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The Power of Pull, by Hagel, Brown, and Davison: a review

August 5, 2013 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

If you’re a manager–particularly a corporate manager–particularly a manager in a top-down, siloed, “do it the way we’ve always done it” corporation, then The Power of Pull may be for you.  It will tell you:

1. People need to learn new information and make new contacts all the time, because the challenges they will face in the future are unpredictable. You never know what it is that you will need to know, or who will be your most valuable collaborator.  Seek serendipity.

2. Organizations need to create environments in which people can do all the things in #1.

And that’s it!  The questions at the end of each chapter will help you see whether you (or your organization) are following the book’s advice.

I am not a manager, nor am I a corporate type, so maybe I am missing something.  I thought, however, that even in 2010 when this book came out, all this was old news.  Not only has there been chatter about the need to adapt to the Information Age since the 1990’s.  Way back in the early 20th century, Dewey stressed that the ability to find things out is just as important as the ability to remember what we’ve already learned.

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Still, I wish some people in government would read this book.  Maybe they would think twice about demanding more planning, more measurement, and more standardization from community organizations that receive government funds.  They could learn from this book not to stick with a model that the most nimble for-profit organizations are leaving behind, because it stifles both creativity and productivity.

We, the public, would benefit if government spent more time and more money on enabling nonprofit organizations to learn from one another and create new partnerships, instead.

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Making Happy Accidents Happen

April 18, 2006 by Dennis Fischman 1 Comment

Ruth McCambridge, the editor of the excellent Nonprofit Quarterly, ask us to ponder: With all our policies, procedures, plans, strategies, best practices, theories of change, and expert evaluations, what are we missing?

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The answer is: serendipity.

Sometimes we make great discoveries when we are not looking for them, or when we’re looking for something else.  Being in the right place at the right time is a kind of talent.  Noticing what’s in front of you is another. Put the “accident” of time and circumstance together with the “sagacity” to see something new and you have serendipity (and I hope you do)!

But is it possible to plan for serendipity?  How can we make happy accidents more likely to happen?

McCambridge thinks it is possible, and necessary, to create the right environment for serendipity.   That environment is more like a social network than like an assembly line, and it takes less standardization and more collaboration. She quotes a Harvard Business Review Harvard Business Review article by Daniel Rasmus:

Leaders…need to acquire the patience to monitor serendipitous activity, and the courage to protect technologies and ideas that may take time to mature, or changes in circumstance to reveal their true value—and the willingness to empower people to embrace, explore and follow serendipitous activity wherever it may lead.

Amen!  And I will add: nonprofit funders need to find the patience and courage to sponsor organizations where experiment is prized, learning is encouraged, and discoveries are likely to be made.

 

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