chinese Way, notes that 'this involves managers in paying more personal attention to staff and colleagues than managers in many other cultures do'.
• Yingyi Qian, Dean of the Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management talks of 'A leadership belief that the hard analytical skills like accounting, mathematics, science and engineering, were more important than the softer skills associated with HR of teamwork, communication, presentations, culture.
• The legacy of rote learning, memorization, and seeking standard solutions that mitigates against development of 'leaders everywhere', innovation, and creativity that is often the realm of HR's role in building organization effectiveness (See Capability Building in China)
• The context of half market and half government that requires high levels of knowledge of government, politics, 'business savvy', and personal contact/network development – guanxi – which is the purview of leaders and not part of the normal professional training of HR practitioners.

So what are the opportunities for Chinese business leaders and HR partners to work together in designing effective organizations? Looking back at the list of five distinctive trends it seems that each presents many possibilities. Here is one example for each of them:

Digital transformation: Business leaders and HR work together on identifying what specific aspects of the transformation will have most impact on their business, and what this means in terms of workforce profile, numbers, and skills and the design of the digital workplace.
Bio and neuroscience: Research in the way people learn is changing the way training and development are offered. HR can develop a range of innovative, low cost, and effective capability building activity to support skilled delivery of the business strategy.
Changing demographic profiles: Young Chinese people entering the workforce want different types of rewards and incentives than older people. Similarly different markets and geographies (within China) reflecting different populations require a variety of incentives. HR could work with business leaders to attract and retain younger and diverse workers using innovative incentive packages.
Developing concerns around resource use: A World Bank press release states that 'China is making unprecedented efforts to improve energy efficiency, and launched an ambitious set of energy conservation policies, regulations and programs during the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2010). The new 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015) lays out a path for continued efforts in energy conservation.' HR could work with business leaders to develop workforce understanding of the value of energy efficiencies, invoking 'lean' approaches, and communicating data/information on organizational energy use.
Adding social/community value: Family ties and networks are strong in China, but 'rural-to-urban migration has strained social networks.' In an Economist article discussing civic virtues in China the authors made the point that 'Migration reinforces a reluctance to engage with strangers. Over time, however, the members of China's new urban classes may come to identify with each other-—and indulge more in the kindness of strangers.' HR practitioners are ideally positioned to help develop a culture of mutual support, caring, and community involvement which act in favor of retention, engagement and increased productivity.

There are many other opportunities and I'm hoping that the discussion I'm facilitating on this topic in Shanghai in September will be energetic in putting these forward. The challenge will come in reducing the barriers to implementing them – but again this offers a place for HR and business leaders to learn more about the value of partnering to design effective organizations.

If you have experiences or insights into the role of HR vis a vis business leaders in China I'd be delighted to hear from you.

End note.
For an excellent piece on the Chinese business context see the Big Think Interview with Edward Tse, Booz & Company's Chairman of Greater China
For an insightful and readable novel written by a Chinese civil servant read Wang Xiaofang's, The Civil Servant's Notebook or listen to a '5 easy steps' synopsis of the points made in this and other such 'bureaucracy lit' books.

'The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new' – this was a useful quote, attributed to Socrates, (but see endnote to this blog) to get in my in-box this week as I've been asked to help design a half day workshop for a healthcare client.

They've had tidal waves of change during 2013: they've been preparing for a location move – happening next month, they have a new CEO and several new senior leadership team members, they have new business processes, their client base is changing, and they've had to keep the day to day operational. Through all this a lot of the staff have felt stressed and anxious.

However, things are not going to get less challenging and they might get even more challenging in the coming year(s). Immediately, they face implementing aspects of the US Affordable Care Act, switching their patients to a new records system, extending their range of services, contending with likely cuts in funding and managing the general scrimmage that comes from aiming to offer improved patient experience and better outcomes.

Boldly the CEO is closing the facility for an entire morning for the workshop, which is a hefty investment so it has to be good. So, with the quote in mind I suggested that we focus the workshop on skills for building the new organization in order to meet all the coming changes with energy.

Three workforce skills we feel are keys to this are reflection, rejuvenation, and resilience. During my runs the last few days I've been working out what line to take on these three capabilities. I'm wondering how can we turn ourselves from a somewhat adversarial fight with old 'we've always done it this way', and instead turn to a positive, collective effort in building the new, learning how to effectively surf what someone in the organization described as 'the tidal waves of change' that are coming and feel exhilarated by the effort.

The design challenge is to have a fun, productive, and energizing morning with a hugely diverse range of staff. We know we can't be theoretical or teacher-like but have to design things to be engaging and active. To order my thoughts a bit I've been looking for pragmatic and actionable ways of talking about each capacity. Once I have these clear I can start on the designing the day and the activities.

Reflection for our purposes is about critically examining various experiences and finding out what we've learned from them that we would do differently in future. Stephen Brookfield who has worked in healthcare environments wrote a practical worksheet outlining four critical thinking processes that lead to learning. His approach is nicely summarized in the Community Toolbox, being developed by a project at the University of Kansas They say that in thinking of a situation, event, issue, etc. ' Reflection [involves asking questions like] Did it work? If so, how can it work better? If not, what went wrong, and how can we fix it? What have we learned here that might be valuable in the future? Reflection leads you to the consideration of another problem or goal, and the cycle begins again. The goals of a reflective activity are to identify:

• Truth: to separate what is true from what is false, or partially true, or incomplete, or slanted, or based on false premises, or assumed to be true because "everyone says so."
• Context: to consider the context and history of issues, problems, or situations.
• Assumptions: to understand the assumptions and purposes behind information or situations.
• Alternatives: to create ways of approaching problems, issues, and situations that address the real, rather than assumed or imagined, factors that underlie or directly cause them — even when those factors turn out to be different from what you expected.

