Category: Uncategorized

I subscribe to an email newsletter from Science Daily. I find it fascinating as each day I get information on the latest research on a variety of topics. So today's included:

Barefoot Running Easier Than Shoes on Feet
Rotting Fish Illuminate Our Earliest Ancestry
New Species of Tyrannosaur
Stratospheric Water Vapor: Warming Wild Card
Astronomers Discover Coolest Sub-Stellar Body
Gene Function Discovery: Guilt by Association
Emissions of Potent Greenhouse Gas Increasing
Microbes Produce Fuels Directly from Biomass
Gecko's Lessons Applied to Microelectronics
Why Jupiter's Ganymede and Callisto Differ

Clearly they're not all relevant to organization design and culture but more than you might think are which makes reading through the list worth the time spent – although I have a tendency to get sidetracked as I scan for potentially relevant items.

A couple of days ago there was a piece on How to Live Your Life Twice: Psychologist Busts a Myth and Offers Tips to Counter a Mid-Life Crisis. The psychologist in question (two in fact) Carlo Strenger and Arie Ruttenberg suggests that "the mid-life years are the best time of life to flourish and grow". That sounded good to me so I read on. I must have missed the HBR article (Feb 2008) that had in it the article The Existential Necessity of Midlife Change written by the same two. The synopsis reads:

"As life expectancy in the West increases and companies can no longer promise lifelong security, many businesspeople will need to make major changes during middle age, embarking on a second life and a second career. They must start by getting beyond two pervasive and opposing myths. The first is that midlife marks the onset of decline. Problems do arise during middle age – concerns about health and finances, for instance – but one's life force does not expire at 65, nor do possibilities vanish."

Good words that led me to remember Encore.org that describes itself as

"published by Civic Ventures a nonprofit think tank that is leading the call to engage millions of experienced individuals in becoming a force for social change. Civic Ventures focuses on creating pathways to encore careers that provide continued income doing work that is personally fulfilling and helps address some of society's biggest challenges".

("Experienced individuals" is a euphemism for people older than 50 or 60).

Out of interest, or maybe necessity I trawled through the "I want an encore career" section. It's got a good range of information, advice, and jobs to apply for. Many of the jobs seemed directed at all age groups and I'd be interested to know what proportion of the 'encorers' actually get a job they've applied for and how many go to younger people – but perhaps I'm skeptical of the view that organizations are keen to employ older workers.

However the vast number of books and articles on the topic of older workers, and the fact that the number of workers age 65 and older is predicted to increase by more than 80 percent by 2016 in the US, highlights the requirement to design organizations to meet this group's special needs (e.g. more autonomy, flexible working hours, etc). However meeting their needs has to be done in the context of simultaneously meeting the needs of other groups (e.g. those with dependants, new values related to sustaintability, and so on) Doing this effectively means knowing how to design organizations for maximum employee motivation and productivity.

Fast Company, last week, reported that:

"Activity and skepticism have been the first by-products of Walmart's audacious plan to create a label that would tell a shopper the environmental toll of every product it sells, from the greenhouse-gas emissons of an Xbox to the water used to produce your Sunday bacon."

I went to the supermarket yesterday with a question in the back of my mind – could I usefully use another label to help make shopping decisions? I've already written about Ethiscore and the way they rank ethical companies (this time I did buy the Equal Exchange tea!). I always scan labels for nutritional content – I like Michael Pollan's (author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma) 7 'rules' for food buying and consumption. Two of which I bear in mind when I'm food shopping:

• Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?" Pollan says.
• Don't eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.

I've also written about the way we make decisions. So I was wondering whether another label would be overwhelming. One question came to mind – where would yet another piece of information go on the packaging (or on the info if you're buying non-packaged stuff?) What would actually be useful in helping form a buying decision? The Fast Company article touches on some of these questions.

But companies are just beginning to grapple with the big questions. "One fear is figuring out who gets to prioritize the different pieces of sustainability," says Karen Hamilton, VP of vitality and environment at Unilever, a consortium member. "Who's to decide if greenhouse-gas emissions are more pressing than water conservation?" (Walmart provided initial funding for the Sustainability Consortium)

Walmart's own site has much information on the Sustainability Index and in a video presentation by Mike Duke (Walmart CEO) more detail is given on why Walmart feels this is an important initiative. He makes the point that there are other sustainability assessments available but they are, to his mind, lacking in some dimensions.

