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I have an Organization Design list of forty items on Amazon's Listmania. I then tried to add another item but apparently each list only takes forty items. So I have an Organization Design List Two with that item on which looks very strange as one item does not, in my view, qualify as a list. So now I need to spend some time adding more items to list two. (Or deleting it – which is probably the better option in terms of choices around time investment at this stage).

Additionally I have a profile page as a non-author – where my lists and wish list sit, plus I also have an author page which has a lot more information. It seems that it is not possible to link the two and have a single page for a single individual. I may be missing something on this and it may be possible, but as things stand I have emailed Amazon through their 'contact us' point to find out a) if I can make a list private while I'm working on it and b) if I can just have one author page and no other profile page so all my information is in one place.

I'm interested to see what the response is (and if I get one at all). The organization of the site as it currently is does not give me the type of 'customer experience' that I would like. But that may for various behind-the-scenes reasons which, at the moment an Amazon organization design person is grappling with (along with the IT department or similar).

Back to Organization Design List One (forty items) and thinking about my own customers I see that I have not put any comments against any one of the items, so no-one is getting my view on how the book is useful or why I included it on the list. I did choose the books from the hundreds available, but I now think that I need to give more information to make the list of any value.

Differently, on my wish list (also public) there is no space to annotate/comment about it which, in my view would be useful. I could add in notes like 'read the review in the NY Times to remind myself of why I wanted to read it. Would this be helpful to readers of the list as they look at it? Or is the wish list public to encourage people to buy and send me the books on it that I am wishing for? Looking at the wish list I see that a lot of the books are on organization culture (enough to compile a forty item list) – so I'm now wondering if I should compile one of those, and annotate it in order for it to be the 'really useful' list.

These kinds of thoughts on customer service and/or experience are helpful in reminding me that it's a continuous process of development. In this instance Amazon points out that the author pages are new, and also that the Listmania compilation process is new – so as they advance their offerings I can (have to?) advance mine.

A couple of years ago we had a group come to our office to run a session on improv. I hadn't known much about it and certainly hadn't experienced any of the techniques first hand, although I had done a programme once called Think on Your Feet which is somewhat similar – but it turned out to be a lot of fun and taking improv classes is now on my list to do at some stage. Improv is explained as "a positive form of theatre – performers don't know what they're going to do but they do have certain structures to make it work". It sounds very like the business world where improvisation is the order of the day but we don't often have the structures to make it work that well.

Taking more improv classes has risen higher up my list now – mainly because I listened to a BBC World Service Global Business Program on it the other day (Let me Entertain You).
– This was an easy listen to the topic with a lot of eavesdropping on a couple of courses on what business leaders can learn from improvisational comedy and rock musicians.

The fact that it's easy to listen to is telling – it means I probably wasn't really listening (true, as I was also checking through my emails), but I did hear the speaker say that the key to effective improve is truly listening. One of the exercises practised was telling a story one word at a time i.e. the group members speak one word each in order to construct a whole story. This forces the person to listen to the previous speaker in order to make a decision on what the next word should be.

Another exercise – which I've used a lot since I learned at the improv course I went on – is the 'yes and' exercise ("and' being a much more powerful word than 'but' which has a lot of negative implications).

If you're interested in learning more about improv a good website is that of the Applied Improvisation Network. It has a selection of improv games, a list of books, and so on. And an article that I found gave a good overview of improv for business is Improvisation: not just funny business, originally published in T & D. It has several stories of the value various business people have found in taking up the techniques, plus links to other websites and contacts.

I like the title of the book Improv Yourself: Business Spontaneity at the Speed of Thought . I haven't read it yet but skimming through the contents pages and reading the reviews suggests that I'd gain a lot from it if I did. Another title added to my wish list!

People coming new to the organisation from outside it are at a disadvantage when it comes to quick and effective performance as they have more to learn and less to draw on in terms of networks and knowing who to go to than insiders moving role. This organisational know-how is particularly necessary at senior levels – a point discussed in some research on the best performing CEOs in the world

"In our analysis of the 1,999 CEOs, we determined that insiders tend to do better. On average, they ranked 57 places higher than outsiders in the full list."

"… industry- and firm-specific knowledge is critical when it comes to generating long-term growth. Among the up-through-the-ranks leaders on our list are Yun Jong-Yong, who joined Samsung straight out of college and worked there 30 years before becoming CEO, and Mukesh Ambani who joined Reliance Industries in 1981, when it was still a textile company run by his father.

This finding is endorsed by the author of The CEO Within: Why Inside Outsiders Are the Key to Succession Planning. In an interview he makes the point that

"The great advantage of an internal candidate is that he or she knows the people, systems, and culture of the company. That means the candidate knows the company's strengths and weaknesses, who can be relied upon to help change things, where world-class competence does or does not reside, and how things can best be transformed."

