0 -) The transitional stage where we are (and how it is awkward). >>; Where we will go to live.
1 a) We superimpose hierarchical processes on a networked organization (and it causes gaps, disconnects and counter-productive drivers where there should be connections between lines of organization). >> We move to a flatter, more collegial organization focused on the strategic pillars, less obsessed with levels.
1 b) We superimpose hierarchical processes on a networked organization (and it obscures strategic and tactical potentialities because of the performance focus on tightly defined target "results"). >>; We learn to work collaboratively and are motivated to look for synergies based on overall goals rather than branch-specific targets.
2 a) We manage the information we need to make decisions in terms of "documents" at the filing end of business processes (and that means we don't leverage the power of the basic desktop technology at our fingertips to minimize duplication) >>; We learn to think in terms of information rather than documents and plan our information GATHERING for the most optimal re-use and cross-referencing.
2 b) We manage information we need to make decisions in terms of "documents" at the filing end of business processes (and that means we suffer unabated information overload and/or information decision fatigue ) >> Realizing that paper based models cannot scale to the speed of digital information production, we redefine what constitutes a "record" and manage information tactically at the gathering stage rather than documents at the filing stage.
3 a) Our strategies for simplification and lean production are based on material work and products (less input, more output; compartmentalizing work into "manageable elements", measuring same "manageable elements" as opposed to their contribution to the objective of the work as a whole). >> We learn that leveraging digital simplification means thinking in terms of an overabundance of meaningful cross-referencable categories at the front end and parsing at the result stage of activities so that we can immediately pull up the information we need to make decisions as we go; we are happy to work in beta mode together, rather than holding off sharing until the totally polished offering is presented. A mental transition is necessary - see that an informed redundancy is necessary for streamlining because modern streamlining must be in real time and resilient.
Showing posts with label change management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label change management. Show all posts
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Saturday, January 31, 2015
The Massive Gap in Leveraging Digital Opportunities
I was chatting with a friend recently who is newly retired from a municipal public service position. I was sharing some ideas about an upcoming IPAC TRG event (Follow @IPACToronto on Twitter where info will be provided soon) and he provided an account of related organizational issues he witnessed when a very significant investment in a geomatics application showed no return.
His observations:
Now multiply that a few hundred thousand times and we have the modern workplace. In the meantime, it's left to the IT and admin to make whatever they can of it without full awareness of its potential value or purpose.
Onto that pile of blockage for moving into the 21st century, add
His observations:
- The software was adopted on the all-too-common belief that in some magical way it was self-operating and its introduction would solve some informational problems without further ado
- As a result, there was no attempt to design or deliver a work process that would leverage the software (and no one accountable for that since it wasn't even imagined that it would be necessary)
- There was no consultation with anyone who might have to use it, and even had there been, given the fetishization of the software and the failure of accountability for a strategy to leverage it, consultation probably wouldn't have netted much value.
Now multiply that a few hundred thousand times and we have the modern workplace. In the meantime, it's left to the IT and admin to make whatever they can of it without full awareness of its potential value or purpose.
Onto that pile of blockage for moving into the 21st century, add
- The governance map naturally resists being changed and collaborative technologies and their fruits can be seen as subversive
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
On Elitism
Ironically, populist movements in the US support the elite (creditor class, plutocrats, monopoly capitalists) and laws that increase their wealth and power, which are sold as contributing to greater individual freedom while increasing the class divide. Meanwhile the American Dream of individual freedom that began with the Age of Enlightenment has become a ridiculous caricature, as it is considered "elitist" to trust scientists and intellectuals, who are generally motivated by curiosity and concern for the public good more than self-interest.
