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Getting togetherness
Many other companies are also trying to foster greater collaboration within their ranks. Some are using web-based social media to help them. For instance, Lockheed Martin, an American defence giant, plans to roll out Unity—a software platform that encourages employees from different areas to connect with one another via blogs, wikis and other online tools—across its entire business later this year, after piloting it in one area. But dismantling internal barriers to co-operation is a tricky business that requires much more than smart software. Unless firms are careful, there is a real danger that collaborative crusades could do them more harm than good.
U.S. Army Field Manual Embraces Knowledge Management and Collaboration
The Knowledge Management Section of the U.S. Army’s Field Manual FM 6-01.1 is a classic example of the formal structure and organization one can apply to just about any organizational process that requires management
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Figure 3-2 illustrates a pyramidal hierarchy of collaboration styles that I have found to be unrealistic in typical organizations. Just as there are multiple organizational structures that may or may not map to what you see on the formal organizational chart, you also see people engaing in different types of collaboration at different times for different purposes. Sometimes this collaboration can be planned, and sometimes it emerges spontaneously. Fixating too solidly as a manger on a theoretical progression of collaboration types may be less useful than concentrating on identifying when different type of collaboration make sense and making sure the resources are available to support what is needed.
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In other words, it’s a process that lays out the role of knowledge management and how learning can be captured and fed back to improve operations. It’s no better nor worse than any other set of “process steps.”
The limits of rationality and the illusion of management control in organizational change
When the sought-after benefits fail to materialise, this is most often blamed on poor implementation rather than unsound thinking. By adopting a “do it better and get it right” stance, failure is rationalised as a shortfall in execution and the flawed assumptions remain to fight another day.
Toyota ou l’anti-risque
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Sans réelle coordination centrale, les sous-traitants de Toyota se jettent sur le problème. Sorte de mouvement brownien. Tout le monde discute avec tout le monde. En 3 jours ils ont reconstitué les processus de fabrication détruits, alors qu’ils n’ont aucune connaissance du métier et des outillages nécessaires. (D’ordinaire, construire une usine et son outillage demande une année, voire plus.)
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Traduction pour l’entreprise : une surcharge d’informations (environnement incertain) conduit à saturer la direction de l’entreprise. Leurs subalternes doivent développer des courts-circuits qui ne passent pas par eux. D’où amélioration des performances de traitement d’informations. Effet inattendu : ces réseaux informels rendent l’organisation extraordinairement résistante. La perte de quelques éléments du réseau a peu d’effets.
Why corporate org charts are bad
An employee has a great idea, but needs clearance from his manager and a manager in another department to get the idea over departmental boundaries. That person can directly engage that manager and solve the problem. This contradicts the present model of hierarchies and organization charts in that traditionally the employee would be forced to navigate the branches in an org chart. This obviously depletes time and resources so we’ll consider this waste.
Perhaps the second best use of bottom up communication is that it allows companies to innovate using informal networks. BUP spurs informal networks inside and outside of companies. These informals can consist of employees, suppliers, customers, or other constituents. Typically an employee solves problems within the department or team and requests a manager’s assistance when needed. An informal network may involve a supplier a customer and a VP. A recent IBM podcast references innovation as accidental. It never happens on purpose and it usually doesn’t happen in a formal setting. Furthermore, for the informal setting to work, the right tools and stimuli must be present. This is where we really see how web 2.0 streamlines innovation.
The Leader With 7 Faces: Net-work, not more teamwork (1)
But in these days of inter-dependence between roles and jobs, many collaboration solutions can be found in informal networks, not in designed, cohesive teams.
Let me inject another contrarian idea: you don’t need any more teams.
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