Architecting the Future - Prologue: Mis-Adventures in Corporate America

Steemit has such a great business model, and a concept that seems inevitable in retrospect. Very excited to be a part of the future of publishing!

While there are so many topic areas that I would love to cover, I want to begin by sharing some personal life experiences as a short series on how these experiences relate to the evolution of technology and societal progression. f-The current state, and the immense scale, scope, and the unbelievable number of opportunities that are hiding in plain sight all around us. Not only is our future full of abundance, so is our present.

Feedback from the SteemIt community is one of the main objective for sharing this information here. I hope to find like minded individuals as well, as collaboration will only make ideas better and stronger.

This is a true story, with only names changed to protect the innocent- and the guilty.

I call the series in its entirety...

Architecting the Future

Part 1: Prologue

To best understand the context, its important to be familiar with the background of how I got here as it will help set the stage for where we will begin this journey.

I was educated at a US state university, graduating from business school with degrees in Finance and Software Engineering. Prior to graduation, I was lucky to find a decent job during the peak of what we now call the 2008/2009 "Great Depression" working as a software engineer for a Global Fortune 50 company. It was rather enjoyable work at the time, and would have said I enjoyed it very much. …Until doing the same thing everyday became boring and tedious.

Instead of looking for a new company, I got out of my cubicle and explored the organization in search of roles with the potential to challenge myself more, potential to stretch myself and make a greater impact for the organization and with luck, hopefully impact beyond just my employer. The roles of this type were plenty, and as the adventures through the hollows of the enterprise, had uncovered several surprises.

First, the individuals within many of these roles were either under qualified, or possibly didn't fully understand the problems they were charged with solving. -Surely, I wasn't the first to notice this, but imagine my surprise seeing this time and time again. As a new job was already in the cards for me, whether within the current organization or at another, I was comfortable dedicating nearly all of my time to the exploration and discovery efforts for over a year of my career. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe that I was truly enabling new value with every connection made and new idea communicated. Ideas were being pollinated and spread throughout the organization as my exploration took me to some of the deepest coves of the enterprise, as well as to the very top, at the helm.

This was the most exciting and fun period of my life! Seeing new things, experiencing situations that I would have never been able to have the chance to even know about had I stayed inside my cubicle. New learnings and interesting new people were around every corner. Definitely not what I had expected to find, much different (but altogether positive) than I would have ever imagined!

It wasn't all fun, however. Keeping it to the point- The most frustrating part of this journey were colleagues. Fellow Corporate Citizonians. From peers and managerial roles, to directors and the C-Suite. As for the individuals themselves, most were amazing people with great personalities, and generally respectable people. However, out of the dozens, if not hundreds, with whom I'd spoken, nearly every one of them had shown hesitation when I asked specific questions or forced certain topics into discuss. They were happy to talk about themselves and their history within the organization. They were more than willing to talk about how they provide value to the company, happy to help me learn about what they do, and was even taken on tours of respective domains of responsibilities.

Although when the colleagues finished their stories... once it was apparent they'd said everything they were intending to share, I'd typically ask a set of provocative questions. Provocative, but with positive intent. Some common questions included "Would this function be more efficient if we change XYZ?" or "Why are we still using paper for these processes?" or "Where is your workflow diagram on your team's areas of work responsibilities?" or "This role is actually being performed by several others across the organization. There's synergy opportunities here if these tasks and processes were conducted as a Shared Service!". These are but a few simple examples, but unlike earlier in the discussions, the responses were quite unwelcoming in comparison, highlighting there was more of a systematic problem with the organization- or with some "HR"-aspect within the organization.

But the people themselves were not to blame. This was an organizational challenge which persisted throughout the enterprise and across the globe.

The business processes and functions were what I would call archaic and unorganized, as seemingly little effort had been placed on improvements to roles, processes, functions and technology had been used minimally at best for any improvements. Processes were not documented. There was no way to take a strategic, high-level view of the global organization to even attempt reduction of redundancies, improve cross-departmental processes, etc. We often said "If only our organization knew what it did, where it did it, and why..."

Beyond that, the majority of colleagues were quite literally afraid to even discuss change, or consider potential improvements in their business domain. It was seen as heresy to question the way the business operates as it had worked this way "for decades".

