Are You Ready to Become AI's Pet?

There are two major forces driving us toward a key decision point we will have to make in the near future. First is the accelerating growth of AI, and second is AI's role in the emerging new world order. As these forces converge rapidly, you will have to make a life-changing decision. My best estimate is that you have until 2030 to decide whether to play the good, loyal pet to AI, or not. Let's look at the trends and forces that are at play in my line of reasoning.

AI is Growing and Unstoppable:

Most of all, organizations want the benefits of an intelligence spiral, but at the cost of displaced people. You can read all kinds of dire predictions that most white-collar work will be displaced quickly. It will necessitate support for the displaced masses. Second, people like the assistance they are getting from AI. AI is now embedded in a number of things to the point that it can’t be displaced. It won’t appear as a war but as a convenience accelerated. We are all slowly being hooked on AI, and "why not?" It offers what the world wants these days.

As AI surpasses human capabilities and begins to control itself, creating a need to regenerate itself and improve at speed, where is the necessary governance? Who will control the ever-growing, morphing AI without killing innovation and the benefits it brings to both individuals and organizations? Who sets the goals and guardrails for AI? Nobody wants to give up the benefits, so who controls the AI's released spirit? Here are some of the things AI is predicting about itself right now, before the sentient point. 

• Every knowledge job is on a countdown
• AI predicts 99% unemployment in 5 years for knowledge work
• Physical work displacement will lag to the 10-year mark as robotics develops
• AI sees no role for humans to play except to serve it. 
• AI predicts chaos is coming like never before
• AI suggests no kids right now

Humans trying to control and govern AI is a joke to AI. Bro, it’s like your pet saying I have my human in control. We will likely not control, much less govern, AI in a way that promotes human goodness. We will be lucky if AI makes us a pet in the projected future of chaos. A pet dog doesn’t get a seat at the boardroom table, according to AI

The New World Order (NWO) Steps in

Humanity is facing insurmountable problems of many conflicts, economic imbalances, environmental challenges, and growing food shortages. Added to this plate of delight, the NWO will try to rein in AI as well. Initiallly AI will seem to help solve some of these sticky problems along with robotics. NWO will try to erase the conflicts and turn them into cooperation through the means at its disposal, which include AI, plus others yet to be revealed. First humans will become the pets of the NWO solutions, which will employ identity and control. 

Digital ID and Digital Currency set the stage for human control as jobs disappear. The NWO can send out payments as people get displaced. You won’t be able to play without either and will be a victim of programmable compliance. If you are a well-behaved pet, you will be able to thrive and even be rewarded. Without that, you may become a burden to society, and you can only imagine what might happen to you, starting with sanctions. It will be sold as an extension of life through better health and an immortal personality in the cloud. The NWO will use the carrot-and-stick approach. The stick is really ugly when you can't buy food or any other goods, as the availability of all goods declines. 

Net; Net:

Will AI eventually drive NWO as it becomes the pet of AI? The only certainty is uncertainty in the future, so it's all about adaptability and constant reinvention. AI will be the master, and if you don’t want to be its well-behaved pet, you will have to thrive outside the system, aka “The New World Order,” that will be a carrot and big stick approach as the world destabilizes. The humans who survive will have to submit to superintelligence or adapt quickly enough to escape it. The rest will need prayer. It's the end of the world as we know it, and ultimately, we won't feel fine. 

Additional Reading:

AI is Better Than Me

AI: For Good or Evil

Who is Afraid of AI? 

Situational Analysis Video Interview

Situation Analysis (SA) is a key component of strategic management and delivers key benefits if done properly. SA is essential to guide SWOT analysis. This video discusses some of the more recent improvements and the use of a more valuable and updated version of situation analysis. There is an emphasis on the productivity gains by using GenAI and other AI capabilities. Separating out landscape analysis from the SWOT portion positions the landscape insight available for more focused analysis, such as competitor, market, and technology trends.

The Video Covers the Following Key Issues:

1. Why is Situational Analysis Important?
2. What are the Benefits of Situational Analysis?
3. What are the Critical Mistakes Organizations Make with SA?

      Click here for the Video 

      Click here for the Background of the Expert Frank Kowalkowsk

      Click here for the Background of the Interviewer, Jim Sinur


      Additional Reading:

      Situational Analysis with SWOT 

 

AI Must Increase Productivity or Else

The theme for the coming years will be a significant increase in productivity. According to my favorite definition from a Google search, “Productivity is a measure of performance that compares the output of a product with the input, or resources, required to produce it. The input may be labor, equipment, or money.”

