workin’

workin’ wonderland
wonderland
Bernard Drion Today’s working environment is in a continuous
As you already may have noticed, this book is a bit different. It
is not, what you would call, a typical management book, with
Where people gravitate AND MANAGERS NAVIGATE ‘beta’ state. Change is the status quo. Professional
59
Professor instruction manuals, numerous extensive case studies, and check
and private lives are intertwined. At the office,
Consultant lists. The reason for this is that it tries to look ahead to the future of our
in the hospital and at school, facilitating the
Boat ever faster evolving world. Together with you, the reader, it tries to
Experienced search for leads and reference points for operating and performing
process is the main challenge. The work force
successfully, as a manager, in tomorrow’s business environment in Wonderland, the authors’ metaphor for
and beyond. In other words, this book aims at exploring those tomorrow’s ‘business as usual,’ values professional
Geoff Marée developments that will drastically change the way a manager will activities in the light of their personal value
47 and should fulfil his role in the future, in, let’s say, the next ten to
systems. They gravitate towards clusters of people
Lecturer twenty years.
and processes that help them nurse those values.
Designer
Books Their behavior is based on a navigation course,
Nicholas Ind, author of “Living the Brand”, on Workin’ Wonderland:
Curious “It gives us an idea of what the future might be like and encourages towards professional and personal objectives,
us to think anew about the challenges we face. So read the book using gravitation fields as beacons and resources.
and enjoy its irreverence and insight.” The manager of any gravitation point, the
Frans Melissen organizations of tomorrow, better be a good pilot,
38 Rolf Jensen, Dream Company as, Denmark, author of “The Dream
Lecturer navigator and host, with an imaginative mind, to
Society”:
Scientist handle those forces. Thankfully, the competences
“All companies in the European Union and the US have got one
Wildlife
important challenge for the future: develop imagination, creativity
needed for that job are linked to good old people
Impatient skills. Much more so than what was needed for the

Bernard Drion • Geoff Marée • Frans Melissen

and innovation. This book is an important contribution - please buy it,
read it!” self-created complexities of the industrial era!

www.workinwonderland.com
ISBN
978 90 547 21208 Bernard Drion • Geoff Marée • Frans Melissen
workin’
wonderland
workin’
wonderland
Where people gravitate AND MANAGERS NAVIGATE

Bernard Drion • Geoff Marée • Frans Melissen

Arko Uitgeverij BV
4

Design
Ivo Koschak

M.C. Escher’s ‘Waterfall’, © 2009 The M.C. Escher Company B.V. -

Baarn - the Netherlands. All rights reserved. www.mcescher.com

ISBN 978 90 547 21208

NUR 801

© 2009 Arko Uitgeverij BV, Nieuwegein

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without
the written permission of the publisher.
 5

A word of gratitude to our

co-imaginators
While this is the first page of this book for you, the reader, it was the final
one for us. Writing this book turned out to be quite an adventure. We
set out as a threesome, but along the way a number of people joined
us. Without them and their support, this page would never have been
written.

We are proud that Nicholas agreed to write the Preface.

Our main co-imaginator is Britt Nordin. Her assistance was crucial in

making sure the text is accessible to people beyond the – language –
borders of the Netherlands.

John Mackillop, Henk Visser and Daphne Heeroma shared with us their
insights regarding the contents. Their comments and suggestions helped
us to fine tune the manuscript.

Many more co-imaginators were involved in creating this book. Our

special thanks goes out to: Henny van Egmond, Erik Mol, Marcel
Broumels, and the participants of the round table session at Steelcase
(July 13th, 2009): Annemieke Garskamp, Patrick Rikken, Gerry Hofkamp,
Bert Franse, Bas Sieffers, Kristie van den Broek, Serena Borghero, Saskia
Boon, Saskia van Bohemen, Tjeu Verheijen.

One of the main messages of this book is that the boundaries between
professional and private lives are fading. Ingeborg, Simone and Lotte
continuously encouraged us to practice what we preach.

Breda, November 2009

 preface
6

Preface
“There’s something there”
“I was patrolling a Pachinko
Nude noodle model parlor in the Nefarious zone
Hanging out with insects under ducting
The C.I.A. was on the phone
Well, such is life”

Mondo Bongo – Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

My instructions are write a preface, say what you like. Be critical if you
want.

Let’s start with the negatives. First, Mr and Mrs Smith – which as you will
soon see provides something of a framework in the book – in my opinion,
is a pretty average film. It’s quite fun and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
are an interesting match, but it’s also clichéd and predictable. But
on the other hand, the film does contain some great music, especially
the laid-back and seductive, Mondo Bongo by Joe Strummer (ex of
The Clash) and the Mescaleros. Second, there is mention of the word,
‘happiness’ in the book. I find the idea of happiness annoying. Do we
work to be happy? Should organizations be structured to make people
happy? Many people think so – indeed there are whole books about
the subject. The problem with happiness though is it seems rather light,
ephemeral – here today and gone tomorrow. Buying a new watch or
handbag, watching your football team win or going on a weekend
break are the sort of things that make us happy. Our working lives
though – assuming we are not driven just by economic necessity – are
concerned more with fulfilment. Whereas happiness is about simply
meeting existing needs, fulfilment is about exceeding ourselves; going
beyond what we think we are capable of. Happiness equates to
satisfactory – which in my school reports always meant that you had
done just enough. Fulfilment is where we discover the meaning in
our lives. It is where we create ourselves. I’m not sure if Joe Strummer
would have thought much about happiness, but the political and
environmental causes that he fought for and the music he strove to
produce, were clearly about fulfilment.
 7

Having got the negatives out of the way, why should you read this
book? Work is such an important component of our lives that it deserves
serious treatment. Yet most people, sadly do not enjoy their working
environment. Research from different parts of the world consistently
shows that most people are either neutral/disengaged about what they
spend a significant part of their waking lives doing or are even actively
working against their employer. This is a waste for organizations, who
lose out in terms of the productivity and creativity of their employees
and it is a waste for the individual because it denies an opportunity for
fulfilment. Yet, just because this is the way things are, it does not mean it
must be so. We ought to encourage managers to re-think how they can
help create more opportunities for employees to find meaning in their
work; to move away from a control based approach to one based on
openness and trust. Easy to say, but as the interesting dilemmas in this
book show, the realities of day-to-day operations require careful analysis
and constant negotiation. What may seem obvious to the disinterested
observer is not so clear when one is actively involved in the maelstrom
of internal politics and when one is held accountable for misplaced
trust. The transition that is documented in “Workin’ Wonderland” from
old norms of behavior and conditions of certainty to a coming world
of uncertain rules and blurred boundaries, where work can be play
and play can be work, is not an easy one. The virtue here is that the
writers do not pretend it is. Rather through their use of narrative and by
referencing films (even if they aren’t always my favorites), they bring out
the complexities of puzzling out the right path through the organizational
labyrinth.

Lest we think that attaining the nirvana of a world of trust and mutual
interest is solely the responsibility of managers, we should remind
ourselves that a wonderland is the responsibility of everyone. When
we work for an organization, there is a tendency to bemoan the
failings of managers, rather than accept individual responsibility for
ourselves to change the places we work. However, as organizations,
slowly become more democratized, the opportunity for affecting the
direction and operations of an organization become more widespread.
From the managerial point of view this adds yet more complexity
and a requirement to emphasize communication and encourage
 preface
8

participation. For the individual it represents an increase in freedom –

but this is a freedom that must come with an awareness of the needs
of others. This ideal of mutual trust might seem far removed from the
day to day reality of many people’s jobs, but I think it is an ideal worth
fighting for. And if we cannot win, my argument is we should get out
– and find somewhere where we can find the opportunity to discover
meaning. We only have to think about our limited time in the world
to recognize the futility of staying put in a job that does not meet our
needs. We should have the courage to be, what we can.

Once when I was doing a presentation for a Dutch financial institution

I was accused of being idealistic. I am pretty sure, this was meant in
a negative sense, but rather than contradict the thought, I said yes,
I am. I somehow felt proud of it. To my mind, the virtue of “Workin’
Wonderland” is that it is also idealistic. It gives us an idea of what
the future might be like and encourages us to think anew about the
challenges we face. So read the book and enjoy its irreverence and
insight - and if you find the time, tune in the delights of Mondo Bongo.

Nicholas Ind
Oslo, October 2009
 9

Briefing
Dear reader, please do not be alarmed by the above heading. This
section actually contains a short overview of the contents of this book,
which is, in fact, a management book, not a panacea with possibly
dangerous side-effects.

However, this book is a bit different. It is not, what you would call,
a typical management book, with instruction manuals, numerous
extensive case studies, and check lists. The reason for this is that we try to
look ahead to the future. Together with you, the reader, we try to search
for leads and reference points for operating and performing successfully,
as a manager, in tomorrow’s business environment. And when we say
tomorrow, we refer to tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the day after
that one, and so on. In other words, this book aims at exploring those
developments that will drastically change the way a manager will and
should fulfil his role in the future, in, let’s say, the next ten to twenty years.

The book is divided into three main parts: Gravitation, Navigation, and
Prologue. Each of these three parts is preceded by a short introduction
to set the stage.

The main text encompasses eight chapters. Chapter 2 addresses current

and future developments that will affect your role as a manager, while
chapter 3 translates these developments into new organizing principles.
Chapter 4, 5, and 6 focus on management principles and tools that you
will need to deal with tomorrow’s situation. Chapter 8 ties it all together
and provides you with five overall tools, which we refer to as navigation
tools, to give a successful interpretation of your role as a manager.

You might think the above actually looks like the table of contents of just
about any management book. And you would be right, of course. That
is exactly why we decided to warn you and to include this preamble. A
decision very much applauded by our colleagues that volunteered to
provide a critique of the manuscript.

Therefore, at this point, we warn you that the following includes: silly
jokes, a number of questionable references to movies, a distinct train
of thought, and two chapters, chapter 1 and 7, that are very much
different from what you would normally find in a management book.
 briefing
10

With respect to the latter, you will probably either love or hate them. If,
while reading chapter 1, option two applies to you, make sure you stop
reading immediately, take a short break, and then open the book again
at the start of chapter 2. The same principle applies to chapter 7, but
then open the book again at the start of chapter 8.

The reason for including the jokes, the references and the distinct train
of thought will become clear as you read on. And, obviously, we also
included them because we tried to create a book that you would enjoy
reading.

You can now proceed to the first part…

 11

Contents
Part 1: Gravitation
Introduction
Chapter 1: Today 18
Chapter 2: Wonderland 32
Chapter 3: Gravitate 60

Part 2: Navigation
Introduction
Chapter 4: Hospitality 82
Chapter 5: Imagination 99
Chapter 6: Navigate 114

Part 3: Prologue
Introduction
Chapter 7: Tomorrow 133
Chapter 8: Join 141

Index 153
Sources 157
 1

gravita
tation
 gravitation
14
1. We refer to an interview with John Nash by
Ionica Smeets in NRC (Dutch News Paper),
December 20, 2008.
2. A region within the Netherlands, known
for great sailing opportunities and the Elf-
stedentocht.
3. A direct quote from the one and only
Captain Kirk in the science fiction television
series Star Trek.
4. Minority Report is a 2002 science fiction
movie directed by Steven Spielberg, loosely
based on the Philip K. Dick short story of the
same name. Minority Report is set in Wash-
ington, D.C. in 2054, where a special police
department named “Precrime” apprehends
criminals based on foreknowledge provided
to them by three psychics termed “pre-
cogs”. Precrime stops violent crimes before
they actually happen by using the visions of
the three precogs, mutated humans with
precognition abilities. The precogs’ visions,
caused by echoes of violent events, explic-
itly give the name of the victim, the perpe-
trator, and the date and time of the crime,
but other details must be studied by analy-
zing the precogs’ visions.
December 2029...
“Last night I took out your Log of Interesting Thoughts, just in case,
because I think I can use it for Chapter 3 of our sequel to Wakin’
Wonderland,” said Marée from his boat as he tried to avoid an
overgrown mangrove that stretched out to the middle of the Amazon
river. “Remember, in the beginning of our first book, we also referred
to an article about John Nash1? That’s why I thought it was quite fun
to read your thoughts, decades later, on his suggestion from 2008 to
re-introduce a standard unit for money. Just like way back when, when
the watt was the unit for power and the second was the unit for time.
Maybe it would be an interesting starting point to link our Thought Log
about sustainability to his original suggestion. And yes, I know that
he didn’t know back then that we wouldn’t be using gold but rather
Footprint Equivalents as a unit. Though instinctively he got it right!”
“No problem, let’s just see whether we can weave that into a nice
introduction”, answered Melissen from Greenland. He’s there on a city
trip for a few days. It can’t be beaten as a best place to get inspiration
to write a chapter on sustainability - then and now. “I’ll get Drion over
here too, as I see he’s available. By the way, funny that he’s also out on
a boat; in Friesland2 of course. Some things never change. Could you
switch on the brain scanning module?”
“Sure”, answered Marée, while, unable to resist the temptation, quickly
sending Drion a hologram of a piranha jumping out of the Frisian waters.
Always a blast!
“Beam me up, Scotty”3
Please do not be alarmed: you have not inadvertently landed in the
middle of a science fiction novel. However, even though the main
character is played by Tom Cruise, we cannot promise that we will blow
off the movie “Minority Report”4 as utter nonsense. Does that mean that
we believe that in the not too distant future the police and the public
prosecutor will be replaced by mutated humans with precognition
abilities? No. Not really.
However, what we absolutely do believe in are several of the
technological gadgets and new ways of communication that this
 15

movie has served up by virtue of an amazing array of special effects. 5. A true Trekkie will probably hate us for say-

Computer interfaces based on holograms and narrow casting as a key ing this, but Star Wars represents a series of

concept in the advertising world are definitely not to be characterized highly successful movies in the science fic-

as illusions, they actually already exist. With help from a little trip through tion genre.

the amazing world of YouTube, you, as well, can conjure up countless

examples on your screen. While you’re at it, you will probably also 6. E.T. is the 1982 science fiction movie that

encounter 3D desktops, perceptive pixels and many more interesting surpassed Star Wars as the biggest block-

developments. A recent landmark development in this field was the buster to that point and that included one

stunt by CNN who, while covering the US presidential election 2009, of the most famous movie quotes ever: “E.T.

beamed up one of their reporters to the CNN Election Center as a phone home.” Be honest, you cried too,

hologram. As someone stated on the Yahoo! website, it was a scene didn’t you?

reminiscent of Carrie Fisher’s “ObiWan, you’re my only hope” hologram

from Star Wars5. However, most of all it was an amazing bit of technology 7. However, his simulated real life radio news

that clearly showed us that communication via holograms is no longer cast War of the Worlds that aired in 1938 in-

an illusion existing solely in Hollywood’s dream factory. In this case, US spired us to always be open to new forms

TODAY tells us, we are talking about a ‘bit of technology’ consisting of media.

of 44 cameras and 20 computers at the remote location to capture

360-degree imaging data of the person that is beamed to the studio. It 8. Clark Gable’s famous last line in Gone with

is this type of technological development that will play an important role the Wind was elected most famous quote

in this book. But before we go deeper into this matter, it is about time we of all time by the American Film Institute in

introduced ourselves. 2005. In a book larded with movie quotes,

a variation on this line simply needed to be

in there…

The authors
The authors of this book: Who are they and, more importantly, what do
they want? Are you being confronted with authors who really believe
that before you know it, E.T.6 will be standing before us wanting to
borrow our iPhone to phone home? Are we worried sick that HG Wells7
will be right and that an invasion of extraterrestrial beings is just a matter
of time? Can’t we resist scoffing at Tom Cruise while merrily continuing to
refer to movies featuring our hero? Let us in all honesty say: We cannot
answer all of the above questions with a firm ‘no’. Whichever question or
questions those are, we will leave up to you, because frankly, my dear,
we don’t give a damn…8
 gravitation
16
9. Even though this quote is from the 1933 (!)
movie Dinner at Eight, it is as relevant now
as it was then.
10. The 1998 movie The Truman Show tells a
story that we all recognize. What if you are
actually the center of the universe and ev-
erything around you is there for your benefit,
to test your reactions, to see how you deal
with it? We have all had similar thoughts,
similar dreams.
This book is written by Bernard Drion, hampered by too much
experience, Geoff Marée, struggling with too many ideas, and Frans
Melissen, marked by too little patience. All three of us are employed by
the NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands.
In addition, Drion is co-owner of a consultancy firm. He is the one who
is continually asking the others: What’s in it for managers in practical
situations? Marée, originally a designer, keeps us on our toes; he is the
kind of guy who would have a question for every answer. Melissen, with
a background in engineering and management sciences, focuses on
the link between human behavior and sustainability, and operates as
the book’s scientific conscience.
Wonderland
“I was reading a book the other day.”
“Reading a book!”
“Yes. It’s all about civilization or something, a nutty kind of a book. Do
you know that the guy said that machinery is going to take the place of
every profession?”
“Oh, my dear, that’s something you need never worry about.”9
Throughout this book, we would like you to join us in our train of thoughts.
Just like you, we see a world around us which is rapidly changing,
whether it is in society, in school, in science, in healthcare, or in the office
environment. Based on our experiences, creative inspiration, stubborn
thoughts and imperfections, we are convinced that the images we
sketched at the beginning of this introduction are neither far-fetched
nor ridiculous. Of course we cannot claim to know that the world in
2029 will look exactly like the one we portrayed in this scene. We are,
by no means, the directors of your “Truman Show”10. Nevertheless, we
dare claim that our fantasies include several elements that denote
developments which we (we, the authors and you, the reader) can
actually already discern: New and innovative technical possibilities, a
shifting boundary between work and private life and all sorts of behavior
of humanity as a collective that will have an enormous influence on our
natural environment. These are also developments that will drastically
 17

change the way a manager will and should fulfil his role. To illustrate the
above, let us take an example from daily life in another field. Just think of
the impact digital photography has had on the work of photographers.
Not so long ago, a photographer could only judge the success of a
photo shoot upon returning to the seclusion provided by the four walls
of his darkroom. The quality of the photographer was predominantly
determined by his ability to reach optimal results by pressing the release
at exactly the right moment, after precisely adjusting the lighting
and the zoom. And these decisions needed to take into account the
limitations of a now almost pre-historic product - the film roll. And then no
silly mistakes please, like open doors and light switches in the darkroom,
because otherwise all will be lost. Nowadays, it’s a different story. Even
an amateur photographer will have a digital camera with seemingly
endless memory capacity and the speed needed for shooting the
next photo within a split second. It is no longer a matter of the art of
capturing a moment on camera, but rather making the right choices
from the superabundance of captured moments. When do you let
the camera do the work and when do you step in? Which pictures do
you keep and how can you perfect them using software? More and
more, photography is evolving into the art of making choices from and
recognizing potential in an enormous amount of raw material.

In all of our worlds, standard procedures are changing. Crisis

deliberations in the board room are what we see in movies; the real key
decisions are discussed on the golf course between holes 11 and 17.
Waiting for a crucial phone call is no longer bound to a specific spot.
Do we get together in person or do we organize a conference call, with
or without a webcam? The determining moment of the day no longer
depends on the opening hours of the stock markets, but on the answer
to a new question: which market? Job-hopping is in and hierarchies are
out. What used to be normal is now strange; what was once unheard of
is normal today. You won’t catch us predicting precisely what the role of
a manager will be in 20 years and all it will entail. Nevertheless, together,
we can map out a number of developments that we are certain to
see in one shape or form in the world of tomorrow. Just like you, we
are wondering about the effect they will have on our role and yours
(as managers) - and that is precisely the scope of this book. Together
with you, we would like to search for leads and reference points for
operating and performing successfully in this wondrous world.
 gravitation
18
11. Given the fact that the title of the movie
Mr. & Mrs. Smith, starring Brad Pitt and An-
gelina Jolie and released in 2005, has been
copied from the 1941 movie by Alfred Hitch-
cock, we feel using this movie as the central
theme in this chapter is in line with the cen-
tral theme of this book.
Chapter 1
Today
“I thought I told you not to bother me at
the office, honey.”11
We hope that we have convinced you by now that this book really isn’t
a science fiction novel. Yes, in this book we will be looking into the future,
however, not at just any scenario we can come up with, but rather a
scenario that would be a logical continuation of current challenges and
developments. In fact, current challenges and developments constitute
the theme of this chapter. We will be focusing exclusively on today’s
world, our day-to-day reality. More specifically, the central theme
of the upcoming pages is our role as managers in today’s working
environment. We will do this by means of realistic, albeit fictitious,
examples. In chapter 7, we will repeat this exercise, but then for the
day-to-day challenges of tomorrow or, more specifically, the year 2029.
Our host in this chapter is Mr Smith, a self-proclaimed Brad Pitt look-a-
like, and manager at an archetypal multinational enterprise within the
commercial services sector. Mrs Smith will lead the way in chapter 7.
Here, we will explore the issues and challenges with which many of
you are confronted on a daily basis. These issues and challenges make
up the palette of subjects and points of attention that your average
manager, insofar as he exists, is working on in today’s business world. The
example that will be described, Mr. Smith’s situation, is about a manager
in a Western country at a rather large commercial enterprise with
branches in several countries. Mr Smith works at headquarters, where
some two thousand people are employed, almost all in office positions.
So far, Mr Smith has had a successful career, which has brought him to a
position in the upper echelons of the company. Not totally at the top, at
least - not yet, but still...
Throughout this example, we will explore not only the challenges
confronting managers today, but also how and in which directions
these challenges will evolve. You will probably not recognize all of the
concrete situations reviewed, but you will most likely recognize all of the
relevant generic developments that lie at the root of them.
So much for the introduction, it’s high time we took a look at Mr Smith’s
working environment…
 Today 19

A typical day at the office

“I realise you witnessed the Mrs. and I working through a few domestic 12. Yep, from that movie again, the 2005

issues. That’s regrettable but don’t take that to be a sign of weakness; one that is.

that would be a mistake on your part.”12

It is not a coincidence that we start Mr Smith’s day with this reference. In

fact, the theme that is sketched in this quote is a dilemma that forms an
important issue in Mr Smith’s working day, as we will see below.

Monday begins with the weekly management meeting. Afterwards,

there is time to go through last week’s unopened emails and there are
also four appointments scheduled throughout the rest of the day. Firstly,
two performance appraisals with employees in Mr Smith’s department,
then a meeting with the IT department and lastly, a conference call with
the Bangalore office.

At the management meeting, all heads of departments are present.

Today’s agenda includes a few oft repeating issues, such as budgets
and projects in progress. One subject, however, is appearing for the first
time: as management, how do we feel about employees working from
home?

This question is on the agenda because, lately, more and more

employees have been requesting laptops instead of desktops. The
reason given by those employees is that it makes working from home
easier.

Let us first relate a bit of the discussion that took place during the
meeting:

Mr Smith: “I’m actually all for it. If you give your people laptops, they
will more likely see them as their own computers. I believe this will
make them be more careful than they are with the desktops, most
certainly now that we don’t have designated work stations anymore.
Just imagine how much we could save on IT costs associated
with perpetually reinstalling desktops after people have carelessly
 gravitation
20

13. Gloria Swanson, as Norma Desmond,
refers to the good ol’ days in Sunset Boule-
vard (1950).
downloaded yet another program from the Internet. If everyone had
their own laptop, they would be dependant on it working properly. On
top of that, once it becomes ‘your laptop’, you’ll think twice before
readjusting the settings and downloading just anything.”
Mrs Jones: “That could be, but what if they are working on something
and the laptop starts acting up? Then they can’t just move to another
one!”

It is clear that our host, Mr Smith, initially suggests that they have a
stake in providing employees with laptops. As a first argument, we see
him referring to possible savings. We can actually agree with Mr Smith,
because there would be less maintenance, as well as other costs to be
saved, such as lower electricity bills (a laptop uses less electricity than
a desktop with a separate screen) and lower cleaning costs (laptops
get taken home, so computers and especially those horrible keyboards
do not need to be cleaned and desks would be emptier, thus easier
to clean). Moreover, providing laptops would make it both possible
and attractive for employees to work at home and, consequently, they
would not need to be financially compensated for travelling to and from
work.

Even though Mr Smith and Mrs Jones have a thing going on, and
despite all of Mr Smith’s reasonable arguments, it is apparent that they
don’t quite see eye to eye on this one. Mrs Jones turns out to be, on a
professional level, not the progressive sort and immediately raises one
of the common objections to everyone having their own laptop and,
for that matter, even their own computer full stop. Because if it ain’t
working, work stops!

“We didn’t need dialogue.

We had faces!”13
Mr Smith: “Yeah, well, that’s true. But still, we could have a few reserve
computers and if anyone does work at home - most people, of course,
have their own computer at home - so they could work on those if their
laptop starts acting up, couldn’t they?”
 Today 21

Mrs Jones: “Please, let’s not go there, because then we’ll start getting
requests for the IT department to install home computers in order to
optimize working from home. No, to me that’s putting the cart before
the horse. Let’s concentrate for now on whether or not we should do
laptops. And more importantly, do we even want people to work from
home? Work is work and play is play, isn’t it?”

Unfortunately for Mrs Jones, by making Mr Smith blush at her remark, she
not only emphasizes her statement, but simultaneously questions it.

Before we allow Smith & Jones to continue this discussion, it would

be wise to give pause for the following points. Imagine that you, as
an organization, let employees work from home. How far should you
go to facilitate this? Of course you could provide laptops ‘from the
company’, but what do you do if you are then confronted by a request
for the IT department to assist in installing the laptop. Every employee
has his own computer and a specific type of wireless network at home,
connected to a specific provider. Is it the employer’s responsibility to
set up the laptop or is it the responsibility of the employee who chooses
to work from home? Do you really want the employee to mess with the
settings? Or is a consequence of the choice to work from home that the
employee has to provide his own laptop? And may these employees,
who use their own laptops for work, use the services provided by
the IT department? Or is it that you as an employer, who allows and
even encourages working from home, bears the responsibility, both
technically and financially, for a properly functioning wireless network
in your employees’ homes? And imagine that you do take on that
responsibility: Can you then dictate how your employees use this laptop
and network in their own time? Would gaming be acceptable in their
own homes on company laptops if employees were paying for the
network themselves? Maybe we could ask our employees to dress their
avatar in a t-shirt with the company logo; free advertising is always
welcome and exposure via online games is, nowadays, much bigger
than via an ad in the paper. But then only in games that are not too
violent. And that particular employee needs to be good at it too! And
play by the rules of course… It’s not for nothing that we’ve paid so
much attention to corporate governance in recent years. An employee
displaying our logo, while playing Kill Zone 2 with cheats, using the
company laptop, might not be the kind of publicity we are looking for…
 gravitation
22
14. A very interesting example of develop-
ments in this field is described in the book
The 4-hour workweek (2007) by Timothy Fer-
riss, who refers to the real life example of an
employee at HP that decided to regularly
travel to China and work from there without
informing his supervisor and, more impor-
tantly and remarkably, without the supervi-
sor noticing it.
We see a great number of relevant questions arise, some of a technical,
but mostly, of a non-technical nature that are connected to a seemingly
pretty banal discussion on laptops yes or no, do or don’t. Before we
elaborate on this, let’s go back to the management meeting, because
the crucial question is still on the table: Do we, as management, really
want our employees to work from home?
Mr Smith: “Working from home isn’t a problem, is it? What’s wrong with that?”
Mrs Jones: “Well, I honestly wonder if everyone can handle the
responsibility of working from home. Before you know it, work will be
synonymous with ‘picking up the kids’, ‘finding inspiration’ and ‘quality
time with the one you love’.”
By consciously concentrating on the importance of the discussion, Mr
Smith barely manages to prevent himself from turning red again.
Mrs Jones: “Just think about it: Is working from home really in the interest
of our organization?”
At this point, Mr Doe, head of the HRM department, feels obliged to join
in the conversation, especially now that we have arrived at a discussion
of the relationship between the organization and its employees.
Mr Doe: “Good point there, Mrs Jones, because let’s be honest: In
general, we have some very good people working for us, no doubt
about it. But whether they are all so self-disciplined as to actually sit at
their laptops at home for 8 hours a day….”
Mr Smith: “Yes, but hold on John, 8 hours at their laptops? Who said
that that was the idea? I seriously hope that it’s all about results and not
about getting people to be ‘good’ for 8 hours? We aren’t living in the
days of time clocks any more, are we?”14
The last question brings us to an issue crucial to every organization:
What do we actually expect from our employees? And the answer
is, of course, inextricably linked to our previous question: What can
employees expect from the organization? This might be the perfect time
to address these questions.
 Today 23

What do you expect?

[about the new curtains Jane bought] 15. By now, you are probably getting the

Jane: “If you don’t like them we can take them back.” picture that Mr & Mrs Smith have a some-

John: “All right, I don’t like them.” what complicated relationship, both in the

Jane: “You’ll get used to them.”15 movie and in this book.

Not so very long ago, it was normal that employees were expected to
arrive punctually every day, take their place at their allotted desks, and
leave late in the afternoon at a specified time. The mutual expectations
were clear; the time clock was still generally accepted. And let’s face it,
in many cases there was no other choice. An archive contained mostly
paper, video conferencing was barely out of the egg and cell phones
were an exception, and then only for show-offs. Your physical presence,
as a condition of your being able to do your work, was a generally
accepted fact of (working) life.

Nowadays, there is email and we can safely access documents on

the company server from home. Moreover, these are things that are
no longer considered progressive or modern; these are things that any
self-respecting organization will have taken care of. We’ve already
gone way beyond that. In some companies, holding meetings in which
participants who cannot be present can join in the discussion via
holograms is already routine.

The crucial question is not whether working from home is technically

feasible; of course it is. The question which you and Mr Smith need to find
an answer to is: Do we want this? It’s not only about working from home
but also about all sorts of issues between employer and employee,
between superior and subordinate, issues in which they have all kinds of
expectations of each other. To illustrate this, here are a few fragments
from the performance appraisals that Mr Smith has later in the day with
two of his employees:

fragment 1
Employee: “I would like to work three days instead of five, because my
wife and I think it is important to share the responsibility of raising our
children.”
 gravitation
24
16. In the hit series The Stepford Wives, this
is how Roger Bannister counters Bobbie
Markowitz’ statement that we all need cre-
ative chaos. Actually, we think they are both
wrong and that they are both right. Chaos
and boundaries both contradict each other
and need each other in order to exist.
fragment 2
Mr Smith: “Could you tell me if there is anything that you miss in your
work to which you would like to pay more attention?”
Employee: “Now that you ask: Yes, there is one thing that I would like
to pursue, also on behalf of our organization… How green are we here,
actually? I know that that is an issue I would very much like to throw
myself into!”
fragment 3
Employee: “Another thing, just recently I was approached to do a very
interesting project having to do with exactly this. I would really like to
take this opportunity…”
Mr Smith: “That’s great, who asked you? Mrs Jones?”
Employee: “Well, frankly, it’s a project launched by The Company Next
Door…”
Mr Smith: “Our competitor? Were you planning on resigning?”
Employee: “No, absolutely not. I really enjoy working here. And I want
to stay here for a good while, for sure. But it is also an opportunity that I
don’t want to miss out on, because it’s right up my ally. And actually…
well, frankly, I was wondering if it would be a huge problem if I did this
alongside my work here. We could make sound agreements, couldn’t
we? And, of course, I would make sure that it will not interfere with my
work here…”
“My shrink says I need boundaries.”16
From these fragments, it seems clear that, for someone like Mr Smith,
what employers and employees expect from each other entails much
more than the issue of working from home. These days, managers
have to deal with changes in domestic roles of both themselves and
their employees. More and more of their independent and pro-active
employees are involved in important issues in today’s society. The
number of part time workers is increasing all the time and, these days,
one cannot take for granted that employees are willing to commit
to long-term contacts, let alone contracts that stipulate exclusivity.
The question of whether to allow working from home is, therefore,
unavoidably connected to all sorts of trends and developments in our
 Today 25

society, not only regarding technical matters, but also when it comes 17. From the hit series Doctor Who (1963)

to the distinction between professional and private life. At the very least that portrays a world in which teleportation

it is not as clear as it was before, but one could even argue that this is as easy and normal as stepping into a tele-

distinction will disappear altogether. phone booth.

