Writing LESS!

The LESS! book cover and the first four chapters.

The LESS! book is close to completion. All chapters are in, I have edited more than two thirds of the book. This has been my most enjoyable writing project in a very long time. Writing a book always requires a lot of hard work, but it is also incredibly fun. If you work with great people, which I do, the fun factor goes up...way, way, up!

I have wanted to write a collaborative management book for a couple of years now, but when I got the opportunity, I was not the first to recognize it. Katherine Kirk did!

Katherine and I were both speakers at the LESS 2011 management conference. The conference was a blast. Lots of great speakers: smart, experienced, deep thinkers, and very good at presenting their ideas. I decided to take the opportunity to interview a few of them for a book project that had been on the back burner for a year. I hadn't written much for awhile, and I was really itching to write and publish a new book.

Katherine made a great presentation, so I asked her if I could interview her for a book. She said yes, so we got together, and I got a very interesting interview. One of my questions was "what topic would you really like to see a management book on?" "This conference," Katherine said.

I just sat there for a few seconds. This was just too good an opportunity to miss. Katherine was right. A book written by the conference speakers was a fantastic idea. I mothballed the book I interviewed Katherine for (Sorry, Katherine!), and asked her if it was OK if I took her idea to the conference organizers. She was fine with it, so I contacted Vasco Duarte. He liked the idea too, so I got a list of speaker email addresses, and we were off.

The LESS! project works like this:

Each writer contributes a chapter. Writers are encouraged, but not required, to edit each other's chapters. We have set up a LESS Author group on LinkedIn to make it easy to discuss the book among all authors. I do the final edit, help with graphics, I do the book layout and the cover.

We decided early on that profits from the book should go to a good cause. Some details left to finagle there. I'll tell you more about that when everything has been set up properly.

So, not only were people willing to take on a large amount of work, they were all willing to give the profits away. Oh, and they have all put up with my rough-and-tumble approach to editing. I have been most fortunate to work with such a hardy bunch of management piooneers.

Writing and editing LESS! has been, and still is, a great adventure by its own right. I learn a lot, about management, about writing, editing, layout, cover design, and about collaboration. I work with great people. I also learn a thing or two that will be useful in the future. I'll let you in on what they are, in the near future. You will not be disappointed.

Now, it's back to editing LESS! for me. See you soon.

iBook Author – Apple Changes the Game Again!

The latest game changer from Apple is a bit sneaky. Apple recently launched iBooks Author, an eBook authoring tool. There were ads in the App Store of course, but overall, not much fanfare. Nevertheless, iBook Author is an important move. Amazon needs to watch out, or Apple will grab a sizable chunk of the eBook market.

Why is iBooks author important? iBooks Author puts Apple in direct contact with authors, bypassing a traditional obstacle to publishing, publishing companies.

A traditional publishing flow looks like this:

Apple cuts out the people in the middle, like this:

Publishing becomes easier, faster and cheaper than before. By itself, this would not be a decisive advantage. Amazon has 90% of the eBook market, and they aim to keep it.

However, Apple has another little innovation up its sleeve: the iBooks Author workflow. It looks like this:

An author can work directly in iBooks Author, write an eBook, integrating text, video, audio, presentations, even 3D objects, and publish a finished book by clicking a button. This is quite different from the publishing process most book publishers use. It is both faster and cheaper.

Perhaps most important: the quality of the eBook itself is a lot better than most of the competition. At Amazon, eBooks are usually converted from print editions. At the iBook Store, an increasing number of eBooks will be designed to be eBooks from the start. This will make a big difference.

iBooks Author is free, so the economic barrier to publishing high quality eBooks just disappeared. (The economic barrier to publishing really awful eBooks also disappeared. Too early to tell how that will work out.)

Right now, compared to Amazon the iBook Store is a bit thin on books, but that only makes it easier for an iBook author to get noticed, and thus makes it easier to sell. Mainstream authors may not have much of an advantage, but niche authors will. Dominating a niche is the key to building mainstream sales.

For about a year or two, authors writing for the iBook market have an excellent opportunity to break into literary niches and grow their readership.

Whether the iBook Store will grab a sizable portion of the eBook market or not is by no means certain, but Apple is certainly making a credible attempt. Instead of slugging it out toe-to-toe with Amazon, they strike at the weak spots in the production chain.

It is by no means certain Apple's strategy will succeed in the end, but as a writer, I am tempted to test the waters with an ibook or two.

Viva la Pasta! - Spaghetti Management

Bo Hagström is a well known chef, and hosts Sun Food (Swedish: Solens Mat), a Swedish TV show. I met Bo when he signed books in a bookstore. His latest book, Viva la Pasta! is about, you guessed it, pasta!

Bo is on a mission: He wants to teach Swedes about pasta. As it turned out, with good reason. I got a short but interesting lesson.