AI must be a key driver to not only innovation but also a way to increase baseline productivity measures. It is a must at the macro level, by country and industry, and at the micro level, with AI-enabled projects. This is true for all on a personal basis and an organizational basis. It is not a zero-sum game where organizations win, and individuals lose. It balances organizational outcomes gained with personal satisfaction without time synchs forced on individuals inside or outside an organization. The good news is that we have high productivity rates in mature economies. See the GDP Per Hour Worked by Region in Figure 1. The bad news is that the productivity increase rate is not what it could be, averaging only a meager 2.1 percent on average since 1947 and a shallow level of 1.6 percent recently. See Productivity Change Rates by period in Figure 2.

                                          Figure 1 GDP Per Hour Worked by Region


The additional good news is that AI is capable and is growing in its influence and impact by the minute. As long as AI is applied in a goal-driven fashion governed by reasonable boundaries, the possibilities are endless. The individuals who control these goals and constraints will lead the way to greater productivity. We can’t sit still and must apply AI aggressively on a local basis, constantly looking to the global impact incrementally. Every country can benefit from AI and potentially leap up in productivity.

                                      Figure 2 Productivity Change Rates by Time Period

Net; Net:

AI has the potential to decrease the hours worked for all of us. An accurate "more with less" enabled by AI. This is true for those who complete repetitive simple tasks, those who make decisions at the tactical level for optimization of work while taking great care of customer, employee, and partner journeys, and those who set strategy or create response scenarios in an ever-changing set of markets, industries, regions, and legal frameworks. While AI is exciting in its potential for productivity, it carries the fear of change and control. Let’s manage this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity AI gives us. This is the first post in a series on the productivity and application of AI. Watch this space.

Why Do You Need to Define AI?

Everyone is talking about AI, and nearly half of the digital/technological budgets for 2024 are aimed at AI. Because of this, everyone should care about what AI is and what kind of AI you want to meet your objectives. You need to know if something is AI or if some vendor or internal developer is just AI-washing what they have to offer. I think it is essential to understand what AI is today because AI is on a journey, and it's vital to know where it came from, what can be done with AI today, and where AI is headed. This way, organizations aren't stuck with pioneering without knowing they are on the edge or using traditional technology wrapped in an AI wrapper to leverage the AI movement. Or you are claiming AI victories by just putting window dressing on conventional technology. AI will be a critical player on your team soon, so to get to know AI early, I tried to identify authoritative definitions and put them in one place for you, including what one version of AI thinks. I also attempted to define a value-added definition of AI, leveraging my past business experience leveraging AI to get started.

General:

Artificial intelligence leverages computers and machines to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind.

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAI): AI’s primary goal is to build an intelligent machine. The second goal is to find out about the nature of intelligence.

WIKI: Artificial intelligence (AI) – intelligence exhibited by machines or software. It is also the name of the scientific field which studies how to create computers and computer software that are capable of intelligent behavior.

Gartner defines artificial intelligence (AI) as applying advanced analysis and logic-based techniques, including machine learning (ML), to interpret events, support and automate decisions, and take actions. This definition is consistent with the current and emerging state of AI technologies and capabilities, and it acknowledges that AI now generally involves probabilistic analysis (combining probability and logic to assign a value to uncertainty).

Forrester defines “generative AI” as: “A set of technologies and techniques that leverage massive corpuses of data, including large language models, to generate new content (e.g., text, video, images, audio, code). Inputs may be natural language prompts or other non-code and non-traditional inputs.”

Investopedia

The simulation of human intelligence by software-coded heuristics

ChatGPT

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, refers to the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, particularly computer systems. These processes include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and language understanding. AI technologies aim to enable computers and machines to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as understanding natural language, recognizing patterns, making decisions, and adapting to new information.

Jim Sinur

"AI is the leverage of software and machines to add perception/intelligence to individuals, customer/constituent experiences, processes/tasks and devices to optimize balanced outcomes by interpreting patterns of interest, making highly informed decisions with speed, and taking appropriate proactive or reactive actions considering wide and deep implications all within the context of changing conditions and governance guardrails."

Net: Net:

It is essential to know what kind of AI you are buying. Machine intelligence or generative AI is often represented as the only and most advanced AI. Ensure you understand the AI you are buying or building as many technologies participate in the AI disciplines. It may mean understanding the multiple streams of AI contributing to a solution you may buy or build. It influences what problems you are trying to solve, your testing/debugging, and where it can go off the ranch and get into trouble in places you don’t anticipate. If you want a picture of where AI has come from or where it is likely to head, please click here. The Gartner AI Hype Cycle is another good resource. Better yet, you need to define what kind of AI you want to pursue in line with your business objectives and get ahead of AI’s projected core competencies and technologies for the future.