As I think on this I can imagine perhaps an activity centered around a story about an organizational event – the same story told from three different perspectives asking which one is true, or what in the history of the organization led to the event happening, or what might the various stakeholders in the event have been assuming, and then reflecting on the alternative ways of handling the event.

Rejuvenation is an easier capability to tackle as it's about taking a break from everything stressful, and really enjoying, recharging, recreating, refreshing, restoring, revitalizing, reviving and renewing oneself. It doesn't have to take a long time, and doesn't need to involve a week on a retreat although it could. I like the small rejuvenations throughout the day, like the 3-minute breathing space meditation, or a delicious cup of tea (made the English way a la George Orwell's 11 steps) but one friend loves her twice weekly jazzercise class, and my daughter loves a Chinese style foot massage.

I'm thinking here that each of the attendees at the workshop will have a favorite way of rejuvenating and we could have a selection of concurrent 'learnshops' from some of them, for example 30 minutes of drumming techniques, or learning to crochet, or zumba dancing.

Resilience is a much touted word at the moment. In fact, I'm beginning to lump it along with 'agile', 'adaptable', and 'scalable' as one of those words that Lucy Kellaway in her wonderful Financial Times management column loves to ridicule in her Golden Flannel Award . However in the discussion of resilience written by the late Christopher Peterson, I find just the sensible way of thinking that I like. He talks of resilience as 'best used descriptively to refer to the bouncing back to "normal" following potential adversity. What is normal may or may not be all that good. It depends on where someone starts. … It needs to be recognized that resilience is multidimensional, meaning that one can bounce back in some domains but not others. … It also needs to be recognized that the length of time that needs to pass before resilience is evident may vary greatly, depending on the person and the domain.'

Ann Masten, a professor at the University of Minnesota researches resilience predominantly in children and has an excellent You Tube video on pathways to resilience in children and adults. She offers a list of 12 factors associated with resilience which she says should be 'ordinarily available' but if they're not how do you compensate?

And this is the bit I'm currently wrestling with. What activities will encourage development of resilience? There are some self-assessments that could promote discussion (though I'm not a great fan of this type of instrument). I think positive psychology and mindfulness approaches could be very helpful, as could personal stories of 'withstanding or recovering from significant disturbances that threaten adaptive function, viability or development'. (Ann Masten's definition of resilience)

Jane McGonigal has a short HBR piece Building Resilience by Wasting Time and offers some activities. I rather like the notion of 300 people of snapping their fingers 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by sevens which according to her 'is a scientifically backed way to improve focus and determination-—and thus mental resilience.' But I'm not sure I would recommend this for the workshop.

If you have ideas on fun, energizing and maybe even 'scientifically backed' ways of building resilience let me know.

End note: The quotation is from a character named Socrates who was a gas-station attendant in a book published in the 1980s by Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior. The quote was not from the renowned Greek philosopher.

This time last year I was getting geared up to do a TedX talk on the Future of Work. Now I am gearing up to do a Corenet talk on Keep Moving: The Rise of the Mobile Worker. As last year I'm wondering why what seemed a good idea at the time now seems like a big challenge. The good thing is that I'm not presenting alone so there are two of us working on the presentation. I'm presenting the overview sections, and John Risteter from Huntington Bank is presenting his case study. We're being guided in how we set about developing the presentation by Nancy Duarte's excellent book – Resonate on how to develop presentations – it's become my bedtime reading companion(!) She also gave a compelling webinar, Mastering Remote Presentations: A Guide to Persuasive Conversations which I got tips from that helped me develop the webinar I gave last week Collaboration, conversation or chat, knowing the difference, which discusses mobility from the angle of collaboration. It's now freely available to listen to here.

What Duarte says is that successful presentations first establish 'the big idea' and then structure around that. So, what can we draw on to develop our big idea around mobility? Well I'm a fully mobile worker, and I've done a lot of work on workplace mobility programs. Currently I have the intriguing role of remotely co-ordinating an internal mobility program that we've established back in the corporate office. I wrote about the first week of it in a previous blog and we're about to start week four. John (my co-presenter) is Manager of Strategic Space Planning and comes at mobility from the corporate real estate perspective. We spent a morning together the other week collecting up first thoughts (and having a laugh doing so). The big idea however did not emerge clear cut in this initial meeting on the topic. But looking over our notes and then having a couple of follow up phone calls it has taken shape. Our big idea is that managing the rise in mobility means managing a multitude of competing and interwoven tensions.

Like it or not, worker mobility is growing. This rise is valiantly tracked, in the US, by Global Workplace Analytics who point out that getting to accurate numbers is complex as the term 'mobile worker' (or teleworker) covers hosts of work styles and locations, including road warriors, service engineers like plumbers and electricians, people who work from home, people who work in an office but have unassigned seating and thus are internally mobile, and so on. In John's case they are grappling with all these different types of mobility.

The various shapes and forms of mobility create a number of organizational tensions and in the course of our discussions we've identified three that we have both found hard going and worth talking about:

• Spatial tensions
• Cultural and social tensions
• Informational/technological tensions

Within each of these categories there are dozens of tensions so identifying which we think our participants would find the most interesting and we can provide insights to is our immediate next step and we're getting closer on this. Meanwhile the more obvious (and not new) insight is that managing the rise of worker mobility effectively is not just a single function role it requires support and co-operation from finance, IT, HR, business leaders and others: the tensions inherent in getting to this are well known. Bob Fox of Fox Architects talks about this in his blog. So leaving aside this rather well-worn theme still leaves us with plenty.

