It will be rebuilt.
It’s a disaster, but it’s also an opportunity to create a story worth remembering about community, craftmanship and caring. One more layer in this palimpsest of Parisian, French and human culture.
If only we felt the same for every building that burns.
One of the challenges in any business, particularly one with a written score, is how to share best practice.
People will continually find better ways to do things and new things to do. And as long as they are congruent with the promise we make, that’s exactly what we want.
But at the same time this is a kind of entropy – a gradual divergence from the original score for the ‘way we do things round here’ that eventually leads to a completely different piece being played – and an irrelevant score.
Not having a score at all doesn’t resolve this issue – it just makes it invisible. On the other hand, updating the score can end up as one of those jobs nobody has time or inclination to do.
How to overcome this challenge?
I think one answer at least might be regular group practice, where everyone gets together and plays out improvements they want to share – backed up by evidence of improved performance.
A ‘scribe’ takes notes and incorporates agreed improvements into the existing score – perhaps based on a vote, or even as alternative options.
Group practice reminds us that we are custodians of a Promise, collaborating to produce an experience that embodies that Promise for our audience – an experience built on the efforts of those who’ve gone before us, enhanced by those we work with, and most importantly, to be carried on by those who come after.
That sounds like a culture doesn’t it?
It’s hard to imagine a more old-fashioned business than shipping goods around the world under sail, yet that’s exactly what’s beginning to flourish right now, thanks to 21st century technology.
The internet, and some clever (open source) platform software connects a global community of producers, consumers and small ports with merchants like New Dawn Traders, enabling sailing ship enthusiasts to voyage ‘for real’, carrying profitable cargo as well as people who’ve bought into the experience; bringing the theatre of a ship coming in to small ports – turning ‘online shopping’ into a community event.
What’s more, these cargos may travel under sail, but the ships use the latest navigational and forecasting technology to stay on course, and avoid being taken by surprise by the weather.
What’s fascinating is what doesn’t get automated. Hauling ropes, for example is done old-school, by hand, by the crew.
“You can get motorised winches, that would do all this at the touch of a button,” Alex Geldenhuys of New Dawn Traders tells me, “but doing it by hand and voice is great exercise, fantastic team-building and very good for morale. Why would you want to get rid of that?”
For this group of people, automation isn’t the end game, it’s the means to a completely new game, that creates space for the very best of what it means to be human – curiosity, connection, community, and care for the planet.
That’s a future I’d like to see more of.
In his E-myth books, Michael Gerber identifies three key roles in a business: the entrepreneur, who drives the vision for the business; the technician, who does the work, and the manager who acts as a bridge between them, planning and organising the work of technicians to achieve the entrepreneur’s vision.
If the vision is shared by everyone, do you then need managers?
I don’t think so, but you do still need management – a way for the technicians to know what they have to do, and how well they are achieving the vision, so they can work out for themselves how best to move forwards.
This is great news for small business owners, because I’ve only ever met one person who wanted to be a manager.
If the vision is explicit and shared, and technicians manage themselves, do you then need an entrepreneur?
No, but you do need entrepreneurship – a way for technicians to see new ways to deliver the vision profitably.
So, if you can push both management and entrepreneurship down to the people who actually do the work, what happens to the entrepreneurs who founded it?
Their baby will have grown up, to be independent, autonomous with their original vision still in its DNA.
They get to choose what they do next.
“A map of the world that does not include Utopia in it is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a fairer country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.”
I don’t think we appreciate Oscar’s genius nearly as much is it deserves.
This is my 100th blog. Thank you.
It’s often said that Culture eats Strategy for breakfast. That’s true. But what’s the strategy for maintaining Culture?
Here’s mine:
The autonomous enterprise doesn’t need a ruler, but it does need rules.
It takes effort to be consistent, to make sure that what we do is congruent with what we say; to treat everyone we deal with in the same way; to stick to our principles when nobody is looking, when maybe nobody even cares.
It’s worth it because that’s how we stay in harmony with ourselves, and beause its also how we attract the like minds who will help us make more of an impact.
People like us do things like this.
Thank you.
The power of DNA is that it allows for more than simply copying.
If it’s DNA is embedded deeply enough, a business can embody the values and vision of its founders, yet still evolve to meet the demands and opportunities of its current environment.
And that means it can become a legacy that delivers value for generations.
“If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity? “
(Shakespeare, Sonnet V1)
Some things we used to do for free, without the need for a middle-person:
Talk to each other on the way home from school
Eat dinner together
Drink water
Pay for stuff
Enjoy a view of the Thames from the Festival Hall
Hail a cab
Go on a date
In some cases a middle-person can add tremendous value – mediating a dispute instead of going to court for example.
All too often though, that new thing we’re all dying to try is just a mechanism for taking a cut of the value others have created.
Getting rid of the middle-man. It sounds great.
Except it doesn’t happen that way. What actually happens is that dozens, hundreds or even thousands of middle-people are replaced by a single ‘middle-platform’.
In other words, with what is hoped will become a monopoly. The only place to buy.
And if you achieve monopoly or near-monopoly, you will also eventually achieve monopsony or near-monopsony, the only place to sell to.
That’s every investor’s dream. I’m not sure it should be the consumer’s.
The most benevolent dictator is still a dictator.