It would be best if you defined AI for you continuously as it evolves to the ideals declared in the general definitions available. AI is just a set of methods, techniques, and tools that will be used for good and bad outcomes. Remember, AI is not God, and nor should it be used by actors to create an artificial god. Humankind will eventually be supercharged with AI. As always, some will fly too close to the sun.


Additional Reading:

Future of AI

Fear of AI

Art for the 1st Quarter 2023

My paintbrushes took a break, so I concentrated on digital art this quarter. I hope you enjoy them. You can see the rest of my art by clicking here. 

                                                Coral Ribbons

                                                     FireFly

                                                     Frog Surfing

                                                     Smoke

2023 Top 5 Business Trends

It’s a new world for 2023, with managers facing new challenges and managing traditional business issues. While the recent large wave of the ever-evolving disease seems to have passed, there are threats of resurgence and new strains. There are implications of war and regional conflicts on the horizon that could also impact businesses. The era of "free money" is now behind us all, while currencies seem to be adjusting to a tight capital plus uncertainty in most traditional and untraditional currencies. Investors, businesses, and customers will be much more careful in the future, implying an economic pull-back and more conservative investment. Even so, innovation will still be necessary to navigate through rather than being primarily aimed at "moonshots." What does this mean for business trends?

Managing Uncertainty

You can't manage what you can't see or measure. So organizations will double down on managing uncertainty. It means that on the reactionary front, businesses will focus on speed to respond with innovation, change, and faster digital technologies to assist management in observing, orienting, deciding, and acting. Proactively, businesses will bolster their corporate planning exercises to consider scenarios and use new applications of digital sentinels to sense emergent threats, opportunities, and unanticipated "black swan" events or event clusters. AI will likely play a more vital role beyond just operational machine learning.

Wrestling with the Cost of Doing Business

Businesses will try to lower costs on core operations without putting the burden on the backs of their employees, partners, and customers. It implies more intelligent automation and not just outsourcing costs to partners, making customers the data entry clerks, or putting more stress on employees. Capital expenditures will typically be observed as they progress to profitable results and in all tight money times. However, care must be taken not to use cost containment to choke off important innovation. The most intelligent organizations invest during down cycles to get momentum on the other side of a downturn.

Increasing Loyalty for Real

Clearly, businesses have taken customers and employees for granted in the past, and it is coming home to roost. Companies must be flexible with work models to stay competitive and offer upskilling opportunities, tailored benefits, and intelligent automation assistance for the higher-skilled workers who know the game is about skills. In addition, brand reputation will get technical assistance in measuring real-time customer satisfaction through voice, more intelligent natural language chatbots, and better interactions that are not only driven by rehearsed scripts.

Wrestling Change Through Focused Adaptability

Businesses have a hard time with change. Sometimes it’s the inflexibility of core processes and systems. Still, more than that, it keeps people engaged with the change so that they can contribute towards goals and have the change feedback on the progress of the resulting changes as they roll out. Technology systems need to be fitted and surrounded by flexible and fast digital technologies, and people need to be engaged frequently.

Focusing on Core Business Needs

Businesses should focus on core businesses and shed those activities that do not contribute to the core business unless it is an innovation that would distance your organization from future economic up cycles. Concentrating on the core will be essential to weather any storms that emerge. As a result, staff evaluations, technology redundancies, and vendor consolidation should be on the table in 2023. In addition, new methods for managing non-core activities will be aggressively pursued.

Net; Net:

While rapid growth is not expected in the economy, organizations will take bold steps to intercept and manage changing conditions. Organizations that leverage emergent management disciplines and technologies will be far ahead of those organizations that just play speed to reaction well. Any efforts to be on top of real-time observations, pattern interception, and critical actions will be paid back handsomely when conditions are emergent, as I expect going forward.

Art Award Lands Nicely

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

James Sinur's Art Recognized 

James Sinur Receives 2022 Best of Glendale Award 

Glendale Award Program Honors the Achievement

GLENDALE November 14, 2022 -- James Sinur has been selected for 2022 Best of 

Glendale Award in the Artist category by the Glendale Award Program.

Each year, the Glendale Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved 

exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are 

local companies that enhance the positive image of small businesses through service to their 

customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Glendale area a 

great place to live, work, and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each 

category. The 2022 Glendale Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are 

determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Glendale Award 

Program and data provided by third parties.

