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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Management 2.0 is emerging. But what about managers 2.0 ?

March 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment

This topic was was my baseline at the beginning of this blog but I deserted it for a simple reason : I wrote a lot about how enterprises were supposed to work and, once done, holding on it endlessy was useless. The next step is to think about how to make it possible, by validating new practice’s relevance and think about implementing it in a pragmatic way.  Now tools are taking their place step by step within the enterprises, I’m sur 2008 will be the very beginning of change in management and organization. I insist on “the very beginning”. Don’t expect any tsunami : tools are slowly arriving and we’ll need time to have them adopted, and once the adoption will be effective, it will be obvious different management practices have to be set up (even if the wish of new practices precedes tool’s deployment).

A few weeks ago David Gurteen wrote about web 2.0 practices and management 2.0 on the same basis as  Gary Hamel in “The Future Of Management”. But he also asked this question : who will be the managers 2.0 ? Will they we updated managers 1.0 ? Do we have to wait for their retirement to give power to a next generation ?

Considering the speed things are going, I’m affraid that if we wait for the transfer of power between two generations, it will be too late. We’re not talking about 10 or 20 years but about dynamics that will start in the next months. And on a 10 years scale the risk of acculturation for new generations is real. And, as Hamel says, it will be too late. [Read more...]

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Enterprise and management 2.0 : is this the beginning or the end

February 4, 2008 By 2 Comments

A few weeks ago I published on my french blog a note about the latest book by Gary Hamel : “The future of management”. A few days later I received a comment from his french publisher, saying the french edition will be available in april. What surprised me was the title : in France the book will be called “The end of management”.

Ok, the is about both end and future : the end of what we know, and how to successfully embrace the future. But, although both titles are relevant, I don’t think they embody the same message : “the end”implies we don’t know what’s next, something like if our practices are close to death and, since we rely on them, we’re close to death too. The english title is closer to reality since Hamel not only says an era is finishing, he also gives us hints about the future and how to build it.

Perhaps it’s also a way to take into account cultural differences : US people are more positive and think about opportunities, French people often focus on a kind of security that’s disappearing little by little, on what they’re loosing rather than what they may win in the future.

What a pity. I’m affraid using such words is not the best way to make people feel more comfortable with the upcomming and unavoidable change.

I’d like to have your opinion about that ? Not only about the title (even if I’d be glad to have Hamel’s point of view…there’s no harm in dreaming), but also about how you consider the tipping point we’re reaching. Is it the end ? The beginning ? More an evolution than a real end ?

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

Reinventing management according to McKinsey

December 23, 2007 By 3 Comments

After having published some studies about the “soft ROI” of organizational performance and informal networks, McKinsey brought out something very interesting about the need of reinventing management.

Before going into the document, a few things about all those relevant analysis from McKinsey :

- McKinsey treats a lot of problematics in direct relationship with enterprise 2.0…without mentioning this concept. It’s the very evidence that, regardless of tools, people who work and think hard on those topics are heading in the right direction.

- The future of enterprise is not enterprise 2.0 (if you consider that enterprise 2.0 is only about using web 2.0 tools within the company) but a company that decides to really face its challenges and adopt the right kind of organization will found in 2.0 tools what’s needed to power it.

- At the end it backs me up in my idea : everything starts with a strategic goal, then with organization, then with management and process, and at the end you have to provide the needed tools. Tools don’t make the enterprise but serve it.

So let’s have a closer look…

[Read more...]

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Enterprise 2.0 is a set of means…

August 2, 2007 By Leave a Comment

After a few days of slow blogging, it’s time for me to begin what will be the main thread of following week : some details about my definition of enterprise 2.0.

Let’s begin by the beginning and have a look at the first part of the definition “enterprise 2.0 is [...] a set of means”.

[Read more...]