I did a (very brief) comparison between the Walmart assessment – for products – and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index – for companies – Dow Jones notes that:

Leading sustainability companies display high levels of competence in addressing global and industry challenges in a variety of areas:

Strategy: Financial: Customer & Product: Governance and Stakeholder: Human (Note each of these is explained in more detail)

Corporate sustainability performance is an investable concept. This is crucial in driving interest and investments in sustainability to the mutual benefit of companies and investors. As this benefit circle strengthens, it will have a positive effect on the societies and economies of both the developed and developing world.

Reading the Dow Jones information and listening to Mike Duke the messaging is virtually identical and the two indexes ask many of the same questions. So what information would I be interested in as I shopped for products and what company would I prefer to buy products from? And should a company interested in the sustainability of the products it sells also have a sustainability 'gold star' for it self?

Duke makes the point more than once that with the Sustainability Consortium ("a collaborative effort") he is looking to develop a 'transparent, common, standard, global database' not "to create our own database" to help consumers make informed choices . But consumers are interested in different aspects of sustainability and while one is interested in food miles, another may be interested in labor conditions.

The Good Guide – yet another site that assesses products – has a cool new feature where you can create your own lists of favorite products – or products to avoid. And then publish these lists in a simple "widget"
format on any blog or website.

What makes this, and similar, assessments important for organization designers – and not just shoppers – is that it is likely to make businesses really look closely at the way they are organized to meet the criteria. If Sustainability Indexes take off it will mean significant redesign for many organizations as they jostle to remain on supplier lists and high in the minds of consumers.

I listened to NPR's All Things Considered on my i-pod as I flew over the Atlantic a few days ago. (I download one edition each week). One of the stories was a repeat of Terry Gross's discussion, in March 2009, with Johnah Lehrer on his book book How We Decide (repeated because the book has just come out in paperback.

The program introduction notes that Lehrer

describes himself as "pathologically indecisive". "I found myself spending literally a half an hour, 30 minutes, in the cereal aisle of the supermarket, trying to choose between boxes of Cheerios," he says. "That's when I realized I had a problem."

The struggle over cereal led Lehrer to contemplate much bigger questions – like what was actually happening in his head as he stood in the cereal aisle, and how much of that was rational versus emotional.

Finally, he decided to write a book about it. In How We Decide, Lehrer explores the science of how we make decisions and what we can do to make those decisions better.

I found the discussion fascinating, and followed up by going down to the bookshop and skimming through the book. Because I spend a lot of time with leaders who say they want better decision making processes in their organization I was looking to see how much Lehrer covered in the book on organizational decisions.

One of the points that stood out, for me, was the discussion of Lincoln's presidency. He apparently, intentionally filled his cabinet with politicians who had wildly competing ideologies. His view was that better decisions emerged from vigorous debate and listening to all points of view. Lehrer observes that "Good decisions rarely emerge from false consensus" and quotes a lovely statement from Alfred P. Sloan, then Chairman of General Motors, who adjourned a board meeting, telling members to go away and develop disagreement and "perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about".

Reckitt Benckhiser's CEO, Bart Becht, recently named 16th on HBR's top performing CEO list. is someone known for thinking consensus equals average and that better decisions result from almost combative discussions. In an interview reported in the UK's Daily Mail Becht states:

'We are not focused on endless debates to make sure everybody is aligned. But I wouldn't say it is not a caring place. Key to growth is innovation and that comes from people, Becht says: 'We have a different style culturally from other companies. We are more multicultural.

'We firmly believe that by having people from different backgrounds we get new ideas on the table much quicker than other companies.' Becht says he encourages staff to fight their corner, make mistakes and be entrepreneurial.

'If I have ten people with different backgrounds in a room they're not going to agree,' he goes on. 'So, as long as I have constructive conflict, by the end of the discussion they're going to come up with a perspective which is very different. That's what I want.

