Dan Pontefract - Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization

Copyright 2013 by Dan Pontefract

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

Pontefract, Dan, 1971

Flat army : creating a connected and engaged organization / Dan Pontefract.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-52979-9 (pbk); 978-1-118-52982-9 (ebk); 978-1-118-52983-6 (ebk); 978-1-118-62782-2 (ebk)

1. Leadership. 2. Industrial management. 3. Organizational change. 4. Organizational learning. I. Title.

HD57.7.P66 2013 658.4 C2012-908291-0

Production Credits

Cover design: Adrian So

Managing Editor: Alison Maclean

Production Editor: Lindsay Humphreys

Composition: Thomson Digital

Enigma

Some men are born to gather women's tears,

To give a harbour to their timorous fears,

To take them as the dry earth takes the rain,

As the dark wood the warm wind from the plain;

Yet their own tears remain unshed,

Their own tumultuous fears unsaid,

And, seeming steadfast as the forest and the earth

Shaken are they with pain.

They cry for voice as earth might cry for the sea

Or the wood for consuming fire;

Unanswered they remain

Subject to the sorrows of women utterly

Heart and mind,

Subject as the dry earth to the rain

Or the dark wood to the wind.

Duncan Campbell Scott

For Denise:

May you continue to catch my tears and debunk my fears.

For all the years.

You prove the paradox wrong.

About ASTD

ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) is the world's largest professional association dedicated to the training and development field. In more than 100 countries, ASTD's members work in organizations of all sizes, in the private and public sectors, as independent consultants, and as suppliers. Members connect locally in more than 120 U.S. chapters and with 16 international partners.

ASTD started in 1943 and in recent years has widened the profession's focus to align learning and performance to organizational results, and is a sought-after voice on critical public policy issues. For more information, visit www.astd.org .

Acknowledgments

If my life can be thought of as a Himalayan mountaineering expedition, several people have acted as a personal Sherpa along my journey helping me to crystallize the thoughts inside of this book. That is, over time, these folks have had many direct conversations with me about a Flat Army philosophy. Thank you, Brian Reid, Steven Hill, Bob Bucher, Alexandra Samuel, Alison van Buuren, Mike Desjardins, Marcia Conner, Jon Husband, Bert Sandie, Chuck Hamilton, Lynette Van Steinburg, Bryan Acker, John Ambrose and George Siemens. And a special thank-you to Don Loney, the book Sherpa and to Jeremy Hanson-Finger, the editing Sherpa.

There are agencies in one's life that invoke new intellect or emotions which prompt new ideas and thinking. I am grateful to the many that arouse my curiosities and my penchant for change both in person and from afar. Thank you, Gordon Downie, author of Coke Machine Glow; Henry Mintzberg, author of Managing; Euan Semple, author of Organizations Don't Tweet, People Do; David Weinberger, author of Too Big to Know; Andrew McAfee, author of Enterprise 2.0; Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why; Karie Willyerd, co-author of 2020 Workplace; Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus; Daniel Pink, author of Drive; Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence; Charlene Li, author of Open Leadership; Amy Edmondson, author of Teaming; Carol Dweck, author of Mindset; David Shenk, author of The Genius in All of Us; Cathy Davidson, author of Now You See It; Tom Malone, author of The Future of Work; Gary Hamel, author of The Future of Management ; and Marjorie Kelly, author of Owning Our Future .

If you are a believer in Flat Army, you are only as good as your network. My thanks go out to the people who have become trusted interlocutors in my own personal sphere of knowledge and sharing. Thanks to Gautam Ghosh, Mike Prokopeak, G Shawn Hunter, Jocelyn Berard, Jack Stepler, Stephen Lamb, Nilofer Merchant, Nancy Slawski, Steven Wheeler, Daneal Charney, Ben Brooks, Rob Cottingham, Eric Andersen, Megan Murray, Bill Jensen, Bill Ives, John Hagel, Mark Fidelman, Alan Lepofsky, Igo Tan, Gina Minks, Holly MacDonald, Harold Jarche, Rawn Shah, Hutch Carpenter, Jacob Morgan, Andrew Bull, Angie Harrop, Anne Marie McEwan, David Porter, Valerie Irvine, Ross Dawson, Jillianne Code, Gordon Ross, Sameer Patel, Thomas Stone, Charles Jennings, Sidneyeve Matrix, J Keith Dunbar, Susan Scrupski, Jon Ingham, Luis Suarez, Lance Dublin, Christian Finn, Clark Quinn, JP Rangaswami, Jay Cross, Charles Jennings, Jane Hart, Aaron Silvers, Chad Walter, Deborah Wickens, Ralph Nakad, Eric Jordan, John Bevacqua, Gordon Vala-Webb, Leslie Castellani, Bruce Duthie, Angela Alini, Jeff Dunmall and Sara Roberts.

You can't write a book about the ideal operating model in an organization without having actual experience; where your thoughts and philosophies are molded and reshaped. Chuck Luttrell gave me my first job as a high school teacher. He allowed me the opportunity to put Education 2.0 into action when it wasn't even on the map back in 1995. Thank you, Chuck. Lorna Shapiro and Ken Takagaki (Associate Dean and Dean of Computing at the British Columbia Institute of Technology) handed me a ticket to reshape things at the higher education level, in 1998 no less as a 27-year-old. Thank you for believing in my Flat Army model even before I knew what Flat Army really was. Isabelle Clements, Wendy van Donkelaar and Jerry Gratton convinced me to join the corporate world in 2002 where I was given the keys to drive a new paradigm in a high-tech software company. Dan Klein then solidified their decision by further empowering me to reach even greater heights after an acquisition. Thank you for believing in me. I currently work at TELUS, and it was Josh Blair, Andrew Turner, Donna McNicol and Helmut Hager who convinced me it was a place ripe for change and where I should hang my hat for a while. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to help so many team members across the TELUS organization.