Whether you’re ready or not, it’s time to evolve. Your industry depends on it. Your future depends on it. These ideas will help you make progress and avoid the tar pit.
Drucker
Peter F. Drucker predicted in “The Coming of the New Organization” printed in the Harvard Business Review (January-February 1988) that the typical large business of this decade will be flatter – have fewer levels of management – and have no more than a third of the managers. I see you shiver at the idea, T-Rex. What will you do without all of those people between the CEO and the “front-line” workers? Where will the management’s status come from? How will workers be motivated to do better if there’s no place to go? Who will make sure things get done?
As business changes, particularly in the West, our work world is evolving from production oriented to information based. Information based organizations require more specialists and knowledge workers. Whereas, in the past, knowledge was held by the people at the top of the organization and the workers just did what they were told, today most of the knowledge is with the workers who tend to direct themselves and require much less supervision or assistance. Many layers of management are no longer necessary, create redundancies, and impede communication. According to Drucker, these managers “…neither make decisions nor lead.”
I think that’s a very important statement. These middle managers “…neither make decisions nor lead.” They merely pass information from higher levels of management to those below them and then from the bottom back up again.
Information in the current “command-and-control” version of organizational management is used for control. Managing this or that. In the information based organization, information must be extracted from data and that requires specialists. Lots of them. In Ducker’s vision, corporations will work much more like an orchestra: a conductor at the head and musicians, all specialists, working together and following the conductor’s lead. The conductor could be the CEO but is more likely to be a department or division head; the department will be a training ground and a “home base” for specialists. Specialists will, instead, work in cross-functional task forces or groups, usually led by a member of the group instead of a manager.
In order to make this successful, everyone has to be working from the same “score” or set of instructions. Everyone needs to hear the same clearly stated, common objectives. The leaders provide this direction. All members of the team in Drucker’s organization have responsibility for sharing information and requesting the information they need. While we often concentrate on what we need to tell others (reporting on activities or what we discovered), knowledge workers must consider what information we need to make our contributions.
To help you out T-Rex, Drucker lists four requirements to help you create a successful, information-based organization without the thick layer of middle managers:
- Develop rewards, recognition, and career opportunities for specialists. As a knowledge worker myself, I can’t tell you how important this is. I enjoy what I do, but in order for me to make more money, to secure more benefits, and to gain public recognition for my contributions (which is much more important than many people will admit), I have to be promoted to a managerial role. That most probably means abandoning what I enjoy doing most and, quite frankly, what I do best; for that, both the organization and I lose. And, if you fail to recognize my contribution? Well, T-Rex, you’ll eventually lose me and the investment you made in me over the years.
- Create a unified vision. If you look closely at many organizations, they have conflicting visions originating from different business units and control groups. A unified message is necessary to ensure everyone is on the same track and to avoid struggles within task forces over the ultimate goals.
- Devise the management structure for an organization of tasks forces. These should be self-governing units that foster pride and professionalism. To motivate and inspire specialists, the organization might consider rotating them periodically into new specialties (if that’s reasonable for the industry).
- Ensure the supply, preparation, and testing of top management people. I know what you’re thinking, T-Rex. “If I don’t have middle managers, who do I groom for senior level positions?” First, in the current world, I know you’re taking a lot of senior managers from outside of the organization. You can’t fool me. You’re not just fishing in your own pond. But, just in case you’re being straight with me, Drucker suggests that these people can come from leaders who emerge in the task forces, the small pool of managers remaining in the organization, managers from smaller organizations, and business schools (who will need to refocus their curriculum based on the changing organizational structure).
You’re going to love this one, too, T-Rex. Patrice M. Buzzanell writes in “Gaining a Voice: Feminist Organizational Communication Theorizing,” published in Management Communication Quarterly (May 1994 – Volume 7, Number 4), about a feminist approach to organizational management. First, you need to recognize and accept that the modern business organization is established on a patriarchal philosophy of hierarchy and competition. It’s a male dominated world where stereotypically male behavior is rewarded – unless it’s displayed by a woman – and stereotypically female behavior is criticized or dismissed as ineffectual.