The kind and welcoming reception I'd initially received from colleagues to initial inquiries on how they were adding value to the company turned very quickly as I began to ask those tougher questions. On more than one occasion, I'd even been warned ominously to "be cautious" with the questions I ask. Of course, that only drove my ambition to dig deeper.

Even with this substantial amount of opportunity available- and with very specific opportunities for improvement being recommended to save time and resources- the concept of potential (positive) change was not acknowledged.

Why?

If you've read this far, you likely have your own opinion from your experiences!

My guess - for these individuals, if a change was in fact a good idea, the concept would need to be taken to a respective superior for proposal / sales-pitch. The superior may have a similar response as the colleague had- and if not and the recommendation was seen as successful- the individual would then have another goal and set of expectations to meet.

There was obviously a bigger challenge within the organization.

At the least, nobody (even many of the C-level executives) were given the authority nor the latitude to think of, implement, or even recommend improvements. Ironically, this was heavily ingrained in the Technology/IT department as well as the Research & Development organizations within the corporation!

In the end, I was still seeking to help the organization succeed by offering observations and recommendations for solutions that would create net positive value. Ultimately, I'd concluded that the organization, in its entirety, was unsustainable in its current state. It needed an enterprise-wide program to shift the culture and provide all employees with the tools and ability to create, recommend new ways of doing business, collaborate, build, and implement positive changes for the company.

There was a significant need for Innovation, and the broad acceptance of change.

There was a need to instill the concept of "Fail fast and learn" to take the place of "Take no risk, and never fail". Whether the latter was true or not is irrelevant, as it had become a permanently interpreted fixture of the culture.

The most logical solution that I could devise was to create an Enerprise-wide Innovation Program which would result in the creation of a few new teams related to Innovation, Ideation Management, Collaboration, Culture, and Change Management.

After reading dozens of books, and meeting with thought leaders and domain experts from around the world, I'd put together a comprehensive plan and branded myself as the enterprise's Innovation SME. With a plan in hand, experience from discussions with a wide variety of roles across the organizations, I was able to move the idea a bit further and propose the idea to leaders and executives that actually had the power and authority to enable it.

This even allowed me several discussions with CEO, not only through email, but in person as well. The following year, Innovation became the organizations top buzzword and was even included in standard colleague quarterly and yearly goals. I considered this a great success, even without any recognition, as I felt there was positive change beginning to occur.

Unfortunately, my recommendations based on hundreds of hours of research on "implementing innovation" into an organization with an existing culture were not taken.

It was simply too costly. And "economic conditions were uncertain".

As economic conditions continued to remain "uncertain", all efforts for innovative improvements, including my own efforts, were scrapped to focus on the "core business".

During this time, my official role was in identifying new and emerging technologies, and proposing how to integrate these into the enterprise. The same challenges were found when proposing improvements of any significance.

However, being in this official role of analyzing new and emerging technologies for business use had allowed me the insight into the current state of "the possible", that few have the opportunity to be exposed.

The largest and most powerful technology giants of the world bring their latest and most potentially world-changing technologies and gizmos to the largest corporations in the world. They keep many of these quiet, but whisper into the largest, most powerful corporations in the world that they have new world changing technology that "we've been saving for you: our favorite client". They have the most resources to purchase the rights to use the technology- and apply those technologies however they wish (or in some cases, bury it in the archives).

Now many of these are technologies that nobody had been talking about. Google returns nothing. Experts in the field are not familiar. In some cases, the tech companies still had yet to find practical applications for the technology. But don't misunderstand, these are very much world-changing technologies.

World-changing technologies... Sold to the highest bidder…

Nothing new, one might think.

But consider the impact that withholding even the knowledge of these technologies from the public can create- HAS created.

For about the past 10 years, I've worked at a Fortune 50 company.

This experience has allowed me to see first hand what can be possible.

This experience has opened my eyes to how decisions are made, and this decision making process is continually reinforced by short term thinking, driven by short-term incentives of management and executives.

This experience has allowed me to take the future into my own hands. -This experience has created a powerful message that I feel obligated to share, and together as a community, impact the future.

We only know where we are going if we are leading, not following.

Step out of your cubicle.

Retake the reigns.

Don't ask permission. It was never theirs to begin with.