democracy - Bertrand Duperrin on Diigo

Mar

13

2012

Is the future of work an aristocratic democracy?: Leo Strauss on Managment | Thoughts on management

"Are the future of work and the future of management inherently democratic? Will we have democracy or rather an enlightened aristocracy? The point is not theoretical or philosophical for its own sake. The question has a deep resonance in how organisations structure themselves, how workers understand themselves, but most importantly, how workers engage with the organisation."

thoughtmanagement.wordpress.com/...cracy-leo-strauss-on-managment

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organization management adhocracy democracy decisionmaking talents aristocracy authority oligarchy trust

In one sense, a truly democratic organisation is a recipe for a disaster. Studies have shown that the more people involved in a decision, the worse it becomes.
Thus, decisions may be made by a few, but scrutinized and ratified by the many. In that sense, one can say that organisations can be democratic.
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- Unlike Enron, most organisations are run closer to an oligarchy where the senior management benefits and passes down the privilege and the patronage to make the system work, within their fiefdoms. What social media allows, and the web 2.0, is that the oligarchy can be challenged
- The question is now whether a meritorious aristocracy, democracy properly understood (see below) with a representational system can replace the oligarchy
- The following is an example of what a pure democracy may look like in an organisation. The DWP developed a “game” or an “internal market” for deciding on how to allocate resources to “good” or “innovative” ideas that would save money. The people who proposed ideas would have their idea voted on and supported by others within the organisatio
- First, the senior managers have to trust their staff. How many organisations are like Capgemini and allow internal microblogging to allow staff to communicate with immediate constraints? For most managers, this would be a frightening experience as staff, perhaps with more ideas and talent, could quickly emerge.
- Second, the approach assumes that the workers are ready to produce new ideas and new ways of thinking. To be sure, there may be ideas within the staff, but if the culture has been deeply embedded and staff are not encouraged to raise ideas or “challenge” then no amount of technological change is going to change that culture
- I am not suggesting that grown people are destined to act and to be treated as children. Instead, I am trying to suggest that change is not simply going to come about because someone suggests or even models a “democratic” workplace. Instead, the change has to come from senior managers encouraging staff to “challenge” and staff being ready to “challenge
- An aristocracy of talent seems to be emerging. In this approach, organisations are designed to support specific talents.
- “Democracy in a word is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy.” As such, are we seeing the emergence of an organisation that can nurture the aristocracy of talent? It may be that the organisation “disappears” as an agent and is there to support talent.
- Yet, the new organisation will work a faster pace and with less respect for authority and more respect for demonstrable success and talent.
- A democratic organisation can deal with bad news, a tyrannical organisation cannot. As a result, the communications problems get worse because no one wants to be the bearer of badness. At the same time, more rogue employees emerge because no one is willing to control those doing what is wrong. Why? They fear to communicate that bad news upward especially if the “rogue” appears to be succeeding.

Nov

10

2011

L'entreprise adaptable : démocratique et 2.0 | Le Cercle Les Echos

"Un livre vient de paraître sur une forme de démocratie dans l'entreprise : l'intra-entrepreneuriat. C'est l'occasion de faire le point sur ce qu'il convient d'entendre par "démocratie en entreprise", une entreprise composée d'égaux, c'est-à-dire fonctionnant en pairs à pairs (peer-to-peer) et non de pères à fils (supérieurs à subordonnés)."

lecercle.lesechos.fr/...e-adaptable-democratique-et-20

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michelhervé casestudies groupehervé democracy enterprise2.0 intrapreneurship

C’est contractuel. Si le salarié est payé, c’est précisément pour obéir à des ordres auxquels il n’accepterait pas de se plier sans cette compensation.
Ce qu’il y a de commun à toutes ces tentatives, c’est la volonté de sortir du salariat pour libérer le travailleur, tant il semble y avoir incompatibilité entre salariat et autonomie. Or, le tour de force auquel s’essayent les auteurs du "pouvoir" au-delà du pouvoir, c’est de libérer le travail de toute domination de l’homme sur l’homme à l’intérieur même du salariat.
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- Rassembler des salariés qui soient en même temps leur propre chef, en une communauté d’intra-entrepreneurs coconstructeurs de leur entreprise, telle est l’ambition du modèle organisationnel proposé dans cet ouvrage.

L'entreprise est-elle par nature non démocratique ?

