Five Working Principles of Creation Companies

Barry Mapp — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:28:37 +0000

Five Working Principles of the Creation CompanyThe first three principles mentioned in Tom McGehee’s book Whoosh are:1) a leadership style free from command-and-control principles2) a corporate culture that values individual expression and collaborative work3) An understanding that success means creating the new not replicating the oldThe two additional principles of those Creation Companies that will survive for the Long-term is that they learn to:4) Inoculate themselves from the seven deadly diseases of management which are endemic “diseases” in ‘Compliance Companies’.5) Apply the principles of “New Psychology” and “New Science” to “how we do things around here”. This includes continually applying new knowledge (as it is acquired) about the brain, the human spirit, learning, and human potential etcLet’s look at these last two principles in more detailFirst, the seven deadly diseases of management? (as outlined by W Edwards Deming)

There is a Lack of constancy of purpose.
There is an Emphasis on short-term profits.
There is Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance.
There is Mobility of management (resulting in high staff turnover)
There is Running a company on visible figures alone.
There is Excessive medical costs (this point is related more to the American Market, but we could reframe this as the cost high costs that companies bare of early retirements and redunduncies)
There are Excessive costs of warranty and Litigation, fuelled by lawyers who work for contingency fees.

There are these Lesser Category of Obstacles also mentioned by Deming:

Neglect of long-range planning.
Relying on technology to solve problems.
Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions.
Excuses such as “Our problems are different”.

Here are three different perspectives on these seven deadly diseases:

Coming next: The final principle of Creation Companies: Applying “New Psychology” and “New Science” to the Business

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On Creating Creation Companies -an overview

Barry Mapp — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:22:23 +0000

Creating Creation Companies(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”)Let’s take a preliminary look at the differences between a “Compliance Company” and a “Creation Company”. These are terms that I like, that were first penned by Tom McGehee in his book Whoosh. Today a key business challenge is to recognise and realise the full potential of each organisation. However when we continue to lead and manage our organisations in the same way as we have always done, we are going to get what we have always got. The call to lead and manage in a totally different way – to transform “western management”- was first issued by W.Edwards Deming. Many have cherry-picked from Deming’s ideas but few have attempted to transform management along the lines that he proposed. Most organisations continue to be run in “the old ways” based on “old psychology”,“old science” and “old management” principles (each of these terms will be explored more fully in later blogs). As Russell Ackoff pointed out a few years ago, most business schools are part of the problem because they still teach “old way” approaches. However more and more iconoclasts of our era, from different fields and domains, are backing the need to transform management thinking. Tom McGehee is one of many calling for a change in our thinking. He calls the transformed organisation a “Creation Company” and the old-style organisation a “Compliance Company” – terms that I will use also. Compliance Companies, whether they realise this or not, erect barriers to change and innovation by insisting on control of (1)information, (2)resources and (3)decision making, in order to preserve the status quo. In such companies (which remain the vast majority) people have never been trusted to supervise themselves and inspect their own work. People are never able to do their best efforts because the management systems get in the way.Coming Next: So what makes a “Creation Company”?

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Five Working Principles of Creation Companies

On Creating Creation Companies -an overview