I want to write about two sublime examples of human beings at the peak of their abilities - individually and collectively. They know why they are doing what they do, consistently pour joy and passion into how they do it, and attract undying loyalty from their followers as a result. They engage with others who are also at the pinnacle of human achievement, never failing to enthrall us each time they perform. The secret to their success is their insight that organising (of any kind) is a performance art and that risk is an integral part of that...
Then I want to pose the question: How can our business and government organisations be more like that - where dedicated allegiance to a higher purpose, liberated by mutual respect, trust and precision, takes us beyond what we thought humanly possible into an amplifying spiral of abundant value?
Mozart's gift was to write music that is perfection in its simplicity - astonishing at a level of technical craft, yet embracing a profound inevitability in its surface unfolding. Take any piece by this composer, listen to it played by an ensemble of virtuoso musicians, like the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and marvel that something of such profound beauty could result from a human mind.
In each intricate creation, there is not one note too many nor one too few. Change a harmony and the work will be diminished. Displace a phrase or two and the whole structure could fall. Yet the true genius of the man, if contemporary accounts hold credence, is that he notated such exquisite artworks as if they were already perfect and whole. In effect Mozart composed the entire architecture of sound events, dynamics and relationships, prior to consigning it to paper.
What is even more extraordinary, from an organisational perspective, is that the tiniest most subtle alterations in expression, including spontaneous nuances of tuning, timbre, and tempo, can be accommodated within a performance, allowing players to add their own personalities and nuances to the music with no loss of authenticity. We still hear the music as inescapably being composed by Mozart. This is an astonishing example of creative synergy at work in spite of a 300-year gap between invention and realisation.
A Red Bull Formula 1 racing car is similarly engineered for perfection. Using high-tech wind tunnels, carbon composites, and instant recalibration, each car is fabricated to be as fast and as agile as possible, within an established set of rules from which the team must not deviate, in pursuit of a ruthlessly self-evident goal.
Here impulsiveness and unplanned interpretations are eliminated. There is no room for error when a pitstop, involving the fitting of four new tyres, meticulous refuelling, and competitors trying to exit the pit lane ahead of you, can take less than 3 seconds. How is something like that even humanly possible? The answer is rehearsed precision. Every aspect of the driver's expertise and the car's performance, every component from chassis, tyres and engine to aerodynamics and transmission, plus every facet of a team working harmoniously as a single entity, must combine in an experience that is near flawless from beginning to end.
Most company Boards would like to believe their staff capable of working together in ways where well-rehearsed practices invariably lead to singularly impeccable accomplishments and legions of loyal fans. Most, too, would yearn for the impeccable speed, agility and synchrony achieved by Red Bull's motor racing team. And many would pay a fortune to have the joyous vitality and productive culture of a polished music ensemble like the ACO in their midst.
But what would that take in practical terms? Is it simply too fanciful an idea to be considered in the cut-and-thrust world of modern commerce? Hardly. No industries are more insistently competitive than motor racing or the arts. Is there wisdom in these two examples that could be applied to the benefit of almost any enterprise? Undoubtedly. More pertinently, if that is the case, what are the most crucial lessons? How might these be used to create organisations that verge on excellence all the time, are fecund and exciting places to be, and that generate socially beneficial, culturally desirable and economically abundant outcomes for all?
We could start by noting a significant divergence between the two examples, differences that are often ignored, glossed over, or misunderstood by executives who use sporting or musical metaphors without a great deal of thought as to their relevance in their particular situation.
Mozart's music is so much more than a score. The greater part of the music exists beyond the written artifact which is essentially just a code giving us some clues as to what is required so that 'perfection' has a chance to materialize. The symphonies of sound emanating from the musicians collectively is itself a complex adaptive system - a succession of ephemeral layers occurring concurrently within and across several dimensions. As the players bring the music to life they emancipate yet another complex adaptive system - somatic, cognitive, emotional experiences of each listener, and that of the audience collectively.
The sounds we hear arise from a creative impulse stretching back over three centuries - an authentic voice that still speaks to us today, in a manner that has lost none of its vibrancy or originality. Here are entangled open systems within which an infinite variety of purposes are woven. The innate complexity is astonishing. Myriad ephemeral elements coming together, many of them intangible, in a space where there is zero organisational redundancy and where tiny, spontaneous, nuances can be incorporated in real-time without any loss of character.
Indeed, these numerous tiny fluctuations enhance the overall performance without in any way detracting from the embedded aesthetic structure. These subtle nuances even intensify our emotional encounter with the music. In a live concert there can never be a performance that exactly replicates another. And that is the art. To be a true artist one has to be ready and willing to embrace uncertainty and spontaneity while shunning hard and fast regimentation.