From you as a manager, much more is expected than putting together 18. As expressed so eloquently by Dr Miran-

the vacation planning by means of some Excel sheet magic. And da Bailey in Grey’s Anatomy (2005).

management by walking around will be difficult if this actually means

that you have to travel to your employees’ homes for coffee, just
because that is where they are working at that particular moment.

The challenge that you as a manager will face is that creating a

winning team, an organization that works effectively towards a specific
goal, is still as relevant as ever. However, the circumstances in which
you have to tackle this challenge have changed and will continue
to do so, but ever faster and more dramatically. Creating a winning
team, while employees are working outside the building and are even
working simultaneously for the competitor, is no child’s play, no matter
how fantastic the technical assistance you can get is. Hierarchy and
top-down, one-way communication are quickly becoming things of
the past. Life time employment barely exists today, job hopping is in.
New generations of employees join an organization, usually temporarily,
because there are, at that moment, fun and interesting things going on
that excite them as a professional, and as a person for that matter. As a
preview of things that we will discuss later, we, as authors, dare say that
Mr Smith need not be shocked by the following fragment which would
be a realistic account of a performance appraisal in the not too distant
future:

Mr Smith: “This is what I suggest you focus on for the next few months…”
Employee: “Oh, alright! Alright! But I don’t think much of your
hospitality!”17

By this we do not mean to suggest that Mr Smith and you turn into
a “Mary Freaking Poppins”18 to accommodate the fickle cries of
today’s masses. Nevertheless, you are probably already aware of the
importance of self development and self realization in today’s society
and your employees are certainly no exception. Today’s successful
organizations realize that the extent to which you can captivate your
 gravitation
26
19. Actually, those items clearly still cause
headaches in many organizations, even
today, but the good news is that the solu-
tion is out there. It should not be too difficult
and it should not take too long to find it. In
principle, that is…
employees and gain their commitment plays an important role in
creating a winning team. The happiness of your employees is just as
much a determining factor for realizing effectiveness as is using the
right software. People management is taking on a new meaning, new
interpretation, especially now that more and more organizations are
realizing that people are the deciding factor of production. Almost any
one can do automation and computerization19; what will distinguish
your company is the way you manage to use the knowledge and the
experience of your employees. Maslow is your friend; let his tenets guide
you in your role as a manager. However, later in this book we will see
that the needs of generation X, Y and beyond will force you to engage
in new, exciting and probably virtual relations with his descendents.
Maslow and you will confer regularly and the recurring theme of your
get-togethers will be to muse on the days when a bit of self actualization
still was tops. And ‘factor of production’ was still a phrase that didn’t
make you sound silly. The good ol’ days!
As promised, we will now return to today’s situation, to the current
challenges: Smart people management is clearly one of the
challenges for both you and Mr Smith. It is, however, certainly not the
only challenge, as we see in the following fragment from Mr Smith’s
discussion with the IT department.
Boundaries are fading
IT guy: “But Mr Smith, we can’t just hand out log-in codes to people that
don’t work here!”
Mr Smith: “But we are working on the same project, Bob. How can we
achieve anything resembling co-production if we can’t actually see
what the other is doing?”
IT guy: “Yes, of course, I understand that, but … well, what if they also
take a look at other stuff on our intranet? Things they are not supposed
to see?”
Mr Smith: “Can’t you give them limited access then? Just for things
relevant to this project?”
IT guy: “In theory, yes, we could do that… Technically, it’s definitely
feasible. But today it’s you for this specific project, tomorrow it’s
 Today 27

someone else for another project with another company involved

and, before you know it, all of us are facilitating exemptions instead of
streamlining our own business processes!”
Mr Smith: “But projects like this are our business, Bob!”

This dialogue probably doesn’t sound so strange to you. The days when
it was ‘every man for himself’ out there on the market are behind us.
Sony Ericsson is a major player in one of the biggest markets today:
design, production and marketing of mobile phones. Two huge
companies combine their forces in a joint venture to create a new
strong player in an existing market. In this case, we’re talking about
two companies that, based on their backgrounds - one a consumer
electronics giant, the other a leading telecommunications company -
came to the conclusion that co-operation was actually a logical, not to
say highly profitable, step.

A well-known example of co-operation between companies or,

better yet, co-creation by two companies, resulted in the Senseo. The
Senseo is a coffee system developed by Dutch companies Philips and
Douwe Egberts, a subsidiary of the Sara Lee Corporation. A consumer
electronics company and a company that processes and trades in cof-
fee, tea and tobacco; unusual bed partners, but it works! No wonder,
then, that Philips together with the Belgian brewer InBev have gone in
for a second, seemingly incompatible, joint venture. The result is called
Perfect Draft, a beer tapping system for home users. By the way, Philips
did this only after pulling out of a similar project with Heineken, the
Netherlands’ biggest brewery. Subsequently, after Heineken colla-
borated with Krups to develop and introduce the successful Beertender,
it was clear to Philips that they could no longer just stick to coffee.

New forms of collaboration are not only to be found among

multinationals. Companies, organizations, groups of people and
individuals all around us are collaborating and sharing knowledge more
than ever before and in various new ways. The self-evident of yesterday
– work is what you do for your boss, at home you relax and spend time
with family and friends – no longer exists.

Obviously, this also applies to the authors of this book. We have already
told you about our main jobs. However, as with many of you, our
 gravitation
28
20. Jeff Bridges as Lightfoot, not only coin-
ing the title of the movie Thunderbolt and
Lightfoot (1974), but also being the first per-
son we know of to brand a collaboration in
this way.
situation is a bit more complicated. Drion works as a consultant, but
is also a professor. Marée also works at two other universities, while
Melissen is involved in various projects outside the educational institute.
The three of them have written this book. Partly during working hours and
partly in their spare time, partly at the office and partly at Drion’s place,
while googling and emailing via Drion’s wireless network connected to
the server of the institute, looking out over the fields of the surrounding
Belgian farms. If Mr Smith was our boss, we wouldn’t want to be in his
shoes…
Mr Smith, by the way, we almost forgot him, has one last appointment in
his diary for today: The conference call with the Bangalore office.
“Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.
That sounds like something.”20
In preparation for the conference call, Mr Smith has a short meeting
with his colleague, Mr Rogers, who is responsible for corporate branding.
They have decided to meet in the company restaurant, partly because
of the good coffee, but also because of the fact that this, strangely
enough, is the quietest spot in the whole building for most parts of the
day. Mr Smith plans to make a point of this during the next management
meeting; a company restaurant clearly is a facility needed for an
organization of this size, but all this space and staff need to be better
utilized than is currently the case.
While enjoying the quiet and the caffeine, Mr Rogers and Mr Smith once
again carefully go through the input for the discussion with their partner
in India, World Wide Service Desks:
Mr Rogers: “I still think these thoughts are rather progressive, John, a
separate combi-brand just for a service desk.”
Mr Smith: “Yes, I know, but that’s exactly why we have discussed this
so thoroughly, together with our friends in Bangalore. I think it really is a
great opportunity; we combine our good name with that of WWSD and
the combination represents precisely what it is all about; the perfect
 Today 29

way to contact us for optimal service of our products, handled by the

leading company in its field.”
Mr Rogers: “Sure, the idea behind it is ingenious, but will it also work in
practice and more importantly: Will our Indian friends dare go for it?”

Well, it’s obvious what the conversation with WWSD will be about: Do
both parties dare take the next step in their, till now, very successful
relationship? WWSD has handled the service desk for over a year now for
customers of Mr Smith’s organization and with great success. WWSD has
been nominated top performer in its market for a few years running and
outsourcing the service desk to WWSD has had a very positive impact
on Mr Smith’s organization up till now. The amount of complaints is as
low as it has ever been and the first surveys show an increase in ratings
by the customers of the service provided by Mr Smith’s organization.
Meanwhile, this has led to the idea of having the collaboration take
expression in how the branch in Bangalore, totally manned and run by
WWSD, approach the costumers who contact them. Mr Smith and Mr
Rogers discuss this idea in short during the conference call that later
takes place with the representatives of WWSD:

Mr Smith: “Vijay, to refer back to what we talked about last time,

what we are suggesting is, of course, new and needs getting used
to, but is actually also incredibly logical. We supply the top products
and you the top service. Now, let’s not only channel our energies
into implementation, but also into the way and manner in which we
communicate about our collaboration to the outside world. Luckily, the
time has passed when customers found it strange that the service desk
was handled by an external company in a different location, and this
past year has proven that we were right. We are very satisfied with the
way you operate; you have said that you are satisfied with us and our
customers are profiting from it. It’s time to move forward!”
Mr Rogers: “Mr Singh, if I may add something… we are convinced that
such a collaboration is in both our interests. Our customers are ready
for this, but most of all, we will get the customers of our competitors
thinking. We are sending a clear and transparent message that we, the
management, acknowledge the phrase “stick to your core business” not
only in word but also in action. For our customers, only the best service!
And as for your organization, you will reap the benefits as well…”
Mr Singh: “Mr Rogers and Mr Smith, we thank you for the confidence
 gravitation
30

21. Actually, John (Mr. Smith in Mr. & Mrs. you show in our services by making this suggestion. Again, on behalf
Smith) is quite right, we will get back to just of WWSD I would like to say that we will very seriously consider your
about all the issues brought up in this chap- suggestion.”
ter later in this book.

Well, this probably sounds familiar, doesn’t it? If your conversation

partner says that he will weigh your suggestion seriously, it sure sounds
positive, but actually you know nothing. And the fact that your business
partner is from another country, another culture, only adds to the
uncertainty. In this case, it probably means that they don’t know yet
and that Mr Smith must have patience. It can, however, also mean
that they do already know, but feel uncomfortable saying “no”. We
won’t burden you here with an elaborate discussion on what certain
expressions in certain countries in certain contexts could possibly mean.
We all know that doing business across borders can be rather complex.
However, this is no longer because of the physical distance. In fact, it
is because technology allows us to communicate directly and in real
time with people from all over the world, which makes all sorts of new
collaborations with all sorts of new partners possible.

“We’ll talk about this later.”21

It is time to bid Mr Smith farewell for the time being. We may see him
again in chapter 7, where Mrs Smith will allow us the pleasure of taking a
peek at her own management challenges.

Mr Smith has his hands full at the moment as a manager in this rather
typical modern day organization, without us butting in all the time.
And the collaboration with WWSD will not be the only thing giving him
headaches. An organization such as his will have to deal with all sorts of
new forms of competition and collaboration, as far as these two can be
differentiated nowadays. Alliances, co-productions, joint ventures and
outsourcing are what it’s all about today.

And all of this is taking place in a market that is no longer shaped by

national borders and physical distance. A market with all sorts of new
and quickly developing challenges related to fields such as technology,
sustainability, and many more. And then the economy goes and acts
like a roller coaster with heat deformed rails!
 Today 31

As if this wasn’t enough of a challenge, people like Mr Smith also have

to contend with the blurring distinction between the professional and
private lives of their employees. Employees who are no longer satisfied
with security and salary alone; employees who feel Maslow’s theory is
‘so yesterday’ and will not hesitate to add new layers to his pyramid.

At the end of this enervating day, Mr Smith is about to call it a day just as
he receives two text messages in a row:

-Incoming text message from Mrs Jones-

“How about a drink?”

-Incoming text message from Jane Smith-

“Took the curtains back after all; am curious if you like these better…”

We’ll just leave Mr Smith to it…

 gravitation
32

Chapter 2

22. Within the context of the movie, Wallace
& Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
(2005), Wallace is right, but we will prob-
ably stumble across a lot more than that in
Wonderland.
23. Bill Clinton’s phrase, often used in his
presidential campaign in 1992.
Wonderland
“Oh, no, it’s only rabbits in there.”22
Lewis Carroll wrote about Alice, who followed a white rabbit, who
seemed to be in a great hurry. She jumped after the rabbit into a rabbit
hole and ended up in an environment that was somewhat strange to
her: Wonderland. And we invite you to join us in following Alice, to step
into Wonderland as well. Step into Wonderland? In a management
book? Yes indeed, because it represents our metaphor for the world in
which tomorrow’s professional and private lives will take place. All of us
are already running after the white rabbit so to speak; busy, busy, busy,
while facing all kinds of new challenges. And now, we are on the verge
of diving into the rabbit hole.

The above pretty much reflects the authors’ thoughts on how to deal
with developments we see today. We are, of course, not claiming to
be able to predict the future. We do, however, want to take a closer
look at all of those developments to analyze the circumstances in which
private and professional lives will find themselves in years to come. That
this new world will greatly deviate from what we have seen in the past
50 years is obvious. Let us now connect four spheres of influence to this
strange Wonderland: economy, sustainability, technology, and people.
Y

Let us follow the rabbit!

M
O NO
EC

“It’s the Economy, stupid”23

Several months after Barack Obama took oath, the American Senate
agreed to the most radical economic recovery plan that the American
government has ever developed. Still just a few days in office, he
shepherded the plan through the Senate according to expectations
and actually without very much difficulty. In his first speech to Congress,
on 24 February 2009, he referred to the obstacles that the country still
has to overcome. We quote him here: “But while our economy may be
weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through
difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this:
We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will
emerge stronger than before. The weight of this crisis will not determine
the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond
 Wonderland 33

our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities, in our fields and
our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of
the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made
America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history
we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country
to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take
responsibility for our future once more.”

Did you notice that Barack Obama put the emphasis on imagination?
We wholeheartedly agree with this message. At the same time we also
see him react to the enormous pressure being put on him worldwide.
Obama is aiming for a reconsideration of the many axioms in the areas
of micro, meso and macro economy that until now were commonly
accepted. It was his predecessor Bill Clinton, with his famous slogan,
“It’s the economy, stupid!”, who proclaimed that economic progression
would solve the problems left over from the governing period of George
Bush Sr.. The challenge for Obama is a little bit more complicated than
that. As leader of a country that has appointed itself advocate of the
free market, the American Dream and a restrained government, he
began with an unprecedented intervention of guaranteeing the capital
of various unstable banks for more than 700 billion dollars. The economy
is not what it used to be. Financing as a goal in itself is over. Value refers
to more than that. Currently, we see a lot of publications coming out
that analyze the current situation and put forward solutions for the future.
Every day, almost every hour, a new theory or a new model is born.
There has never been a time when so many people have so intensively
and simultaneously reflected on the basics of our economy. In his
book “Common Wealth, Economics for a Crowded Planet”, renowned
economist Jeffrey Sachs calls for “a new financial architecture for
sustainable development.” He describes the case for setting up global
funds that are capable of dealing with global problems. In other words,
worldwide financial systems and agreements that can react to the
topicality and that encompass control mechanisms. Full credit to Sachs
for actually adducing this even before the Financial Crisis and the
resulting Economic Crisis hit us full force.
 gravitation
34

Money talks
Supermarkets are introducing cash registers that will only accept plastic
money. The most important reason given in the press is security. The
increasing risk of robbery in supermarkets has created a necessity to
get rid of ‘real money’. In addition, the need to work with real money
is progressively diminishing. Are the initiatives from the supermarkets a
portent of the definitive disappearance of real money?

Many Dutch people now pay for plane tickets via iDeal. It is the system
that links you directly to your online banking application when you buy
online. At this moment, it is only operational in the Netherlands, but we
see comparable systems everywhere. Would eBay have been so big
without PayPal? PayPal has become an indispensible link in interactions
on the Internet; the link in the chain of buyers and sellers, a link in the
chain of trust. Money is, here, synonymous with trust. But to what extent
does that type of trust still apply to the banking business, the business
that once had a monopoly on the position of linking pin? It is agreed
worldwide that the manner in which financial institutes have speculated
– embracing a cavalier attitude towards risk taking (with other peoples’
money) - has swept away ‘confidence’ in financial systems. We also see
that TRUST agents stemming from iDeal, PayPal and maybe even Visa
and American Express, will eat away at the portfolio of activities carried
out by banks. Consequently, banks are facing yet another challenge.

If confidence is one side of the coin, reward, we believe, is the other

side. For the employee, the commitment to an organization has, to a
great extent, always come from payment for delivered work. However,
even when it comes to good old axioms like this, times are changing.
Since the Dutch government has taken over a part of Fortis Bank due
to the crisis, the Secretary of the Treasury, Wouter Bos, has promulgated
that there will be a limit put on the salaries and bonuses of managers of
banks who make an appeal to the safety fund that has been created
by the government in support of new loans. While introducing the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Obama has also set limits
to the salaries of the managers of the relevant banks and companies.
In various other countries, the exorbitant compensation and the lack of
accountability from managers when things went bad have also led to
heated debates. We see a fast-growing trend towards governmental
 Wonderland 35

control with regard to salaries, and not just in the public sector 24. We assume that Obama will not have

either. How Keynesian can you get? Even here, it is ultimately about been able to restrain from displaying a cyni-

confidence, about trust, because how can the natural connection cal grin while hearing this statement by Don-

remain intact, if salaries are no longer proportional to the quality ald Trump in an interview by Larry King, the

of the decisions that were made, the work that was done, the way Larry King way, on Tuesday, 18 March 2009.

responsibilities were fulfilled?

But there’s more to it. The salary for many jobs is no longer the
determining factor for satisfaction. This leads not only to the question of
which other factors are important and how can you influence these, but
also to the question of what does a salary mean to people, how has this
come to be and how will this develop in the future.

When AIG, American International Group, who had been given almost
200 billion dollars from the American government, decided in March
2009 to pay out approximately 218 million dollars in bonuses, it caused
an angry Obama to practically froth at the mouth during an interview.
Although not exactly unfamiliar with the benefits of a good profit,
Donald Trump expressed himself quite unambiguously on the Larry King
Show about what he thought of AIG’s policy. “…some of the people
got their bonuses and already left. They took millions of dollars. The
following day, they left. The reason for the bonus was to keep them in
the company, supposedly. So they took the bonus and they left. I don’t
think those people are going to be giving the bonuses back, Larry.”24

We believe the time is ripe to conclude that the power of financial

compensation - to attract and retain employees - is fading. Of course,
the current economic climate fudges this trend today. But later on we
will see that, in the long run, money is no longer the deciding factor
when it comes to gaining your employees’ commitment. And obviously,
this will have far-reaching consequences for what the new role of
money will be in our society.
 gravitation
36

Coining the coin

The Financial Crisis has also brought the discussion about our global
monetary system back to life. Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash
is resuming the search for an alternative to our fiduciary monetary
system in which the price of gold hasn’t been the norm for the value
of money since the 1970s. With his ‘industrial consumption price index’,
he is trying to restore confidence in money to the same level as in times
prior to the crisis by linking it to specific goods, like silver and copper.
In our eyes, it would be even better to link the system to a virtual, but
substantial norm that is ultimately related to what earth can produce.
Are we headed towards a ‘footprint-related’ monetary system? We can
imagine the advantages of this. Already in 1991, the Dutch economists
Roefie Hueting and Jan Tinbergen put forward their calculations of the
Environmentally Sustainable National Income (eSNI) as an indicator
of the production level that does not threaten living conditions for
future generations. Stability, long term scenarios, sustainability, honesty,
confidence and trust. Not at all insignificant reasons for re-assessing the
value of our means of exchange, are they? And who knows, maybe
with hindsight the Financial Crisis will prove to have been the perfect
moment to do this thoroughly.

Mind you though, countries like China will have something to say about
that too. In the beginning of 2009, China owned the largest currency
reserves in the world at a value of approximately 2,000 billion dollars,
making it the largest owner of US dollars. Despite this, in March the
governor of the central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, launched an appeal
to exchange the American dollar for a new reserve currency to be
controlled by the International Monetary Fund. Zhou Xiaochuan
suggested the dollar be exchanged for Special Drawing Rights (SDR)
that the IMF introduced as a unit in 1969. Its value is based on a portfolio
of key international currencies, consisting of the euro, Japanese yen,
pound sterling, and U.S. dollar. The governor was seeking to secure his
reserve, saying that it needed to be “anchored to a stable benchmark
and issued according to a clear set of rules.”

Since 1971, when the US government one-sidedly abandoned the fixed

relationship between international currencies, hence bombarding the
dollar as reserve currency unit irrevocably, the value of the SDR slipped
 Wonderland 37

into the background. Reason enough to consider Zhou Xiaochuan’s

comments, made just before the G20 top, remarkable. Even more
remarkable: Timothy Geithner, the US Secretary of Treasury, was said to
be “quite open” to his suggestion. The dollar promptly fell and stocks
followed. It bounced back, only when he announced “the dollar
remains the world’s dominant reserve currency. I think that’s likely to
continue for a long time.” All in all, the developments are putting new
responsibility on the IMF. This institute, with the approval of the world
leaders, seems to be the perfect candidate to provide for the global
funds asked for by Sachs.

New drivers
The grotesque movements on the stock market and in the economy in
the last decade have thus given the majority of the parties reason to
reconsider the current system. There are too many worries about the
future to calmly carry on as before. How can it be that, globally, we still
accept that recessions occur every few years? And crazier yet, how is it
possible that, for 10 years, renowned institutes have trusted someone like
Bernard L. Madoff, recommended by many for the title “biggest con-
man ever”, with their money, without anyone really paying attention to
the signals that were already long known by the United States Securities
and Exchange Commission, the SEC? Approximately 4,800 parties
invested 65 billion dollars and trusted the system. There seemed to be no
process in place that could prevent Mr Madoff from paying his existing
customers with money from new customers, making this method, which
was perceived by the world as an official, earmarked, investment
method, nothing more than a pyramid game that would only survive in
an upward-spiraling bull market. The sharpest bear market since 1930
did not pass Madoff’s investors by. But by then it was too late.

Based on the consequences of the financial crisis, we can conclude

that the economy is truly global. You probably know the example from
chaos theory: The wing beats of the butterfly cause a storm on the
other side of the globe. In this same way, every economic activity has
 gravitation
38

consequences in the global economy. If someone in Chicago opens

a bottle of cola, so to speak, a water-well in India will dry up. Hence
our great wonder and concern about the insecure mortgage bonds
and the exposure of Madoff. As far as we are concerned, everyone
should raise their eyebrows at the lack of red flags in a situation where
one person seems to have embezzled an amount bigger than the gross
domestic product of more than half of the countries worldwide that
participate in this global economy.

With renewed intensity, governments worldwide are discussing possible

regulatory systems that would prevent another financial debacle from
occurring. You could compare this to the discussions after the crisis in
the 1930s. In 1944, a significant financial agreement was reached in
Bretton Woods. Could the outcome of the current situation be that we
curb overheating and, hence, avert another crisis in the economy? Not
by total government control as practiced by the former Soviet Union,
not by the high-risk laissez-faire of recent capitalist vintage. Is the time
ripe for smart, regulating discussions among nations worldwide? Is it time
for neo-neo-Keynesianism? According to John Gray, emeritus professor
of the London School of Economics, this is only possible in a very closed
economy such as in China. Therefore, he does not believe that our hope
will come true. What he sees is a merging of various economic models,
also designed by countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China.

In this scenario, the Anglo-Saxon system would not be put aside, but we
expect that the developments would provide the system with a new,
more realistic drive. A drive that would, at the very least, take stock
of the total societal system. Just like Thaler and Sunstein describe in
“Nudge” (2008), our human nature, and thus, also the current economy,
calls for a form of libertarian paternalism. They point out again that
the manner in which we make choices is predominantly dictated by
emotions and considerations that cannot be qualified as rational.
Good choices in systems, whether they are about making healthy
menu choices in school cafeterias or about the constructive way in
which the tax system is set up, call for a good Choice Architecture.
Take an example from Thaler and Sunstein: If a door has a handle,
you automatically pull it, even if you know that the door opens the
other way. Even after several times, you will automatically react to the
handle the same way, even though by now you know better. Just like
 Wonderland 39

in the case of the door, in everyday life, including economic choices, 25. Ito stated this in a speech at the DLD

you will often react automatically to choice signals of systems. With this (Digital, Life, Design) Conference in Munich,

knowledge, economies could also be designed to improve the quality January 2009. We hope he values us quoting

of the choices people make. Later, we will discuss the so-called Social him here.

Dilemma and, also there, Choice Architecture principles should be able

to help us. 26. They co-created this phenomenon by

means of a series of articles and their book

The Future of Competition (2004).

Where’s the value?

The most important question when setting up the economy, in our
eyes, is about how to perceive value. We see that interaction itself
becomes the focus of economic activities. Already in 1999 in their book
“The Experience Economy”, the American authors Pine II and Gilmore
established that experience would be the next rung of the ladder in
the development of economic value. Not the service itself, but how the
service is experienced will be the determining factor for the value that
we attach to it. Experience is from within and comes not only via the
supplier of the service but just as much via the party that is undergoing
the experience. That is why the interaction provides the means for
measuring the yield for the various participants and can then be
considered added value. Joi Ito, CEO/president of Creative Commons,
states that the focus of parties that exploit new media needs to shift from
‘consumption’ to ‘interaction, participation and expression’. He gives
the example of the users of weblog software: The one who generates
content, the one who keeps the blog up to date, is the one who pays.
The opportunities for self expression via the blog seem to be valuable.
According to Joi Ito: “..rewarding, because you get a connection.”25 For
this reason he talks about the ‘Share Economy’.

In emphasizing interaction and participation, the term ‘producer’ blurs.

In order to be able to describe the economic activity that develops
from this, Prahalad and Ramaswamy26 used the term ‘co-creation’. In
so-called value networks that originate from co-creation and sharing,
the scales can be balanced from time to time, the difference between
input and output can be measured and only as the final compensation
does money need to change hands. Value is, thus, dependent on
interpretation instead of congruent with scarcity. In co-creating systems
 gravitation
40
27. Charles Leadbeater claims that We Think
(2008) was actually written by him AND 257
other people, thus referring to the power of
We Think that helped him write it.
it is possible to measure the value of your company against, say, market
shares. As previously described, a new valuation system will be needed.
In our opinion, the annual balance sheet of an organization in 2029 will
deviate from what we have been used to. In the following chapter we
will take a closer look at these systems.
Do we think it strange that this form of interaction greatly resembles,
well, let’s say: systems of friendship? No, we don’t think it is strange and,
moreover, we think that our social history has provided all of us with
precisely the right qualities to enable us to apply this archetype from our
private lives to the professional world. However, we will have to develop
new ways to map out and quantify this relationship in economic
terms. And then, it doesn’t seem impossible to us that as a result of
this, bartering, which has been common practice in some cultures for
centuries, will also be reintroduced. Before, it seemed that the term
reciprocity was only used for gratefulness for a favor granted. In the
future we might see it return as the natural drive that communities thrive
on. The old system of Checks and balances, version 2.0, so to speak.
Hence: Visa, PayPal, American Express and iDeal, you have your work
cut out for you!
Valuation in the economic system must therefore come closer to the
things that we as individuals and as a social community find important
in our new behavior. Economist and Professor of Economics at Harvard
University, Martin L. Weitzman, is known for his bold statements about
economic systems. He published his book “The Share Economy” in
1984 and was the first to use the term. He described how a new system
of remuneration for employees of an organization would lead to the
prevention of unemployment and the combination of inflation and
stagnation which he called ‘stagflation’. Make the salary dependent
on the performance of the organization, is his plea. What we recognize
in this is the strong relationship between reward and the real value of
the activity. Nowadays, the term Share Economy or Sharing Economy
has become charged, more than ever, in light of the stories by Joi Ito
and the statements of Charles Leadbeater in his book “We Think”27. In
imitation of Descartes, he postulates the essential identity of these times:
you are what you share. Weitzman has now extended his scope from
the more stable salary system to the stability of the whole ecosystem
in which the economy plays a part. He is striving to calculate the
 Wonderland 41

economic impact of possible climate changes. While he neither has yet 28. Successful TV program, produced by

designed a model, the mere fact that he is still working on this matter the Dutch media producing company En-

stresses once more the shift in perspectives related to determining demol, that brings together people who

economic value. love each other but somehow ended up

separated from each other, either referring

to distance or the state of the relationship. Its

title is based on the hit song by The Beatles,

All you need is love28 1967, written by John Lennon.

We all know Donald Duck’s uncle: Scrooge McDuck. We also all know
his favorite hobby: swimming in his great pile of money. He is, after all,
the richest duck in the world. In the period in which his character was
created in the stories of Carl Barks and Don Rosa, it was the perfect
example of the character flaw that you needed to become rich: You
had to love money, full stop, not what you could do with it.

The developments described in this chapter suggest that, in

Wonderland, other qualities are necessary in order to be successful.
Whether our starting point is Weitzman’s definition or Ito’s and
Leadbeater’s statements; the Share Economy calls for community
building qualities. The Beatles already sang about it years ago.
Reciprocity goes further than gratitude; it is a method of working
together that releases the power of the creative masses. If following
these new thoughts about our future economy is a lot for you to swallow,
think of what Russel Crowe said in his role as Nash in the movie “A
SU

Beautiful Mind”: “I am an acquired taste”.

S TA
IN
AB
ILI
TY

Sustainability: it’s not just our movie stars’

pet project…
Speaking of movies and our impeccable taste in that area - let’s turn
our attention back to Hollywood. Sure, we cannot guarantee that the
solution for the current economic crisis is going to come from there, but
another main challenge facing us today has certainly filtered down to
our heroes’ natural habitat. You don’t belong in Hollywood anymore
 gravitation
42
29. We have cited this text from Al Gore’s
website on the climate crisis, a website
dedicated to scientific evidence on which
An Inconvenient Truth is based. It says there
that the evidence is overwhelming and un-
deniable.
if you don’t at least drive around in a Prius. Movie stars and artists are
falling over each other to get into the limelight and media by showing
off their own very unique involvement in various problems of society
and, in particular, sustainability. Does this mean that sustainability will be
the successor to scientology as the creed for the ones who have honed
themselves in creating seductive fiction and melodies? Certainly not.
Sustainability is, and no one can refute this any longer, a very relevant
topic for today’s society. CO2, climate changes and rising sea levels
are terms that have gradually found their way into our vocabulary. Who
doesn’t know either literally - or at least get the drift of - the following
reasoning from Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”:
“Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet
naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing
because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels
such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically
increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and
temperatures are rising.”29
Moreover, nowadays it is no longer controversial to contend that this
quote, with maybe the exception of the final locution about rising
temperatures, represents The Truth. Does that mean that everything Al
says is true? No, that is not a given. Especially, the long term predictions
presented in An Inconvenient Truth are controversial. There are many
respectable scientists that claim that Al grossly exaggerates in his
doomsday scenarios, but there are also respectable scientists who warn
us that reality will actually be even more dramatic. Countries like Russia
and Canada have, to be on the safe side, already begun to claim parts
of the North Pole, since preserving this as an open sea route no longer
seems to be a future scenario. Possible oil reserves have probably also
contributed to these ambitions.
No matter how you look at it, it is clear that we, mankind, have incurred
a whole lot of uncertainties and, very possibly, a whole lot of misery. How
much misery exactly, remains unanswered to a large extent.
 Wonderland 43

“They never knew what hit them and

now they’re on the road to nowhere.”30
What do we know? And more importantly, what does that mean? 30. Barry B. Benson in Bee Movie (2007) has a

The answers to these questions are what thousands of scientists and sharp eye for clueless masses.

politicians all over the world are racking their brains over. However, it is
already apparent that sooner or later, we will all have to deal with that 31. Sometimes, the smartest way to deal

thing we call sustainability. Also in our roles as managers, it’s a hot topic. with fear is to face it, just like Dawn in the

And considering the predictions, how ever uncertain they may seem, episode “Tabula Rasa”.

this will remain so in the coming decades. Therefore, it might be useful to

mention a few of these predictions.