Bo handed me two strands of pasta and asked me to feel them. One strand was very straight, and felt completely smooth. The other strand was different, slightly crooked. The surface felt slightly rough.

The straight, smooth strand is bad pasta, Bo told me. It is low on nutrients. It does not taste very good either. Because of the smooth surface, it does not absorb flavors from other ingredients.

The slightly crooked strand with the rough surface is great pasta. Much more nutritious. Because it is porous, it can absorb flavors from sauce and other ingredients.


The two kinds of pasta cost the same in the store. The bad pasta outsells the good pasta many times over. Pasta buyers lack the knowledge they need to distinguish between good and bad pasta.

"The cost isn't important," Bo said. "What is important, is the value you get."

I couldn't help laughing, because I realized it's exactly the same thing in my job. In your line of work to, I'm sure.

Imagine that you are a pasta-consultant. You want to teach manufacturers how to make really good pasta, and buyers how to choose the best kind. How would you do it? How would you convince manufacturers to make better pasta when the consumers don't know the difference between good and bad? When the consumers have never tasted good pasta, don't even know there is good pasta.

We can distinguish good from bad only when we have different things to compare with each other. With pasta, you can taste and feel the difference. And, it is no big deal if you buy a package of some brand you haven't tried before, and discover you don't like it.

It is much more difficult to try something new if it is expensive, if the stakes are high, and if it is difficult to assess the result. Picking the right ideas about leadership, management, and process design would fall into that category.

What I learned from Bo, besides choosing pasta, was this: I need to show potential customers something simple, like two strands of spaghetti. It must be something that can be felt, so the difference can be experienced.

Something to think about.

Of course I bought a copy of Bo's book. Pasta experiments await!

Oh, there is one thing more:

Suppose you have a pasta factory, and you want to make the very best pasta. For this, of course, you must have the very best process, so you start a Six Sigma program.

Will that Six Sigma program give you straight, smooth pasta, or crooked, rough to the touch pasta?

Beyond Budgeting - Fixing the Budget Mess

The audience at LESS 2011 conference was fantastic. Interested, educated, bright, and enthusiastic. Great people to meet and speak with.

The chief cause of problems is solutions.
–Eric Sevareid

At the LESS 2011 conference an entire track was dedicated to solving the problems caused by the annual budgeting systems most organizations use.

Yes, caused! We have used annual budgeting for a long time. This means annual budgeting was created to solve problems in a world quite different from ours: The world moved slower, in more predictable cycles.

Today, the world changes very quickly, and is a lot more unpredictable. This is not a bad thing per se. You can turn it to your advantage (which is what I talked about at the conference), but doing that while hanging on to an antiquated economic model is very difficult, to say the least.

Does this sound familiar:

• "Great idea, but we can't do it right now. Let's wait for next year's budget." The great idea will be delayed, which means your company will lose the money it could have earned during that delay. Even worse, delaying implementation means someone else may get there first, and take your market away. Or, the great idea may simply be forgotten. The employee who had the idea may get tired of waiting and move on to another company, or start up a business of her own.
• "To ensure that we get the budget we need next year, we need to spend the money we have budgeted this year." Utter insanity from the point-of-view of the whole organization. And yet it makes sense from the point-of-view of a department or a project.
• "Unfortunately cross-the-board budget cuts forced us to close down X. Without X, so much revenue was lost that we had to cut Y. We lost the company in the end, but there was really nothing else we could do." To put it very frankly: Bull! Truly hopeless situations are rare. Most of the time, the real problem is that the way we solve problems isn't very good. At the LESS conference, I demonstrated a Chinese problem solving method with the cut-the-budget method common here, and showed how the Chinese method can generate solutions simply not available to a person with a focus on the budget. (We also used the Chinese method, very informally, at a breakfast meeting to generate some nifty strategic moves for next year's LESS conference. That was fun!)

There are of course upsides to budgeting, primarily the feeling that you are in control. If you control the numbers, you control the organization, right?

No, you do not! Controlling the numbers is actually a very weak form of control. Look at this model of leverage points you can use to lead an organization (or change any system):

The picture shows Donella Meadows model for changing organizations and other systems. This model has been used for many years now. Unlike budgeting systems, it has stood the test of time.

Note that setting constants, parameters, and numbers, and setting buffer sizes, are the two weakest forms of controlling a system. In other words, relying on making a prognosis and setting a budget is like bringing a couple of knives to a gunfight. Moving Beyond Budgeting frees you to use more powerful means to lead the organization.

The weakness inherent in how most organizations are managed and lead shows up in the statistics. I find this little piece of information more than a little worrying:

The slide above is from my own presentation at LESS 2011: In 1937, an S&P Fortune 500 company had a life expectancy of 75 years. Today, the life expectancy is 15 years, and still dropping.