Tying together what Lehrer – the science writer, and Becht – the CEO, say there's a nice complementarity (on this particular point at least) that consensus without vigorous debate in which all views are laid out is unlikely to result in a good decision. The skill of the leader lies in helping the team members listen to each other and really examine the differences and opportunities before making a decision.

Someone recommended me a white paper , funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Intentional Innovation: How Getting More Systematic about Innovation Could Improve Philanthropy and Increase Social Impact. Defining 'innovation' as a 'new ideas that work' the authors suggest that

"Systematic innovation requires well-managed and repeatable processes, to move an organization beyond a dependence on the lightning-strike of sporadic innovations and to create a more constant and dependable flow of new ideas. According to innovation expert Larry Keeley, "Innovation that works is a disciplined process…. The real frontier is to not think of it as a creative exercise, but to think about it as being disciplined in using the right methods."

They present a conceptual framework for being systematic that involves:

• Setting the conditions required to support innovation
• Identifying the problem or opportunity about which you want to innovate
• Generating ideas to solve the problem or capture the opportunity
• Experimenting and piloting those ideas to test how well they work in practice
• Sharing the innovations with a broader set of stakeholders

This looks fine and out of curiosity skipped to the discussion on Culture for Innovation. What's difficult about this section is not the idea that the framework should be held within a "culture" of innovation or the point the authors make (p.29) that: "Signaling a commitment to innovation is a critical first step in the innovation process."

But the fact that in the following paragraphs four other cultural types are mentioned

The development of a sustainable culture that expects and encourages innovation at every level and function of the organization actually undergirds each element of the innovation framework. Culture is both the starting place and the underlying base for the entire innovation process. Creating an innovation-friendly culture means moving steadily toward comprehensive changes that make the organization a different place.

From the smallest decisions about the quality of office supplies to hiring employees and making major strategic business decisions, a socially responsible corporation aspires to a coherent and integrated culture of responsibility.

Creating an innovative culture is totally intertwined with creating a learning culture.

So within one page five types of culture are mentioned: sustainable culture, innovation-friendly culture, culture of responsibility, innovative culture and learning culture – with the implication that cultures can be 'created'. In other research I have come across lots of arguments suggesting that culture cannot be 'created' and additionally, even if culture can be created, this white paper is not helpful in clarifying which of the five cultures mentioned would be the best for innovation, nor whether they have the same or different characteristics.

I'm assuming that the authors think that they have the same characteristics because they suggest that there are some key practices that support innovation. Specifically mentioned (and discussed) are:

•Demonstrate leadership and intentionality
•Democratize innovation
•Experiment and learn
•Run the risk
•Collaborate and network
•Measure and be accountable
•Communicate

A 3-column table is presented at the end of the section. Column 1 lists each of the key practices – the list is not exactly the same as the one given at the start of the section but maybe this doesn't matter? Column 2 lists ideas for each key practice under the heading "people/process". Column 3 lists ideas for each key practice under the heading "structures/process". (I'm not sure why 'process' appears in both those columns). These ideas are helpful but relatively useless. For example, under the heading "Measure" The idea given in the people/process column is "Incorporate measurement and accountability into individual and team roles for innovation." That's ok but it is also self evident – there's no suggestion on what the measures might be, how to make them valid and reliable, etc.

Is the paper worth reading? Probably not the whole thing which takes a lot of words to say not very much but the Executive Summary is worth a skim read – if only to start the thinking process and discussions on designing organizations for innovation – why, how, and the value add.

This week I've seen several different reviews both in the UK and the US, and listened to the HBR Idea Cast on the new book, The Checklist Manifesto, by Dr. Atul Gawande, surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

His 'big idea' is that using safety checklists in the operating theatre saves lives while "a study backed by the WHO in eight hospitals, … found that implementing the list has cut major complications in surgery by 36% on average". It doesn't seem that revelatory to discover that checklists work – isn't it the same technique used in TQM and continuous improvement approaches to reduce errors? The book I wrote about recently 'Quality is Personal' uses the concepts of checklists to keep things on track, and airline pilots have been using them for years. (Charles Lindbergh was one of the earliest users in 1927).

