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 context 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.
