command and control

  • Does Remote Work Reduce Collaboration?

    Some companies are eliminating remote work or “telecommuting” because they believe their people must share the same physical space to collaborate.

    I define collaboration as “working together to create value while sharing virtual or physical space.” But apparently some organizations want to get more physical rather than virtual.

    According to a recent Wall Street Journal story, companies including IBM, Aetna, Bank of America, Best Buy and Reddit have ended or reduced remote-work arrangements as managers “demand more collaboration, closer contact with customers—and more control over the workday.”

    Companies facing challenges are often the first to scrap or reduce remote work programs. In 2013, as Yahoo was struggling, then CEO Marissa Mayer defended her decision to eliminate work from home. Speaking at the Great Place to Work conference in Los Angeles, Mayer reportedly said “People are more productive when they’re alone, but they’re more collaborative and innovative when they’re together.”

    No question people are more collaborative and innovative when they’re together, but the point is people can be together virtually as well as physically. Many tools and technologies support high-impact virtual collaboration. Forcing people to endure a daily commute and interfering with their life/work balance reinforces command and control and disrupts collaboration and innovation. Also, remote work lets companies tap expertise regardless of geography. And teams are often comprised of people in multiple regions, so forcing people to work from a company location is unlikely to enhance collaboration within a team. It does make sense to encourage remote workers to spend some time at company locations to spark chance encounters in cafeterias, corridors and break rooms with people outside their teams.

    Command and control culture is the opposite of collaborative culture so an organization trying to control team members by keeping them at the workplace short circuits collaboration. Ironically, my research interest in collaboration began in the mid-1990s when I was writing a book on personal videoconferencing. Early telecommuting programs experimented with PC-based videoconferencing so that remote workers could look each other in the eye and talk with colleagues while they were collaboratively working on spreadsheets, documents, design plans and other work. The issue then was whether we could collaborate as effectively at a distance as we could in the same room.

    By the time I wrote The Culture of Collaboration book, the tools and technologies supporting remote work had become pervasive and the culture supporting virtual collaboration had become widespread. People at many organizations were becoming accustomed to collaborating spontaneously from almost anywhere. So the challenge was changing. I wrote:

    “Today we struggle to collaborate as effectively at a distance as we do in the same room. Tomorrow the challenge becomes the reverse.”

    This is because same-room collaboration tools were lagging behind those used at a distance and people were becoming more accustomed to collaborating from applications on their notebook and laptop computers. Also, “presence” technology provided the capability to find colleagues, check their availability and begin collaborating with them on the fly from anywhere.

    Spontaneity and organizational culture supporting ad hoc encounters is critical to creating value collaboratively. In some cultures, this means it’s okay to grab people out of meetings or interrupt their work for on-the-fly collaboration. But in mature companies walking back remote work, often this level of spontaneity is a cultural faux pas. So the most effective way to spontaneously connect in these cultures is often through online chat which can escalate into a collaborative group session (CGS). Organizations create far greater value by moving away from command and control and instead enabling team members to connect and collaborate spontaneously regardless of physical location.

    As I demonstrate in my book The Bounty Effect, exigent circumstances including disruptive market forces, new competitors, or a regional slowdown are opportunities to accelerate collaboration and emerge stronger from the challenge. Eliminating remote work because of a difficult environment rarely enhances collaboration and instead increases command and control. The more effective approach is to seize the opportunity exigent circumstances provide and adopt a more collaborative organizational structure and culture which transcend physical location.

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  • Pope Francis Promotes Collaborative Structure

    The least collaborative organization is changing its structure.

    Which organization? Well, here are some of its characteristics. This global enterprise pays a few people to make decisions while everybody else follows orders. The CEO’s direct reports act like a royal court and compete for face time. Senior leaders often live lavishly and consume conspicuously. Headquarters micromanages satellite offices. Bureaucracy and formality reduce efficiency.  Internal competition runs rampant. The command-and-control organizational structure quashes dissent.

    Sound familiar? This description fits many global corporations and government entities. This particular multinational spent $170 billion in the United States in 2010, according to The Economist. The organization is the Catholic Church and, more specifically, the Roman Curia, the church’s centralized administrative operation.

    Like many corporations, the Catholic Church suffers from an obsolete organizational structure that is compromising value. And like many corporations, reform-minded leaders have tried introducing a new approach. But entrenched interests and a centralized bureaucracy rife with intrigue, fiefdoms, and Machiavellian motivations has frequently derailed change.

    Enter Pope Francis setting the stage for change by wearing a simple white robe and black shoes rather than the regal vestments and ruby shoes of his predecessor. He has washed the feet of inmates and has Pope Francis smallopted to live in a guest quarters rather than the Vatican’s deluxe papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace. There are signs the Pope’s frugal tone is rippling across the Church. In March, the Pope accepted the resignation of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg, Germany who spent the equivalent of $43 million on a new house and office complex.  In April, the Atlanta Archdiocese announced that it would sell Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s $2.2 million mansion.

