A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 9.3.5.A

Back to this JSB-JH3 approach, the one that hinges on the pursuit of edge opportunities: Should UCP have a closer look?

"Yes," if it:

• is interested in getting better faster 

• is turned on by the prospect of capturing "market opportunities that are appearing more rapidly than ever and that present large upside potential." (Note: Disruptive technologies -- social media, cloud computing, mobility, big data analytics, etc. -- figure prominently in the authors' formula but said opportunities aren't for technocentric industries alone; they're open to organizations of all kinds.) 

• has challenges to overcome. 

To the last point, this new approach is 's-much-as-anything an antidote to poor performance. It's for counteracting the effects of "The Big Shift," which is tied to globalization and rapid advancements in technology, and which has "dramatically intensified competitive pressures on firms over decades." More specifically, it's for organizations whose tried and true solutions ain't cuttin' it. It's for organizations whose core processes are in need of transformation.

Is UCP feeling performance pressures?

I don't have a lot to go by. My impression, however, is that UCP *is* being exposed to performance pressures. From UCP-National we have the President and CEO telling us the economics of providing services for disabled children are "difficult." At the affiliate level, I know (this is my lone example) that UCP of Central Ohio merged a few years ago with Goodwill Columbus  in order to lower operating costs -- which it had to do because it was unable "to raise the money it needed to thrive." 

These may be signs that performance improvement is imperative and not just something that'd be nice to achieve. I keep hearing about steady declines in government support. Are these actual, or threatened? At which levels of government? As for the effects of globalization and technology advances, I wonder: is UCP is seeing second order effects like service life-cycle compression and /or donors becoming more fickle in their giving patterns?

Obviously, I need to continue to learn about the nature of UCP's challenges. In the meantime, though, I'll proceed from the glass-half-full perspective that says new opportunities are springing up faster than ever. In my opinion, UCP should be open to any evidence that may exist to the effect that it could do better by making changes. It should be open to new opportunities and to looking, if need be, in new places for them.

Like edges. 

More about those, next.

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 11.3.A.1.A

Who are we? What are we?

David Hurst's questions above are questions I've been asking indirectly since the beginning of this series. That should make trying to answer 'em here-and-now easier (I'll be able to reference my earlier posts) but -- they're more complicated than they look. They're abstruse. And there's no real easy way around it.

Note: It'd be hard to separate "who" UCP is from "what" it is, so I'll be lumping and addressing the two together.

United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) is an international nonprofit charitable organization...

And a whole lot more.

Of my twenty-eight posts to date, "A Tale...4.0" (dealing with UCP's mission, values,  and vision statements) is the only one that directly explores who and what UCP is. Otherwise, my focus has been mostly on the organization's digital forays -- to the exclusion of all kinds of things, including "biggies" like these below that have to be a part of any serious who-and-what discussion:

BASIC STUFF

UCP is a large, complex, organization that has operating expenses, pays rent, hosts events, owns properties, invests, hires and fires, and answers to a Board of Trustees. It's hungry for resources. Its reach exceeds its grasp. It depends to an unknown-by-me extent on government funding...

THE AFFILIATE NETWORK DESERVES MORE OF MY ATTENTION

From the '10-'11 Annual Report: "The mission of United Cerebral Palsy is to advance the independence, productivity and full citizenship of people with disabilities through an affiliate network." From somewhere else: "The UCP national office in Washington, DC supports the affiliate network."

Does this mean that supporting its affiliate network is National's job number one? Maybe. But I'm not sure. In fact, I don't know how to even try to make sense of the relationship. I just have questions:

• There are individual orgs in the affiliate network with relatively small budgets (as little as $125,000) and others with much larger (up to $100 million) budgets. Do they receive equal attention from National? To what extent do the affiliates depend on it? 

• Are the affiliates getting their monies' worth in for their dues? 

• How's the communication and idea-sharing quality between the affiliates and National? What about between affiliates? 

• In what ways is National driving the bus and leading the charge? Who's pushing hardest to realize the Life Without Limits vision?

TOP MANAGEMENT

Usually the relationships among top managers provide a "line of sight" into the mood or climate of an organization. I don't know much about those things, on either the national or the affiliate level. My only observation? It looks like there's been some slight senior-staff turnover at National in the past three-or-so years, whereas, it's my impression is that there are a lot of affiliate Executive Directors who've been at their jobs for quite a while, dating back even to the '60s.

