Friday, September 30, 2011

The Prime Cell






The Prime Cell: An Introduction, Analysis and its Effects on a High Performance Organization
By
Galen Radtke
The Evergreen State College
Copyright 2011 Galen Radtke
Introduction
This paper is about a group activity called the Prime Cell that harnesses the power of collective intelligence.  We will define and explain what the Prime Cell is and how it works.  We will present a real life experiment of the prime cell in a classroom situation. We will point out the current limitations of medium to large sized organizations and how the Prime Cell could improve performance in these organizations.
In order to do this, the first thing we need to do is describe what we believe high performance to be. After establishing what constitutes high performance, we will go into presenting the concept of the Prime Cell.

What is High Performance?
When approached from a quantitative based perspective “high performance” means high productivity, high quality work, and high output for the least amount of money and time. This is basically a very input/output oriented or mathematical way of looking at it. Its weakness is that it is lacking in the human element that is fundamental to any organization. Therefore while the term “high performance,” has a quantitative aspect to it, it must also have a qualitative aspect to it as well. But, a good balance of quality and quantity has to be achieved and maintained.
For example, if an employee does a lot of work but the work is of a poor quality then they are certainly not performing on a high level. Rather they are simply cranking out work to gain a paycheck. If an employee does very little work but the work they do is of a high quality then they would probably be performing on a high level for this individual employee, but most likely this is not good for the business as a whole. So we must ask what are the key elements that drive both quality and quantity as well as what keeps them in an ideal balance. 
We feel that because an organization is made up of people, high performance ultimately relies on an organization’s human or intellectual capital.
“One of the important directions in organizational behavior today is the emphasis on intellectual capital as represented by the sum of total knowledge, expertise, and dedication, of an organizations workforce. It recognizes that even in the age of high technology, people are the indispensible human resources whose knowledge and performance advance the organization’s purpose, mission, and strategies.” (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn 2004, pg 8)
Motivation is critical to making sure an employee is measuring up to their potential. One can have the best trained Harvard graduates in a team but if they are not satisfied with their work, equally important, and able to contribute their creativity; they will not be motivated and will not perform on a high level.
            The factors that influence motivation come from four things. One, the ability of leadership and management to listen to and provide for their subordinates while creating an organizational structure that makes work as hassle free as possible. Two, for all employees to have a unified and clear understanding of their organization’s mission, vision, values, and goals. Three, for all employees to have the opportunity to contribute and have their ideas influence an organization, therefore increasing buy-in. Four, to have clear communication strategies which are the lifeblood of the above.
           








The Prime Cell (A Communication Strategy)
Due to this concept being very complicated initial definitions are needed.
Prime Cell (PC) = a crowd brainstorming process in which every single person participating in it contributes one idea in response to a prompt. This process then puts people into a voting pattern where these ideas are voted for in small groups. Ideas that are not voted for are removed, and then the remaining ideas are put back into this process until only one idea remains. On a large scale, recent technological innovations could be utilized to eliminate problems of location, and needed space.
Cell = a group that is made up of either seven people, or seven groups, that votes for the best of seven ideas.
Cell1 = 7 people that vote as a group.
Cell2 = 7 Cell1 groups arranged into a circle; up to 49 people.
Cell3 = 7 Cell2 groups (which are made up of 7 Cell1 groups each) arranged into a circle; up to 343 people.
Cell4 = 7 Cell3 groups (which are made up of 7 Cell2 groups each) arranged into a circle; up to 2401 people.
Cell5 = 7 Cell4 groups (which are made up of 7 Cell3 groups each) arranged into a circle; up to 16,807 people.
Cell5,6,7,8,9,etc repeats the same pattern.
Base Idea = the idea that every person initially submits at the beginning of the Prime Cell Process.
Continuing Idea = an idea that has won one or more rounds of voting.
Individual Vote = One person’s vote within a Cell1
Cell1 Result = The winning idea chosen by the majority Vote of seven people. For example, in a Cell1 the Base Ideas; A, B, C, D, E, F, and G are presented. If 3 people vote for idea “A” and 4 people vote for idea “F” then idea F wins.  
Group’s Vote = A vote that is the Result of seven Cells voting
Cell2,3,4,5, etc Result = The winning idea chosen by the majority Group Vote of seven Cells. For example, in a Cell2 the Continuing Ideas; F, Three, Blue, Tiger, Triangle, Pasta, and Hair are presented. If 3 Cell1, Group Vote for the idea “F” and 4 Cell1, Group’s Vote for idea “Blue” then idea “Blue” wins.
Final Result = the last Cell Result to be voted for, meaning there is no larger Cell size possible or Continuing Ideas to vote for.