    Beyond Pope Francis’ rejection of the trappings of office, he is taking steps to adopt a more collaborative structure in the Roman Curia and in the global Catholic Church. The Pope has chosen a “working group” of eight cardinals from outside the Curia to collaborate with him on changing the structure.

    Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio heads the Vatican department that writes the church laws that will codify reforms. The Religion News Service quotes Cardinal Coccopalmerio as saying “The big change is the emphasis on collegiality, on collaboration.” Now Pope Francis, Cardinal Cocopalmerio and other new church leaders are focused on breaking down barriers among silos so that information flows around the organization rather than from top to bottom. Cardinal Cocopalmerio has proposed naming a “moderator of the Curia” to identify inefficiencies and cut through red tape.

    Pope Francis participates in meetings without dominating them and embraces broad input. Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. recently attended one such meeting at the Vatican about appointing new bishops. Typically, popes never attend such meetings. Pope Francis reportedly stayed for three hours. “We’re all sitting around the table, and he comes in and pulls up a chair,” Cardinal Wuerl told Fox News.  At another similar meeting, a senior cardinal asked the Pope what he thought about the topic. “If I told you what I think, you would all agree,” Pope Francis responded according to Cardinal Wuerl. “I want to hear from you what you think.”

    Perhaps most significantly, according to Cardinal Wuerl, the Pope has repeatedly advocated a collaborative process through which “the Holy Spirit can be heard.”  And the Holy Spirit isn’t going to be heard if just one person speaks. “He wants all of us to be speaking with him so at the end of the day he can say this truly was the fruit of the work of the Spirit.”

    Hallelujah. Many corporations in multiple industries including United States government agencies can learn from the Pope’s example. It takes more than window dressing and a desire for change to create value through collaboration.  The only viable approach is changing the organizational structure which, in turn, shifts the culture. My research on collaboration indicates that changing the structure requires seven steps—plan, people, principles, practices, processes, planet and payoff. Pope Francis has demonstrated that making progress through these steps requires that a leader set the stage for change so that others feel comfortable participating.

    In essence, The Bounty Effect has hit the Catholic Church. The Bounty Effect happens when exigent circumstances compel companies, governments and organizations to change their structures from command-and-control to collaborative. For the Catholic Church, exigent circumstances range from sexual abuse scandals to corruption and cronyism at the Vatican. And it’s The Bounty Effect that led to the election of Pope Francis and the structural change now underway.

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  • Media Embraces The Bounty Effect’s Structural Change

    There are encouraging signs that the media is recognizing that the structure of organizations must change to enhance collaboration and maximize value. And when the media gets on board, organizations often follow.

    Several media outlets that have featured The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration have focused on changing organizational structures from Industrial Age command-and-control to Information Age collaborative. This is crucial, because The Bounty Effect is about seizing opportunities to design and build new organizational structures that exigent circumstances provide. So, reviewers and journalists have clearly understood the central theme of the book.

    Reviewing The Bounty Effect in The Washington Times, James Srodes describes the big picture of why changing organizational structures is necessary. He relates the need for collaborative structures to the changing “hinges of history” in which a decades-long trend suddenly shifts. Srodes mentions a global economic state where little or no growth is the norm and dwindling raw materials and political instabilities among other trends impacting the planet. This insightful review endorses the book’s approach:

    “If you recoil at the notion of folks sitting around a boardroom campfire singing “Kumbaya,” Mr. Rosen offers an ingenious example of the essence of the collaboration strategy. The “Bounty” in his title is in fact the HMS Bounty, famed in Hollywood’s bogus history for its portrayal of a despotic (command-and-control) Captain Bligh.”

    In a question-and-answer article with me entitled “Can Collaboration Be Forced?” in Talent Management magazine, Kellye Whitney also focuses on changing the organizational structure. My answer to a question about what talent leaders can do to change command-and-control structures echoes the “hinges of history” shift in the Washington Times review:

    “In the workplace we should constantly be working to create value. It used to be that companies could make a decent buck by just telling people what to do. A few people were paid to do the thinking and everybody else was paid to carry out orders. But with globalization, increased competition and the boom and bust cycles, companies are realizing that it’s all hands on deck.”