"Comment concilier le souci d'efficacité économique avec l'exigence de démocratie ? Comment se fait-il que nous acceptions d'être dirigés au travail d'une manière que nous refuserions au-dehors ? La démocratie a-t-elle sa place dans l'entreprise ? Est-ce une utopie ?"

www.journaldunet.com/...-nature-non-democratique.shtml

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enterprise democracy management trust mistrust conflict utopia semco groupehervé michelhervé

Chez l’une comme chez l’autre de ces démocraties entrepreneuriales, les chefs ne tiennent pas d’abord leur pouvoir de leur hiérarchie mais de leur base : ils peuvent être destitués si leur évaluation par leurs subordonnés s’avère défavorable.
le projet politique interne est indissociable de l’ambition économique : tant Ricardo Semler, le fondateur de Semco, que Michel Hervé, le fondateur du groupe Hervé, considèrent qu’un succès économique durable passe par la satisfaction des besoins politiques de leurs salariés, et que le premier d’entre eux étant l’autonomie, il faut par conséquent qu’ils puissent se gouverner eux-mêmes.
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- Raison pour laquelle leurs salariés se fixent leurs propres règles de fonctionnement ainsi que leurs objectifs professionnels, comme des adultes responsables.
- la volonté de ne pas infantiliser leurs salariés, contrairement à ce qui se passe dans tant d’entreprises qui contrôlent par le menu les heures d’arrivée et de départ, la présence aux réunions, les allers-venues sur Internet, qui punissent en cas d’erreur ou de non suivi de la procédure, etc.
- contrairement à une idée reçue, les hommes ne « sont », à proprement parler, ni bons ni méchants, ni naturellement altruistes (comme le croient les anarchistes) ni naturellement individualistes (comme le croient nombre de libéraux) : ils sont capables de l’un comme de l’autre, et c’est le milieu dans lequel ils évoluent qui les rend tels ou tels.
- une organisation du travail fondée sur la confiance a priori verra se multiplier les salariés responsables, autonomes et proactifs, à la hauteur des espérances mises en eux.
- La démocratie dans l’entreprise semble avoir de beaux jours devant elle : elle répond à une aspiration de plus en plus forte de la société, elle augmente le bien-être au travail, elle accroît l’engagement des salariés, elle « remet l’humain au centre », elle permet de générer de l’intelligence collective mieux qu’aucune autre organisation du travail
- La vraie utopie est en réalité du côté des entreprises classiques, qui s’obstinent à croire que les hommes se motivent « au bâton et à la carotte »

Feb

19

2011

Transparent Office: Companies aren't communities

"Companies aren't communities. They aren't forums.

Companies are companies.

Of course company life has a community aspect, but a lot of social software folks seem to forget that there's a lot more to a company than community. They treat companies as if they were consumer communities or forums that all just happen to have their paychecks signed by the same person.

Why does the difference matter? The answer is in the numbers. Online communities and forums typically attract very small audiences relative to the total target population: Less than 1% adoption is typical, and 5% adoption would be a grand-slam. That's fine for the consumer web, but those numbers inside the enterprise aren't exactly a ringing endorsement."

michaeli.typepad.com/...mpanies-arent-communities.html

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enterprise2.0 communities adoption flows workflows democracy socialbusiness

I've been saying for a few years now that companies achieve adoption and business value when they place social software in the flow of work. The tools achieve real benefit when people do their jobs--not their evenings-and-weekends jobs, but their actual "day" jobs in social software
That's when it becomes woven into the fabric of a company's business processes. Adoption is almost a foregone conclusion, because that's where you do your work. Business impact is demonstrable because business processes are measurable.
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- In communities, there is no flow of work. That's because most people don't come to communities to do work. They come to get support help, to swap tips, to praise, to complain, to socialize. Even those people who come for professional reasons are casual, sporadic visitors. The only person who really works there day-in-day-out is the forum/community manager.
- There are three groups of people who cling to the "company as community" concept: the "kumbayeros" who wish that companies were as open and democratic as communities, public community managers whose consumer-facing experience has shaped the way they view all online social interaction, and community software vendors who are looking to repurpose their consumer-oriented products for the internal market.
- As Milton Friedman famously said, "The business of business is business." Social software fails when it tries to turn businesses into communities. It succeeds when it turns businesses into better businesses.

