How Creation Companies differ (New Science, New Thinking)

On 08.10.09, In Creating Creation Companies, Know-How, by Barry Mapp

How Creation Companies differ from Compliant Companies (New Science, New Thinking and Creation Companies)The concepts and research from the “new sciences” challenge our current thinking (theories-in-use) and challenge some sacred beliefs and ethos about how best to do good business. Creation companies (whether they realise it or not) embrace new psychology and new science ideas. [...]

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How Creation Companies differ from Compliant Companies (New Science, New Thinking and Creation Companies)The concepts and research from the “new sciences” challenge our current thinking (theories-in-use) and challenge some sacred beliefs and ethos about how best to do good business. Creation companies (whether they realise it or not) embrace new psychology and new science ideas. This thinking is in line with other iconoclast thinkers of our time such as, Russell Ackoff (Systems Thinking), Edward de Bono (Design Thinking), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Flow Thinking), and Eric Jensen (Brain-Based Thinking)Let’s look at some of the major differences between  Compliant and Creation Companies:COMPLIANT Companies tend to have the following characteristics:

  • Leadership Style that is Command and Control
  • Order maintained by Policies and Rules
  • Competitive Internal Departments leading to sub-optimisation
  • Focus on Activity and the need to work faster, and measuring the things that can be easily measured but may not be that important
  • Asking people to improve but not giving them the method or means by which to do so (carrots and sticks offered rather than a method for improvement)
  • Lack of Trust (Old Psychology suggests that people cannot be trusted -extrapolated from the 1% or less who can never be trusted)
  • A Blame (and Fear) Culture. Asking, “who went wrong”  (If things are not working, look for what the people are doing wrong and then give them a rollicking). Little opportunity to learn in a Blame Culture
  • People (particularly the leaders) confuse models with reality
  • The valued thinking is “Expert Mind”
  • Risk Avoidance
  • Black and White Thinking (shades of grey are discouraged)
Creation Companies tend to have the following charateristics:
  • Leadership Style - Freedom from Command and Control
  • Order maintained through Principles and Relationship
  • Co-operative, Whole System approach (optimising the whole)
  • Focus on outcomes and improving outcomes. Aware that most of the important things can’t actually be measured through “activity”.
  • Allowing people to improve the systems and processes by giving them the methods and resources by which to achieve the improvement
  • Built on Trust (New Psychology suggests that people can be trusted – extrapolated from the 99% who given the right conditions can always be trusted)
  • A No-Blame Culture. Asking “what went wrong”(If things are not working, find out which processes need to be changed. In a no-blame culture the business can learn from mistakes
  • People understand modelling and use many models
  • The valued  thinking is “Beginner’s Mind”
  • Opportunity seeking
  • Multiple Possibility Thinking
Summary

The focus of Compliant Companies is on “conformance”. Compliance is maintained through the rules and structures, the management mechanism is mainly command and control, there is a blame culture for mistakes. Conformance (to standards and best practice) is a cultural principle. The focus of Creation Companies differs, in that the people have guiding principles rather than rules, there is a noticeable freedom from command-and-control mechanisms, there is a no-blame culture, and there is continuing positive change and joy in the work.End Piece: And of course Creation Companies will know about and understand the factors that encourage humans to be creative. The next posts in this series look at some additional to creativity ‘Identifying and Nurturing Personal Creativity’ and ‘The Circumstances for Creativity’. The real Creation Companies are also likely to be very aware that the reward culture sabotages creativity and also the consequences of paying large bonuses to make things happen (unfortunately they make the wrong things happen and select the wrong people to best do the intended work)

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Creation Companies: Apply the principles of New Psychology to Business

On 07.30.09, In Creating Creation Companies, Non Political Party, by Barry Mapp

Applying the principles of “New Psychology” to BusinessBoth New Psychology and New Science are underlying themes in this Superblog. Let’s just take a first brief look at what we mean by the terms New Psychology and Old Psychology and next time we’ll look at “New Science”. The following is adapted from a Paper presented by [...]

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Applying the principles of “New Psychology” to BusinessBoth New Psychology and New Science are underlying themes in this Superblog. Let’s just take a first brief look at what we mean by the terms New Psychology and Old Psychology and next time we’ll look at “New Science”.

The following is adapted from a Paper presented by Barry Mapp in 1994 at the ERIK Network European Conference “Regional Successes in Creating and Connecting Companies – European Union Perspectives”

Psychology has always been important in BusinessIn Business, psychology (i.e. our understanding of, or beliefs about, human behaviour) has always been an important factor in “how we do things around here”. Psychology thus underpins the workings of both the old and new style company paradigms. The Psychology of Compliant Companies is “Old Psychology” (behaviour that is predicted primarily from studies on starving animals or unhappy or sick human beings). The Psychology that underpins successful Creation Companies is “New Psychology” where people behaviour is predicted from the studies of animals that were happy and cared for, or from research on human beings that are living happy and fulfilled lives. Note that nearly all textbook psychology is “Old Psychology” – so you won’t find much about new psychology from standard psychology books.It is interesting to note that most of our business advisory groups (like Business Link in the UK) still promote business systems based on old psychology and indeed their own organisational structures and processes are rooted in old psychology. Most Government strategy around influencing business and services is based on old psychology and even most business consultants (including those who profess to be thinking outside the box) are often using “old psychology” techniques and theories. The following table shows some of the fundamental differences between Old Psychology and New Psychology approaches.Old Psychology Principles (this includes):

  • (extensive use of) Extrinsic Motivators (Carrot and Stick)
  • People Treated like children (heavy on rules and regulations)
  • External Targets set from above (nearly all are arbitrary!)
  • Blame culture. Whose fault?  Whose head must roll?
  • Visible are many of the Seven Deadly Diseases of Management
New Psychology Principles (this includes):
  • (Mostly) Intrinsic Motivation (very reduced use of punishment or rewards, work not bonus driven)
  • People Treated like adults (owning the work principles)
  • Goal setting by the people  (seeking alignment with the leaders goals)
  • A ‘No Blame’ culture. What happened? What can we learn?
  • Cured, or nearly cured, of the Seven Deadly Diseases of Management
In many ways the Old Psychology is the Psychology of the exceptions – the study of the minority studied under unusual or poor conditions.
New Psychology is based upon understanding how the majority will behave under good conditions. So Old Psychology does hold true under stressful or fear conditions, and likewise New Psychology holds true under joyful and happy conditions.

The New Psychologies embrace ideas like those of Glasser (Choice Theory), Kelly (Constructive Alternativism) and Griffin and Tyrell (Human Givens approach). New Psychology is congruent with Kohn’s research on Co-operation and Motivation, with Dweck’s research on “Self-Theories” and with Deming’s ideas on the transformation of management. (More about each of these Psychologies in later blogs)Coming Next: New Science, New Thinking and Creation Companies

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