It doesn't make sense to think of society or social institutions in terms of the original "social contract" among rational consenting individuals because, clearly, individuals maintain their identities in terms of their relationship to a real or idealized group, not by means of some inborn identity and a capacity for individual reasoning. People are born into and conditioned into an existing culture, with its history, its images, and its language . Speech is always historically and culturally conditioned and most people welcome that conditioning, although they may tell you otherwise by way of some fantasy "lone cowboy" image of individualism or something along those lines, equally culturally conditioned.We are members of real or idealized tribes and in times of rapid change in technology, the precursor to a change in ideology, there is a culture lag. Today we see culture regression. In some years, this will pass, hopefully with less pain than in times past.
Politics is not about rational choices. It's about tribal allegiances and, in uncertain times, it's the ancient archetype of the alpha male tribal leader, perhaps updated to the archetype of a valiant king, that keeps the lines of power organized and most people aligned to the interests of the oligarchy that directs our economy, regardless of what government regulators may want to do about it. Although our contemporary stories still indicate some deformed attempts to escape some vestigial projection of feudalism, the instinct to submit to the "divine right of kings" across many domains of human endeavour doesn't seem to have abated much.
What is an economy? It is a combination of our technologies, how we are socially organized to make the best use of them (or not) to produce what we need (and much, much more) from nature, and the institutions and stories that sustain that arrangement, and the powers of those who dominate the economy, in whom our powers are vested. We, more often than not, work against our personal advantage (usually unwittingly) and instead maintain the structures that in turn maintain our investment in the powers that sanction the rules and rituals that organize our lives and public relationships. For example, mothers in certain countries make sure that their daughters are "circumcised" in order to ensure their marriageability.
Today though if you dare to dream that reason, morality, art and respect for evidence (science) will help see us through to a more just arrangement, you may be called "elitist". This label is vestige of the hatred of the privileges of the feudal lords. It has nothing to do with today's world. Populism is the vehicle that most acutely and continually sustains the elite today. The next question is, what does that mean for democracy, if the dream of the enlightenment has become something "elitist"?
Of course, it's much more complicated than dreamers of the enlightenment may care to think. There is a deep seated sense that enlightenment dreams represent a kind of hubris on the part of human beings, as if we could rationally organize ourselves or submit our wills to a rational economy (invisible hand, "free"enterprise) to best achieve our increasingly empty ends. Of course we can't. The the complexity of the world would prevent our being able to do it - although frighteningly, the recent rediscovery of the complexity of nature doesn't prevent our ability to think it.
What is the alternative? As many are voicing today, the solution is in being adaptive, in our responsiveness and resilience. Rather than fixed universal truths of "human nature" or visions of true science, the just beneficence of some "invisible hand" economics, or various ideological diseases that afflict us today, I think we should rediscover what it means to understand, in all its dimensions, with the proviso that human understanding is ever-provisional.
Today more than ever we need to understand our relationship to the world we burden with the polluting byproducts of our Promethean dreams and our unrelenting, culturally conditioned searches for a better life. We will never arrive at a perfect solution but we can find our way to a more harmonious one, I hope.
It doesn't make sense to think of society or social institutions in terms of the original "social contract" among rational consenting individuals because, clearly, individuals maintain their identities in terms of their relationship to a real or idealized group, not by means of some inborn identity and a capacity for individual reasoning. People are born into and conditioned into an existing culture, with its history, its images, and its language . Speech is always historically and culturally conditioned and most people welcome that conditioning, although they may tell you otherwise by way of some fantasy "lone cowboy" image of individualism or something along those lines, equally culturally conditioned.We are members of real or idealized tribes and in times of rapid change in technology, the precursor to a change in ideology, there is a culture lag. Today we see culture regression. In some years, this will pass, hopefully with less pain than in times past.
Politics is not about rational choices. It's about tribal allegiances and, in uncertain times, it's the ancient archetype of the alpha male tribal leader, perhaps updated to the archetype of a valiant king, that keeps the lines of power organized and most people aligned to the interests of the oligarchy that directs our economy, regardless of what government regulators may want to do about it. Although our contemporary stories still indicate some deformed attempts to escape some vestigial projection of feudalism, the instinct to submit to the "divine right of kings" across many domains of human endeavour doesn't seem to have abated much.