About Glendale Award Program

The Glendale Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and 

accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Glendale area. Recognition is given to 

those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented 

programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Glendale Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our 

community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, 

professional associations, and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission 

is to recognize the small business community's contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Glendale Award Program

Winning Change Management Delivers

It matters not what kind of situation organizations find themselves in; change is always present. Change often implies an organizational and individual risk that creates angst. These facts alone should drive organizations to be great at change, but unfortunately, they generally are not. In today's world, it seems like stability is even more elusive, with change and potential change hovering around every corner. Therefore, it puts a premium, making change management a core business capability. What should organizations do to improve the change process to survive, thrive, and capitalize on change? There are three things that I would point to that are enumerated below:

Continuous Alignment on Goals:

Change is no longer a project with a defined start and end. Instead, it is continuous and accelerating. Because of the agility needed in the world today, there is a significant need to keep teams focused on their goals and any change or refinement of those goals. It means that the goals become a first-class visibility object in the change process. Because alignment is crucial because the change cycle will likely be split into many pieces, all progressing while changing the interactions of several advancing teams. There are two key enablers to making this happen. One is a shared repository of goals and all the supporting content for all to see. The other is a strong collaboration and communication capability to keep everyone abreast of progress when goals are stable and changes if the goals shift.

Focus on Watching the Change:

In an emergent world, change management must provide Just-in-time feedback to all recipients in a synchronized fashion, so all can act on it appropriately. Change sponsors often only look at the emergent change's operational and tactical results. It is a significant miscalculation. Sponsors need to be laser-focused on the actual change process itself. This way, the results will align with expectations, but more importantly, drift can be detected early to adjust during the change process. The sponsors will lead the way to the teams keeping a sharp eye on the progress of the change management process.

Upscale Team Change Skills:

Because of the increased frequency of the multitude of sources of and impact of today's change, organizations had better make change management a core competency. In some instances, this will become a survival skill, whereas, in other circumstances, it will be a necessary part of a game plan to win. As we all know, people are the key to change, and they have an emotional tie to the changes. While they might like the vision, some folks fear the change. Here, empathy is crucial in keeping leaders and team members on an even keel. In addition, clear visibility and effective communication are necessary without all the overhead of meetings.

Net; Net:

Change management is crucial for organizations to succeed and drive outcomes. It is common knowledge that study after study points to a 70% change failure rate. On the horizon, all organizations are seeing more change coming. We are at a critical juncture to "Get Great at Change" or else. The convergence of more change than ever and being poor at it paints a grim picture. Change management has risen to the top processes to get great at. You can't just hire a consultant that works with your executives and declare change; you must get much better at the change management process to make changes effective. It should become a core competency.

Additional Readings:


There is one organization that gets it and helps you grow competency in change management that doesn’t take a vacuum cleaner to your pocketbook. Here is a pointer to some of their writings

Change Itself is Changing

Don't Stop Believing in Change

Big Change is Enabled by Cared For People

Art for the 3rd Quarter 2022

 I decided to return to my traditional digital art and produce some colorful pieces. I also tried a sponged piece just for grins. Let me know what you think of these recent fractals. If you want to enjoy some of my past pieces, click here. Next quarter, I'll probably do some more experimentation. 

                                               Starlight

                                              Emergent

                                           Neon Strings

Life is an Amazing Journey

 We are pleased to bring you seven new original songs that follow an amazing journey seeking self-understanding and love. Please enjoy the short clip that samples each song by clicking here. Join us in this exciting pre-release by ordering the CD and learning how this multi-generational team got together Just send an email to jim.sinur@gmail.com to start the process. The full release will happen in October if all goes well. 

                                                            Cover

                                                            

                                                               Song list 

                                                          Contributors

Don't miss your opportunity to be part of our musical journey by emailing me at jim.sinur@gmail.com

Situational Awareness is Now at the Front Line of Business

As of this writing, we see unprecedented times, and the sands are shifting all around businesses. While organizations can't stop the moving sands of interacting situations, savvy organizations keep their strategies in line with adaptable critical success factors. Today all organizations have to deal with a changing brew of external factors while managing their internal network of resources dynamically. All of this as the interactions of these forces emerge. Keeping a solid balance and learning to play offense in challenging times will depend on becoming much better at situational awareness. Situational awareness is being aware of what is happening around you in terms of where you are, where you are supposed to be, and whether anyone or anything around you is a threat to your health and safety. Therefore, situational awareness is becoming a priority business skill, but it includes opportunities too. This awareness must be built and tested before the battles of keeping organizations on course emerge to create muscle memory for proper decisions and actions. Situational awareness is essential for survival at a minimum and a great partner for gaining an advantage.

