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Yesterday I mentioned telepresence in my blog and later in the day went to a telepresence meeting – my first experience of using this technology. I'd read one definition of it in a white paper from Frost and Sullivan a consultancy. They say it is

… a tightly integrated set of visual, audio and network technologies and services that together deliver an immersive, life-like communication experience. The goal is to reproduce the best characteristics of direct human interaction that result from a face-to-face meeting.

The value of the medium is said to lie in the cost savings to a company. Although there is a heavy investment in installing the technology and keeping it running – recieved wisdom suggests that this is more than paid off in terms of direct and indirect costs of travelling to meet people. Additionally in their white paper Frost and Sullivan suggest that there are also green gains to be had from teleconferencing.

The definition doesn't give the full flavor of the experience. I was meeting with a person in San Jose – the opposite coast to me – which saved one of us traveling the full distance although both of us had, in fact, to travel to the site of the telepresence set up. (In his case from San Francisco to San Jose) – so a certain amount of travel was involved.

I found the medium good but I'm not so sure that is reproduces the 'best characteristics of direct human interaction'. First, I didn't get any eye-contact from the person I was meeting with. I don't know if that was the technology, or if it was because he is someone who didn't make eye contact. (Also he was working on his computer at the same time as we were talking). Second, there's no ability – obviously – to shake hands, exchange business cards, judge height, etc those clues that start to build rapport. For some reason that is ok in a telephone conversation, but in a 'meeting' situation it seemed a bit of a hurdle. Third, because it is an expensive medium to run it opens and closes on booked time. At one level this is not that different from a room booking, but in that situation people can continue the conversation as they drift out of the room.

For whatever reason I found it odd that I could see him but I couldn't see myself i.e. what he was seeing about me. Clearly in a face to face meeting I can't see myself as the person I am speaking to sees me but I've got used to Skype where I can see my video of myself as well as the video of the person I am speaking with.

Beyond the immediate experience I wondered how this technology will change the design of organizations. A few thoughts and questions sprang to mind:

• The physical space question as the equipment has to be housed, but also there is the work process difference – the meeting has to be more 'in the meeting'.
• People are much less able to continue discussions outside the meeting. Does take a particular/different type of skill to make sure that telepresence meetings are 'successful'
• How are power differentials affected by telepresence – are they ironed out or reinforced if some people are 'live' and some people are 'screen' in meetings?
• Do people behave differently when they are on screen rather than in the room with others?

Cisco's brochure on telepresence has a quote saying:

"Cisco TelePresence will reinvent the way we work. .. In this day and age, it's simply a smarter way of going about our business." Robert Dixon, Senior Vice President and Global CIO, PepsiCo

Maybe it's too early to say whether it will 'reinvent the way we work' – my brief experience suggests that it has the capacity to change a lot of things, and from my scant research I haven't seen predictions or experience on the organization design implications this.

Given that Telepresence Global Market, report estimates the market value of telepresence at $396.2 million for 2009, and forecasts this to reach $825.9 million in 2015 it would be worth thinking through the use of both it and similar types of technologies on work and organization design, if only to maximize the investment in them – I can't imagine that savings on travel costs, and getting green gains are the only benefits. Neither can I imagine that there aren't some downsides.

People frequently ask me the difference between organization design and organization development. I had another go at answering in the workshop I was facilitating last week. This time I gave the car analogy.

Organization design is deciding first what is the purpose of the car that you are about to design e.g. is it to cross the desert? Is it to win a Formula 1 race? Is it to transport two adults and three children to a party? Then designing and delivering a car that is fit for that purpose.

Organization development is about keeping that vehicle in the condition necessary to achieve the purpose e.g. using the right fuel, having it serviced regularly, teaching the driver how to drive it to maximize its performance, and so on.

Clearly this is not a perfect analogy as an organization is in a constant state of flux unlike the vehicle but it does serve an illustrative purpose and it's one that people can grasp instantly. Another analogy I use is of the human body. The underpinning 'design' of the human body is a given – skeleton, cardio-vascular system, etc. But keeping the human body fit and healthy is the development aspect: nutrition, exercise, learning, managing stress, and so on. This analogy works as the human body is adaptive to things but the underpinning design is not necessarily affected in the adaptation process (apart from aging). Note that when I use the human body analogy I don't enter the territory of what the 'purpose' of it is or conjecture on the original 'designer'!

