Apr 21st, 2009 |
As we delve further into Web 2.0, in government and industry alike, we are seeing the power of the community, the eagerness to collaborate and the excitement brought on by new ways of working. We see employees eager to share their knowledge, expertise, and energy on work that falls outside of their typical boundaries. In turn, we should be able to leverage the power of communities coming together to produce results faster and better than ever before. Sounds perfect! But, there is a challenge…..
We find that our organizational structures and management policies are not always conducive to supporting these new ways of working. We are faced with managers worrying about employees ‘wasting time’ on new technology or doing work that falls outside of their defined roles and responsibilities. Our compensation systems reward people, well defined teams and concrete deliverables. Management hierarchies have leadership positions defined and accountable for results. These structures and policies were put in place to create well-managed and high-performing organizations. But, how does this formal, hierarchical structure leverage and compensate the power of communities? What needs to change? This is the management challenge we face…..
Gary Hamel, ranked as one of the world’s most influential business thinkers, and according to Fortune magazine “the world’s leading expert on business strategy”, writes about this dichotomy in his book The Future of Management. Two quotes from the book resonate with me as I watch Web 2.0 take hold at Natural Resources Canada.
“The web has evolved faster than anything human beings have ever created—largely, because it is not a hierarchy. The web is all periphery and no center. In that sense, it is a direct affront to the organizational model that has predominated since the beginnings of human history. No wonder managers feel a little queasy when they venture into the far reaches of cyberspace, like space travelers who’ve arrived on a planet where up is down and down is up.”
“How do you discover radically better ways of leading, organizing and managing? The short answer: You look far beyond the boundaries of today’s “best practice.” You look someplace weird, someplace unexpected. To glimpse the future of management, you must search out the “positive deviants,” organizations and social systems that defy the norms of conventional practice.”
The current approach creates conflict….and in order to resolve it we will need to be flexible, creative and open minded to accepting new ways of managing work, and also to rewarding and compensating employees in new ways. This could range from compensation and classification through to delegation of work. Perhaps the best model would be to create a community of managers and employees equally contributing to challenging the status quo.
Feeling queasy yet? Don’t worry. The feeling will pass once we all start to embrace change and all the opportunities it brings with it.
One Response to “The Challenges of Change”
This is a fantastic piece, Marj – looking forward to more over the months to come. “Positive deviants” – that phrase just made my day. Are you on twitter by any chance? I just ‘tweeted’ a link to this piece – worth a big audience.