Looking around us, we can see emerging and morphing external and internal forces playing together to contribute to the challenge of staying on top of situational analysis, significant in-context decisions, and on-point actions. How long to keep up the course with the active strategy and policies is also in the mix. Here are lists of external and internal factors that are active right now. I’m sure you could easily add to these lists, which will shift and change over time to make an appropriate balance more challenging. To complicate matters, organizations must manage their spending, secure talent, and accelerate digital to keep up with current trends. All of these factors are changing at the feet of the executives who must deliver radical productivity and speedy innovation while practicing a boundary-less mindset.

External Factors:

· Persistent Inflation

· Economic Headwinds

· Supply Chain Constraints

· Energy and Food Insecurity

· Pandemic Fatigue

· Climate Crisis

· Shortages

· Cyber Crimes / Ransomware

· Wars / Conflicts

· Social Unrest

Internal Factors:

· Skills Scarcity

· Lack of Experience

· Adaptability

· Keeping Goal Focus

· Flexible KPIs

· Vigilance

· Keen Project Management

· Continuous Improvement

· Lean Operations

· Smart Automation


There are three-time slices that organizations must keep their focus on or suffer from getting blind-sided.

Predictive

Much of situational analysis focuses on immediate situations. However, organizations must project beyond the current state and try to predict the twists, turns, and combinations of factors that could present a significant threat or an ample opportunity. It is where digital assistance from AI and Analytics combinations can add tremendous value, especially with newer visualization techniques.

Real-Time

Keeping an eye on all the moving parts of "What's Happening Right Now" is a tremendous challenge for organizations overwhelmed by the tsunami of data, information, and advice coming onboard. Again digital assistance can help by recognizing signals, events, and patterns that the human eye can't possibly watch.

Post Audit

It is also imperative for organizations to learn about past realities and the "Mach-Testing" of likely scenarios. Analysis of actual situations without the pressure of immediacy is crucial for preparing for future conditions. In addition, this process can create test beds for practicing situational awareness and adaptation.

Net; Net:

Situational awareness must become a competency before time catches up with old-style management practices. An organization's processes must be as change-proof as possible by staying adaptable. This adaptability must be guided by key insights from all three-time slices supported by both emerging and established digital business infrastructures. Keeping up with changing performance indicators and flexible/smart automation is essential to stay in business. Is it easy to practice strategy changes while to operations and tactics? One thing is for sure. There are methods, tactics, tools, and techniques that can make it easier, faster, and more effective. Some of the blog posts listed in additional reading might help the reader. In addition, a couple of vendors can help with this approach. Wizsm & Tibco.


Additional Reading:

Frictionless Management

Real-Time Fast Boards

Management Cockpits

Real-Time Strategy

Management by Wire

AutoPilot Management

Linking Strategy to Operations Easily

Autism Transformation Case Study Leveraging a Goal-Led Approach

Most of us are tasked with transformational change, and as a result are challenged to assemble, coordinate, and track the methods, resources, and tools necessary for transformation. While this case study is still ongoing, the expected results will send ripples throughout the health and therapy industries. It's going to change the way treatment plans work for autism forever. It is an innovation that will become a movement because it is newsworthy and worth watching. It leverages goal-led collaboration and takes treatment to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness. Let’s dive into this exciting transformation that promises huge industry change by treating the whole family that autism impacts.

The Challenge

· Most experience delays in getting diagnosed and many are not getting diagnosed at all

· There are waitlists for services, and many are not Receiving the hours they are prescribed

· Care across the services provided is not coordinated

The problems with managing autism from diagnosis to service completion are immense. First and foremost, children are diagnosed late because the hurdles to getting diagnosed are high. It is almost impossible to get approvals from insurance companies to leverage the scarce resources of counselors and move on to the methods and technicians that can help the situation. The other major issue is that the parents are considered in the treatment plans, and the whole household is not considered for treatment. Often getting the autistic family/household to services is quite challenging. Also, the amount of paperwork and red tape is taking away from the scarce treatment resources. Therefore, the failure rate is unacceptable even when permission for counseling is granted.

The Solution

It starts with goal-led frameworks designed to optimize the end-to-end experience for the patient, the family, and service resources. It begins with placing the parents at the center of the process by teaching the value of long-term support for the whole family unit throughout the treatment plan timeline. Next, it focuses on several vital subgoals to get through the insurance authorization and get things going quicker. Finally, it breaks down into these five subgoals that are being coordinated individually and collectively to attain the primary goal:

· Diagnose as Early as Possible

· Get Access to Services as Quickly as Possible

· Activate Parents

· Deliver Care to the Family

· Graduate to New Freedoms

The Benefits

The benefits were derived from goal-led collaboration, and continuous optimization individually, and collectively aimed at the primary goal. There were immediate benefits for more family happiness while unlocking the potential of the child and the family unit in new ways. The parents become educated advocates following a customized and designed plan leading to more direct results quicker. It reduces iterations and false steps, optimizing the service resources. Communication with all parties helps in each case and treats the problems holistically. There is clarity around actions and faster paths to results through following a customized and designed experience. It also enables treating younger and younger children giving treatment momentum early in children's lives.

