Toward a new hierarchy of norms in the workplace

April 1, 2010 By 1 Comment

This is a sequel of my thoughts on enterprise 2.0 and ERPs. It’s obvious that not everything has to be put into processes and given to machines that would run them endlessly and blindly….and than not everyhing has to be left to the wisdom of employees has well. An happy medium has to be found. In fact “middle” may not be the right word since it would mean a compromise that would not satisfy anyone and would add more issues without bringing any solution to past issues.

Let’s start with a kind of legal comparison.

Our friends jurists know something called “hierarchy of norms”. That means that different of norms exist, promulgated by different kind of authorities with some automoy provided any of them respect the one that hierarchically above.

That’s quite the same in the workplace where we can find :

- the constituion : everything the organization can’t depart from and is about legal, security (legal, of people, of goods…)

- the law : everything about how things have to be done. Processes etc…

- local regulations: within a department, a team, a manager can organize work as he want provided he respects the two above mentioned levels.

We may even push the comparison further.

- customs : this is what makes people make things in such a way because it’s always been like that. No one decided that, it comes from the past and the power of habits. This is partly due to the corporate knowledge, partly to knowledge transmission between generations of workers, partly from mimicry.

- jurisprudence : the way corporate norms are interpreted when they’re not precise or clear enougjh. Jurisprudence works until a new process or a new rule comes that makes it useless or contradicts it.

In the workplace as in the legal world, each of these elements comes from different authorities, have different ranges of enforcement, and are not sanctionned the same way.

Even if the State may look dusty and unsuited to our world, it’s one steph ahead because it understood a long time ago that constitution and laws can’t rule everything. Once can retort that it depends on the beliefs of the state administration, and that’s true. But it’s the same in organizations : the freedom and autonomy that are given to anyone depends on the top management’s culture and beliefs.

Enterprises, as for them, have always been thinking that the two first levels were enough and, instead of relying on the principle of subsidiarity, they tried to make everything fit into heavy and rigid systems, hence the failure of many projects that were said “structuring” and the limis that are encountered today in terms of corporate agility.

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Filed Under: Management & HR Tagged With: , , ,

Enterprise 2.0 as a part of the Global Enterprise

May 12, 2009 By 6 Comments

Many questioning about enterprise 2.0 these last weeks. How to make it work, how help companies to understand it, how to calculate the ROI ? So many questions that, at the end, can be summed up in only one : undestranding how these new logics can integrate into the existing and add to it. Without that, it’s obvious that either companies don’t dare either they will dare with overcautiousness and won’tbe able to get the most from their initiative, either will dare in a bad way and things will be counter-productives.

One consequence of this misunderstanding is that “2.0 projects” are isolated from the “real enterprise” in order to preven itself from any side effect of something that’s still not well understood (what proves once again how important it is to find answers to all these questions). So, what’s needed is to help companies to visualize things according to what they are today and according to their very nature.

First, the primary goal of any enterprise has to be identified. Easy : make money. Period. Of course we can discuss what can be done with that money and what can and cannot be done to make it, but it is the only undisputable goal.

What leads to an undisputable consequence : companies spend their time trying to organize themselves in order to produce as efficiently as possible. Becoming an enterprise 2.0 is not a goal for any enterprise and should not be. The only one is : improving the way things are done everyday, the way it produces.

But what does “production” really mean ?

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Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Considering the gap between management 2.0 and enterprise 2.0

February 24, 2009 By 1 Comment

I’ve been neglecting the management 2.0 topic for a long time although it was what this blog was about since 2005. Last years I slowely slipped from management 2.0 to enterprise 2.0, even if I find it sad that there were so many people to discuss about of make companies use 2.0 tools than people wanting to focus on building a new management framework in which these tools would make sense. But this question is coming back like a boomerang while companies are slowly realizing that small side adjustments won’t be enough to make tools useful and that a systemic overhaul is needed to make tools serve as catalyssts in a new organization model.

In february’s issue of the Harvard Business Review, Gary Hamel put this issue back to the headlines with an article called “Moon shots for management” which clearly defines management issues for the upcoming years.

