|
Cowboys, Communicators, Collaborators and
Communities:
Evolving Worthwhile Organizational Culture
Carol Anne Ogdin
Founder, Deep Woods Technology, Inc.
|
|
Abstract: A culture exists within
the context of an organization; that organization is composed of people; those people
exhibit behaviors. Through a direct chain of events the pattern of behaviors that
individuals exhibit leads to the culture of the organization as a whole. The hopes and
dreams of what groupware might be able to achieve for the organization are tied directly
to those individual behaviors. If our goal is merely to get more work out of people
without changing the culture, then we needn't bother with attending to behaviors; if we
want to make the work environment a place that is both compelling for productive people
and contributory to their lives, we must seek a larger goal.
I posit three principal stages of employee personal evolution,
correlated to particular stages of available technology, show a natural progression from
one to another, and demonstrate how that progression can be explicitly encouraged. Then, I
posit an even higher goal that I believe worth having for all organizations, and which may
be enabled by our evolving technology. |
|
This paper was originally presented at GroupWare (Boston),
February 28, 1994.
It has subsequently been rewritten and updated to reflect new findings and experiences
gathered from work with clients since that time. |
|
Contents
|
|
|
|
How do you forge an organizational culture worth
having? If we install new technology, how do we even know that the people who comprise
that organization are adequately prepared to use it, that they're motivated to use it,
that they'll work toward organizational goals rather than personal agenda when the two
conflict? What are the common seeds of technological failures? What if you installed a new
groupware solution, and nobody had even the comprehension of what it should or could be
used for?
Organizations are composed of, principally, people. If those people
aren't sufficiently evolved to use a technology, adoption is slower and harder than in
organizations that introduce appropriate technology for appropriate times. I will identify
the identifying hallmarks of three progressively more interesting kinds of people, people
with increased capacities to achieve large goals beyond themselves and their personal
scope of compass, and even their individual limitations. Ultimately, we believe, that
culture that captures the essence of the Community will allow organizations to realize
their fullest potential; such a culture is-in our judgment-well worth having. |
|
People in groups,
(e.g., a corporation)
have "tribal" patterns
of behavior |
|
Culture
 One of the common
words bandied about among technologists today is "culture." They express some
concern about it, but few have actually been able to do much about it. We believe that is
largely due to two phenomenon:
- Most workgroups and teams have never come to consensual agreement on what
"culture" means, and therefore do not have a common meaning upon which to rely
as they discuss it, and
- The classic texts in the field obscure the definition behind irrelevant detail, or make
broad statements (like "...assumptions we don't see.") that are too vague to
offer executives any leverage.
At Deep Woods Technology, and at our client organizations, we define
Organizational Culture in an active way:
|
Culture:
The pattern of presuppositions evident in behavior.
|
Our definition is composed of four discrete points:
Presuppositions: Presuppositions are those facts and ideas that must
necessarily exist in a person's experience for their behaviors and utterances to make
sense.
For example, for me to meaningfully say to you, "These words
appear on a screen (or are printed on paper)," I must assume that you and I share
some concept "word," that there are words in your visual field, that there are
such things as "words," that you and I can agree on what constitutes a
"word," and so on. The dependence of presup- positions upon other
presuppositions leads to a bottomless pit of analysis when carried to extreme. For
example, this entire example is predicated on the presupposition that you are a sentient
being capable of reading a fairly safe
presupposition in this context, I submit.
In the personal sphere, when someone's behavior appears to be bizarre,
look for the differences between the presuppositions you customarily hold, and the
presuppositions that must be true for that person. What makes no sense to us, as observer,
may make perfectly logical sense to the person engaged in producing those behaviors! |
|
Culture:
The pattern
of presuppositions
evident in behavior. |
|
At the level of a workgroup, team, department, or other
organization, there are certain shared presuppositions: There are shared presuppositions
about what are appropriate times for us to come to work, and to leave, and what is allowed
in framing and presenting our disagreements, and whether we're allowed to know what each
other get paid, and so on.
Patterns: These presuppositions within the organization come in patterns.