Spatial tensions
Take a look at the ways UK Vodafone's, Guy Laurence, has redesigned his workplace.
'One of the more radical features of Vodafone UK's workplace is a distinct lack of 'office ownership'. Executives don't have an office. They, CEOs included, sit in the same open-plan space as every other employee, regardless of role or job title. Any belongings that are left on the desk after 10pm – paper, personal possessions or otherwise – are incinerated that night. They have reduced formal meeting space by 30% and minutes are taken electronically, which has reduced paper usage by 78%. In order to make better use of available space, only meetings of 6 people or more are permitted in a meeting room – all others (unless they are of a private nature) must take place in the cafe. However, it's more than just a coffee shop. It's a central hub that's spacious, with a constant buzz and an open layout that encourages collaboration and connection through chance encounters.'

Then hear him talk about what this radical change has meant to staff who have had to come to terms with it (or leave the company). It's a fascinating example of the 'growth without growth' tension that John will be exploring from his Huntington Bank experience.

Cultural and social tensions
Recall the bally-hoo the recent Yahoo example of withdrawing employees' ability to work off site triggered. Marissa Mayer's statement to employees makes clear her view of the value of face time on an office site 'To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home. We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.'

A new report from Catalyst The Great Debate: Flexibility v Face Time, addresses the question: In this increasingly globalized, technology-charged world, where it's now possible to work from virtually anywhere at any time, day or night, how important is face time vs. work output? Mayer's requirement contrasted with the Catalyst finding that there is increasing demand for flexible working arrangements (including telecommuting aka mobility) highlights a second tension we will be exploring around 'work is what you do not where you are'.

Informational/technological tensions
In a recent whitepaper 'The New Collaborative Workspace', Cisco notes that:

The rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets in the consumer market has profoundly affected the introduction of these new technologies into the enterprise. As consumers have made these devices the center of their personal lives, they are increasingly bringing these devices into the workplace. Unlike traditional cutting-edge technology products that might be of interest to only a limited number of "techies", these smartphones are as popular in the executive suite as they are with the "net-savvy" college student. …
As the awareness of employees about what these smartphones can do has increased, their demands that employers support and enable their use has risen as well. In many companies, the historical model of the IT department providing a closed list of supported phones has been replaced by IT rushing to meet the demands of employees to support a broad range of smartphone and tablet devices that employees are bringing into the workplace.

This 'rush to meet the demands of employees' is a third tension we will explore – the ability to do something different with IT versus the requirement to do something different with IT.

We're expecting that everyone present at the event will have experienced some of the tensions we'll be talking about (the three I've mentioned above are part of our first list), but we'll also be pointing out that for each organization managing the rise of mobility means managing their own tensions. What are some that you're experiencing? Let me know.

I've been consciously recalling coaching and mentoring experiences because early last week I got an email saying: 'We are seeing that internal coaching becoming very popular in China as a way to develop talent. I am wondering what the difference is between coaching and mentoring. I see in some companies they are both the same while in the others are quite different. Is there any clear definition of coaching, and mentoring?'

I know there is often confusion between the two and one of scenarios I rediscover I've used in some of training programs I've facilitated on coaching/mentoring is about this confusion: 'The training department has a very hard time helping people distinguish between 'coaching', 'executive coaching' and 'mentoring' – we offer various courses in all three. The terminology is much the same for both and they're all about helping people develop their skills and careers on the job. Maybe it's us who are confusing people. After all, does it matter what you call something? Surely getting the right results are what it's all about.'
I think that it does matter what something is called and how it is defined, because it helps shape participant expectations, and provides a framework for developing approaches that will get to the right results via a choice of possible routes. I see a clear distinction between coaching and mentoring.

Coaching
A few times in my life I have been unemployed and job hunting. These have been difficult periods but on two occasions I've been helped by a career coach. Once the coach was paid for by the company I was leaving. (I was one of the 10% who lost my job as part of a reduction in workforce), and the other time I paid for the coach myself. These relationships – me as coachee and the other person as coach – needed us to be able to like each other and build rapport and respect, but essentially they were business relationships with a defined duration, and a specific goal with trackable success measures attached. In these instances the goal was for me to get a job: and I did.

I've also myself trained as a wellness coach and been paid by clients for coaching them to achieve their wellness goals. So I've experienced both sides of the coaching fence. Coaching is usually provided through someone professionally trained and certified in coaching skills, for example through the International Coach Federation. The role of the coach is:

• Providing the structure, accountability, expertise, and inspiration to enable client to learn, grow, and develop beyond what s/he can do alone.
• Helping the client identify and clarify the priorities and areas for development.
• Partnering with their clients to help them go from Point A to Point B and clients define Point B often drawn from organizational member feedback or suggestions
• Employing a diverse array of assessment, psychological, and behavior change tools to empower clients to take charge, connect with their deepest motivators, and learn how to grow and change.
• Scheduling coaching sessions, weekly or as needed, by telephone or inperson, individual or group, for three months or longer to help clients clarify where they want to go, and work with them to get there.
• Supporting clients in their making sustainable changes in self-understanding, self-concept, and behavior.
• Receiving a financial or other reward/recognition for being a coach.

(This is a slightly adapted Wellcoaches definition)

Mentoring
Then I started to think about the times I've felt I've been mentored: this was more difficult as it meant reflecting on the various people who have been instrumental in helping me get to grips with various career and life choices – not as part of a paid contract, but as part of an informal guide, supporter, questioner, challenger relationship. In fact as I've been thinking about mentoring I think about a terrific manager I had for seven years. He had a way of listening carefully, saying 'hmm' in a non-judgmental way, helping me work through the organizational politics, finding resources when I needed them, and generally giving me confidence to achieve things I didn't think I could do – including going from London to New York for 6 months to make an organizational video which went on to win a Cinema in Industry Bronze Award.