If you just sit and wait, you will join the growing casualty list. Moving from a budget based system to a more flexible Beyond budgeting system is not the only thing you will have to do, but it is an essential part of it.

When you do that, you will suddenly be able to deal with many other problems concerning organization, employee motivation (, and your own motivation, I might add. You'll be a lot happier.), strategy, customer satisfaction, profitability, innovation,... the pieces will begin to fit. This immensely increases your chances to survive and thrive.

They are moving Beyond Budgeting right now!

Many organizations have moved beyond budgeting, or are doing it right now.

Bjarte Bogsnes, a keynote speaker at LESS 2011, is heading the Beyond Budgeting project at Statoil. He has also implemented Beyond Budgeting at Borealis. In his presentation he mentioned more than thirty companies using or currently moving to Beyond budgeting. These companies include:

• Statoil
• Borealis
• Handelsbanken (a very successful Swedish bank)
• Google
• Telenor
• COOP
• Arla
• Southwest Airlines
• Gore & Associates (makers of Gore-TEX)
• Kongsberg Automotive
• American Express
• Sparebank
• Jernia
• Ahlsell

...and the list goes on.

You too can move Beyond budgeting!

Leaders in these companies are facing reality, and have determined to break the bad habit of budgeting. After all, budgeting is not a necessity. There are proven alternatives. Budgeting is a bad habit, like smoking. Changing bad habits is difficult, but it can be done. Survivors do it all the time.

The first step: Find out more!

Start by finding out a bit more about Beyond Budgeting:

Beyond Budgeting Round Table is a web site dedicated to Beyond Budgeting. There you will find more information, and links to books.

Implementing Beyond Budgeting (link to Kindle edition) by Bjarte Bogsnes is a very good book on Beyond Budgeting. Bjarte heads the Beyond Budgeting project at Statoil. He also implemented Beyond Budgeting at Borealis.

Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Free from the Annual Performance Trap (link to Kindle Edition), by Jeremy Hope and Robin Fraser is also a good book.

Survival – The Reason I am going to LESS 2011

There are plenty of good reasons to go to the LESS 2011 management conference. Most of them have to do with fun–not clowning around fun (which has its merits)–but with the doing-meaningful-work and living a life of purpose kind of fun.

However, there is another reason: Survival!

According to John Hagell III, in 1937 the average life expectancy of a Standards & Poor Fortune 500 company was 75 years. Today, it is about 15 years. Let's be a little bit simplistic about this, and draw a straight line between the two data points. Then let's be a bit adventurous, and extrapolate into the future.

If this simple projection holds, by 2030, there won't be any S&P Fortune 500 companies.

I am sure you can see the flaws in this simple model as well as I can:

• There are only two data points. It is very easy to draw the wrong conclusions when using to few data points. (Though many companies are perfectly happy to use a single data point, which enables them to interpret it anyway they want. But I digress.)
• The model is linear. Reality is rarely linear.
• It'll never happen because something else will happen that changes the game.

All true. Nevertheless, this simple projection does indicate that we are heading for some serious change, one way or another.

The change may be good or bad, but it will happen. Shift happens!

If you are in the water, and a great wave comes along, two things can happen: You are crushed by it, or you surf on it.

Which would you rather do?

I am going to LESS 2011 to meet with a gang of surfers, to talk about surfing the waves of change, and to have a blast while doing it.

If you want to be a surfer to, join in at LESS 2011. If you can't be there, why not check out the people speaking there, and ask a couple of them to visit you and share what they know. About surfing the wave of change. About survival. About having fun and meaningful work.

See you there!

Tim Morrison at the Halmstad City Library

Tim Morrison at the Halmstad City Library

Tim Morrison played at the Halmstad City Library tonight. I had been sitting there working, most of the day. Luckily, I decided to stay a bit later than usual.

I have no idea how to write about music, so I won't. Instead, I'll suggest you check out Tim's band, The Manglers. You'll find some sample songs at The Mangler MySpace page.

Tim and I talked a bit after the gig. I bought a CD, which I am listening to as I write this. When Tim talked about writing lyrics, I recognized what I experience when writing a book or working on a presentation. It never ceases to amaze me how things that are very different on the surface, can be very similar on a deeper level.

Some people can't help horsing around...

As you can see above, there were other things happening at the event. In all, a very enjoyable evening.

The Gothenburg Book Fair (A brief guide to mingling, Part 2)

This post continues the networking story from A brief guide to mingling. I strongly recommend you read that post first, because in it, I describe why I network. Having that perspective is important. If you read  A brief guide to mingling, I think you will agree.

I went to the Gothenburg Book Fair today. The book fair is a yearly event. I go to look for interesting books, and to meet interesting people. Let's dive right in and see what happened:

Erik Lundh, a friend of mine, and I had agreed beforehand to meet at the fair. Anna Sigvardsson, the photographer I met at the mingle last week and I had also decided to meet and have a cup of coffee at the fair.

