How to improve organizational health?

Working as a Management Consultant for many years, a have come across many different organizations, both highly functional and some less functional. How well an organization works is often referred to as organizational health.

According to a McKinsey Quarterly arcticle from Septermber 2017, organizational health is “an organization’s ability to align around a common vision, execute against that vision effectively, and renew itself through innovation and creative thinking” There is strong evidence that healthy organizations financially outperforms less healthy organizations.

The article lists many management practices that leads to 9 organizational outcomes, which again drives organizational health:

When an organization is healthy, it can effectively navigate challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and achieve its objectives while maintaining the well-being of its employees.

Who is the next global superpower?

Studying Comparative Politics in University, we often touched upon international relations and how differences in power affected how states behaved and interacted. All of us growing up in the cold war era experienced a world dominated by two super-powers. After the decline of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin wall, new players entered the world stage. However, three main factors has put globalization and international co-operation at risk:

1. Russia´s decline and withdrawal from international co-operation

2. China´s reluctancy to compete on “Western” terms and conditions

3. Tens of millions of people in industrialized countries feeling marginalized by globalisation

Today we have a world security order, driven by the NATO alliance, an alliance becoming even more relevant after Russia´s invasion of Ukraine.

In addition we have a world economic order, dominated by US, but of course also China, India, Japan and the EU. Opposite the world security order, the economic order is and will remain a multipolar order as no state can dictate the trade rules and that the states are interdependent.

According to Bremmer, the next world order is a digital world order, and is not dominated by states, but by tech companies. Examples are their role in the war in Ukraine in terms of communication, the American presidential election in terms of voter behavior and en general in terms of how the algorithms influence us in our everyday life. He argues that they will determinate if we will have techno-polar world order or a world of freedom and technological cooperation. Concerns are the tech companies´s enormous power, and specifically AI, personal data, targeted advertising and the opportunities to affect democracies and our everyday lives.

What is Deep Work and why is it important?

Deep Work is a concept developed by Georgetown Professor Cal Newport. In his book Deep Work. Rules for focused success in a distracted world, he presents the idea and how to achieve it. This was one of my favorite books in 2023, and the content can be summarized to the following:

What is Deep Work? Deep work is when you are focusing without distraction on a cognitive demanding task. This is the type of work where you perform superior outcome, e.g. writing a strategy memo. The problem, however, is that such important, demanding work is normally interrupted by distractions like e-mail, phone calls or social media. Such shift in attention will reduce the quality of the cognititve demanding work tasks.

Why is it important? In many professional contexts Deep Work, as opposite to shallow work, is what makes a difference or as the author puts it: moves the needle and crates value. People and organizations mastering deep will create a disproportionate competitive advantage. This does not mean that less cognitive work is not important.

How to do it better? The first step is to acknowledge what deep work is and why it is important. Second step is to actually prioritize it and be conscious about the deep work / shallow work ratio. The optimal ratio will of course depend on what work or position you have. Then schedule deep work in your calendar like a meeting or appointment. This can be done certain days during the week or certains times during each work day. Finally you have to train your ability to work concentrated. This includes avoiding distractions described above. Training for increased consentration stamina can also include activities like reading books meditation or playing chess.

Here is a short video of the author presenting Deep Work:

And here is a slightly more entertaining presentation:

What are the opportunities in AI?

What are the main commercial opportunities in Artifical Intelligence (AI)? Andrew Ng is a figure in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. He is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and educator known for his significant contributions to the development and popularization of machine learning technologies. In a lecture at Stanford University he explains the types of AI tools available, where Supervised learning and Generative AS are the main application areas:

In supervised learning, the AI model is trained on labeled data, where the inputs (such as user messages or queries) are paired with corresponding outputs (desired responses or actions). The model learns to map inputs to outputs based on the patterns present in the training data. Examples are analysis of online advertising, fuel optimaliaation and visual inspection av desrcibed in the slide below:

Generative AI refers to a class of artificial intelligence systems that are capable of creating new data or content that is similar to the input it was trained on. Generative AI can be applied to various tasks, such as generating images, text, music, or even videos. Example of how the texts are generated are described in the slide below:

Full lecture can be viewed here:

How to investigate corruption?

These days, a corruption case is going before Norwegian courtrooms. A former top official in an international sports federation has been charged with receiving bribes in the form of gifts and services. I myself have worked for several years investigating corruption cases in private businesses when I worked in a "big four" company, and have gained the following experiences:

The investigation process often starts with an anonymous tip, alert or red flags related to suspicious transactions. In connection with this, an internal investigation is often carried out before the matter is eventually reported to the police/Økokrim. An investigation process consists of mapping the facts and assessments of this. Mapping the facts consists, among other things, of: get an overview of the people and organizations involved (internal and external) clarify relationships between the parties involved (is there any acquaintance, kinship or common financial interests between them?) chart financial transactions between the partners recreate a sequence of events (timeline) The method for mapping the facts mainly consists of data analysis and interviews of those involved and other people in and around the business. The purpose is to get an overview of the parts mentioned above. If there is a suspicion that a supplier or customer has obtained a disproportionately favorable agreement with a company, facts will be collected about the agreement that has been concluded, who has negotiated the agreement, clarify any relationships between those involved, physical transactions linked to the agreement, current internal procedures linked to such agreements (e.g. who must approve such agreements, payment terms, discount matrices, etc.). Data sources will then be interviews, review of agreements, invoices and payments, collection of information from public registers (Brønnøysund). After an investigation team has formed a good picture of the facts, assessments are made relating to whether there is reasonable reason to suspect corruption and what, if any, should be done in relation to this.

