Nick Leong has a topical and interesting question relating to the recent financial crisis and its impact on Citigroup. He posted it on his own blog and didn't get an answer, so he has placed the question here:
Hopefully, this will generate more response than it did on my blog. Caveat: This was post on my blog before Vikram Pandit was confirmed as the new CEO but the lingering question remains: how does one manage knowledge in such a behemoth?
Read on for his original blog
Consider this scenario:
Your company has 320,000 employees with offices spanning the globe. The business units are as diverse as the nationalities in an international school & operate independently of each other. As a matter of fact, they compete fiercely WITH each other. This was the result of mergers & acquisitions that failed to deliver on the promised synergies. The company has been underperforming compared to its industry peers. Over the past few years, the company had been battling regulatory blues - from losing its right to operate a highly lucrative business in Japan to an expensive class action suit. Your CEO just lost his job for not being able to get the team to march to the same beat & the company is deemed to be so ungovernable that even the former Treasury Secretary of the U.S. has declined to take up the job. What would you as the knowledge manager do?
Welcome to Citigroup.
Bear in mind that Citigroup's business range from investment banking to retail banking to credit cards to brokerage to private banking to... ok, I think you probably get the idea by now.
The previous CEO, Sandy Weil, had clobbered together this businesses in the hope of building a financial hypermarket. But while Sandy was busy acquiring these businesses, he forgot to gel them together. Some reports cited diverse IT platforms as one of the key obstacles to producing the synergies needed. That means the banker at the branch probably had no idea that you are also a client of his company's brokerage & insurance services as well.
I am interested to hear your opinions on how you would re-organise/restructure/rebuild the bank. Would you keep the financial hypermarket dream alive or do you think it is time to wake up to smell the break-up grim?
Comments (4)
A few things come to mind -
1. This organization sounds similar in behaviour and culture to a municipal government. Several business units within the same organization but with different interests and aims (at their level) and often different subcultures. Complexity at it's most interesting; especially when elected officials are added to the mix.
2. What does everyone have in common? Can the commonalities be built on?
3. Where are your allies? Who else has the goal of having a united cohesive organization and can you work together?
4. What are the fears of the people within the organization? Can the concept of sharing knowledge help them to deal with some of these fears?
Posted by Monika Korsten | January 4, 2008 10:13 PM
Posted on January 4, 2008 22:13
Hi Monika,
Based on what I know:
2. What does everyone have in common? Can the commonalities be built on?
Every business unit is looking to increase its revenue & lower its expenses
3. Where are your allies? Who else has the goal of having a united cohesive organization and can you work together?
Allies will potentially be head of every business unit. I say potentially because you need them to see that they can gain more by working together than working against each other. After all, the mergers & acquisitions were meant to produce synergy for the organisation.
4. What are the fears of the people within the organization? Can the concept of sharing knowledge help them to deal with some of these fears?
Losing their jobs. Which is why they are so fiercely competitive.
Posted by Nick | January 5, 2008 8:55 AM
Posted on January 5, 2008 08:55
What would you as the knowledge manager do?
Look for a new job elsewhere, or seriously consider retraining and a career change since KM as we knew it is supposed to be on its way to dying anyway ?
Must remain lighthearted ...
Posted by Jon Husband | January 7, 2008 2:39 AM
Posted on January 7, 2008 02:39
The fact that this was asked on the Cognitive Edge website suggests that the person posting has an idea that this may be the answer. If the person asking the question can actually make decisions for the corporation, then before making any drastic changes such as divesting businesses they should undertake a project with Cynefin methods. First they need to understand the different units and branches and how they identify themselves, how they are perceived by the other groups, as well as how they view the organization as a whole (furthermore you can measure how much they are interested in and capable of working together as a cohesive group when necessary).
They could do this by asking prompting questions on-line based on the qualities they wish to measure, or by population sampling, and asking most employees to respond and then index their own responses. After sufficient material is gathered they will have a good set of materials to use for analysis and intervention. The leader can use the Sensemaker software to look at the situation and detect weak signals, etc. They will be able to see stories can stimulate (i.e.) cooperation or rebellion and use these to their advantage. I'm running out of time but I hope you get the picture. Dave, what do you say?
Posted by Nancy Cailleteau Mills | January 14, 2008 10:41 AM
Posted on January 14, 2008 10:41