    In another question-and-answer article entitled “The New Way We…Collaborate” in Avaya Innovations magazine, Eric Lai focuses the interview on changing organizational structure and culture. Here’s my response to his question about the role of technology in changing the structure and culture:

    “The Greek philosopher Socrates believed that the way to truth is through dialogue. Socrates rejected writing because it meant—quite literally in Ancient Athens—that ideas were set in stone or wax and that the process of developing those ideas was dead. Email is the modern equivalent of setting ideas in stone. If given the choice, Socrates would have found a lot more truth in using real-time tools rather than email. Email is essentially an updated version of the old memorandum. In command-and-control organizations, people send an email and wait for a response. An email is often a report or a request for a decision. There is no real-time dialogue in email, so Socrates would have found little truth in email.”

    So the media is beginning to join the growing numbers of organizations that have jumped on the structural change bandwagon.

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  • World Bank, Microsoft Changing Structure for Collaboration

    More and more organizations are recognizing that obsolete organizational structures are impeding collaboration. I identify this issue and detail solutions in my new book, The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration®.

    One of the latest organizations to begin adopting a collaborative structure because of The Bounty Effect is the World Bank. The World Bank has announced that it’s moving away from a command-and-control organizational structure that is compromising value. The World Bank will instead adopt a collaborative structure for greater speed and efficiency. The new structure will enable internal collaboration across functions, groups and regions. Plus the new structure will enhance external collaboration particularly with the private sector.

    World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced the shift after a survey of ten thousand team members revealed a “culture of fear” and a “terrible environment for collaboration,” according to an October 6, 2013 story by Annie Lowrey in the New York Times. Further, Kim told the New York Times he feared the World Bank’s culture and structure might short-circuit its new goals of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 and ensuring “inclusive growth.”

    The Bounty Effect for the World Bank is that the organization, which is financed by 188 member countries, faces increasing competition in supporting developing economies from many groups. One of these is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Incidentally, Bill Gates also chairs the Microsoft board of directors. In July, Microsoft announced it would change its organizational structure to reduce internal competition, curb silos and enhance collaboration. Bill read an advance copy of The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration®. The book shows how to change the structure and culture of organizations from Industrial Age command-and-control to Information Age collaborative.

    Microsoft, the World Bank and many organizations suffer from similar shortcomings. While many have embraced collaboration as a concept and have even developed pockets of collaborative activity, the broader organization remains mired in command-and-control.

    Remnants of Industrial Age command-and-control compromise value creation. These remnants include 19th Century vertical organization charts, the need to go through channels, traditional meetings, and recognition and reward systems that reinforce internal competition among many others. The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration® identifies these remnants and details how to replace them with infinitely more valuable collaborative building blocks.

    As the World Bank, Microsoft and growing numbers of organizations recognize The Bounty Effect’s impact on them, they can use the opportunity to implement the 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration® and ultimately create far greater value.

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  • Big Data, Measurement Mania and Collaboration

    The world is drowning in data. The term “Big Data” appears in most technology trend articles in 2013 and reverberates at seemingly every conference regardless of industry. This reminds me of a quote attributed to Mark Twain that I used with my senior picture in the high school yearbook: “Collecting data is much like collecting garbage. You must know in advance what you are going to do with the stuff before you collect it.”

    Now companies and government agencies have an idea what they’re going to do with the data they collect. And a leading use of data is measurement. Measurement mania has spread throughout every function of seemingly every organization from government agencies and universities to public school systems and corporations. Organizations can now measure traits among applicants and team members ranging from emotional intelligence to flexibility. Plus companies can calculate transactional cost-per-hire.

    The relentless drive to measure people can reduce value creation and compromise collaboration. Measurement mania breeds fear and internal competition among team members and encourages leaders to focus on short-term results which create less sustainable value than achieving longer-term objectives. In a numbers-obsessed organization, leaders are more likely to cut corners by booking phantom sales or sacrificing safety in manufacturing plants. With hidden agendas running rampant, collaboration towards common goals becomes impossible.

    Media reports suggest that Zynga, the company that develops online games including FarmVille, has thrived on numbers. “Relentlessly aggregating performance data, from the upper ranks to the cafeteria staff,” is the way Evelyn M. Rusli of the New York Times describes the company in a November 27, 2011 story. According to a November 28, 2011 blog post by Ryan Fleming of Digital Trends, executives nurture “fierce competition both between the groups and within each department.”

    Apparent measurement mania is one of many structural and cultural issues that have plagued Zynga. A September 8, 2010 story in SF Weekly by Peter Jamison indicates that the company’s values are sub-optimal and that rather than focusing on innovation, Zynga has instead pushed team members to appropriate ideas from competitors. If these assessments are accurate, it appears that Zynga would benefit from changing the structure and culture of its organization. Principles is one step that I explain in my new book, The Bounty Effect: 7 Steps to The Culture of Collaboration.