The Red Bull racing team is also a complex adaptive system but of a very different kind. Here there can be no unintended variations. Surprise introduces unacceptable risks and hazards. Instead, predictability is deliberately sought and variation, of any kind, is the enemy. There is a single dominant goal - to finish the race intact, faster than the other cars, and with reserves in place. To that end each element must fit perfectly into the overall schema in ways that give absolute support two individuals - Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez - by giving them the best possible chance of achieving the desired result. Meanwhile rigorous repetition and practice is considered to be the most effective means for enabling the team to function as one finely tuned unit.
So, what lessons can be learned and applied from these two very different examples? How can we re-envisage the task of 'organising' in ways that aspire to create systemic vitality and viability as a platform to launch virtuoso performances in our commercial enterprises?
There are fundamentally three strategic leverage points within human systems that are able to tweak the system's dynamics in ways that lead to performance excellence and outcomes, assuming other critical factors fall into place. They are:
designing the organisation as a performing ensemble - from its teleological aims to its ethics, and from its learning metabolism to its experiential intentionality
evolving business protocols and routines away from efficiency [as in achieving a narrow set of goals] to fecundity [amplifying complexity for abundant free energy]
configuring relationships, ideas, and investments in ways that consciously unleash collaborative inquiry and the spirit of entrepreneurialism.
While each of these three impulses can operate separately to release bounded energy in separate business units, the three applied in unison to ecosystem design create a synergy that offers the greatest chance of reaching 'escape velocity' without which operational excellence will probably remain just a dream. When all else has been tried and found wanting, it is free-thinking, resourceful and creative minds that are the alchemy for transformational change.
Designing in Abundance
There are several aspects of regenerative design worthy of reflection. Most importantly for those who work in business is the need to understand that many of the factors that constrain organisational excellence are precisely those used to liberate it in other domains. The most notable of these factors are:
1. Ecosystem adaptiveness
Most business schools teach management as an 'efficiency' discipline applied to that part of the business over which a manager has sole jurisdiction. Executive pay is routinely based on that. As a consequence, there are many managers who can't entertain a whole-of-enterprise mindset so fixated are they on optimising their own patch. But that is only a fraction of an executive's responsibility. They must be able to sacrifice process performance in their part of the business if such sub-optimal tactics will benefit the whole enterprise.
Instead of always trying to enhance revenue, profits, quality and productivity in every part of the business, efforts that almost invariably lead to unacceptable trade-offs at the expense of some parties, particularly staff and customers, the broader business ecosystem, of which any business unit is just one part, must be the primary concern of all those in strategic roles.
Indeed, envisaging the ecosystem as it is supposed to function (in other words its ideal state) should be a daily practice for every strategic mind within a company. Without this knowledge, regularly upgraded, people may be tempted to act unilaterally, market opportunities may be missed, operational risks will escalate and even the most resilient strategy will start to unravel.
But to be sure this 'ideal' ecosystem state is emergent a visual representation or simulation of the system's emergent state is vital, in conjunction with a lucid narrative clarifying any desired performance outputs. Many organisations behave as though improved process capability alone will result in overall effectiveness. It will not. There are two reasons:
Processes that are optimal in closed environments, can cause unforeseen tensions and even functional crashes when interacting with other optimal processes in the broader ecosystem.
Focusing purely on process detracts from a deeper understanding of the unique role a functioning enterprise has within the wider ecosystem. Performance is constrained as a result. It is the interface of relationships, and their alignment and flows between processes, that matter, as well as how these blend to increase value.
These are simple facts of life and yet so often ignored. The moral is to understand and embed a higher authentic purpose in the business - not some contrived convenience from marketing. Always start with this design in mind - just as Mozart did during his lifetime and just as Red Bull team manager Christian Horner does today in order to win the F1 championship.
2. Viability first
An organisation must be 'viable' before it can excel. This is the information needed to remain responsive to changing conditions. It flows through the enterprise, bringing the potential for excellence in its wake. Comprising both strategic and operational precision, continuously and thoroughly revitalised by relevant system-wide data, processed and conveyed in real-time to where its needed, a viable enterprise works seamlessly and silently to achieve its espoused purpose. It is the platform from which excellence is nourished and exceptional performance born.