Net; Net:

This approach generates happier families living to their full potential as early as possible while optimizing the counselors, cases, service providers, and administrative tasks. The goal-based system allows for continuous and constant iteration for better results keeping all parties up to date on the status of people and procedures. It will prove productive for kids at all levels on the autism spectrum. Watch this space for an update.



This case study was provided and assisted by Parallel. Click here for a link



Case Study Goal Life Cycle Impacts Highlighted in Blue

For an Explanation of the Goal Life Cycle Components Please Refer to the Blog Posts Below

For a Goal Life Cycle Explanation, click here

For Better Goal Management, click here

For Goal Led Technologies, click here

What Were Folks Reading in the 1st Quarter 2022?

Organizations are trying to balance innovation with profitability. This puts a premium on better transparency and staying on track with goal-led approaches. All of this while chasing a shifting supply chain plagued by COVID, the Ukrainian conflict, and growing pressures in the Pacific region. Speed to manage change seems to be the focus along with the savings that automation delivers to drive savings leveraged for the bottom line and innovation. Five years ago innovation would be the primary focus without the pressures we face today. Look at the results for the first quarter's readings and see if you have another reason

The offshore activity seems to be consistent with 2021 results with heavier than usual activity in the Northern European countries. 

The last 12 months' activity is certainly worth a study as well

Art for the 1st Quarter 2022

This quarter I decided to do nothing but experimental art. I used a lot of flow techniques and tried a couple of heart-shaped canvases for fun. While Sherry loved one of the pieces and took it for our master bedroom, I'm not sure how others will react to these pieces. While I have had luck selling abstracts paintings before, my fractals seem to get the most interest. Let me know what you think :) If you want to see some of my previous pieces, click here   If you have better names for the pieces, let me know. Thanks to Benoit Lheureux for the title "Discordiant Ripples" 

                                                       Waves of Color

Discordant Ripples

                                                       Turbulence

                                                          Melting Heart

                                                          Heart Flow 1

                                                           Heart Flow 2

If you are interested in purchasing any of my works, contact me at jim.sinur@gmail.com and we can work out the details. 

Businesses Require Better Goal Management

Because of the dynamic nature of business today with wars and rumors of wars, pandemics, and weakened supply chains, goals need to rise in importance. While goals should be specific and measurable, goals will change with greater frequency. Therefore, goal attainment will also have to be watched more carefully. We are upping the ante on better goal management and focusing better on the business supports for goal management and goal attainment. Better goal management requires a new level of transparency and communication capabilities than in the past and follows a consistent goal cycle. Click here for a suggested Goal Life Cycle (GLC). While there still will be the issue of variations by legal system and location, the adaptation of staff and automation will have to be faster and sharper than in the past. While there will still be steady-state goals and boundaries periods, the change increases its velocity. What are the foundations for goals in a changing world? This post will dig into the primary foundations around goals.

Goals for People

Better goal management needs a good dose of people power for both the management of the goals and the attainment of our changing goals. In today's world of collaboration, people are a crucial resource for establishing, maintaining, and changing goals. The problem is that collaborations today are somewhat random and not organized around completely transparent goals. When changes occur, the stakeholders that are the goals stewards are not given complete visibility to the change, and worse yet, all the participants are not clued in to how they should change their behavior. Therefore, all goal management and goal attainment activities should be tied to goals naturally and informing way.

Goals for Processes

Better goal management should directly link goal changes to the sequence and outcomes of business processes. All resources that contribute to a process's success need to understand/support the goals, goals changes, and direct actions required for new goal courses. While processes are often on the front line of detecting a need to adjust goals through exceptions or changes in business event trends, their significant contribution revolves around goal attainment. Changes in goals often mean a shift in process actions and even new process paths or step sequences. Collaborations with all the process resources for new or changed purposes are essential; however, enlightened organizations have adaptable processes that automatically adapt to new goals or milestones.

Goals for Programs

Better goal management should allow for quick adaptation of change to existing programs. The program could be a one-time event, like a conference, or a repeatable set of linked people, processes, automation, and platforms. Better program management means that learnings need to be faster and more comprehensive, and responses need to be planned and delivered quicker. It puts a premium on thorough communication and collaboration directly linked to goals instead of random collaborations that are not connected or missed because they appear to be noise communications in error.