Sometimes we simplistically try to reduce the character of an organization down to just
one presupposition, but that is stereotyping, which leads to prejudice. Just as with
personality in people, culture in organizations is more complex than that (in fact, you
might loosely consider a personality as an analogy of culture).
In dealing which cultural change, there are usually only a few key
presuppositions that need be dealt with; most of the rest are probably quite productive
and useful, and changing too many presuppositions in the pattern at one time can lead to
utter chaos (and a certain sense of wondering whether leaders know what they're doing!).
It is also worth noting that not all participants in an organization will necessarily hold
the same presuppositions; some will be perceived as "mavericks" because they do
not conform to the dominant presuppositions in the group. And, there are likely
presuppositions within the organization about how violation of the presuppositions by
mavericks are regarded.
Behavior: The proof of presuppositions is in the actions (or inaction) of
participants in the organization. The documents, customs, speech patterns, and other
observable phenomena are both the evidence of particular presuppositions, and the evidence
for the intentional changes that might be undertaken by executive management.
Evidence: Behaviors can be observed, monitored and documented; evidence
can be collected and shared. In that evidence we can also detect the strength or
pervasiveness of the culture: It is the degree to which individuals behave congruently
with the pattern of presuppositions dominant in the organization. |
|
Culture
is always in
the form of
observable,
measurable behavior |
|
Cowboys1
One of the most pervasive and enduring icons of our cultureand a source
of much of our difficulty in organizationsis the lone rider on horseback, the
isolated detective who cracks the case, the individual who makes a significant difference.
Can you imagine a movie like "Rambo" about a platoon? Can you identify
some group equivalent in popular culture to John Wayne? We extol the lone achiever, we
honor individuality. Nowhere is this more evident than in advertisements: The lone driver,
performing incredible feats with her new Isuzu, the hoary Marlboro man.
And yet...and yet...some of the really significant achievements of
modern times have been achieved only through people working together. Could one woman have
created the Internet? Could one man design and construct a mass-production automobile?
Only in Jules Verne's novels could one person go to the Moon. There are challenges we face
at the end of this millennium and the start of the next for which Cowboys are not
adequate. |
|
|
|
Pervasiveness of the Cowboy
And yet...and yet...those cultural icons remain. It is the basis of
our hierarchical model of management: One person is insufficient, so let's have that one
person direct and lead a group of people to do that larger task. So the successful Cowboy
who brought in all the sales when the division was just starting out is now promoted to
Sales Manager...and she is ill-equipped to cope with the new needs. So, we fire the Sales
Manager and bring in a proven performer who the field sales people initially won't respect
because that newcomer has never been successful in field sales. The skills are different,
the needs are different, and even the dispositions may be different.
Cowboys are loners: They get the job done, but they are sole producers.
Ask them to design a new product, and you will get a clean, elegant, cohesive design that
is a marvel to behold...and may bear no resemblance to the product for which the customer
is willing to pay. Put a Cowboy in charge of a meeting and things get done...even if he
has to ride roughshod over the participants; nobody can challenge, nobody can dissent,
because the outcome was already decided by the Cowboy before the meeting began. The Cowboy
in field sales tells people about the product or service; if you interrupt them, they have
to go back to the beginning of their pitch and start all over to keep their train of
thought on the right track. We create our Cowboys in our educational institutions by
rewarding only solitary performance (and, then, only for having the right answer, not the
right question).
Cowboys want specific goals, and the freedom to pursue those goals in
whatever way they deem appropriate. But, if you're not specific enough, they may return
unexpected results. The lone Cowboy in a sales territory makes commitments the company may
not even be able to achieve. You tell them to go out and sell, they'll often make
unilateral price concessions to the customer, or promise customizations, that other people
will have to deliver; these are irrelevant to the Cowboy; she's gotten the sale. |
|
|
|
Where the Cowboy Excels
There are some activities in life that demand Cowboys. Can you
imagine the Sistine Chapel painted by committee? Should fighter pilots negotiate with
their co-pilots before making that next evasive turn to avoid catastrophe? Does great
prose emerge from the committee- written newsmagazines? Cowboys are very effective when
they can carve out an activity about which they care passionately, for which they can find
sponsors, and where rewards exist for being a contrarian or maverick. Consultants,
investors, and designers are typical occupations. Imagine it this way: If you took the
individual out of the corporate setting, and they could be just as effective coming into
the office every couple of weeks for a day's meeting, would he be as (or more) productive?