Most of the commentators are impressed by the simplicity of the idea of checklists, and the results using them gets which is not surprising since they have a long history of working effectively. Only one reviewer that I came across (the Economist's) was skeptical – not of the approach but of the idea of taking a whole book to present the notion. His (or her?) review states that "The Checklist Manifesto" started out as a New Yorker article. A magazine article is how it should have remained. Even as a short book it is bloated and repetitive".

I use checklists quite a lot myself – I have one for packing, one for shopping, one for work routines, etc. and find them very helpful. But the current surge of interest in the Checklist Manifesto led to me wondering whether I should be revisiting my use of them in organization design and development work? Again in this arena I frequently use them, but I think there may be opportunities for me to be more formal and consistent in their application.

One that worked very well was with a client who, at the end of each stage in the project, conducted a "Go, No-Go Review" which was a seven part checklist based approach to deciding whether everything was in place to proceed to the next stage of the project: for example, "Part 5 Performance Reporting: Demonstrate readiness of reporting systems" had the following questions:

Go, No-go Criteria review questions

• Is the reporting timetable in place?
• Is the reporting process included in the competence training program for the operational team?
• Are the operating processes and work instructions in place that enable the report to be generated by the operational team?
• Does the system generate automatically all required reports under test circumstances that provide all the details required by the company's reporting processes and procedures?
• Is there a contingency plan in place to deliver a report on time in the event that the automated system fails?

Each question had to be answered (and signed off) by the teams involved in developing the performance reporting system. This approach did work to keep people on track, highlighting areas for further work, and stopping continuance of the project before resolution of outstanding items.

The value of the checklists in team working situations is that using it as a basis for discussion (and not just as a thoughtless tick-box exercise) to check that everyone knows what's going on and what is needed to proceed seems to iron out hierarchies, and allows involvement, increased understanding, and better decisions to be made by each and all of the team members.

Continuing yesterday's Avatar theme on not destroying the planet, I looked again at a video clip of Ray Anderson, CEO, Interface Flor speaking about the events that led him to commit his company to sustainability. It started with his reading a book, in 1994, by Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce which talks about 'the death of birth". This was a phrase and a discussion on that profoundly moved Anderson.

At this stage he started to get interested in the argument against plundering the Earth for profit. 10 years later his company started to hear customers asking them "what are you doing for the environment?" The answer was 'not enough' as far as Anderson was concerned. Galvanized into further action, described in his book Mid Course Correction, by these types of things happening in the external world Ray Anderson has led the internal world of InterfaceFLOR into a very different way of operating than it had in 2004.

The company adopted the 2020 sustainability vision "Achieving Mission Zero™" which is their "promise to eliminate any negative impact Interface has on the environment by 2020". To this end Anderson has led both service and product innovations that are taking the company down the route of achieving the target. Winning the 2006 UK EDF Energy Environmental Impact Award in association with the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment the company was applauded for two service innovation initiatives:

• Evergreen Carpet Leasing System – in return for a monthly leasing charge, InterfaceFLOR undertakes to maintain, replace and recycle all its carpets, ensuring sustainability throughout the lifespan of a carpet
• ReEntry® – InterfaceFLOR collects used carpet tiles for refurbishment and re-use

In 2009 Anderson spoke at the TED Conference on the Business Logic of Sustainability. He described himself as a "recovering plunderer" of the Earth. As the introduction to the speech notes "At his carpet company, Ray Anderson has increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional "take / make / waste" industrial system on its head. In a gentle, understated way, he shares a powerful vision for sustainable commerce".

In 2009 InterfaceFLOR was the first carpet company in North America to receive third party verified Environmental Product Declaration status, based on the full lifecycle assessment (LCA) that InterfaceFLOR has used in its own product measurement, such as progress on reducing dependence on virgin raw materials, reducing fossil fuel dependence and using renewable energy, and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the TED speech Anderson said he thinks he is 50% towards reaching his 2020 goal and reinforces the point that there is a strong business logic to working towards that goal. Among the business benefits he cites.

• Development of the company's product and service innovation skills
• Increased employee motivation and productivity as they are working for a higher good
• Sustained profitability during economic turbulence
• A more positive customer experience – resulting in repeat and referred business

His is a convincing and powerful voice advocating 'more happiness with less stuff', not just for the current inhabitants of the planet but also for 'tomorrow's child'. As he says "We are part of the web of life and we have a choice to make during our brief visit to this planet – to hurt it or to help it. It's your call."

