Narratives of Life: fifties

When I reached fifties I took time and effort in changing and integrating cultures of my organization by gradually involving them into new challenges and offering mentoring and help tailored in their specific needs. I even fabricated some crises to weld people together by outside threat. I was also distributing projects so that there were always parallel paths in process. If one path was delayed, another path was advancing and I met my goals on time. I was able to deliver planned services with my organization but not successful in transforming them to capabilities.

Users were more keen on clinging existing tools and procedures than adapting any new ways of working. My technical level effort was not transformed to new procedures and further capabilities. I was using advanced technology, good practices and people to deliver world class information services, but my superiors were seeing me more an expense rather than enabler. Successes inside were not translated as achievements outside of my organization.

I tried to create examples. I asked Commander to act as an example, use new services himself and demand his subordinates to utilize them also. I was using collaboration tools weekly to manage my own distributed organization and thus create examples for my people to market to their organizations. I required my staff to utilize wiki to manage both current operations and planned issues. We were really flat and effective Information and Communications Technology (ICT) organization, but still users were shy to adopt new tools.

Together with other process owners we initiated process transformations: renewed fighting with Chief of Operations and inspectors of Infantry and Sappers utilizing battlefield management system; improved reconnaissance with head of Intelligence; enhanced artillery fires with inspector of artillery; standardizing the Command and Control processes with chief of readiness and maintenance of programmable electronics with head of Logistics.

We defined progressively advancing measures for each field exercise for troops and instructors to improve their new skills. We composed joint exercises to give meaning for co-operation and new tasks to benefit from new ICT-services. We produced concepts, guides, presentations and videos to utilize by instructors in their changed training. Every occasion was used to reward any behavior towards future model. We planned an information operation to get people and units to change their behavior and culture. This was possible only with shared understanding and unified effort to make change for bigger goals than any one unit or branch were able to accomplish.

Only after core business owners started transformations I was able to gain capabilities defined and my staff started to feel being a part of something bigger and doing meaningful work. I learnt that if you want to make a change, first you have to get people moving to be able to steer the movement.

Today I sometimes think that I know how world is running. For these occasions I have a wall paper titled Egocentricity. Human being has a tendency for being like this:

• Egocentric memory is a natural tendency to forget information that does not support the adopted line of thinking. 
•  Egocentric myopia refers to thinking within an overly narrow point of view. 
•  Egocentric righteousness is a tendency to feel superior based on the belief that one has actually figured out how the world works. 
•  Egocentric blindness is the natural tendency not to notice facts and evidence that contradict one’s beliefs or values.

After this reminder I continue humbly my journey and try harder to understand better how world is functioning, people behave, societies interact and technology develops towards more complex and integrated global system of systems. Remembering that even producing a simple toaster from A to Z is not possible for any one man alone.