I recently bought Gary Hamel’s New Book - The Future of Management. VERY interesting and if I may say “spot on” when it comes to a description of what is necessary for companies to understand. Companies should organize them selfs as social systems, not as mashines.
When reading through the book I experience page by page that I’ve got my self a new friend. I knew that already when reading Gary Hamel’s comment on my post about “beta mindset“.
His book is interesting because it links Enterprise2.0 to Enterprise survival.
“Look around you; what things have demonstrated their adaptability across decades, centuries and eons? What sets the benchmark for adaptability? From my vantage point, life, markets, democracies, faith and cities all seem surprisingly adaptable. Each of these biological and human systems has proven itself to be far more resilient than any large corporation. They must become the role models for 21st century companies.”
and
“Many companies devote 5, 10 or even 20 percent of their revenue to R&D. Why not set aside a small share of discretionary funding for ideas that don’t pop up at the right time, or in the right place, to make it into the formal budgeting process? My guess is that a community of hundreds of mid-level managers spread out across a large company would, in the aggregate, make better investment decisions than a few folks in a corporate new ventures unit.”
I do of course agree, but many managers doesen’t understand the dynamics that web2.0 unfold internally in organisations…..I’ll come to that in another post 
Do you have any takes on how the organization of a company would look like in the future? Which leadership competencies are in play? And what role does design play in the development?
2 comments so far
5-10% of revenue? I’ve seen it take only 20 minutes of AE’s time + probably another 20 minutes from someone in IT…. a few ad agencies I know have had pretty good success with maintaining internal message boards or even a blog that every employee has access to. The software is free, and easily could be brought internally (or password protected), and the 20 minutes would be to explain how to post/reply to comments..
About a year ago a pretty big campaign for one of the larger US based life insurance companies originated from a random observation made by the company intern on their internal blog. It just happened to make sense when applied towards the client/market and someone else in the company was keen enough to make the connection. The cost? Nothing! (well, i’m sure she got hired after that, but still.. thats no 5-10% of total revenue).
Now this all took place at an advertising agency, so the corporate structure is slightly more jaded than the average fortune 500, but I am still a big fan of having more than just a select group of executives ‘have a go’ at the strategy. It was the [i hate to use this word but] community involvement that helped the campaign, and later the brand itself, adapt to reach the broader market. And if I remember correctly the company mentioned ended up having a pretty good year and still continues to embrace the new brand messaging that came from some 22-23 year old college kid.
….. you know boy is my face red…this was my first time on your site, and hadn’t read either of your two posts following this one which go into the pro’s/con’s of connecting your organization via social media & the like…
(i’m only preaching to the choir… my apologies)
-brent