Yesterday I went to see Avatar – I'd read a lot about it: for example The Times has a long article Movie Blues bylined: "Cinema goers captivated by the 3-D movie Avatar have suffered depression and even contemplated suicide after leaving the theatre and rejoining the real world." I didn't feel the same way myself (either captivated or suicidal) maybe because as well as seeing it through 3D glasses I also found myself seeing it through an organizational systems, culture and leadership lens which was somewhat surprising to me, and rather elevates a standard goody v baddy storyline, but there you go.

The Na'vi society is shown as one that values the connectedness and interdependence of everything on the planet Pandora. This is similar to the Gaia theory http://www.gaiatheory.org/ that "asserts that living organisms and their inorganic surroundings have evolved together as a single living system that greatly affects the chemistry and conditions of Earth's surface." (Substitute 'Pandora' for 'Earth' and you get the idea). In the Na'vi's case this is made explicit in that each individual can physically connect and bond to other species (trees, birds, horses, etc) in the system through a current running through their hair braid. In the case of the Na'vi bird/horse bonding it was in order for the Na'vi essentially to dominate i.e. ride, the creatures – so nothing much different from the real world there.

The US system (well they all had American accents) is shown as a mighty force intent on mining unobtanium that sells for a vast amount – $10m per kilo – on planet Earth. This system combines military, scientific, and business interests to try and get – by force, they felt diplomacy was taking too long – the rare mineral. There's little evidence that the three interest groups share any form of connection, beyond the fact that they're dependent on the same infrastructure (oxygen, food – I'm guessing – we never see them eating, and information). Giovanni Ribisi (as Parker Selfridge) is the business guy playing with a piece of the metal and saying "businesses are driven by quarterly results" the implication being that it's ok to destroy a planet to feed that drive.

That message seems to over-ride what I think was the intended, message of the film that it's not ok to destroy a planet for profit gain. And unfortunately I see no sign on the Avatar official website that any of the profits from the movie are being invested, donated, or otherwise used to do anything except drive quarterly profit. So, no walk the talk by the movie director, or company. (I hope someone will point out that I'm mistaken in this and that the Sierra Club or Greenpeace or any other save the planet organization will benefit financially from the movie's success).

The leaders are an interesting group. As formal leaders, the Na'vi put up the clan man and woman (who don't have much to say), with the leader elect man and woman (Tsu Tey and Neytiri) while the US team field a stereotypical colonel, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) – who says a great deal, a scientist Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), and the business man. The US leadership team members each have different interests and agendas – the standard pattern, while the Na'vi team seems slightly more together – but not much.

Each group also fields informal leaders. The US team has Michelle Rodriguez (Trudy Chacone) as a pilot, saying "I didn't sign up for this" as she turns against the military effort, thus setting the scene for Sully's success. (But what did she think she was signing up for in joining the military – or maybe she was a civilian pilot. This isn't clearly explained), and Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) as the infiltrator who changes allegiance from US to the Na'vi – so he's on both sides. The Na'vi haveTsu'Tey (Laz Alonso) who is supposed to take over as formal leader of the clan but is usurped by Jake Sully.

That shows a very swift organizational socialization on Sully's part although he is well coached by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana, the love interest) – not only does he learn the language of the Na'vi spectacularly quickly, he also becomes culturally fluent enough to be accepted as clan leader by the clan members – although this may, in part, be because he took Tsu'Tey's place in Neytiri's heart and the leadership went with her. That aside he also has good influencing skills – despite a difficult start he convinces the clan to trust him – essential in any leader.

Additionally he brings some 'new blood' into the Na'vi organization, which organizations are often looking for, in that he is equipped with a machine gun and also knows how the US military machine is deployed. We don't hear (maybe that's Avatar 2) how the culture of the Na'vi changes from (implied) pacifists to warmongers as they defended their planet, and, in all likelihood will have to again – I can't imagine that the US is not going to return with greater power and force very soon – especially as the representatives were shown leaving Pandora as a disconsolate, defeated, humiliated group. But maybe second time round force will be met with diplomacy and diplomacy will result in a win-win – one can live in hope.