And as for how UCP's top managers actually go about their work, I haven't many clues. Are they able to make and keep commitments? What are their biases? How do they arrive at decisions? Do they have the right skills for their particular times and places? Are they coasting in their jobs? Inquiring minds want to know.

You'd have to be more "in their midst" than I am to be able to answer those last questions thoughtfully. Otherwise, all you're left to work with is what's been PR-filtered, i.e., what the organization's decided to say about itself after it's had a chance to deliberate* -- which is only part of the story. The inside scoop is needed, too. The one that hasn't been smoothed over for prime time.

Why is it important to get to the bottom of all o' this in the first place?

The philosopher Daniel Dennett wrote that "Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control and self-definition is telling stories, and, more particularly, concocting and controlling the story we tell others -- and ourselves -- about who we are." This applies to organizations, too, for the same purposes.

Thus, an organization's narrative center of gravity is super-significant. It provides clues to all who come in contact with it: how they should make sense of who they are; what their role is; and how they should behave. Making meaning / writing that narrative, in Mr. Hurst's opinion, is "the primary role of leadership." 

*  *  *  *  *

I started out knowing next to nothing about UCP and I know next to nothing about it today. I'm surprised every time I snoop around online. I didn't know 'til recently, for example, that between '08-'10 there was a lot of intraorganizational blogging going on. That tells me a little about who UCP is (an organization that tried that experiment, i.e., that has that experience under its belt) -- and a lot about what UCP knows and what it can do.

That's the topic of the next section.

*David Hurst calls them "thin, text-based communications," communications that have been de-contextualized.

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 9.3.4

Here's where things get interesting, where we start to try to apply The Power of Pull's "new approach to value creation" to the actual, real-world workings of UCP. 

"When we serve people with disabilities and their families, the economics of it are very difficult. We know that here in the United States we've been experiencing an economic downturn. It creates very difficult challenges for us and our service wing, and for the programs that we provide." 

Stephen Bennett, UCP CEO & President*

*  *  *  *  *

This (below) -- on the whole and in a nutshell -- is John Seely Brown & Co.'s advice for organizations facing "difficult challenges". I'll explain how it's derived in a sec.

In order to thrive in a post-Big Shift world, individuals and institutions should consider how they move from innovating at a product and service level (i.e., flooding the market with new, marginally improved products) to innovating at an institutional level.

Okay:

In "A Tale...9.3.2B" I pointed out how UCP repeatedly touts its own history / longevity as a selling point. When it dawned on me that it does that, I went back to The Power of Pull and unearthed this sentence: “What we knew yesterday -- either as employees or in terms of what our institution as a whole knows about its business -- is proving to be less and less helpful with the challenges and opportunities we confront today." 

"Our history" is proving to be less and less helpful today.

How much less helpful? 

So much that the need to make significant changes has become imperative for most organizations. And the real bummer? Cutting costs and developing new, marginally differentiated products and services in attempts to raise revenues probably isn't going far enough. 

We can collectively kiss business as usual goodbye.

Q1: What is going far enough? What will work? More specifically, where are the rich new sources of growth to be found?

A1: On the periphery of the organization. Resist messing with your core operations, the authors say. Seek out "edge players" instead.

Q2: Why edge players?

A2: Because they're more likely to introduce you to new insights and help you more rapidly develop -- ready for this? -- new knowledge stocks.

Q3: Aren't knowledge stocks old hat? 

A3: No, it's hoarding and fixating on them that's to be guarded against. An organization actually makes hay from its knowledge stocks. (People value the One-Stop Resource Guide, for example, and that leads them, in turn, to donate to UCP.) It’s a balancing act. "As clockspeed increases, refreshing the stocks of what we know by participating in flows of new knowledge is fundamental to performance improvement. Stocks are both a means and an end to participation in knowledge flows."

So:

Participating in flows of new knowledge on the edge is the way to go. 

Is it the way UCP should go?

Hmmm...

One thing I don't know is to what extent UCP may need to enact major change, i.e., how badly it needs to transform its mindset in order to survive and prosper in tomorrow's world. (Here I'm trying to juggle thoughts about both UCP-National and its larger affiliate network simultaneously. No doubt a ridiculous thing to try to do.) It depends on its competitive situation**. If things are still "difficult," due either to Big Shift forces of globalization and rapid advancements in digital technology OR to a down economy, then major change may be needed and JSB's answers / approach may be advisable.

That's one way of looking at things. 

Say, on the other hand, though, that the situation has eased -- that things are returning more or less to normal and it's no longer as hard as it was 2-3 years ago for UCP to serve its customers. (i.e., that it's not imperative to make major changes) If that's the case, might the authors' notion of innovating at the institutional level still be worth exploring simply because it's a better way of doing things, a better way of creating value?

