The Biggest Story of the 21st Century

Different organisational models are more important than technology – or shift happens

Leon Benjamin

Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009

The Biggest Story of the 21st Century?

> The end of command and control• Massive advances in technology• Prosperity to millions

> But at what cost to humanity, equality, society and the environment?

• Anglo-Saxon model has outlived its ‘usefulness’

> Network organisation as the model of choice• There is a spectre haunting the world. The spectre of peer-

to-peer> Open source production> Collaborative capitalism *not* managerial capitalism

• The future is about less

> Africa’s response> Almost exclusively in the hands of entrepreneurs

• “The antibodies”.

Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009

What do these need to survive?

> Orders> Order > Stability> Continuity> Rules> Fear> Withholding

Information> Measurement> Incentives> Competition

Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009

The Cost of Command & Control

> Modern Ways Open India’s Doors to Diabetes• Got the cash but it comes with ‘issues’

> Western diet/lifestyle• 35m type 2 diabetics. 75m by 2030

> Work Rage• France Telecom’s suicide rate

> 21 since Feb 2008• One more last week despite ‘interventions’

• 2.6m people in Britain on incapacity benefits > Over 60% there courtesy of workplace stress

> Inequality• USA 1950, CEO earns on average 40 X lowest paid worker• In 2009, CEO earns on average 4,000 X lowest paid worker

> Frequently as high as 200,000 X • 47m Americans without health insurance• In the UK poverty is almost at pre-war levels

> Environment• The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment

> The Story of Stuff, An Inconvenient Truth, etc, etc

> The West: Signs of cracking?• US infant mortality, UK & US drop to 17th & 19th (out of 19) on preventable deaths• 30m Americans on ‘low food security’• Education disparity

Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009

What do these need to survive?

• Everyone is a leader

• Everyone sensing, responding,

• Transparency• Trust• Peers• Agile• Adaptable• Self-organising

Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009

The Value of Peer-to-Peer Production> Open Source Software

• Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay could not exist without Open Source technology

• Linux & Coase’s Penguin

> P2P lending• Grameen bank, Kiva, Zopa...many others

> Prosperity without growth• Steady state economies• Fractional work

> Creative commons• Crowdsourcing is solving some of the world's intractable

problems• NASA Clickworkers

> Open democracy• The future of a country depends less on the nature of its issues,

and more on its capacity to create social structures able to solve them

Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009

A Guide for Entrepreneurs

> Think differently about ownership structures• Visa – A Chaordic Model

> “Complex rules and procedures lead to simple and stupid behaviour. Simple rules and regulations lead to intelligent and complex behaviour” – Dee Hock

• Ricardo Semler’s employee contract at Semco> The 7 day weekend & work/life balance

> Think differently about labour models• Fractional work

> The unit of work is no longer a whole job• The future is about less

> Progress will be based on being rather than having• Rate of change

> “We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.” - R. D. Laing

Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionLeon Benjamin, Oct 2009

Antibodies

> That’s what we should be looking for, antibodies; some peaceful idea that binds us.......because we can all agree that this King of the Mountain shit has got to go; a lucky few get to spend a bit of time on top, but everybody spends most of their existence getting pissed on from a great height. So why do we continue doing it?

• Ubuntu> “I am because we are”

• In companies, leaders get their power from the top• In networks, leaders get their power from the bottom