First of all, many would assert that there is an increase in global average
temperature. In turn, this will lead to a rise in the sea level and to
floods. That is only the beginning, and to illustrate this, we quote below
one of the many websites dedicated to the problem of sustainability.
The sinister title of this specific article on livescience.com by Andrea
Thompson and Ker Than is “Timeline: The Frightening Future of Earth”:
“Scientists have even speculated that a slight increase in Earth’s rotation
rate could result, along with other changes. Glaciers, already receding,
will disappear. Epic floods will hit some areas while intense drought will
strike others. Humans will face widespread water shortages. Famine and
disease will increase. Earth’s landscape will transform radically, with a
quarter of plants and animals at risk of extinction.”

To confirm this message, just like every self respecting website or author
would do with regard to this subject, we refer to the results of the IPCC:
a scientific intergovernmental body set up by the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) and by the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP). And the average reader of this sort of text would subsequently
react, maybe just like you, like Dawn in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”: “It’s
scary... but, weirdly, kind of familiar.”31
 gravitation
44

From familiar problems to new solutions?

The above gives a rough idea of the challenge of which our society is
fully aware. None the less, it is also a challenge towards which many
of us still display a bit of a ‘none-of-my-business’ attitude. This group
is still in the majority, people who want to contribute but do not know
exactly how to yet. Naturally, we are not so lazy that we cannot take
the first easy steps, like separating garbage and sending emails with the
disclaimer: “Please consider whether it is absolutely necessary to print
this email, before you actually do so!” But to actually make a significant
contribution in response to this challenge is, well, a whole other matter.
Not in the least because every one of us, consciously or unconsciously,
will, without a doubt, some time or another, have to deal with an
important phenomenon in this context: the so-called Social Dilemma.

A social dilemma is defined as the socially irrational outcome of an

individual’s rational behavior. Within the context of sustainability, the
social dilemma refers to the inclination of most people to go for short
term personal gains at the expense of long term societal gains. Not
that we are now accusing you of irrational behavior, certainly not. This
wouldn’t just be a bit mean; it would also be a bit unfair.

In the definition above, the emphasis, you see, is on the irrational

outcome and not on irrational behavior. This is exactly the problem
that the social dilemma refers to. Individuals, groups and organizations
make choices all the time, about all kinds of things and in all kinds of
situations. Many of these choices can, in essence, be called rational
because they represent a choice that leads, well-reasoned, to the
best outcome for that individual, group or organization. Please note;
for that individual, for that group or for that organization! Hence, it is
not always the best outcome for society as a whole, especially not
in the long run and, unfortunately, often not from the perspective of
sustainability. From that point of view, the choice probably should have
been a different one, but again, at the cost of your personal situation,
the maneuver space of your group, or the competitive position of your
organization And of course you take that into consideration; that is your
role, your responsibility, your job. Furthermore, it is important to determine
why the social dilemma is still so prominent, or rather, can still be a
stumbling block in the process towards a more sustainable society. No
 Wonderland 45

deeper psychology or sociology needed here! The reason is simply just

as obvious as it is worrying: we don’t notice the consequences of our
actions so clearly that they take away or neutralize the social dilemma.
In so many areas it is still allowed and even socially accepted that we
make choices that are not sustainable ones. Nevertheless, the irrational
outcome will manifest itself sooner or later, and on a scale that we, as
individuals, group or organization, will not easily recognize as related to
our choices at that moment.
Does this mean that we, humanity, like a male black widow in heat,
choose for a certain death to favor short term enjoyment? Or will
rapidly developing technologies and the vigorousness of our leaders,
both political and others, allow us the opportunity to undergo a libido
reduction operation at the very last minute and quietly delight in our
wise decision, while enjoying a glass of organic wine and a no-tar-no-
carbon-monoxide cigarette? Allow us to use this biology lesson as a
stepping stone to explore the answers to these questions.

A glimpse of the road ahead

It would be fair to say that Al Gore played an important role in putting
the problem on the map; we are curious to see whether he will also
play a part in taking the first steps towards finding a solution. At the
time of writing this book, various news bulletins report that Al Gore is
going to launch a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth. At the end of 2009,
his new book is supposed to appear, called “Our Choice”. You will
probably have read our book by the time Al has launched his and we
are very curious whether his book will live up to what Gore himself said
about it earlier: “Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer
with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a
comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis. Our
Choice will answer that call.”
Al is, however, not the only one who has thought about possible
solutions. World-wide organizations such as the earlier mentioned
 gravitation
46

IPCC are playing an important role in this, but also private initiatives
are abundant and possibly quite interesting. And still others are
taking the lead to stimulate these initiatives. Take Richard Branson, to
mention but one well-known example. He has launched the so-called
Virgin Earth Challenge, which is described on the dedicated website
as “a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges’
satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal
of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute
materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.” Wow, if the winner can
actually realize this objective that would be a big step in the right
direction, wouldn’t it?

So, we are – luckily - not standing still. There are a lot of people doing
a lot of thinking and campaigning for concrete measures and plans to
tackle the sustainability challenge. In fact, it is already not particularly
difficult to find examples of concrete ideas. A quick search through our
collectively created world of Wikipedia offers the following description
of one of the ideas developed with a view to taking Mr Branson up on
his challenge: “According to the Earth Institute at Columbia University,
Global Research Technologies, LLC has demonstrated a prototype
device capable of capturing 10 tons of carbon dioxide per square
meter per year; a device of 10 meters by 10 meters would be able to
capture 1,000 tons per year. It is estimated that 1 million such devices
would be needed to capture the 1 billion tons per year stipulated in
the conditions of the prize offered by Mr. Branson. The process uses
proprietary sorbents to capture carbon dioxide molecules from free-
flowing air and release those molecules as a pure stream of carbon
dioxide for sequestration. According to GRT, one major advantage
of this new technology is that it is not necessary to site the devices
in immediate proximity to a major carbon source (such as a power
station); for example, the CO2 emitted by traffic in Bangkok could be
sequestered in Iceland by CO2 towers running on geothermal energy.
Of course, the power source for the towers must not be a net CO2
producer, as this would partially offset the beneficial effects of the
device.”

Two other examples that we found are related to plastic trees and
energy islands. It is claimed, we would ‘only’ need 52,971 of those
islands to replace nuclear power entirely, which would occupy a total
 Wonderland 47

area of 111 x 111 kilometers of the surface of Earth’s oceans. This idea is 32. One could say that linking “Dutch” to

surprisingly similar to Al Gore’s suggestion to place an enormous 100x100 overconfident is actually more accurate

km sun panel in the Sahara desert. Supposedly, this could generate than the widely accepted link between

enough energy to supply the whole of the US and, what’s more, below “Dutch” and being cheap. This is not to say

the panel an atmosphere would be created that is perfect to produce that the latter is definitely not true.

food for about the whole of Africa. Once again, the only reaction to
proposals like that would be to say “go for it”, wouldn’t it?

Wubbo Ockels, the first Dutch astronaut, is a personal hero of the authors
because he has just recently launched the Ockels-Mill. The idea behind
this giant mill is pretty straightforward: The mill actually consists of a huge
amount of wings that are connected by a strong rope made into a
loop. The end of the loop is connected to a dynamo on the ground.
The idea is that the rope is so long that the top end of the loop can
reach a height of about 10 kilometers, in order to be able to make use
of the high winds up there. Lucid idea, although for those who are not
in the know, it’s maybe a bit overconfident, a bit Dutch32 so to speak,
but Ockels, not just a space traveler, but also a professor in Aerospace
Sustainable Engineering and Technology at the Delft University of
Technology, insists it is definitely feasible. And again, if it turns out it works,
why not just do it?

Well, it wouldn’t be at all difficult to use a major part of this chapter

to laud comparable ideas and plans that have meanwhile been
developed by the most diverse parties and for the most diverse reasons,
from idealism to opportunism. And then we would have only mentioned
alternative and clean ways of creating energy and/or preventing or
absorbing CO2. Comparable accounts can be found on other issues
related to the theme sustainability, for example, the contamination of
ground and water, and ways of repairing and preventing this. Or of new
ways for people and animals to learn to live together in such a manner
that maintaining their surrounding ecosystems is no longer a utopia. In
other words, all that falls under the term sustainable development, so
clearly defined by Brundtland and her colleagues more than 20 years
ago: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs.”
 gravitation
48
Y
OG
OL
C HN
TE
33. You can either interpret this as a refer-
ence to the whole “weapons of mass de-
struction debate” preceding the invasion in
Iraq or as a quote from the hit series
Doctor Who (Episode 1 of The Underwater
Menace, 1963). We’ll leave it up to you to
decide…
34. But if anyone can make silly things look
like science, it’s Tom Cruise, isn’t it?
What’s next: ecolomy, technocolomy, or
something a bit more complex?
So we are making advancements when it comes to new ideas, new
constructions and new technologies to tackle the economic and
environmental crises. There are probably methods of operating in a
sustainable manner that we just haven’t discovered yet and that would
reduce the social dilemma to something we actually worried about in
the dark ages; new ways of operating that all of us, in our newly defined
economic system 2.0 would see, experience and share as indisputable
added value.
And yes, now you’re probably thinking: Sounds great, when
will it happen, will it happen? Was Bush (George W.) right, after
all, in his pronounced unlimited trust in the developments in
technology as panacea? The answer is just as clear as it is worrying:
“we never know what we’re going to find, do we?”33
What do we know then? As was mentioned earlier, in several areas of
technology there are clear and unmistakable trends that we can safely
say will not reverse in the foreseeable future. Michael Malone made it
perfectly clear, in his book “The Future Arrived Yesterday: The Rise of the
Protean Corporation and What It Means for You”, when he declared
that in the field of Internet and communication technology the world is
at this moment changing faster and will continue to change faster than
anyone could have ever imagined. Virtual presence, the web 2.0 and,
in time, without a doubt, also versions 3.0 and 4.0, a wireless World Wide
Web for that matter, are developments that will not stop short tomorrow
and are not isolated. They go hand in hand with a fast paced evolution
in hardware and related technology. Obviously, all of this will play a
crucial role in the way we operate in the future, in the world that we,
here, call Wonderland. Maybe it won’t look exactly like Tom34 shows us in
Minority Report. However, if you compare the predictions of prominent
thinkers in this field with the outlines that are sketched in the movie, of
the ways in which technology could play an increasingly omnipresent
role in our lives, they are surprisingly logical and realistic.
 Wonderland 49

Moreover, one way or another, all of us have a certain, rather uniform

idea of what the future could look like based on the combination of
all sorts of forms of information technology, Internet technology and
GPS. In his book “Future Files”, Richard Watson tells us, in his discussion
about five trends that will determine the future, that it wouldn’t surprise
him if our shoes and clothes will be able to “talk” to our shoe polish
and our washing machine, just to make sure that they’re not ruined
in the process of being cleaned. There will not only be links between
products in the future; already now, prototypes of computers that can
‘read’ the emotional state of the user by registering and interpreting
facial expressions are available. This will go further than registering
movements, which is already possible with the latest (beta) version of
Xbox, and is actually not such a big step anymore. Navigation tools
in our cars will be able to take this information into account when
determining a route so that drivers that are in too aggressive or too
emotional a state will not be led past ravines or along sharp curves. After
a night of wild partying, the driver’s shaking hands would activate a self-
contained ‘safety net’ before driving off.

In fact, Mr Watson takes all this a few steps further and tells us that
computers will become more intelligent than people around 2030 and
that we shouldn’t be surprised if self-replicating machines exist by then.
If you combine this with the fact that User Generated Content on the
Web already plays an increasingly prominent role in our collective
knowledge bank, it will lead to interesting situations and issues. What,
exactly, will the role of knowledge be in the future, if we increasingly
make use of a democratic system, such as Wikipedia-like applications,
as a way to determine what is true and what is not, while this knowledge
is controlled by systems and machines that are smarter than people and
that can reproduce themselves. We can only repeat our statement from
the beginning of this chapter that the scenarios from movies like Minority
Report are far less far-fetched and crazy than they probably seem to be
at first glance and in our eyes today.
 gravitation
50
35. Even though we love Doctor Who, we
have to be honest: Given the choice, we
would pick a time machine that looks like
the one Doc Brown created in Back to the
Future (1985) over one that looks like a tele-
phone booth.
Actually, according to many futurologists and authors, a number of
features from such movies are hopelessly outdated. They claim that
in reality, in 2020, 2030 and beyond, our ways of living and society will
deviate even more dramatically than what we see in the movies. Such
dramatic changes will certainly not be limited to the world of computers
and information technology.
“Are you telling me you built a time
machine... out of a DeLorean?”35 
What other kinds of developments and new technologies lie ahead? Yeah
well, asking the question isn’t so difficult, but answering it decidedly is.
Besides, it was never the intention of our book to spoon feed you a list of
the ‘top ten trends’ or ‘fifty ways your life will change’ for the umpteenth
time. Many others, in various ways, have put time and energy into this
and we would very much like to refer you to their work for detailed
backgrounds and views. At the same time, besides the developments
around economy and sustainability described earlier, technological
developments have unmistakably radical consequences for you as
a manager. We certainly do not want to avoid the exploration of this
playing field because, one way or another, we will have to take these
developments into account in our exploration of Wonderland and in
your role there. Therefore, listed below is a short miscellany of interesting,
exciting, strange and peculiar predictions that we have come across in
the work of others from which we will base a few concluding observations.
For this miscellany we are grateful to authors such as James Canton (The
Extreme Future), Matthias Horx (How We Will Live) en Richard Watson
(Future Files).
In the world of transportation, a change will occur from personal means
of transportation, owned by the driver, to thinking and organizing in
networks. The car of the future will be characterized as a temporary
accommodation for those who want to travel from point A to point B; the
‘driver’ won’t have to actually steer and this temporary accommodation
will be used at his discretion as office, relaxation space or freshening-up
area. Accidents in this network will only occur when there is a system
 Wonderland 51

failure and, within the network, there will be meeting places for the
travelers where the nodes are defined by that same network. That the
physical locations for these nodes (that is, if physical locations aren’t
considered totally out-dated by then) correspond with the locations of
today’s office buildings would be, to put it mildly, pure coincidence.

Where specific travelers of this network are, is of course at all times known,
regardless of whether the travelling is done in guided vehicles or by means
of teleportation. Teleportation? Yes, teleportation! Meetings where not
everyone is physically present exist already; and of course there is still a
huge step to go before it will be possible to physically be everywhere
without travel time, but who would have thought 20 years ago that
having a meeting with holograms on the other side of the table would be
a reality? Is it certain that we, or our children, will experience such things
as teleportation, time travel and alternate realities, as in mirror worlds or
multiple universes? The only honest answer to this is: ‘No’. It is not certain.
Is it unlikely or even out of the question? According to many, prominent
research institutes among others, the only honest answer to this question is
also a firm ‘No’.

Before we end up in an impossible discussion about the probability of

particular technical devices that are not yet feasible, it would probably
be better to concentrate on trends and developments that are actually
already perceivable or feasible, for example the latest state of affairs
concerning stem cell research, biotechnology and neurotechnology.
Combine these with just one of the magic words of today,
nanotechnology, and we get a seemingly endless list of interventions and
technologies that already exist or will be possible in the near future.

The ability to replace or heal practically any affected or damaged,

ill-functioning body part is forging ahead. Redefining the impact of
diseases and the life expectancy of humans is imminent. The same goes
for the manner in which we reproduce. Not that we want to price the
ancient, enjoyable way of creating new life out of the market but we
will need to depend on it even less than we do today. Just like we will be
less dependent on our family tree and good fortune for the traits, both
internal and external, that our children have. To conclude this miscellany,
we would like to mention two more very relevant things for a discussion
on the role of managers. The first one is not only the imbibing of health
 gravitation
52
36. Please do not pretend you do not know
this scene. You know it, we know it, we all
know it.
37. David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight in
Knight Rider must have been so frustrated
about the absence of a radio that he start-
ed singing himself. In 2029 KITT would have
been the one with a singing career. We, just
like you, can’t wait.
enhancements, but also the not-so-hypothetical possibility of performance
enhancements. Secondly, the role of our memories will change, as soon
as it becomes possible for us to remember events that we ourselves have
not actually experienced. Whether this will ultimately be done by means
of a liquid substance or by an implanted chip is, indeed, an interesting
question, but the answer is not of essential importance to the impact
that this development will have on our performance; our performance
as an individual and as a link in the network, as a private person and as a
professional.
“I’ll have what she’s having.” Surely you know the quote. Meg Ryan, in
her role as Sally in the movie “When Harry met Sally”, demonstrates to
Harry how a woman is capable of faking an orgasm36. She does this with
so much fervor that another woman in the restaurant immediately asks
the waiter for a piece of the same apple pie, with whip cream “on the
side”. In this case we are talking about apple pie, in 30 years it’ll probably
be about the memory of it. Or about the memory that Meg is using as
inspiration for her demonstration, but then with other main characters
within the memory… there are limits after all!
“All these weird gadgets, you’d think
they’d give you a radio.”37
Well then, now that we’re on the subject of limits… It is clear from the
above-mentioned that the boundary, the difference between technology
and (hu)man will become less clear. We will also see that what we call
ethically sound, and what not, will irrevocably be under discussion, merely
for the simple fact that there will be so many more possibilities. In fact,
the only thing we know for sure is that the boundaries for possibilities will
shift. How far exactly? What will society look like in 2020 and later? We
don’t know; you don’t know. At the same time, underlying principles,
tendencies and trends are recognizable. We see a society developing in
which everything with everyone is linked, as is everyone with everything,
everything with everything and everyone with everyone. Technology is
breaking through boundaries that we earlier thought impenetrable. If
we are not satisfied, we go for an update, an upgrade or a re-creation.
 Wonderland 53

The knowledge and abilities of individuals increasingly constitute the

achievement of us all and the distinguishing power of specific knowledge
and abilities is liable to erode. Finding and making contact, realizing a
design, easy as pie.

Does all this mean that no problem will be unsolvable? Competition will
no longer exist because everyone will have access to the same resources
and core competences? No, of course not, because there will be new
core values for competition, new ways of competing. Selecting and
filtering will become more important than collecting and establishing.
The art of finding what you are looking for will give way to the art of
deciding what you want to find. Creativity and innovation, optimal use
of the possibilities of new technologies and networks will become more
important than effectiveness and efficiency based on the principles that
stem from the industrial era. And this will all take place within the context
of the development of a new economic system, or at least the upgrading
of our current system, also under pressure to secure the longevity of our
planet for future generations. Technocolomy, a sustainable technology
enhanced economic system, or whatever you want to call it. A nice
challenge for you as a manager, don’t you think? Sure, but we’re not
there yet. An essential element of Wonderland is still missing. Before
we can start establishing the contours of our future society and how a
manager can operate in it, it is advisable to pause at the fourth and last
pillar of Wonderland: people, all too easily forgotten…
PE
OP
LE

“Ru brd?”
The above message is from the article “Gen Y in the Workforce” by Tamara
J. Erickson in Harvard Business Review (February 2009) and is for some
people as cryptic as it is telling for others. It is a typical message for the type
of employees that are often denoted as Generation Y - or for short - Gen
Y or Millennials. Naturally, they exchange these kinds of messages with
each other via their iPhones or Twitter. The article shows that it is actually an
expression of impatience and passion, a call for more meaning in their work,
more attention. But it is mainly a cry for another kind of attention from the
representatives of Generation X, their ‘bosses’, their ‘managers’; managers
 gravitation
54

that find it a bit difficult to deal with these strange new employees who want
it all and want it now. Like Ron Alsop so beautifully put it in his commentary
on the above mentioned article: We’re talking about “impatient Generation
Y meets ‘pay your dues’ Generation X”. And for those that haven’t figured
it out yet, the message is the abbreviated, digital quick version of “Are you
bored?”

We don’t know how you are faring but simple authors like us are slowly
but surely growing giddy from it. What was it again? First we had the Baby
Boomers: Classic, authoritarian child-rearing companions, acquainted with
Internet at a later stage in life and who see it as a sort of digital phone book
or encyclopedia. Then came Generation X: Began young adulthood with
computers, raised freely and raised to be free, and more often than not in
broken families. Subsequently, there came a Generation Y which, according
to many people, doesn’t exist at all anymore and has already evolved into
Generation Z. And if that wasn’t enough, in between there is a Generation
C. If we can believe the latest stories, all these lettered generations do not
exist at all and instead we have Generation Einstein and Generation Blah!
Yet, it is thanks to Generation C that we have access to such a collective
accumulation of knowledge on the Internet, because this is precisely the
generation of the tireless co-creators, who are focused on User Generated
Content and have ‘filled’ the Internet. Generation Blah is represented
by 20 year olds who do not aspire to making a career, but would rather
get married and have kids before 30; perhaps a fabrication of frustrated
representatives of Generation X because they are breaking the trend big
time compared to the others. Their successors, Generation Einstein, are
the impatient teenagers that are keen on saving the world. They are the
quickest, smartest and most sociable group of all!

Again, our heads are spinning! Will we really have to deal with as many as
six or seven different types of employees, each with their own special wishes
and demands, their own quirks and who come with their own user-manuals?
And all of this within the context of that still to be developed technocolomy
that does justice to all developments in the fields of economy, sustainability
and technology. If this is the case, U will not be BRD at all.
 Wonderland 55

From generations to generalizations to

integration
Okay, just to establish the state of affairs, a quick recap before we 38. Obviously, we could have used the other

take the next step in our exploration of Wonderland and its inhabitants. famous scene from this movie, the one with

Apparently, we will have to deal with changing employees, categorized “Show me the money”, but that would not

into so-called Generations, which will greatly influence your role as be in line with the train of thought presented

a manager. So much is clear! Yet the situation is probably a bit less in this book. Money is just money, Ray talks

confusing, a bit less chaotic than one would suspect from recounting about real things.

and describing all of these new groups. All of the above mentioned
Generations are, of course, just ‘normal’ people. People change,
for sure, but they’re still people. Certain starting points still apply. For
example, take Ray in the movie Jerry Maquire, who asks Jerry (played
by Tom Cruise, who else): “D’you know the human head weighs eight
pounds?”38 And he’s right, you know! Even the strange teenager who will
be applying for a job as assistant creative virtual knowledge manager in
your organization in five years’ time has a head. Maybe a head that will
make you happy, or else a head that you’d prefer not to look at for too
long. But in any case, a head that weighs just about eight pounds. Not
two pounds, and also not thirty two pounds; just roughly eight pounds.

Right, having established that, what more do we know? Well, from

a distance and despite the sometimes rather confusing collection
of names of all the different kinds of groups, groups that one way or
another distinguish themselves from the rest, this collection presents a
surprisingly clear overall picture. The good thing is that we do seem to
be able to get a clear picture and description of these employees of
today and of the future. Just like it was with technology, the nuances
may not be totally clear, but the tendency, the big picture, is.

Let us begin with the so-called succession of all of these generations

in the course of time. In reality, this is of course much more subtle. A
person’s year of birth is not the deciding factor for how that person
is. Drion claims that he is the perfect example of this. He has two
daughters, both Generation somewhere-in-the-latter-part-of-the-
alphabet, and he gives lectures to and supervises students that also
belong to these generations. In his work as consultant, he focuses on,
among other things, new ways of working. All of this means, according
 gravitation
56

to statistics, that he should have the ‘pay your dues’ mentality, but in
reality, both Marée and Melissen often enjoy meaningful conversations
with him. It wouldn’t be fair to Drion to attribute this to the adaptability
of his co-authors. In fact, even though Drion sees himself as being of a
respectable age, as a representative of his own generation, he has also
developed characteristics belonging to later generations, because of
his intense contact with their representatives. The border between Baby
Boomer Drion and the younger generations around him is less sharp than
what articles and books about all of these generations describe.

At the same time, the various generations are succeeding each other
faster and faster. While the time span between the Baby Boomers and
Generation X is, according to the ‘guidelines’, a few decades, the
latest generations follow each other increasingly rapidly and it seems
that, soon, each year of birth will denote a new ‘generation’. You will
have to agree with us that this doesn’t really have any added value
anymore. Many authors and consultants, possibly driven by the if-I-can-
convince-them-it-is-new-they-will-need-my-help principle, seem to have
gone overboard and apparently feel a need to give everything going
on around them a name, a description and a logo. However, to be a
bit more objective, these developments can easily be mapped out
without obsessive branding. Moreover, the increasingly rapid rise of so-
called new generations is in itself a sign of the tendency that we see in
the characteristics of these generations. Borders are fading and, just as
we saw in our observations on technology, people are more and more
emphatically in contact with their surroundings and with the people in
these surroundings.

The latter is a tendency that we see in the characteristics of the

various generations that we have discussed above; a tendency that is
reinforced by the developments in the areas of economy, sustainability
and technology. This is exactly why themes such as ‘solidarity’ and
‘joining forces’ form a leitmotiv in the many observations in all of
these areas. Whether we are talking about further globalization of our
economy and how co-creation will play an increasingly prominent role
in this; how we can tackle the climate crisis and neutralize the social
dilemma; or the possibilities that technology will offer us in the future to
take bigger and more rigorous steps. All of this brings us to the core of
the issue: More and more emphatically we see in developing people,
 Wonderland 57

the successive generations, a shifting balance between individualism

and solidarity. Obama brought this explicitly to our attention years
ago in his book “The Audacity of Hope”. He states that it would be a
mistake to proclaim individualism as the only starting point for a society.
Naturally, freedom of choice and pursuing one’s own ideals is of great
value and, also given the fact that it would be impossible to make it to
the presidency in America without doing this, this behavior is applauded
by Obama and is seen as the motor of our economy. However, at the
same time, he calls for attention to values such as family, community
and citizenship: “The glue upon which every healthy society depends.”
Of course people are individuals, but not only individuals!

Someone like Ervin Laszlo, systems philosopher, inspired author, one

of the original members of the Club of Rome, founder of the Club of
Budapest and, most of all, one of the biggest and more influential
thinkers of our time, takes it one step further. He claims that we are
in a very crucial period of transition and that “we have reached the
threshold of a new stage of economic, social and cultural revolution.”
Until now, supported by technological developments and the
exploitation of natural resources that have been accessible to us in
abundance, we as humanity are developing in a direction that is not
tenable in the long run. Key words in this form of evolution are: conquest,
colonization and consumption. These are words that formed the basis
for the industrial revolution and our current economic system. It is also
the behavior that has given us the climate crisis and all of the other
challenges concerning sustainability and that are directly affiliated to
the earlier described social dilemma.

However, just like Obama, Laszlo sees a ‘way out’, an impending

change in this evolution; a change in which things like connection,
communication and consciousness are paramount. A change that
questions some of the basic principles of the industrial revolution and
our current economic system, such as division of labor and economic
growth based on productivity figures expressed in physical units. At the
same time, what we have here is a new direction that is, just like the old
one, supported and enabled by the technology that is accessible to us
now or will be in the future. Information technology, nanotechnology
and biotechnology will enable us to do more with less, to get more
out of life with less impact on our natural resources, to realize new
 gravitation
58
39. This quote from the episode Babel of the
series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is just to
check whether you are still with us, whether
you can still accept our train of thought.
sources of energy and ways of working together and communicating.
Transformation, experience and solidarity will replace conquest,
consumption and competition as the key words for our society. We will
increasingly realize that we are more than individuals and will cast off
the straitjacket called social dilemma.
“Odo? Quark to Odo?
You’re still with us?”39
Okay, be honest now, you’re probably starting to think that we are a bit
nutty, aren’t you? Predicting that our society will all of a sudden change
from a competitive, profit and power oriented system, full of hunters and
prey, into a touchy feely, everyone-helps-everyone-and-together-we-
will-all-live-happily-ever-after commune full of individuals consistently
communicating eloquently, who are permanently aware of their mutual
bonds, and see and experience the social dilemma as an out-dated
idea from the past.
The easy answer would be: We are not the ones predicting this; people
like Obama and Laszlo are, and we would not dare disagree.
However, the honest answer is that this is what we actually do believe
will happen. Maybe not exactly the way it is presented here and also
not as a prediction for the world on January 1, 2011, or the day after
that, just to leave a little margin of error. But this is indeed the tendency
we assume to be true, the theme in all of the generations that populate
our organizations in increasingly greater numbers. It is also the tendency
that is in line with and is strengthened by the developments that we
see in the three other areas that will shape the future: economy,
sustainability and technology. This is exactly why the word integration
can be found in the penultimate heading. If you quickly look from a
distance at the successive generations and then compare with the
developments in these three areas, you will see a coherent picture, a
theme. The current economic and ecological circumstances show us
that continuing on the path of maximizing the individual profit has led to
big problems and will continue to do so. At the same time, we see that
 Wonderland 59

the new generations no longer see this as their ideal and technology
allows them to give their lives and their work meaning in other ways.
Obama speaks of a new balance, Laszlo of change. No matter what,
we see several things coming together; we see borders fading in many
areas and in many ways. New values are forming, new starting points
are coming into view, and new systems are developing. Wonderland is
taking shape.

Four Spheres of Influence in Wonderland

People
new
motives

Sustainability Technology
new Wonderland new
challenges gravitation opportunities

Economy
new
values
 gravitation
60
40. The word you can always use if there
is nothing else you can say or think of, ac-
cording to Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins in
the movie of the same name (1964). Is it a
coincidence that the term comes in espe-
cially handy for the banker in distress in that
movie?
Chapter 3
Gravitate
Deoxyribonucleic Acid, in short: DNA
Ever try to say it quickly? Marée thinks he makes quite an impression if
he uses the unabbreviated version during birthday-party-conversations,
mostly in combination with supercalifragilisticexpialidocious40. But you
have to admit that using the abbreviation DNA is a lot easier than
saying the full name. So hats off to Marée, even though most people
wouldn’t exactly call it a criminal offence if you couldn’t pronounce
it right. However, make no mistake: Except for the pronunciation,
in management consultancy the concept DNA does in fact play a
crucial role. Or rather, from a management consultancy perspective,
as well as in this book, this acronym denotes an important focal point
for managers of today and of tomorrow. But what are we actually
looking for when we say that we want to find out what the DNA of an
organization is? And why do we want to find this out so badly? How do
you go about finding it? Can it actually be found?
In this chapter, we will elaborate on these and related questions and
as a springboard we would like to refer to what Nicholas Ind (2001)
pointed out to us: If your organization doesn’t live the brand, your
lack of credibility handicaps you. Where a sound pension plan was a
good way to retain employees 20 years ago, other rules apply today.
In his book “Living the Brand”, where he describes strong regional, and
even global brands, Nicholas Ind offers an interesting thought. It is a
dangerous thing when the people working for an organization do not
share the same brand feeling as the customers of that organization,
because if they don’t, in our day and age of fast communication,
word would be out in no time. Even to those who were not necessarily
looking for it. Just how fast? Do you remember the emergency landing
of the US Airbus A 320, flight 1549 in the Hudson between Manhattan
and New Jersey on January 15, 2009? You could practically follow the
incident live via Twitter. All official news stations, even CNN – who gained
recognition for ‘Bombs over Baghdad’, their immediate reporting of
the bombarding during Desert Storm in 1991 – used the information
gathered by the general public for their own reporting. News travels fast:
The transparency of our society has increased enormously thanks to the
Internet.
 Gravitate 61

It is a stiff challenge for a company to keep it a secret if your shoes are

being manufactured by minors under poor conditions in some Asian
country. Even in companies that focus on manufacturing goods, and
not just on intangibles, what applies today is: You are who you work
for. As an up-to-snuff company, Nike has learned from this form of
communication particularly quickly and as far as we know (tomorrow
can, of course, be a different story), they have conformed to the rules of
the new game.

The other side of the coin is that if consistently pursued, company values
- correction - brand values within the company can greatly enhance
the corporate culture. Ind speaks with affection of his first meeting with
Chip, the guy at the welcome desk of the company called Patagonia,
a strong brand in sportswear and utilities, focusing on sustainability to
their fullest. Not only does Chip make Ind feel at ease, he also shares
a good deal of the DNA of the company with Ind in a chat during the
time he has to wait for his appointment. And, simultaneously, he keeps
track of the weather in order to announce great surfing possibilities
to his colleagues. He states that he is “genuinely feeling groovy”. The
company is actually known for that feeling.