If so, you're dealing with a Cowboy.
- Many years ago, consulting to a major semiconductor firm, I
was asked to evaluate a new microprocessor architecture in which they were planning to
invest a few hundred million dollars. After reading the documents, I reported, "This
product line was designed by a single individual with at most two helpers." The
clarity of concept, the consistency across design elements, and the consistency of depth
of design documentation were all indicators...and the exceptions (e.g., slight shifts in
syntax) identified the helpers. "In fact," my client reported, with surprise,
"that design came from one person in [a distant foreign country, half-way around the
globe], and he has three assistants."
|
|
|
|
Cowboy Communications
Cowboys are not generally volitional communicators; they'll
communicate what they have to, but most of their communications are internal (keeping the
more respected and trusted counsel they know?). However, Cowboys will engage in some
coordination of their activities; they'll communicate to set up a common meeting venue and
time, but they won't communicate their route of travel to get to that meeting unless
explicitly asked (and the requester has a legitimate need).
| Management Style |
Authoritarian |
| Principal Identification |
"Me" |
| Focus |
Outcome, über alles |
| Slogan |
"Just leave me alone to get the job
done." |
| Motto |
"If I do well, others will benefit from my
work." |
| Common Technologies |
Car Phone, Pager |
| Technology Wishlist |
Personal Locators (for other people) |
Identifying the Cowboy
|
|
|
|
Communicators
Communicators split their attention between tasks and people, and
how they can be more influential through those people. If the Cowboy is at the center of
his own Universe, the Communicator is at the center of a Universe of other people. The
"MCI Friends" advertisements, or the AT&T "Reach out and touch
someone" campaigns are messages to and for Communicators. In entertainment,
Communicators are portrayed as important, but not central characters; in Star Wars, Alec
Guinness plays the consummate Communicator, achieving his ends through teaching young Luke
Skywalker (but Hollywood can't relinquish that Cowboy image; in the final scenes, Luke
vanquishes Darth Vader in the quintessential triumph of the lone hero). In "Star
Trek: The Next Generation," Captain Jean-Luc Pickard is the quintessential
Communicator. (By casting Communicators in science fiction, are Hollywood moguls telling
us the future is only place for Communicators?)
|
|
Despite
cultural icons,
some become
Communicators. |
|
The Communicator is more flexible than the Cowboy, and
that flexibility contributes to getting more of what they want out of the world. In fact,
transforming Cowboys into Communicators is easiest accomplished with a challenge:
"Would you rather be right...or successful?" The Communicator instinctively
understands the Law of Requisite Variety, drawn from the study of systems. In any system
(say, the system between the Communicator and the person or people he's communicating
with), that component of the system which maximum variety of possible behaviors will be in
control of the system2.
If Ron stands pat on one specific objective or outcome, and Don has the flexibility to
move in a variety of different directions to achieve his outcomes, who do you think is
more likely to be happier with the result?
The Communicator has an ear for listening, gathering information,
picking up nuances and subtleties. They'll "listen your arm off." Put a
Communicator in charge of a meeting, and everybody gets a voice... although the meeting
may ramble (it drives the Cowboys nuts!). Communicators function well in Customer Service,
because they listen to the complaints before trying to offer suggestions. In the sales
situation, the Communicator will repeat the message over and over, in different ways,
until the prospect "gets it."
Communicators want clear goals, and a group of people who are
responsibleto the Communicatorfor getting the requisite work done. In the sales setting,
Communicators bring back the best market intelligence, and when there's conflict between
customer needs and factory policy, she'll act as the intermediary to move parties toward
consensus. In the world of Sales Force Automation, it is the Communicators who supply
field intelligence back to the factory for analysis and use by others, elsewhere in the
field...which should be reason enough for management to address the task of moving Cowboys
into the ranks of Communicators.
- When I first published "Software Design for
Microcomputers," the editor mused aloud that we might be wasting space on the chapter
focused on building software documentation in a form that could be shared by the whole
team; indeed, the chapter nearly got dropped from its appearance in EDN, July, 1977.
