Hugh introduces a new phrase to the landscape of management science, and illustrates it with this sketch. He defines the said agents in an interesting post about Microsoft as follows: a rather snarky term I recently coined to describe the folks in a big company- any big company, not necessarily Microsoft- whose job isn't to invent, make, or sell stuff, but to maintain the apparatus of bureaucracy and status quo. Now, like others I am watch Hugh's engagement with Microsoft with interest, it was unexpected, and the journey is producing some interesting arguments that have not yet become casuistry. This walking on the edge makes his journey interesting. My own observation is that Microsoft, having achieved the sort of domination previously enjoyed by IBM has succumbed to the mind numbing bureaucracy that seems to accompany size, and to persist despite nurturing some very bright people, not to mention continued innovation.
Now one of the interesting side effects of calcification is that it spawns informal networks who make the system work despite itself. The more bureaucratic the controls, the more the informal network build to find ways to make the system work. One of the unintended consequences of this is that the system continues to work long after it has reached the point at which it would have otherwise achieved catastrophic failure. The informal work around function can even be formalised. I remember on IBM Vice President who employed two Directors (senior and expensive) whose job was to take his ideas and decisions and make them fit the formal processes. This often involved radical re-descriotion and often downright fraud, but it was known and acknowledged and even praised.
This of course not unique to IBM or Microsoft, although the former can make the US Government seem dynamic and non-bureacratic at times (to quote a former member of a previous administration). It also represents a huge opportunity for cost reduction and growth, far more than downsizing the workforce. The issue is how to make it visible. In an large organisation the size of the transactions requires an extensive network of process and people that serves to disintermediate the decision maker from customers and employees alike. This seems a necessaity evil and the cause of change might in consequence appear hopeless, but there are some signs that change might be possible. To take a couple of examples. If more senior executives blogged (Richard is an exemplar here) then their interactions with the coalface would necessarily increase. It was also in my mind with some of the SenseMaker™ design. The idea here being to allow a senior decision maker to go directly from an abstraction of a field, to the raw stories of customers and/or employees without interpretation or filtering.
I am starting to think about a possible audit method to make this sort of thing visible, and have an inkling of how we might make a start of that. More when I get a chance to write it up
Comments (6)
I winced when you said "a possible audit method to make this sort of thing visible". It was you who pointed out to me many moons ago that bureaucracies are great places to hide and get things done. I'd have serious concerns about surfacing the activities that you so rightly point out are crucial to the survival of big orgs for fear of screwing things.
Posted by Euan | September 22, 2007 7:15 AM
Posted on September 22, 2007 07:15
Good point Euan, but I was targeting the parasites rather than the those benefiting from top cover. That might provide a variation - will think ont.
Posted by Dave Snowden | September 22, 2007 12:24 PM
Posted on September 22, 2007 12:24
The more bureaucratic the controls, the more the informal network build to find ways to make the system work. One of the unintended consequences of this is that the system continues to work long after it has reached the point at which it would have otherwise achieved catastrophic failure.
James Scott in his book "Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed" makes a similar point. Reviewing attempts of various "modernist" governments to improve and "rationalize" seemingly inefficient and irrational practices and lifestyles (mostly rural), he notes that what prevented many of such attempts from complete and catastrophic failure was the emergence of some informal schemes, contradicting "rational" spirit of intended reform, or even explicitly illegal. And just like you note, often those schemes were tolerated and deliberately overlooked by officials, who would be unable to demonstrate at least a facade of successful reform without such underlying practices.
It’s interesting reading overall, and you may find Scott’s concept of "metis" (highly contextualized, informal, tacit, practical, local knowledge as opposed to universal, rational, explicit etc. one) close to some of your KM ideas.
Posted by Vadim Vinichenko | September 25, 2007 6:21 AM
Posted on September 25, 2007 06:21
... serious concerns about surfacing the activities that you so rightly point out are crucial to the survival of big orgs for fear of screwing things.
IMO this the greatest (and I think a very realistic) danger of many social-networking-analysis exercises in corporations a la Valdis Krebs / Karen Stephenson et al (not that they would suggest that as the goal).
I think that the need to feel in control held by so many senior managers and executives is such that many social computing initiatives in corporations will experience less-than-optimal effects the first, and second, and third etc. go-rounds. Places, people and nodes where "renegade" activity takes place will become more visible and more vulnerable. Euan has often posted about this, or directly related dynamics.
The culture changes implied by the social computing environment are large and once accepted, long-enduring .. and so are most likely to be addressed tentatively and (generally) ineffectively. I like to think about the process of therapy and change for individuals, and then extrapolate to lots of individuals and groups, in an organization. Every time there is something somewhat disruptive, up go the defences and regression to old behaviours, unless there are enlightened and patient, if not wise, leaders.
Posted by Jon Husband | September 25, 2007 4:24 PM
Posted on September 25, 2007 16:24
I'd agree that SNA has some major issues in respect of ethics and disclosure - indeed I wrote about that in a criticism of Rob Cross's book sometime ago. My inclination remains however to produce a calcification index, not to surface names, but to surface the level of stupidity. Linked to that would be an unused talent index, again not to name names, that would create victems; but to surface potential stupidity.
Vadmin - thanks for the book recommendation. I will look it up
Posted by Dave Snowden | September 26, 2007 12:32 AM
Posted on September 26, 2007 00:32
Hugh does have a dab hand with a phrase ... not so long after Robert Scoble left Microsoft and Hugh had just started working on the Blue Monster meme for / with Microsoft, I wrote that Hugh would probably become, by default, the de facto next Scoble.
Only this time, in my opinion, Microsoft is doing it for real. It was only fooling around, experimenting, with Scoble .. and luckily for him blogging was so new that writing about more or less whatever came up at Microsoft that day or week helped create his profile and open MS up a wee bit.
Now Microsoft is serious, for real, and it is working with Hugh to use social media and its dynamics to lead the major change towards becoming a media, advertising and media software company.
Posted by Jon Husband | September 26, 2007 3:45 AM
Posted on September 26, 2007 03:45