There are numerous examples. And actually, all of them refer to

the manner in which we look at DNA from the perspective of the
organization. Originally, DNA is the basic material, the ‘stuff’ that makes
a living organism what it is. Biology has taught us that DNA stands for
the building blocks of an organism that, to a great extent, explain the
manifestation and the behavior of that particular being. Nowadays,
we draw these same parallels in organizations. DNA refers, then, to the
core values of the company. On top of that, the roots, the history, the
core competencies and the type of business also play important roles. It
applies to organizations, as well, that DNA, manifestation and behavior
are inseparably intertwined with each other. At least that is how it should
be! As Ind has already taught us, only if the activities of an organization
are aligned with its DNA will the organization have an optimal chance
of survival; that is already the case in today’s society, let alone in that of
tomorrow’s.
 gravitation
62
41. Bernd Schmitt made up his own version
of the lead song from Hair in the preface of
the book Managing the Customer Experi-
ence by Shaun Smith & Joe Wheeler, 2002.
,
Ok, check! “γνvθι σεαυτoν” or “know yourself” as the ancient Greek
said. It helps being effective. This all sounds pretty logical, doesn’t it?
However, as many have experienced before you, this is actually easier
said than done. Why? Well, to put it simply, because an organization is
not static. An organization is not a stable entity that can be isolated from
its environment. And even less so in an environment that is perpetually in
motion.
This is the dawning of the age of
experience41
In 1999, author Rolf Jensen predicted the rise of the Dream Society. In
his book with the same name, he proclaims that imagination, creativity
and the art of collaboration are the essential qualities of the people
working in what we have called Wonderland. Jensen was also curious
to know whether we would be spending more hours on work in the
future, or fewer. Or rather, where will our priorities lie, at home or at
work? His answer is that organizations are developing towards the old
tribe-structures and that the members will show a kind of behavior
comparable to that of the tribes - going out to hunt together and
dividing the catch equally. In that sense, work and private lives are
merging. To illustrate this, let us have a look at the employees of a
typical, state-of-the-art organization like Google. A company full of
young, smart makers of… well, of what exactly? Never mind, it doesn’t
matter, because whatever they make, if you look at the results, it must
be good. What characterizes such a successful, modern company?
Its employees act as though they were going out on a hunt and when
the mission is successful, they demand their due reward. In this way,
the people, the human capital within an organization, become the
most important asset, while things like the building, the physical assets,
including computers – even at Google, or actually especially at Google
–, come in second place. Another consequence, according to Jensen,
is that these employees are no longer a part of the organization, they
are the organization. And the environment where the work is done
has the pure and simple task of supporting them. And you, then, the
manager? You are an important part of this environment. You are, so
 Gravitate 63

to speak, the comfortable furniture, the comfy, worn-leather easy chair, 42. You should see Drion in one of those;

where these hunters can sit back to discuss their hunting tactics and to scary!

boast about their take.

Are you still following? Mmm, before we lose you completely in more
of this kind of peculiar comparisons, let’s take a breather. It might be
a good idea to focus for a minute on something concrete, something
tangible. Let’s see… something concrete… and tangible... the building!
Eureka! In all the tumult that has been described here, the building is a
nice stable factor to hold on to, isn’t it?

Great! Let’s look, then, at the influence of the built environment,

a very tangible element in tribal society. Buildings can do a lot for
organizations, often more than we think. This is exactly why Rolf Jensen
explicitly explores the influence of a building. He cites the occurrence
of Hurricane Andrew that raged over America in 1992. Many buildings
were destroyed in the hurricane, including the headquarters of Burger
King in Miami. From the chaos, a new view of this office building
emerged. The consequence of this new vision was a new corporate
culture. The hierarchical structure that existed before the collapse blew
over with the storm. In the new building there are no more doors. The
offices of top management were not rebuilt. The communication in the
company changed and it greatly improved. The new Burger King culture
became a culture of “creative thinking, aggressive decision making,
and fresh ideas.” It just goes to show that the interaction between
physical environment and corporate culture goes further than the logo
on the building.

So, we cannot overlook the fact that these examples, particularly

the one about the building, clearly demonstrate that new forms of
collaboration have developed. And strangely enough, we discover that
these forms lie closer to the conceptions of work in olden times, when
we as tribe members dressed in bearskins42, than to the way things got
done throughout the industrial era. Could it be that in years from now
we will look back on the period of the industrial revolution as a peculiar
period in time when we lost our way? A period in which we tried to
apply principles specifically designed for a manufacturing environment
to a (commercial) services environment and knowledge workers? Are
we going back to our roots, to our DNA? But in that case, what is it that
 gravitation
64

43. SciFi movie (1990) by the Dutch director we are we working on? What are we hunting? What are the new basic
Paul Verhoeven, starring the current Gover- principles now that we won’t fool ourselves anymore by forcing Taylor
nor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and his descendents to join us to our offices?
as a tormented special agent on Mars.

Almost simultaneous to Jensen, we have the theories of Pine II and

Gilmore. Their search to improve mass-customization-processes has led
to the insight that ‘experience’ is becoming an increasingly important
means of doing business in the economy. If you want to fulfil the needs
of the customer to the best of your ability, you have to provide an
appropriate experience. But besides that, even if you don’t focus on
experience, at the end of the day it will still be the experience of what
ever you are offering that will count. It is up to every organization to
anticipate this.

In contradiction to the perspective of the ‘Service Economy’, providing

a service will no longer be seen as the economic activity. Instead, you
will need to provide a service, instrumentally, in order to achieve a
specific experience. This event will give rise to a memorable experience.
The service of providing a cup of coffee will be subservient to the
experience of ‘drinking coffee’, while other factors, such as the view or
the people you’re with, are equally important influences. Good service
will still be very important, but no longer the goal in itself.

People are prepared to pay for experience, if the experience leaves

a positive memory behind. Therefore, this experience needs to be
considered meaningful. Let us reflect on this for a moment. Every
experience passes. What makes one experience more meaningful
than another? It has to do with the quality of the experience. In other
words, the quality of the experience normally determines the value of
the memory. However, having said this, you could of course ask yourself
what the normal meaning of the word ‘memory’ is, which is nicely
visualized in the movie “Total Recall”43 by Paul Verhoeven. The core
business of the company Rekall Inc. is implanting chips in the brains of
its customers, so that these customers remember a vacation without
actually having been on one. Here, experience has been boiled down
to its most extreme consequence, memory. The customers are willing to
pay for this, as if the vacation had actually taken place. In the movie
though, by the way, this solution goes wrong at times.
 Gravitate 65

Ok, back to reality. Pine II and Gilmore thought up the rule of thumb that 44. Many restaurants experiment with pricing

an economic activity is focused on experience as soon as the customer, nowadays. Among others: Etenstijd, Tilburg,

in essence, pays for the time he spends. A clear example of this can be the Netherlands; Der Wiener Deewan, Vien-

found in the restaurant business. It is no longer unusual that the customer na, Austria and One World Café, Salt Lake

pays for the time he spends in the restaurant rather than for a particular City, USA.

dish. The turnaround from menu pricing to time pricing demonstrates

that what we remember after the restaurant visit is not only the quality
of the food. The atmosphere, the contact with the waiters and each
other, in short, the quality of the experience becomes the criterion for a
precious memory. The kind of memory for which we are willing to pay44.

It is obvious that all of this has consequences for our economic dealings.
However, before we address this any further, when we speak of paying
behavior in the world of hospitality, we cannot avoid first discussing
a specific tradition, well-known in almost every country: tipping.
Handbooks have been written on how to procure the highest tips when
waiting tables. A gratifying victim of this type of handbook is Melissen.
When greeted by an, at first, somewhat grumpy waiter who later thaws
during the dinner, he invariably forks out just a little bit too much of a tip.
That kind of manipulation is not well spent on Drion. If a handbook were
to exist called “Never tip; tips and tricks to stand your ground”, your best
bet would be that Drion had written it. Meanwhile, Marée wonders time
and again during the whole experience, if he is being manipulated into
giving a bigger tip or if this time maybe it actually is authentic. And what
exactly is authentic?

Regardless, in a time when a whole new way of pricing needs to be

explored, one can rest assured that tipping will one day end up in a
museum of medieval customs. If a dinner is experienced one evening
as better than another, it should be obvious in the price. But then the
deal needs to be clear, if the experience is less than expected, the price
should be adjusted downward. Could this possibly already be the case?
Certainly, this system has, even if reluctantly, already made its way into
the hospitality industry.

In 2005, NH Hotels offered a weekend in December where guests could

decide themselves how much they wanted to pay for a room in one of
its thirty seven hotels (20,000 rooms) in the Netherlands and in Belgium.
The average amount paid for that stay was forty five Euros. That this
 gravitation
66
45. Better to have an image, however em-
barrassing it might be, than no image at all,
is what we comfort ourselves with.
was more or less half of the normal price can, in our opinion, be seen
as still more proof of the image of the cheapskate Dutchman45. And
yet, one of the guests paid no less than two hundred and forty Euros.
An important result of this unique offer, besides an abundance of free
publicity, was that NH Hotels got a lot of direct feedback on how the
guests had experienced their stay. Pricing used as a tool to intensify the
interaction. Actually, not a bad idea, which could also be applied in
other sectors. And certainly not if you consider these thoughts in light
of the upcoming changes in our economy, as discussed in the previous
chapter, though it might be premature to predict the exact form for
all sorts of different situations. No wonder Drion and Marée got into
a discussion about garages while writing this chapter. Drion can not
imagine that the experience in a garage will ever make a difference
to the price, while Marée claims that this is, implicitly, already the case.
No matter. We will tackle these thoughts in the forthcoming chapters
in order to be as explicit as possible about how we presume bills will be
settled in Wonderland.
Imagination Inside©, the secret of
co-creation
Okay, experience. Or time. Or better still, a pleasant or valuable
memory. That is what we are searching for in a society where the basic
principles from days of yore are changing in a tearing rush. How is it that
we are willing to pay good money for something as vulnerable and
intangible as a memory? True, for a precious memory of a meaningful
experience, but still?
The answer to this is that we personally, but also as organizations, strive
to optimally utilize what we potentially have in us. Ultimately, this is where
our interpretation of what constitutes a meaningful existence lies. Jim
Collins and Jerry Porras conclude in “Built to Last” that a company with
endurance is based on Purpose. Nice word, purpose; familiar to us all.
And we also all know that fulfilling this purpose is not always a piece
of cake. We keep promising ourselves to lose weight, to stop smoking,
to remember to send out that memo in time, or to spend time on a
 Gravitate 67

talent as yet undeveloped. These promises are about long-term goals 46. Yes, an old theory (1943), according to

and priorities. At the same time, Maslow, with his ‘hierarchy of needs’46, many not really proven and surpassed by

points out our natural priorities when fulfilling our primary needs. Eating the whims of his nieces and nephews, and

something after days of deprivation can be wonderful. Logically, fulfilling yet we will, as many others, use his insights

this need goes before reading an inspiring poem. But in an economy whenever convenient.

that amply provides for primary needs, the focus is extended to activities
that are directly linked to meaningfulness. Throughout this book, we
will see that it will no longer suffice to refer to Maslow and that we, as
managers, will have to get chummy with his highly intelligent cousins.
For now we would like to refer to Pine II and Gilmore and how they see
it: “The consumer is the product”. The change to which the consumer is
subjected has become the final goal. Transformation seems to be the
final rung on the ladder to economic added value.

The Experience - Transformation Cycle

Experience

Expectation Memory

Transformation
 gravitation
68

We see the relationship between experience and transformation as

a cyclical process. If the experience, which can, in principle, always
be linked to a particular place and a particular time (period), is at the
top of the cycle, opposite that, at the bottom, will be transformation.
On the ‘horizon’, the central axis in this model, separating the visible
and the invisible part of the process, you will find two opposites: to the
left, ‘expectations’ and to the right, ‘memories’. The transformation
influences the expectation; the expectation initiates and influences the
experience; the experience creates memories; and the memories trigger
inner transformation. We’ve come full circle. Because we are all seeking
to develop, and for interpretation of our talents, you could say that the
experience is a means to the end, the transformation. Should this model
remind you of the Deming cycle with its well-known Plan-Do-Check-Act
steps, it is naturally not a coincidence. Both cycles interpret an iterative
learning process. Because of what you go through, you step into a new
circle of experience and transformation.

This leads to an interesting thought: If indeed the consumer is an

evolving product, who is the producer? Just like it turned out in the
movie Total Recall, implanting memories via mechanical devices or
chemicals is not devoid of risks. The co-operation of the consumer is
essential. Alvin Toffler, who seems to have foreseen the era we are
now entering, claimed in his book “The Third Wave” (1981) that we
could rather speak of a “prosumer” than a consumer, combining the
terms producer and consumer. Meaningful experiences cannot be
created by “zapping”. Lying on the couch waiting for the transformation
to take place rarely helps. Various psychologists have carried out
research on the essence of the experience of bliss. The Dutch journalist
and consultant Susanne Piët has articulated it well in her book “De
Emotiemarkt” (2003): In order to have a meaningful experience that
contributes to a feeling of happiness of longer duration, a substantial
contribution to the experience needs to be provided by the person
looking for this happiness. Freely paraphrased from Marshall McLuhan
in “Understanding Media” (1964), who put forward the statement “The
Medium is the Message”, we dare claim that: ‘the interaction is the
transformation’.

In short, this rather abstract description says something about how you
as the producer are at the mercy of the consumer. Now, more than
 Gravitate 69

ever. Meaningful experiences cannot exist without clever interaction.

Take this simple example. As a token of appreciation of your best
customers, you could serve them the perfect cup of coffee in the
best surroundings, with your friendliest smile, but… if that particular
customer would have preferred a cup of tea, it cannot be considered
the perfectly produced experience. Asking in advance would have
probably helped. But is that always possible?

We see comparable situations in all sorts of areas, everywhere

employees and customers, society and management, economy
and Maslow and his cousins come together. Lego, the legendary
manufacturer of plastic building blocks, has inspired children to be
creative for decades. For Marée, Lego was the reason for choosing a
career in industrial design. The simple blocks have been complemented
throughout the years with innumerable other elements and at the
beginning of this century, even a digital Lego with its own software was
put on the market. Prior to this, Lego carried out a long and thorough
development phase and they could have been ‘not amused’ when,
seemingly within no time, the software was hacked and could be
downloaded on the Internet. Not only that, but the software was altered
in essential areas and even improved.

However, Lego reacted differently, smarter! The creative hackers were

invited in to share their findings with the organization and in that way
Lego embraced the principle of the co-developing customer. Now,
if you invent something for Lego, you can present it on their site via
the Lego-Digital Designer. If more Lego-insiders like the idea, Lego will
adopt it and produce it for you. Others will also be able to purchase
the product and use it. This goes for the software (although this is not
as explicitly communicated by Lego) as well as for new products.
As an organization, Lego is transforming from Lego-manufacturer to
Lego-community. This has its advantages. Recently, a European judge
decided that the expired patent from 1958 on Lego’s well-known click-
method would no longer be protected under Trade Mark. This means,
that similar blocks can be manufactured, enabling the Canadian Mega
Bloks to become a fearsome competitor. Had Lego seen themselves
as producers of blocks, a price war would have broken out. But now
that Lego is operating as the gathering point for parties that want to be
creatively involved with Lego, we believe that, for the time being, they
 gravitation
70

do not need to worry. The Lego community is strong thanks to the active
involvement of all of its parties. Thus, Lego supports the idea formulated
by Prahalad and Ramaswamy, that value in our current and fast
changing economy is created through co-creation.

Who is the consumer?

Experience, interaction and transformation, a changing relationship
between supplier and customer, new forms of organizing and new
reference points. As if your job as a manager isn’t challenging enough!

The vision of Kim and Mauborgne might help you keep your footing.
They describe how companies of the future will have to operate in what
they call a ‘Blue Ocean’ in their book “Blue Ocean Strategy”. They warn
of further competition in a segmented market, as though you were
in a ‘Red Ocean’, red of the blood from the battle for the customer
(cut-throat competition). Kim and Mauborgne claim that the current
circumstances and developments call for companies to fundamentally
reconsider their primary activities. What are the core values that their
customers experience and how can they create a market that does not
yet exist by redefining the way in which they work?

You can only define the blue ocean once you have defined what
experience you aim for. But by looking at how you run your company
from that point of view, you will be automatically confronted with the
extent to which the customer experiences what you are providing. You,
as an organization (if that is still the correct word), cannot do this alone.
Collaboration will be needed to redefine the added value. This area of
collaboration is not yet unraveled in Kim and Mauborgne’s book.

In order to really understand this collaboration, we need to bring up

one more aspect. Your changing employees and customers are asking
for, no, they are really screaming for, one thing to be brought into
question, or turned upside down, if you will. Do you remember Mr Smith
and the performance appraisal with his employee who wanted to go
and work for the competitor? When is someone actually an employee
of your company or not? At what point does he see himself as an
 Gravitate 71

active member of your community and when is he only a buyer or a 47. Sid, Manny and Diego, the interesting

consumer? Interaction works two ways. Roles can vary and change threesome from the movie Ice Age (2002),

in time. Rolf Jensen’s tribe metaphor pinpoints the transience of together constitute a prime example of an

collaboration. Once on a hunt, we’re allies. Thin bear hides and poor unexpected, but very effective, commu-

collaboration are unadvisable when hunting mammoths. The hunt, nity.

however, is only temporary. Once the mammoth has been slaughtered

and divided up, down to the tusks, the roles of the members change
and from one minute to the next, we can feel that we are members
of another project with other team members and other goals. Beasts
of prey that surprise us and dead end tracks call for each and every
individual to be flexible and to remain alert. The hunt can end abruptly;
circumstances can change. Sometimes so abruptly that the competitor
is indeed no longer the competitor, the hunter no longer the hunter, the
prey no longer the prey; new and sometimes unexpected communities
are formed. Sid, Manny and Diego are living proof! A sloth, a mammoth
and a sabre-toothed tiger. Not exactly an obvious combination. Or as
Sid put it: “I don’t know about you guys but we are the weirdest herd
I’ve ever seen.”47

Back to the core

Sorry for this last example – maybe we got a bit carried away. It is also
definitely not our intention to compare anyone, let alone you and
your employees, with a silly sloth, a woolly mammoth and a moody
sabre-toothed tiger. Moreover, the message behind the example is not
meant to be funny. It is, namely, a message that takes us back to our
initial question at the beginning of this chapter. All of the developments
described here are related to the search for the DNA of an organization.
If we can gain insight into the DNA, it is easier to focus on the activities
that will help the company flourish. But we have also seen that this
cannot stand apart from the DNA of each individual that is involved
in the organization. And logically, it is our first task to establish which
individuals are actually working in our organization, temporarily or not.

At this point we run into the following question: Which criteria apply
when determining who belongs to the organization? You want to
reply - and rightly so -: “Everyone who is on the pay-roll”. As soon as the
 gravitation
72

organization is prepared to pay you for your work, you belong to the
club. Most organizations still see this today as the primary organizational
principle. However, it does not take into account the above mentioned
consequences of the increasing focus on experience, interaction and
transformation and all of the things that were reviewed in chapter 2.

What does this mean? Among other things, it means that you need to
do more than just keep an eye on the experience of the consumer and
you need to renew this experience in active collaboration with your
customers. It also means that – think of Ind – you need to do the exact
same thing with everyone who is active within the organization, hereby
blurring the border that differentiates within-the-organization from
outside-the-organization. Of course, on the other hand, it offers practical
opportunities. Lego has a legion of fans that, together with the ‘real
company’ are busy finding improvements for the future. These fans are
not on the pay-roll, they pay for the chance to play with Lego of their
own designs. The next step will, of course, be that they share in the profit.

On the one hand, Lego uses the innovative energy outside of the
organization and, on the other hand, allows innovations within their
own research department to be accessible to third parties. “Open
innovation” (2003), as Henry Chesbrough puts it, is slowly but surely being
implemented by Nedap, a technology company in the Netherlands
whose business is: demanding, high value research processes and
products that vary from iris scans to auto parts. If they get stuck, they
put the problem out on the Internet to share with specialists all over
the world. Their experience is that, within a week someone has, out
of pure interest, come up with a new solution and, with no claim to
compensation, sends it to the company. Before long, this leads to
systems that go further than a random query. Sharing Intellectual
Property becomes daily business and truly makes the most of Collective
Intellectual Property. Surf to the site of Creative Commons and see what
kinds of agreements can be made. It is just the tip of the iceberg. Books
are also now being written via Internet; remember “We-Think” (2008) by
Charles Leadbeater and many, many others!
 Gravitate 73

Transaction, no. Interaction and

Transformation, yes.
DNA, where and how do we find it? In light of all of the aforementioned,
we need, in any case, to quash the so-called ‘Transaction-mentality’.
This is no easy task because ever since the Industrial Revolution we have
done our utmost to organize ourselves according to this principle. Simply
stated: Party #1 puts out a product on the market and in compensation
for this delivered added value, he receives payment from Party #2.
In a nutshell, this is also how Porter’s Value Chain Analysis is set up in
his book “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior
Performance” (1985) and where there is a clear distinction between the
producer and the customer and the success can be measured by the
sales margin.

The train of thought that we present here blurs this distinction. Well, no,
that is not true, the contours actually become clearer. As we concluded
earlier, the one-way design does not cover the overtone of staging an
experience. The process of adding value by all parties that contribute to
the experience calls for another structure of value. This is why we more
and more often speak of value networks, as described by Christensen
in “The Innovator’s Dilemma” (2003), or value-constellations instead
of organizations like the ones originating from the Mintzberg school of
thought. These structures cannot be built up by just sticking blocks on to
each other within the model of Value Chain Analysis, thus giving rise to
a Value System. But what then, is the definition of ‘Primary Activities’?
These activities are no longer served standard ‘in-line’. In fact, it is the
‘Support Activities’ that need the attention of the party that is at the
center of the activities of the value network, because by orchestrating
those, he gives the participants a chance to collaborate to the fullest.
We could say that the old Support Activities have become the Primary
Activities in the new model.

This gives us the opportunity to re-introduce Prahalad’s co-creation,

and its role in adding value. All parties that are involved in meaningful
interaction add value, because without this meaningful contribution,
there is no transformation. And this transformation is also, in itself,
added value, because as we mentioned earlier: the interaction is the
 gravitation
74
48. Admittedly, it’s a nasty trick, luring you
into this new responsibility, but then again,
it worked for Honey in the movie Notting Hill
(1999), sneakily announcing her marriage to
Spike.
49. Han Solo wishes Luke Skywalker good
luck before attacking the Death Star battle
station in the movie Star Wars Episode IV: A
New Hope (1977). As Luke found out: Using
the Force has got nothing to do with luck,
it’s about skills.
transformation. We replace the old magic word ‘transaction’ with the
two new ones ‘interaction’ and ‘transformation’.
It is, of course, essential in all of this to know in which way your input in
every interaction is of value. Companies that have explicitly chosen to
put value creation at the top of their strategy list, such as Coca Cola
and Lloyds TSB, have decidedly experienced no disadvantages by
doing so.
Where does all that leave your organization? Participating in a
value network means that the old views on strategy, USPs and brand
policies do not apply any more. On the other hand, old problems
solve themselves. Once you belong to such a network, the ties
between parties become automatic and you no longer need to focus
separately on customer retention. The activities in the network are
triggered because the participating parties relate to the core values
of the network. All this can no longer be covered by the classical term
‘organization’. A better term to use would be a point of gravitation.
A point of gravitation for all activities centered around a set of core
values. This also means that it is much more difficult to determine where
the new form of organization ends. And where it begins. Think along
with us: If we set a brand policy in the future, where should we stick the
label? What activities, products, people and parties does the brand
include? Oh, and before we forget, guess who’s the conductor referred
to above? “It’s you. What do you think?”48
May the Force be with you49
Gravitation: It ensures that we don’t fall off the face of the earth. Yet,
it took a lazy afternoon in the sun, in an orchard, in combination with
the sharp mind of Sir Isaac Newton, to recognize the force and to see
how this force had a profound influence on the things around us. In
1666, he saw an apple fall out of a tree and asked himself why the
same thing didn’t happen to the sun. He concluded that the force
that draws objects towards each other is dependent on the mass of
the object. Since gaining this insight, we have more understanding
of the movement of small things like apples and of the immense
 Gravitate 75

movement of the stars and the planets in the cosmos. Before Newton, 50. Elliot and Gordon argue in an episode of

everything moved exactly the same way but we did not recognize the Three Sisters (2001) about the fighting quali-

force field. Does this ring a bell? In any case, we make grateful use of ties of Darth Vader in comparison to those

Newton’s perspective on gravitation for our view on the way people of Moses. Indeed, their argument was also

and organizations relate to each other. To describe the force that goes based on a trick question.

along with interaction, co-creation and value networks, we use the

metaphor of gravitation. This allows us to let go of the problem of having
to define the contours of an organization. What about the consumer,
the one who actively contributed to the development of Lego, but who
was not on the pay-roll? We simply avoid having to choose whether or
not this party belongs to the organization. The approach needs to be
the other way around; this prosumer has felt attracted to the DNA that
was in the center of this point of gravitation. Like a small spaceship, he
circles it. The closer he comes to the center, the more he is a part of
the dynamics of that center; the more he contributes to the total mass.
Hence, a new type of organizational dynamics is defined.

We think that this view on organizations in Wonderland can help

managers tackle a few of the challenges they are facing. In the
following chapters we describe these activities under the heading
Navigation. As soon as you don’t need to keep an eye on the well-
defined contours of the organization anymore, you become ‘air-traffic
controller’ of a point of gravitation, and the job of managing changes
into navigating. And, indeed, it is not a permanent job.

Well, we can imagine that the vision we chose still needs to sink in and
we would therefore, as an illustration, like to provide a recent example
of an organization that can no longer be described in the old way.

If we were to ask you where the biggest telescope in the world is set
up, we would be surprised if you could answer us. We assume that you
have not yet heard of Dwingeloo, a small village in the Netherlands
with a population of four thousand inhabitants, known for its ‘brink’
and midsummer festivals. You probably imagine a gigantic dish, and
because of the fact that there are so few countries as flat as the
Netherlands, you see it as a construction the size of the Eiffel tower.
But, you’ve guessed it: “you could NOT be more wrong.”50 The biggest
telescope in the world looks just like most computers do: a casing for
the software and screens to read from. The name is JIVE (Joint Institute
 gravitation
76

for VLBI in Europe) and we’re talking about a virtual intercontinental

telescope that uses Electronic - Very Long Baseline Interferometry,
e-VLBI. With this, data from a large cluster of connected telescopes from
all over the globe, is linked to one virtual screen, making it many times
sharper than the picture from just one of the participating telescopes.
Is this still a telescope we’re talking about? We think so, at least as long
as we keep in mind the definition of a telescope: an instrument that
searches through space for detailed pictures. That is exactly what JIVE
does.

In using this example, we want to illustrate that our feelings about

what an organization is, need to be adjusted. The word organization,
if we still want to use it, will more and more refer to entities based
on collaboration that consist of many separate parts that become
connected by a joining force. And not as a static given, but rather as a
very dynamic whole.

Just a test. If we let this way of thinking apply to our familiar surroundings,
how does that change our observations? Take the stakeholders of an
average company on the stock market. In the 1980s, a well-known
figure made this interesting comment: “America, America has become
a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at
nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market when our
country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the
stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great
industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake.
Today, management has no stake in the company! All together, these
men sitting up here own less than three percent of the company. […]
The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival
of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get
eliminated.” It’s Gordon Gekko speaking, addressing the stockholders
of the Teldar Paper Company, a role by Michael Douglas in the movie
“Wall Street” (1987). As much as Oliver Stone meant Mr Gekko’s
grotesque way of operating and his unflagging belief in the healing
power of greed to be a caricature, it still gives us food for thought.
What becomes of an organization that is run by managers that have
hardly any interest in the long-term well-being of the organization?
The events around Lehman Brothers and various other banks have
shown that there lies an enormous danger in that kind of attitude from
 Gravitate 77

management. If the activities of a manager within an organizational 51. A slogan that in our view boosted

force field are determined by his involvement in the specific gravitation Obama’s campaign. He used it in his speech

of the organization, then this can only contribute to the power of the on September 19, 2008 at Coral Gables,

organization. And if his activities are not in line with that, that kind of Florida. Who, Democrats and Replublicans

manager is automatically navigating away from the point of gravitation; alike, could disagree with this one?

so far away that his orbit is no longer affected by this point of gravitation
that he spins out of orbit and ends up in a new one, around a new point
of gravitation.

As soon as this applies to managers, employees and other organizations

in the force field, the force of attraction between two parties is also
the controlling force that ensures meaningfulness. Wasn’t it a very
clear move of Obama’s when he introduced the following slogan in his
campaign: “We cannot only have a plan for Wall Street. We must also
help Main Street.”51 By this, he indicated that Wall Street had become
disconnected from reality, this isolated group of hunters in a world of
their own had become disconnected from Main Street. His slogan fit in
perfectly in the movement that was set up by a hundred scientists and
opinion leaders in USA in 2000: “Better Together”. One of them was,
indeed, Barack Obama. The goal of the movement is to preserve the
social capital of the country. It is based on the principle that a country
without social cohesion, the natural value networks in society, is in
great danger of getting stuck. Gravitation based on the most natural
motives. No wonder one of the conclusions drawn from the research
was: “Watching commercial entertainment TV is the only leisure activity
where doing more of it is associated with lower social capital.”

By now you will have understood that we have had reason to choose
for an imperative title for this chapter. Gravitation applies to everyone:
consumers, employees, suppliers and managers. Increasingly so, your
role will be to deal with this phenomenon in a clever way in order to
take advantage of it at just the right moment. To gravitate or not, that’s
the question, so to speak. And to be able to gravitate efficiently and
effectively, you will be needing new tools. Navigation tools. More on this
in the next chapters.
 2

naviga
gation
 navigation
80
52. The Duchess in Alice in Wonderland
clings to moral in everything she perceives,
but the catch is, of course, in finding it. A
quality we have referred to before.
53. Easy for the cat to say… it can just ap-
pear and disappear wherever it likes, while
Alice still has to navigate!
54. Alfred Pennyworth lives up to expecta-
tions in Batman Nothing to Fear (1992) by
stimulating Bruce Wayne to use his imagina-
tion. Good, valuable advice indeed, sir!
“Everything’s got a moral, if only you can
find it.”52
Alice: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
The Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
Alice: “I don’t much care where.”
The Cat: “Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.”
Alice: “…so long as I get somewhere.”
The Cat: “Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.”53
Welcome to the second part of our book, called Navigation. At the
end of the first part, we concluded that not only is the ever-changing
world around us, Wonderland, presenting you with new and interesting
challenges, but also that you will be needing new tools to tackle these
challenges. In this second part we will try to provide you with several
important tools.
What kind of tools will you need? Well, in any case, tools that will enable
you to operate successfully in Wonderland. Tools that will help you to
manage all of the changes concerning economy, climate and other
related issues that we refer to as sustainability, the technology that is
available to us, and the people with whom we work. A world in which all
sorts of new forces determine the playing field.
For these new forces we introduced the term ‘gravitation’. As a
manager, you are in an environment full of points of gravitation and you
are probably, at one moment or another, in the center of such a point.
“Imagine that, sir.”54
Imagine this… You are the manager of an organization that develops
x-ray machines. Your employees are typical knowledge workers; highly
educated, two left hands, but incredibly smart, creative and driven. Your
organization has an excellent reputation as a reliable and progressive
player in the market for medical apparatus.
During the course of years - oh yes, we forgot to tell you that we are now
 81

going “Back to the Future”55 and find ourselves in the year 2029 – a few 55. We used this movie as inspiration earlier,

things have changed. Your employees no longer work solely for you and when we told you we prefer the DeLorean

not on fixed days any more; they are just as driven and smart, but they over the simple telephone booth. We have

also direct their ambitions and talents to several private projects as well not changed our minds yet…

as to a fantastic new project at your biggest competitor of yesteryear.