Narrative
Imagine this, there are 2401 people, for example in an organization, that want to find the one idea that the most people can agree on. This could be a new or updated mission statement.
You and everyone else are asked to come up with one idea that you think everyone in the organization should know about. You are put into a Cell1 with six other people. Within your group, everybody tells their Base Ideas to everybody else. When you are all done discussing the ideas each person silently casts an Individual Vote for their favorite idea. The Individual Votes are tallied and the winning idea is a Cell1 Result. So far 343 ideas have been chosen to continue out of 2401.
You are moved into another Cell1 with six different people that is a part of a Cell2. This new Cell1 is given seven Continuing Ideas that are from seven other Cell1 Results. You all discuss these ideas; each person silently casts an Individual Vote for their favorite idea. The Individual Votes are tallied and the winning idea is a Group Vote. The six other Cell1 that are in your Cell2 have just done the same thing with the same seven Continuing Ideas your group just discussed. Each Cell1 has a Group Vote. One Continuing Idea gets more group votes then the others and is selected to be the Cell2 Result. Now, 49 ideas have been chosen to continue out of 2401.
You are moved into another different Cell1 that is ultimately a part of a Cell3. This new Cell1 is given seven Continuing Ideas that are from seven other Cell2 Results. You all discuss these ideas; each person silently casts an Individual Vote for their favorite idea. The Individual Votes are tallied and the winning idea is a Group Vote. The six other Cell1 that are in your Cell2 have just done the same thing with the same seven Continuing Ideas your group just discussed. Each Cell1 has a Group Vote. One Continuing Idea gets more group votes then the others and is selected to be the Cell2 Result. The six other Cell2 that are in your Cell3 have just done the same thing with the same seven Continuing Ideas your group just discussed. Each Cell2 has a Group Vote. One Continuing Idea gets more group votes then the others and is selected to be the Cell3 Result. Now, 7 ideas have been chosen to continue out of 2401.
            You can see if you repeat the same pattern in a Cell4, one idea out of 2401 will be chosen. This process can work with billions of people but it would ultimately take a Cell11 to do it.
More definitions
Cell Progression = After a Cell Result the next size of Cell is determined. For example; if a Cell3 just came to a Result the next Cell size would be a Cell4. Before then all of the Cell3 were isolated from each other. When Cell Progression happens in this example seven Cell3 become a part of a Cell4.
Current Cell = The last cell size to happen from Cell Progression. For example, when Cell Progression happens and all of the Cell3 become part of the Cell4, the Current Cell becomes Cell4.
Voting Cycle = The period of time it takes between Cell Progressions.
Scrambling = Every time there is Cell Progression the overall pattern of the Current Cell stays in place but the location of all of the people is randomized. Therefore it is likely that for all consecutive Voting Cycles, no one person should be in a Cell1 with the same person twice. It is also likely that no one person should deal with the same Continuing Ideas more than twice
Copy Back = Every time there is Cell Progression, seven Continuing Ideas are given to a Current Cell. This means all of the Cell1 within that Current Cell will be voting for the same ideas.
Prime Tie Breaking = Because the number seven is prime it cannot be divided, therefore there are no ties. Of course, because every Current Cell deals with seven ideas, three votes could go to idea A, three votes could go to idea B, and one to idea C, therefore counting as a tie. In this situation, the Cell or person that voted for the untied idea (i.e. idea C) must change their vote to one of the tied ideas (idea A or B). This causes one idea to have a majority of votes and breaks the tie.
Cascade Effect = Copy Back ensures that all Cell1 are voting on the same ideas. When all of the Cell1 have come to their Cell1 Results, even they are a part of a Cell11, the Cell11 Results have ultimately already been determined. This is because seven Cell1 Results count as seven Group Votes towards a Cell2 Result, meaning that Cell2 Result is already determined. Then seven Cell2 Results count as seven Group Votes towards a Cell3 Result meaning that Cell3 Result is already determined. This effect continues until a Cell11 Result has been reached. Because of the Prime Tie Breaking that is inherent to the Prime Cell, the Cascade Effect is possible and makes getting the result of a voting process almost instantaneous, even if over a billion people are involved.
Cell1 Voting Time = The average amount of time it takes for all Cell1 (seven people) to come to a majority vote on seven ideas.