    In perhaps the most sober indication of problems with Zynga’s focus, the company reported second quarter results last Thursday that contained few bragging rights. While the results exceeded analyst expectations, the number of daily active users declined 45 percent in the quarter from the same period last year. In the three months ending June 30, Zynga’s sales fell 31 percent to $231 million. According to the Wall Street Journal, Zynga CEO Don Mattrick indicated that “getting a business back on track isn’t quick, and isn’t easy.” Mattrick recently replaced founder Mark Pincus as CEO.

    While Zynga clearly faces challenges on many fronts, the company’s structure and culture are likely factors in Zynga’s woes. The company is by no means alone in the issues it faces and the possible structure and culture elements. Organizations of all kinds face exigent circumstances ranging from new competitors and disruptive market forces to natural disasters and terrorist attacks. These storms that blow through businesses provide opportunities to change.

    In The Bounty Effect, I discuss how to replace command-and-control remnants including measurement mania and how to adopt collaborative principles, practices and processes among other steps. Creating value through collaboration happens only when organizations change their structures and cultures from Industrial Age command-and-control to Information Age collaborative.

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  • MIT Technology Review Featuring The Culture of Collaboration

    Technology journalist and former Wall Street Journal reporter Lee Gomes and I had a thought-provoking chat earlier this week about collaboration. Lee was interviewing me for a question-and-answer style profile in the MIT Technology Review. The Review was capping off a series of stories about collaboration with the interview on The Culture of Collaboration book. I’m glad that the editor accurately summed up my perspective in the headline: "Collaborating Takes More than Technology."

    You can read the article here.

    Lee did a good job playing devil’s advocate. Among the issues and questions he raised: “Command and control might not be pretty, but it gets things done. Couldn’t an overemphasis on collaboration paralyze an organization?" I responded this way:

    "What paralyzes an organization is when management compromises value by failing to tap ideas, expertise, and assets. What also paralyzes an organization is when requests for decisions languish in in-boxes rather than hashing out issues spontaneously. Paying a few people to think and paying everybody else to carry out orders creates far less value than breaking down barriers among silos and enabling people to engage each other spontaneously."

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  • Breaking Corporate Rules to Collaborate

    What happens when team members want to collaborate, but command-and-control approaches and internal competition prevail in culture and processes? New research indicates team members are starting to “spoof the system” by flouting organizational guidelines and creating work-arounds so they can collaborate. The global study conducted by InsightExpress and funded by Cisco surveyed more than two thousand end users and a thousand information technology decision makers from ten countries. The study found that 52 percent of organizations prohibit the use of social media applications and 50 percent of end users admit to ignoring company policies at least once a week. “End users have started to take things into their own hands,” says Alan Cohen, Cisco’s vice president of enterprise solutions.

     

    The study found that users most willing to break company policies are those in the United Kingdom and France. Respondents in China were least likely to violate corporate rules. Still, the survey found that companies in China and India had significantly higher adoption rates of collaborative tools than companies in the United States or the United Kingdom. This is likely because companies in these growing economies are relatively new, and therefore their infrastructures are by no means set in stone.

     

    Ironically, the study found that 77 percent of IT decision makers plan to increase spending on collaboration tools this year, while team members say corporate policies are constraining collaboration. Investing in collaborative tools makes little sense if an organization lacks the culture and processes to support the tools. The result is a schizophrenic organization in which some team members break rules, others operate by the book, and most team members get confused by mixed messages. Considering the study results, a prime opportunity exists for leaders to think and act collaboratively and for organizations to adopt collaborative culture.

     

    Cisco will gladly sell you any and all of its more than 60 collaboration products. But buying these products or those of any other collaboration tools vendor will produce limited results unless your organization makes a fundamental commitment to collaboration. This shift includes moving away from command-and-control, internally-competitive culture and processes and replacing the pass-along, serial approach to work and decision-making with spontaneous, real-time models. I address this in the introduction to The Culture of Collaboration book.

     

    Intercompany Collaboration: Focus on Culture and Processes

     

    On another note…outmoded culture and processes can curb collaboration and compromise value—whether we’re talking about within a company or “outside the firewall.”  As vendors and standards groups resolve intercompany collaboration technology issues, there’s a temptation to conclude that intercompany collaboration is “good to go.”

     

    About three weeks ago, I participated in a discussion via TelePresence with Cisco senior vice presidents Tony Bates and Barry O’Sullivan. The company was discussing details of its new Intercompany Media Engine, which extends unified communications among companies. So, a supplier can easily view the availability or “presence status” of a customer, connect via instant messaging, and easily escalate the interaction to a voice call, web conference, or telepresence. You can view video of a demo call here. Meantime, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is working on an open standard for telepresence and unified communications so that people can interact regardless of technology vendor. This has particular relevance for business partners with different installed telepresence brands. Ultimately, the challenge for intercompany collaborators goes well beyond the technology. Organizations must focus on adopting collaborative culture and processes and integrating them across organizational boundaries.

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