However, from reader service cards we discovered that it was the most valued chapter of
the entire series as rated by the readers. There appear to be many more Communicators in
the design arena than any of us had thought.
| Management
Style |
Facilitation |
| Principal Identification |
"You and me" |
| Focus |
Outcome, with some Relationship attention |
| Slogan |
"We can do it." |
| Motto |
"If you do your job well, I can do mine
better." |
| Common Technologies |
Fax, Voice Mail, Workflow, e-mail |
| Technology Wishlist |
Personal Locators (for themselves) |
| Requisite Skill |
Pace-and-lead, Requisite Variety |
Identifying the Communicator
|
|
The
Communicator
exhibits flexibility
that trumps (and
confuses) the Cowboy. |
|
Acquiring the Requisite Skill
The essential property of the Communicator is the ability to adapt
and change as required to communicate. Good writers write for the benefit of the reader,
often imagining a typical individual or group or mythical readers to provide focus during
the writing. Good talkers watch their listeners carefully, able to shift the emphasis and
direction of a thought mid-sentence in response to the subtle, non-verbal feedback cues in
the listener's face, or the common movements and patterns evident in an audience. This
ability to pace the other person's experience, and to change the presentation to suit is
the first key; after sufficient pacing, it is then possible to lead the other party in an
appropriate direction. (The Cowboy leadsor attempts to, the Communicator
paces, then leads.)
Pacing starts at the level of nouns, verbs and pronunciation: If they
call it a "widget," the Communicator calls it a "widget," never
correcting, never challenging. If they call it a "widget" by mistake, the
Communicator paces their experience and usage, and later, after essential rapport is
established, they can lead the other party to the more appropriate word by using it in a
context that sets a worthy example. "The customer is always right," is the
watchword of the Communicator. And the Communicator also believes that "people can
always learn."
Pacing can be further embellished and enriched by noting analog
patterns of communication: Words are digital while tonality, rhythm, timbre, loudness and
spacing are all analog features of speech. Even within e-mail, we can notice whether the
other party is scrupulous about casing, spelling and grammar, and pace them by emulating
their examples. (Of course, you have to decide who you're pacing; if a group of people are
communicating via a discussion database or newsgroup, I will often explicitly not engage
in pacing the individual to whom I'm responding, choosing instead to focus on how I pace
the expectations of the collective group of participants.) The more closely the
Communicator can emulate the other person's behaviors and mannerisms, the more profound
the rapport established with that person. For an example, watch any two lovers in a
romantic restaurant: Each elegantly mirrors the mannerisms of the other in a synchronous
dance of mutual rapport, ever deeper into entrancement and enchantment. Now look at the
fighting couple over in the other corner; she glowers, he looks down; discrete
differences...out of rapport. Observing the two business people negotiating at another
table, the Communicator can identify whether the discussions are going smoothly or not in
just a few seconds without overhearing a word.
Profound pacing can be achieved by expert Communicators who know that
breathing at the same rate, and assuming the same postures, and moving at approximately
the same times can even establish rapport with a total stranger in another part of the
same room.Converting Cowboys to Communicators. |
|
Profound
rapport:
More important that
what we're trying to
achieve. |
|
These are skills that can be learned easiest in childhood, but few of
us had adequate role models to emulate. So, as adults, we have to explicitly acquire these
skills. Moving the Cowboy to Communicator requires these first lessons, much like learning
to read requires the discipline of paying attention to the shapes of the individual
letters of the alphabet. With the right tutor, a Cowboy can learn to become a Communicator
in less than a day; motivating them to spend more time as Communicator than Cowboy may
depend, however, on the reward system in that person's world.
The unrepentant Cowboy, satisfied within his or her own world view,
will reject the skills of rapport and shifting perceptual positions as so much
"bunk," unworthy of bothering to learn. And such people, arguing so vociferously
for their own limitations, seldom achieve the potential latent within them for achieving
outcomes way, way beyond their narrow horizons. |
|
Communication
is
just another
acquired skill. |
|
Collaborators
Collaborators3
need others to co-survive, co-evolve, co-create with. They thrive on projects bigger than
themselves, and group of peers (they aren't conducive to hierarchy, and they violate it
with glee) all mutually committed to some common goal. There isn't much evidence of
collaboration in the media, because the experience is so psycho- logically internal, but
one good example was Quincy Jones' "We Are the World," with all of the major
artists of the day singing in chorale (despite, of course, Coca Cola's attempted hijacking
of that imagery by substituting children and commercial lyrics).