One of the participants in the room was a Head of Organization Development but he was satisfied with the way the analogy worked. (Another long debate avoided!).

Standard definitions of Organization Development exist for example:

"Organization development is a system-wide application of behavioral science knowledge to the planned development and reinforcement of organizational strategies, structures, and processes for improving an organization's effectiveness."
Cummings and Worley, Organization Development and Change, Sixth Edition, South-Western Publishing, 1997.

OD is collaborating with organizational leaders and their groups to create systemic change on behalf of root-cause problem-solving toward improving productivity and employee satisfaction through strengthening the human processes through which they get their work done. Michael Broom, Human Systems

It is the systematic application of behavioral science principles and practices to understand how people and organizations function and how to get them to function better within a clear value base. It is shamelessly humanistic and has strong value drivers. Linda Holbeche, Organization Development – What's in a name?

OD is the activities engaged in by stakeholders in order to build and maintain the health of an organization as a total system. It is characterized by a focus on behavioral processes and humanistic values. It seeks to develop problem solving ability and explore opportunities for growth. Roffey Park

And the definition I use for organization design is: Organization design is arranging how to do the work necessary to achieve a business purpose and strategy. (The resulting configuration is the organization's design)

Notice that the organization design definition does not mention people or behaviors while the organization development definitions are all about these. This doesn't mean that they are neatly boxed into different packages. In most cases you can't do design work without doing development work, and vice versa. But the focus of attention is different depending on what the business purpose of the project is. I like the concepts of development relating to the informal (tacit) aspects of the organization and design relating to the formal (explicit) aspects of the organization.

A complicating factor is sometimes the question 'Where does change management fit into these?' Clearly both organization design and organization development involve change and I am skeptical about whether it can be 'managed'. But again, both organization design and organization development involve change, so I steer clear of labeling a project specifically a 'change management project'.

In most Organization Design projects line managers work with either internal or external consultants. Yesterday I was working with a group of HR people, here in Shanghai, who are also frequently involved in organization design and change management projects. They come to these with some disadvantages – mainly related to the way 'the business' perceives HR skills and roles. (See the article 'Why we Hate HR')

Those I was working with wanted some help in overcoming this perception, and I remembered I'd written a chapter on this in my book Organization Design: the collaborative approach. Here's the relevant extract from that book.

Organization design project require a good partnership between the HR consultant and line manager. To check whether you are on track for making this a successful relationship, ask yourselves the following questions:

• Have you established rapport? One measure of this feeling comfortable in each other's presence so that even if there is a hierarchical difference between you this does not interfere with the authenticity you can show and the trust you can place in each other to achieve a common goal in the face of setbacks, obstacles and competing demands.

• Have you determined your partnership approach and roles? What you are looking to confirm here is that the roles you take enable you to maintain a balance of power and interest over time. You each need each other if the work is to get done and the relationship is to last to the end of the project's final review. You should aim for a reciprocal relationship where you are both giving and receiving. Only you will be able to judge equity in this relationship and take steps to redress the balance if necessary.

• Are you confident you have sufficient complementary skills and attributes to work as a successful team? As has been stated you both need to be able to take a step back and assess your own strengths and discuss these with each other. Identifying any shortfall requires you to take some form of action to plug in the missing attributes to make your project leadership strong.

• Are you sure you can role model change behaviours? Your reflection on your attitudes to change and how easy or difficult you have found it in the past to change your behaviour will give you clues on your ability to role model change behaviours. As facilitators you must not only understand the nature of change processes and how they affect you, but also how people in your organization may be experiencing particular changes, and how this will impact the success of the venture.

• Have you got the change management technical skills? It is not enough to have the personal qualities necessary to make success in the project a likelihood you also need to have some knowledge and understanding of the technicalities of organization design and change management. If you do not have this it may be worth taking a short course in these or at least doing some of the reading recommended in this book.