What is an economy? It is a combination of our technologies, how we are socially organized to make the best use of them (or not) to produce what we need (and much, much more) from nature, and the institutions and stories that sustain that arrangement, and the powers of those who dominate the economy, in whom our powers are vested. We, more often than not, work against our personal advantage (usually unwittingly) and instead maintain the structures that in turn maintain our investment in the powers that sanction the rules and rituals that organize our lives and public relationships. For example, mothers in certain countries make sure that their daughters are "circumcised" in order to ensure their marriageability.
Today though if you dare to dream that reason, morality, art and respect for evidence (science) will help see us through to a more just arrangement, you may be called "elitist". This label is vestige of the hatred of the privileges of the feudal lords. It has nothing to do with today's world. Populism is the vehicle that most acutely and continually sustains the elite today. The next question is, what does that mean for democracy, if the dream of the enlightenment has become something "elitist"?
Of course, it's much more complicated than dreamers of the enlightenment may care to think. There is a deep seated sense that enlightenment dreams represent a kind of hubris on the part of human beings, as if we could rationally organize ourselves or submit our wills to a rational economy (invisible hand, "free"enterprise) to best achieve our increasingly empty ends. Of course we can't. The the complexity of the world would prevent our being able to do it - although frighteningly, the recent rediscovery of the complexity of nature doesn't prevent our ability to think it.
What is the alternative? As many are voicing today, the solution is in being adaptive, in our responsiveness and resilience. Rather than fixed universal truths of "human nature" or visions of true science, the just beneficence of some "invisible hand" economics, or various ideological diseases that afflict us today, I think we should rediscover what it means to understand, in all its dimensions, with the proviso that human understanding is ever-provisional.
Today more than ever we need to understand our relationship to the world we burden with the polluting byproducts of our Promethean dreams and our unrelenting, culturally conditioned searches for a better life. We will never arrive at a perfect solution but we can find our way to a more harmonious one, I hope.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Why this blog?
This blog is called "Art of Objectivity" because I don't think objectivity has a formula or methodological foundation. When I first read the article (included in the sidebar) by Eugene Wigner, a physicist, I was struck by his saying that it is not the application of some principle, template, formula or algorithm, but rather, "the skill and ingenuity" of an experimenter, which allows him or her to identify objects of study whose causes can be identified and reproduced. I think this could be expanded (with some major caveats, to be introduced later) to say that human beings can learn to identify themes and recurring patterns, and with caution, use them to navigate their way in nature and in the world of politics, and they do so best, not by relying on some kind of "best practice" or pure unbiased methodology (whatever that would be) but by applying their care and concern, interest and curiosity, wisdom and intelligence to problem solving. This is a dignified approach to learning.
With that in mind, I can explain why I'm writing this blog. I'm thinking aloud about the way we come to understand our relationship to nature. There have been countless stories about this over milennia and its countless civilizations.
The stories that we tell come to us from different dimensions of existence: myths and religions, the political sphere, the world of academics (both the sciences and humanities) and its tribal schisms, even today the world of image and advertising.
Anthropologists, psychoanalysts, analytical psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and historians all have commented on our ideas about ourselves in the world. It seems to me, though, that we haven't really come to the right questions to ask, because we insulate ourselves in our anthropomorphic bubbles - those stories either scientific, religious or political, that continue to make some aspect of humanity the key to our eternal rightness and well-being in a world that we are supposed to transcend, one way or another. We believe we transcend nature because we're mostly rational beings (we're not, of course) or beings for whom nature itself was created (it wasn't) or beings who are enlightened, modern, no longer superstitious and "primitive" or primordial.
My take is that we're products of nature, we live in nature, we are hominids, mammals, vertebrates, etc., and we, like other animals, have instincts. To come to an understanding of our relationship to the world, we need to question and understand our deepest instincts about it.