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The future of managers : connectors headed up by CCOs

July 30, 2007 By 2 Comments

Don’t worry. My purpose is not to say managers are going to be useless, but only to update a few notions. Intrapreneurship have been (slowly but surely) gaining ground in a lot of heads, that’s not someting really new. But the turn the economy is making makes this concept more and more important today, as we also have tools to organize all that which didn’t exists 20 years age.

With the intrapreneur employee, endowed with more autonomy, working in and with networks, the “command & control” management is close to its end. It was the best organizational answer in a given context and as the context is changing, what it generated has to be cleaned up.

Without “command & control”, will the manager become useless ? Not at all, and his role will be more and more valuated. Ok, those who were very comfortable with “command and control” will have to make some efforts but since it’s the enterprise’s upper goal that implies changes, resistants will have to deal with that. [Read more...]

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Definition of the employee 2.0

June 17, 2007 By 1 Comment

As I promised, let’s think about what would be the definition of an employee 2.0. In fact it’s really harder to define the employee 2.0 than the enterprise 2.0. Perharps it’s because enterprise 2.0 can be defined by facts, by what should / would be, and employee 2.0 can only be defined by his expectations since turning expectations into facts highly relies on which practices the organization tolerates.

[Read more...]

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Why enterprise 2.0 won’t kill hierarchy

May 22, 2007 By 2 Comments

images-3thumbnail.jpegA note inspired by this very good post by Tom Davenport. Not only enterprise 2.0 won’t change hierarchy but also it’s essential it won’t. Pretending to knock down hierarchy is, according to me an heresy, an utopian dream…and something very dangerous.

Hierarchy is essential to any form of organization. The fact is it’s considered responsible for a lo of things it doesn’t have anything to do with. Perharps there has been bad uses of hierarchical power, but hierarchy in itself must endure. The problem of the non-agile and jamed enterpise is not hierarchy but the vision people have of it.

If fact, this debates is the proof we too often mistake the way we decide for the way we work. [Read more...]

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Turning knowledge into action and results

May 20, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Since I’m in my “Robert Sutton series”, I’d like to take a few minutes to talk you about a book that had a great impact on me and that brings answers to companies’ everyday questions : The Knowing-Doing Gap.

Sutton’s statement is that despite of the endlessy increasing volume ok available knowledge, the enterprise struggles to take benefit from it. We even realize that it’s not beaucause the enterprise knows it has to do something, and this something is validated, acted, that something is done.

No web or enterprise 2.0 here. The book dates back from 2000 and, il social computing may help resolving a lot of problematics, thos problematics hadn’t wait the emergence of web 2.0 to exist. The bool shows concrete examples of typical cases and explains how some companies overrided their block to become smart companies.

What’s obvious is those are exactly the same barriers as we encounter in enterprise 2.0 adoption: management by fear, always do as before and not try to invent, mistake speech for action, wrong indicators, considering internal competition as a must, lack of trust…

What’s important in Sutton’s book is that he explained how companies changed their paradigm to adopt new management practices and how efficient that was.

That’s really a book a recommend to enterprise 2.0 addicts, since it gives us tips of what to do build the right contexte to have social computing and suitable practices adopted.

In fact, I’d really like to know what Robert Sutton thinks about social computing, enterprise 2.0 and the evolution it may bring in management.

Filed Under: Management & HR Tagged With: , ,

Social computing and knowledgeworking need new metrics

April 22, 2007 By 6 Comments

People still talk a lot about about 2.0 adoption…as I always say, the point is not to have tools adopted but to build the ecosystem which makes them suitable. In other words that’s not the individuals who refuse / fear / don’t want / don’t kwow how to… it’s their ecosystem which makes very hard to develop.

Andrew McAfee published a very interesting note on that point, especially about the importance of the notion of time. In fact time is very well kwown excuse “I don’t have time”, “I want my team to work, they don’t have time for anything else”. Paradoxically, those managers often complain about lack of collaboration and innovation within their enterprises, and dramatically suffer from consequences of such lacks.

At first sight it’s about management. But it’s also a matter of metric and paradigm. [Read more...]

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