But the statement is qualified by his observation that:

"(With this) you need an outside perspective to have a true, even brutal, understanding of what needs to change if the company is to succeed in the competitive environment that lies ahead. The inside-outsider knows that if his or her vision of the way the world is headed is remotely right, then real change is needed and he or she has the understanding of the company and confidence of its people to drive that transformation."

However, having an inside-outsider perspective is not a guarantee of success. Even someone with the attributes, skills, and technical expertise to get on and fit in may be thwarted by one or more of the four factors required to fit in and get on in a new role, namely:

• The ability to learn 'the way we do things round here', including ways of behaving, operating, and thinking as well as norms and values.
• The capacity to learn this within an acceptable time frame.
• The support of established employees in helping him/her integrate.
• The ability and willingess to pay the 'price of membership'

Regardless of whether the newcomer to the role is an insider or an outsider he/she faces a challenging task as a survey conducted at IMD notes:

"Fully 87% of the 143 survey respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, 'Transitions into significant new roles are the most challenging times in the professional lives of managers.' And more than 70% agreed or strongly agreed that 'success or failure during the transition period is a strong predictor of overall success or failure in the job.''

Tomorrow I am being interviewed on my thoughts on sustainability. I'm to discuss the following four questions, with 5 – 10 minutes allowed for each question.

1. What is sustainability? Define it, particularly as how it relates to businesses. What are its components, what makes something "sustainable", etc.

2. Why is sustainability important to companies? Why should it be a priority? Who should be responsible for it?

3. What is the best indicator that could help a business executive better understand the problem of sustainability? How do you evaluate such indicators? Are there specific criteria?

4. Give specific examples on good/bad sustainability in some companies.

In preparation for this I have gone first of all to what is commonly known as the Brundtland Commission report. It makes sobering reading – mainly because it was published in 1987 and it seems that very little that it called on to address has been addressed since then. We are still in a situation where

"The Earth is one but the world is not. We all depend on one biosphere for sustaining our lives. Yet each community, each country, strives for survival and prosperity with little regard for its impact on others. Some consume the Earth's resources at a rate that would leave little for future generations. Others, many more in number, consume far too little and live with the prospect of hunger, squalor, disease, and early death."

And strikingly more than 20 years ago came the warning in the report that

"Little time is available for corrective action. In some cases we may already be close to transgressing critical thresholds. While scientists continue to research and debate causes and effects, in many cases we already know enough to warrant action. This is true locally and regionally in the cases of such threats as desertification, deforestation, toxic wastes, and acidification; it is true globally for such threats as climate change, ozone depletion, and species loss. The risks increase faster than do our abilities to manage them."

But there has been some progress. The definition of sustainable development that the Commission came up with: "Sustainable development seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future" seems to have reached many businesses – not least because consumers and others are putting pressure on them to change. Multinationals previously known for their less than sustainable practices are now acquiring companies that have a less tarnished, more sustainability oriented image. (Though the words 'greenwashing' and 'sold out' are heard in this connection).

I suppose like many people I have gradually got used to the word 'sustainability' without having a real appreciation of the history of the concept. Reading the report was an exercise worth doing in that it helped ground my thinking.

I've been working on a piece on joining an organization – which took me back several years to the time I was doing the research for my thesis on organizational socialization. (Incidentally this is about to be published in total by VDM Publishing. They contacted me – I don't know their processes for finding potential work – anyway, they "publish academic research worldwide – at no cost to our authors".)

What I was working on yesterday was the 'price of membership' – the cost to the new joiner of being culturally assimilated. It marks the point of transitioning, or crossing the boundary, from being an outsider to an insider. It's an intriguing concept in that everyone taking on a new role – both to a new company and as a job move within their current company – has to pay. It's a recognition of acceptance by others in the group.

It seems to me that sometimes the price paid is obvious and perhaps costly, and sometimes it is barely noticeable as payment at all. Talking with new joiners it appears that the price is 'paid' in various ways and can be an all at once payment, an 'installment plan' with an end point, or an ongoing 'tax' that, in fact, everyone pays – the type of due that is extracted from all employees regardless of whether they are new or not. The most common types of 'price of membership' mentioned by new joiners are:

• An initiation test: This is not usually the consciously set 'head in lavatory pan' hazing type of trial, but it can feel like it as it is usually a high profile make or break event often related to the completion and presentation of a first task or project that has to be successfully achieved quickly.

• An endurance and/or proving process: Often this is about showing that the joiner can 'play the game' in the approved way (even although the rules are usually not that clear), or as one person said 'proving, over a certain time period, that you're a safe pair of hands, capable of handling certain projects'.

• Gradual personal change and/or adaptation: People described all the adjustments to style and approach that they had to make within the first days and weeks of starting the new role – as they quickly learned that what worked in their previous role was not necessarily appropriate in their new role.