You can always reach them if you need to, and if necessary, calling
a meeting, anywhere, any time, is a piece of cake. Not because you
pay them or because you demand this from your hierarchical position,
but because each and every one of them is concerned with what your
organization stands for…
Obviously, the economy in which your organization operates no longer
resembles that of today. We no longer refer to the system that connects
the ecological impact with added value, and that regulates the actions
and reactions of organizations and individuals, as ‘the economy’. You
handle this new environment very well. Not because your organization
has managed to protect itself from external influences, or because you
have found a loophole, but on the basis of what your organization stands
for…
Oh yes, we also almost forgot to mention – our apologies – x-ray machines
naturally no longer exist. Long ago, drastic (for those times) developments
in nanotechnology and biotechnology made these machines redundant
in one fell swoop. Luckily, you knew precisely in which direction to adjust
the course of your point of gravitation. Not because you could predict
the future, not because you knew exactly where you would end up, but
because you understood what your organization stands for…

Ok, you get the picture, don’t you? The world is changing, people around
you are changing, the rules, the conditions, the opportunities and the
threats are changing and… your role is changing. Your task is to wisely
guide your organization, your point of gravitation, with employees,
customers, suppliers, competitors and co-creators that are sometimes
only temporarily connected to this point of gravitation, through the force
field. The force field where people gravitate and managers navigate. In
the following chapters we will try to provide you with important starting
points and tools for your journey through Wonderland.
 navigation
82
56. Hallam, in Funeral in Berlin (1966), mocks
the quality of documents on the wrong type
of paper. As shown in this movie, the effect
of what you initiate is indeed dependent
upon how you present it.
57. Since we really are not evil, you are of
course free within the context of these pil-
lars to exchange the coffee for whatever
refreshment suits you and your surroundings
best.
Chapter 4
Hospitality
The old rule of supply and demand no
longer applies
What are managers supposed to do with the independent, pro-active,
modern employee? How do you create a winning team with people
that are not willing to commit to long-term contracts and are no longer
satisfied with security and salary alone? How do you “make” people do
what is needed for the company who would laugh in your face56 if you
referred to them as a factor of production? What is clear is that the time
clock and the guarantee of a monthly pay check will no longer form the
foundation for the relationship with employees. But what will? And more
importantly, how will this develop over time? What exactly will the new
layers of Maslow’s pyramid be? How should I, as a manager, anticipate
these new layers, these new developments, now and in the future? As
we saw earlier, Mr Smith is already struggling with this issue.
Dealing cleverly with employees of today and tomorrow is, not without
reason, the central theme of so many management books. A typical
and striking example of this is the contribution from Mathieu Weggeman
(2007), “Leiding geven aan professionals: niet doen!” (Supervise
professionals: Don’t!), which was nominated best Dutch management
book of the year in 2008. In his book he gives a resolute and clear
answer to how to manage the modern, well educated, independent
employee of today: don’t! He claims that these employees should
not be controlled, but rather stimulated. The art of managing is not in
formulating prerequisites and rules, but in creating a collective ambition.
Within this context, “management by wandering around” is a must,
not an option only if there is time left over after plodding through yet
another Gantt chart.
We totally agree with Weggeman’s conviction that the modern
manager is a serving manager, one whose challenge is to facilitate
his motivated and professional employees. And as you know us a bit
by now, it won’t surprise you that we dare take it one step further.
Managers of today and of tomorrow must have two core qualities, the
two new pillars in the relationship with employees: (1) they have wild
fantasies and dare go for them, and (2) they serve up a strong cup of
coffee!57
 Hospitality 83

Management Styles

Servant
High Leader
Navigator

Hospitality

Leader
Low Boss
by example

Low High
Imagination

The Martini principle and more…

Now, you probably wouldn’t have immediately thought of brewing
a pot of coffee as the latest management perspective. In all honesty,
you don’t have to take the above mentioned pillars literally in every
instance. We do, however, dare claim that the two concepts behind
these pillars, which, from now on, we will refer to as imagination and
hospitality, constitute two very important points of attention. Not only
for Mr Smith, but also for you! We’ll come back to imagination in the
following chapter and in this one, we will take a closer look at hospitality.
Our claim is that hospitality is already an important point of attention
for managers, and will almost certainly remain so in the future. Although
most of you probably do not work in hospitality, you will be dealing
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84

58. With this recurring saying, we want to with various issues having to do with the application of the principles of
keep you on your toes, when dealing with hospitality. Principles that you will need in order to deal with the changes
motivational aspects and expectations re- around you.
lated to the future employee.

We have already established that the working environment will

drastically change and, in any case, will consist of more virtual elements.
It then follows naturally that distance will play a smaller role and all kinds
of new forms of collaboration will no longer be restricted by national
borders. All of this means that one of the most important responsibilities
of employers will be facilitating various and new forms of meetings as
well as facilitating other ways in which their employees and those of their
counterparts can stay attuned to each other.

At the same time, it is about creating an environment in which the

modern professional - Maslow’s cousin58 -, who feels committed to the
ambitions and goals of the organization, can be allowed to perform to
the best of his abilities. As an employer, you will be doing this while, in the
back of your mind, realizing that you have no guarantees that this same
professional sees your organization as the ideal working environment,
one where he can envisage spending a considerable portion of the rest
of his career; one that fits into his own plans. As Weggeman claims, you
will have to deal with the “cosmo-pro”: knowledge workers who identify
with their profession, not automatically with their organization, and who
are prepared to trade in their current circle of associates for a group
with more freedom and possibilities to develop themselves. One thing
is for sure: Life time employment is to a great extent a thing of the past
and job hopping is common practice. This, of course, does not apply
equally to every sector or even to all of your employees. But, generally
speaking, in order to have committed professionals of tomorrow
contribute to your organization, you will need to create, monitor and
cultivate shared values and ambitions. Oh yes, and it will become more
and more difficult to succeed in this by means of money, structure and
hierarchy. In the good ol’ days of the industrial era, commitment to
an organization came from payment for delivered work. But we have
already seen that times are changing. Whether you want to refer to
the new situation as systems of friendship, the principle of reciprocity, or
gravitation fields, one thing is for sure; it is in your interest and in that of
your organization that you no longer are ‘the boss’. If you want to make
the best use of your professionals and their talents, if you want to profit to
 Hospitality 85

the fullest from their performance, your role will, from now on, be that of 59. If you would like to be introduced to an

the coffee la… errr, host! almost complete overview of what can go

wrong in organizing hospitality and mean-

These sorts of changes are not just limited to office environments, as far while have a great time, we urge you to

as they will still exist, nor just to the relationship between employer and watch the complete series of the 1970’s hit

employee. We see in the world of hospitals new complexes springing series Fawlty Towers.

up that are not just hospitals but that also house, for example, shops
and theaters. This means that the hospital complex is developing into
a meeting place for patients, family and friends, shoppers and theater
goers. The development of these complexes is largely due to the fact
that there is an increasingly, widely accepted assumption that a hospital
is no longer an environment where health is attained exclusively through
medical care. Anticipating and connecting with the experience of
the patient is now often described as an instrument in a toolbox that
medical personnel should implement. And then, in connection with this,
there is of course the world of education. For quite some time now, it
has not been considered strange that a university goes by the ‘Martini
principle’: Any Time, Any Place, Anywhere! A university will have to
because students live according to that principle. Modern students
will no longer burn the midnight oil in their rooms to get through three
hundred pages of syllabus in preparation of an exam the following day.
Students build their knowledge while multi-tasking their way through a
world of part-time jobs, communities, split screens, new languages and
new subcultures.

Host and guest; what’s in a name…

Basil Fawlty: “Good night!”
[Mr Leeman doesn’t answer]
Basil Fawlty: “I said, “Good night!””
Mr Leeman: “Oh, good night!”
Basil Fawlty: “That didn’t hurt, did it?”59

We have established that your organization is changing. And the

conclusion is that your role will also change. As a manager, you will
face new challenges and dilemmas. Many of these challenges and
dilemmas will be related to changing relationships between employer
 navigation
86
60. Since the cinematic world had yet to be
developed in the times of King Arthur, we al-
low ourselves to quote from a written source:
“The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot)” in The
Arthurian romances by Chrétien de Troyes
(Translation Harmondsworth, 1991).
and employee, between care giver and patient, between educational
institute and student. Whether referring to superior and subordinate,
giver and receiver, or supplier and consumer, it is clear that these roles
are evolving. These roles will, now and in the future, be greatly redefined
and as a manager, you would be smart to anticipate that.
As previously mentioned, you will sooner or later be forced to implement
the tools and principles related to hospitality. In fact, many of the
changes you will be dealing with can be boiled down to an alteration,
or rather an evolution, in the relationship between the two roles that are
central to hospitality: the host and the guest.
Today, more and more companies and organizations are becoming
increasingly aware of their (new) role as host. We are also seeing that,
at a strategic level, organizations are developing an explicit vision on
hospitality, which is directly connected to the overall vision and mission
of their organization. How will hospitality radiate from the organization?
How can hospitality play a role in the quality of service? How can it
be an important instrument in enhancing the healing process of the
patient? How will the organization get commitment from - gravitate -
the knowledge workers that are needed to realize the organization’s
objectives? In other words, as a consequence of these kind of changes,
questions regarding how to give content to hospitality are becoming
more prominent at all levels and in various ways.
“… better than you have ever been
lodged before!”60
Hospitality is typically a word that everyone knows and everyone can
define for themselves; it has to do with the way you treat guests. The
way in which hospitality is interpreted by individuals and organizations,
however, has changed drastically over the years. In order to better
understand the reasons for this and the concept itself, it would be wise to
not just ‘fantasize’ about the future, but to first take a brief look back at
the history of the concept of hospitality and, subsequently, zoom in on
 Hospitality 87

the world where hospitality naturally plays a central role: the hospitality
industry and, more specifically, the world of hotels.

Hospitality is a subject that has exercised many a mind for centuries.

Various sources refer to different origins, but all of them consider the
relationship between host and guest as the basis. From a cultural
perspective, as well as from a religious one, hospitality refers to the
concern of the host for the well-being of the guest. From time immemorial,
this concern has been an unselfish commitment, in other words, a
concern for the guest with nothing in return. Moreover, the central theme
of many religious parables is of how one, disguised as a poor traveler,
can test this unselfish commitment. Actually, not so very different from
the mystery guest who, in the name of Michelin, tests the hospitality of
a restaurant. Well, except for at least one very important point. The old
cultural and religious norms connect hospitality specifically to altruism. It
is about the noble gesture of offering a stranger in need a roof over his
head and something to eat. The host must do this without ulterior motive
and certainly without striving to personally gain from it. Hospitality is in
this context specifically connected to things such as honor and morality.
Within the scope of today’s hospitality industry, hospitality is now quite a
different story. Not that being hospitable today wouldn’t be considered
an honorable act. And many of those who work in the industry provide
hospitality without hesitation, based on a drive to give meaning to the
word on a higher level. However, nowadays a major motivating factor of
both the owner and the manager - typically not the same person(s) within
this particular industry - is to benefit financially. Within this environment,
as a manager, you specifically carry the responsibility to realize this goal.
Hospitality is in this context no longer a characteristic or a noble objective,
but rather a tool to realize commercial goals.

The shift from altruistic to (partially) commercial motives is only one

example of how the meaning and the content of the expression
hospitality has changed in the past years. Originally, the term hospitality
referred to providing room and board to a stranger, thus to physical
aspects. Very soon however, this term has come to mean more than that;
now also referring to intangible aspects. Even back in the days of the
knights, there was an intangible aspect to hospitality, a way in which a
host could differentiate himself, which is so wonderfully illustrated in the
following lines from “The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot)”:
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88

“Sir,” he said, “it will soon be night and is already past the hour when it is
reasonable to think of lodging. I have a manor house nearby where I will
take you. I will do my best to lodge you better than you have ever been
lodged before. I’ll be happy if you accept.”

An utterance such as this from the host expresses that hospitality can
be interpreted in many ways. As early as in the Middle Ages, there
were certain levels (of quality) at which one could provide hospitality
to guests. One could even say that we see, here, the first steps towards
a value system; the level at which you provide hospitality results in a
specific valuation of your hospitality by the guest. In our current economic
system we are used to translating this into a price level for the hospitality
provided.

That the hospitality concept has broadened, or rather, deepened is,

thus, not a recent development. It certainly does not mean, however,
that the discussion about the content of the concept is thereby closed.
Moreover, in the world of hotels and tour operators, the firms who
consider their core business to be hospitality, many have held on to an
interpretation of this concept based mainly on tangible aspects for a
relatively long time. Until just recently, many tour operators saw it as their
duty to provide the physical aspects of hospitality, such as transportation
and accommodation. In the hotel world it has been a bit more subtle,
as ‘service with a smile’ has been an expression for years now. But if
you specifically look at the criteria by which individual hotels and hotel
chains are compared with each other, these are, nevertheless, still mostly
physical. The amount of square meters, the bed lamp, the automatic shoe
shine and the iron are still determining factors for the number of stars or
diamonds you can earn.

For this reason, until recently, many hotels emphasized the excellent
quality of their food, beverages, facilities and bed, and much less the
intangible aspects of the relationship with the guests. However, as of
late, this situation has been changing at the speed of lightning. Also in
the world of hotels, the conviction has settled that meeting standards
(for physical aspects) is necessary to prevent dissatisfied guests, but that
in itself is not enough to guarantee satisfaction. Moreover, even if you
consistently exceed the standards, this will not automatically guarantee
satisfied guests. Physical aspects, in these contexts, will thus change
 Hospitality 89

into dissatisfiers. Hence, if you don’t have it together, you can count on
dissatisfied guests. To create satisfaction among the guests, much more is
needed!

A bank, a car, a hospital, a phone; it’s all

the same difference
We are seeing these kinds of developments in various sectors, probably
due to the fact that consumers are becoming more critical. To
illustrate this, it might be an idea to refer to one of the most commonly
mentioned examples in management books: Ford and the conveyor
belt. The success of Henry Ford relates heavily to having the luxury of
saying to his customers that they could order any car they wanted, as
long as it was black.

Obviously, with regard to today’s consumers, we can no longer permit

ourselves such a statement. Consumers today not only demand more,
their demands are different. Modern day consumers want more than a
range of colors, power and upholstery to choose from; they expect the
products and services to correspond precisely to their specific wishes.
This explains why corporate science and so many management books
are about flexibility, customization and building a relationship with the
customer. However, it does not mean that a new ‘one best way’, a
new black Ford, has been created. In the reality of today’s society, and
certainly in that of tomorrow and of the day after, it is much more subtle.

Fine tuning the characteristics of a product according to the specific

wishes and demands of an individual consumer is often the ‘road to
success’, of which there are many examples. While on the other hand,
companies like Apple, with the introduction of the iPhone for example,
have shown that there are also alternative roads to success. No matter
how lyrical many followers are about the iPhone, it’s actually just a black
Ford… Sure, the design is definitely modern, the features are ‘state-of-
the-art’ and the first thing you, the user, do, is install pictures of friends
and loved ones. So Melissen has programmed a specific ringtone for
Marée for months now, a happy tune by Joe Nichols, “Cool to be a
 navigation
90

fool”, regularly alternating with Supertramp’s “Dreamer”. How advanced

and personal can you get?!

Or are we missing something? Strictly speaking, the iPhone is really not

so different from a Nokia, a Siemens or a Sony Ericsson; certainly not in
technical terms. What is, however, much more remarkable is that Nokia
and the likes offer a wide range of types, colors, sizes and features. You
want a small, pink, simple telephone because that suits you? Sure! For
your partner, you buy one with the works in black with green stripes, nice
and special. It weighs a little bit more, but it’s worth it! For everyone a
telephone that suits them. If we compare this abundance of options with
those offered by Apple, one thing is remarkable: The iPhone actually only
comes in two models that only differ in the amount of Giga Bytes they
have. Your iPhone and those of your friends look the same, they can do
the same things, they feel the same… What, then, explains the success
of the iPhone? Can we, modern, demanding consumers still be seduced
by a black Ford? Is Apple proving to us that a push strategy in today’s
economy can still lead to great success? Or does it maybe have to do
with the fact that, for certain consumers, for certain markets, the physical
aspects are indeed only dissatisfiers - what Herzberg refers to as hygiene
factors - and what it is really all about is non-physical aspects of the
product and the company that offers this product?

Don’t serve me; talk to me!

To answer this question, we take you back to the hotel world. As was
already established, in the old days you could differentiate yourself by
offering a sauna, wireless internet and an especially comfortable bed.
Such ‘goodies’ are nowadays seen as minimum requirements, while
differentiating qualities from the guests’ perspective are mainly based
on non-physical aspects. The way you treat the guests, the quality and
flexibility of the staff and how you stage an experience are the magic
words today that, together, lead to loyalty. It is no longer just a matter of
the host offering tangible things to the guest; it is more and more a matter
of how he does this and the influence this has on the emotions of the
guest. A new dimension has emerged in the relationship between host
and guest, between supplier and customer, one which revolves around
 Hospitality 91

emotions, feelings and experiences. This dimension does not limit itself
to the hospitality industry, although in this sector it is especially rapidly
becoming a requirement for success. The ways in which this requirement
is interpreted differ greatly. For example there is the simple, practical
willingness to help, but there is also the realization of the advanced
level, the so-called “meaningful dialogue”, introduced by Melissen and
Hermans in their 2008 paper on the CRM-7-18 model.

A concept like ‘willingness to help’ can be best illustrated by means

of the well-known example of the ‘single bagger’ versus the ‘double
bagger’. A single bagger is the term coined for a clerk in a grocery store
who bags the customer’s groceries in a single paper bag, with the eggs
at the bottom and the bottles on top. As soon as the customer leaves
the store, without a doubt, the eggs will crack. And if it’s really bad, the
whole contents of the bag will come crashing to the ground as the paper
bag tears before the customer manages to reach his car. The so-called
double bagger is made in a different mold. This is the clerk who, without
the customer having to ask, bags the groceries in double bags with the
breakables on top. This clerk enjoys his job and wants to do it well. As so
often is the case, pleasure and better performance go hand in hand. The
customer reaches his car safely, his groceries still intact, without incident
and without having to perform a balancing act.

It’s obvious that the differentiating quality in the example of the grocery
store is not determined by the physical aspect, the paper bag. The
customer will not look back on his visit to the store in terms of “oh, isn’t it
just marvelous, this high quality customized bag”. Rather, they will connect
the differentiating quality of the grocery store to the friendly and attentive
clerk, who knew how best to pack the groceries and did so without the
customer having ask. Staff who present themselves and perform like
double baggers – that is a differentiating quality.

This is exactly why the hotel sector is placing increasing emphasis on the
role of operational staff in securing guest satisfaction. Do they engage
in a meaningful dialogue with the guests? That is the deciding factor
when sparking loyalty in a guest. Hotels which know how to differentiate
themselves successfully are organizations that are capable of “rich
communication and facilitating appropriate responses that emerge from
that communication”, as explained by Mitussis and his colleagues in 2006.
 navigation
92
61. We already told you that this lovely cou-
ple would manage to give you just about
any example of how to violate whatever
hospitality rule you can think of. They are
actually pretty good at it in a personal, hus-
band and wife kind of relationship as well.
Moreover, offering the right services and experiences without that type
of communication is virtually impossible. We are reminded of that perfect
cup of coffee you served to a customer who actually wanted tea. In their
influential study on this subject, Zablah and his co-authors (2004) express
it clearly: “to build long-term, profitable relationships, it is critical that
firms’ day-to-day activities be driven by an understanding of customers’
evolving needs”.
Don’t serve me; cherish me!
Sybil Fawlty: [on the phone] “I know... I know... I know... Oh, I know!”
Basil Fawlty: “Then why is she telling you?”61
The appropriate interpretation of hospitality places high demands on
the organization and especially on the employees who have to make
it happen. This applies to the receptionists, the waiters, the porters and
all other employees who are in direct contact with the guests. They are
the ones who have to give content to the relationship with the guests,
especially if it is about the guests’ experience and feelings. However, it
is also important to realize that not every employee has stopped to think
before applying for the job, whether he is the right person to carry out
a meaningful dialogue with guests and, on top of that, in line with the
specific strategy of the employer. No, not every employee has entered
the profession based on a passion to enter into relationships with guests
by means of a well-thought-out manner in which to create meaningful
experiences for the guest which in turn will lead to loyalty.
And yet, increasingly so, this is what it’s all about. At a managerial
level, recruiting and educating suitable personnel and developing and
implementing successful Customer Relationship Programs are hot topics.
Little wonder, as suitable personnel are not exactly standing in line at the
door, and interpreting hospitality on an emotional level is an enormous
challenge. The Internet connection works or it doesn’t. You can buy a
good mattress. A sauna is expensive but in the end the decision to install it
comes down to a simple cost/benefit equation. Handling the feelings and
experiences of your guests the right way, well, that is a totally different ball
game.
 Hospitality 93

This is not to say that employees aren’t capable of performing these

functions. Certainly, in the hotel industry, where this approach has taken
such a central position, in the course of time it has actually become an
automatic selection criterion: If such an effort doesn’t suit you, then the
world of hospitality is not for you. And the opposite also applies; a lot of
people who choose a career in hotels do it for the very reason that they
enjoy contact with the guests. A good hotel will often have a distinct
character because the porter interprets this approach by treating the
guests like a real ‘double bagger’ would. In many hotels it is precisely the
porter who is the main representative and the main ambassador of the
organization’s culture. In turn, this culture plays an important role when
guests and employees choose a hotel.

At the same time, the hotel is also making choices, by directing sales
and marketing activities to specific segments of potential guests and
when selecting new employees. Slowly we see the situation develop
where we can no longer speak of one-way relationships, but rather a
situation where guests, employees and managers choose each other.
We could actually say that engaging in this kind of mutual relationship is
‘community-forming’. More on this later.

The new ‘ins and outs’ of hospitality - in all its new forms and
appearances - are not as obvious and easy to realize in every sector.
Nevertheless, we dare claim that this ‘ball game’ is important in many
industries, not just hospitality. And that presents you, as a manager, with
significant challenges, indeed maybe even bigger ones than in the
hospitality sector where those challenges have been an integral part of
the core business for a long time now.

Before we examine this challenge further, let’s go back to the hotel

sector one last time. So far, it has become clear that the term hospitality
has evolved over time and contains more and more intangible elements.
It is also clear that a sensible interpretation of hospitality has become
an increasingly bigger challenge. In the end it’s all about hospitality,
entering into a relationship with a guest by creating a feeling of home,
giving the guests the feeling that they are welcome, showing you care.
But is that really so? Is it really about ensuring a warm homey feeling for
the guest?
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94

Who needs cozy…

Chip Conley is a big name in the hotel industry. He is the founder and
president of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, a chain of boutique hotels in
California. To answer the question what precisely is the strategy of a
boutique hotel, he states on Joie de Vivre’s website:

“People actually have emotional experiences when they stay in our

hotels. Sometimes I’ve used the term ‘identity refreshment’ to describe
this dynamic. People who stay in a hotel that feels worldly, artistic,
literate, creative and sophisticated, feel just a little closer to that
themselves when they leave – that’s an ‘identity refreshment.’ And this
is where the whole idea of appealing to a certain psychographic vs.
a demographic, or building hotels that are more lifestyle driven than
theme driven, really starts to make sense. People feel connected, and
when they feel connected they begin to establish loyalty to a product.
And that’s a good business strategy.”

From this it’s clear that the developments in the field of hospitality have
gone incredibly fast, and creating a warm, homey feeling is far from
always being the appropriate interpretation of hospitality. Just like in
other areas, there is not just ‘one best way.’ There is no simple step-
by-step plan for organizations by which hospitality can be interpreted.
Nor is it an ISO standard that you either fulfil or don’t. No, the vision
and interpretation of hospitality that works for a specific organization,
is connected to its guests, its customers and its employees. As Chip
Conley points out, loyalty often depends on recognition, on creating an
atmosphere that gives the guests or customers a feeling that they can
appreciate. A feeling that suits them, or is a welcomed addition to their
own identity; a feeling that either complements or refreshes their identity.
And frankly, not everyone identifies or wants to identify themselves with
cozy, homey and warm. Naturally, almost everyone, even in the world of
tomorrow and thereafter, needs a home. That, however, does not mean
that for everyone alike home is associated with the same feeling. And
more importantly, not everyone is looking for this feeling, especially not
in situations outside of their actual homes. As an organization, you will
have to anticipate this, even if providing a home away from home has
been your core business for some time.
 Hospitality 95

An interesting and striking example of this is the Hans Brinker Budget

Hotel in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In their marketing message
and their hospitality concept, this hotel makes use of the not-homey,
not-comfortable, not-luxurious feeling that one often associates with a
budget hotel. In advertising clips on the Internet they even talk of “a
hotel whose lack of services and features makes it the most accidently
eco-friendly hotel on the planet.” An unsuspecting visitor will scratch
his head in perplexity at the Internet site where it coolly states that
the kitchen is “undefined”. After a while it becomes clear that this site
has been consciously made user-unfriendly and time and again error
messages (innocent ones, mind you) pop up on the screen. Broad
smiles break out as the visitor soon realizes that this is the strength of the
concept, not a weakness. You could say that this hotel, with their brilliant
feeling for humor, knows how to connect with the norms and values
of the concerned no-nonsense crowd of today. At the same time, we
are dealing with an organization (in a sector that until recently focused
on creating optimal service and facilities) that dares draw attention to
itself with a campaign that precisely points out the lack of services and
features. Just imagine for a minute that an employer is bold enough
to proudly advertise in the want-ads that future employees shouldn’t
count on any facilities and that all computers at the office are provided
with sophisticated spyware. Oh, yes, and the salary is ok, but not
guaranteed…

If you check out the websites of hotel chains like Citizen M, Yotel and
Qbic hotels, it soon becomes clear that, for these, one by one, new and
successful hotels, it is definitely not a matter of creating cozy feelings.
They’re talking hip, high-tech, travelling, discovering and renewing. All
but the gently crackling fire and comfortable reading chairs. However,
that is exactly what we can find in, for instance, hotels affiliated with
Historic Hotels of America, but then in an atmosphere and physical
environment from 50 years ago.

As a last example, let’s make a short visit to the world of restaurants. A

phenomenon that we see there is ‘dining in the dark’. An experience in
itself, with the underlying motive that taste buds are a better stimulant
for the brain if that same brain does not need to deal with visual stimuli.
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62. Indeed the song by the Beatles, but we
prefer to dedicate this phrase here to the
eponymous episode of the topnotch series
Frasier that kind of proves the opposite. In
that episode that is…
Original, fascinating, charming and focusing on creating a specific
experience, but for the most of us, something that we would never do
at home. And the list goes on of often fascinating examples to be found
in the hospitality industry. Examples that show that, even in an industry
where hospitality is central, it is no longer exclusively about hospitality as
we know it, a feeling of home and being welcome.
Can’t buy me love…62
Slowly but surely, it is becoming clear that loyalty from guests in the
hotel world can no longer be guaranteed (read: bought) by physical
things alone. The way in which this sector is interpreting hospitality, the
interpretation of the relationship between host and guest, has changed
significantly over time. Meaningful dialogues, really listening, taking
feelings into account and anticipating them, those are the key issues.
This brings us to the point where it is high time we concentrate on
the world outside of the hotel sector. It is also high time that we try to
define the concept of hospitality, certainly now that we are treading
on unfamiliar ground. A definition could possibly offer us a handle on
the lessons from the hotel world while translating them into smart moves
in the world outside; a world that we typify, and not without cause,
as Wonderland. Earlier we saw the contours of Wonderland evolving
and a few things are clear already. Wonderland is a quickly changing,
complex world with many challenges, new perspectives, altered and
altering relationships. A world in which thinking of smart interpretations
of hospitality will be one of the basic requirements for you as a manager.
So here goes. In this book, based on all of the aforementioned,
hospitality means: The way in which the host and the guest interpret
both physical and non-physical aspects of the relationship between
them. Thus, hospitality is that which makes you realize that in a
relationship it is often a matter of one person filling the role of host
and another person filling the role of guest. These roles, however, are
not limited or permanent, as, during their relationship and with the
relationship in mind, the host and guest can exchange roles if required.
The one who, at that moment, is in the role of host, grants the other, the
 Hospitality 97

guest, access to his house. Moreover, the development over time of 63. Newton kind of makes this sound like an

the concept hospitality has taught us that the expression ‘house’, in this everyday saying in Men in Black II (2002) and

context, needs to be interpreted figuratively. In this way, the one who is that is exactly how we need to approach

host becomes a good host, determined not by the physical house, like those fastidious ‘new’ hotel guests.

the room, the building or his apartment, but mainly by the way in which
the host interprets the non-physical aspects of access by the guest to
the host’s house. Thus, a good host is one who manages to differentiate
himself and appropriately interpret the emotional dimension of this
relationship.

“Gentlemen! Seen any… aliens lately?”63

Now there are probably a few things that you could denote as
‘typical’ in our attempt to formulate a definition. First of all, there is
the implication that the modern guest will not allow himself to be
induced to be loyal simply and only by physical aspects. Hospitality is
about much more than that. A second point that draws attention, or
something that is actually explicitly absent in the definition above, is
the link to the hospitality sector. Not one word is wasted on hotels, tour
operators, or the hospitality industry in general. That’s right! The reason
for this is the answer to the following relevant, as well as interesting,
question. A question for which the answer, for you as a manager, can
have sweeping consequences. And this question is: Where, oh where
does the modern guest go when he has left the hotel of his choice?
Obviously, this modern guest can not permit himself, with the exception
of a fortunate few, to spend his life as a fulltime hotel guest. Many guests
will also spend a part of their lives in the role of student, of patient, of
employee. In fact, it is certainly not impossible that this strange creature
has already penetrated into your organization!

Now it seems that this observation, at first glance, is maybe not so

shocking or enervating. Naturally, it is the same people; hotel guests
are not a different kind of people, no new subspecies of homo sapiens.
They are the very same people who also work in your organization,
who study at your university, and who are treated in your hospital. This
means however, that they are also the same people who, within the
context of the hotel sector, are apparently not satisfied with a luxurious
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sauna and champagne breakfast without a meaningful dialogue.

They are the same people who are only loyal to a host who can give a
customized interpretation - on an emotional level - of their relationship.
And, of course, they are also the same people who no longer care for
life long employment, but prefer job hopping. You know them, you’ve
seen them, and you’ve talked to them. The same people we referred to
earlier as being impatient and passionate, that call for more meaning
in their work, more attention. Those somewhere-in-the-latter-part-of-the-
alphabet generations, those that refuse being served by hierarchy and
a boss…

Therefore, at this stage, it is not particularly bold to conclude that the

changed behavior of guests in the hotel sector has something to do
with the changes in behavior of people in general, their wishes and
demands, their preferences and needs in general. We have already
seen that not only does the average hotel guest from decades ago
clearly differ from the average hotel guest of today, so does the student,
the patient and the employee. And it is probably not so strange, then,
to imagine that a successful interpretation of the way in which you
treat people in the hotel world, coincides with the characteristics of the
sensible manner in which you would treat these same people in another
environment, such as your organization, your point of gravitation. And
therefore, meeting the needs of the new generations of employees and
customers of your organization requires you, as a manager, to learn from
the field of hospitality, to apply some of the principles described above.
 Imagination 99

Chapter 5

Imagination
“Imagine, all the people”64
Are you reading this book in your vacation? Great that you are taking 64. These are the first lines of John Lennon’s

the time. But at the same time, it’s a pity. We were just about to ask you famous song (1971) in which he suggested

to imagine your upcoming vacation. Imagine yourself at an out-door that imagining a better world would be the

café where you are waiting for that first drink. Or you’re on a boat on starting point for creating one. Spot on!

a calm lake, just about to throw out your fishing line. Whatever your
destination is, you can probably see it clearly in front of you. That is why
we often enjoy the expectations of the experience longer than the
experience of the vacation itself.