I work from the hypothesis that human instincts unconsciously anchor the relationships between the available technology , the work we do gathering what we need from nature, our economic and social roles in the distribution of what we gather, and the power structures that emerge from that dynamic. We have deeply embedded scripts around these relationships and these contribute to a profound sense of belonging. I would say these stories have a scent that connects and grounds us (well or ill.) Our instincts occur to us in ritual and symbology, ranging from the most solemn (e.g., rituals of birth, marriage, death) to the most power entrenching (i.e., attaining the throne) to the most rousing (e.g., sports), to the superficial (Tim Horton's vis a vis the Canadian national identity and other well-merchandised rituals of a consumer economy. )
So, in future entries, what I'm going to try to do is spell out our stories of our relation to nature and how they sustain our social and political roles. (This has implications for change management, as well.)
With that in mind, I can explain why I'm writing this blog. I'm thinking aloud about the way we come to understand our relationship to nature. There have been countless stories about this over milennia and its countless civilizations.
The stories that we tell come to us from different dimensions of existence: myths and religions, the political sphere, the world of academics (both the sciences and humanities) and its tribal schisms, even today the world of image and advertising.
Anthropologists, psychoanalysts, analytical psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and historians all have commented on our ideas about ourselves in the world. It seems to me, though, that we haven't really come to the right questions to ask, because we insulate ourselves in our anthropomorphic bubbles - those stories either scientific, religious or political, that continue to make some aspect of humanity the key to our eternal rightness and well-being in a world that we are supposed to transcend, one way or another. We believe we transcend nature because we're mostly rational beings (we're not, of course) or beings for whom nature itself was created (it wasn't) or beings who are enlightened, modern, no longer superstitious and "primitive" or primordial.
My take is that we're products of nature, we live in nature, we are hominids, mammals, vertebrates, etc., and we, like other animals, have instincts. To come to an understanding of our relationship to the world, we need to question and understand our deepest instincts about it.
I work from the hypothesis that human instincts unconsciously anchor the relationships between the available technology , the work we do gathering what we need from nature, our economic and social roles in the distribution of what we gather, and the power structures that emerge from that dynamic. We have deeply embedded scripts around these relationships and these contribute to a profound sense of belonging. I would say these stories have a scent that connects and grounds us (well or ill.) Our instincts occur to us in ritual and symbology, ranging from the most solemn (e.g., rituals of birth, marriage, death) to the most power entrenching (i.e., attaining the throne) to the most rousing (e.g., sports), to the superficial (Tim Horton's vis a vis the Canadian national identity and other well-merchandised rituals of a consumer economy. )
So, in future entries, what I'm going to try to do is spell out our stories of our relation to nature and how they sustain our social and political roles. (This has implications for change management, as well.)
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Change Discourse: An Aside on Planning and Evaluation
In large organizations, in the accepted practices of planning and evaluation, we are hampered by our inability to acknowledge unanticipated benefits, i.e., the creativity of what is proposed. We seem to be unable to value options that we haven't anticipated in advance or even to accommodate valuations of unanticipated options. What would count as legitimation in these instances? The unanticipated benefit cannot be considered relevant, based on pre-established criteria.
Why do we deprive ourselves of anything more than our presupposed potential? The standard (ontological and meta-ethical) notions of objectivity and fairness in evaluation are in need of a major rethink, especially in a complex, rapidly changing world where future potentiality becomes at least as important as present actualities. Adaptability and responsiveness are more important than adhering to artificial and outdated notions of objectivity, which for at least two millennia, have been more about projecting our conceptual filing cabinets on events than on encouraging openness to new an novel ideas and approaches. To add irony to insult, in today's variant, to mimic the successful model of reductionist science, it is assumed that the ability to assign a number to some evaluative criterion makes that criterion objective.