If a joiner chooses not to, or simply can't – through personality, inability to adapt, etc. – pay the price of membership the usually inevitable outcome is that he or she is frozen out, ostracized and/or quits the organization. In other words, without social acceptance – achieved after paying the price of membership – a new joiner can't do the job. I'd be interested in hearing any stories people have on their price of membership experiences.

When Getting Things Done, by David Allen, came out in 2001someone recommended it to me as a 'life changer'. So ever willing to change my life (one of the skills I need to demonstrate when supporting my clients in changing their organizations) I promptly bought a copy. It worked for me. I started to get a lot more perspective and control of my various projects. I still follow the precepts and suggestions and occasionally log on to the Dave Allen website for hints and tips. One of the tips I use most is to do with filing wallets. Before sticking on the label that names the wallet stick some Scotch tape on the label tab and then stick the label over the Scotch tape. Then when you want to change the label on the file it peels off easily. This works. (I think Dave Allen also boosted sales of labelers because one of his suggestions for stress-free productivity – the subtitle of the book – is to clearly label all files with a printed label).

Oh, I change labels on my files because one of the suggestions is to keep on reviewing everything in the various 'buckets'. I do that too so my paperwork is in ok order most of the time. I have noticed that gradually I'm converting a lot of paper stuff into online records so maybe the labeler will eventually be in the project headed 'To the thrift shop'.

Last year I was going to go to a seminar at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, where I was at the time, to hear David Allen presenting on his new book Making it all Work . At the last minute I couldn't go but the same friend who recommended me Getting Things Done took my place – and got a hardcopy of the new book. She said both the seminar and the book were great and took her to new heights in getting her things done.

I didn't rush out and buy my own copy of this book as, at the time it was hardback only, but yesterday mooching around the airport Borders I saw the paperback is now out and on an impulse bought it. Not necessarily the best move as I then decided not to do the piece of work I had planned to do on the flight but instead to read the book. (I changed priorities!) However, I rationalized this as a good return on investment. If reading book two made me more productive then I'd be organized enough to fit in the work I'd dropped in order to read the book.

I've read Chapters 1 and 2 which are revisions and explanations of Getting Things Done – all helpful in reminding me that although I use much of the approach I've still got a long way to go. I'm hoping that Chapter 3 "The Process" will spur me into further action towards stress-free living. It would certainly be timely given the new zone of turbulence I think I am entering.

This morning there were three news items that caught my eye. All related to changes in business strategy.

The first was a lengthy piece in the New York Times on the anniversary of the AOL-Time Warner merger. . It was then (and still is) the largest merger in American history. But, despite the hype at the time, it never fulfilled any of the promises that it hoped to. In fact, as the report points out:

"The trail of despair in subsequent years included countless job losses, the decimation of retirement accounts, investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department, and countless executive upheavals. Today, the combined values of the companies, which have been separated, is about one-seventh of their worth on the day of the merger."

The second was a piece in the Financial Times about Tesco entering the China shopping mall business. This article notes that:

"Residential property development is scarcely Tesco's forte: apart from a few flats above its shop in Kensington, west London, the UK retailer has never attempted anything on the scale of one 2,800 flat Chinese mall.

But Sam Crispin, a property consultant in Shanghai, says developing such malls is the way to get the best retail sites. "What Tesco is doing is making the most of its brand. It's an excellent example of what foreign businesses adapting to the local Chinese market should be doing more of."

And the third was a piece, also in the Financial Times, about Danone, whose CEO, Franck Riboud, gets very impatient with the short term approach to running a company has declared that by planning to stick with its water business in developed markets and focus on slow growth over the next 15 years. In this instance analysts were dubious about the decision.

Reading the pieces they seemed to share a common theme – making a significant, high investment decision with no way of knowing what the longer term outcome might be. In the AOL-Time Warner case it was a poor decision, and in the other two cases it's a question of wait and see. Nevertheless observers and commentators made their views known – which may well influence the way the decisions pan out – though it would be difficult to trace any cause/effect on this.

Musing on strategic decisions and the way they are dissected by outsiders to the company making them I was cheered by Lucy Kellaway's column beginninng "Cold air has been blowing out of the Arctic, and hot air has been blowing out of the mouths of business forecasters".

We're working on a model of service innovation which is proving challenging. Bearing in mind the adage 'all models are wrong, some models are useful' we seem to have got only as far as the 'all models are wrong' bit! In an attempt to cut through this and halt even more discussions, conversations, graphics, and iterations of the same and different attempts I took another look at the Financial Times book Key Management Models, hoping to get some ideas on approaches.

Instead my look at the book took a different tack. I have the 2003 edition but I see that there's now a 2009 edition (now on my Amazon wish list). Most of the models from the previous edition are still there but I see some new ones, mainly in what is now the 'tactical models' section. (The 2003 edition just has an alphabetical list of models).