• Have you got a go-forward plan? During your first meetings you need to agree when and how you are going to do the phase 1 data gathering and how you are going to communicate on this. Additionally you need to have thought through which of you is going to approach those you have identified as prime stakeholders in this project.

• Are you agreed on the focus and approach? The OD method advocated here is based in collaboration, participation and involvement. If your styles of operation are at odds with this it will be difficult, and probably impossible, for you to work with what is described. However if this is the case it may be worth reflecting on whether you can change your style of operation. There is ample evidence to suggest that successful change projects recognise and use the fact that employees want to be a part of a process, not apart from it.

DO AND DON'T
• Do spend some time agreeing your roles up front so that you are presenting consistent messages
• Do be honest with yourselves about your capabilities
• Do make sound judgements about the time and commitment you can devote to this project
• Don't proceed unaided if you identify that you don't have the necessary skillset between you
• Don't fight shy of giving each other the necessary challenge and support in formulating your preliminary plan
• Don't agree to work with each other if you do not have the right level of rapport and understanding. (This will feel like a long-haul even if it is of relatively short duration).

Twice this week I've heard stories from people about their experiences at the hands of managers who have been playing what are known as 'territorial games'. These are protective behaviors which people play to preserve their organisational 'territory' – that is the power or resources they have that they are not willing to share with others.

Story one involves a person who was told one week that she was doing very well and that she would be in line for a permanent position – she was a contract staff member. Her manager at the company gave a very good review of her to the contract agency that had placed her. The following week the same manager asked to see her and to her amazement started yelling at her, saying that she was lazy, incompetent, she hadn't done anything that was expected of her and he didn't want to see her in his office again. Talking this over she repeatedly said that she had seen him get enraged with other staff but this was the first time he had turned on her. She had no idea what caused his change of heart.

Story two is about a person who was hired to do an events management role. She reports to someone who is unwilling to give guidance on what he is expecting in terms of job performance, job objectives, and ways of doing the work. The person is finding it very hard to self-start in a new role without this support. She's doing what she thinks is the right thing, only to be told that it isn't and when she asks for clarification she doesn't get it.

Annette Simmons wrote a very readable book, Territorial Games: understanding and ending turf wars at work that opens the first chapter with the wonderful, Thomas A Stewart, quote "A turf-conscious manager [can] grind genius into gruel". In it there's a survey "Understanding Your Territorial Drive" that lists ten territorial games and asks you to note which are used by you, used by your boss, used by your peers and used on you. The ten are:

• Occupation: Marking territory; maintaining an imposing physical presence; acting a gatekeeper for vital information; monopolizing relationships, resources or information
• Information manipulation: With-holding information, putting a 'spin' on information, covering up, or giving false information
• Intimidation: 'Growling' yelling, staring someone down, scaring off, or making threats (veiled or overt)
• Powerful alliances: Using relationships with powerful people to intimidate, impress, or threaten others; using name dropping; making strategic displays of influence over important decision makers
• Invisible wall: Actively instigating circumstances or creating counterproductive perceptions so that an agreed-upon concept is, if not impossible to implement, very, very difficult to implement

• Strategic non-compliance: Agreeing up front to take action and having no intention of taking that action, or agreeing just to buy time to find a way to avoid taking that action
• Discredit: Using personal attacks or unrelated criticisms as a way of creating doubt about another person's competence or credibility

• Shunning: Subtly (or not so subtly) excluding an individual in a way that punishes him or her; orchestrating a group's behaviour so that another is treated like an outsider
• Camouflage: Creating a distraction, emphasizing the inconsequential, or deliberately triggering someone's anxiety buttons just to distract him or her
• Filibuster: Using excessive verbiage to prevent action, out-talking any objectors at a meeting, talking until the time for discussion is exhausted or simply wearing others down by out-talking them

When I did this exercise with a group one day I was very amused to hear one person saying that when he came to the workshop he only knew one game but now he knew nine others – not quite the point! However, he also suggested that the exercise could, if done carefully, be used as an icebreaker with a leadership team to surface the games individuals played so that others could call them out when they saw them in action. His theory being that making the games transparent would mean that they would lose their potency.