The difference between living and mechanical linear/reductionist notions of objectivity needs to be emphasized. In the linear/reductionist model, the relevant determinants of an event are isolated and identified in a rigorous way, such that they can be arranged and used in planning experiments and building machines. As successful as this method has been, however, according to scientists such as Eugene Wigner, the approach legitimately applies to only a small set of relatively easily manipulable things (which is why basic physics is about necessary laws and anything more complex is statistical at best at the lowest level of granularity.) The attempt to apply it to a large open-ended organization occasions the kinds of issues described by Burt Perrin (Paragraph 103).
Stuart Kauffman shows that a living system is one where the boundary conditions are intrinsic to the phenomena under investigation, which are not "placed by hand" as they are in a more mechanistic model. He further argues(cf. pp. 131-143) that there is "no way to pick out the relevant collective variables that will play a causal role in the further evolution" of living systems. (p.140-1) Nevertheless, we put our methodological carts before our ontological horses, and worse, we justify our aims based on our methods, rather than the reverse. This is not only reductionist. It reduces us.
Our model of measurement needs to change from a mechanical one to one that respects that we work in living systems. We need to use something a bit less pedantic than a pre-established list of specific criteria for evaluation and learn how to acknowledge context, the context being our actual overall aims in relation to what is being evaluated both now, and as they change, with learning, over time. We need to look at a higher level of granularity if we're really serious about innovation or getting beyond a nihilistic means-focused outlook (a hamster wheel). This will require a sea change at every juncture. Responsiveness and resiliency will be key.
Our model of measurement needs to change from a mechanical one to one that respects that we work in living systems. We need to use something a bit less pedantic than a pre-established list of specific criteria for evaluation and learn how to acknowledge context, the context being our actual overall aims in relation to what is being evaluated both now, and as they change, with learning, over time. We need to look at a higher level of granularity if we're really serious about innovation or getting beyond a nihilistic means-focused outlook (a hamster wheel). This will require a sea change at every juncture. Responsiveness and resiliency will be key.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Change Discourse: Discretionary Effort, Power and Routinization
I have been reading a grand sweeping tome by Yale historian and archaeologist, Ian Morris, called Why the West Rules...for Now. What struck me in the reading is how ancient kings, who orchestrated hierarchical economic systems, claimed deity - and how readily subjects believed in the kings' "mandate of heaven" ... until things went awry, of course. I didn't think it was a matter of rulers simply appointing themselves as gods and then expecting everyone to believe it - there must be something much, much more unconscious and instinctive going on. This supports Joseph Campbell's thesis that, until now, each age gets the mythology it needs to support its social/technical/economic arrangement.
People prefer order until it chafes. They get their sense of tribe and belonging via the social order and organization, if not the day to day rituals, the situating of one's activities in the scheme of things. People tell themselves (internalize and identify with) the prevailing story (or mythology) in order to feel more socially and economically secure. This explains the dismal fate of many would-be change agents in the distant and recent past and the depressing mantra of "that's just how it is - it's never going to change." Usually there is some kind of "reaction formation" (e.g., today's fundamentalisms) before there is change.
With that in mind, think about the Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant said "Have the courage to use your own understanding!" How does this tie to high demand/low control situations at work and employee engagement?
I was at a workshop facilitated by Julie Diamond last fall called "Deep Democracy." A very interesting discussion occured about people defaulting to routine/process during work time, and not bringing their personal powers (talents and abilities) into the converstion. There's a certain amount of risk involved and courage required to use personal power in a more or less hierarchical situation, but engagement requires it. (The hierarchical order isn't necessarily embodied in individuals, but in organizational norms and habits of belief.)
It's important to feel that you bring your whole self into work. This ties directly to high demand / low control issues often referred to in discussions of workplace stressors, because the definition of engagement includes the willingness to invest discretionary effort (which would require a good degree of freedom from control) to achieving the organization's objectives.
So now the question is, what would allow people to apply more discretionary effort? How can we loosen up whatever version of "the divine right of kings" mythology that the organization is labouring under, and today's kings are just those bureaucratic norms of discourse that provide default support to initiative-sapping routines and hierarchies.