Collaborators have often emerged from within contemporary
organizations, and the collaborations they've constructed have done great things (can you
imagine Kernighan without Ritchie in the computer industry, or Hewlett without Packard in
electronics, or Spielberg without Lucas in films? Or "The Lone Stooge", or a
sole inventor of the Space Shuttle?). Collaborations often arise spontaneously as people
engage in acts of communication and peership, passing work from hand-to-hand for
enrichment and enhancement. In well-run software development projects, collaborators read
and comment upon each other's code, the results being dramatically better than could have
been achieved in isolation (contrast with Communicators, who talk about their code, and
Cowboys who jealously guard their code from inspection by anyone). |
|
Collaborators
are
made, not born. |
|
The Collaborator feels lonely unless interacting with
peers. Collaborators want to have other minds to bounce ideas off, and they'll (sometimes
erroneously) elevate subordinates to peership to experience the collaboration; worse,
they'll sometimes give Cowboys and Communicators the benefit of the doubt, hoping they'll
rise to the occasion.. The Collaborator pays more attention to the people than the
results, having faith that if the relationships are nurtured and sustained, any outcome is
possible; but they probably won't get it done by Tuesday unless the relationship is firmly
in-place. So, project start-up with a new crew of Collaborators can often be a long, slow
(and, for management, scary) process, and Collaborators often have difficulty with
turnover; it takes time for new participants to gain the trust essential to good
collaboration.
Collaborators often don't want specific goals, but general directions
about what to achieve. They can probably exceed expectations...but the results can often
be slightly askew from what management originally thought they wanted. Both the keys to
success and failure have come out of both the Macintosh and Newton collaborations at
Apple, for instance: Collaborators can descend into groupthink or mutual denial of reality
if they aren't careful.
|
|
|
|
Collaborations usually take place at the project level,
and members of a successful collaboration often seek out similar environments... usually
to no avail, because they haven't a clue as to what made the collaboration successful in
the first place. Many efforts at building teams miss the mark as well, because they focus
on external interaction processes without ever getting at the core dynamic: The common-
objective focus of Collaborators. People can be Collaborators by style (although it's
generally an acquired style), but they need an objective, a goal to have something to
collaborate about.
- In the early days of computers, there was a bunch of us
working in the very first computer service bureau, all on different projects but using the
same computers that were so primitive they didn't even have operating systems. One day, a
programmer borrowed a deck of punched cards from another, and incorporated them into a new
program as a subroutine. But in the process, he improved it slightly, and passed the
improvement back. The original programmer enhanced it in yet another way, and shared it
with his collaborator, and with a few other people. Those people began to add new features
to the set, expanding the range of capabilities. Then "code wars" erupted, with
each person gleefully trying to squeeze more and more functionality out of fewer and fewer
statements, each new enhancement cheerfully distributed to the ever-widening circle. After
several months, the process settled down, and each programmer kept making copies of that
now-stable, now-rich deck of punched cards for each new program. The organization got a
deserved reputation for being able to produce good programs fast. And some of the original
participants in that unsanctioned, unfinanced, extra-curricular project went on to become
some of the luminaries of the software design world and authors of influential computer
design books.
| Management
Style |
Participative |
| Principal Identification |
"Us" |
| Focus |
Relationship, then outcome |
| Slogan |
"Let's work together." |
| Motto |
"The whole is greater than the sum of
parts." |
| Common Technologies |
E-mail, electronic conferencing |
| Technology Wishlist |
Instant contact (for everybody) |
| Requisite Skill |
Shifting perceptual positions |
Identifying the Collaborator
|
|
Collaborators
actively
seek out
divergent opinions |
|
Acquiring the Requisite Skill
The essential property of the Collaborator is the ability to
figuratively "step into the skin" of the other person, and to understand that
person's model of the world in a deep and profound way. This is not a skill that is widely
encouraged in our culture...and certainly not within the business community. It takes
considerable skill to be able to clearly and discretely occupy three essential positions:
Self (i.e., First Person), Other (i.e., Second Person), and Observer (Third Person). Most
of us claim we can do it, but most of us can't (or won't).