Mentoring does not require the mentor to be professionally trained or certified. Often the mentor is simply an experienced person with good listening and communication skills, the conventional approach is that the mentor is a more senior organizational member than the mentee, but there are many excellent examples of peer to peer mentoring and upward mentoring (where the mentor is hierarchically junior to the mentee). Within organizations there is usually little formal tracking or measurement of a mentor's role which is:

• Providing an informal forum, often unscheduled for dialogue, discussion, and reflection
• Taking cues and direction on the topic from the mentee (sometimes called the protege)
• Helping the mentee develop new insights and personal discoveries through open questions
• Employing a good range of communication, listening, feedback and rapport building skills – built from experience and not necessarily professional qualification
• Being available to talk on an as-needed basis – which may be frequent or infrequent depending on mentee need
• Guiding the mentee in making good choices and decisions that he/she is comfortable with
• Gaining the effective relationship (rather than formal recognition) brought about in being able to help develop the mentee's confidence and skills.

Coaching and mentoring programs
Within organizations coaching is usually a formal 'program' run as part of a talent development strategy. The objective is to improve organizational performance via improving individual performance. In this context coaches are often from third party organizations, are qualified in their role, and assigned to a coachee for a defined period. The two parties meet regularly – often weekly or bi-weekly for the period. In some cases coaches and coachees choose each other and in other cases they are simply assigned.

Mentoring within organizations can be:

• Structured for particular categories of people – I once co-ordinated one for women returning from maternity leave and/or re-entering the workforce after a long parenting break – we found individuals 'buddies' who had been in a similar situation and had experience of what it was like
• Unstructured but organizationally supported – again I worked in an organization where we had a mentor 'bank' and matched mentors with people who were looking for informal support in their career management
• Totally ad hoc where people just find their own mentors and the relationship is not tracked for any benefits emerging

Again the purpose is to help individuals develop themselves but with the idea that organizational performance will also be developed.

Example: coaching or mentoring?
Also this week I was copied into an email saying:

'We are asking everyone to be part of leading in our company and we are working to support you in seizing leadership – an approach which we believe leads to a dynamic, energizing, and exciting work-life experience. Our aim is to support holistic project success, collaboration, and freedom within a framework. This means we must be skilled and able enough to draw each and every one of us into the heart of the action to discover and deliver excellence at all scales and complexities.'

It echoes the leaders everywhere approach that Gary Hamel is currently talking about. (He also has a nice 'cheat sheet' plus challenge on it). If you were asked to design a program to support this intent of 'leaders everywhere' as illustrated in the email quote, would you support it via a formal coaching program, or an informal mentoring program, or both? How would you set about finding out what an appropriate recommendation would be? Let me know.

This was week 1 of our 8-week hotdesking/mobility experiment. Hotdesking at its most anarchic means that people do not have an assigned desk but take any desk or workspace that is available. Often there are fewer hot-desks than people based in that workplace. 1:2 is an often quoted ratio. This allows for vacation, sickness, people out on client sites or whatever. It also means a reduction in corporate real estate costs as the amount of space needed to house people can be reduced. Hotdesking is variously defined, but for our purposes it means:

a) People participating (12/300) clear their assigned desks of all their stuff
b) A notice is put on the desk saying 'This is a hotdesk' and each of the 12 desks is numbered and a floor map showing the location of each of the numbered desks is given to the participants.
c) Cards numbered 1 – 12 are put in a hat on the reception desk.
d) Participants 'Simply go to the front desk and pick a number out of the hat; that will be your hot desk for the day. Return the number at the end of the day. Repeat the following day.'

We didn't go into this cold-turkey. We had several meetings working out how we would do this and what we would need, beyond the volunteers, to make it effective. It's involved the IT team, the Office Services Team, the Telecomms Team, and the Finance Team. But now all desks are equipped with a standard set of kit, two boxes to store stuff have been allocated per person and storage space has been provided, all participants have a softphone on their laptops, and we know what code we can charge our desk-clearing and weekly check-in meetings to.

We weren't actually hotdesking in Week 1. It was a 'Clear your desk' week – which for 3 of the participants was the value in joining the experiment. One sent me a photo after 4 hours of intense desk clearing with the triumphant comment that he could now see a small piece of the actual desktop. (I must ask him what he did with the bright blue fur bean bag he kept under the desk).

Another was coming in over the weekend to clear as she has 'stuff spread out over several locations'. In case people didn't know on what 'clear your desk means' I sent out a tip sheet on this. (See July's tool of the month). In previous desk clearing events I've been involved with I've suggested people look at the very funny George Carlin piece on Stuff. There's a much more sobering piece on stuff – related to sustainability and the cradle to cradle concept via The Story of Stuff Project.

We're not the only ones experimenting with hotdesking: KPMG is one and we're fully aware that it's not all going to be roses for all the well documented reasons. But our purpose is to:

• Push the boundaries of our rather traditional workplace
• Gather information that we can talk with our clients about
• Test our own thinking about hotdesking, mobile working and what it means to designers and users.
• We want to know whether this form of working augments interactions, facilitates connections, and gives us usable insights or leads to innovative products/services.