It's important to feel that you bring your whole self into work. This ties directly to high demand / low control issues often referred to in discussions of workplace stressors, because the definition of engagement includes the willingness to invest discretionary effort (which would require a good degree of freedom from control) to achieving the organization's objectives.
So now the question is, what would allow people to apply more discretionary effort? How can we loosen up whatever version of "the divine right of kings" mythology that the organization is labouring under, and today's kings are just those bureaucratic norms of discourse that provide default support to initiative-sapping routines and hierarchies.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Change Discourse
It's been a long time since I posted a blog entry on Peripheral Vision.
I've decided to contribute something a little different now - on subjects that I have been thinking about for a very long time. I was going to open another blog, but thought that it would save distractions if I just continued here.
I should warn you that this is going to be pretty "big picture" but for all that, it is definitely not going to be abstract. Over the next few months of postings (I hope) you'll come across terms such as "narrative" and "social discourse" but let's be clear - those are not abstract concepts like "the average family" or the GDP.
Social discourse is that living sea of language that you inherit from the many cultures in which you were raised. It's the theatre of your cognition, the shaper of your experiences and what allows you to communicate a wealth of information to others by means of these mere marks on the screen, or those little puffs of air that resonate throughout the cafe. It's the window through which you look out from your inner self to the world around you. It's the sedimented history of thousands and thousands of years of human existence. It sorts, organizes and informs your basic, habitual awareness. It exists in the world around you. (If you still think that's abstract, you can blame that label on several trends in the evolution of social discourse ;). Social discourse or narrative is mainly about the habitual tags, labels and markers we give to all of our personal experiences in the private or public sphere. It's the channel through which things make sense to us and amongst us when we take in, think or talk about them.
Social discourse traverses generations and changes the conditions of our understanding over time. It carries a set of key connotations that have some very strong influences on our experiences. They arise from living in a natural world and the social organization demanded from a given level of technology. Social discourse influences and is influenced by the needs that a level of technology produces: The needs that organize us around gathering, changing and distributing nature's provisions, the ideals that support that organization. The core ideas in our cognition and evaluations are:
I've decided to contribute something a little different now - on subjects that I have been thinking about for a very long time. I was going to open another blog, but thought that it would save distractions if I just continued here.
I should warn you that this is going to be pretty "big picture" but for all that, it is definitely not going to be abstract. Over the next few months of postings (I hope) you'll come across terms such as "narrative" and "social discourse" but let's be clear - those are not abstract concepts like "the average family" or the GDP.
Social discourse is that living sea of language that you inherit from the many cultures in which you were raised. It's the theatre of your cognition, the shaper of your experiences and what allows you to communicate a wealth of information to others by means of these mere marks on the screen, or those little puffs of air that resonate throughout the cafe. It's the window through which you look out from your inner self to the world around you. It's the sedimented history of thousands and thousands of years of human existence. It sorts, organizes and informs your basic, habitual awareness. It exists in the world around you. (If you still think that's abstract, you can blame that label on several trends in the evolution of social discourse ;). Social discourse or narrative is mainly about the habitual tags, labels and markers we give to all of our personal experiences in the private or public sphere. It's the channel through which things make sense to us and amongst us when we take in, think or talk about them.
Social discourse traverses generations and changes the conditions of our understanding over time. It carries a set of key connotations that have some very strong influences on our experiences. They arise from living in a natural world and the social organization demanded from a given level of technology. Social discourse influences and is influenced by the needs that a level of technology produces: The needs that organize us around gathering, changing and distributing nature's provisions, the ideals that support that organization. The core ideas in our cognition and evaluations are:
- The definition of private versus public
- Gender, family, and reproductive relationships
- Power relationships (e.g., boss, employee; government, capitalist)
- Values (e.g., "freedom" "kindness" or "success" - what are they?)