While there is no one feminist approach, there are some common values. First, feminism promotes cooperation over competition. Competition fosters distrust, lower self-esteem, neglect of personal relationships, and health problems. Competitive organizations promote exclusion, particularly of women through negative myths about professional women. In these organizations, it is often unclear how one advances; the “rules and routes” are rarely divulged. The reliance on extrinsic rewards (e.g., money and promotions) inhibits development encouraged by curiosity, reliance on individual competence, and learning.
The cooperative, feminist environment values commitment, relationships, and interdependence. Consensus processes are used to negotiate decisions; the processes have minimal rules, create little, if any, differentiation between members, and motivate based on the value of the results in terms of positive feelings, satisfaction of human needs, etc., instead of advancement up the corporate ladder. The organization recognizes the “human” side of women’s contributions to the workplace, such as conflict resolution, providing encouragement, and acting as a sounding board, as valuable and even essential to the organization. And it values a work-life balance.
Second, feminism promotes integrative thinking over linear, cause-effect thinking. Linear thinking assumes that there is one best way of doing things. It ignores possible alternatives. Diversity must be managed instead of explored. “Effective” managers embodied traditionally masculine traits such as independence, rationality, self-confidence, and easy decision-making. However, women who exhibit these traits are often criticized. Integrative thinking emphasizes the possibility of alternative, viewpoints, approaches and outcomes. It also looks for dependency on input from others.
Finally, feminism promotes connectedness over autonomy. Stereotypical male goals are recognition as individuals through action, work, and status and exclusion of emotion from the concepts of truth and fairness. The feminist approach values nurturing and relationships.
Kim and Mauborgne
W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, in “Blue Ocean Strategy,” published in the Harvard Business Review (October 2004), suggest that successful organizations are the ones who create new markets, not join and out-compete existing markets. That does not necessarily mean you have to come up with a brand new product, T-Rex. But it does mean offering a different value proposition to the customer. For example, Kim and Mauborgne cite Ford’s introduction of the Model-T as a “blue ocean” strategy. Ford did not invent the car. But they did make the car affordable to the masses. Before the Model-T, cars were custom made by teams of workers who took weeks to build one car. Ford developed the process and parts that alllowed a group of workers to build a car in less than a week.
“Red ocean” strategies involve competing in existing markets and focus on beating the competition. They attempt to exploit existing demand and typically sacrifice value for low-cost or vice versa. Red ocean organizations align their systems and activities with choosing between differentiation and low cost. They are deemed “red” because of the blood from the battle or competition discoloring the ocean water.
“Blue ocean” strategies create uncontested markets, making competition irrelevant. They create and capture new demand; newcomers or imitators don’t fare as well because the innovators captured the market first. These organizations don’t sacrifice value for low-cost or vice versa. Blue ocean organizations align their activities to pursue both differentiation and low cost. They are deemed “blue” because the water is clear since there’s no battle and resulting blood.
Innovation, T-Rex, is part of the recipe for success.
Taylor
James R. Taylor, in “The Other Side of Rationality: Socially Distributed Cognition” published in the Management Communication Quarterly (November 1999, Volume 13, Number 2), suggests that there are two types of organizational knowledge: practical and discursive. Discursive knowledge is knowledge that an individual can convey in explicit language. It’s the kind of stuff you write in instructions or reports. Practical knowledge is the information you know but take for granted. You don’t normally include it in instructions. For instance, if you tell someone to complete a form, you normally don’t include instructions such as the need to pick up the pencil, what side of the pencil (the lead or the eraser) to apply to the paper, etc. For organizational information, the practical information is probably more sophisticated than that but it does include information that the worker takes for granted.