So week 1 has not been about hotdesking but preparing to hotdesk. Each participant has to clear his/her desk putting all their stuff into two moving crates – in our case medium Fedex boxes – as if they were moving offices. (The two crate equivalent is the standard allowance, in my experience, for people moving from assigned seating to mobile working in new space). The things which don't fit into the two crates have to be taken home or disposed of.

Over the preparation week various questions arose:
Personalization of space: Some people want to be able to personalize their space with a photo or something, even for a day. Others want to toss everything in a backpack and be totally free of anything stored and be nomadic. (See my blog on office as backpack).

Is this preference or job content or both? In one office the personalization thing was addressed by each person having a small wall mounted Acrylic display shelf in the coffee area and putting the personal item(s) on display in that. It was a kind of office photo wall without the photos.

Finding people: One person's manager who was in favor of supporting his participation but wanted to know how to find him if necessary, and whether he could drop out if it proved unworkable. The question of finding people comes up a lot in my experience, but can be helped by technology – instant messaging, hoteling software, and now indoor positioning systems (IPS).

The desks and equipment: some of the 12 desks are standing and some are seated. We agreed that we would take whatever desk we got from the hat and try it out. Some people may need two monitors or other special equipment. In fact, it was on the desk/equipment question that two people decided to drop out (originally we had 15 volunteers). The first dropped out because he has specialized equipment which would take too long to set up each day. (He sent a photo of the spaghetti of cabling he would have to contend with). The second because she is working with large trays of physical samples and it would be too difficult to keep moving them.

So both these drop-outs are work-content related. Is it feasible then that workplace designers go for a 'one size fits all' or should they yield to preference and job content? Workplace Evolutionaries is currently running a good debate on lawyers and offices related to this question.

Team based working: A third person dropped out because he has just been asked to set up a team for a new project. He didn't feel he could hotdesk in different locations each day whilst getting the new team established and working. One of the things we're hoping to find out is the effect hotdesking has on team working and we will be able to do this with the more established teams.

Are they working? Not asked but usually in the back of managers' minds is the question how will I know the person is working if I can't see them regularly. There's a useful article here on this topic. I've learned that in many cases it is easier to know what mobile workers are doing than office based because managers and employees are making more effort to stay in touch via various methods than they might being in the office and co-located.

So week 2 – the actual hotdesking – begins with 12 people. Over the coming weeks we're planning to reduce the number of desks available to participants, and to enable off-site working. Each week we're having a check in with a specific focus for the discussion. This week's will be: What do you need to have with you to be mobile? What does it feel like to plug and unplug equipment? How long does it take? How do you locate things in a new space e.g. printers?

It's good to be experimenting too few workplaces actively encourage it. What have you been able to experiment with in your office? Let me know.

A few weeks ago (end April). I promised my family I would never write another book. It's too demanding of my time on top of a full time job that involves almost continuous long distance air travel. They're not getting the look-in they need. So when I'd mailed off my second edition of Organization Design: the Collaborative Approach which is coming out in November 2013 as a complete re-write with a different title (Organization Design: Engaging with Change). I considered my book writing chapter closed. My daughter bought a bottle of champagne to mark the send-off and the start of different doors opening for me.

So was I to do when shortly after that the editor of my two Economist books said via email: 'I have been thinking that it's time to schedule a new edition of the Guide to Organisation Design, as it helps to refresh these guides every few/several years …. Would you like to give some thought about what you would/might do in terms of revising and refreshing the guide for a new edition and how long it might take you to do the work?'

I tried to bolster my resolve by re-reading an HBR blog post I had just sent to someone who is thinking of writing a book: Should You Write a Book I had previously just skimmed it enough to know that writing a book is a useful but daunting process. (I wasn't the blog author but I can verify the points made). This time of reading I also followed the link in that blog to a different blog How Long Does it Take to Write a Book? Also, exactly my experience. Book writing takes a long time and is hard work.

Following receiving the editor's email I met him in London in person to assure him that I was not going to write another book. He is a skilled salesperson/persuader/case presenter, and face to face is rather different from asynchronous email. (A useful input to my current research on collaboration which will be a webinar on July 24, via Agilquest)

In a few short minutes I learned that a 'refresh' is not at all the same as a re-write. In fact it's so different and straightforward that my family may not even need to know what's going on. Not that the editor is in favor of subterfuge but 'refreshing' is just adding in a few up to date examples and some 'new bits'.

Oh, and during the conversation I mentioned that organization design and organization development are becoming intertwined as organizations continue to move away from hierarchy and towards the 'leaders everywhere' type of thinking. (Gary Hamel is persuasive on this, as is a useful article Organizing for Advantage).

His eyes gleamed at that notion: 'How about you refresh the Organization Design and the Organization Culture together and they become a kind of boxed set which shows the complementarity of design and culture? People could still buy the books independently but there'd be references and linking ideas.' I was sorry I'd mentioned interdependency. But too late and it set me thinking.

I put aside some time to consider what has changed in the world of organization design and organization culture development since the books were published (2007 and 2010). It's a lot, and there's torrents more coming. Within a couple of moments I had a long list: easily enough to do two total re-writes – the very thing I'm nervous about!

But then. perhaps foolishly, I asked myself the question (adapted from blog writer John Butman's one!) Should I refresh the books? And I answered it with his question: ' Is it impossible for me not to?' My answer to that being 'Yes'. I will set off down this path and see how far I get.

So now the first thing is to prune all that I can out to leave enough for my family to feel I have not reneged on my promise by abandoning them to words, and for me to feel I am balancing stuff without going demented.

The second thing is to get the answer to the questions – would you buy a refreshed copy of the books? Should I invest my time in writing them? Your answers welcome.

