O “Mendelian executive” - a intencionalidade na busca de uma resposta (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II. e parte III.

"Mattis reads Roman writers like Marcus Aurelius, but he is no stoic. Decade after decade he is touring some front or another, starting a million affectionate conversations. “How’s it going?” “Living the dream, sir,” is how those conversations begin. He trusts his Marines enough to delegate authority down. He clearly expresses a commander’s intent in any situation and gives them latitude to adapt to circumstances. [Moi ici: Recordar a importância da "commander's intent" (aqui, aqui e aqui)]
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Love is a motivational state. It propels you. You want to make promises to the person or organization you love. Character is forged in the keeping of those promises. If, on the other hand, you are unable to love and be loved, you’re never going to be in a position to make commitments or live up to them. You’re never going to forge yourself into a person who can be relied upon.
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Much of the work is intellectual. He thought the second Iraq war was a crazy idea, but when he was ordered to command part of it, he started reading Xenophon and ancient books about warfare in Mesopotamia.
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“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you,” Mattis and West write."[Moi ici: Daqui - "Aprendemos com o que reflectimos, com o que vemos/lemos e com o que experimentamos.]

Trechos retirados de "The Man Trump Wishes He Were"

O “Mendelian executive” - a variação, ou será variedade? (parte II)

Parte I.

E volto ao executivo Mendeliano.

"With regard to processes of variation, on occasion, our Mendelian executive will have ideas. These ideas may stem from personal aha moments, observations of others, and recommendations—high-priced or unsolicited—of others. Vacuums are generally not fertile settings for interesting insights. Thus, individual differences in strategy “variants” may reflect the distinctive prior and current contexts to which executives have been exposed. [Moi ici: Costumo dizer que não se formula uma estratégia a partir de uma folha em branco. Uma estratégia depende da experiência passada, uma estratégia é uma função do ADN] This may be exposure to particular sets of actual or potential customers, thought leaders from diverse fields, prior related businesses, and so on. As network theorists highlight, these links need not be based on one’s direct experience but may be indirect experiences mediated by other individuals with whom one is connected. [Moi ici: Aprendemos com o que reflectimos, com o que vemos/lemos e com o que experientamos. Recordar "Subir na escala da abstracção"]
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To an important degree, variants are a by-product of ongoing efforts to address issues of existing customers and solving associated technical and nontechnical challenges. [Moi ici: As variantes aparecem motivadas pela experiencia de viver o dia-a-dia e a vontade de resolver problemas que surgem] However, per the self-conscious guidance of such dynamics of our Mendelian executive, the identification of potential new domains for existing lines of development is not a matter of chance or happenstance. Schumpeter (1934) characterizes entrepreneurial action as creative recombination of products, technologies, and markets. The fact that these are “recombinations” is indicative that these entrepreneurial actions entail the movement into adjacent spaces—the market opportunities that might be pursued given the firm’s existing set of capabilities, its market position, and the competitive and market context that it faces. In considering such recombinations from the perspective of a Mendelian executive, it is important to recognize the intentionality underlying such efforts. There is a lookahead to alternative strategic opportunities. [Moi ici: Acredito que a diferença no desempenho das organizações dentro de um mesmo sector económico resulta da maior ou menor intencionalidade, da maior ou menor predisposição para testar alternativas ao status-quo, a par da qualidade intrinseca dessas alternativas]
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Experimentation, however, does not obviate the need for ex ante choices—a consideration that the literature tends to neglect. Not all candidate experiments can be carried out. The lean start-up approach takes an extreme view on this and postulates that only one experimental trial should be carried out at any moment. Real options approaches encourage a plurality of efforts and the subsequent culling of this potentially large set. However, options are not costless, and a firm will need to restrict itself up front to some modest set of possibilities. Thus, while the analytical distinction between ex ante cognitive bases of evaluation and ex post experimental approaches is quite important, even ex post experimental approaches require some degree of upfront assessment of appropriate initiatives."

O executivo Mendeliano não é um tipo acéfalo que anda aqui por ver andar os outros, procura não ser mais uma bóia, como referia Ortega y Gasset, procura não ser mais uma folha na corrente levada pelas circunstâncias, mas procura fazer a diferença.