The Class Room Test
Twenty two people including the teacher in a business class were asked to think up and come with any open ended question to use as the Base Ideas in the Prime Cell process, no prompt was given.
Because the number of people was not divisible by 7, three Cell1 of five people instead of seven, and one Cell1 of seven people were used instead. This is of course not preferable as the Cell2 had four Cell1 instead of seven and there was a risk that if it came to a tie, Prime Tie Breaking would not be effective. Fortunately this was not the case, and it was found that the Prime Cell worked effectively to gain a Cell2 result. But, this does illustrate that the Prime Cell is best used with larger groups.
This test only needed two Voting Cycles to reach a Cell2 Result. This only took 20 minutes meaning the Cell1 Voting Time was ten minutes. It is estimated that because the maximum amount of time it took a Cell2 of 22 people to reach a Cell2 Result was twenty minutes, a Cell2 of 49 people would also take the same amount of time to reach a Cell2 Result.
Seeing that Cell1 Voting Time for this test was ten minutes, the time it would take for a similar test with over a billion people to come to a Cell11 Result would only take 110 minutes plus the time for Tie Breaking if the Cascade Effect was 100% effective. (Of course this wouldn’t happen in a single classroom)
The major problem with this particular test is that asking for everyone to come up with a question without a prompt caused some people to come upon a major mental block because they were not used to operating without a framework. This resulted in some frustration and confusion.
This illustrates the influence of an environment and the need for a contextual framework for the system to be effective in an organizational context. What seems to be necessary is a minimal prompt of, what is good for this business, please brainstorm a new product, define a core new competency, etc.
Finally, the business teacher took part in the process but the Final Result remaining after the process was completed, was neither his, nor business related. While his Base Idea was not voted for, the Cell1 Results of the two Cell1 he was in was always business related. But the winning question, which received 3 Cell1 votes out of 4, was “Why were you born a human instead of an octopus?”