(All book royalties go to Freedom from Torture)

On Thursday I found myself sitting in LiquidSpace at least that's who I booked through. LiquidSpace is a clearing house for workspace hirable for the hour, half day, day or longer. It's 'built to help you find a better space to meet or work from a marketplace of thousands of workspaces and meeting rooms'. It's a kind of dating service for workspace. Organizations that have available space to rent post it and people who are looking for space then register to rent it.

More info told me that I could 'Book on the go or plan ahead to work for an hour or for a day. Browse, reserve, and check in to hip co-working venues, high-end business centers, handy hotel lobbies or libraries. Find the right workspace wherever you are, whenever you need it'

I am in the category of planning ahead. I looked on Monday and booked for Thursday. Running down the availability of liquid space in my city (Washington DC) I opted for what looked like a 'hip co-working venue'. I have had my fill this year of 'handy hotel lobbies'. Canvas.Co/work (as they designate themselves) is 'A Washington, DC co-working community; designed for creatives, freelancers, independents and start-ups to be an inspiring environment in which to work and collaborate. Boasting 6,000 square feet of open-space, completely custom designed, from floor to ceiling. We believe that creativity comes from inspiration and that inspiration starts with your surroundings; you won't find any carpets, water-coolers or Ikea here.' So what's not inspirational about carpets I wonder? Could I run a workshop on water coolers as creativity inhibitors?

Why am I doing this? Well the first because during the week I listened to a webinar by Dave Lathrop of Steelcase's Workplace Future Research Group asking the question 'Why bother with buildings anyway?' It is a discussion well worth listening to if you're interested in the office of the future and has, as advertised, 'a refreshing new perspective and a few truly provocative ideas'. Two questions he posed grabbed my attention: 'What if we used workplace as a tool of the social networks that are at the core of how knowledge and creative work really happen?' And 'What if we paid serious attention to observing, discovering, and inventing workspaces with people, that mattered to people … wherever work happens.' He makes a good argument for place and technology that in combination act as a social tool.

Second because I am in the process of setting up a mobility experiment with 15 people who currently have assigned seating and are moving towards mobile working. So I was testing out one of the workplace options that I haven't yet tried myself. I've tried a lot – train, plane, airport, rail station, hotel lobby, home, cafe, street seating, car, Megabus, a canal narrow boat. Through trial and error I've found that the best place to make/take a phone call when I'm on the move is in any bank lobby (where the ATMs are). Bank lobbies are quiet – no blaring cafe music, somewhat insulated from traffic noise and, another plus, often devoid of people.

Third because when I'm not traveling and/or working at client locations, I'm a sole worker working from home. It gets lonely. I miss the day to day interaction and community/social aspects of work. The stuff that Chris Rodgers says in his excellent white paper 'Taking organizational complexity seriously' creates the continuously (re)emerging , organisation, 'in a never-ending, self-organising process of conversational interaction.'

A co-working environment seems to be social, community and work – unlike a coffee shop where people do work but it is not considered a 'workplace', or 'organization'. Co-working seems to create its own form of organization. Maybe that's a fine distinction but anyway …

I cycled down there not quite knowing what to expect. The first surprise was the signage – the options in the lobby did not mention Canvas.co/work so I had to choose the most likely one. I chose nclud which was on the signage with the subtitle 'creative web design agency'. That was a good choice as it turned out to be Canvas.co/work. The design agency has moved but the signage hasn't kept pace. The second surprise was being greeted by a dog. It turned out there were two or three roaming around the space. Then the human greeter, Kallie arrived and showed me around.

The third was age/gender. My bike helmet and backpack somewhat compensated for the fact that I was female and about 30 years older than every other person (95% males) in the space – those two accessories, helmet and backpack,helped me vaguely look the part but I missed a social inclusion point in not knowing that I could bring my bike in and hang it on a wall peg like everyone else did. Maybe next time.

The fourth surprise was the wonderful full-sized espresso machine– but I haven't taken my barista classes yet and felt clueless about operating it. I also had to get used to the idea that I would spend the day largely surrounded by young men so in order to get to grips with this reality I went off to get a coffee from the local espresso cafe. I guess I could have asked one of the men to show me how to operate the espresso machine but that seemed a bridge too far! It was tempting to stay in the coffee shop to work as it was all so familiar and also gender/age balanced, but I'd paid to be in the 'hip co-working venue' so I went back.

The fifth, actually not too much of a surprise, was that it was a great day that I enjoyed a lot. I had a lovely window view at my bar stool and table. I briefly shared the table with Andrew who is working on a crowd funding event website/company development – a form of Kickstarter. From him I discovered that you can get various types of membership to Canvas.co/work, bypassing LiquidSpace altogether. I got a my planned quota of work done though it was tempting to try out the table tennis instead of working (but no partner and I don't think I could shout and groan the way the players did). I wasn't so attracted to the slot machine type of game but it got brisk business. Kallie was just the right type of floor manager, attentive, friendly but not intrusive.

I enjoyed listening in to the lunchtime seminar on home-brewing – there were no samples I noted. But that was addressed in the happy hour meet-up around the espresso machine where beer was the order of the evening not coffee and people chatted to each other. (Or were they collaborating?)

Would I work there again? Yes. It was fun, I got a new experience, and I agree it has the various benefits outlined in the HBR blog has a piece on co-working spaces

Give co-working space a go and let me know what you think.

Would you be willing to nudge a co-worker towards wellness by saying something like: 'Let's take the stairs instead of the elevators'? In our action learning set last week the topic was developing a healthy workforce. The plan was to discuss how designers of workplace could be encouraging and enabling movement and active-work to enhance health and productivity by providing space for walking meetings, asking questions about standing vs. sitting at desks, and considering healthier modes of getting to work. We were asked to ponder three questions prompted from the pre-read material. (This is listed at the end of this blog).