Imagination is a powerful instrument that enables us to picture things

that are yet to come, to experience a scenario as if it is already
happening. In most cases, we add details we are familiar with in our
daily lives. Less often, we manage to conjure up elements that have no
reference at all to the reality of our everyday lives. But in any case, the
power lies in that we can imagine that the invoked image could be a
real-life scenario. This construction in our thinking enables us to evaluate
the consequences of not yet existing situations, before we decide to let
them occur. Here we discuss why imagination is an especially important
tool, a starting point for someone who gives direction within the context
of gravitation fields that are in a continuous ‘beta status’.

At the moment someone describes an image he has of a possible

future scenario for us all, we can also imagine it. We co-imagine with
the visionary and can either be enthusiastic or dismissive about it.
Throughout the centuries, a quality that has turned ordinary leaders
into truly great ones is the ability to inspire large groups of people. This
inspiration was always related to the ability to describe a future scenario
that touched a chord with the masses. In 1961, John F. Kennedy invoked
an image for the people of the United States of America in which,
within 10 years, man would walk on the moon and return safely to earth.
This vision was so strong that the development of space travel gained
supporters and investments in space technology increased enormously.
And in 1969 it all came true. Simply because enough people had co-
imagined a specific image together with Kennedy.
Hence, for the person who makes use of this tool and for the one who is
listening, imagination has enormous power to inspire. On the other hand,
there is the negative variation of imagination in which scary scenarios
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65. Here we most definitely do not refer to
Dr. Who.
66. Solution: You have, of course, discov-
ered on your own that if you turn the book
180 degrees, the result then reads ten
equals one plus nine. Challenge: There is
one more solution.
are sketched, that are just as powerful. After 9/11, with his statement on
the War on Terror, George W. Bush created a global image of terrorism
as war. No wonder that, soon after, wars in several places became
reality. Remember the statement from chapter 2: “We never know what
we’re going to find, do we?”65 The fear of terror, made ‘real’ by Bush,
has changed the world. Only since July 4, 2009 have tourists in New
York again been able to enjoy the view from the crown of the Statue of
Liberty after a period of being closed for the public for security reasons.
The rope to the future
Have you ever been challenged to solve a riddle like the one below?
This calculation in Roman numerals tells us that eleven plus one equals
ten. We know that this is not correct, but the challenge lies in trying to
make it correct without changing it.
XI + I = X
How can you tackle this? We hope that you accept the challenge and
do not immediately go to the footnote66 where we offer the solution.
While you’re busy trying to solve the riddle, all sorts of thoughts that
might have something to do with the solution come to mind. If the real
solution hasn’t popped up right away, you have probably considered
and evaluated various alternatives. Maybe among these are ideas that
are not at all useful for this problem, but would be for another problem
that has been at the back of your mind for some time. Our brains work in
mysterious ways.
In any case, it is useful to realize that it is human nature which prompts
our imagination, and that it is possible to imagine and evaluate solutions
or new future scenarios. If you do this often enough and you have
enough information, then a picture of the future could appear that feels
worthy to strive for. At that moment, you as a manager have something
valuable on your hands. Even though it is still only an image, it can help
you to set course. It is, if you will, like tying a rope onto the image of the
 Imagination 101

future that you pull on in order to reach it. There is a big difference with 67. When first confronted with this simple but

setting course based on experience from the past. If you determine powerful new term, coined by Tom Kelley,

your course as a reaction to yesterday and to the day before that, the it immediately triggered one for Marée. A

course will be less fixed if more and more changes come our way. In Vujà Dé that is…

this way, one cannot set course based on the past (Past Push), if there is
no longer reason to believe that yesterday’s trends can predict today’s
events with any amount of reliability. But if you are holding on to the
rope to your future goal, you can get thrown off course plenty of times
by present events, but the direction will still be clear tomorrow. This way
of setting course is called management by Future Pull.

Thus, it seems to be of great importance to have a deliberate vision of

where you want to go in the future. And yes, this too is easier said than
done. Although the power of imagination is a basic skill for all of us, not
everyone can sketch an inspiring, promising picture of the future that
is attractive enough for others. For this you need qualities that can be
developed. To start off, we strongly advise you to always look in new
directions.

Vujà Dé67
You have probably just turned this book upside down. Simply to actually
see what you also can deduce in your mind, without having to move
the book. Now, you’re probably also starting on the challenge in the
footnote: What is the second way? In any case, you have altered your
view for a moment because of this riddle; you’ve looked with different
eyes. And you’ve guessed it: You’ll have to do this more often. It has
two advantages. One is that you practice your imaginative ability. Two
is that you create perspectives that could lead to future visions that
deviate from the well-trodden paths in such a way that they could be
inspiring and promising. By doing this, you have not yet altered reality,
but you do have the chance of dealing with it differently.
May we ask you to now study the illustration of the waterfall by Escher.
Although the principle that is displayed is impossible, we still see water
flowing upwards. Seemingly, we imagine this reality because the picture
invites us to. Or look at the famous painting “La Trahison des Images”
from 1929 by the Belgian artist René Magritte. To the people who
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thought that it
was simply just a pipe he
answered: “Try to smoke it then.” By
making it clear that it was no longer necessary
to portray reality in a painting, because then you
could just as well take a picture with a camera, he gave the art lover
the chance to appreciate paintings differently. It is not exactly a bold
statement to say that a ‘dripping’ by Jackson Pollack would not have
brought in millions in the days of Rembrandt.

So, looking at reality with different eyes can actually be enough to

instigate change. Tom Kelley, the boss of Ideo, one of the front-rank
design offices in the world, describes the moment you see something
with new eyes using a poignant comparison. He calls to mind a feeling
that everyone has experienced at one time or another; that feeling of
‘hey, this has happened before’, although it hasn’t. It is such a well-
known phenomenon that we have given it a name: ‘déjà vu’. Tom
 Imagination 103

Kelley compares this with the opposite: Sometimes you see something 68. No, we don’t want to refer to the movie

for the umpteenth time but it seems as though you are seeing it for the with the same name, it’s just not us.

very first time. You are experiencing reality in a fresh and different way.
For this experience, he has coined a new phrase: ‘vujà dé’. According
to him, these moments represent those special moments in time when
you actually have an opportunity to alter reality.

Serendipity68
Once upon a time, there were two princes, brothers, who went on a
journey. One day, it was very, very warm. The sun was burning down.
Then they came upon a man on the side of the road. This man asked
them for help. He had fallen asleep and when he woke up, his camel
was gone. The princes asked him if the camel was blind on one eye.
Enthusiastically, the man jumped up and asked them where they had
seen his camel. But then they asked him another question: “Is it so that
the camel also limped a little bit with his left leg?” Reassured by this
knowledge, he asked once again where they had seen his camel. The
answer came: “We haven’t seen your camel, but what we do know is
that he has walked down this road.” The man now felt that they were
making a fool of him and demanded an explanation. The brothers told
the man that they had seen along one side of the road the grass had
been eaten. Hence, their conclusion was that the camel had a blind
eye. Further, they had seen in some places deviating tracks on the left
side. Sufficiently convinced, the man went off in the direction the princes
had shown him.

This story has been told in a number of variations for centuries and is
part of the fairy tale about the princes of Serendip. Serendip is the old
name for Sri Lanka. Essential in this fairy tale is the ability of the princes to
draw interesting conclusions from seemingly uninteresting information. In
1754, this inspired Horace Walpole to create a new word: ‘serendipity’.
Nowadays we mainly use the word for situations in which someone is
looking for something, but by coincidence discovers something else.
A nice example of this from science is the discovery of penicillin by Sir
Alexander Flemming. He had the presence of mind to regard a set-back
in his research on bacteria in a different way. In several Petri dishes the
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bacteria culture had died. Instead of throwing these dishes away in

disappointment, he grew curious. He discovered the culprit, penicillin,
and learned that this fungus was a powerful antibacterial remedy.

Serendipity led Columbus to discover America, and it also stood by the

cradle of the Post-Its by 3M. And naturally, we include Isaac Newton’s
apple in this category as well.

Coincidence is relative here. It requires the sharp eyes of the princes to

actually see their discoveries. And that’s what it’s all about. This is where
the gift of curiosity enables you, during a set-back or strange twist in our
daily routines, to say ‘gosh’ and not ‘damn’; a gift closely linked to the
ability to imagine something new. Afterwards, such a step often seems
logical and you may even ask yourself what is so new about it. Take
another example: Almost everyone in the 1970s would have answered
the question whether they wanted to archive their work: Where should I
archive it? But only a few would have thought of the virtual space that
we use today.

So, looking with different eyes. But even if this is the starting point for
finding a solution that organizations of today need in order to react to
specific developments, a new view, the vujà dé, the ‘paradigm shift’
won’t just fall into their laps. People have the tendency to do things the
way they are used to, to accept things as they are. The advantages that
this offers are obvious.

Without routines, it wouldn’t be possible to live our lives. Only a relatively

short while ago, the main concerns of our forefathers were to gather
enough food and to find shelter and protection. Given the fact that –
genetically - we have not really changed that much, it is amazing that
the flexible human brain actually allows us to multi-task with modern
technology. We act as though it is the most natural thing in the world,
but the e-mail that makes all new mails shift down on our screens as
in the game Tetris, requires the utmost of our hunting instinct. Every
unanswered mail clogs your system of communication and before you
know it, it’s ‘game over’ and first you have to get all of your unanswered
mail out of the way before you can get your own mails in the Tetris-
system to shift down on the screens of others. And no matter how well
we have adapted to make this new reality our own, the speed of
 Imagination 105

technological renewal remains a challenge that continually puts our

human nature to the test.

Cherish diversity
In his vision on the changing society (2002), Richard Florida, professor at
the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, tells us that there are three
factors within a society that predict how well that society is able to react
to the rapid changes of today: technology, talent and tolerance. The
two first factors seem quite logical; if you fall behind in technical issues,
it will have repercussions in economic areas, and if you do not nourish
talent, this is obviously not good for developments.

Especially remarkable is the third factor that he mentions, i.e. tolerance.

Florida is crystal clear that economic developments are, for reasons we
have already touched on, strongly and increasingly more related to
the amount of visionary energy and creativity in a society. The growth
of cities, for example, is directly related to the ability to attract creative
people. The more open and the more tolerant such a city is, the better
such a community can accommodate high-quality creative industries.
Indicators that Florida has found are the Gay Index and the Bohemian
Index. The latter represents the number of writers, designers, musicians,
actors, directors, painters, sculptors, photographers and dancers
that a city has within its limits. Important to know is that the index says
something about the tolerance in such a city, not that the creativity
explicitly lies within the Gay Group or the Bohemian Group.

And why, then, is this tolerance so important? The answer, in short, is to

secure and protect much-needed creativity. And although creativity
is naturally closely interwoven with imagination, it is not the same.
Creativity is mostly defined as the ability to generate something new
that can be seen as useful to society. The downside of this is that you
yourself may know that you have thought up something ingenious, but
that the world is just not ready for it (yet). Just like Vincent van Gogh
who, during his life time, only sold two paintings, one of which to his
brother Theo. The phenomenon that one’s creativity is neither seen nor
acknowledged is therefore called the Van Gogh Syndrome. Indeed, we
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too want to make use of this safety valve that we’ll open if you think that
the ideas we present here are totally crazy, if society just doesn’t get it.
We will seek refuge next to Van Gogh...

Funnily enough, most people are protected from the Van Gogh
Syndrome, both by society and by themselves. A well-known American
designer of French descent, Raymond Loewy, has thought up an
important rule for developers: the MAYA principle, in which MAYA stands
for Most Advanced Yet Acceptable. If you want your design to be
accepted by society and, moreover, to be successful on the market,
you need to have deviated far enough from the trodden path, but
still make sure you take a path that people are willing to follow. Most
of the time, we can sense, ourselves, whether the time is ripe for the
next step or not and in this way we protect ourselves from Vincent Van
Gogh’s disappointment. And still, we mustn’t lose sight of the ‘MA part’,
because that would be a mistake.

A huge enemy of MA is the set of everyday standard rules that applies in

many an organization. Regardless of whether or not they are necessary,
existing rules can become enormous obstacles for creative solutions.
An illustrative example of this refers to an alderman in a Dutch city
that established a new principle to avoid these obstacles. He called
it the ‘oops principle’. Every public servant who violated a regulation
with good reason, for the sake of a smooth transaction as part of
providing appropriate service to an inhabitant, or in the best interest
of the development of the city, had the right to appeal to the ‘oops
principle’. His superior could, then, not punish him for this violation.
When someone points out the offence to the officer, his answer is: oops.
And obviously, this response is the prompt to take a closer look at the
reason for the violation. Who knows, maybe the regulation in question
can be improved or, in favorable circumstances, even thrown out.
The consequences of the introduction of this principle were that all
employees of the city became aware that they were expected to take
a stance and that not only was the opportunity given to them to find
new solutions, rather it was part of their job. There you have it: Tolerance,
not only towards different people with different lifestyles, but also
towards ideas. And towards the fact that things do go wrong at times. Is
that so bad?
 Imagination 107

Alessi is an interesting family firm in Italy which started as specialists in

advanced metal manufacturing and now mainly designs household
appliances. In recent years, they have become known for their
successful collaboration with renowned designers. The current president,
Matteo Alessi, a third generation member of the Alessi family, has his
own special opinion about making mistakes. In an interview in 2006, he
said in regard to this:

“Basically what we do is we want to work on the borderline of what

is understood and appreciated by the market and therefore has
a commercial positive impact and result, and what is beyond this
borderline; very simply, what is not understood and appreciated by the
market. This borderline is not a clearly marked line on a chart done by
an agency, so it is a risky approach. It is difficult to realize where this line
is. As I was saying at the forum, it is important for us sometimes to go
beyond this borderline for two main reasons. The first one is that when
you go beyond it for a brief moment you see where it was, and you can
use that reference for other projects. Second, when we go beyond the
borderline, the product might not sell very well but it shows the public
what can be done. It may be early but it shows what we are capable
of, so I think we are moving the borderline every time. So products that
are beyond the borderline may be on the safe side of the borderline
in the future. Also if we didn’t have a fiasco for two years in a row, it
would show that we weren’t innovating any more. If you don’t risk and
give freedom to designers you are not really innovating. Having this
approach is like dropping a feather on the edge of a table. You don’t
know if it is going to stop on the table or if it is going to fall onto the
floor.”

Were you also surprised? Here, in black and white, is the vision of
a firm stating that they strive for fiascos as part of that vision! Alessi
accepts failures as part of his innovation strategy and understands that
experimentations and risk taking represent the conditions required for
progress. Tolerance for failure. To be able to accept failure, you need
a clear vision of the future. Matteo Alessi also realizes that a strategy
like this puts the organization to the test and mentions an important
condition:
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“It is interesting and important to point out that Alessi is still owned and
managed by the family, because you need to have commitment
from all management and all ownership to this strategy. I imagine that
an investment bank wouldn’t appreciate a strategy where you need
to have fiascos and lose money on certain projects to achieve your
target.”

In a previous chapter we quoted Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall

Street and, although we naturally don’t agree with him, there was
logic in his plea for real commitment to the organization from the
management. Only then can you, as a manager, really stimulate the
MA while keeping an eye on the YA.

Inspiration
Imagination, future pull, vujà dé, serendipity, diversity and tolerance.
Various essential points of view for navigating within the fields of
gravitation. Without these qualities, no balanced DNA. It is imagination
that creates the vision that is needed for applying future pull.
Imagination is nourished by vujà dé and serendipity. We need diversity
and tolerance to be able to continually look and interpret anew. And
this future pull leads to followers, to people who also see the image, to
people who feel the urge to get involved with this image, to enrich it, to
co-imagine.

The above refers to ‘followers’. In his explanation of an effective way

of developing in his book “Concepting” (1999), Rijkenberg introduces
this term which puts the use of the old term ‘target group’ on the
sidelines. Development is impossible for a target group. The description
of the characteristics of a target group isn’t helpful to a developer.
What he can use is a scenario in which values and needs are taken
into account. A vacuum found in that scenario can be filled with a
solution by the designer, the developer. Standing at the dawn of this
solution is a group of followers who feel involved in the chosen position.
An extra advantage is that a target group contains a fixed amount
of people, while a follow group can grow. Do you see the similarity
with the organizational principles that are linked to managing and
 Imagination 109

organizing in Wonderland? We hope you do. However, we also hope

that you feel that the term ‘follower’ is in fact, ultimately, too passive for
a co-imaginator. Especially now that we have already established that
innovation will change into co-creation processes in the future.

What happens if you use your imagination? You visualize another

reality. It can be to find a solution for a situation with which you are
not happy. Or simply because you like the activity itself; you enjoy
visualizing another reality. It could also be that you need your power
of imagination in order to be able to interpret a situation that proves
difficult to understand. In any case, you conjure up a picture, a scenario
on your retina that means something to you. This meaning is what
it’s all about. The difference between creativity and imagination is
the meaning it has for you. If you enjoyed the riddle with the Roman
numerals, then that feeling of enjoyment, the pleasure it gives you, is
most likely connected with the fact that it tested your problem solving
abilities. If you succeed, your ability is confirmed, which makes you feel
good. The moment of “YES! I’ve found the solution” marks the moment
of pleasure. In this case, also the pleasure of being able to suddenly
see something you didn’t see before that moment. And there we have
the third form of déjà vu, that we refer to as ‘eureka vu’, adapted
from the cry “Eureka!” that the old Greek Archimedes shouted out
from his bath long ago. If we want to, we can see the image of the
nevertheless respectable gentleman rushing down the road without a
towel on while repeatedly shouting out that he “found it”. To prevent
any possible misunderstandings, the reason that he was so elated was
because the overflow of his bath had inspired him to find the solution
for a very complicated issue: How much gold is in the king’s crown? For
him, at that moment, it was definitely reason enough to forget about
everyday rules of etiquette. Why? Because he was too busy enjoying
the satisfying feeling of finding a solution. The kind of solution where you
know immediately: This is it! Imagine sharing this feeling with a group of
followers, who via co-imagination have the exact same eureka vu. Now
that’s inspiration.

We assume that, generally speaking, solving a riddle has no great

impact on your life. However, realizing that the solution can sometimes
be found by looking at reality from another point of view, well, that
could be of great value for you as a manager. Imagination has proven
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69. Okay, we admit, including this quote
from Alice in Wonderland probably doesn’t
take away all doubts with respect to the
term creativity. But if you read it, you can
probably understand that we couldn’t re-
sist.
itself to be a quality and an activity that in itself could bring pleasure,
but could also add new meaning, new value to reality. And that’s key.
Innovation, change, adjusting the course, all of these things have to
have meaning. This is exactly why in every handbook about change
management it states that in the community that needs to change,
there first needs to be a sense of urgency. The power of imagination is
linked to its ability to create meaning.
Creativity is a state of mind
Creativity; as much as possible, we’ve been trying to avoid the word
for some time now. Because it has so many connotations and has been
used in so many different situations, it has lost some of its meaning,
some of its effect. Rather like terms such as design, quality, change
and flexibility. This does not mean that it has, therefore, become
less important. However, it complicates things if you want to explain
something related to this concept. Yet, at this point, it is important to
note that in Wonderland, the ways in which we will work, be useful, and
create value, will also be increasingly dependent on well-managed
creativity.
“There is no use trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I
was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve
believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”69
If you ask any random group of people to raise their hand if they feel
that they are creative, you’d be lucky if around 20 percent of hands
went up. In general, people do not think of themselves as creative,
because, for instance, ‘creative’ is seen by many of us as meaning
‘artistic’, which is expressed by making music, painting, writing poetry or
sculpting. Only a few realize that creativity is needed for almost every
decision made. Sure, as various researchers have indicated, one could
distinguish between various degrees of creativity.
In her book “Creativity in Context” (1996), Teresa Amabile discusses
degrees of talent for creativity. And Csíkszentmihályi, well-known
 Imagination 111

researcher on creativity, differentiates between creativity with a small c

and Creativity with a capital C. But both agree, along with many other
specialists for that matter, that creativity is part of human nature.

Dan Pink, ex-advisor of former president Bill Clinton, writes about the
necessity of “A whole New Mind” in his book with the same title. We
can agree with that, but only when we interpret it as a call to, admit to
the importance of creativity. And thus, not as a necessary change in
our brain. If you take a good look at children, you’ll see that creativity
does not need to be learned. We have, however, lost a lot of our
creativity in the process of growing up by having to meet the demands
of the educational systems that prepare us for a world built up around
rules and regulations. Rules and regulations that remind us of a typical
industrial era organization, where routine, knowledge and obedience
are more important than invention, independence and empathy.

Somehow, it almost seems logical that the creative state of mind is more
easily forgotten the older we get. The world around is full of dangers that
we must try to avert. If you’ve ever eaten anything that you are allergic
to, you’ll remember that well. If you burn your hand on the stove, you’ll
know not to do that again. We remember our negative experiences far
better than we do our positive ones. They are essential lessons in life that
help to prevent us from making the same mistake twice. Our judgement
system, trained through experience, but also by nature, reacts quicker
than we are aware of and filters out the negative aspects of reality
that we recognize. It is a sophisticated teamwork of automatisms that
protects us from fatal mistakes. And that is also why it is easier to react to
a crazy idea with “that would exceed our budget” than with “that could
bring in quite a profit”. The ‘damn’ is rolled into our judgement system,
the ‘gosh’ emerges only if we dare to surrender to the attitude we had
when ‘play’ was our priority, not ‘work’ and sticking to the rules. Within
the context of the new organizing principles we discussed in previous
chapters, within Wonderland, it could very well be that ‘play’ is often the
right choice, the right attitude. In any case, we applaud the fact that
at Red Bull headquarters, you have the choice to either take the stairs
down, or for the fun of it, go down the slide.

No, we are not going to launch into a long story about how exactly
creativity works. There are enough studies on that topic out there
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112

already and we would like to refer to the work of Edward de Bono,

among others. However, after the discussions above, we can’t resist
giving you one specific tip. As much as we see your ability to be critical
as an achievement, and useful in daily life, we ask you, nevertheless,
to now and again turn it off. It creates space in that part of your brain
which likes to think outside the box, to daydream, to concoct weird
and wonderful plans. If you do this consciously and look for a different
approach to solving a problem, you’ll be taking the first step towards –
consciously - managing your creative talents. And that is what we mean
by ‘state of mind’. It is the realization that imagination can be turned
ON. And it is making sure that every now and again you actually do this,
in an inspiring place, with a challenging goal in mind, for a designated
period of time. And you do this - and this is very important - without
establishing in advance what the outcome will be. As humor-hero, not
to mention very creative person and visionary, John Cleese has said:
“It’s like creativity. You have to follow it without knowing where you’re
going.”

Imagination in action
John’s statement sets the stage for an example with which we will
end this chapter on the second main point of attention with respect
to navigating in Wonderland - imagination. An example that shows
the inspirational power of imagination; that shows how the power of
imagination can create meaning; that shows how imagination, future
pull, vujà dé, serendipity, diversity, creativity and tolerance can be
combined to constitute an organizing principle; and, most of all, an
example that shows all this in today’s world!

The example to which we refer is the “Burning Man” project. Describing

all ins and outs would require a separate chapter. However, the
following quote, from the website dedicated to this project, will give you
a first impression, a rough first picture:

“Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been
to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like
to someone who is blind. […] to truly understand this event, one must
 Imagination 113

participate. This [web]site serves to try to paint a picture of the Burning

Man experience to those who are new to the project, as well as to give
those participants looking to keep the fire burning in their daily lives an
environment in which to connect to their fellow community members.”

The project started out as a small group of people gathering

spontaneously in 1986 and has, since, grown to a community of over
48,000 people who gather, for one week, each year. As stated on the
website, “there are no rules about how one must behave or express
oneself at this event […]; rather, it is up to each participant to decide
how they will contribute and what they will give to this community.”
However, every year, Larry Harvey, founder of the project, suggests a
specific theme and “participants are encouraged to find a way to help
make the theme come alive.”

This project was an inspiration to the authors in writing this chapter. We

encourage you to visit its website to learn more about it.
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114
70. Stephen’s words in the movie The Edge
(1997), good words, smart words, even if he
was eaten by a nasty Kojak bear the very
next day…
71. We are convinced that if he hadn’t felt
the need to navigate, he too would have
been eaten.
72. You wouldn’t believe it, but we have
racked our brains, thoroughly gone through
all of our DVD collections, taken the oppor-
tunity to re-watch a couple of movies fea-
turing our hero, and ransacked the Internet,
but unfortunately we are unable to inform
you of the origin of this story. It’s probably be-
cause this story only exists in our befuddled
minds. We prefer, however, to assume that
it must be due to a temporary short-circuit in
our collective memories and we would ap-
preciate it if you would forever eliminate the
possibility that it could be the first, much less
attractive, explanation. Should you know
the details and origin of this story, please do
contact us via our website:
www.workinwonderland.com
By the way, via a special ‘virtual’ button,
you can also let us know whether you think
this is a shameless way of plugging our web-
site.
Chapter 6
Navigate
“A good plan today is better than a
perfect plan tomorrow.”70
Charles Morse: “You saved me.” 
Robert Green: “Get over it, Charles - I just need you to navigate.”71
Are you familiar with these quotes from the movie “The Edge”? This movie,
starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, tells the story of two rivals who
make their way through the wilderness of Alaska, trying to survive after their
plane crashes.
There are actually lots of movies about plane crashes and the sometimes
ingenious, sometimes shocking ways in which people survive them. You
probably know a few yourselves; some of them are based on true stories;
some are grossly exaggerated. They often entail great dilemmas, for
instance about whether to leave someone behind. Where are the borders
when it comes to survival?
One specific story72, we would like to share with you here. It’s about a
relatively small aircraft, with around ten or so passengers, that crashes in
the middle of the wilderness. A few of the passengers survive, but none
of the crew. The survivors soon realize that the plane’s communication
equipment isn’t working so there are no means for them to make contact
with civilization. There is also no food on board nor anything else of use to
help them survive the wilderness. What now?
One of the survivors, we’ll call him John, says that he’s read that, in such
a situation, the wisest thing to do is to stay close to the plane wreck. This
would be near the area where air traffic control last had contact with
the plane and near to the spot indicated by coordinates that they could
determine thanks to their radar system. Normally, this imaginary spot
wouldn’t be too far away from the actual place where the plane crashed,
so a search starting at this point should have a good chance of finding
the site of the accident. It is also, of course, much easier to site an airplane
wreck in the middle of the wilderness than it is to find a random spot where
survivors are standing and waving to a distant helicopter flying overhead.
John is adamant and tries to convince his companions that staying near
the wreck will offer them the greatest chance of survival.
 Navigate 115

John’s remarks seem to make sense and a few of the passengers agree
that they should stay near the wreck. Not all agree though. One man, who
we will call Jack, thinks it would be wiser to go looking for help themselves;
to try to find a village or settlement and not to stay by the wreck. He states
that the last contact with air traffic control could have been more than
an hour before the crash and that the distance between their position
last established by means of the radar system and the actual crash site
may be way too large. He also points out that traffic control might not
even have the suitable radar equipment to localize an airplane lost in the
middle of the wilderness. He further states that it is not even certain that the
pilot stayed on course due to the bad weather conditions. Jack concludes
that the chances of finding the plane anytime soon are very small and
that they (and especially the injured ones) have a much better chance of
surviving, if they don’t wait there but rather set out.

Not only John and Jack, but also the other survivors try to use logic,
intuition and persuasion to win their companions over on to their side.
Ultimately, however, it is something completely different that does the
trick… In the air plane, Jack finds two maps that, according to him, also
show the area where they must have crashed. He is able to pin point
where they are with the help of the maps, the position of the sun, and a
couple of hills that can be seen in the distance. And more importantly,
he notes that there is a village some sixty kilometers further away. Sixty
kilometers, under these conditions and with several injured among them,
means three to four days of walking. In the end, finding the maps is the
deciding factor and everyone agrees that the journey to the village is not
only realistic; it is also their best chance of survival. And so it was…

To make a long story short, after a perilous journey full of adventure, the
group reaches the village. The villagers take care of the injured and help
the group to contact the nearest airport and a helicopter comes to pick
them up.

Some time later, Jack and John meet again. Several issues concerning
the crash and the days subsequent to the accident had, in the meantime,
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been cleared up. Before the flight, the pilot had not informed the air
traffic control of the route he intended to take and, due to severe storms,
he was also forced to deviate from the usual route flown in that area.
The rescue team they had spoken to during the past couple of days was
convinced: It was a good thing the survivors had set out on their own
because a search party looking for the wreck would have surely taken
more than a few days to find them, if ever. All’s well that ends well. Jack
was right! However, with hindsight, there was one thing that he had
gotten wrong. The maps that Jack, John and the rest had used to find the
village, the maps that were the deciding factor between staying with the
wreck or making the journey, these maps turned out to be not at all of
that area but of an area some four hundred kilometers further south…

Hospitality + Imagination = Navigation?

We’ll let the story of Jack and John go at that, but we ask you to keep
this example in mind as you read on. In the meantime, we’ll go back to
Wonderland. In the previous two chapters we presented two important
starting points, two concepts that you will need on your journey
through Wonderland. A journey past, via and with the help of points
of gravitation, and the resulting forces of push and pull that affect you
and your employees. The trick is to deal with these forces wisely, use
them at just the right moment and at other moments to cunningly steer
clear of less opportune points of gravitation. As a manager, you are the
helmsman, the navigator that guides your organization, your employees
through this force field on the way to the ultimate goal.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? We have a goal, a track, a steering wheel

and two newly defined speeds: go ahead and race – to the finish line!
A piece of cake! Management by go-karting. No, you don’t fall for it,
do you? You know by now that we’re going to tell you once again that,
in reality, it’s more nuanced than that; just a little more complicated
and subtle. Well, what should we say? You are totally right! We won’t
try to get around it; it’s not simple. Navigating in Wonderland, the new
way of managing, just like the old way of managing, is better described
as an art than as a science. There are no simple rules, there is no fixed
course. However, there are starting points which you can hold on to and
 Navigate 117

concepts and tools that show you the way. To illustrate this, this chapter 73. Dr. Emmett Brown in Back to the Future

will review a number of these starting points, concepts and tools in is right, things will change. Maybe not so

context and go into specific critical moments of decision making that will much the earth’s gravitational pull, but

arise in Wonderland. Moments that will determine whether you and your definitely the force fields around and within

employees will be successful or not, whether your point of gravitation will organizations.

survive and flourish, or not. Moments that will say something about you,
about you as a manager, or rather, about you as a navigator.

Past Push versus Future Pull

Let’s just have a closer look at your role as navigator. In Wonderland,
new demands will be put on you as a manager and it won’t do to pick
from Management by Walking Around, Management by Wandering
About and Management by Going Fishing. Admittedly, these principles
are already trend breakers for some managers and, for them, feel quite
progressive. In any case, these are examples of management styles
that deviate considerably from the good ol’ industrial era in which
“me is boss and I’ll tell you what to do” would do the trick. However,
hierarchical relationships in a world full of professionals just don’t
work. We have already established that supervising the modern, well
educated, independent employee is not an option. The challenge for
the manager of tomorrow is to create a collective ambition, create an
environment in which these employees (as far as we can still call them
employees) are given due justice and can perform to the best of their
abilities. Management by – fill in any of the well-known activities linked to
contemporary management styles – is certainly useful within this context,
a must, but in the long run not more than a minimum requirement, the
first step on the way to success. Wonderland is another story; a new force
field full of new challenges, new starting points, new do’s and don’ts.
A world with some serious issues to contemplate or think about, some
heavy thinking.