Jul

14

2010

HCL: Extreme Management Makeover

". Everybody knows there are downsides to management-as-usual, but are they any alternatives? We can dream about organizations where employees eagerly challenge their superiors, where honesty trumps deference and where the pyramid has been turned upside down—but then again, we can also dream about world peace and cold fusion."

blogs.wsj.com/...cl-extreme-management-makeover

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democracy management accountability HCL management2.0 evaluation

– Transparent Financial Data. Vineet realized it’s hard to feel empowered if your manager has a lot of data you don’t. With this in mind, HCLT’s IT team created a simple widget that gave every employee a detailed set of financial metrics for their own team and other teams across the company.
– U&I. Early on, Vineet and his leadership team set up an online forum and encouraged employees to ask tough questions and offer honest feedback. Nothing was censored on the “U&I” site; every post, however virulent, was displayed for the entire company to see
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- – Service Level Agreements. Powerful corporate departments, like HR and finance, often seem more interested in enforcing blanket policies than in making life easier for employees. When Vineet would ask front line employees, “What have the enabling functions done to help you create value in the value zone?”
- Today, HCLT employees are able to rate the performance of any manager whose decisions impact their work lives, and to do so anonymously. These ratings are published online and can be viewed by anyone who has submitted a review.
- As the CEO, Vineet was being asked to weigh in on hundreds of unit-level plans each year. Recognizing the limits to his time and personal expertise, Vineet challenged his colleagues to develop an online, peer-based evaluation process. The solution: MyBlueprint. In 2009, three hundred managers posted their business plans, or “blueprints,” online. Each document was accompanied by an audio presentation. More than 8,000 employees were then invited to jump in and review the plans
- – Employee First Councils. The goal here was to help employees connect with team members who shared similar interests and passions. Supported by a web-based platform, the new initiative rapidly spawned a host of communities around cultural, recreational and job-related issues
- Three years after launching this concept, 20% of HCLT’s revenue is coming from initiatives launched in these communities of interest.”
- “We all believe that democracies are good and totalitarian systems are bad, and yet we tolerate dictatorships within our companies, even though the people at the top don’t have enough information to know what needs to be done. At HCLT, we have been trying to democratize our company.”

Jun

27

2010

Networks and the Myth that Flatter Organizations are Better

"Otherwise, bear with me here. I want to re-consider a really important assumption about one way that flatter organizations with internal network structures are better. (I’m thinking about the organizations advocated by folks bringing social media inside organizations, mostly proponents of Enterprise 2.0 and social business.)
Flatter, more networked organizational structures do not significantly reduce power inequalities among employees or across domains within a firm."

authenticorganizations.com/...atter-organizations-are-better

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organization networks egalitarism democracy decisionmaking

Studies show that organizations that are flatter because they have a network structure encapsulated or embedded inside them still, in the big picture, feel and act like hierarchies (Dean, 2007).
Our assumptions are wrong. It doesn’t work that way. Power is rarely redistributed in any kind of egalitarian fashon. A little power might go to the levels below the ones eliminated, but the important power stays up above.
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- Networks/teams get more “production-level authority” over who’s doing what within the overall project, what parts of the day are spent where, and the like. But the team or network doesn’t get ‘high level’ decision making authority. This still remains with upper management.
- employees might not even notice that they still lack power where it matters the most: over the distribution of gains.
- Keep in mind the ‘real’ business reason that organizations restructure and create internal networks. Organizations restructure to improve productivity. They want more stuff produced and they want to produce it at a higher quality. Why? So that the organization is more profitable.
- We just have to make egalitarianism and justice overarching goals. These goals have to be as important, if not more important, than increased innovation, nicer interpersonal interactions, and yes more surplus value.

Jul

10

2009

The Generation M Manifesto

Dear Old People Who Run the World,

My generation would like to break up with you.

Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.

blogs.harvardbusiness.org/...today_in_capitalism_20_1.html

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generationM economy society communities sustainability Sustainabledevelopment democracy

Nov

4

2007

Zone Franche - blog de Gilles Martin: Démocratie et entreprise : dedans ou dehors ?

gillesmartin.blogs.com/...toc-toc-qui-va-.html

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Bertrand Duperrin's Library tagged democracy → View Popular, Search in Google

Is the future of work an aristocratic democracy?: Leo Strauss on Managment | Thoughts on management

L'entreprise adaptable : démocratique et 2.0 | Le Cercle Les Echos

L'entreprise est-elle par nature non démocratique ?

Transparent Office: Companies aren't communities

HCL: Extreme Management Makeover

Networks and the Myth that Flatter Organizations are Better

The Generation M Manifesto

Zone Franche - blog de Gilles Martin: Démocratie et entreprise : dedans ou dehors ?

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