The Geek Way of innovating and scaling up with structured standardisation

I started 2024 transitioning from a job in a technology company to my current role in cod farming and food production. A key question I've grappled with is: Can we unite the agile leadership philosophy of successful tech companies with "military precision" in a structured value chain, where standardized processes are crucial? ?

The answer? YES! Contrary to the belief that agile methods are chaotic and devoid of structure, the recipe for success for any company – not only tech companies – is a combination of agile innovation and scaling up through standardization and structure.

First of all, thanks to my previous boss Johan Ron?s (above image) at the tech company Norsk helsenett who introduced me to John McAfee’s The Geek Way, providing guidance and discussions during and following my tenure at Norsk helsenett. After he read the book, he instructed us in the top management team to read it within two weeks. Because in his words, “it sums up our strategy and the culture we are trying to build better than I ever could.”

He later made it mandatory reading for all managers. Rightly so, as the book is full of research, insights, and practical tips that make it essential reading for leaders, equipping them to harness the superpowers of learning and collaboration.

Our superpower is cooperation and learning

As stated on the back cover:

“The Geek Way taps into humanity’s superpower, which is our ability to cooperate intensely and learn rapidly. McAfee shows that, when we come together under the right conditions, we quickly figure how to build reusable spaceships and self-correcting organizations: Under the wrong conditions, we create bureaucracy, chronic delays, cultures of silence and other classic dysfunctions of the Industrial Era.”

Being “geeky” is simply about being curious—– one who’s not afraid to tackle hard problems and embrace solutions that drive us forward, based on four core norms: science, ownership, speed, and openness.

Before summarizing these norms, let’s explore some key points and definitions.

Homo Ultrasocialis vs. Homo Sapiens

McAfee argues that what makes humans uniquely successful is our ability to cooperate, learn from one another, and rapidly develop our cultures.

Our intelligence alone cannot ensure survival (sapiens = wise); rather, it is our social groups that provide the necessary knowledge and skills.

Thus, humanity’s superpower lies at the group level, hence ultrasocialis.

Why we work

At the core is a belief that we spend a third of our time in life at work not only for the paycheck.

We want to feel part of a community, have a sense of purpose, to learn and teach, gain status and be part of a winning team.

Definitions of two key terms: Execution and Agility

• Execution: The extent to which employees are empowered to act, have the resources they need, adhere to process discipline and are held accountable for results.
• Agility: The ability to respond quickly and effectively to changes in the marketplace and seize opportunities.

The Essence of the Four Norms

1. Science

The ground rule: Conduct evidence-based arguments so that the group makes better decisions and predictions, and estimates.

• Conducting experiments, generating data, and debating how to interpret evidence.
• You win arguments based on evidence, not seniority, charisma, past performance or rhetoric.
• Business geeks must watch out as they argue, because they can fail to create cultures with high levels of psychological safety.

Why this emphasis on evidence-based arguments?

MacFee argues that as humans we are chronically overconfident and subject to confirmation bias.

Evolution has equipped us with a “mental press secretary” that constantly generates a favorable self-image so that we are perceived favorably by others.

As such, we are bad at evaluating our own ideas but excellent at evaluating ideas of others.

2. Ownership

The Ground rule: To reduce bureaucracy and take away opportunities to gain status that aren’t aligned with the goals and values of the company.

• Compared to industrial era companies, geek companies have higher levels of autonomy, empowerment and responsibility, fewer cross-functional processes and less coordination.
• Establishing a norm of ownership is about defining a clear and sole responsibility for an agreed-upon goal.
• To ensure that teams remain aligned with the company’s overall goals, geek companies rely on a bureaucracy that’s powerful yet tightly constrained. Its job is to oversee the work of translating the company’s high-level vision and strategy into team-level objectives and key results.

3. Speed

The Ground Rule: To accelerate learning and progress, plan less and iterate more; organize projects round short cycles in which participants show their work, have access to peers and models, deliver to customers (internal or external), and get feedback.

• A preference for achieving results by iterating rapidly instead of planning extensively.
• Not speed in terms of how fast you move but rather speed in the steps and iterations you take.
• Speed is about how quickly a team can build something and get it in front of a customer (broadly speaking, a customer can be internal, for us it is often our fish ??) or otherwise “test it in real-world conditions, get feedback and fold the feedback into the next version.”
• Observability is key!

4. Openness

The ground rule: Welcome challenges to the status quo and increase common knowledge to combat defensiveness and undiscussable topics.

• It’s all about sharing information and being receptive to arguments, reevalutions, and changes in direction.
• Avoid a culture of striving to win over others, minimize losing and suppressing negative feelings because this is corrosive and creates a culture of defensiveness and undiscussability.
• Successful geeks understand that winning requires experimentation and risk-taking, knowing not all bets will succeed.
• Common knowledge (an extreme form of information sharing) is the organizational truth serum.
• Openness is self-correction mechanism.?

Classic trade-offs all companies face

Contrary to the belief that agile methods are chaotic and devoid of structure, McAfee shows how to strike a balance.

All companies face fundamental trade-offs:

• Autonomy vs. established structure and standardized processes
• Faith in data vs. intuition
• Speed vs. methodical approaches
• Embracing disagreement vs. valuing consensus
• Flat vs. hierarchical structures

As McAfee notes, each of these is like a dial; we must determine the right configuration for our circumstances and organization. This is precisely what we are doing at Norcod.

Norcod - a pioneer in a new phase

As the pioneer in cod farming, Norcod has innovated since its inception in 2019, cracking the code of industrial-scale cod farming. While this is a significant achievement, we are not yet where we want to be. We have some crucial steps ahead of us.

Firstly, we are not yet commercially sustainable, and we are now working towards profitability in the commercialization phase.

To address this, we are intensifying our efforts in market development, sales, branding, marketing, product use and business development. Basically, it’s all about getting the premium positioning right through a commercial game plan, developed based on The Geek Way principles.

On the production side, the story is slightly different. Yes, absolutely, The Geek Way of harnessing humanity’s superpowers of learning and cooperation is at the core, as is the focus on data and science.

What is the data on our fish and experience we have gained the last five years telling us? It’s all about utilizing and leveraging our collective intelligence and coming up with a game plan to optimize our production and do the groundwork ahead of the scale-up phase.

Developing our Sweet Spot Production Game Plan is all about finding the optimal conditions and set-up for our fish where we take into account all factors, ranging from when to put our juveniles in the sea, how long should the sea phase be, temperature development during the year, managing potential deceases, optimizing feeding regimes, optimizing harvesting plans, achieving optimal fish growth, controlling the fish’s sexual maturation, managing our zero-escape vision, improving fish health and mortality, managing and maintaining equipment, and so on. ??

With the Sweet Spot Production Game Plan in place, we need to turn the dial towards structure, with standardized and clearly communicated processes and goals, working methodologically towards precision farming with military discipline and precision.

At the same time, we need to be open to adapting and learning as we go, because fish biology and food production is never straight forward. Curv balls will come our way, rest assured.

The recipe summarized

The recipe summarized for any company is as such quite simple, yet so hard to execute:

1. Innovate through agile methodology: iterate quickly, test, learn, then do this again in several loops.
2. Scale up solutions through standardization with clearly communicated plans, processes and goals coupled with continuous, incremental improvements and corrective measures.
3. Remain agile and responsive and have innovation loops “on the side” (see 1??) that can be incorporated in the scale up solution (see 2??).

If you want to learn more about this, read the book and check out the tech/logistics company Amazon, one of the best examples of how this has been done successfully, The Geek Way.