“There’s that word again; “heavy”. Why are things so heavy in the future?
Is there a problem with the earth’s gravitational pull?”73

In the previous chapter we referred to management based on Future

Pull. In line with expressions commonly used in management literature,
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we could indicate this, then, as Management by Future Pull. This term

refers to the ability as a manager to make optimal use of the power of
vision and purpose. In circumstances in which setting course based on
the past, the Past Push, no longer suffices, it’s all about who understands
the art of painting a picture of the future that professionals can put
themselves in. A vision that inspires and attracts professionals. A course
that enables employees to excel as a group and in itself, without an
ultimate goal in sight, is attractive to these employees. A course that is
not set out in detail from the beginning but unfolds along the way, just
like the final destination.

As previously outlined, Wonderland is a world with new starting points

and possibilities for organizations to go about their business; all under
the influence of developments in sustainability and technology and
the way in which new generations of professionals deal with each
other and with the fading borders between private and professional
lives. For an organization - correction - a point of gravitation, to be
successful, it is essential that there is a clear and powerful vision and
course. Organizations are no longer separated from each other by
clear or even physical borders. One way or another, everything and
everyone is connected with each other. In this situation, it is no longer
possible to screen yourself off from the outside world, to create a stable
entity by guarding the borders, as you would protect a house from the
weather conditions using insulation material. Operating wisely, as an
organization in these circumstances, calls for someone who sets out the
lines, someone who monitors the course and who adjusts the course
when necessary. Who is this someone? The answer to this question can
be formulated no better than by Zek in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: “…
that’s you my boy. It’s a great responsibility to stand at the bow of the
Ferengi Ship of State. A Nagus has to navigate the waters of the great
material continuum, avoid the shoals of bankruptcy and seek the strong
winds of prosperity!”
 Navigate 119

“Picture this: bumpety, bumpety,

bumpety, bumpety, SPLAT!”74

“Picture this”75; surely you know the expression. These are words used by 74. Just imagine that this statement, by Night

someone who asks you to use to your imagination. It is also the typical crawler in X-Men: Evolution, actually refers

beginning of an argument made by someone who is painting a picture to the organization you are part of. It would

of the future, holding up a scenario. They are words a navigator can bring the message across, wouldn’t it?

use to draw the attention of his companions to the course ahead, to

the goal they are striving for. Combine these words with the qualities we 75. Naturally, you also understand by now

discussed in the previous chapter, imagination and creativity, and we that this principle is one of the reasons our

land at an important point of anchor, a management principle that is arguments are larded with quotes from

center stage in Wonderland. It is your task to promote the course and movies and TV series. In this book we are try-

the goal in such a way that a force of attraction, gravity, is generated. ing to take you along on a journey through

a world that does not yet exist, a world that

Gravity has, thus, become the organizing principle. Not hierarchy, not we call Wonderland. This is a world that we

contractually fixed job descriptions, but rather the allure of the point cannot show you. There is no blueprint. We

of gravitation that you represent. Gravity stems from the values that its can, however, sketch the contours and try

course stands for, from what is promoted as valuable and worth striving to call up pictures in your mind that reflect

for. Gravity is the DNA of your point of gravitation, the building blocks the starting points and logic that lie behind

of your organization, the core of your strategy and your policies as a these contours. It is our way of trying to give

manager. content to “Picture this”, to the challenge

we have given ourselves of making you a

We hope that the aforementioned description represents a picture, a partner in creating our vision of the future.

construct that you can imagine. However, that alone will not do it. This And admittedly, it is a handy way of avoid-

construct is the framework of a new type of organizational principle, of ing or disguising nasty obstacles regarding

a new way in which you can give content to your role as a manager. language usage. As said, the “Picture this”

At the same time, it is only a framework, the skeleton so to speak. It is principle is one of the reasons to bother you

not alive yet, it has no movement. A skeleton without muscles, veins, with our dubious taste in visual tidbits. Humor

nerves and lungs is a static entity. And a static entity will not survive us…

in an environment in which everything is in motion and everything is

connected with everything and everyone is connected with everyone.

As an organizational, or better yet, organizing principle, gravitation

is, then, also inextricably connected to the second principle that is
central in this book: navigation. Without gravity, you cannot navigate,
but without navigation, gravity would be lost. The way in which you
maneuver your point of gravitation between, past, to, away from and
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120

76. Our variation of one of the most used ex- together with other points of gravitation, the actual course that you
pressions in Hollywood scenarios. are following in the force field of all points of gravitation put together,
determines the ultimate force of attraction on others, now and in the
long term.

Looking at the metaphor of the skeleton, we recognize the DNA of the

organization not only by the structure of the bone cells that, together,
make up the skeleton, but in all cells that together make up the
organization. Moreover, we recognize the DNA in all of the movements
of the organization, in all decisions of the organization, in the air that
the organization breaths. Yes, we are stretching the metaphor here,
but if you’re talking about the DNA of organizations, in a book that is
about managing these organizations, you just can’t be clear enough.
Picture our lips and read them76: Every breath, every movement, every
decision is full of meaning, it either radiates the power of vision and
purpose or it does not. The DNA of an organization is more than a
collection of values, regardless of whether this collection has been put
down on paper in well-turned expressions. The DNA of an organization
connects those values to the people who make up the organization,
to the choices that are made, to the atmosphere that the organization
exudes, to the course on which the organization is moving.

Indeed, as a manager you have a huge influence on the style, the

choices and the course of your organization, your point of gravitation.
You are close to the core, you determine, to a great extent, the
attracting force, the allurement, the gravity that this core will have for
others. You represent the DNA of your point of gravitation. A responsible
and, at the same time, challenging role. You invite others to take a
seat closer to the core. Others you make see that they perhaps might
consider whether another point of gravitation would suit them better.
Your colleagues, the navigators of other points of gravitation, fulfil
the same role. Your employees, the professionals that, together with
you, give meaning to the course, do this mostly from a position that is
somewhat further from the core. Thus, also automatically closer to the
core of one or more other points of gravitation. In this way, a picture
develops of a dynamic force field in which you interpret your role as
navigator of one, or possibly more, permanent or possibly temporary
points of gravitation, together with that ever-changing-in-compilation
collection of professionals, who are sometimes close to the core,
 Navigate 121

sometimes situated a bit further away, and do not differentiate between 77. Robin, in the episode Christmas with the

private and professional values. Joker of the hit series Batman, is probably
expressing exactly what you are thinking

right now.

“I don’t know, Batman. It seems 78. Do you know the hit series Absolutely

Fabulous? We hope so, but if not, we ur-

too easy.”77 gently advise you to go out and pick up a

dvd of the series. In moments like this, when

We can imagine that the above ‘lecture’ took you by surprise. And you you need to relax, to take things a little less

are right. This discussion on your role looks a lot like we are lecturing you, serious, Eddie is the one to turn to.

or possibly even like we are delivering a fiery sermon. Not that we doubt
the message, but the style by which we conveyed it, was of course
a typical example of “just act like it was the most normal thing in the
world”. So, high time we relaxed, became a little less serious. And we
couldn’t think of a more suitable character than Eddie in “Absolutely
Fabulous”78 to bring this off. Hence, the following winged expression from
the episode Fat from 1992:

“Oh, darling, she was once cool, but Mr. Gravity’s been very unkind to
that woman!”

So, the tone is set again and the picture is complete. Now the only thing
left to do is for you to learn how to navigate, how to prevent disasters
like the one Eddie just described. Yes, navigate, how does one do that,
what is it exactly?

Navigating has to do with putting in and using, just at the right moment,
the right type of instruments that we spoke about in the previous
chapters: hospitality, imagination, future pull, vujà dé, serendipity,
tolerance and creativity. As earlier stated, a point of gravitation is not
a stationary, static given. You, your employees and the environment
are all in motion. You are in the middle of a dynamic force field where
staying on course and hauling in the line towards an alluring picture of
the future goes hand in hand with many foreseen and, even more so,
unforeseen events. The art of navigating has to do with the ability, the
talent and the qualities it takes in critical moments, like in setbacks or
strange twists, to say ‘gosh’ instead of ‘damn’.
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Black holes or motion

79. Holly in Red Dwarf actually expresses, in “Well, the thing about a black hole – it’s main distinguishing feature – is
her own special way, one of the dangers to it’s black. And the thing about space, the color of space, your basic
be found in Wonderland. space color – is it’s black. So how are you supposed to see them?”79

80. We thank Henny van Egmond for this
winged expression.
It sounds simple enough, ‘gosh’ instead of ‘damn’, but the principle
behind these expressions clearly stands for breaking trends in our present
day practices of management. Do you remember the explanation of
the ‘oops principle’? A principle like that is only necessary because of
the way in which many of us and most of our organizations operate
today. Our organizations are bulging with rules, regulations and standard
operating procedures, SOPs for short. The instinctive – is it? - reaction
to an unexpected event, a setback or a challenge is to re-write our
procedure manuals to fit the new situation, to develop new SOPs. Like
good children of the industrial revolution, we have taught ourselves
to fight exemptions with total dedication until peace and quiet is
restored. That is why almost every organization nowadays has a process
manager, who has – what else – a little brother, the quality manager80.
Everything at work is set up to guarantee stability, clarity and zero
defects. Fiascos must, at all costs, be prevented!

After reading this far, it shouldn’t surprise you that we deem this
management style to be totally unsuitable for Wonderland. ‘Damn’ is
old-style-management, so yesterday, a counter-productive reaction to
the dynamics in Wonderland. Tolerance for fiascos is a must; stability is
false security that leads to stagnation and to the deterioration of your
organization. Gravity is only valuable by the grace of motion; staying
motionless until a black hole swallows up you and your employees is
definitely not the way to go!

‘Gosh’ is the alternative, the way out, the way forward. And the
manager leads the way. The challenge is to seize the opportunities, to
utilize the forces that are working on you and your employees, to alter
the course when necessary, to keep your point of gravitation on course,
to guard and to perfect your DNA and to guarantee your gravity as
long as it is opportune for you and your co-imaginators. Success in
Wonderland is all about linking up at the right moments, in the right way
with other points of gravitation and making sure that we skirt around
 Navigate 123

and leave behind the black holes and the not opportune points of
gravitation. You use your creativity to turn threats into opportunities, your
imagination to keep you and your employees on course. Your qualities
as leader, as navigator, and a bit of serendipity at the right moment will
determine what you’ll find.

A ‘trip’ to reality
We can imagine that slowly but surely you are getting the feeling that
you have landed in a 3D movie theatre where a Spaceship Galactica
clone, filmed from the perspective of the pilot, is being shown. So, just
for the sake of clarity: Yes, we have used these kinds of examples on
purpose in order to give you as clear as possible a feeling of the content
and the relationship between our two core concepts: gravitation and
navigation. We have chosen expressions and metaphors that allow us
together to co-imagine a certain picture, a certain construct. But at the
same time - a firm ‘no’ - it is decidedly not our intention to insinuate that
Wonderland is a sort of amusement park in space. Wonderland does not
exist in space; we do not ask you to transform yourself into Buck Rogers
or Captain Kirk!
Speaking of captains, let us take a look at the Dutch maritime industry
or, more specifically, the shipbuilding industry. Not out of chauvinism, but
as an example from the real world of today that shows the importance
– the magnitude – of appropriate navigating, of good navigators. In
this case, we are not referring to Piet Heyn, Michiel de Ruyter and Abel
Tasman, but to managers of shipyards over the last few decades. In the
1970s and 1980s the Dutch shipbuilding industry went through a period
of decline, resulting in a number of shipyards going bankrupt and a
decline in employment. Somehow though, some specific companies
have survived, especially those that presently focus on building high
quality superyachts. In fact, today, in this particular section of the
industry, the Dutch yards show high competitive ability. When we say
‘yards’, we need to be more specific though. The companies excelling
today are not the same type of companies that dominated the industry
back in the 1970s.
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Until the ‘crisis’, most yards were organized as integrated companies,

doing all the work needed to design, build and sell ships. These days,
the success of many Dutch companies in this industry is based on a
completely different organizing principle, best described by the term
‘cluster approach’. Acting as a hub, these companies coordinate and
support the efforts of a wide range of independent companies and
partners, often beyond the Dutch borders, that combine forces for a
specific project, the creation of a specific fully custom-built superyacht.
These clusters represent flexible infrastructures of subcontractors,
colleague yards, manpower pools, representatives of many, many more
- often highly specialized – firms, and the customer.

The success of these clusters is as logical as it is painful for those that

did not react rapidly enough, flexibly enough, radically enough to
the new situation and developments within the shipbuilding industry.
They represent companies that knew where to go, what to do, at
what moment, before it was too late. The people that steered these
companies in the right direction showed the required abilities as
helmsmen, as navigators. In fact, we dare say that it was those abilities,
and a bit of serendipity at the right moment, that distinguished the
companies that survived from the ones that disappeared.

Social capital; use it, keep it, cherish it!

The above recognizes the importance of helmsman abilities as part of
the navigational skills required for Wonderland. However, there is more
to it than that. Wonderland stands for managers and professionals
in flesh and blood who try to make the best of new possibilities and
prerequisites; who try to operate successfully within the setting that is
created by developments in economics, sustainability and technology.
A setting which is also about the people and what they can do, what
they want to do, and what they feel. Despite technical gadgets, virtual
realities, self generating machines and all that kind of stuff, ultimately,
it’s about you and the people around you. Moreover, the fact that
technologies, knowledge and networking will be available and
accessible to more and more of us ensures that the ability to distinguish
oneself will more emphatically be linked to the way in which we deal
 Navigate 125

with them. The success of your point of gravitation, of your organization,

will not depend on technological aids, knowledge or networks that
are available to you, but on the way in which you and your employees
make use of them. That is also why we continue to speak of you e your
employees, because you can’t do it alone.

Your success, or rather your usefulness, will not only be determined by

your ability as helmsman. Navigating especially entails how well you
manage to make use of and retain your employees, or rather your
followers, or even better, your co-imaginators. Well, actually, if you
really think about it, ultimately, those two terms, use and retain, are
also incorrect; they’re too passive, too hierarchical, too Taylorian. The
art of managing is increasingly becoming the art of creating a pull
directed towards the right people, the professionals who can contribute
to your point of gravitation in a positive, creative and stimulating way.
This process is indeed a two-way street - gravity works, by definition, in
two directions. The DNA of your point of gravitation is something that
you share with your co-imaginators, that you give shape and content
to together, that you further develop together. You want to work
together with people who feel attracted to the DNA of your point of
gravitation. The other way around applies as well! These employees also
want to work with people who feel attracted to the DNA of the point
of navigation that they co-steer, that they are co-navigator of. Once
again, we would like to bring to mind Weggeman’s statement, which
we first used in the chapter on hospitality: “Supervise professionals?
Don’t!” Professionals are not passive players in Wonderland; they won’t
allow themselves to be attracted if there is no deciding, no active role
for them to fulfil. Followers and leaders, make use of and retain, bit by
bit these words just don’t do it. Make use of and retain have become
reciprocal. You make use of your employees and they make use of you.
You retain your employees, and they retain you.

This is, by the way, a development that exists already today. We would
like to quote a young employee of Amsterdam’s municipality, a typical
representative of Generation-somewhere-at-the-end-of-the-alphabet,
most likely a second cousin of Maslow. When she was asked why she
had put a power point presentation meant for the city council on an
Internet based social network, without an ounce of shame or hesitation,
she replied: “I don’t work for the city, I work for the Netherlands!” Just so
 navigation
126
81. For Spike’s complete remark, we invite
you to watch the movie Notting Hill (1999).
The fact that this book is, after all, meant for
people of all ages, keeps us from repeating
the rest of his argument here…
you know! This young woman knows what she wants. She knows what
she’s doing. She is the navigator of her point of gravitation.
Does this mean that we are all navigators and, thus, all managers? To
put it in the illustrative words of Spike in the movie Notting Hill81: “Yeah.
Yeah... tricky... tricky...” That is, yes and no. Professionals will not be
supervised, they supervise themselves. They will not be managed, they
manage themselves. In this way, we, as professionals, are all managers.
At the same time, we will see a clear division of tasks. Terribly old-
fashioned word, of course, but never mind. Around specific points of
gravitation, we will see people who are close to the core and others
that are somewhat further away. By definition, you, as a manager, are
close to the core. You represent a particular point of gravitation. You
fulfil an important role in the course set out, in the DNA that attracts
people. Because of this, navigating tasks will sooner be done by you
than by a professional who is, for a shorter period of time, linked to your
point of gravitation. You have a crucial role in creating an environment
in which that professional can excel. You are the propelling force, the
facilitator, the host. In other words, it is very much on you to serve that
strong cup of coffee that we introduced in chapter 4…
Coffee, tea, BMW, doctor’s appointment,
identity refreshment?
So, you are not just steering, you are also pouring the coffee. As a
manager, it is on you to please the co-imaginators, to give them the
feeling that they are welcome. Doesn’t sound very spectacular, nor
very difficult, does it? Yet, in the context of Wonderland, this means
more than just being a nice boss. In fact, you are no longer the boss,
remember?
What’s more, pouring the coffee is a metaphor for the range of
decisions, choices and activities undertaken by you as a manager that
create a feeling in your professionals that suits them, or is a welcome
addition to their own identity. A feeling that complements or refreshes
their identity, that is in line with their course, their purpose as an
 Navigate 127

individual, as a professional and as a human being. Oh yes, as host, you

play a crucial role in securing your professionals’ identity refreshment,
just like Chip Conley introduced it in the hotel world. We replace hotel
with point of gravitation, hotel manager with navigator and guest or
employee with co-imaginator; the principle remains the same!

Let us look at the following example. At a well-known consultancy firm,

brainstorming is deemed an extremely important activity. Sometimes
it is simply necessary to let your thoughts run free, to have a change
of environment and context in order to get new ideas. The employees
of this firm feel that this way of working is an important part of the
DNA that makes the firm what it is. Totally in line with this starting point,
management decided to buy a BMW cabriolet and have it built into the
floor of a nice room with a view on the third floor. If you’re in need of a
little brainstorming, of new ideas, of inspiration, walk right in, take a seat
in the luxurious four-wheeler and no one will disturb you. That is, unless
you prefer to have a sparring partner with you, of course. A firm honk on
the horn and it’s done…

At this point, we could, of course, continue with addressing a concept

such as meaningful dialogue, another core term from chapter 4, using
a comparable translation to Wonderland, to points of gravitation,
to reciprocal ‘making use of’ and ‘retaining’, to an example like
the above. However, with your consent, we won’t repeat the whole
chapter. But we hope it is obvious that there is good reason for putting
the chapter about hospitality in this part of the book, in our arguments
on navigation.

From SOPs to navigation…

Okay, our arguments on navigation… what do you think of them? We
can imagine that, so far, you find it all sort of vague, sort of woolly.
A story about gravitation and navigation, with force fields, points
of gravitation, co-imaginators and identity refreshment. We’re the
first to admit, it’s something you have to get used to, sure, but well,
Wonderland is something you have to get used to. To conclude this
chapter, maybe it would be a good idea to recall some of the things
 navigation
128

from previous chapters and to link them to what we concede here, to

what we have discovered here.

We agree that the world around us is changing and it’s changing fast.
We are confronted with an economic crisis that could very well be
a symptom of system failure with respect to how we have organized
our economic dealings. We are also confronted with an ecological
crisis, without a doubt a symptom of a system failure in our actions as
a species on a planet with limited resources. And we see many and
dramatic technological developments; a typical example of how we as
humans continually try to make our lives easier, more pleasant, but also
of how we, at the same time, cannot resist complicating matters and
create new challenges and dilemmas. Dilemmas that can be intensified
but possibly also solved by the fading borders between professional
and private lives, by what someone like Laszlo refers to as connection,
communication and consciousness and by Obama as “the glue upon
which every healthy society depends.”

Without a doubt, all of this means that organizations are going to

change. We’ll have new force fields to deal with. We see it happening
all around us, as new alliances form, unexpected co-productions
emerge, and new forms of competition and collaboration develop. Just
like the distinction between professional and private lives is fading, so
is - and partially because of this - the distinction between competition
and collaboration. It’s becoming increasingly difficult and less and less
wise to hold on to ancient forms of Taylor-style organizations. This is why
we have introduced points of gravitation as an alternative, a successor,
as the organizing principle in this new world. Points of gravitation still
stand for specific core values, a DNA that is typical for that specific
organization, an atmosphere that is attractive to a specific group of
professionals and that is considered by them to be a pleasant working
environment. Core values and DNA that say something about what that
organization, that point of gravitation, stands for, is good at. However,
at the same time, borders disappear and, as a logical consequence
of all of the above, the system of organizations becomes more and
more fluid. It becomes increasingly difficult to determine where one
organization ends and where another begins. Organizing is no longer
the right word; gravitating covers it better.
 Navigate 129

Within this context, your role as a manager will also change. In

Wonderland you have a crucial role in several areas. One of your
most important challenges within this context will be to deal wisely
with gravitation, because gravitation applies to everyone: consumers,
employees, suppliers and you, the manager. You will have to offer
your companions, the professionals that are linked to your point of
gravitation, an environment in which they can excel. An environment
in which they can use their professionalism in the best interest of the
organization, as well as in the best interest of themselves. You will be
dealing with professionals like the public servant at the municipality in
Amsterdam, about whom we spoke earlier. The kind of professionals
that need a perspective, a purpose that attracts them, that lets them
gravitate to your organization. By saying ‘gosh’ instead of ‘damn’ in
critical moments, by using hospitality and imagination to set the course
and to captivate them, to energize them, to host them, you will create
a successful point of gravitation. Not with the help of rules, procedures
and processes set down in manuals, but with motivating, challenging
perspectives, with your help, your expertise and guidance in this part of
the fluid, with your strength as navigator. Managing is no longer the right
word; navigating covers it better.
 3

prolog
ogue
 prologue
132
82. What better words to reassure you that
you’re almost there than those of good ol’
Frank Sinatra. Even though the melody of
My Way was in fact not really his way at
all, because it is actually that of the French
song “Comme D’habitude”, composed by
Claude François and Jacques Revaux. Oh
well…
“And now, the end is near…”82
Yes!!! You’ve made it! You’ve seen it through and have jumped with us
into the rabbit hole. You haven’t given up on the journey through our
train of thoughts, the journey through Wonderland. We hope we have
provided you with a fresh view, a new perspective on the future of
organizations, food for thought with regard to your role as a manager.
In any case, in return for your perseverance, we will keep this prologue
short. However, there are still two points that we would like to tackle in
the remainder of our argument.
Firstly, in Today, we promised to grant you a peek at the management
challenges of Mrs Smith. Promises are promises and so we depict a
(working) day in the life of Mrs Smith in the chapter Tomorrow.
Lastly, we would like to round off with a helping hand, a short
enumeration of concrete navigation tools that you can use in
Wonderland. Well, concrete… don’t expect a handbook, or any
SOPs, or recipes for magic potions. That would be far from logical in
an environment where it’s all about hospitality and identities, about
tolerance for fiascos and diversity, about creativity and imagination.
And yet, we do want to accommodate you. We realize that we have
given few specific examples from real life. Examples from real life in
Wonderland, the future, are hard to find without ending up on beaten
paths, without generating a high degree of ‘duh’. Instead, we have
chosen to include just a few relatively brief references to present-day
reality, to our current industrial era that is on its last legs. In fact, we are
happy to admit to being guilty of cherry picking. This means we owe you
a cake, a party. Hence, our last chapter: Join.
 Tomorrow 133

Chapter 7

Tomorrow
“Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There
wasn’t one today.”83
In this chapter we’re going to try picturing Wonderland, what it will be like 83. Have you seen the movie Groundhog

in 2029. Once again – please do join us! Day, in which Phil relives the same day over

and over again? We have all had that same

In the following, we will take a look at Mrs Smith’s life as a manager, you experience at some time, haven’t we? Re-

remember, the I-know-exactly-what-I-want-and-also-what-you-want-for- gardless whether it was Déjà Vu or Vujà Dé.

that-matter woman with the curtains in Today. It is now, by the way, 2029.
In the meantime, Mrs Smith is, how do we put this without offending a
lady, somewhere in her late fifties. In fact, so late that she’s practically 60,
but you haven’t heard that from us. But, actually, what’s the problem?
Nowadays age doesn’t mean a thing. The developments in the
nanotechnology and biotechnology have made it possible for Mrs Smith
to plan to have her second baby on a beautiful summer day in 2031.

Oh, and Mr Smith, you know, our host in Today. The self-proclaimed Brad
Pitt look-a-like who has, in the meantime and by means of the same
technological developments, managed to make sure that other people
now see what he always saw in his mirror. Mr Smith is no longer in the
picture. Remember the text message from Mrs Jones? That was the last
drop…

Right, a normal day at work for Mrs Smith, a working day of a manager
in 2029. For the following description, we have allowed ourselves to be
inspired by the movie Groundhog Day and Erykha Badu, a famous singer
from the first decade of this millennium. At a recent concert, she had
the guts to stop suddenly in the middle of a song and, without hesitation,
start over again from another angle, in another composition, in another
rhythm, but just as musical and infectious. Like Groundhog Day tells the
story of a man who experiences the same day over and over again. By
the way, do you know the song Hammer Time by MC Hammer? We’re
getting into it, just getting down and then…“stop”! And so will we give
shape to this chapter. We will begin Mrs Smith’s day with a description
of what a day in the life of a manager in Wonderland, a navigator, can
look like. We also realize that we could be wrong, that we could be way
off the mark; that we exaggerated or just got carried away in our ideas
about Wonderland. In that case we’ll just stop… and start again.
 prologue
134
84. A quote from Deckard in Blade Runner. It
reminded us of the days when we thought a
good manager was a predictable one, one
that you could rely on to have the same,
one-best-way approach for years.
85. Eindhoven, the fourth largest city in the
Netherlands and the city where Philips once
ruled everyday life of just about all inhabit-
ants.
“She’s a replicate, isn’t she?”84
July 4, 2029, 7:04 AM.
As Mrs Smith awakens, she confirms to her satisfaction that she, indeed,
is in her penthouse loft in the center of Eindhoven85. She can still enjoy
the fact that she took the decision, about a half a year ago, to move
into the 285,000 m2 apartment complex with open-plan offices, studios,
ateliers and showrooms. Some 5,000 inhabitants and around 300
points of gravitation have their physical home base here, their pied-à-
terre. It’s still amazing that this whole complex used to be for just one
organization, one single company. Moreover, this was just one of the
complexes that they had in this city.
Up and dressed, Mrs Smith recaps yesterday while adjusting the pattern
and color of her outfit and enjoying a cappuccino in the elevator on
her way down. Seeing the pictures projected on the elevator wall, she
immediately gets that overwhelming feeling that the African wilderness
induces in her every time. She spent yesterday on her great passion,
physically working in the nature reserve Bongo Bongo in Central Africa.
She can’t wait until the next time… maybe tomorrow? Sure, why not!
Mrs Smith steps out of the elevator, chats a bit with Mr Gearloose, while
he uploads his Interesting Thoughts Log from the past 24 hours to her
iHelp. Then it is high time to start with the first interview of the day.
Mrs Smith and Mr Gearloose, who have been working together for many
months now, setting up Transforming Transformations, ‘their’ point of
gravitation, have two interviews this morning with young enthusiastic
transformation specialists. Both have indicated that they think the vision
and way of working in Transforming Transformations is interesting and
would like to discuss a structural collaboration.
The interviews are going well, but at the same time, there is no real
click, no feeling that Mrs Smith and Mr Gearloose have lit their discussion
partners’ fires. Both specialists come to the same conclusion: Yes,
certainly interesting to get in touch in the future and perhaps sign up
together for a few projects, but they don’t really feel the same passion,
the same drive to create the type of transformations that Mrs Smith
always describes as “evolving from gorilla to human being”.
 Tomorrow 135

Afterwards, Mrs Smith says that she sees two important steps for the 86. A quote from Doctor Who himself. The

coming weeks. Create an update on their website about their “going full quote is: “I love humans. They always see

ape” experience, because for one reason or another, the message just patterns in things that aren’t there.” So true,

doesn’t seem to be coming across as it is meant to, and… for now, put so very, very true…

in three or four clones of her self in order to realize this.

Mr Gearloose: “Clones? No Jane, you can’t do that!”

Mrs Smith: “Why not? You’re not going to tell me that you’ve suddenly
become old-fashioned, are you? That you suddenly don’t want to make
use of what the guys at Build You can do for us?”
Mr Gearloose: “No, of course not, silly; I mean that I want to see a few of
my own characteristics built in then…”

Stop.

“I love humans.”86
Holden: “You’re in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a
sudden you look down...” 
Leon: “What one?” 
Holden: “What?” 
Leon: “What desert?” 
Holden: “It doesn’t make any difference what desert, it’s completely
hypothetical.” 
Leon: “But, how come I’d be there?” 
Holden: “Maybe you’re fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who
knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It’s crawling toward
you...” 
Leon: “Tortoise? What’s that?” 
Holden: [irritated by Leon’s interruptions] “You know what a turtle is?” 
Leon: “Of course!” 
Holden: “Same thing.” 
Leon: “I’ve never seen a turtle... But I understand what you mean.” 
Holden: “You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back,
Leon.” 
 prologue
136
87. This scene is from the movie Blade Run-
ner. Picture it, then read on and you’ll un-
derstand why we felt the need to include it
here.
Leon: “Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write
‘em down for you?” 
Holden: “The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun,
beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t. Not without your
help. But you’re not helping.” 
Leon: [angry at the suggestion] “What do you mean, I’m not helping?” 
Holden: “I mean you’re not helping! Why is that, Leon?” 
[Leon has become visibly shaken] 
Holden: “They’re just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they’re
written down for me. It’s a test, designed to provoke an emotional
response... Shall we continue?”87
July 4, 2029, 7:04 AM.
As Mrs Smith awakens, with sore muscles from the day before, she
immediately thinks of the important appointment she has this morning.
Up and dressed, Mrs Smith recaps yesterday while enjoying a very
pleasant and much needed chiropractic treatment and a cappuccino
in the elevator on her way down. Seeing the pictures in her mind
projected as see-through holograms, as she imagines herself in Africa
and, despite shooting pains in her hamstrings, she cannot suppress a
smile. Who is crazy enough to want to repair a fence themselves? She
can’t wait until the next time… maybe tomorrow? Sure, why not!
Mrs Smith steps out of the elevator, chats a bit with Mr Gearloose, while
he shows her the highlights of a daytrip to Greenland and then it is high
time to welcome Dr Sayer to his office.
Dr Sayer, looking around surprised: “How thoughtful of you to receive me
in my own office!”
Mrs Smith: “Naturally, Doctor, but if you have a good look around, you’ll
see that we have added a few details, gadgets inspired by our “going
ape” experience.”
Dr Sayer: “Yes, I see… nice, exciting. Needs getting used to for someone
like me, who has lived his whole life trying to get people to feel more
human. Strangely enough, though, it also feels very familiar…”
Mr Gearloose: “That is exactly the reason for this conversation, Dr Sayer.
We are convinced that our organizations can help each other, can
strengthen each other; that we suit each other.”
 Tomorrow 137

Dr Sayer: “Yes, I understood that already from the invitation, or rather,

from the words of the cute little gorilla that you sent me.”
Mrs Smith, smiling innocently: “Yes, sorry for the somewhat namby-
pamby choice of holohost, but we wanted to be sure to get your
attention…”
Dr Sayer: “You succeeded; who can resist such a sweetie. But I would
very much like to hear your thoughts on a collaboration. Could you just
go through the points again for me why you think we would be able to
help each other?”

