Flex Your Mussels

mussel bonds

Time to flex your business mussels. The summer solstice brings the Fowey Mussel Festival a celebration of that mulish mollusk, the mussel. Most of us have stumbled upon them anchored on coastal rocks where they are constantly battered by the pounding surf. As it turns out, it is not calcified obstinacy, but rather flexibility that secures its position so strongly. NBC describes the role model the mussel is having on a number of engineering problems in its piece “Super-strong mussel fibers could inspire earthquake-proof buildings”…

“[Mussels] are anchored in place by a stringy outcrop of cabling that emerges from between their twin shells. Usually, even the most vicious of high tides can't pry them loose. The secret to their tenacity is the special design of the rope-like strands that bind them, researchers now find. They're got a bit of stiffness and a bit of flexibility, they report in the July 23 issue of Nature Communications, and that's what keeps the mussels sticking around. ‘If you're an engineer, you're trying to fix things very rigidly,’ Markus Buehler, professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, told NBC News. ‘But nature has taught us here that to make things resilient in the long term, there needs [to be] a flexible structure.’…Twenty percent of the cabling that holds the bivalves in place is strong, but flexible. The rest is stiff. When it's tugged away by the force of a crashing wave, the flexible bits help the structure give, just a little bit, dissipating some of the stress on them.”

Business engineers can take similar inspiration from this dynamic of flexibility mixed into stable structure.

Dynamic Workforms

Ultradian Rhythm

People are not machines. White collar factories were set up on the premise that banks of workers could methodically work their brain all day long the way a blue collar work would work their muscle all day. As it happened, even muscle work had its limits as identified by Robert Owen (born today in 1771)…

“In the late 18th century, when companies started to maximize the output of their factories, getting to running them 24/7 was key. Now of course, to make things more efficient, people had to work more. In fact, 10-16 hour days were the norm. These incredibly long work days weren't sustainable and soon a brave man called Robert Owen started a campaign to have people work no more than 8 hours per day. His slogan was ‘Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.’ It wasn't until much later that Ford actually implemented the 8 hour work day and changed the standards. One of the first businesses to implement this was the Ford Motor Company, in 1914, which not only cut the standard work day to eight hours, but also doubled their worker's pay in the process. To the shock of many industries, this resulted in Ford's productivity off of these same workers, but with fewer hours, actually increasing significantly and Ford's profit margins doubled within two years. This encouraged other companies to adopt the shorter, eight hour work day as a standard for their employees.”

Modern day managers are similarly shocked by companies who today double the flexibility of work and achieve proportionate returns of productivity.

These limitations of physical endurance are all the more acute and volatile for intellectual output as described in Huffington Post’s piece “The Origin of the 8 Hour Work Day and Why We Should Rethink It”…

“The basic understanding is that our human minds can focus on any given task for 90-120 minutes. Afterwards, a 20-30 minute break is required for us to get the renewal to achieve high performance for our next task again. So instead of thinking about ‘What can I get done in an 8 hour day,’ I've started to change my thinking to ‘What can I get done in a 90 min session’.”

The article has a brilliant explanation for this productivity dividend of flexibility – the Ultradian Rhythm. The UR reinforces my predisposition to never have a meeting last longer than 90 minutes.

Re-Re-Imagining Work

Dave Coplin - Re-imagining Work

Dynamic Work all started at Microsoft. It stemmed from a convergence of post-millennial technology and business trends I witnessed from a front-row seat. My examination of all business “dynamic” started with executive briefings at the company as well as some of Microsoft’s own initiatives, and inspired me to embark full-time on the crusade. Despite being lured back to an executive position, I continue to track the topic and even make the occasional post here.

So it was a bit nostalgic to stumble upon this piece presented by former UK colleague now Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft Dave Coplin. A half decade on and the messages are still the same. But the presentation is superbly enhanced by the inimitable RSA animation. A few gems I pulled from Dave’s treatment include…

· “Flexible working is about taking control of how you work”

· “Openness of sharing. Open by default.”

· “The biggest concern about remote working is ‘trust’. And not between boss and staff, but among team members themselves.”

One of the reasons I got lured back into corporate life was that Microsoft had de-prioritised this area (making it harder to partner with my Microsoft-centric network). It is reassuring to see my professional alma mater still evangelising these changes in the workplace.

Dynamic Employment

USA map of home working concentrations

 

What is Obama’s Achilles Heel in the current election? What is the one issue and statistic that Romney keeps returning to with the most effectiveness? Employment. It’s an equally big issue weighing over just about every world leader from Greece to Egypt. People want jobs. And young people – with energy, vigour and dreams – are disproportionately anxious for them.

Dynamic Work holds great promise as a tool for increasing employment. By allowing companies to make more productive use of workers, their ROI and business case justification becomes easier. By introducing greater flexibility in commercial terms, companies can take o more workers at less longer term risk.

These assertions were underscored by a recent statistics released by the UK’s Office for National Statistics. Kevin Green, CEO of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation commented

“More people in work than ever before and the lowest unemployment in over a year is another significant step on the road to recovery. The truly amazing thing is that during the past year of a technical recession, and in spite of austerity and public sector cuts, the UK has created half a million jobs. The job numbers are being driven by flexible working – the number of full time posts has grown but the increase in temps and part-time workers has been even greater. Too many people talk down the value of part-time work, but it’s here in black and white – over 80 per cent of part-time employees chose to work that way.

The counter claim to these promising numbers is that such ‘part time’ work is really offers less pay and less security. But, the higher pay and higher quality may come in the total ‘portfolio’ of employment rather than in a specific job. The bartending actor whose glass washing enables his dream pursuing.

A US Census Bureau report “Higher-income workers have more work-at-home flexibility” provided further evidence of standard of living quality for flexible workers in both monetary and non-monetary terms…

’Mixed’ workers who work both at home and in an office are generally affluent, with median household income of $96,300, according to census data. That compares with median household income of $74,000 for people who always work at home and $65,600 for people who always work onsite, the researchers reported. Nearly half of the people who worked at home exclusively were self-employed, but experts say there are other explanations for why those who work from home make less. Some employers are finding that especially among younger workers, the ability to work at home and forgo a gruelling commute is such a beneficial perk that they are willing to accept a lower starting salary in exchange for it.”

The morale of the story is that countries need ‘Dynamic’ leadership now more than ever before.