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  Most importantly, brave Ukraine fights on. Cherry and I are returning from three weeks in Europe, getting as close as next door in Poland and Slovakia. I reflected often on WW2 as we moved through the old towns of each major city, especially on Anzac Day, April 25th, our war memorial day in Australasia.  Lest we forget. Europe stands on the brink of it happening again due to another megalomaniac with delusions of restoration of empire.

Can we save Europe from another wave of destruction? And can Ukraine be saved from devastation? Almost all promised weapons have been delivered but are they enough for a Spring offensive to force the Ruzzians back?

It's unbearable for the world to stand by and watch a nation have to go through this.

OPEC could end this war by driving the oil price down to starve Putler of funds, but they don't feel they owe the West any favours for obvious reasons. Europe and the USA could end it if they called the madman's bluff, or at least gave Ukraine the tools to restore their homeland. Let's all do what we can to support Ukraine and bring about a restoration of their nation. 

Our trip to Europe is at an end

Teal Unicorn have been in Europe for three weeks, working and touring. We have finalised very little until the last minute, only those things the rest of the world insisted we should, such as air tickets and conference presentations.  I booked travel and accommodation a few days ahead, which allowed us to pivot mid-trip, and not go to Denmark after all, adding Poland, Slovakia, and Austria to our trip instead. This will seem like madness to those who haven't read our book S&T Happens (and will still seem crazy to some who have).

It has been a useful exercise in proving the principles of our book. 

This year we launched Open IT, "How to do IT in the 21st Century”

Over a hundred people have signed up for the free self-paced learning emails for the rest of the year. I promised to kick them off "in April" but didn't quite make it.  I sent the first one yesterday, May 5th. If you are getting this newsletter you quite likely have signed up already and should have received it.  If not, please join in by going to the bottom of this newsletter to modify your subscription, then add "Open IT" newsletter option. 

We had a great time at SRVision in the Netherlands.

It was our first time with a lanyard round our necks since before lockdown, i.e. at a "real' conference again.

We caught up with old friends and made new ones.  

We presented a workshop and a keynote

We also ran a workshop for itSMF Belgium on Open Work.  Again, old friends and new:

You can download our Netherlands workshop presentation on Open IT (and other resources) from our website.

Our Working From Anywhere reached a new level this month, as we mixed work with pleasure touring Europe.  Some places weren't much fun, such as airport terminals or an ICE train, but others rocked, from Brno town square to luxury hotels and rooftop terraces.

Found on LinkedIn this month:

• Most important of all, from Evan Leybourn: "By stepping aside as CEO of the Business Agility Institute, I have taken a big step personally and professionally. I want to share what has led to this point, the importance of making space to heal, and why not all career steps have to be "up".
• Scientific modelling and prediction only works in the tightly-bounded well-behaved conditions of lab experiments or factory floors. It doesn't work for human systems (election or economic forecasting, anyone?). And the smaller the group of people, the worse it works. Embrace uncertainty, navigate ambiguity. Surf the world. the naivety of limiting oneself to natural science mechanisms, imposing them on others, without a deeper consideration of human motivations, from Paidi O'Reilly
• Work has become too complex for big consultancies. And they know it. From Dr Richard Claydon
• We are finally moving past the apocalyptic b.s. to more reasoned understanding of LLMs.  From Ethan Mollick
• Jaron Lanier argues that there is no such thing as artificial intelligence—instead, “the most accurate way to understand what we are building today is as an innovative form of social collaboration
• great thoughts on hybrid working from Brian Elliot. I like "heads up work" and "heads down work".
• this is closely aligned to the ideas of Emotional Agility from Dr Susan David that we have been looking at: Dealing with your emotions is like dealing with a two-year-old. From Ute Lambrecht
• The original Fight-Flight-Freeze reaction is commonly known. Less known is the fourth strategy, Fawn. From Jeroen Kraaijenbrink .
• If GPT4 is designed to give you the “next most probable word” then why don’t its answers feel average? The y feel above average. Which is odd. From Peter Nixey.
• Who would not be proud to be woke? Only those who wish to remain comatose to the feelings of others. The War on "Woke" from Shari Dunn.
• Everyone seems normal until you get to know them. None of us know what's going on underneath the exterior mask of colleagues and strangers.  For World Autism Day from April Lea.

On the web

• Share this widely. I've never seen a better depiction:  Wealthy Countries Have Blown Through Their Carbon Budgets 
• I'm proud to be a woke snowflake. Hold the line, people. Ethics pay. Teal Unicorn's motto is "Make Work Better: better results, better lives, better society". Companies That Get ‘Woke’ Aren’t Going Broke — They’re More Profitable Than Ever
• Machines are our tools, not our friends. Let’s make sure we know how they work and what is behind them by learning with and from each other.  More wisdom from Harold Jarche.
• Why would you, a CEO or executive at a high-profile technology company, repeatedly return to the public stage to proclaim how worried you are about the product you are building and selling? Answer: If apocalyptic doomsaying about the terrifying power of AI serves your marketing strategy. LA Times. 
• McKinsey & Co has a long history of ruining Credit Suisse

On Twitter

• 
• When a job is at stake, I think loyalty usually wins

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and on YouTube

• A short history of adults blaming the younger generation.
• Why 80% of New Zealand is Empty

...and so much more.  Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

As part of our transition to open ways of working, we all should reconsider our addiction to models of how we want to work, the way we look to them as easy answers.
They depict ideal models or patterns not seen in their perfect form anywhere, yet their champions evangelise them passionately, even aggressively, leading to endless debates between the sandal and the gourd.
It is not a question of which is best, but how we can leave the debate behind, and rise above it.
It is not that they are the wrong models, but that models are the wrong approach entirely when we use them as templates for our organisations. They are aspirational ideals, not blueprints. Reality will always look different to the ideal model.
"Not more knowing (theories, frameworks, processes), but more compassion, more understanding, more 'looking as' rather than looking at."
- Michael K Spayd

I’ve seen harm done by people so immersed in theory that they’ve lost sight of reality. It turns to precious posturing pontification.
Not to go all mystic, but we must let go of the perfectionism around which model to use, the intellectual fastidiousness. It matters less than we think. Models are all a simplification that always fail to capture the colour, richness, and unexpectedness of human culture and behaviour. They dehumanise. The models are so divorced from reality in specific practical work situations that they only offer a light from one direction. If one model occasionally offers a wildly better level of illumination, then I pay more attention, but mostly they’re all pretty dim. We need a bunch of them to see what we are doing. The looking matters more than the lights.

I get caught out with ambiguous or incorrect terminology, or loose thinking. If I’m sloppy it is because I don't care. All intellectual frameworks are just planks we use to keep us out of the mud. They’re useful but they don’t need to be polished to a shine. We have a higher purpose than the constructs themselves.
Work is human. It is as much about ethics and aesthetics as it is about science and intellectual abstract models. At Teal Unicorn, I work with the mind and the heart. It is not only about what’s correct, but also what is right and appealing.
As your thinking rises above, the specifics of frameworks and models fall away as operational noise, and we open up to more important things, like humanity and thriving.


"As I rise above the treeline and the clouds
I look down hearing the sound of the things you said today."
– Pink Floyd


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from our book Open Management

Seen: "The biggest disruptor in the professional services and creative industries since the literal invention of the computer is the rise of Generative Al."
Remember the huge surge in unemployment due to computers? No me neither.

we should make this our local office in Berlin

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Let's share the ideas of Open Management and Open Work, to make better results, better lives, and better society.