In the course of writing Chapter 8 of my forthcoming book I re-read Edgar Schein's article Organizational Socialization and the Profession of Management. It was published in 1968 but still reads as a vigorous, relevant, and, in my view, entertaining text on the topic. Briefly, it discusses "what happens to an individual when he enters and accepts membership in an organization."
Schein describes the "process of learning the ropes, the process of being indoctrinated and trained, the process of being taught what is important in an organization or some subunit thereof".

I was struck by several things as I re-read it. (I don't remember when I first came across the article although I know I read it in 1999 as part of some research I was doing then. This may have been the first time.)

1. A reminder that organizational socialization is a continuous process that we are going through all the time in our memberships of various organizations: I can think of many cases where people seem to be fitting in well in an organization and then, suddenly, something goes wrong and they leave, either by their own choice or by the organization's. What goes wrong may never be put down to anything explicit or obvious, like over-claiming on expenses – more usually they have contravened some unspoken 'rule' either knowingly or by mistake.

2. The concepts of a "stable organization", on which Schein based his research: in my experience there are few organizations that would call themselves "stable" – mostly they describe turmoil, flux, turbulence, chaos, and so on. That doesn't date the article because Schein has already made the point that people are socializing all the time. His original view seems to be that it as individuals join a new organization, but taking the view that organizations are in a state of continual renewal then individuals are continuously being socialized to them.

3. Schein's vocabulary is very male. He talks of "40 men". There's no disclaimer that 'men' means 'men and women'. It's evident that 40 years ago that women were scarce in both business schools and in the managerial workforce. Things have changed in that dimension. The Economist published an article last week on women in the workforce with statistics on the various levels of their presence. For example, In 1966, 40% of American women who received a BA specialised in education in college; 2% specialised in business and management. The figures are now 12% and 50%.

4. The discussion of 'unfreezing' old values in order to refreeze new values. Reading this word brought back shades of Kurt Lewin and the change cycle which again doesn't work very well now. Organizations may appear to be change resistant and need 'unfreezing' but, in fact, organizations are changing all the time in response to external and internal pressures. Similarly, with personal values: they seem stable and enduring but they are shifting – anyone who is the first child in a family can comment on the way the third or fourth sibling has a much easier time of things illustrating the fact that values around parenting change.

5. How people learn what is essentially the culture of the organization doesn't seem to have changed in the 40 years. Maybe methods of learning are relatively stable. Apart from using technology to access more information and stay in touch with more people I wonder if learning processes (accepting that people learn in different ways albeit using the processes) are relatively stable?

6. Having tackled the concepts of organizational socialization Schein turns to the question of whether management is a 'profession'. This debate is still current in more or less exactly the same terms that Schein discusses. Gary Hamel fairly recently (2007) wrote a book The Future of Management which continues the debate. Next action a re-read of that.

The other day I wrote about Amazon's lists, profiles, and so on. I'd sent off two enquiries (but on one form) to their 'contact us' service having previously trawled through the FAQs and not found my questions either posed or answered. Within about eight hours I got a response to both – but as two separate responses (one from a do-not-reply email and the other from a customer service person called Surya P).

The first response which was to my question: Can I have just one profile on Amazon rather than two (currently one personal one and the other an author one)? The answer is: "Unfortunately, it's not possible to link your profile page to your author central page. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may cause".

The second response was to my question: Can my Listmania Organization Design list be made private while I work on it? I asked this because I do not want to put up a list that has only a handful of items. I want to spend time collecting and loading the items before I publish the list. The answer to this question was: "To make the wishlist private I have included the information below". That was ok, in that it gave me detailed information, but I had asked the question about Listmania and not about wishlists. So the information was of no value to me as one of the things I do know how to do is to make my wishlists private or public.

I had another go of sending of the Listmania question. This time putting Listmania in upper case letters and making the point that I was asking about LISTMANIA and not about wishlists. The answer to my question came back – again within about eight hours "I am sorry we are not able to make your Listmania List private".

What I enjoyed about these responses (or did I?) was that each of the three emails had, in the signature block, "We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company". So now I'm just wondering what the construction process is and how far they have got (or think they have got) with it. Meanwhile:

• I have deleted off Listmania my Organization Design List Two (which currently has only one item). I've decided to construct it as a private wishlist and when it is complete there transfer it to the Listmania page.
• On my personal profile page I have put a note saying "please see my author page for more information".