Trechos retirados de "Mendel in the C-Suite: Design and the Evolution of Strategies" de Daniel A. Levinthal e publicado em 2017 por Strategy Science 2(4):282-287.

O “Mendelian executive” - o mecanismo (parte I)

Ontem, durante uma caminhada matinal comecei a ler "Mendel in the C-Suite: Design and the Evolution of Strategies" de Daniel A. Levinthal e publicado em 2017 por Strategy Science 2(4):282-287.

Levinthal escreve de uma forma muito atractiva.

"The question of “where do good strategies come from” is arguably a subset of the broader question of why things are the way they are. At its most basic level, as with respect to the question of life on planet earth, we have two general classes of answers: one invoking some form of intentional design and the other invoking a Darwinian process of descent with variation and a contested selection process. The argument developed here tries to set forth a middle-ground perspective of a Mendelian executive. This “Mendelian executive” operates with a degree of intentionality; but, unlike the conception of rationality in neoclassical economics, this intentionality is limited. Furthermore, the emphasis is more on the design of experimental processes than on the design of specific paths forward. [Moi ici: Desenhar caminhos específicos é demasiada arrogância. É menos inseguro fazer pequenas expriências e ir tacteando] While circumscribed, this intentionality and design sets this Mendelian executive apart from a pure Darwinian process. Both orientations highlight the role of path dependencies. However, the intentionality of the Mendelian executive allows for the conscious exploration of adjacent “spaces” rather than the happenstance of random variants. Furthermore, the argument developed here highlights the role of intentionality with respect to the selection and culling of strategic initiatives. The firm is viewed as operating an “artificial selection” environment in contrast to selection as the direct consequence of the outcome of competitive processes. [Moi ici: Tanto a paisagem competitiva evolui e afecta as organizações, como estas podem procurar espaços competitivos alternativos] While these outcomes may inform the artificial selection process, the two criteria need not be the same.
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While not controlling these processes, perhaps to some degree we can engage in some intentional engineering of these evolutionary processes. Consider, for instance, the frequently discussed need for organizations to balance processes of exploration and exploitation. Such manipulation is unlikely to be a precise engineering of the evolutionary process, but rather a reflection of a broad awareness of the effect of alternative organizational policies on the dynamics of firm evolution, as these policies tilt the “needle” of the exploration/exploitation balance in one direction or another.
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An important dichotomy in arguments regarding the specification of business strategies is the degree to which action is identified a priori as a result of “offline” reasoning and consideration versus an ex post assessment of “online” trials. In this regard, it is import to note that a Darwinian process is one extreme of online trials. The Mendelian executive straddles both online and offline forms of learning and strategy identification. The experimental variants are not random acts but rather conscious choices of potentially promising initiatives. Furthermore, the Mendelian view melds an offline sensibility with regard to the ex post evaluation of online trials. A purely evolutionary or Darwinian mechanism operates through a contestation of relative fitness and what is fundamentally a myopic selection process. By contrast, the Mendelian executive may make conscious choices of what might constitute the dimensions of merit by which initiatives are evaluated. Furthermore, that calculus of evaluation may constitute forward-looking indicators of merit. The ultimate value of the contemporaneous realization of any initiative is inevitably speculative, but speculation is conscious and explicit. From an evolutionary perspective, there are two basic mechanisms at work: processes of variation and selection. We can consider the work of the Mendelian executive with respect to both of these processes. We tend to associate variation as the consequence of some stochastic process, but variation may have considerable elements of planning and intentionality. [Moi ici: Variação ou variedade?] Variation may be considered from the perspective of individual ideation; the internal ecology of initiatives within the firm; and the role of path dependence, “pivots,” and adjacencies.
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Yet, in the Mendelian perspective developed here—situated between classic images of design and intentionality and a Darwinian process of random variants and contested selection—the interpretation of experimental outcomes plays a prominent role. It is common to contrast learning processes with processes of selection. Our typical conceptions of learning processes are based on notions of reinforcement learning in which the proclivity to engage in a particular act is reinforced or diminished as a consequence of the association between that act and an observed outcome. However, in the strategy context, outcomes in terms of an ultimate consequence of a strategic action are typically rather distant in time from the “act.” Given this “distance,” the time between initiating a new product, mode of competing, entry into a new geography or market space, and the ultimate feedback regarding the wisdom of such an effort, interim judgments play a critical role in any adaptive efforts. [Moi ici: O papel dos indicadores do balanced scorecard como forma de avaliar se a execução da estratégia está a ocorrer como previsto e se os resultados estão a caminhar para o desejado]
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when organizations define milestones and metrics around key success factors, they are constituting an artificial selection environment that guides the cultivation of initiatives within the firm. The virtue of such shaping rewards is that they may substantially speed up the feedback process relative to the feedback from the environment as to whether a given action or strategy is pushing forward along a promising track."

