– a work in progress
On to Part 4, everyone…I’m getting there, one part at a time…
I give you...the Beta rules
Rules for Evolutionaries
One: “being in beta” is a natural state of life…give in to it…
Stay in beta. Everything around us is evolving.
Death, is considered in some cultures, to be the next step in evolution…Well, not so much in business…I suppose the idea is to thrive and stay alive…not die, really. But the evolving bit is very relevant.
Keep changing, shifting the goalposts…to avoid dying. Let’s just call it growth, improvement, profit and all that fun stuff that makes up the capitalist fabric. Call it what you may, but if you are not encouraging this ‘beta mindset’ in your organisation…you are I am afraid…‘devolving’…‘degenerating’…becoming ‘extinct’.
Try this in your organisation. Tell your staff, managers included, to change 3 things about the way they conduct their work. Assure them that no questions will be asked, however weird the changes appear. Once the changes kick in, in about 2-3 weeks, ask for a half page write-up from whoever implemented those changes, discussing, why the changes were introduced and how it improved/reduced their output. Assess these changes and see if they can be implemented organisation wide. Beta is work in progress…where improvement and learning is constant…where the lessons can be learnt from anywhere in the organisation.
Google is a great example of an organisation that has ‘given in’ to this beta mindset. In fact. it would probably be fair to say, that they have always had this mindset to begin with. Google encourages its employees to come up with ideas and some of these very ideas have been spun off into highly successful ventures, often funded and mentored by Google. All employees at Google are allowed to spend twenty percent of their time working on personal interests, a policy Google has, to encourage creativity.
In 2004, Google released a social networking service called Orkut, named after Orkut Buyukkokten, a Google software engineer who developed the project during personal time allowed to him by Google. Buyukkokten had an interest in social networking and so, developed this service. Despite some controversies related largely to the user content on the website, Orkut has been wildly successful with millions of users to date…an example of the ‘beta attitude’ within an organisation leading to successful innovation.
Lars Rasmussen is one of four engineers that founded Google Maps. His company was bought by Google at an early stage…and the bulk of the eventual map work was done by Rasmussen as part of Google. On a recent trip to Sydney, Australia to recruit for Google Maps, he said in an interview that Google is constantly looking for generalists and other professionals typically from university and even IT entrepreneurs. Recruiting entrepreneurs is not easy. They come with attitude, drive, boundless energy and an independent innovative mindset. Harnessing this is possible only with an organisational attitude where listening and learning is ‘normal’…where beta is not an effort but a habit.
'Beta needs to be a habit...not an effort...'
3M is also well known for encouraging this risk-taking innovation driven attitude that has led to such legendary products like the PostIt™ notes and Scotch™ tapes. 3M also, like Google, continues to innovate and prosper with beta…
Passing on control, trusting the ‘other’ person’s judgement and encouraging improvement based on their intellect…this encourages a beta attitude…makes for a happier workforce…a learning organisation…an organisation in beta…
More in another part folks. Hope you enjoyed this edition.
Note: You can read Parts 1, 2 and 3 by clicking on the numbers.
Cheers,Roop Kumar Bhadury aka entreprenerd
Access this blog @ http://www.entreprenerd.name/