The Prime Cell in an Organizational Setting
This final part of the paper will merge the previously presented ideas about what high performance is, what the Prime Cell is, and how it works. The first aspect we are going to describe is what we call ease of interface. By this we mean, while the theory of the Prime Cell is complex, all that is required of a user within the Prime Cell process is to submit a Base Idea, and vote within Cell1 until there is a Final Result. This can easily be facilitated in an electronic setting using a program that could probably be based on currently existing technology such as the internet and social networking.
Furthermore “The larger any organization becomes, the more difficult it becomes for people within it to communicate effectively with each other. These difficulties arise not only from the physical dispersion, the large numbers of people involved, and the trend towards compartmentalization, but also from complex personal factors.”  (Baxter, J., 1975)
Communication is critical to high performance as we have pointed out at the beginning of this paper. In organizations, decision making, communication, and goal setting can be drastically improved on a company wide scale with the Prime Cell. In other words in an organization the Prime Cell can be used to quickly get everyone on the same page
Another aspect of communication that we would like to point out is that of top-down and bottom-up decision making. One of the problems that can exist when we look at these two different kinds of communication is well presented in the following example:
In other words, performance data do not reveal the extent to which the program caused the measured results. This point is an important one. The analogy to managers of sports teams helps here. The manager needs to know the running score. If the team is losing, whether an individual game or over the whole season, the manager and other team officials may needs to change the game plan. But scores do not tell the officials why the score is the way it is. Nor does the running score tell what specifically needs to be changed to improve the score. For that information, the managers, coaches, and other team officials need to seek explanations before they act.    (Hatry 2006, pg 5)
We want to use this example to underline the potential of the Prime Cell, when it comes to the described problem with top-down communication. The problem that is presented above shows that obtaining the data is not always sufficient to understand where a problem originates from and what to do about it. The Prime Cell can be used to hear the voices of all “team members” i.e. a response that is the combined result of the intellectual capital of members in a given organization. Theoretically the Prime Cell can be used to ask an organization what its problems are, the result of the Prime Cell process will reveal a problem that the organization has. The Prime Cell can then be used again to ask an organization for ideas on how to fix the problem, and the result of the Prime Cell process will reveal an answer to the problem. The same principles apply to the opposite example of bottom-up, where the entirety of a company can communicate to leadership.
As stated earlier, intellectual capital is a key part of high performance. “Among the many trends and developments we perceive today, none is more important than the attempts being made to tap the full potential of groups more creatively as critical organizational resources.” (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn 2004, pg 143) The prime cell does exactly this; it invites creativity from every single member of an organization. This allows for more creative ideas to be heard in general. For example any Base Idea in a Current Cell1 is heard by at least 7 people, any Continuing Idea in a Current Cell2 is heard by at least 49 people, until the Final Result is both heard by, and agreed upon by the majority of the entire group. As stated above the amount of time it takes to do this with any number of people is minimal. Also, from a perspective of market research a winning idea and the support for it comes simultaneously.

Organizational Problems addressed by the Prime Cell
A major problem that presents itself to organizations from drawing on its intellectual capital are hierarchal paradigms. The classroom test illustrates that while the status incongruence of the teacher still had an effect on voting within a Cell1 the other Cell1 are not affected. This happens because every Cell1 is isolated from each other. This implies that even if the President of a company was in a Cell1 the farthest the influence of their vote can go is to the six other people in that Cell1. This shows that problematic effects of hierarchy, notoriety, charisma, and aggressive personalities are limited. This would be even more so the case if the process was electronic and/or if status was hidden.
Self serving agenda is also theoretically prevented in the Prime Cell. Because every Voting Cycle is likely to be so quick, a Final Result can happen before politicking can be organized. Even if someone has followers within other Cell1, deciding what idea within their respective Cell1 the followers should advocate and vote for, in hopes of manipulating a desired Final Result is beyond the scope of a single individual and in no way guarantees a desired result even in those Cell1. It can of course be assumed that if someone can organize enough people to submit the exact same Base Idea and guarantee a Final Result, the Prime Cell is either not necessary to communicate that idea because it has already been agreed upon or, it simply functions as a method of empowering a community’s voice communicating that idea. After that has been done and if the community voice has been addressed satisfactorily, the next Prime Cell is likely to come up with a different Final Result.
Groupthink or mob behavior, where many people lose their critical thinking abilities because of attachment to an idea or group cohesion is also negated. Because Scrambling moves every person into a new group during Cell Progression, there is no group cohesion and therefore no groupthink. Also people will almost always be dealing with a new set of seven Continuing Ideas during each Voting Cycle, therefore removing any temptation to continue voting for one Continuing Idea just because one voted for it beforehand.
Finally, in the Prime Cell egocentrism, which can normally be detrimental to a group’s overall health, instead can ultimately lead to a positive outcome. For example, if someone submits a Base Idea that serves their own needs but is repeatedly voted upon during every Voting Cycle and becomes the Final Result, this would imply that this need, when at first only applying to one person, is revealed to be a shared need of many.