Free and transparent flows of strategic and operational intelligence across the enterprise are an imperative. Without access to real-time data, people may act in ways that are undesirable. If the string section of the orchestra is playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No: 23 while the wind section is playing Concerto No: 24 the result will be an excruciating cacophony - although the individual playing may still be technically true in both instances. It is only data provided by the conductor of the orchestra that prevents such silly occurrences from happening. In a business setting, absurdities like this occur all the time, especially when the higher-level purpose, roles and activities lack visibility.
The moral is to ensure viability from one moment to the next through assuring economies of flow and an organisational environment that is openly transparent rather than closed off to such information.
3. Improvement can be misguided
Attempting to maximise the productivity of the workforce in orchestras and racing teams, or indeed in any service-based enterprise, can backfire. In organisational systems there are two 'levers' that often lead to improvement. The first focuses on identifying and then developing those capabilities, inherent or to be acquired, that are most probably going to bring success. The second attends to, or removes, any factors that are already, or could, result in failure or inadequate performance.
Again, both of these require a profound knowledge of the business ecosystem - a detailed forensic diagnosis, including why the system functions as it does - before small experiments aimed at improving productivity can be tried. This is especially the case when a few minor modifications are proposed.
As circumstances and external conditions are always fluid, their dynamics requiring constant monitoring, tuning and recalibration, the foundations for excellence, particularly continuity and viability, must be achieved and sustained in other ways. In Red Bull each team member is responsible for executing a specific set of tasks. To achieve the best results possible the team comprises precisely the right number of people. Each person is highly skilled at a specific task. Nothing is left to chance: each person is accountable to the whole team. This meticulousness removes indecision and uncertainty, particularly in moments where lives can be at risk, while enhancing consistency.
The moral is to approach strategic design from a whole-of-system altitude and to focus on what practically matters - not on abstractions, invalid assumptions, or pet theories.
People are the alchemy of change
Business is a performance art. It depends on people who're utterly committed, highly skilled, smart and talented, working together at the edge of their capability and potential to achieve peak performance. Depending on the requirements of the score, an orchestra comprises just the right number of musicians, with the requisite degree of innate talent and honed skills. The Red Bull team, too, will have not one person too many, nor too few, for that would put the entire operation in jeopardy. In any enterprise there are a few critical imperatives to keep in mind when dealing with people:
1. We rarely exceed our own expectations
Putting a cap on what might be possible, by setting targets or insisting on a particular course of action (excluding unethical conduct of course) does not work well in the context of striving for excellence. It can even make life more dangerous than it needs to be in when imposed on a Red Bull racing team. This is why an expression of what is possible must remain forever open and fluid; while an explicit covenant of what is not acceptable must be evident and actively enforced. Only then can we surprise ourselves and others by lifting performance to unimaginable heights - taking us far beyond what was previously thought possible. The moral is to unshackle team potential rather than stifling it with administrative trivia that adds no value to the performance.
2. Individual contributions matter
Mozart's music remains an idea on paper until it is brought to life by the 18 musicians who are the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Likewise, a Red Bull F1 racing car can be seen as an impeccable combination of engineering know-how and competitive aesthetics. But it must be driven to its limits in order to realise the intentions underlying its design.
Assuming an organisation has the most appropriate talent available to it - self-motivated yet willing to learn, collaborate and adapt - people must be given the means whereby they can excel. Often this entails removing a raft of rules and regulations that are superfluous and can stifle innovation, without putting at risk the viability of the whole. It also means ensuring just the right number of people are engaged on just the right activities. No more and no less. This is the enabling energy we call leadership. It is the role Richard Tognetti plays in the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Christian Horner in Red Bull, and the Board of directors in any business enterprise.
3. Practice and rehearsal are essential
Individual skills and collective proficiency must both remain in an advanced state of fecund potential in order to achieve excellence while avoiding potential hazards. Although esteem and self-confidence must never be allowed to falter, hubris must not take over. It is the ever-present comprehension that a small error can lead to catastrophe that keeps performers on their toes, to the extent that their attentiveness does not lapse, even for one moment. The moral is the need to gradually raise the stakes by increasing performance expectations over time so as to avoid drift, disinterest and demotivation.
4. Variation is always present
In the context of provisioning for ecosystem improvement, variation is always going to be an issue. As we have noted in our two examples, variation differs in type and impact. Encouraged at some level within the orchestra, it cannot be tolerated in Formula 1 racing. The tendency in business enterprises is to adopt practices that ignore the variation inherent in the demand for services and to usher in excessive controls instead. This has the reverse effect of what is really intended. Forcing people to meet a range of non-critical standards leads to them using their ingenuity to meet the standards - thus compromising excellence and falling short of meeting the expectations of others in the system - like paying 'customers' for example.
