Exploring how the S-Curve can help us with leadership, strategy and decision making in an age of emergence: (properties or behaviours which only emerge when the parts interact as part of an inclusive whole)

History and context

There is a special place in our business hearts and minds for the “S” curve or Sigmoid function, calling it by its proper maths name. The origin of the S curve goes back to the study of population growth by Pierre-François Verhulst c.1838. Verhulst was influenced by Thomas Malthus’ “An Essay on the Principle of Population” which showed that growth of a biological population is self-limiting…

Who is the “we”, this piece is co-authored by Kaliya Young and me, who together have worked for over 45 years on identity and personal data. For this article, we are looking at the role of values, principles and rules within the industry and sectors seeking to re-define, re-imagine and create ways for people to manage the digital representations of themselves with dignity.

As we write this there is an ongoing conversation about the regulation of Facebook and the regulation of big tech in general. We see a problem with the frame of the conversation because we believe ON PRINCIPLE…

“Every” management student has had to answer the exam question: “Leadership/ management: Nature or Nurture? — discuss” It is a paradox from either side of the argument, the logical conclusion always highlights the other has truth. The reality of leadership and management is that it is a complex adaptive system, and context enables your nature to emerge and nurturing to mature. This is important because we also know there is a link between strategy, styles (leadership) and business structures. In this article, we will unpack how your “nature or nurture” thinking-structure, affects outcomes. Your thinking-structure is also a complex adaptive…

Day 0 as CDO, you receive conflicting instructions from your new peers and team.

We have to optimise our business by — decentralising more, centralising more, automating more, and becoming more human. Your job as the CDO is to ensure that our data can do all these conflicting optimisations and create future value.

Breathe

Centralised thinking is easy. Control sits in one place; everything comes home, there is a hub, the corporate office is where all the decisions are made, and it is a power game. Optimising is easy if this was the only and single most important objective.

Decentralised…

Not sure about you, but there is something different about the current situation (Feb 2021). I wrote about the 7B’s as our responses to lockdown, and I believe still that viewpoint stands. However, there is something new, right now, which is different; it is a mistiness, a malaise, fatigue, sapped, brain fog. To be clear, this is not a loss of motivation, depression or other mental issues — which are all very real and getting to everyone, but I am talking about something else.

In 1996 (web 1.0), the market discovered an online market opportunity. Everyone took their physical businesses…

I am fighting bias and prejudice about risk perceptions; please read the next lines before you click off. We tend to be blind sighted to “risk” because we have all lived it, read it and listened to risk statements. The ones on the TV and radio for financial products, the ones at the beginning of investment statements, ones for health and safety for machinery, ones for medicine, ones on the packets of cigarettes, the one when you open that new app on your new mobile device. We are bombarded with endless risk statements that we assume we know the details…

We continually move towards better data-led decisions; however, we can easily ask our dataset’s the wrong question. Without understanding “What is the purpose of data” on which we are basing decisions and judgements, it is easy to get an answer that is not in the data. How can we understand if our direction, Northstar or decision is a good one? Why am I interested in this? I am focusing on how we improve governance and oversight in a data-led world.

I wrote a lengthy article on Data is Data. It was a kickback at the analogies that data is oil…

As a leadership team, we need to continually move towards better data-led decisions, however, we can easily be asked a question that does not align with our data. Without understanding “ the purpose of data” on which we are basing decisions and judgements, it is easy to get an answer that is not in the data. How can we understand if our direction, northstar, decision is a good one?

I wrote a lengthy article on Data is Data. It was a kickback at the analogies that data is oil, gold, labour, sunlight — data is not. Data is unique; it…