So I have managed a couple of workarounds.

At the same time I was conducting this Amazon exercise I was also reading a short piece in Baselinemag The Evolution of Organizational Process. In this the author observes that

"Despite a multidecade focus, business-technology processes in many companies are unmanaged, invisible and unmeasured. Consequently they are executed haphazardly and inconsistently. This results in delays, errors, low quality, and high overhead costs. …"

The reason suggested for this is:

"many processes cross an enterprise's internal and external boundaries as part of business networks and, therefore, they become the province of no one. … there are no single point-of-responsibility process owners."

It seems to me that Amazon's processes are in that category (although some I've experienced as superb for example their process for telling me the status of my order). I'm guessing that the patchiness of their customer service is because they are not looking across processes but rather within them – so the Listmania team is not learning from the wish list team, and the personal profile people are not aware that some of the profiles belong to people who are also authors because the author team is in insufficient communication with the personal profile team for whatever reason. To solve these types of issues and speed up the building of the Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company – some service portfolio thinking and related innovation is required.

Today's business news is Cadbury's decision to be bought by Kraft. Swiftly reading the UK press it seems that the general mood is one that this is foolish decision generated by short term profit rather than long term value. There is nothing that I've read so far that indicates any intention by Kraft of preserving aspects of Cadbury's business. The signs are not good for Cadbury's jobs, the brand, or anything that will enable Kraft to get any return on its investment. This may well turn out to be an AOL-Time Warner lookalike in terms of outcomes although AOL-Time Warner was billed as a merger, while the Kraft/Cadbury is being billed as a takeover i.e. an acquisition.

(An explanation of the difference: a merger is the combination of two similarly sized companies combined to form a new company. An acquisition occurs when one company clearly purchases another and becomes the new owner).

It's interesting that this is the 10 year anniversary of the AOL-Time Warner deal and there is a lot of commentary on what went wrong there – I wonder if there are lessons to be learned for Kraft/Cadbury? Gerald Levin, former chairman and CEO of Time Warner, notes that he didn't pay enough attention to the people and the psychology of the merger 'with enough compassion' – as he lost track of 'management as humanist art' because 'frankly, we have a Wall Street issue and we are driven to deliver', while Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL, says that making more determined efforts to take the senior management teams 'blow them apart' and set up a new company would have been a better approach. He repeats Gerald Levin's point that "execution is about people" and he now focuses more on the people side as one of the lessons he's learned from the merger.

The Times headline today on the story is "Thousands of Cadbury jobs under threat as Kraft swallows a British icon". The situation may change, of course, Cadbury shareholders have until February 2 to accept or reject the offer. But once this type of thing is rolling it rarely happens that the decision is reversed. Earlier this month Warren Buffet urged Irene Rosenfeld, chief executive and chairman of Kraft, not to raise the offer for Cadbury but she did. It's possible that Ms Rosenfeld is gambling with her job. Time will tell on that.

What does this type of takeover mean for the organization culture and design? Well there's been no talk that I've come across so far in this case on wanting to protect Cadbury culture, people, or heritage. (Unlike in the AOL/Time Warner case where there was a statement on this). In fact Irene Rosenfeld told The Times that Cadbury job losses would come, mainly in administration. So it appears at first sight that the culture of Cadbury will be lost as Kraft imposes its style and approach.

The design of the acquired company has again not been specified (as much as I've read). Usually in a takeover like this there is a high degree of resource intensive work required to transform processes, systems, procedures and other infrastructure elements into the acquirer's desired mould. It always costs more than anticipated not just in financial terms but in other costs – customer satisfaction, employee motivation, and so on.

In a different acquisition approach as when, for example, – Amazon acquired Zappos (July 2009) – the statement was unequivocal that Amazon would, in effect, be leaving Zappos alone, in order to protect the culture of that company, and would be leaving the current design of it in place also.

So two different approaches to acquisition with what I'm forecasting as two different outcomes. The Kraft one will fail to achieve the intended value while the Amazon one will. achieve it.