Most people occupy a kind of hybrid state that contains elements of
Self, Other and Observer, all mixed up at the same time. Because we've never been taught
how to cleanly separate the three, some people believe they can "walk a mile in the
other man's shoes," when, in fact, they simply can't. It can take hours the very
first time we at Deep Woods Technology assist a manager (typically a Communicator) to
acquire the initial experience of fully and completely separating the three states, and
once the skill is acquired, it can take weeks of repetitive practice before it becomes a
natural part of behavior. But, then, bicycle riding is an unnatural act that requires
diligent attention to experience to master, too. The essential prerequisite to this skill
is the committed ability to not know whether one has the skill or not; as heretical as it
sounds, it is a fact that knowing is a deterrent to learning. |
|
"Walk
a mile
in the other man's shoes"
is harder than it sounds. |
|
Looking From Other Eyes
Most of the time, as we communicate with others, or think (i.e.,
communicate with ourselves), we perceive ourselves in the "here-and- now."
Often, however, we're not...and not even aware of it. In fact, we can do our communicating
from a perspective in the past, present or future, and we can see through our own eyes,
another person's eyes, or from the eyes of a dispassionate observer...some nine different
combi- nations in all4.
When we "look back on our handling of the Federal deficit from the eyes of our
children," we're assuming a perceptual position that clearly not the
"here-and-now;" we're occupying the Future/Other perspective to view self and
others in the present.
|
|
|
|
We're often admonished to "walk in the other man's
moccasins," but without much guidance as to how. In most cases, when we imagine we're
doing that, we come to a conclusion that is, in fact, still from within the position of
"self, here-and-now." This kind of self-centric view of the world leaves us
devoid of vast volumes of information. That can lead to the deception that, when we're
really looking from the Self/Present position, we think we're looking from the other
person's perspective. That leads to such illogical statements as "Well, as I look at
it from her perspective, her decision is pretty lame!" Frankly, most people don't
intentionally engage in "lame" behavior, so this report is suspect on the face
of it. |
|
|
|
However, when we actually do assume the Other/Present
position, and thrust the other person (in our mind's eye) into the central position of the
matrix, we can enrich our ability to communicate by gathering new and informative
intuitions. It's an acquired skill that most Communicators can do quite unconsciously.
And, from that perspective, relinquishing their own values, outcomes and beliefs for a
moment, they can say, "Well, as I look at it from her perspective (really!), her
decision makes a lot of sense." By discovering that person's unique presuppositions
and beliefs, the Communicator gleans high-quality information that serves to increase the
potential for increasing flexibility to more readily achieve outcomes. |
|
|
|
We can often look at present decisions to decide how
they'll "play" in the future. Communicators are seldom bored, because in the
midst of a meeting in which alternatives are debated, he can step into the viewpoint of,
say, the Division Manager in the Future, and examine and assess the quality, benefits and
effects of the decision being debated "back then" (from that imaginary position
in the future), in the "here-and-now" (in the present meeting). That shifted
perceptual position may then lead to returning to the "here-and-now" to suggest
a refinement or improvement that will make the decision even more effective. |
|
|
|
We can even use the same mental trick to remind
ourselves of the successes (or failures...if you must) of the past. From the perspective
of being a dispassionate Observer in the Past, one can marvel at how one has overcome such
incredible odds to have achieved the professional position and social posture one now
occupies, or even glean information about what one did back then that could be useful to
others whom we may be mentoring in business. |
|
|
|
One of the powerful strategies that Communicators and
Collab- orators use to improve their decision-making is to set the tentative decision in
the center of the matrix, and then progressively and systematically move around the
peripheral positions, noticing what that perspective reveals about the decision. Often,
one of the other perspectives (say, Other/Present... "how will my boss react to
this?", or Observer/Future..."what would a judge of my behavior in the future
say about my decision today?") yields high-quality subjective information that can
inform and refine the decision. |
|
|
|
Communities
Adding this fourth category to the first three is clearly a leap in
kind, not merely in degree, not unlike "red, green, yellow, apple". My point in
associating the four in order, however is to illustrate that the first three are
prerequisites to the ultimate objective: To create organizations that have the
characteristics of successful communities. Unless and until individuals are equipped with
the essential skills to have moved from Cowboy to Communicator to Collaborator, they are
not ready or able to achieve responsible citizenship in any Community we would care to
create. In social experiments of the recent past, intentional community failures can be
traced to the unwillingness to bridge the gulfs in communications through (at least) the
three preceding steps, plus one more: The ability to honor diversity is absolutely vital.