Goals for Systems of Automation

The problem with most automation is that they are optimized to deliver on efficiency that depends on stable goals. Packaged and legacy applications, components, and micro-services are created for a known set of outcomes. The maintainers of this automation need to be informed early of any changes as early in the cycle as possible because of the lead time to make changes in this often-brittle automation. Even if automation were designed to flex, we are seeing unexpected scenarios that will likely change the ingenious automation of the past. Therefore, early in the change cycle, synchronized goal change communications and collaborations are a must putting a premium on linking to stakeholder goals.

Goals for Supporting Platforms/Infrastructure

Often unseen supports become a change inhibitor. These could be transportation systems, physical platforms, manufacturing lines, networks, or technical system platforms. Over time these are the last to become flexible and represent constraints on supporting goal changes. Communicating with the stewards and outside vendors about the goal changes has to be early in the cycle. Many infrastructure platforms were designed with a specific purpose in mind, so communicating early and often helps these folks figure out ways to bend or extend the infrastructure. Some infrastructure changes require long lead times.

Net; Net:

We all are trying to deal with change and the downstream effects on all moving parts of the organization that need to know about or change behaviors to support new or existing goals. Communicating in synchronization, preparing for the changes, and implementing the changes needs to be done in shorter time frames in today's dynamic and flexible worlds. It is a much different world than we have been used to in the past. Better goal management, methods, and tools will likely result in our new change-prone world. It may require further training and outside perspective to prepare for better goal management in a world of constant change.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

Our warmest wishes for you and yours in this holiday season. Even if you don't celebrate, we hope you have a restful and peaceful time. It blows my mind that God would send his son into our world to wear skin for 30+ years to experience human pain, trials, and joy so that we might experience a close relationship with him. No matter your belief peace, and love from our family to yours. Sherry and Stella are enjoying the season. We are all fortunate to be healthy and blessed in this time with rampant diseases that are picking off the weak easily and the strong occasionally. 

 

Art for the 3rd Quarter 2021

 Another creative quarter has past and the works keep coming. This time I did a fun one that tried a method that employed painter's tape and layers. Hope you get entertained with these pieces :)  If you want to see the rest of my collection, click here.

Costa Hummingbird

Yikes Stripes 

Tornado 

Crab Attack 

UFO

If you see something here or in my collection that stirs you, send me an email at jim.sinur@gmail.com. 

Results-Oriented Communications (ROC) for Stakeholders

 Stakeholders should be partners in our organizations and should be treated with utmost care. Often they are at an increased disadvantage because they are often not directly involved with the day-to-day operations, initiative progress, and the incremental improvements that bolster confidence and trust. Each stakeholder type or individual wants different results and watches many milestones of progress. Results-Oriented Communications/Collaborations (ROC) can assist these very stakeholders in their roles. We will explore the various kinds of stakeholders and how each of these stakeholders can take advantage of ROC. There are both external and internal stakeholders associated with every organization/company. Three major kinds of stakeholders will be explored here.

Investor Stakeholder: One external type of stakeholder is associated with the investment aspect of an organization. These investors are keenly interested in any communication that would imply an effect on financial results. They spend time sorting through various communications and ratings to determine the health of their investments. ROC can help because stakeholders can be linked to all pertinent communications. Besides these links, there are typically goal/outcome visual summaries available to view at a summary level. Routinely investor stakeholders can look at essential outcomes/goals and see the progress towards them. Since all communications are linked to these outcomes and supporting initiatives, an interested investor can drill down to a very fine granular level to satisfy their interest and or generate inquiries to or collaborate with internal stakeholders or managers. It will support various styles of investors who range from managing by exception to micromanager types. The amount of time saved by looking at initiative summary dashboards is significant. Still, when sniffing down a trail of potentially negative impact on results, the time saved is immense because there is a repository of supporting documents and collaborations about these documents.

Customer Stakeholders: Another crucial external stakeholder interested in your organization is counting on your business to remain viable to become a source for future purchases of goods and services if the relationship generates loyalty. This loyalty depends entirely on your organization's relationship with these customers, which is generally a result of servicing experience and product performance. ROC can help because it can be leveraged to follow the journey of various kinds of customers and manage the initiatives to improve customer experience. Assuming an outside-in perspective, key customers selected to represent the customer experience and routinely check progress on improvements and drill down to the communications revolving around their specific needs and perspectives while sampling the new experiences along the way, thus generating collaboration opportunities. Some collaborations will occur by reviewing the proposed outcomes. Good customer experiences will represent customer goals at an operational level as well. ROC initiatives will typically aim for balanced customer/company goals and measures of success.

