What are the attributes of this village we require to bring about the quality products and services of tomorrow? From where does this village come? The crowd, I say! From our networks; current and future. In my opinion, it is possible to find and support--with the appropriate tools, incentives, practices, and resources--people willing to capably contribute to our current firms and to the firms that we need to bring about. The goal for the support organization and consulting group would be to offer the training, staffing, and project/program/product services necessary to allow the resources we have today to turn out the products we need tomorrow as fast and at as high of a quality and leading to the greatest economic value possible. The technologies we have today are mature enough to support and sustain such a group.
Today's organizations are either A) antiquated B) outdated C) unprepared or D) non-existing. Let's fix this!
Critical Components of the Consulting Organization (EfficiTrends):
- Sales & Marketing -- responsibilities are to build the network, filter associates/partners/relationships, educate and train our stakeholders and members.
- Operations & Delivery -- responsible for getting the job done as it's defined and communicating to others when things aren't going according to plan.
- Product Definition and Contracting -- responsible for strategic planning, fine-grained management of relationships, project/program/product management, and contracting.
- Product Support and Operations, Sustainability -- responsible for the ongoing "care and feeding" of completed products and services as well as the definition of new, more streamlined ways of providing those products and services at a lower cost.
- People in jobs
- Make the most out of the person's role and support them with a great staff and "back office"
- Provide personal marketing, coaching, and resume services about what they're doing, how to market their strengths, develop their weaknesses, and work toward demonstrable results and efficient engagement
- On-site staff augmentation and support services to fill gaps within client team.
- Project and program management definition and sales -- how to "stealthily" grow the scope of the consulting group's influence at the client.
- Replacement services when the individual isn't the best fit
- "Graceful exit" services when the client or engagement should not be the focus of the consulting organization
- Leads, hiring managers, entrepreneurs
- Assist in the definition of programs and offerings
- Put consultants and partners in place
- Seek to define measurable results and a consistent, visible practice, and knowledge base
- Partner via Master Service Agreement (MSA), Joint Venture (JV), etc.
4 comments:
Eric: I like. I can picture organizations crystalizing out of "crowds" around concepts.
Here are a couple of questions about mechanics this image allowed me to wonder about.
What mechanisms can the crowd--our crowds--use to help us identify who to hire, work for, or partner with?
In an ideal system, for those people in our crowd who we respect, but who aren't achieving skills such that we want to hire / work for/ partner with them right now, how should we give them feedback that helps them refocus or improve (besides simply not organizing with them)?
@Bruce: I think we need to define a standard language for classifying the skills, projects, people, and topics on which people are working. In this context, it would be us--the people--who are also the services. By defining OURSELVES as (complex, multi-facetted) service-collections and resources, people would be able to augment and schedule our time and apply it to the projects and programs that are important.
As for who to hire, work for, or partner with, the more information and evidence we have about a person's history, strenghts, and weaknesses, we'd be able to match them with appropriate work opportunities or identify training opportunities and needs.
I think there'd also have to be a place for "favoritism" in the system where we allow "authorities" to hire someone if they want. I think we need to allow for nepitism and the other somewhat less favorable conditions of our current system.
As for your question regarding feedback to people, I think we could "flag them for follow up" so we are a follower of them and a stakeholder and/or demander of their services. We could suggest to them readings, articles, jobs, etc. that redirect their attention toward a direction that we seek and for which there could be more "economic value".
From your response to my comment I can envision giving people concrete ideas about how they could work with us or our group if they could deliver x, y and Z.... It becomes a sort of a welcoming, subtle gap-analysis conversation, and should go over well for a wide range of personalities and degrees of self-awareness or unawareness.
Hey Eric,
The uprising is underway. People are generating new communities through electronic media, global businesses, and wall-less sanctuaries. They have hope and aspirations for a collaborative, cooperative, compassionate, and creative world. They are also tired of the predatory economics and politics that are producing immense suffering and destroying our planet.
As with the implementation of any vision, the primary issue is one of gathering those of like mind and in that gathering an unfolding synergy of thought and feeling that leads to action. Gathering occurs in the most unlikely ways, often unforeseen, as if a system larger than us was orchestrating the gathering. I am not talking about anything supernatural but about forces we don’t yet understand like red blood cells, if they had consciousness, would not comprehend how they are part of a system called the body.
The key, as you well analyze, is reaching out. We are always reaching out like a blind person not knowing what we will touch. But, it takes courage. We have a tendency to think we are all alone in our conundrums; but none of us are that unique. When we don’t reach out, however, we deprive others of our uniqueness.
I would like to see a gathering of equals who can recognize and respect each other’s unique abilities and insights, knowing when to follow and knowing when to lead, when to enter and when to exit. About a lot of things I am an idiot and need the advice and guidance of others. So, at times I follow, at other times I lead, and sometimes I walk with others side by side into the unknown. Like almost everyone I am acquainted with, I am not very good at knowing optimally when to enter or exit. Those insights appear to be both intuitive and random.
We can discern how we complement each other and how to attain more complex plateaus of development, when we acknowledge both our inadequacies and strengths to those who respect us. In this kind of gathering, the products and processes of business and nonbusiness have a much better chance of materializing to the benefit of all.
The keys to any business are the nonbusiness settings that envelop our lives. In this sense, the question—business or pleasure?—is a false dichotomy. Business and pleasure are always intertwined, though in ways we often don’t perceive. More accurately the question would be: What kind of business and what kind of pleasure?
Steven Robert Kubacki, PhD
Author of Ending the Delusions of Certainty
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