We shape our buildings. Thereafter they shape us.

“In the New World, simple relationships such as boss/ subordinate are often replaced by more complex ones; project leader/ specialist resource, functional head/ internal consultant. Unless we change our ability to describe these relationships, the operation of the organization becomes complicated. A route is to think about stakeholders. So, who are these stakeholders? Well, it seems as if anytime anything changes there are interested parties. Because there are two ways in which change happens, sequential (usually described as a project or programme), where one activity follows another and as a result the people experiencing the change are involved in different things from day-to-day. And simultaneous (usually described as process) where concurrent activities acting on the same piece of information, material or human need, combine to create the change. Here, although each person may be carrying out the same activities day-in-day-out, the inputs are transformed into something different.

Sequential change tends to upset stakeholders far more than simultaneous change. For this reason you will find that process stakeholders are not always immediately obvious.”

KNOW YOUR STAKEHOLDERS

“Stakeholders hold a stake because achieving the output or outcome of your process, project or programme affects them.

To work out who the stakeholders are, you need tofind at least:
· Think about all the people who you need:

as resources

to take along
· Think about all the people who your process or project output or execution:

is likely to affect directly or indirectly
· Think about all the people in the sidelines:

watching you and making judgments about the project or

process providing.”

He write the bullet points upon a flip chart as he speaks. “It is easiest to organize the names and groups as a grid or a map.” He hands out another document.

TRUST FIRST, AND THEN PLAY TIT-FOR-TAT.

“The biggest downside to working in several overlapping virtual teams is a real problem. There is not enough time to go through the traditional reference and positive vetting process you need to be sure that you are happy to be interdependent with all the people you interact with.

One of the best bits of work on co-operation and competition in nature, was carried out by a bloke called John Holland. He studied a number of complex strategies to determine which had the most impact for a player in an environment where s/he could face co-operation or competitionWaldrop M.M., Complexity, Penguin 1992. They used computer programs to explore a wide range of potential strategies. By far the winner was a very simple strategy, TIT-FOR-TAT.

They discovered that by starting each action in co-operative mode the TIT-FOR-TAT strategy incorporated the essence of carrot and stick. It was nice in the sense that it would never be aggressive first. It was "forgiving" in the sense that it would reward good behavior by co-operating the next time. And yet it was "tough" in the sense that it would punish uncooperative behavior. Moreover it was "clear" in the sense that its strategy was so simple that it was apparent to any other agent who could then respond appropriately.

For the New World, I believe that making people aware that you operate TIT-FOR-TAT always, without fail, with a vengeance, can be very effective. It encourages them to think twice about how their actions will affect you. It also allows you to win allies and extend your leadership rapidly amongst people who don’t have any particular hidden agenda.

There is nothing that new about TIT-FOR-TAT strategies. They have been played by several of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and capitalists for years (and have even been popularized in films like The Godfather about closed societies). Quite simply put, "If you play fair by me I'll play fair by you but if you cross me... "

Easy to describe, TIT-FOR-TAT is harder to apply to some stakeholders than others; for example in strong hierarchies, significant creativity is required in order to be able to effectively apply it to people far more powerful than yourself.”

SOME SUPPLIERS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SOME CUSTOMERS

“As the New World unfolds it becomes increasingly obvious that good, Old World, linear relationships are over-simplistic. Even popular philosophies, like ‘customer focus’ and ‘the customer is king’ which on first view look rational, look like common sense are wrong! The customer, our source of revenue must be key we think. But as you inspect the idea more closely, the common sense, they appear to possess, starts to evaporate. Think about it. As we have less and less time to cram in all the things required for effective operation, into the time available, it becomes more and more difficult to find and source new suppliers. In many cases the savings gained by switching suppliers can easily be outweighed by the costs of switching and often there isn’t actually the breathing space required. Also as technologies converge and diverge, betting on the right supplier to give you a competitive advantage becomes increasingly critical. The first place that this New World application of the fifth rule was seen was through arrangements like preferred supplier relationships and strategic alliances. Now, increasingly, in more and more organizations success is more and more obviously dependent on access to and support from some key suppliers. In their turn suppliers with less and less resource for chasing after new customers are asking themselves more frequently, ‘Which customers are best strategically. Which customers are thriving and will continue to demand our input and also as importantly, which customers should we offer our latest innovations to first?’

Taken from both points of view you can see why I am dissatisfied with the old slogans. Think about it. It is obvious that whilst many customers are more important to overall success than suppliers, some suppliers are more important than some customers. I challenge you to extend that thinking into the organization. Into internal customer and supplier relationships.” Finally Franck pauses.

“Do you have any examples of how this works?” quizzes the Business Benchmarker. “I mean how do you stop your suppliers ripping you off if you go soft on them?”

“A common example, of this thinking, is the practice of outsourcing by paying well and then demanding too much. This forces the customer supplier relationship towards flexibility and towards delivering outputs focused on success. The supplier is constantly forced to innovate and produce improvements for what is their best customer. The customer gains competitive advantage from the star treatment.”

He turns to a virgin chart and draws a diagram:

DELIGHT AND CHALLENGE THE PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH

“Let’s face it. You like to work with people you like, or at least respect. Stakeholders are people. Most people are human beings. Human beings are a complex species, who, in the main, thrive on complex cocktail of emotional, religious, logical, and instinctive behaviors. This makes it very hard to pin them down or to put their behavior into boxes. One thing which you can be sure of is that, some of the time, they seek happiness. They often get this ‘happiness’ through their interactions and relationships with other humans.

In a New World environment there is less and less time to build new relationships and partnerships. The emotional roller coaster that the New World creates demands that you are either emotionally resilient or you work with people who have enough of the fun and humor bit to counter the emotional lows. Because there is less and less time to form relationships and more relevantly, to maintain relationships. The memory of each meeting, each phonecall, each contact, must last much longer. It must linger more effectively. It becomes increasingly important that you delight the people you work with. On the other hand you are also aware that you, and those you work with, are under relentless pressure to improve performance. Guess what? All this means that we come to value people who challenge us in a supportive way.”

“The flip side of the coin is also heads,” he says cryptically. “You seek the same interaction from people, whether they are customer or supplier. And, you seek the same behavior from them as you offer, in delighting and challenging them. ‘Delight and challenge’ is a special case of ‘overdemand and overpay’.”

“What do you mean special case?” asks the Empowering Manager.

“How would you feel if I offered to double your pay?”

He starts to reply, “Brill...” and then he gets the message. “Got it,” he says nodding decisively.

“Yes, if you think about it for a while, you will discover that it is two ways of saying the same thing.”