This blog was originaly published on the HuffPost blog.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Billed as \u201cThe Great Transformation\u201d, its work was cut out for itself from the moment you could register online. A conference paying homage to the brilliance of Peter Drucker has now become an annual calendar fixture not to be missed. The 6th iteration of the Global Peter Drucker Forum \u2014 recently held in Vienna, naturally \u2014 has arguably become the TED or Davos of all leadership conferences. But could we shift into an era of \u201cmanaging our way to prosperity,\u201d<\/em> as the conference sub-title suggested?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Could we achieve \u201cThe Great Transformation\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Richard Straub, the Forum\u2019s chief architect, asked a rhetorical question in his opening remarks to the Forum, \u201cHave we reached a turning point?<\/strong>\u201d The \u2018we\u2019 he referred to might have been leaders in today\u2019s organizations. I reckon you could argue it was \u2018society\u2019 in general that needed an autopsy on turning points. Either way, I sat at my seat, took another look at magnificent mural on the ceiling, and answered the question Richard posed to myself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We haven\u2019t reached a turning point.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At least not yet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We\u2019ve reached a crisis point.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Think of it as if you were a member of the G7, trying to sort out what to do about Russia, Vladimir Putin and the ongoing saga that is the Ukraine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The opening act of the conference included Clay Christensen, Gary Hamel and Roger Martin. This conference was about to get epic. What a triple-play bill of thought leaders to begin with.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The question this trio was tasked to answer was, \u201cIs management up to today\u2019s challenge?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Renown Harvard Business School professor, Clay Christensen, \u2014 he of the disruption theory and accompanying models \u2014 claimed that growth comes from innovation and the link between growth and innovation is investment. Clay suggested there are three types of innovation:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When I heard Clay gracefully and calmly explain the \u201cefficiency innovation\u201d example \u2014 using the term \u201cdo more with less\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 I immediately felt my body go into uncontrollable spasms, reminded of the far-too-frequent number of times I\u2019ve heard that soul-sucking phrase in my various workplace dealings. I always thought it was a practical joke of CFO\u2019s to wax lyrical about doing more with less.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Where I felt Clay answered the question most effectively, however, was when he launched into a finance lesson on numerators and denominators. \u201cPrior to 1980, measures of success were based on whole numbers,\u201d he remarked. \u201cFor example, dollars were used as the measurement.\u201d Now that made sense. But Clay went on to outline something I hadn\u2019t thought of before.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cFinance has now given us measures to view how successful we are with capital. These are measures of how efficiently we are using capital. They are ratios and as we know, ratios have a numerator and a denominator.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe stand on the shoulders of others,\u201d<\/strong> exclaimed another management guru Gary Hamel, as he took the stage in what can only be described as a frenetic delivery style, compared to Christensen at least. With the audience half-scared he might venture off the stage to deliver head-butts, he continued,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gary believes salvation and prosperity can be had if the goal of organizations becomes the process in which they can become a self-renewing organization. This happens by innovation which, as he stated, \u201cis the fuel for renewal.\u201d He outlined three to build a self-renewing organization:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The final opening act speaker was fellow Canadian, Roger L. Martin, Academic Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute out of the Rotman School of Business in Toronto. Truth be told, I\u2019ve always been a fan of Roger\u2019s work. He long has railed against the \u201cgame\u201d that has been played by publicly traded companies, analysts, hedge funds, pension corporations and the stock market. He, like me, yearns to bring balance to our organizations such that there may be a better sense of equilibrium between purpose and profit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n His talk, as I had hoped, delivered on multiple levels. Speaking on the \u201cStructure of Democratic Capitalist Infrastructure<\/strong>\u201d and how it has become what he calls \u201cperverted\u201d, Roger explained to a captivated audience that \u201cpatent trolls\u201d exist solely to make money and they do so by raping and pillaging companies that want to use the technology for good. You should tweet that sentence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With this inexcusable mindset in play, the infrastructure inside our organizations is set to be far too narrow, thus basing its interests on short termism type actions. As I am an opponent of maximizing shareholder value as the sole means to measure a business, Roger deftly argued (and phew, agrees with me) that this sort of deplorable corporate robbing creates stagnation, a lack of innovation, and a skewing of what the true purpose of an organization really should be.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Global Peter Drucker Forum was two hours into its journey but, with a tear in my eye, I was becoming more depressed by the second. The talks to this point were splendid but the recipe for change \u2014 the master playbook for \u201cThe Great Transformation\u201d<\/em> \u2014 seemed complex and beyond our reach. Were my expectations off kilter? Or, perhaps, I was correct in asserting we were not at a turning point, but at a continued state of crisis.