Looking at the contents pages (via the 'Look Inside' feature) ones that are new entrants include Curry's pyramid, factory gate pricing, and the DuPont analysis. It would be good to think that once we've landed on the model our service innovation one would be one for inclusion in future editions of the book.

What makes models useful? Their use is to provide a consistent shorthand explanation of a complex concept, or concepts. One of the reasons we are looking for a service innovation model is because we want all to be able to talk to people from the same baseline (and have a common understanding ourselves of what we are talking about). On this point, the 2003 edition of the book notes that "The majority of the models would not stand up to a high degree of scientific scrutiny, many being simply memory aids, useful ways of ordering reality. They offer a common language when it comes to solving problems … analyzing situations, and identifying possible courses of action."

The 2009 edition adds another layer saying that "essentially they (models) are a way of communicating. … (they) bridge differences in abstraction and provide comprehensiveness. … At best they will provide a new way of seeing things a situation that will result in positive change."

What makes them wrong? Well they have a certain shelf life in my view. The McKinsey 7S model, for example, has no 's' related to external environment – a critical factor now in any organization's effective functioning. No model is right for all time

Additionally (which doesn't make them wrong in themselves) they are in a sense 'fashion items' so one year everyone is Boston Boxing like mad and the following year they are all being highly effective using Covey's seven habits – thus the wrongness lies in uncritical adoption of a model because it is visible and available.

Used appropriately and with caution models have value. Getting to the right model is hard work – if only I could find a model for developing models.

We were all asked yesterday at work to name a service innovation that stuck out for us in 2009. My favorite one is the Christmas Tree for Rent service run by Scott Martin, in Los Angeles. I noticed it in the NY Times at the beginning of December 2009, and particularly liked the idea that people could have a tree but in a sustainable way – they can return it, alive, to the nursery after the season.

It sprang to mind again today as I walked to work past at least ten Christmas trees lying abandoned on the sidewalk, looking desolate with the hacked off bit at the bottom and shreds of tinselly stuff on the branches. How long they'll be there is anyone's guess.

I've never liked the idea of having a Christmas tree, and since leaving home when I was 18 I haven't had one. I don't mind seeing them outside in public spaces but having thousands of them in houses, covering them in expensive stuff and then throwing them onto the sidewalk (or preferably disposing of them correctly) after a week or so seems the ultimate in throwaway consumerism.

But given that most of the householders in the consumerized western world – or at least the UK and US – seem to think a temporary decorated tree in their living room is a lovely idea the rent a living one seems a reasonable option.

Not only is the idea of sustainable Christmas trees great, the service innovation bit is that he delivers and collects them (in trucks run on bio-diesel). Additionally, the trees are cared for by adults with disabilities; the drivers will pick up donations for Goodwill and used wrapping paper for recycling; and the Web site also sells eco-friendly, fair-trade ornaments.

At the end of the three weeks (that the tree can safely sit in houses watching people do Christmassy things). "The tree is … picked up to join its evergreen cousins; they will summer together on industrial properties where Mr. Martin rents space for pennies on the dollar to house his inventory. People who want the same tree next year ask for it to be tagged with their name, so it might return next December, taller".

In the spirit of New Year resolutions and getting myself organized for 2010, I remembered that I have a book that set the foundation for much of how I organize my life now. It's called Quality is Personal and is an excellent manual for applying total quality management approaches to one's own life. Based on the concepts of continuous improvement and centered around checklists the book is a mine of useful ideas on how to keep yourself focused and improving.

My own checklists have evolved over the years in line with interests, workload, and so on – and now are very different from the ones I first set up in 1995. (I was able to look at the first ones as I still have them on my computer which was fun as it brought back the various preoccupations and interests I had then).

One of the tenets of the book is the adaptation and application of Deming's 14 principles into personal life. So, for example, principle 13 "Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement" is obviously relevant to an individual. What a 'vigorous program' looks like I am not sure – it sounds physical rather than mental – but in my case I have on my current checklist 'learn something about China each day' – because I am visiting China later this year for the first time. The book I started on (on January 1 obviously!) is the Little Red Book of China Business which already has taught me more than I previously knew. It opens with a short introduction to Chairman Mao stressing the point that "If you are going to begin understanding the China of today – and tomorrow – you had best start with Mao Zedong".

Going back to the checklists. I recently watched a documentary film (movie) on Charles A. Lindbergh the first man to fly across the Atlantic (New York to Paris in The Spirit of St. Louis May 21, 1927). He was a fanatical keeper of checklists – providing a prototype for the pilot checklist in use today. His success seems to suggest that the checklist approach to life could well be a good formula to follow – but in line with organization design principles keeping it flexible rather than a rigid adherence to.