'S'far as I'm concerned --
Until and unless cerebral palsy and UCP are done away with, we need to continue to look for better ways of doing things. 
Alluding to the very beginnings of this series and rephrasing this post's biggest question: 

Could innovating at the institutional level make UCP a better, more effective hope machine?

I think there's a distinct possibility that it could. So, in subsequent posts I'll keep probing:

• Why might growth opportunities for UCP be brighter on the edge(s)? What about in those areas where, unlike for-profit firms, UCP faces very little or no competition: is it better off trying to innovate around its core operations and processes? 

• If choosing to participate in flows of new knowledge on the edge seems prudent, then -- what's the prescription for doing it right? What would innovating at the institutional level look like at UCP?

In addressing those, I'll want to scrutinize some of UCP's more recent innovations: how to categorize them, how to think of them in light of the authors' advice, etc. Here I'm thinking of the World CP Challenge. I'm thinking of Mission Driven Business. I'm thinking of Life Labs. (all on the national level) And -- while I don't think it qualifies as an innovation -- the Emerging Leaders Academy is related and comes to mind, as well. I also hope to be able to address it vis-a-vis JSB.

*source: UCP Annual Report '10-'11

**I hope to be able to give more thought to UCP's competition in section 11. Notes to self: Red Treehouse competes in some ways with UCP. And, three categories of affiliate-competitors that come to mind are (1.) independent therapy clinics (2.) intermediate care facilities, and (3.) hospital comprehensive CP programs.

A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 9.3.3

KNOWLEDGE FLOWS: Interactions that (1.) create knowledge or transfer it across individuals; (2.) occur in social, fluid environments that allow firms and individuals to get better faster by working with others

So, if I read a white paper and its author's "brainstuffs" are thus mingled with mine -- am I participating in a flow of new knowledge? Does the fact that I can get back to him or her via e-mail make that a social and fluid environment?

I'm not in love with JSB & Co.'s definition because it doesn't really help me understand why knowledge flows are becoming so all-important. ( Organizations must "accelerate a shift to a very different mindset and to practices that treat knowledge flows as the central opportunity.") And, don't most of us already participate in knowledge flows? Isn't that what people do? I'm sure everyone at UCP-National, for example, is learning on the job...

What's the big deal?

Before I try and answer, I want to take a stab at identifying how and where UCP may presently be participating in flows of new knowledge.

First, two particular "social, fluid environments" o' theirs beg my attention: 

• In its role as a news provider, PE&O is right where the action is -- processing information; moving it from the newsmakers to the rest of us -- on a daily basis. (Think SmartBrief.)

• Online communities like the one found at www.mychildwithoutlimits.org are HELPING MEMBERS HELP OTHER MEMBERS by enabling knowledge transfers that support, inspire, etc.

Surely UCP is participating in knowledge flows in these cases, no?

Well, on closer inspection...

No. I'd say that knowledge is flowing but that UCP isn't really participating -- at least in the sense of trying to better itself in the process. It's acting in both cases as a middleman, facilitating the transfer of knowledge. The actual contents (of the news and online-community-exchanges) may just as well be widgets. 

Where else could we look for evidence of UCP's participation in knowledge flows? Maybe this is a cop-out, but, the fact of the matter is that it's hard to get a glimpse of them from the outside. Knowledge flows are by definition dynamic and fluid. They're happening at the edge; they've yet to be made explicit. That said --

How about Twitter, Facebook, or the like as places to look?

COME TO THINK OF IT THERE WAS A LIFE LABS BLOG POST having to do with its practice of browsing for events to attend outside of the assistive technology arena. (in search of "different perspectives on solutions for people with disabilities") This may have been a clue that Life Labs is routinely participating in knowledge flows. 

And for actual evidence that it is?

Life Labs recently announced that it's formed a partnership with the AbleGamers Foundation to co-create mobile accessible gaming stations. (link to announcement) This may someday prove to be an example of how it pays to participate in knowledge flows. From its site: "Life Labs already has a major UCP affiliate interested in several of these mobile gaming stations and is excited to be able to offer the station to the general public once a prototype is completed."

*  *  *  *  *

There's still lots of fuzziness surrounding these notions of stocks and flows. I think it might be helpful, next, to reopen JSB's PLAYBOOK for PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT IN A POST BIG-SHIFT WORLD  (a.k.a. THE POWER OF PULL) and see exactly how they figure in.