This session will describe why conventional management models are ill-equipped to meet the unprecedented challenges of a radically different business world. It will acquaint participants with a new organizational paradigm — the self-managed peer-to-peer network — where leadership and decision-making are exercised by teams rather than individuals, and will spotlight organizations using collective intelligence and shared power to navigate business environments transformed by increasing change and escalating complexity.

Nobody Is Smarter Than Everybody is for leaders who are open to learning about the extraordinary advantages that self-managed networks provide through better and faster problem solving, more effective and efficient work processes, and consistent customer satisfaction and profitability.

About the Speaker:
Rod Collins is an author, keynote speaker, and leadership coach. He is a leading expert and thought leader on the future of business transformation. Rod’s books, blogs, and speeches inspire through their use of storytelling and leading-edge ideas. During his tenure as Chief Operating Executive, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal Employee Program experienced its greatest five-year growth period in the company’s 60-year history. An award-winning author, Rod’s books include Wiki Management, which highlights the innovative tools and practices of a revolutionary new management model, and Leadership in a Wiki World, which illustrates how leaders can leverage the power of collective intelligence to sustain extraordinary performance in rapidly changing markets. His latest book, Nobody Is Smarter Than Everybody spotlights three companies who grew from starts-ups to market leaders by building organizations where no one is a boss and everyone is a leader.

Discover how the Internet of Things and Blockchain technology will produce new capabilities for improving the quality of life by expanding social collaboration, preventing illness and accidents, spawning new business and product models, generating new ways to create and distribute wealth, and ending the threats of hacking and fraud.

About the Speaker:

Rod Collins is the Director of Innovation at Optimity Advisors, a global strategy consulting firm, and the Innovation Curator at Salt Flats, a unique innovation ecosystem for creating growth in a rapidly changing world. Rod is a leading expert on the future of business and a regular blog contributor to Management-Issues.com. He is also the author of Wiki Management: A Revolutionary New Model for a Rapidly Changing and Collaborative World, which highlights the innovative tools and practices used by a new breed of business leaders to sustain extraordinary performance in a world reshaped by digital disruption.

More About Rod Collins By Nancy Van Schooenderwoert

A few years ago, we hosted Rod Collins as part of ANE’s program “Agile for Executives”.  We were mesmerized by his compelling description of why business can no longer use the past as predictor of the future – not even in the short term!  His book “Wiki Management” (which is about nimble management, not wiki websites) goes into depth on this.

Rod delved into why hierarchical business decision structures are now obsolete, and how their slowness led to a number of business failures.  He then described an alternative – a consensus group called a “Work-Thru”.  It taps the knowledge of a large group and enables them to step through a decision process together in real time.

As Chief exec of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal Employees Program, Rod had to build consensus decisions across many independent business entities within BCBS.  There were often complex issues such as what insurance model to use, and it was important for all the parties to find a durable common ground.

As part of our “Agile for Executives” format, Rod took our group of over 70 people through the steps of a Work-Thru and had them come up with a decision that all could support.  The steps are described in detail in his book.  I mention it here as just one small example of how Agile at the exec level is different from at the delivery team level.  As Agile moves into more areas of business,  new practices like this will be needed so that Agile principles such as transparency and autonomy are served at the exec levels.

Organizations that need to address new situations like those posed by blockchain, IoT, and more will not have the maneuverability they need unless they have a foundation of well-functioning, Agile practices at all levels.  Rod is someone who has built those foundations and understands the new capabilities they give to a business.

Nancy V. is a co-founder and past president of ANE.  She heads the Agile for Executives program.

Designing organizations to succeed in a time of great change demands a new and very different model—Wiki Management. Discover a revolutionary new business world where leaders are catalysts and facilitators rather than bosses, workers are highly engaged in shaping strategic thinking and operational practices, and business processes are designed around what’s most important to customers. Learn how a new breed of innovative business leaders have completely overhauled the ways we build organizations and why, despite being hidden in plain sight, the future of management has already arrived!

About the speaker:

Rod Collins is the Director of Innovation at Optimity Advisors, a national management consulting firm. Rod is leading expert on the next generation of business management. He works with forward thinking business leaders who understand that managing great change means changing how we manage. Rod is the former Chief Operating Executive of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal Employee Program, one of the nation’s largest and most successful business alliances, which today has over $30 billion in annual revenues. Under his leadership, the business experienced its greatest five-year growth period in its 50-plus year history, as year after year, it set new records for operational and financial performance.

Rod is also the author of Wiki Management: A Revolutionary New Model for a Rapidly Changing and Collaborative World (AMACOM Books, 2014). His previous book, Leadership in a Wiki World: Leveraging Collective Knowledge to Make the Leap to Extraordinary Performance, won the 2011 EVVY book award for Business/Finance.