Where operational control is put entirely in the hands of managers - Richard Tognetti in the case of the ACO and Christian Horner at Red Bull - creativity will stall while performance will become stale and second-rate. The moral is to avoid the codification of method. Reinforcing management control, instead of finding new ways to liberate talent within the team, can be discouraging and invariably hinders performance.
On time and change
In addition to the lessons we can learn from companies like Red Bull and the ACO, both of whom organise themselves in ways that sets the scene for optimal performance, two other important elements I have not yet mentioned have to do with time (and timing) and the theory of change.
It is pretty obvious that the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Red Bull are acutely aware of time and how they can use it to their advantage, in a variety of ways, but invariably matched to the conditions in which they are operating from one moment to the next. Time and timing are the essence of their business after all. They know that planning requires a more measured tempo than preparation. Practice takes that up a gear. But performance occurs on a different plane altogether. For when the lights flash green, or the baton descends in the spotlight, the situation becomes electric. Everyone is on edge as time blurs and the ordinary is transformed into the extraordinary.
Neither the race nor the concert can go on indefinitely of course. If our life lacks variety, particularly if we constantly work in performance mode, with all the tensions, physical stresses and high levels of concentration that entails, we quickly become exhausted. Such a frenetic pace is impossible to sustain for lengthy periods.
The opposite is also enervating. Contrary to conventional wisdom, many organisations suffer from 'change fatigue' not because of the speed or variety of change per se but because of the frequent twists and turns in direction, or sudden management whims, and the feelings of futility and exasperation these engender.
Changing the timing and pace of various activities helps to sustain high levels of performance. Bursts of concentrated activity (sprints in 'agile' management parlance) can trigger innovation while providing a degree of focus that companies who insist on highly regulated, undeviating routines will never experience. Anticipation, too, is a great motivator. Indeed in some cases, anticipating an event can be more pleasurable than the event itself. Knowing that, why do so many organisations remove all sense of anticipation from their consciousness of time and timing?
The capacity to mix up the pace of change is often missing in organisations that insist on adhering to old-fashioned management controls as their rationale for managing risk. This is sad, not just because our conscious handling of time is the epitome of artistic and sporting endeavour, and therefore one of the pinnacles of human achievement, but because shrewd timing can sharpen attention, increase morale, and sustain high levels of performance for indefinite periods.
Finally a brief thought on design ethos or philosophy. The ACO and Red Bull both design for abundance. They view the architecture of the whole system and sustain effectiveness from that perspective, enabled by economies of flow - how things work seamless together. They look to increase skill levels and stay at the leading edge of their activities.
This habit is in stark contrast to many organisations that provision for scarcity. Motivated by insufficiency, executives focus primarily on the numbers - lowering costs, reducing the head count, and eliminating duplication. They will enthusiastically slash staff numbers without any knowledge of how this might impact the whole. They will analyse parts of the system their informants regard as critical and allocate funds to optimise those. Meanwhile the whole system becomes dysfunctional and performance slowly deteriorates over time.
Mozart took no notice of Salieri's sarcastic comments that he used 'far too many notes'. It's doubtful that Christian Horner pays too much attention to those of his rivals who disparage how he allocates funding within his team. The moral is clear. The ethos of efficiency cannot exist in the arts or in sport as it suffocates innovation and depletes performance. A sense of abundance and fecundity rules in these domains, as it should in any business enterprise set on excellence.
We have so much to learn from those professionals who consistently perform at the peak of their precocious talent. At its best, business is a performance art. And yet organisations still avoid learning from those whose very existence depends on operational excellence. Instead we lap up the latest business school fads, and heed the predictable maxims of management academics. When will we see artists in residence imparting their unique expertise as part of an organisation's leadership development program? When will urban planning agencies and the aviation industry have the foresight to invite choreographers into their design meetings?
A few have already embarked on that journey. Cirque di Soleil provides an exciting model for many manufacturing businesses today. I'm aware of several companies in New Zealand that benchmark themselves against the nation’s All-Blacks rugby team. Meanwhile we're beginning to find ethicists in scientific research, anthropologists in clothing and food companies, and ethicists in high-tech startups. Inviting diverse arts and practices into the world of business can only prove beneficial.
Many more are beginning to conceive their potential in these terms. It's never too late for an enterprise to set itself the ambitious goal of striving for excellence by viewing their activities as a performance art while embracing their humanity as a force for good rather than the sterile neutrality of being in business for the sake of it.