Mrs Smith: “Of course! To put it briefly, as we understand, you as Identity

Restorers focus on people who have difficulty dealing with all of the
possibilities and choices that are available to us humans nowadays.
You especially focus on somewhat older people who were used to
technology that had a prominent, steering role in life, that filled your
day so to speak. To put it simply, people who were perfectly capable
of the Tetris-like circumstances of 20 years ago, who even excelled, but
are now confronted with so much time, space and choices that they
can no longer manage to use these constructively. And you help these
people with this, you get them back on track so that they can make
their own choices on their path in life again. Is that more or less a correct
description?”
Dr Sayer, nodding enthusiastically: “Mrs Smith, I couldn’t have explained
it better myself; that is exactly what we do, what we’re all about!”
Mrs Smith: “Well now, that is actually also precisely what we here at
TT are all about, what we focus on. Which is why I always describe
our basic principle as ‘evolving from gorilla to human being’. Our
transformations focus on getting people to feel human again, to realize
what we’re here for, what makes us human.”

The conversation is going well! Mrs Smith and Dr Sayer seem to be on

the same wavelength. They soon come up with an idea about letting
Dr Sayer’s patients undergo an extensive, adapted version of “going
ape”, to create an experience that uses the wilderness of Africa as
a catalyzer for restoring meaningfulness, for restoring the feeling of
contributing, having a goal. Then, there’s a silence. It is actually only one
single moment, a short moment, only noticeable to the alert observer
and mostly on Mrs Smith’s part. And that is the moment when Dr Sayer
tells about a patient who he would like first to experience “going ape”;
 prologue
138

88. Captain Janeway gives expression to a classic case of someone who got stuck in the years around 2010.
the tedious side-effects of time travel in Star Apparently, this patient used to be a manager for a, typical for those
Trek: Voyager. days, giant of a company, state-of-the-art then, but now no longer
exists. And that patient is Mr Smith…

Stop.

“the future is the past, the past is the

future, it all gives me a headache”88
July 4, 2029, 7:04 AM
She gets up a little less refreshed than normal, Mrs Smith. It’s still early and
last night was later than she had planned. First such a long day in Bongo
Bongo. And then karaoke singing, which is definitely not her most flattering
talent. Besides, as much as the Japanese have gotten better the past few
years at letting go of daily worries, allowing them to be good at coming
up with new solutions unexpectedly, she still can’t get used to the fact
that it’s important to gulp down a glass of strong alcohol together. Not
that this is physically any problem nowadays, she just thinks deep in her
heart that it is a pity on the taste.

She wasn’t actually planning on getting up so early, but a man who was
also at the Chances Bar Network last night, and who she met there for
the first time, knocked on the virtual door from New York. She considered
switching off the visuals because she hadn’t gone through her morning
rituals yet, but no, she felt visual contact was too important for that. So,
with a “hold on, I’ll get back to you in five”, she rushed into the shape-up
cell.

What happened again? In between the karaoke sessions she had been
having a good conversation with Mr Kurosawa about his new method of
land fill mining, by which a treasure of rare heavy metals was just waiting
to be picked, when she was approached by the stranger. Naturally, she
introduced herself; she liked wearing her personality wristband. The man
introduced himself as a neurobiologist and had apparently participated in
various global research projects initiated by TT. During a previous project,
in which he had developed energizing herbs and spices together with an
 Tomorrow 139

Internet retail-host and a few other researchers, he became interested 89. As we all know, bananas are known for

in the eating habits of primates. He was curious how long one’s food their quick sugar boost.

demonstrably contributed to one’s feeling of happiness and before Mrs

Smith knew it, they were enthralled in an interesting conversation.

“Hi Greg, loved our conversation, a few hours back. You inspired me
and afterwards, I thought about the possibility of linking our “going ape”
experience to a cooking clinic. Perhaps there are some possibilities on
a short term. Why don’t you physically come around to our purple room
in Dublin in a couple of days? I could also use a change of pace as I’ve
been at home for several weeks. I’d love to meet you in reality and have
a look at what our opportunities are to collaborate. And I’ll take the liberty
of asking you out for a shepherd stew in my favorite pub. You just wait ‘n
see how happy that’ll make you.”

While Mrs Smith is busy gesticulating and pacing up and down between
the balcony and the living room, Greg is calmly looking the other way,
at the ocean. She sketches the contours of the possibilities of connecting
communities and illustrates this with ideas that have come in from
twittering colleagues. When she finally stops to breathe, he seizes the
moment to admit that he is too tired to react to all of the new plans, but
as soon as he has caught up on his sleep…

Naturally, he, too, has already begun thinking of the facilities they would
need. He had already thought of bringing his senses-set to Dublin. That
way they could set the mood with inspiring colors, scents and sounds. He
still has to check out how much energy his activities during the past few
weeks have added to the World-Wide-E-Web, to see whether his footprint
can handle the trip.

Mrs Smith is not a patient woman and tries again:

“But Greg, otherwise I’ll just e-mail you one of our experimental energy
boosters right away: the Real Banana89. Your micro-wave will turn it into
any dish you want in mere seconds. You’ll see – you won’t need to sleep
anymore and in the evening you’ll be rearing to go in Dublin. No jet lag.
I’ll take care of everything in Dublin and see that you have your transport-
and-stay reservation on your desk in a minute.”

Stop.
 prologue
140

“Go ahead, make my day.”90

90. Who better than Clint Eastwood, as July 4, 2029, 7:04 AM
‘dirty’ Harry Callahan in the movie Sudden You wake up and…
Impact (1983), to challenge you to...
 Join 141

Chapter 8

Join
Gravitate us
It has to start somewhere. Somewhere is the beginning of a new
initiative, a new vision, a purpose. You, manager of today and, more
importantly, navigator of tomorrow can sink your teeth into the first of
our five navigation tools. You are the one who is focusing on initiating
and maintaining gravitation. For this, your most important competence
is imagination. You use it for the future pull that sheds a new light on
today’s reality. You look for opportunities in every corner of your field of
expertise, in the areas where you feel most comfortable, in the direction
of your passion. You can do this in two ways. You can tug and pull, push
and knead, with all your might. This can be very rewarding, especially
in the beginning. There is often an initial result that you can show to
others so that they can understand what you’re up to. It demands well-
developed muscles and perseverance.

However, you can also choose to use the forces that are already in the
field. Compare this to rockets that we send into outer space, that, while
catapulting through space, use the gravitation fields of other heavenly
bodies to accelerate in the right direction; a kind of kung fu with
gravitation. Not working against the force, but using the forces for your
journey, for your goal. It seems to us in many cases to be the sensible
choice. But you need to have developed the technique. You could
compare the difference in approaches to the difference between
building a cathedral and a bazaar.

The cathedral is strong but static and built according to one detailed
drawing. The bazaar is organic, varies from day to day, but stands
for one principle. In his book “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”, Eric S.
Raymond drew this parallel when he compared the way of designing
the operational system of Microsoft with that of Linux. Linux is the
epitome of a system that is continuously in beta status. It is never finished.
There are always bugs. But because everyone is allowed to be involved,
a lot of problems are very quickly discovered. It is the kung fu flexibility of
open innovation that makes Linux the favorite software for most servers
in the world. Microsoft keeps building a new cathedral, like Microsoft
Vista, meant to appear on the market totally problem free. The users,
however, know that they will never actually succeed. So, it was big news
 prologue
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91. This dialogue in Kung Fu, The Legend when Microsoft decided in July 2009 to release important source codes
Continues, illustrates that the importance of their own system on the market so that others can freely develop new
of the beta status is recognized in various software with these codes. The bazaar moves into the cathedral.
cultures…

Kwai Chang Caine: “Change is not only desirable, it is necessary.”

Peter Caine: “Confucius?”
Kwai Chang Caine: “Frank Zappa.”91

We haven’t said it in so many words but there is a catch when it comes

to gravitational forces. When elements attract each other, they are
drawn towards each other. The closer they get, the bigger the force and
the faster the motion is. It more or less ends at the moment they reach
each other. This makes for a static – catastrophic - end result. The core
that then develops subsequently grows, with new elements, into a new
heavy core until the moment when the mass is so big that it implodes
and changes into a black hole. We don’t like the looks of this gloomy
picture. It looks too much like the way we view huge organizations
of today. That is why sensible navigating, using gravitational forces,
calls for continual near-misses. It calls for every nearing element to
not head directly towards each others’ paths but to shave past each
other, in smooth curves. In our eyes, this fits in better with the human
nature of people looking for transformation, for a realization of their
inner objectives. You cannot and will not accept that you’ve definitely
reached the final destination. Every result is also the starting point for a
new search.

Before we move on to the second tool, it is important to note that

an important element of the description of all five navigation tools is
the addition of us. The manager sees himself, by nature, as the one
who controls the strategic dashboard. Many theories over the past
decades have added new buttons to this dashboard. You could also
see the five tools presented in this final chapter as new buttons. But a
dashboard with these new buttons can no longer be controlled by the
manager alone. In the word us lies the shared responsibility with those
who are close to the same point of gravitation. So, a good navigator
keeps his eyes open for input from others in the cluster and asks himself
continuously, how this input can be beneficial to those gravitational
forces. And on the other hand, the navigator cannot place himself
outside of the gravitational picture. You are part of the motion around
 Join 143

the core. You are part of the DNA. The course and the interaction
exert an influence on you as well. A good manager, sorry, navigator, is
sooner aware of gravitation than he is the controller of navigation. And
with that we also refer to the forces that are exerted by other points of
gravitation. Because as we established earlier, all of us together make
up a value network where courses and goals influence each other.

Join us
It could be that coming generations, if we may call them so, will look
back on this time as a heroic period. They will probably see us as a
group of people who, in the midst of accelerating developments
in technology, have experienced many advantages of these
developments but also many disadvantages. Never before was
technology so visible, so obviously present in our lives. And never before
have people adjusted so quickly to such rapid changes. They’ve had
to. If you look at developments that are likely to follow, technology will
become less and less visible, and the advantages will mainly be present
in the background of our lives, while many disadvantages will disappear.
In other words, the tech-pioneers of today are living in the transition
between the periods of low-tech and high-tech. The users of tomorrow
will hardly be able to imagine a problem such as RSI.

The impact of developments in

technology
Low-tech Tech-pioneering High-tech
max

Advantages

Disadvantages 0
2009 Time
 prologue
144
92. We used to call these joint-ventures,
mergers or takeovers, and do you remem-
ber how many problems they caused us?
And when this technology again offers us the opportunity to show our
human nature, the natural way of collaborating will automatically
become dominant again. In building up his software company,
BSO-Origin, CEO Echart Wintzen soon saw that a group of more than
forty people lost their social cohesion. Subgroups grew. Based on
this observation he developed his famous cell division theory and
introduced the rule that as soon as the company had forty people on
staff, it had to prepare to split up. Before there were fifty employees in
the company, they had to split up in two subgroups, where at least one
of the two groups had to establish itself in a place that would guarantee
enough new customers. Obviously, this concept has consequences
for the structure of the organization. During the growth to forty, you
need to make sure that all important positions are filled by at least
two people. The advantage of this side-effect was that even before
the group split, the flexibility and the strength of the organization was
bigger. This philosophy has worked well for BSO-Origin, and more and
more organizations are looking into this form of growth. Mainly, we see
the logic that Rolf Jensen has also already noted. In the future we will
once again act more tribe-like, working together for clear projects, with
shared goals and starting points. The forms of collaboration will be totally
different, not the feeling of connection.
The input for this connection, for the joining of forces, will come from a
shared image. Inspired by everything that the point of gravitation stands
for, the participants in the force field will be mainly co-imaginators;
people who join in and enhance the picture. For the participants, this
is where the primary reward is. Only at a later stage will any kind of a
salary, or whatever it is that develops in the future, be of interest. This is
why joining will be based more (openly) on systems of friendship than is
the case today. This is why it will be important for navigators to develop
and use their empathetic qualities. Sincere interest in the motivation of
co-imaginators will play an important role in the gravitational force of
the new organization.
Joining is of importance at a primary level, but also at higher levels.
A point of gravitation is always in motion, grows or shrinks and travels
forward on its course, always in relation to other points of gravitation that
participate in the force field of value networks. The choice to follow the
same course together for a period of time92 or to get together in a spin
 Join 145

around a ‘virtual point of gravitation’, for the sake of a specific project,

depends a great deal on your navigational choices. And, naturally, on
the inspiration that you and your co-imaginators show with regard to
new opportunities for the future that such a meeting offers. Joining at a
higher level also has to do with the entwining of what we now still call
private and professional activities. Like the silent withdrawal of the time
clock made many blue collar workers more efficient, since the conveyer
belt disappeared earlier, so will no one in the future have to account for
private matters that they deal with during working hours.

Joining forces always has a temporary character. This could be a longer

period of time, if you are working together close to the core of the
point of gravitation. It could be shorter, if your expertise is needed in
a particular project. It could be of a repetitive nature, if you regularly
come by for projects that occur more often. And in specific situations,
joining forces could also be something very brief. In fact, already
today, virtual collaboration is more and more a daily practice. As a
student, what do you do if you come up against the limitations of your
Excel program, so that you can’t connect several parts of interviews
in a structured manner? You post your question on a suitable Internet
forum and calmly continue your work. You assume that somewhere in
the world there is a specialist that will give you the solution. And sure
enough, within a couple of hours you receive a few lines of software
that add an extra function to your Excel program. A brief moment of
collaboration that offers something for both parties: The student can go
further with his data; the programmer who came up with the solution
got an interesting question. Imagine an extended version of this and
you see web 2.0 in all its efficiency. If you buy a modern navigating tool
today, for instance a TomTom, you not only buy the quality of the routes
programmed into the software, but mainly, you buy the connection to
all the people who keep up with all the changes in the road network
real time via the TomTom community.

And on the other hand, the same brief forms of collaboration present
long term opportunities as well. When a family moved to South-East Asia
for a year, the children lost contact with their friends. Lost and lost…
One of the daughters is now playing an old-fashioned game of Snakes
‘n Ladders via Skype every Saturday morning. One of the players lives in
Italy, the other in Iran. Distance just doesn’t matter.
 prologue
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Ultimately, it will not only be the sincere interest in each other, and the
sharing of a common picture and goal, which will determine the quality
of the collaboration. For a navigator it is essential to realize that ‘playing
the role of boss’ is not compatible with the verb ‘join’. A navigator acts
as facilitator of the collaboration, gives direction if necessary, but knows
that inspiration is a matter of interaction.

Host us
Hosting, indeed, has to do with hospitality, with the roles of host and
guest. At the same time, as we discussed earlier, there is much more
involved than just pouring coffee, offering a friendly smile and making
sure that the crackling fire doesn’t burn out.

Sometimes hosting is literally hosting. A short while back, we talked to the

founder and president of Igluu. Igluu is an organization that specializes
in offering completely furnished office space to flexible professionals,
mostly small businesses with no employees. As a professional, you can
subscribe to Igluu and can then rent a completely furnished work
space in their office building. Why would you, as a professional, want
to subscribe to something like that? According to Igluu, to increase
your network, to have a sounding board, to get inspired and to meet
colleagues. But, explains the website, mainly because, besides your work
space up in the attic at home, the desk at your customer’s office and
the pub, you need a professional work space. When it suits you and in a
beautiful environment.

The philosophy behind Igluu is a typical expression of the tendencies

that we have described in this book, that we will be seeing in
Wonderland. Tendencies that will not only apply to small businesses with
no employees, but to all organizations, all professionals, all managers.
At the same time, Igluu has given them form in today’s context, with
starting points that we call progressive now but not tomorrow.

Don’t get us wrong; we admire and appreciate Igluu, and the people
behind the concept. It is clever and it is necessary. But Hosting in
Wonderland goes much, much deeper. As we pointed out earlier,
 Join 147

fixed roles will be out of the question; sometimes you will be the host,
sometimes the guest. Hospitality by means of meaningful dialogues
and identity refreshment goes further than guaranteeing a nice place
to work in, a range of facilities and the possibility to brainstorm in a
dedicated relaxation area. Hosting will not be determined by the
furnishings in the building, or by the facilities at a certain location.
Hosting is a two-way street; it is interpreting what we continually have
denoted as everything being connected with everything, everyone with
everyone. Hosting has to do with being prepared to let the DNA of your
point of gravitation be of service to your companions, just like theirs will
be to you.

Moreover, hosting is not only a two-way street; it is mutual, it is a spiral,

in itself a strengthening phenomenon. What do we mean by this?
Sometimes you are host, sometimes you are guest, so much is clear.
But in your role as guest, you are co-responsible for the way in which
your host interprets his role. You give him the chance, the space, the
energy, the inspiration to interpret this role in such a way that the DNA,
the course, the performance of the point of gravitation, that both of
you are giving form to, will develop, be polished and perfected. Host us
is a logical subsequent step to Join us, the further interpretation of the
collaboration. Hosting, joining and gravitating compliment each other;
they are navigation tools that reinforce each other. Hospitality and
imagination are the starting points that you need to interpret in a clever
way.

Tag us
OK. You’ve just picked up your luggage from the carousel after getting
off your international flight. The other four hundred passengers have
done the same. You are just as surprised every time at how many
suitcases look alike. Luckily, you’ve tied a bright red label with your
name and address on to yours. It gives you a secure feeling knowing
that if your bag gets put on the wrong plane, you can still be pretty
sure that it will find its way back to you in the end. Moreover, the red
nametag stands out very well among everyone else’s bags on the
carousel. Most of the other passengers have taken the same measure.
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93. Radio Frequency Identification.
One has put a sticker of his vacation destination on his suitcase; another
has fastened a colorful belt around his. All variations of the phenomenon
tagging. And on top of all that, there is the temporary, logistical tag
with a barcode that the airline company has stuck on. A barcode
representing a brief link to you, whose function ends as soon as you
have received your luggage.

“How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders?
The man can’t even trust his own pants.” Anti-hero Frank speaks these
famous words just before he does away with the umpteenth bandit
in the movie “Once Upon a Time in the West”. If it were only about
pants, we could agree with Frank. If we deduct this reasoning for tags,
the opposite applies. The more the better. Well, in any case, it is often
difficult to map a website, an article or a person using only one label.
Tagging is the method today and of the future, using short efficient key
phrases, to be able to find something. Internet is possible only due to the
use of hyperlinks. Jumping from one site to the next, within a site from
one location to another; it’s only possible because we are guided by
tags. Take Google. You won’t encounter a single site via Google if the
search phrase doesn’t coincide with the tags on the site.

Tagging is the act of translating the content, the story, to key phrases
that you can remember and retrace, which is why tagging people is
possible as well. Most of us do it on a daily basis. Are you on Facebook,
Hyves, Linkedin or one of the other network sites? Have you recently
added a new picture of yourself, or your new job, the last book you’ve
read, or an exciting event that you’ve just experienced? That is tagging.
You tied new labels on to your profile, your identity on Internet.

That’s what makes tagging people something dynamic. Just like your
identity changes, grows, transforms, so will some tags become aged
and new tags will be needed; needed on the Internet, in order to be
able to find you there, and to be able to assess who you are. But also
necessary in other circumstances. At some airports, if you want to go
through customs quickly, you can register by means of an iris-scan. Just
look into the scanner and your identity can be established. Tagging.
You get a visitor’s pass to gain access to the office where your business
partner works. Tagging. Your shopping cart registers via RFID93 what
products you buy and also which route you take and which shelves you
 Join 149

stop at, so that while you’re doing the shopping, you will be shown all
the ads that you’re most likely to be interested in. Tagging. Your friends
know where to find you because you have given them access to the
GPS search system of your cell phone. Tagging.

So, your tags are sometimes defined by yourself but, in many cases,
tags are hung on you by another party. Sometimes because you have
given permission, such as for all the different loyalty cards that you use
to pay with. Sometimes, without you consciously knowing about it, as
when websites stick cookies to your computer system. In this way, a
whole collection of characteristics grows around you that, put together,
tell quite a lot about you. If these tags together form a coherent whole,
then one can say that the description of the person being tagged is
reliable. Some tags are more closely related to the main important
characteristics of a person than others. Tag clouds are sometimes used
to prioritize tags that refer to a specific article or data base. The tags
that appear most frequently or that represent higher value are shown
bigger in a cloud of tags. It goes without saying that this is also an option
in self-created profiles on Facebook or Linkedin, or in files that you keep
about others via advanced CRM systems.

Sure, the discussion about sensitive information and privacy lies in wait.
Many new employees have seen their careers curbed because of not-
very-flattering information that they themselves published on the Internet
once upon a time. And even if tags get put on you that are not correct,
or contain information that you prefer not to hang out on your wash
line… in these times of transparency you have little to say in the matter,
other than to make sure that your other tags get priority. For inspiration,
do watch the movie “Enemy of the State”, where Will Smith and Gene
Hackman struggle with the problem of shaking off their tags before
contracted agents hunt them down.

Tagging as profiling. Tagging to back your identity. Due to the

developments in technology we will go much further. And this
will involve the risks described above, but of course also excellent
opportunities. How will you find your way in the complex network of
points of gravitation in a couple of years? There is a good chance that
the successors of LinkedIn, Facebook, Amazon and Google will supply
tagging-profiles that will be of great help to us in navigating in our new
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environment. Your tags will help you to connect to points of gravitation,

will give you input for interactive software programs. Programs that serve
you like personal agents, who will plan your diary and activities and will
be able to create links with other tag-fed agents, with a ‘click’ that is
obvious, even if the tagged person is on the other side of the world. This
is why tagging is one of the navigation tools that will help you to defy the
increasing complexity of the world around you. Moreover, via tagging
we will find out more about ourselves and each other, and identity
refreshment will be the next dimension. No hosting, joining or gravitating
without tagging. And you, as navigator, will, of course, help your co-
imaginators in their transformations by regularly updating their tag cloud
together.

Energize us
Energy. Nice word, isn’t it? Nice image. Motion, force fields, attracting
and repelling, joining forces and the separation of ways, hauling in the
line and throwing out new ones. Essential for Wonderland, for operating
successfully in the fluid that we have sketched in this book. At the same
time, we shouldn’t get the wrong idea. The kind of energy we are talking
about is not the kind you can find in power stations. It is not the petrol in
our cars, or whatever we are driving in 20 years time. It is not the energy
that factories run on, that trains run on or lamps burn on. Wonderland
is people’s work. Points of gravitation consist of people, are shaped by
people, are given content and meaning by people. By you and your
companions, by the manager and the professionals. Energize us is about
the kind of energy that enables you and your professionals to operate
successfully, to perform to the best of your abilities.

Perform to the best of your abilities - again such an interesting

phenomenon. But what is it? It has to do with doing things, getting things
done, being successful. People, who perform to the best of their abilities,
demonstrate a certain behavior, behavior that leads to results, to the
best results. Thus, we are talking about the behavior of you and your
professionals that will bring your organization, your point of gravitation,
and the people who give form to that point of gravitation closer to an
alluring picture of the future, closer to fulfilling a specific purpose. We
 Join 151

are talking about specific behavior that provides you, your companions,
your point of gravitation, once again, with the energy needed to stay on
course, to fulfil the purpose.

What determines whether someone demonstrates specific behavior?

What are the deciding factors of specific behavior? Psychologists have
written bookshelves full about this. Many theories and models have been
developed, adapted, designed and rediscovered. Behavior - it seems
like something complicated…

Yet there are points of departure, common denominators that we can

recognize, logic that we can apply. Ultimately, we see in our daily lives,
in people’s behavior - or rather especially in the lack of certain behavior
in certain people - several factors that evidently play an important role.

One of these is, without a doubt, motivation, wanting something, seeing

something as worth striving for, as alluring, as meaningful. We show
specific behavior only if it leads to a result that we want, that we can
appreciate, to which we feel attracted. No matter how unattractive or
strange the result may be to others, for us it is evidently what we want.
Something that gives us a good feeling. Something that gives us energy.
Something that challenges us at the moment that we need a challenge.
A thirst-quencher after a day in the desert. An inspiration in - in terms of
creativity - barren times.

And here it all comes together. Within the context of Wonderland,

you are the manager that gravitates professionals, who offers them a
purpose, a vision. And they, you. And you are also willing to go along
with the ideals, the wishes, the dreams of your professionals. You join
them in their point of gravitation, on their path in life. You advise them
and assist them, offer them help and guidance, you are their host. You
pour the coffee, organize office space and a built-in BMW cabriolet,
you give them access to your expertise. You give them the tools and
possibilities to seek and to find, to excel in the fluid. And they do the
same for you. It’s the Burning Man project, the Dutch superyacht
industry, and the Igluu concept combined, catalyzed by your ability to
deploy hospitality and imagination, allowing your point of gravitation
to succeed in Wonderland. You energize them, they energize you, we
energize us.
 prologue
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That’s it really. Just one last quote, and who better than Alice to have
the final say:

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing

would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And
contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would.
You see?”
 153

Index
A Cloud of tags 149
AIG 35 Club of Rome 57
Alessi 107 Cluster approach 124
Alice 32, 80, 110, 152 Co-creation 27, 39, 56, 66, 70, 73, 75, 109
Alliances 30 Co-imaginator 5, 109, 127
Altruism 87 Co-imaginators 5, 122, 125, 126, 127, 144, 145, 150
Amabile 110, 157 Co-imagine 99, 108, 123
Collaboration 62, 145
B Collins 66, 157
Baby Boomers 54 Combi-brand 28
Bazaar 141 Commitment 86
Bear market 37 Community 41, 71, 145
Beertender 27 Competitor 24, 25, 69, 70, 81
Behavior 98, 151 Co-navigator 125
Beta status 99, 141 Confidence 34
Better Together 77 Conley 94, 127
Biggest telescope 75 Co-operation 27
Black hole 122, 142 Co-production 26
Blue Ocean 70, 157 Co-productions 30, 128
Bohemian Index 105 Core values 61, 74
Boss 27, 28, 84, 98, 102, 117, 126, 146 Cosmo-pro 84
Boundaries 26 Course 120
Brainstorming 127 Creativity 62, 105, 110
Bretton Woods 38 Cruise 14, 15, 55
Brundtland 47, 157 Csíkszentmihályi 110
Bull market 37
Burger King 63 D
Burning Man 112, 151 Damn 15, 104, 111, 121, 122, 129
Bush 48, 100 Dashboard 142
Bush Sr. 33 De Bono 112
Déjà vu 102, 109
C Demand 82
Canton 50, 157 Deming cycle 68
Carroll 32 Dissatisfiers 89, 90
Cathedral 141 DNA 60, 71, 108, 120, 143
Cell division theory 144 Double bagger 91, 93
Chaos theory 37
Chesbrough 72, 157 E
Choice Architecture 38 eBay 34
Christensen 73, 157 ECONOMY 32
Cleese 112 Employee 70
Clinton 33, 111 Energize 150
 index
154

Escher 101 Human capital 62

Eureka vu 109
Expectation 68 I
Experience 39, 58, 64, 66, 92, 135 iDeal 34
Identity 148
F Identity refreshment 94, 126, 127, 147, 150
Factor of production 26, 82 Igluu 146, 151
Fiasco 107 Imagination 62, 66, 83, 99, 116, 141, 147
Financial Crisis 33, 36 Ind 8, 60, 61, 72, 157
Florida 105, 157 Intangible aspects 88
Followers 89, 108, 109, 125 Intellectual Property 72
Footprint Equivalents 14 Interaction 66, 68, 73 , 146
Ford 89 International Monetary Fund 36
Fortis Bank 34 IPCC 43
Fulfilment 6, 7 IPhone 89
Future 50, 100 Ito 39, 40, 41
Future Pull 101, 117
J
G Jensen 62, 63, 64, 71, 144, 157
Gay Index 105 Job hopping 25, 84, 98
Gekko 76 Join 143
Generation 26, 54, 56, 107 Joining force 76
Generation X 53 Joining forces 145, 150
Generation Y 53 Joint ventures 30
Gilmore 39, 64, 65, 67, 157
Gore 42, 45, 47, 157 K
Gosh 104, 111, 121, 122, 129 Kelley 102
Governance 21 Kim 70, 157
Gravitate 81, 141 Knowledge workers 63
Gravitation 74, 123, 129 Kung fu 141
Gravity 119
Gray 38 L
Groundhog Day 133 Larry King Show 35
Guest 86, 87, 96 Laszlo 57, 58, 59, 128
Leadbeater 40, 41, 72, 157
H Lego 69, 72, 75
Hans Brinker Budget Hotel 95 Life time employment 25, 84
Happiness 6, 26, 68, 139 Lodging 88
Hierarchy 25, 119 Loyalty 90
Horx 50, 157
Hospitality 83, 86, 87, 96, 116, 147 M
Host 85, 86, 87, 96, 146 Madoff 37, 38
Hueting 36 Magritte 101
 155

Malone 48, 157 Point of gravitation 74, 119, 120, 126, 134
Manufacturing environment 63 Porras 66, 157
Maps 115 Porter 73, 158
Martini principle 83, 85 Prahalad 39, 70, 73, 158
Maslow 26, 31, 67, 69, 82, 84, 125 Pricing 65
Mauborgne 70, 157 Private and professional values 121
MAYA principle 106 Process manager 122
McLuhan 68, 157 Professional 84
Meaning 109, 110 Professional and private life 25
Meaningful 64, 66, 147, 151 Professionals 82, 126, 151
Meaningful dialogue 91, 127 Purpose 66, 118, 129, 141, 151
Meaningfulness 137
Memory 64 Q
Quality manager 122
N
Nash 14, 36, 41 R
Navigate 81, 114 Ramaswamy 39, 70, 158
Navigation 75, 116 , 123 Raymond 106, 141, 158
Navigation tools 141 Reciprocity 40, 84
Navigator 116, 133, 143 Relationship 89, 96
Newton 74 Reward 34, 144
Nike 61 Rijkenberg 108, 158
Role of a manager 17
O Role of knowledge 49
Obama 32, 33, 34, 35, 57, 58, 59, 77, 128, 157 Rules and regulations 111
Ockels-Mill 47
Oops principle 106, 122 S
Open innovation 72 Sachs 33, 37, 158
Organization 61, 81, 144 Senseo 27
Organizing principle 119, 128 Serendipity 103, 108, 112, 121, 123, 124
Outsourcing 29, 30 Service Economy 64
Service with a smile 88
P Share Economy 39, 40, 41, 158
Paradigm shift 104 Shipbuilding industry 123
Past Push 101, 117, 118 Social capital 77
PayPal 34 Social Dilemma 39, 44
Penicillin 103 Solidarity 58
PEOPLE 53 Sony Ericsson 27, 90
Perfect Draft 27 Stagflation 40
Piët 68, 157 Stakeholders 76
Pine 39, 64, 65, 67, 157 State of mind 112
Pink 111 Stick to your core business 29
Plane crashes 114 Story 148
 index
156

Sunstein 38, 158 Wikipedia 46, 49

Supply 82 Wonderland 16, 80, 96, 127, 150
SUSTAINABILITY 41 Working environment 18, 84, 128

T Y
Tag 147 YouTube 15
Tagging 148
Tangible aspects 88
Technocolomy 48, 54
TECHNOLOGY 48
Tetris 104, 137
Thaler 38, 158
Tinbergen 36
Toffler 68, 158
Tolerance 105, 106
Total Recall 64
Transaction 73
Transformation 58, 67, 68, 73, 134
Transparency 60, 149
Tribal society 63
Trump 35
Trust 34
Twitter 53

U
Us 142, 143, 146, 147, 150

V
Value 33, 73
Value networks 39, 74
Value system 88
Van Gogh Syndrome 105
Virgin Earth Challenge 46
Virtual point of gravitation 145
Vision 118
Vujà dé 103, 104, 108, 112, 121

W
Watson 49, 50, 158
Web 2.0 48, 145
Weggeman 82, 84, 125, 158
Weitzman 40, 41, 158
Wells 15
 157

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Amabile, Teresa M. (1996). Creativity In Context: Update To The Social
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Brundtland Commission (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford University
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Canton, James (2006). The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will
Reshape the World in the Next 20 Years. Dutton Adult.
Chesbrough, Henry William (2003). Open Innovation: The New Imperative
for Creating and Profiting from Technology. Harvard Business
Press. 
Christensen, Clayton M. (2003). The Innovator’s Dilemma: The
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