Not tolerate diversity, but value it, seek it out, earnestly explore its manifestations.
|
|
|
|
There is a social phenomenon afoot in our larger
culture, and pattern thatif history serveswill permeate the organization,
especially as those walls become more permeable with "virtual corporations," and
more telecommuting. That pattern is the focus on and re-emergence of community as an
important organizing force in our lives. From Scott Peck ("The Different Drum")
to Howard Rheingold ("The Virtual Community"), leading-edge thinkers are showing
the benefits for moving beyond our habitual limits.
Community transcends the scope of particular behavioral styles and
traits I've identified earlier in this paper; like "circle, triangle, square",
the objects with these properties contribute to successful "building." Managers
in the fin de siècle will be faced with achieving results where the team members aren't
all direct and local employees (some will be contractors, others telecommuters, yet others
will work inside vendor organizations), may not all be ready and equipped to communicate
effectively, and who may be trained and educated to look out only for self, and not
others. No groupware in the world is going to overcome all these problems; it can help,
but alone, it is bound to fail.
|
|
|
|
What is clearly true to me, and I hope to you, is that
the evolution of groupware is going to carry with it a wave of cultural change, and
success will be achieved when the people who collaborate begin to look out for each
other's interests...when Community emerges. In a Community, when someone's home burns
down, everybody pitches in to raise a new one. In the business world, the Cowboy asks how
soon the dispossessed occupant will be able to return to work, the Communicator asks where
they're living, and the Collaborator asks how long the project may be delayed. In the
Community that I envision for business in 2001, the team members will place principal
emphasis on the relationship, encouraging the trauma-sufferer to pay first attention to
family and shelter, while the team "covers" for the missing party, until the
trauma has passed and the team is whole again. And the manager/mentor/mover of 2001 will
positively encourage that behavior on the part of peers.
|
|
For more
information:
Deep Woods Technology
2775 Hawks Landing Ct.
Placerville, CA 95667
Tel. 530/295-3657
Fax. 530/295-3658
caogdin@deepwoods.com |
|
We have a long way to go before we're there, but I
believe this is a cultural shift worth having.
|
|
|
|
Footnotes:
| 1 |
This sobriquet has taken on a negative connotation among those who have
struggled to free themselves from its confines. However, I mean no disrespect; I've chosen
it for it alliterative quality. Furthermore, I mean no slight to women; I intend it in the
generic. If you're so inclined, feel free to substitute "Cow- girls," although
candidly it has been my observation that the proportion of Communicators and Collaborators
is higher among women than men in contemporary business. |
| 2 |
Actually, W. Ross Ashby, in Introduction to Cybernetics,
says "This is the law of Requisite Variety. To put it more pictur- esquely: only
variety in R can force down the variety due to D; only variety can destroy variety." |
| 3 |
Interesting word. It means so much in North America, and is becoming
a desirable ideal. However, the word doesn't travel well. Throughout Asia,
collaboration carries different connota- tions, based on philosophical differences.
In France, as one client put it, "We shoot collaborators!" and the word
just isn't acceptable, even in the context we've used it here. If you've got a
better word, please let me know. |
| 4 |
In fact, we can see ourselves, others or observer within our mind's eye,
or see through the eyes of those different per- spectives, and that doubles the number of
perspectives to eighteen. And, from each of these, we can focus our attention on any of
the other eight possibilities, leading to a total of 144 different possible combinations.
We'll focus on the primary nine in this discussion. |
|
|
|
Back to top of page
|