Yesterday I was facilitating a session at the HRExcellenceCenter, Organization Development Conference in Shanghai. The topic was 'consulting skills' and there was a lot of discussion on a cartoon I showed to illustrate the concepts of a 'presenting problem'. The cartoon dialogue runs like this:

Manager: I want you to design a new appraisal performance form for my group.
Consultant: But the problem is not in the form it is in the way it is used.
Manager: That may be true but we should start with a new form.
Consultant: But the form is being used successfully in other departments in the organization
Manager: Our department is different! Our people are different! We need a new form! We also need a new staff person who is truly interested in serving her client!!
Consultant: When you put it that way I suddenly see the wisdom in designing a new form.

My contention was that the client had 'solutionized' the issue before going through any reflection on what the issues with the form represented (if anything). The consultant's task was to 'help' the client see that the issue may not be the form but the way performance appraisal was handled in his group.

The discussion was around whose viewpoint was right. Should a consultant just do what the manager asks? In which case is he/she a consultant? Or should the consultant do a better job than the one in the dialogue in suggesting to the manager that there might be other things in play and it would be worth investigating before leaping into designing a new form?

This then led into questions around where power lies and how it is used. Why did the manager decide that designing a new form was a good idea? Again there were a range of views on this within the group, and a lot of debate on what would be a good way for the consultant to steer the conversation differently from the way she did, and at what point.

Picking this apart the consulting approach the group came up with would be to start with questions immediately following the manager's first statement, "I want you to design a new appraisal performance form for my group.' They felt that the questions could take a range of directions involving what Peter Block, author of Flawless Consulting, describes as probing, but with no agenda. So in this situation the consultant could ask:

Why does this (the new appraisal form) matter to you?
What price are you paying for the current form?
What have you tried before you decided on a form redesign?
What do you want a newly designed form to accomplish?

The point the original exchange of statements that opened the dialogue illustrated was how easy it is to go down a route that is non-productive, or confrontational, simply by opening with viewpoints and counter viewpoints rather than questions.

However, talking this over the people I was working with felt it would take a fair amount of courage not to just knuckle under and do what the manager wished. This is where the consulting skills come into play so the discussion moved on to debate whether an HR person would do what the manager said while an OD consultant would take a different tack. Clearly that answer is dependent on the personalities and styles of all involved, but again Peter Block has a view that 'being helpful' is not useful. In his instance a newly designed form may not address whatever the underlying issues are particularly if they lie with the manager's own role in the way he manages the performance appraisal system. Consultants who have a clear view of their own role, have a good range of consulting skills, and are self aware are usually capable of moving from a request to fix a symptom to making the better investment in diagnosing the underlying causes and aiding the manager in fixing them.

Last week I was in the UK running an organization design training program and meeting with various other people. It was great fun – not just catching up but also collecting a whole lot of information and suggestions on various topics that came up in the course of the conversations. So I've been spending time following up on some of those.

The first category of stuff was on websites that people have found useful. In the course of the week I looked at:

Go Ask Anyone: This website offers packs of conversation cards that trigger conversations by asking a question. The pack 'Go Ask Anyone' is a great icebreaker activity. (In fact I've used it, but then gave my pack to someone else – so it was good to get the reminder). Sample Questions: "Which three people would you combine for an ideal mate?…" "What one event in American history would you erase if you could?" "If you could know one secret or mystery, but could never tell…." Each pack has: 52 cards.

Get Feedback is an organization that "provide tools and services to help HR professionals make the best decisions about their people challenges" it came with a strong recommendation from someone I trust. The company is aiming to create the best talent management company in the world. In fact it is two companies, run by a psychologist and a technologist:

• Getfeedback – concentrating on making you self-sufficient by building a best-of-breed range of global assessments, surveys and processes, delivered on-line by technology that works.
• Crelos – a people change business that works with leaders to give meaning to 'differentiation through people' using Precision Business Psychology.