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The speakers continued throughout day one. Each took a turn identifying the problem, and for some, taking a crack at a solution.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Vineet Nayer, the former CEO of HCL \u2014 a company and leader I profiled in FLAT ARMY \u2014 stated the turnaround at HCL was due, in part, to a democratization of innovation where ideas were allowed to surface from anywhere, and decisions were made across any level.\u201d He believed that an organization\u2019s competitive advantage lies in \u201cputting employees first, and customers second.\u201d I\u2019ve read the book<\/a>, so if you\u2019re looking for the \u2018how\u2019, there are some good examples you might want to investigate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Would an economist have better luck answering our question? Martin Wolf, Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times<\/em>, gave it his best shot suggesting no one individual should be allowed to own a company. \u201cNo one can own a country,\u201d Wolf further stated, \u201cso the claim that shareholders should have absolute control of the company is false.\u201d I liked where he was going. It reminded me of the work another economist \u2014 Bill Lazonick \u2014 had put forward recently on Harvard Business Review.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The real answer began to surface when he said, \u201cIf management is to use its position to benefit the company and society, it needs the best arrangement in which to do so.\u201d His answer?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe company should be seen as a semi-permanent institution and philosophically it should be set up much like a trustee relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bingo! Wolf had set the table and highlighted a possible answer to our vexing question. Perhaps Wolf was suggesting companies re-establish themselves as B-Corps, otherwise known as Benefits Corporations? I\u2019d be all for that idea.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In his usual thoughtful and cerebrally controversial way, John Hagel \u2014 Co-Chair of the Deloitte Center for the Edge \u2014 concluded day one, and claimed most companies are an unnatural bundle of three business types:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n By the end of Day One, it was clear to me many smart people have thought an awful lot about the current crisis. Each had provided a wonderful snapshot explaining \u201cwhat\u201d was wrong but I still was missing the unified \u201chow is this going to get fixed\u201d answer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Was there a unified answer out there? <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Day two saw more talks and panel discussions. There were three talks in particular that I found further defined our current crisis, that also provided a glimpse into how our organizations might be fixed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rita Gunther McGrath, a professor at Columbia Business School, delivered a delightful talk suggesting \u201cintelligent failures\u201d need to become more common in today\u2019s organizations. \u201cYou had a plan, you tested it, you knew what went wrong, you shared messages of failure, you learned from it, and you innovated again,\u201d was how Rita explained the concept. My take from Rita\u2019s talk was organizations need to be resilient and flexible \u2014 while not only being a learning organization – agreeing to gather and disseminate the tuition value from mistakes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nilofer Merchant, entrepreneur extraordinaire, took the conch and wonderfully hammered home the point that social is not a technology, it is a behaviour. (She actually stopped her talk mid-keynote and asked us to get social with someone beside us) Her point? The more people are allowed (and encouraged) to connect and collaborate, the greater payoff your organization will have downstream. I loved Nilofer\u2019s message in addition to her delivery style, something I hadn\u2019t yet experienced face-to-face. (If you haven\u2019t watched her TED Talk, please do so. It\u2019s a gem.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Herminia Ibarra, a professor from Insead, gave incredible insight into the nuances of different types of leaders. From heroic, to charismatic, to visible, to individualistic, to peacetime\/wartime, to collaborative, Herminia\u2019s examples were insightful, funny and painful for their accuracy. I\u2019ve always appreciated her work and the connections she makes between effective (and ineffective) leadership and the crisis we find ourselves in today\u2019s organizations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From the various speakers, to the attendees I spoke with, to several meaningful and deep conversations, \u2014 it was evident everyone is (for the most part) on the same page. It was fair to summarize that we may not be at a turning point but we\u2019re all acutely aware of the crisis we\u2019ve gotten ourselves into.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As Clay Christensen remarked in the closing comments to the conference,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s take the best of each other\u2019s ideas and languages, \u2014 our ways of communicating \u2014 share, focus and then standardize to make change.\u201d That\u2019s exactly what we need to do next!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dan Pontefract, author of FLAT ARMY: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization. (@dpontefract<\/a> or www.danpontefract.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n A blog following the Global Peter Drucker Forum 2014<\/a>. An opportunity to share experiences and learn from one another in the context of The Great Transformation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This blog was originaly published on the HuffPost blog. 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