- Human beings and our understanding relation to the planet Earth
- What we take to be real in the universe
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Overcoming Institutional Inertia
Change is difficult in large institutions. In a previous post, I wrote:
But to get on board with these technologies to solve work related problems and issues, your heart just has to be in it. You have to care enough about doing things well, or creating an environment where people can be more effective, that you're willing to share your ideas and have them peer reviewed. Before you can do that, you have to be able to identify where changes and improvements are needed, and where people can make a difference. But even before that, you need the hope that your individual or collective efforts can make a difference. You have to believe that making a difference is possible.
Employees can sidestep these risks by focusing on processes and tasks, rather than the broader purposes and the overall efficacy of these activities. Managers can sidestep institutional roadblocks by behaving "Quantophrenically" or they can simply take roadblocks as natural and eternal aspects of the managerial landscape. In so doing, employees and managers contribute passively to institutional inertia.
These approaches are either products or results of cynicism, which is unfortunate. Where does the root of the cynicism reside? How can the tide be turned, now that we have such amazing opportunities to make changes?
This may be much more about cultural ideology than about individuals. IMO, there has been massive oversimplification with rationalizing and standardizing over the history of business culture in general, and so much of a focus on means and methods (e.g., money, processes, perpetual "growth" in economic terms). This means that we are cogs in a big economic machine that is, as Charles Taylor put it, "all dressed up with nowhere to go." In order to make the changes we need now, we need to refocus on things that are intrinsically valuable (growing and sustaining mental, emotional and ecological well-being). The focus on means, methods and quantophrenics has in the past eclipsed discussion on the more intrinsically valuable objectives.
I do think the tide is turning, however, and that a newer, richer understanding of the complexity of our natural and social systems is causing our more human values to surface, and new voices will increasingly be heard.
I'm not even sure that it's that "people prefer the devil they know," as the old saying has it. It's just that it is dangerous to both the authors of the narrative and those subject to it to question the rules, to disturb the "collective illusion" that sustains the power structures. For better or for worse, power structures represent "the very fabric of society" and resistance to change should not be underestimated.There I argued that it would be technology that would inevitably drive changes. I was thinking, for example, that the Web 2.0 phenomenon that has emerged in recent years presents a platform for horizontal, collaborative, collegial and networked dialogue.
But to get on board with these technologies to solve work related problems and issues, your heart just has to be in it. You have to care enough about doing things well, or creating an environment where people can be more effective, that you're willing to share your ideas and have them peer reviewed. Before you can do that, you have to be able to identify where changes and improvements are needed, and where people can make a difference. But even before that, you need the hope that your individual or collective efforts can make a difference. You have to believe that making a difference is possible.
Employees can sidestep these risks by focusing on processes and tasks, rather than the broader purposes and the overall efficacy of these activities. Managers can sidestep institutional roadblocks by behaving "Quantophrenically" or they can simply take roadblocks as natural and eternal aspects of the managerial landscape. In so doing, employees and managers contribute passively to institutional inertia.
These approaches are either products or results of cynicism, which is unfortunate. Where does the root of the cynicism reside? How can the tide be turned, now that we have such amazing opportunities to make changes?
This may be much more about cultural ideology than about individuals. IMO, there has been massive oversimplification with rationalizing and standardizing over the history of business culture in general, and so much of a focus on means and methods (e.g., money, processes, perpetual "growth" in economic terms). This means that we are cogs in a big economic machine that is, as Charles Taylor put it, "all dressed up with nowhere to go." In order to make the changes we need now, we need to refocus on things that are intrinsically valuable (growing and sustaining mental, emotional and ecological well-being). The focus on means, methods and quantophrenics has in the past eclipsed discussion on the more intrinsically valuable objectives.