Harvard Business Essentials Support Tools: This is from the Harvard Business Online and is sets of free tools 'to enhance the learning experience of your Harvard Business Essentials book purchase'. There are very useful checklists, surveys, and other items that are well worth looking at.

Gelinas James is a consulting group with, again a strong recommendation on the value of their three change management guides: Collaborative Change – Improving Organizational Performance, Collaborative Organization Design – Workbook, Collaborative Organization Design – Leaders' Guide.

Management Help which is a free library of "easy-to-access, clutter-free, comprehensive resources regarding the leadership and management of yourself, other individuals, groups and organizations." I tested out a few topics and got some useful ideas.

Jesse Schell talking on the future of games design was something that was slightly beyond me but the person who told me about it (who's interested in the way 'serious' games are starting to be used in education was fascinated by it) so maybe gaming is a topic to get to grips with. The reviewer of the session – given at Dice 2010 said that "Jesse Schell's talk about the future of game design as it invades the real world is just astounding. If you do experience design of any kind it'll be the most valuable (and entertaining) 20 minutes you'll spend all week."

Digital look aggregates financial, economic and business news and is a good source of up to date and informed comment, information, analysis on these topics.

Bruce Mau Design proclaims "We create massive change. We invent cultural possibility. We design positive innovation, we ignite audacious action." (And other phrases that you can perm yourself by clicking on their 'slot machine'). It's a lively website with an intriguing manifesto that any organization designer could do well adopting.

Someone recommended an article by Tom Rodenhauser, How to Choose-and Work with-Consultants, Harvard Management Update, 09-01-1998 (we were discussing hiring consultants at the time). It was first published in the Harvard Business Review in September 1998 but is still relevant.

Traveling on the train between meetings I listened to the Harvard Business Idea Cast featuring Gregory Berns, the Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics at Emory University and author of Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently talked on How Iconoclasts Think. It's a topic I'm going to find out more about – the science of neuroeconomics

Beyond these various resources people asked me a number of questions that I'm now pondering

• What is political correctness?
• What's it like teaching in Shanghai?
• What is the best method for managing a networked organization
• Where can I find good books on organization development?
• What is leadership's role in change management?

More on all these topics in coming blogs.

Despite its frequent use, there is no universal definition for the term "business transformation." It can mean different things to different people (and organizations) in difference situations. In fact, each of the following news stories reported during one week in October 2007 provides an example of business transformation:

 Business transformation is changing something for the better within our organization (i.e., one small change can make a big difference) – "When Starbucks bumped the 8 oz. cup off the menu, the 10 oz. "tall" (the new small) increased profits by 25 cents per cup for only 2 cents of added product."

 Business transformation is making continuous incremental improvements within our products and services – "The simple idea behind [Newsweek's] new look, which launches in the issue you are holding, is that you want to read more, not less. Other media outlets believe you just want things quick and easy. We think you will make the time to read pieces that repay the effort … The redesign is more about refinement than revolution."

 Business transformation is responding to the marketplace, customers and stakeholders – "On October 9th SABMiller announced a joint venture … with Molson Coors. The pair are teaming up to take on both Anheuser-Busch … and the country's drinkers."

 Business transformation is doing something that is new to the market – "News Corporation's new business channel starts broadcasting on October 15th."

 Business transformation is making significant changes that fundamentally alter the way our business is done – "Siemens is going to centralize the conglomerate, reduce its nine divisions to three and downsize its 11-man executive board." (The Economist, October 13, 2007)

There may be no single definition of business transformation, but regardless of its scope or scale, there are three early actions that characterize it.

1. Making a choice to transform – Each is a strategic choice made in response to current, forecast or even forced-upon circumstances.

2. Stating the expected transformation outcome – Each implies an outcome different from the business-as-usual outcome; someone in the organization has made a decision to do something different with the purpose of substantially increasing profit, performance or productivity – or a combination of these.

3. Recognizing the whole organization impact – Each will result, to a great or lesser extent, in an impact on all other parts of the organization. Even the change that looks the smallest – deleting the 8 oz. cups at Starbucks – will affect procurement processes, customer satisfaction systems, employee training and so on.