When I arrived, I had plenty of time before meeting either Erik or Anna, so I did what everyone else at the fair does: I went looking for anything interesting that might catch my eye.

Kersti Ingeborn works at the Mediapool's School Library Service

Pretty soon I found myself talking to Kersti Ingeborn at the Mediapool  School Library Service. We found we had some interests in common. In addition to working at the School Library Service, Kersti is also engaged in health care. After talking briefly, I promised to email her a link to this blog post, and moved on.

Stefan Olsson at Universe Imagine is an author, so we did what authors do when they meet: We swapped books.

One of the nice thing with the book fair is that it is an opportunity for me, as a writer, to meet and speak with other writers. Thus, when I saw Stefan Olsson at Universe Imagine, I went over and talked to him.

Stefan and I swapped writing and publishing experiences for a couple of minutes. Then Stefan suggested that we should swap books, so we did.

It is not fair to hog the time of someone working at the fair, so I told Stefan I would email him a link to this blog post, and moved on.

Astute readers may notice a pattern developing here. I follow up the connections I make, and I offer a reason to continue with some sort of contact. I only do this when I believe there really is some reason to keep in touch. The decision to continue the contact, or not rests entirely with the other person.

As I wrote in  A brief guide to mingling, the purpose is not to sell or advertise anything, but to find and connect with interesting people.

Anna Sigvardsson is a photographer. I wrote about meeting her in A brief guide to mingling.

Of course, if you have agreed to meet two people at a book fair that lasts all day, they will arrive within a few seconds of each other. Erik beat Anna by about 30 seconds. Erik and I needed to talk about a few work related matters, so we did. Then I went to have a cup of coffee with Anna.

You wouldn't believe the size and weight of the backpack I had lugged around all morning. Putting it down, having a cup of coffee, and talking photography and books was a relief you cannot imagine. Unless you to carry around a similar backpack, of course... Thanks Anna!

After meeting with Anna, I hooked up with Eric again. Eric mentioned he wants to meet with a photographer, so I fired off an SMS to Anna to see if she would be interested in meeting Eric. She was, so I helped Eric and Anna set up a meeting. The cellular phone network was a bit overloaded, so we did everything by SMS. SMS wasn't altogether reliable either at the fair, but it worked out OK.

Erik Lundh is a co-author of The System Anatomy, and Jens Fredholm at Studentlitteratur is the publisher.

Eric had a meeting with Jens Fredholm at Studentlitteratur. Eric is a co-author of a recently published book, The System Anatomy. Jens is one of Eric's main contacts. Eric invited me to an after-the-fair for-people-in-the-publishing-business mingle, and off we went to see Jens.

I have met Jens once before, but that was briefly a year ago, so Eric re-introduced us.

It was nice meeting Jens again. Eric, Jens and I had an interesting talk. We decided to go and eat something, and that is when I suddenly saw Alf Fyhrlund and his wife Saga.

From left: Alf Fyhrlund, Saga Fyhrlund, Jens Fredholm, and Erik Lundh.

Alf is the statistician I wrote about in  A brief guide to mingling. Introductions were made all around, and business cards were exchanged. (Just so you know: Alf and I will go to a BNI meeting together on Tuesday.)

After that, the only new connection I made the rest of the evening was with a humungous shrimp sandwich. (Thank you Jens.)

Let's update the network diagram from  A brief guide to mingling:

There are new connections, and some old ones have been maintained (Jens and me). One thing I like about having a diagram like this, is that the people in the diagram are likely to read this post and see it. That increases the probability that they will discover a reason to connect.

If one is steeped in Command & Control culture, it is easy to believe that one should somehow be in control, or "own the network". That does not work. Nobody owns the network. I belong to the network. So does everyone else in the diagram.

Thus, I am not at the center of the network, even though it may look like that in the diagram. It is just that the diagram is drawn from my perspective, and contains the connections I know about.

Draw diagrams from the perspectives of Eric, Jens, or Anna, and they will look quite different, but they will be just as valid. (Try drawing a complete diagram, and you will end up with a mess and go bonkers in the process.)

The network will change today, like it changed yesterday. I know Alf and Olle are likely to talk to each other, and I know Anna and Erik will too. I will ask them how it went, because these are people I like, and I have an interest in their connections working out for the best. Other things will happen too, lots of connections will be made I don't know about, and never will know about. That is as it should be.

What is of interest to mingle event goers is that many of the things I described here, happened because of the mingle event, Göteborgsminglet, but they did not happen at the event. Mingle events are powerful because they generate sparks that may ignite something larger and longer lasting.

Oh, perhaps I should mention: The fair itself was fun too. Lots of interesting books.