I do think the tide is turning, however, and that a newer, richer understanding of the complexity of our natural and social systems is causing our more human values to surface, and new voices will increasingly be heard.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
How Organizations Remain Bureaucratic
When people mistake efficiency for effectiveness (means for ends), there is a pointless adherence to the administrative rules (i.e., bureaucracy in its pejorative sense.) To avoid making this mistake, what has to happen in organizations is a cultural change around the reporting requirements, because people will do (and generally restrict their attention to) what they are measured on.
If the measurements are all about either efficient transactions (e.g., in purchasing, staffing) without reference to context and objectives, or an assessment of the value of the objectives, then nothing has been measured. How can you measure efficiency without some reference to a strategic, big picture, generally not-easily-measured end, especially in public sector and non-profit organizations?
When bureaucratic controls slide from being necessary evils to being just plain counterproductive , something is dreadfully wrong. Controls need to be aligned with goals.
A very crucial element in remedying such a situation is to help people understand that reports are not results, they are just means of getting information, which might be more or less (but is quite often less), helpful to broader planning and information sharing.
A report is information subset covering some aspects of what happened. It is not identical to the concrete events that actually happen. Neverthlesss, some people seem to spend more time bean counting than doing, following procedures, rather than innovating, challenging, and leading change. Their efforts need to be undertaken with a view to deep, quality results. Quality and depth of results is important, and that does not mean pulling out an army of accountants immured in a quantophrenic vision of quality control. It means having inspiration, courage, and support to use one's own judgement and discretion in assessing how to best align one's activities with the organization's goals, or even to question the broader social value of the ends being sought.
So it's not just a web of institutional regulations, it's the stifling amount of reportage that is not aligned to anything other than short term means and efficiencies that makes an institution overly bureaucratic (and therefore less efficient). And this adminstrative kind of bureaucracy eventually becomes an entire focus, even a way of life, providing some (i.e., the uninspired and officious) expediencies and a sense of power and accomplishment, having done everything "by the book".
The rest just wither away, eventually.
And thus bureaucracy sustains itself.
If the measurements are all about either efficient transactions (e.g., in purchasing, staffing) without reference to context and objectives, or an assessment of the value of the objectives, then nothing has been measured. How can you measure efficiency without some reference to a strategic, big picture, generally not-easily-measured end, especially in public sector and non-profit organizations?
When bureaucratic controls slide from being necessary evils to being just plain counterproductive , something is dreadfully wrong. Controls need to be aligned with goals.
A very crucial element in remedying such a situation is to help people understand that reports are not results, they are just means of getting information, which might be more or less (but is quite often less), helpful to broader planning and information sharing.
A report is information subset covering some aspects of what happened. It is not identical to the concrete events that actually happen. Neverthlesss, some people seem to spend more time bean counting than doing, following procedures, rather than innovating, challenging, and leading change. Their efforts need to be undertaken with a view to deep, quality results. Quality and depth of results is important, and that does not mean pulling out an army of accountants immured in a quantophrenic vision of quality control. It means having inspiration, courage, and support to use one's own judgement and discretion in assessing how to best align one's activities with the organization's goals, or even to question the broader social value of the ends being sought.
So it's not just a web of institutional regulations, it's the stifling amount of reportage that is not aligned to anything other than short term means and efficiencies that makes an institution overly bureaucratic (and therefore less efficient). And this adminstrative kind of bureaucracy eventually becomes an entire focus, even a way of life, providing some (i.e., the uninspired and officious) expediencies and a sense of power and accomplishment, having done everything "by the book".
The rest just wither away, eventually.
And thus bureaucracy sustains itself.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Why this blog?
My purpose is to contribute to a discussion that might inspire meaningful changes in the way we go about planning and justifying what we do. In this blog, I'm going to look at common assumptions people make and consider how they may inadvertently be leading us astray. For example, one of the main ideas I'm considering is related to goal-setting and the belief that being measurable is a necessary quality of a goal. This has its roots in people's assumptions about what is concrete and objective, which can be shown to be quite abstract and subjective. This will be the subject of the next post. Stay tuned...
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