Companies tend to do well on making strategic choices around business transformation and identifying their required outcomes. Where they don't do as well is recognizing the extent of the impact their choices will have on the rest of the organization. Failure to fully understand or address the impact founders many transformations, and it is here that the concept of organizational balance comes into play.

Think of a mobile – one of those sculptures suspended in midair with delicately balanced parts that can be set in motion by air currents. Imagine that you try to add something to one of the parts, or take something away. You can instantly visualize that the mobile would become unbalanced and cease to be the sculpture it was designed to be. Organizations are very similar to these balanced sculptures. Because of this they can never be "transformed" from frogs into princes in the way of fairy tales. Rather, they must transition – like photo morphing – through a sequence that may (or may not) get them to the new image, and then the process begins again.

Keeping the organization balanced during the transformation process is hard work that can, and must, be done. Briefly, it requires identifying, mapping and then managing the interdependencies, interfaces and boundaries between the internal and external organizational elements impacted, and then planning and executing with these in mind.

Business Week has a special report on The Value of Design (February 1 2010). It "takes a closer look at how design can impact the bottom line of businesses in any industry

"attempting "to pick apart the issue a little further, with opinion pieces on the value of design from those within and outside the profession. IDEO partner Diego Rodriguez makes the case that good business arises from a design-centric process that incorporates marketing, research, and ideas. RKS Design's Ravi Sawhney and Deepa Prahalad http://rksdesign.com/blog/index.php/what_we_think/ outline four specific areas in which design can create value: understanding the consumer; mitigating risk; boosting marketing and branding; and driving sustainable business practices."

The section I read first was the RKS piece on the role of design in business: about which more and more is being written as the boundaries between architects, product designers, and organization designers are blurring. Which brought to mind the work of The US General Services Administration.

This Agency realizing that space design is an important factor in the effective delivery of the business strategy has a Workspace Delivery Unit working to help organizations bridge the gap between business strategy and the design of their workplaces, deploying a range of tools and techniques that "use an understanding of the organizational context and business goals as the basis for design".

Beyond this they publish case studies, and research papers. A useful one on The Changing Nature of Organizations, Work, and Workplace observes that

In today's world, the structure, content, and process of work have changed. Work is now

• More cognitively complex
• More team-based and collaborative
• More dependent on social skills
• More dependent on technological competence
• More time pressured
• More mobile and less dependent on geography

Each of these points is then discussed in greater depth and in the context of organization that, compared with a decade ago, organizations are

• Leaner and more agile
• More focused on identifying value from the customer perspective
• More tuned to dynamic competitive requirements and strategy
• Less hierarchical in structure and decision authority
• Less likely to provide life long careers and job security
• Continually reorganizing to maintain or gain competitive advantage

What's helpful about this document is a table that points to the benefits and concerns the new work patterns present for workers and managers in view of the fact that "a new pattern of work is emerging as the knowledge economy realizes the full potential of both new technologies and new organizational models. The changes fall into the following domains:

•Cognitive competence
•Social and interactive competence
•The new "psychological contract" between employees and employers
•Changes in process and place

The benefits and concerns highlights the requirement for business strategists, organization designers, change management consultants, space planners and architects to work together to achieve productivity and motivation gains through good design of work space.

Organisation design success is dependent on the complex interactions of four broad leadership groups: internal formal and informal leaders, and, external formal leaders and external informal leaders. Each of these groups has at their disposal various sources of power and although formal leaders tend to have access to more of these than informal leaders the way the power is wielded is an important determinant of the outcome – as martial arts practitioners know soft as cotton can be as hard as steel.

Access to and use of power is one of several variables determining ability to lead. Other variables include style of attracting and holding on to followers, stability or instability of circumstances, personal motivation, and the organisation's political landscape. The efficacy of leaders changes as the context does and someone who cannot adjust their style of leadership or draw on a different source of power is opening the door for someone else to seize the leadership role.

Formal leaders – executives, sponsors, business unit heads – all have, by virtue of their position, three specific power sources: formal authority; control of scarce resources, and use of organisational structure, rules and regulations. They may have additional sources of power but it is these three that are usually associated with hierarchical position. How well they use their power or are able to use it depends on the context and on their own leadership style and behaviour.