1. How much is it 'ok' for employers to 'nudge' their employees to better health? E.g. via walks to printers, etc.
2. Is employee health a US preoccupation tied to healthcare costs or is it really about business performance?
3. How can workplace contribute to workplace health in the absence of a 'wellness program'?

As we assembled, one snag immediately hit. Only two out of eight or so attendees had read the pre-read (and they were the discussion leads). In my experience this is common. In most situations, people do not read the pre-reads.

This lack of pre-read participation made me wonder whether it was due to lack of time/will/interest or something else. We constantly read about the torrent of information that we are expected to deal with every day in our organizational life. Surely this is detrimental to health and wellness? And a number of articles and books suggest this is so.

In Fast Company, where this month is the month for telling people how to do an 'internet detox' there is a figure that people receive 112 emails daily on average to respond to (not junk ones) and that is on a rise towards 125. So I was pleased to see a piece in Information Week on 10 tools to beat email overload.

As I was musing on the mental toll of information overload the discussion was rapidly getting going on the topic of do architects and designers understand the importance of the environment in the performance of workers or, in the case of hospitals, the recovery time of patients. Someone suggested that environmental design compromises are made for the sake of something that is architecturally 'cool'. And the responses to this was agreement but also a note that designing workplace for health and wellness required a good question set for asking clients about their attitudes and philosophies around workplace wellness and how/whether they would like nudges towards this designed into their workplace.

As we don't have a good question set we came to a view that we could be 'rapid prototyping' around our own workplace design in order to develop one. For example, could we introduce a 15 daily walk around the parking lot that would encourage walking, social interaction, and a renewal time, and see if a walking track could be a design feature.

Related to the idea of renewal someone mentioned that he was doing a piece of work in an office in Taiwan and that at 1:00 p.m. every workday a bell rang and people lay down on the floor under their desks for a one hour nap. The idea of 'power naps' being beneficial to has been around for a while and the space for these is typically not designed into workspace.

Moving on from this topic another person mentioned that she was now wearing an Up Band that she could set to vibrate to remind her to get up from her desk to take a break. She sometimes over-rides the vibration reminder by remaining working but was saying that if she had a co-worker with a similar device they could reinforce each other's healthy behavior, and she would welcome that – others were a little more circumspect in supporting the idea that workers should nudge each other into wellness behaviors. (See Lionel Shriver's new novel 'Big Brother' on tackling a family member's obesity).

This led the discussion back towards methods of unobtrusively nudging people towards health and wellness through the way the workplace is designed, the way the space is then used, and how cultural norms can be developed alongside this. Someone mentioned Healthways in Tennessee that has alternate Fridays afternoons as 'sports afternoon' led by the CEO. This was another idea that people wondered if they could try out. (As we were talking the intercom announced the ice-cream social!)

Shortly after the discussion I happened to read about Cody an app aimed at 'casual fitness enthusiasts by emphasizing sharing rather than tracking … On Cody, users can add photos, videos, tag their location and leave status updates -— actions aimed at making it easy to share the story of their daily fitness routines, rather than the metrics.' This could be the type of thing for co-workers to jointly use with associated development of workplace design to support it.

The conversation switched then towards office furniture and how much influence workplace designers could have on wellness by guiding furniture choices. People felt that workplace designers working much more closely than they do with furniture providers – to develop an integrated design/furniture workplace wellness approach – would be worthwhile. This led back to the rapid prototyping conversation with the suggestion that we start tinkering with our own furniture, for example, raising our desks to become standing desks, changing the ratio of hard and soft seating, and the configuration of the furniture. This with the intent of testing the idea that clients and their designers should be much more deliberate in their relating health and wellness outcomes to integrated workplace design. We agreed that conscious decisions around this matter, but again are not typically designed in to achieve specific health/wellness or other outcomes like purchase decisions.

What we realized is that wellness programs are often operated independently of workplace design opportunities. For example, Iowa State University is currently doing some research on wellness programs but workplace design as a support to wellness does not appear to be part of the research scope. Google – a strong advocate of workplace wellness nods towards the importance of workplace design in a wellness strategy but it is not explicitly called out.

One person made the point that a LEED certified shell building lost opportunities for added-value benefit if the environmental, psychosocial, and health/wellness approaches of the interior design were not consciously developed. (I don't think there's an equivalent to LEED certification for workplace design that is conscious about the environmental, psychosocial, and health/wellness aspects of a workplace. Let me know if I'm wrong on this).

By the end of the hour we had seven actions. Now we just have to take them:
1. Rapid prototyping of different soft seating layouts to determine usage and appropriate configurations for this office's needs
2. Experimenting with standing desks (converting sitting to standing) and tracking user responses
3. Trying out some wellness activity that could be designed in – for example a walking track around the parking lot
4. Developing closer links between client/furniture supplier/workplace designer to get a more integrated approach to workplace wellness
5. Increasing designer/architect skills and knowledge related to the environmental, wellness and pyscho/social aspects of workplace.
6. Developing and testing a diagnostic tool that would assess clients' interest in using workplace design as a conscious nudger of worker wellness.
7. Trying out various tracking/social media devices to encourage a culture of wellness

If you have thoughts on any of these let me know. Chapter Seven of my book Organizational Health:an integrated approach to building optimum performance is on the connection between workplace design and wellness.