Namely :

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Can we identify good managers by the way their team uses the net ?

October 1, 2008 By Leave a Comment

A very common discourse within companies is : “our people waste their time on social networks and, more globally, on the web. We have to restrict access to it”.

If, when talking about social networks, it depends on the way people use them, so its important to grant access to what useful for business, I find it very damageable when companies come to restrict access to the whole web.

What are the motives for that ?

First comes security. I think it’s more a convenient motive than a relevant one and is an excuse for the next point I’ll mention. Second, it’s IT depts job to ensure security without blocking everything. Did we remove doors and windows from houses and offices in order to prevent to struggle against burglars ? No, because we need to go outside, to see what’s happening by the window,
The second point is abiut productivity. It’s a waste of time and people are not here to do that during work hours. But what does companies mean by “doing that” ?

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Filed Under: Economy & New Models, Knowledge & Information management, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Digital Nomads : today’s community for tomorrow’s workers

August 19, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Perhaps you’ve already heard about Digital Nomads. More than a site it’s rather a community for those who break the traditionnal link between working and being at the office and use the right tools to be connected and able to work anywhere, anytime. Alone but not isolated : digital nomads often interact more with their ecosystem, are more informed about what the others are doing and keep more the others informed than people who work close one to another in traditional offices usually do.

In short, more than a way of working it’s rather a new daily way of life for more and more people. Please don’t tell me it’s only for independant workers or small companies : more and more companies now have mobility and nomadism programs that are more than experiments. Sometimes it’a about home office, sometimes it allows people to work from wherever they want. Those who read Tim Ferri’s “Four hours workweek” will appreciate… [Read more...]

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR, Software & Tools, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is creativity the only answer to complexity ?

May 21, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Basically that would make sense. In an industrial economy everything is product-centric : we know what it is, what it’s made of, of which pieces it’s composed, there’s one and only one to produce and assemble them, and everyone knows exactly what he has to do. It’s a system based on infinite repetition of totally scripted actions whithout any deviation : each production has to be the exact clone of the previous one.

In a knowledge based economy, things change. Most of times, the product consists in “finding a solution to a problem”. That makes things much more complex. Each steps depends on the the result of the previous and the product (ie the solution) is unknown at the starting of the production.

So there’s no suprise to see projects failing when people try to apply them what used to work before.

But we can get throught that : let’s see how.

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Filed Under: Economy & New Models, Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Management & HR Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Trust doesn’t preclude control…but which control ?

March 21, 2008 By 1 Comment

That’s a key point in enterprise 2.0 discussion : build a base called trust, which has effects on transparency, loosen grip and the command and control world that’s ours. Hence the announced end of “command and control”.

Why the end of command and control ? Regarding “command”, can you imagine an organization where nobody commands ? That’s not because we need more place for serendipity that we have to let luck rule our companies. Command must stay, but people may be allowed to also do what’s not asked. Most of all, command can be about goals definition, not about the means you’ll use to reach it.

And what about control ? According to Maddie Grant, companies can’t adapt to the present context because they can’t live without control. I fully agree with that opinion but I’d like to add something. [Read more...]

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Serendipity doesn’t preclude control : a few rules to manage fate within informal networks

March 10, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Everyone is conscious of informals networks’ power within an organization. But their informal nature causes of lot of (sometimes) legitimate fears because seen uncontrolable. We never know what they will bring. The concept of serendipity is perfect to illustrate this. We all dream of driving a Ferrari, provided we can control accelerator, wheel and brakes. If not, a smaller but more controlable car is a better solution. That’s the same for managers : they are looking or performance but don’t feel like pushing their company off the road..

This squaring of the circle was highlighted by one reader on my french blog on a note about innovation portfolio. I think the equation can be solved provided we forget the “let them do and wait to see what happens” rule. By the way, it’s one of the reason why entreprise 2.0 isn’t like web 2.0. It’s supposed to have the same consequences, with the same tools, the same dynamics, but with different lever and rules : same starting and ending point but different processes.

Some rules that have to be followed….

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Filed Under: Enterprise 2.0 & Social Business, Innovation, Management & HR, Web & Usages Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,