Typically – and depending on the size of the organisation and the design project – an individual will sponsor a business plan for the design but the day-to-day operational leadership of it will be delegated to a steering group and then onwards to programme directors, project managers, team leaders and so on. These formal leaders can be organizational insiders or external consultants with vested authority.
Colin Powell made the point that 'organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing' Informal leaders emerge in organisations usually because they have a particular passion or belief and have characteristics which engage people in their cause. These informal leaders are found at any level in the hierarchy because what they spearhead is independent of hierarchy. Informal leaders muster support not only by their approach (for example using 'strategic alliance building') but also by their use of referent power (which derives from the belief that people have in them after seeing them in action) and their personal characteristics.
Using their available power, informal leaders can initiate new organisation design work by their actions or they can intervene in an already initiated project (sometimes with the intention of making or breaking it).
Collaborative working – where people feel good about their interactions and the results it produces – hard to achieve. Whatever the mix of formal and informal leaders in an organisation design project the barriers to good outcomes are the same: territorial game playing, poor decision making, the tendency to make assumptions, seeing things from only one perspective, and failing to learn. Removing these is an imperative.

Leading design projects takes guts and a great deal of awareness – of self and of others – to carry things through, keep on learning, admit fallibilities, and deal with consequences.

Wayne Hale of NASA in an e-mail to staff describes his world of leading space projects. Any organisation design leader will echo them.

"I have given the Go 28 times. Every time was the toughest thing I have ever done. And I have never ever been 100 percent certain, it has always been gray, never a sure thing. But the team needs to have confidence that the decision was good. It is almost a requirement to speak the words much bolder than you feel, like it is an easy call. Then you pray that you were right."

Someone just lent me a book by Donald A Norman called Things that Make us Smart . The Library Journal review of it on Amazon says that

By virtue of their design, machines shape the way we relate to the world. Moreover–as anyone who has been annoyed by voice message systems can testify – many technological "advances" that are efficient from the engineering point of view are of dubious value to those who must use them.

Although I saw it was written more than 15 years ago, it's a book that immediately appealed because today a) I tried twice to make a call to Carefirst, a healthcare provider, and the machine did not recognize a British accent as I said the numbers of my ID. For some unknown reason it also didn't recognize them when I punched them into my phone. Additionally I was on hold for 26 minutes the first time with a machine voice repeatedly telling me how to avoid allergies by washing my bed linen, and keeping my pets inside. At minute 27 I hung up. I tried again later and after being on hold – this time for 32 minutes a human voice was heard.

b) I tried to check-in online to the flight I am taking tomorrow and accidentally typed a wrong character when asked for my passport expiry date. I typed in 2006 instead of 2016. The machine instantly locked me out. I rang United who said there was nothing I could do and I would have to check in at the airport. So it's a very early start in the morning.

Norman's book, and a very informative presentation, have numerous examples of frustrating devices, and but follow these with good "usability guidelines" about how to think about designing. Four, from the presentation are:

Visibility
Make the relevant parts visible. By looking the user should be able to tell the state of the device and the alternatives for action (affordances)

A good conceptual model
Help the user by visually communicating a good mental model of how the system works.

Good mappings
Help the user determine the relationship between actions and results, controls and effects, by using natural mappings.

Feedback
The give immediate feedback to the user about the results of their actions and the state of the system.

At this point the guidelines reminded me of John Maeda's The Laws of Simplicity I think because the principles are similar both writers are suggesting that to manage the human/technology interface more effectively then technologies have to be designed in a different way. Norman says "Today we serve technology. … Technology should serve us". Maeda says "Technology has made our more lives full, yet at the same time we've become uncomfortably 'full'"

In talking about technology v humans it seems a very similar debate as that I was writing about yesterday: mechanistic v organic organizations. I wondered if the design principles that Norman and Maeda discuss are applicable to organization design. On first glance it seems so. Designing human centered organizations seems like a no brainer, but there aren't many guidelines on how to do this well. So I'll float the possibilities with the next organization design group I'm working with and see what their view is.