Continua.

A evolução da ideia de mosaico estratégico (parte VII)

Continuado daqui: parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V e parte VI.

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Retirei este trecho do arranque do capítulo 13 "Organizational Capabilities in Complex" de Daniel Levinthal que faz parte do livro “The Nature and Dynamics of Organizational Capabilities”, editado por Giovanni Dosi, Richard R. Nelson, Sidney G. Winter.

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“For much of its modern history, microeconomics has focused on the behaviour of markets as its units of analysis. (Moi ici: Tema que descobri no artigo de Nelson) In analysing such questions, the field was largely satisfied with relatively trivial characterizations of firms. A central element of the contribution of Nelson and Winter has been the introduction of a new, more microlevel, unit of analysis—that of organizational routines.

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Recently, the idea that knowledge is largely tacit and embedded in organizational routines (Moi ici: As actividades que constituem um processo são estas rotinas organizacionais. Algo na onda do que referia Porter no artigo de 1996, "What is Strategy?") has been applied to gain insights into the relative competitiveness of national economies.

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Complementarities are central to the existence and formation of routines, but routines themselves are critical building blocks for broader assemblages of capabilities.(Moi ici: Outra forma de designar o mosaico de actividades que se reforçam e fazem nascer as diferenças de desempenho intra-sectoriais... atractores num mundo complexo e caótico) In some cases, these broader assemblages become a sufficiently distinct and coherent set of practices that they are given a label, such as the Fordist or Toyota production system. A central element of such systems of behaviour is the degree to which they are coherent; the degree to which one element reinforces or complements other elements. (Moi ici: Comecei ontem a ler "The Essential Advantage" de Paul Leinwand e Cesare Mainardi, livro comentado por Ram Charan da seguinte forma "It demonstrates that coherence - treating your internal practives and your external business environment as interrelated and mutually focused - leads to competitive advantage")

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The presence of complementarities raises important issues for the nature of selection processes. Selection operates at the level of the organization or, in the terminology of biology, at the level of the phenotype. An organization earns a profit or loss. The environment does not directly reward a particular business practice. … While it is possible to make intelligent inferences, there is inevitably some degree of ambiguity. (Moi ici: Às vezes nem as próprias empresas reconhecem esses seus traços distintivos e, por isso, subestimam-se, qual Flávio Silva.)

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For a system to effectively adapt, whether it be an individual organization or the economy as a whole, actions that are associated with favourable outcomes need to be reinforced relative to those actions associated with less favourable outcomes. At the level of the economy, this is reflected in the flow of financial capital to organizations that succeed, or demonstrate the prospect of succeeding, in product markets.

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issues of unit of analysis and complementarities raise important questions about the desirability of the identification and transfer of ‘best practices’. Implicit in such efforts is the assumption that ‘best practice’ is independent of the firm's context. Such a perspective not only ignores external contingencies but also ignores issues of internal coherence and consistency. Are ‘best practices’ in fact decomposable from the broader set of organizational processes of which they are a part? (Moi ici: Claro, não existem boas-práticas em teoria, num limbo desligado dos clientes-alvo e da proposta de valor)

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By the same token, the identification and measurement of performance of isolated business processes represent a profound change in the unit of selection. Rather than market forces operating on the overall organization, the phenotype, selection-like pressures are brought to bear on a particular practice, the genotype. This fundamental shift in unit of analysis has, in many instances, led to dramatic discoveries on the part of firms regarding the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of particular practices”
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Continua.