Get rid of the spreadsheets - use monday.com

Don't get me wrong: Excel is an excellent tool. But Excel's primary use should be financial modeling. Too many people use Excel for everything else, including plans and collaboration. For this, other tools are much better. Personally, I use monday.com. My organization and I have been using this tool for a year now. And I think it works very well. With monday.com, we can digitize and coordinate many work processes and information, such as recruitment, sales prospects, simple CRM, simple project management, media planning, organization of media content, IT support, marketing plan and so on. Monday.com enables interaction without sending files by email or searching for them in a public area. You can allocate work tasks and receive a notification when things are done. The licenses are relatively affordable and the user threshold is low. The user interface is intuitive and the dashboards are visually stunning.

Netflix documentary: Working - What we do all day

Working - What we do all day is a Netflix documentary that deals with American working life from top to bottom in three different companies. It shows how personal finances, meaning in working, security and future prospects are affected by industry and the employee's place in the job pyramid. In other words, it problematizes socio-economic effects of working life. The American adage that if you just work hard enough you will succeed is coming under pressure. The documentary shows that the picture is considerably more complex, and where the factors of ability, background and coincidences play significant roles. Producer and narrator is Barack Obama.

What is Narrative Economics?

Narrative economics is about how stories and perceptions are spread between people and how these can change perceptions of events and economic decisions. Just think of recessions, bubbles and so on. Such stories can go viral and reinforce beliefs such as that individual shares and house prices can only go up. Regardless of whether such beliefs are right or wrong, they will be able to influence how people and companies make financial decisions. Traditionally, the subject of economics has placed little emphasis on explaining and understanding this phenomenon, but, as the video below shows, understanding narrative economics can contribute to a greater understanding of economic events that lead to recession, inequality and so on.

Investment decisions

We've all been there. Worked our way through Excel sheet after Excel sheet with various assumptions and assessments of an investment decision. Such analyzes are, to put it mildly, not an exact science and the decision itself is very often driven by prejudice and bias. I have even experienced working with an investment analysis for a large Norwegian company that was to invest in a new, expensive digital platform, where the mandate was that the investment decision had already been made and that it should now only be considered home. Businesses make investments mainly based on the following goals: Increased business income: buy other businesses, invest in product development, invest in marketing, buy a customer base (SaaS). Increased efficiency/reduced costs: Invest in machinery and equipment, invest in efficiency projects, R&D. Increased quality: invest in increased quality in products, services, production, systems and organisation. Reduced risk: invest in HSE, management systems, control systems Sustainability: invest in measures that make the business more sustainable, such as reduced emissions and waste. This contributes to both improved reputation and sustainability in general

Finite games

Anyone who has studied economics and management has most likely learned about game theory. Game theory is a direction within the field that analyzes how actors (companies, states, individuals) act on each other's choices of action. The most famous game-theoretic situation is the Prisoner's Dilemma. In game theory, one operates with finite and infinite games. A finite game is a situation with a beginning and end, fixed participants, and defined rules. Examples of this are a football match or a single car sale. Infinite games, on the other hand, have both known and unknown participants. The rules can be changed during the game and the game has no clear end. Examples of infinite games are friendship, business and politics. Many companies operate with a mindset as if there is an end game. An example of this is companies where the aim is to beat the competition and become number 1 in the market. On the other side, you have companies that have a mindset where it operates in an endless game and where the only competitor is themselves and the focus is continuous improvement of their own products, services, culture and management. Overtime, you see that players with an infinite perspective eventually win over those with a finite perspective, simply because you survive longer. Here is a movie that tells strategies for achieving a final mindset:

What are Objectives and Key Results (OKR)?

Objectives and Key Results (OKR) is a widely used method for setting the right goals for organisations, teams and individuals. Google is among the companies that use this. Objectives are WHAT you want to achieve, while Key Results are HOW to achieve the goals. To set the right goals, you can first ask yourself the question WHY or WHY to answer WHAT you want to achieve. The goals should be: significant, concrete, action-oriented and inspiring. Key Results should be specific & time-bound, ambitious, but realistic and measurable. Typical Key Results can be the number of users of a website or the number of members of a voluntary organisation.

Dollar Street: How to live for 10 dollar a day?

Imagine that the whole world lived in the same street and where people lived was sorted by income. The poorest on the left and the richest on the right. All the others somewhere in between. Welcome to Dollar Street.

The website Dollar Street is created by the organization Gapminder. The idea is to show what standard of living people around the world have, the dependence on family income, and how this affects how they live, what they eat and what material goods they have such as toys, toothbrushes, furniture etc. The website gives a wonderful insight into what do we mean by having different living standards.