From electric pylons and the dynamicy of the valley

Sunday 11^th of November 2018 

After a more or less quiet flight I arrived in San Francisco, had to queue “forever” to get my car and headed then directly to my AirBnb room. My host Adrian, prepared everything very well and described the procedure in detail to get through all the lockers ;-).  So, I made it finally to my room! Which is located not far away from downtown, but for a city, in a very quiet place!

On foot I roamed the streets, with all these electricity pylons with free cables (amazing, but also crazy, if remind yourself, that the regions so famous for new technologies), to get to a nice restaurant, which I found at the Mission Street “baby blue BBQ”. And it smelled exactly the way an American BBQ sauce usually smells.

After a short night sleeping, I headed directly to fisherman’s wharf for a beach walk and jogging and enjoyed a beautiful Sunday morning with the amazing golden gate bridge in the background. Every time valuable to take a picture!

Later on, driving on the freeway 101 in direction San José through the famous silicon value, where I spotted all the well-known brands left and right of the freeway, my thoughts brought me back to the purpose why I am here. A new way of operating systems for organizations. Why?

Self-management practices for organizations, that is what practices like holacracy and sociocracy are for. But why shall an organization change its approach, how it is organized until today? After so many years of organizing in a hierarchy way, why should one change the habits?

I want to emphasize the following 3 reasons, why it could make sense to change organizations to self-managed organizations.

1. The dynamic of the market – that is what for instance a region like Silicon Valley is known for. The dynamic of the market has changed. With all today’s technologies and possibilities, we have and we can use to communicate or organize ourselves, collaborate and exchange information with whomever we want. What was the perfect fit and solution yesterday might be different today and might change again for tomorrow. No person alone can keep an overview of all the possibilities and has all the knowledge! So, decisions and competencies must be delegated to the people!
2.  Integration of different views – one person has one specific view! If we combine these specific views with other specific views of others in a team, something new can grow out of these views. The intelligence of a collective can multiplicate and can result in a much more valuable and further developed solution, than it was, when one member mentioned his proposal.
3. Motivation of individuals – as every single member of the team can collaborate directly, decide according to its accountability and propose some adjustment to the organization, for instance for a new policy or define a new role, this has a positive impact on the motivation. And therefore, on the way how a team works together and in turn on the results for the business

The way we travel nowadays, we book our stay and so on.. underline the dynamics of the markets, new approaches that totally changed business models and teams and people working differently - they even work at home!

While the sun sets down, I have just reached Santa Cruz, south of San Francisco jumped into a bar to enjoy a beer and to write todays blog. Tomorrow I will start the coaching training in San Francisco. I hope I will get a bit more sleep to be ready and get out of it as much as possible.. keep you definitely posted..

baby blue BBQ

the view from Adrian's house

The house I live

I like these coffee buses

running around

always valuable to take a picture

nice market in SF

sunset in Santa Cruz