James reminds us that (1) most human accomplishments are the results of collaborative efforts and (2) “thinking and acting are two sides of a single coin” (what we know influences what we do and we learn from what we do). Individuals bring to a work group their individual knowledge which contributes to the collective knowledge, both practical and discursive. No one individual knows the whole of what the group knows together, mostly because of the practical knowledge that is “hidden” because it’s undisclosed and assumed.
To know what the whole group knows collectively would require someone to give it a voice, by documenting it. Even though these elements are not disclosed, they are essential to the organization. To successfully document what the organization knows, there must be four elements: “Community”, “Opinion”, “Representation”, and “Voice of Society.” “Community” is the people who make up the organization. “Opinion” is each individual’s discursive interpretation of the organization’s cumulative practical and discursive knowledge. “Representation” is the reformulation of “Opinion” as he or she understands it by a manager or other person authorized to speak on behalf of the organization. “Voice of Society” is the person or persons who express what the organization knows AND has the authority to do so. This is usually senior management. In order for the system to work, the Voice of Society must communicate the Representation TO the Community and the Community must validate it as true based on what they know. And, if more than one Voice of Society expresses Representations that differ, confusion and debate will follow.
To summarize for you, T-Rex, more is accomplished by combining resources with diverse knowledge (like the task forces in Drucker’s model and the collaborative work in Buzzanell’s). And, senior management must communicate the interpretation of what the organization knows or is setting out to do and have the recognized moral authority (through both appointment and validation of the message by the employees based on their experience and knowledge) to do so.
Weick
Karl E. Weick, in “The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster” published in the Administrative Science Quarterly (1983, Volume 38), applies the disintegration of the team structure of a group of firefighters battling a wildfire in the 1940s to similar problems within other teams and organizations.
The story and evaluation is fascinating and much too long to summarize here. (The link above provides the entire article.) In short, Weick spells out what it takes to destroy a team or organization:
Thrust people into unfamiliar roles, leave some key roles unfilled, make the task more ambiguous, discredit the role system, and make all of these changes in a context in which small events can combine into something monstrous. Faced with similar conditions, organizations that seem much sturdier can also come crashing down much like Icarus who overreached his competence as he flew toward the sun and also perished because of fire.In order to make an organization more resilient, Weick suggests the organization must provide for the following in all levels, management and workers:
- Improvisation and bricolage (the ability to create order out of chaos): Individuals and groups should be trained to improve and solve problems with the tools (including knowledge) that are available to them. Creativity needs to be encouraged; creativity under pressure is learned through practice so that it becomes natural to think of alternative solutions.
- Virtual role systems: Group members need to understand the roles of others in their group so they can visualize and recreate those roles in their minds. This information can help guide individuals in their own actions. And individuals need to continually assess the situation and look for the potential dangers or pitfalls and exits. “Never get into anything without making sure you have a way out.”
- The attitude of wisdom: The more we learn about something, the more questions and uncertainties arise. We discover that it’s more complex than we thought. Wisdom is knowing that you are knowledgeable about something but don’t know everything. Having too much confidence in your knowledge can stifle learning and creativity. Not having enough confidence can be paralyzing and prevent progress.
- Respectful interaction: This requires trust – respecting reports from others; one must be willing to base beliefs and actions on those reports. One must report information honestly; others must be able to trust one’s observations so they can come to valid beliefs. And one must have self-respect and respect one’s own perceptions and beliefs; those perceptions and beliefs should be integrated with reports from others without deprecating them or one’s own. This includes “vertical” interactions as well as “lateral.”
Okay. There you are, T-Rex. The forumla for success. There are some common ideas in the articles summarized above:
- Collaboration
- Lack of or short hierarchy
- Open, respectful communication
- Sharing of knowledge
- Innovation
So, T-Rex, how about trading in that pyramid you acquired along the way…you know, the one with the sound-proof rooms, glass ceilings, and secret passageways…the one with the droves of workers at the bottom level and layer upon layer of management up to the point…for a low-rise, energy efficient structure with an open floor plan, windows that let in sunshine and fresh air, and easily marked stairways and elevators to move up and down freely and easily?
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