Internal Stakeholders: Internal stakeholders are the ones that represent the various roles and skills that an organization employs to operate the company and deliver desired outcomes for all stakeholders. Typically, initiative owners, managers, and skilled employees represent specialized competencies, skills, and knowledge. When tied together across skillsets through tsks and processes, these resources deliver the expected outcomes measured by operational targets and KPIs. These same resources are tasked with improving the customer experiences, processes, and tasks necessary to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of decisions and actions. ROC is essential in managing initiatives to enhance balanced outcomes, end-to-end journeys, end-to-end processes, and tasks. The progress of any endeavor can be tracked from all stakeholders’ perspectives making efforts transparent. In addition, all efforts to improve are linked to the supporting communications for detailed drill-downs to manage progress. ROC will get feedback through collaboration as tasks are planned, executed, and completed.

Net; Net:

Other stakeholders can be brought into the ROC tent, such as suppliers, communities, governments, and potential competitors, but the three most important influences are represented above. The day in the life of a stakeholder will be made better by the capabilities afforded by ROC methods, techniques, and technologies. As the ROC market develops and matures with the technology players, landmark case studies will emerge to emulate better results.

 

Costs of Not Having Results-Oriented Communications (ROC)

 Let’s stop burning money on poor communications. Identifying the actual costs for not having the best communications aimed at specific outcomes and attaining the goals of anyone organization is an elusive task. However, some irrefutable trends point strongly to higher and growing costs. Let's start with some base studies done within the last decade. One study was aimed at large organizations, and the other was at small to medium organizations.

The Past Base Studies:

In "The Cost of Poor Communications," David Grossman reported that a survey of 400 companies with 100,000 employees or more each cited and an average loss per company of 62.4 million per year because of inadequate communication to and between employees.

In her article "Top Ten Email Blunders that Cost Companies Money," Debra Hamilton asserted that miscommunication cost even smaller companies of 100 employees an average of $420,000 per year.

It’s Much Worse Today:

If these studies were refreshed, I would assert that the numbers are much higher for several reasons. One is that we are moving to distributed responsibilities and matrix-management styles create confusion over day-to-day priorities operationally, longer-term priorities tactically or strategically. To compound this problem, we can communicate faster-automated collaboration and communication tools across various communication channels.

You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet:

The future of work is hybrid, adding another level of complexity and opportunity for misunderstanding with a potentially new crisis of confidence for the workers at the edge. Recently, Gartner says “By the end of 2021, remote workers will represent 32% of all employees worldwide, impacting how and where remote workers use IT.”   Our employees want and can demand these new freedom levels, and organizations need to get that talent is now hybrid. Unfortunately, this opens us to a more extreme lack of focus and losing perspective on purpose. It also does not optimize innovation; therefore, the credibility of the organization and individuals wanes.

What’s at Stake?

Besides just time and productivity loss because of chaotic communications, project failures have and will continue to be. These, in turn, result in the following:

·        Poor customer service and dissatisfied customers

·        High-stress levels and low employee morale, which can additionally affect productivity and deliverables

·        Higher than average employee turnover rates

·        Loss of company/organizational credibility

·        A decline in sales and stock value

If this list doesn’t get your attention as a business professional, I don’t know what will.

 What Do We Do About It?

Companies with leaders who are highly effective communicators had 47% higher total returns to shareholders over the past five years than firms with leaders who are the least effective communicators.

·        Stop making excuses and commit to getting better.

·        Get a mirror and allocate time and resources to deliver messages through expected results, outcomes, and goals.

·        Leverage methods and technology that deliver results-oriented communications

·        Be persistent and consistent but consider the audience

·        Actively listen and walk the talk

A key to all the above is attitude and the new systems, tools, and processes needed to communicate effectively with teams. Many managers mistake repeating communications fast down multiple communication channels to bathe the employees with more communications hoping they get the intent. Having a communications infrastructure and tools that link every communication with desired results at the stakeholder is a minimum. If all results, goals, and outcomes are documented and shared in a typical data resource that can be pulled into efforts in a real-time fashion, the results will be better. Every time something changes, all interested parties are notified within result/goal/ outcome contexts. We need to embrace results-oriented communications intentions, infrastructure, and tools to deliver a better communications culture over time.

Net; Net:

These few facts represented here are the tip of the iceberg on the breadth and depths of research that has and will demonstrate financial rewards for businesses that communicate well to their employees and the problems that result when they don’t. Switching to a results-oriented communications culture is essential. It doesn't matter if an organization is scared about the present wasteful costs or enticed by higher monetary returns or both; we are now in the world of hybrid work enabled by ROC. It's time to take of the fight against "random tasks."

Additional Reading:

Results-OrientedCommunications Post

Hybrid Work Model Post

Chaotic Communications Post