Pre-reads

• The impact of psychological needs on office design by Nigel Oseland
• Psychosocially Supportive Design: A Salutogenic Approach to the Design of the Physical Environment by Alan Dilani (I've written about salutogenic design in a previous blog)
• A good infographic 'Sitting is Killing You'
• Ergonomics 102: Creating a Healthy Workstation

Last week I got an intriguing invitation that runs as follows:

'I am working on several fronts right now, putting together the most ambitious, audacious conference ever in the State of West Virginia, Create West Virginia's Conference on the Future. … to take place Thursday, October 24 through Saturday, October 26 2013.

I am asking … thinkers on the future to come to Richwood, West Virginia, a town surrounded by the magnificent Monongahela National Forest, that has a trout stream flowing through it. Richwood's Main Street consists now of 29 mostly boarded-up storefronts of early 1900 vintage. Once a lumber and coal boom town, its residents now drive 25 miles west to Summersville where the big box stores are located on a four-lane corridor that connects two Interstate highways. Richwood appears to be a ghost town, but its 2,000 residents, led by a creative, spunky mayor, believe that it can recreate itself.

We're casting the invitation to the conference very broadly, to economic and community developers, artists and artisans, business people and would-be business people – we're interested in engaging innovators who relish the challenge of reinventing a place, and who want to engage in dialogue with thoughtful people such as yourself.'

Who could resist investigating this further? I took a look at the Richwood city data. It's lost 17.2% of its population since 2000. The median resident age is 49 and the median income is $26,366. In 2012 the unemployment rate was 8.7% and the number of residents living below the poverty level (2009) was 30%, and there were 12 % of Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009.

The city of Richwood is not alone in these types of statistics. A recent Economist article discusses a very similar sounding town – Greenville, in what's known as the Delta region of Mississippi. Just like Richwood 'Between 2000 and 2010 alone, Greenville lost 17% of its residents. In the poor black neighbourhoods that surround the centre of town, many of the decrepit "shotgun" houses are abandoned, their boarded-up windows and doors almost totally obscured by untended vines. The town centre itself is nearly as run-down, with more vacant shopfronts than occupied ones.'

Then a county rather than a town is described. Issaquena County, also in the Delta region, has a total population today of 1,386. 'Their average income is just over $10,000, half the level for Mississippi as a whole, and 40% of the population lives below the poverty line. The unemployment rate is 17%, more than twice the national rate. The entire county has ten private businesses (other than farms), employing just 99 people. Like the region as a whole, it suffers from low rates of education and high rates of obesity and diabetes.' In parts of this region 'people have a lower life expectancy than in Tanzania; other areas do not yet have proper sanitation.' Yet as in Richwood, 'Local officials talk optimistically of reviving the Delta's economy.'

So as I look at these statistics I'm wondering what it would take beyond ambition, audacity, and optimism to pull off the feat of regeneration in these regions? I'm wondering whether to turn down the invitation to speak because I'm baffled about what I would talk about that could begin to address the personal and collective difficulties of these residents and the regions where they live in something approaching a useful way.

I look back over my life and think of experiences that I could draw on. I have had periods on a very low income. There was a brief time when I was homeless in very difficult circumstances. I have lost jobs in the course of my career and been unemployed but none of these for months or years at a time. Last January I did try – only for one week – living on the $31.50 food allowance granted to US unemployed people. The SNAP program as it is known.

But I have friends who are long-term in these types of situations. The jobless Spanish grandson of a relative is 21 – he lives in a region where youth unemployment is 56% (or 22% according to another source, but either way extremely high). He has almost no chance of finding work. Another friend has been actively looking for a job for the 8 years I have known her. A third is bringing up her 3 children with no child support on the income she makes from cleaning people's houses. She (and her children) have no medical insurance, and no savings to draw on if an emergency arises.

Then someone showed me a piece about Jack Monroe, 24, a single mother who has a budget of 10 GBP a week to feed herself and her two-year-old son, Johnny – all she has to spare after covering rent and bills. She writes a blog on how she manages with 'delicious recipes, published online, [that]are so nutritious and thrifty that they are being handed out by food banks as examples of how to manage on next to nothing.' Following in the steps of J K Rowling she has been offered a book contract and become a public figure. I then remembered the story of the Malawian windmill boy who brought electricity to his community, and through this found fame and fortune, and then the 17 year old whose app was just bought by Yahoo for $30m. (Although he was not in dire circumstances).

But do publicly acclaimed lucky breaks like these three make for good examples for people? What would the residents of Richwood think if I talked about these people. Is it reasonable to suggest that 'if they can do it so can you'? (A different question will the residents come to the conference or is it addressed at potential investors?)

So I'm mulling all this over. From my professional perspective there are massive design challenges – essentially one of redesigning a whole community infrastructure in a very difficult context: one that many communities local and national worldwide are grappling with – see the recent Economist articles on Spain and South Africa.

Beyond the design challenges of the infrastructure there are the challenges of engaging the community in bringing about the regeneration, perhaps involving helping them build skills and confidence, developing trust in each other, and believing that things can be different and better. I contacted a friend at Renew Strategies a company that works predominantly in Africa to ' find promising businesses, connect them to investors around the world and grow them into world-class companies' and asked him whether he invests in US communities. He tells me he is thinking about it. I was cheered by the Winston Churchill quote on his website 'A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.'

None of the things I've found out since the invitation came to my inbox last week have pointed me to a direction that I think might make a meaningful talk. I'm still working on that, but I have come to the conclusion that I should have a go at it. Being able to make even a tiny contribution to a design opportunity on a different scale and from a different perspective from ones that I'm familiar with is a lure, albeit a scary one.

Have you taken organization design skills from business enterprises to social communities? What have you learned? Let me know?