Problems with the Prime Cell
Stagnant Tie. If a tie occurs in a Cell where one idea gets one vote each   (1v1v1v1v1v1v1), the normal Tie Breaking procedure no longer works. A possible solution for this is that every Cell must change their vote to their second best pick, or in the case that any vote they would make would not affect the Current Cell’s Result they would do nothing.
Non Divisible Group Sizes. As illustrated by the classroom test a Cell may not always consist of a number that is divisible by 7. A possible solution to this is that a program could regulate the number of people or Cells within the Current Cell. For example 25 people would need 5 Cell1 with five people each, and 1 Cell2 with five Cell1 each.
Non majority win possibility. Because each Cell 1 only needs 4 Individual Votes for a Cell1 Result and each Cell 2 only needs 4 Group Votes for a Cell2 Result (and so forth), it is possible that three of the Cell 1 in a Cell2 in could have 7 votes for idea A, while in the other 4 Cell 1 have 4 votes to an idea B and the 3 for idea A. This means that idea B gets 16 votes, and wins the Cell2 Result with 4 Group Votes, but idea A gets 33 votes and does not continue. This brings up an interesting question of whether or not the sum of group decisions that are a result of deliberation and social dynamics have more value than the sum of most Individual Votes. A remedy for this would be to do a revote between an idea with the most Group Votes and the most Individual Votes while using Scrambling.
Ideas cannot evolve once submitted. Because the Prime Cell is still being developed, there is no way for people to alter, edit, or improve an idea once submitted. A possible solution to this is to do a second Prime Cell where the prompt is to improve the Final Result. Also, a stage could be added before each Cell Progression, where winning ideas from each Current Cell are improved.
Motivation. Why should anyone continue to participate if an idea they voted for did not continue? One idea is that even if a person was not satisfied with one Cell Result, in the next Voting Cycle they have new ideas to vote for that might be more appealing then the original one. If someone still opts to drop out, or refuses to continue, a computer program could simply replace the person or the affected cell would move on with one less member, if possible.
Education. Not everyone communicates ideas well, especially in an electronic setting where ideas may be written down. Formal education allows for people to communicate ideas easily, because there is already a shared understanding of its details. Furthermore a person with a language barrier would not be able to effectively participate. This makes Prime Cell currently most useful in organizations where there is one main language and most if not all employees have had similar schooling or background experience.
Complexity. Many ideas or the process of solving them are too complex for the Prime Cell process. It should be noted, that the Prime Cell is a brainstorming process, and is best used to harness creativity. The process of development itself can then be left to experts.
Information. People cannot give good feedback unless they are informed. In problem solving scenarios, a frame work of what a problem is and what is needed is necessary. Of course, too much expectation may influence the ingenuity of the Base Ideas.


Conclusion
            We see the Prime Cell as following the footsteps from a theory that was first proposed by Thomas S. Kuhn “(he) asserted that when scientists discover a new way of looking at phenomenon, they literally see the world in a different way. He developed and popularized the notion of a paradigm, a self-contained perceptual and theoretical structure akin to a belief system. (McDavid, Hawthorn, 2006, pg 169)
            The Prime Cell can be viewed to follow this kind of concept because it is a self contained structure. While its process is new and is more efficient than older communication paradigms, its fundamental parts are made up from different pieces of the older paradigms.
We also see the Prime Cell as the next step forward in the speed and potential of human communication. We hope that the Prime Cell will change the way scientists and people in general look at communicating ideas in large groups, as well as brainstorm and harness creativity in such organizations.
           


Bibliography
Schermerhorn, J., Hunt, J, Osborn, R. (2004) Core Concepts of Organizational Behavior. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
McDavid, J., Hawthorn, L. (2006) Program Evaluation & Performance Measurement. An Introduction to Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Hatry, H. (2006) Performance Measurement. Getting Results 2nd Edition. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press.
Baxter, J. (1975) Communication Problems in Large Organizations. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, Volume 5, Number 4. Retrieved from  http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?id=5ulbcbajdwq37uya