Discussion: View Thread

I'd like to pick up on a portion of the exchange between Jack Ring and Mark
Michaels.

Mark:
>On the other hand, if you look at the companies that de Geus writes about
in
>"The Living Organization" you'll see that their ability to survive so long
>(up to 600 years for 1 company) is linked to their adaptability rather
than
>visionary leadership.

Jack:
Maybe not. Maybe the visionary leadership (at Shell, for instance) simply
foresaw that Adaptability was the characteristic of survival.

Let me explain what I mean. For years customers have demanded
predictability of their suppliers. Accordingly, we have trained managers
to stamp out variance, to standardize, to regulate toward homeostasis, to
organize by function (acutally by behavior values and learning styles).
Then, as the marketplace has grown more chaotic, we tell these managers
that they are striving in the wrong direction, that they need to become
Leaders who create ideas, visions, hubris, etc. But we do not tell them how
to do this.

Underlying this is a system principle. You can design for efficiency or
maneuverability but can't have both. We have encouraged managers to strive
for efficiency. Now they need to strive for maneuverability (also called
agility) so their organzations will be more adaptable (actually more
quickly adaptable).

In fact, managers or leaders must learn both to lead and to adapt. These
are not mutually exclusive. And systems theory tells us you can have both
depending on the type of control that is employed throughout the business.
The probable preferred type of control is highly distributed or autonomous
but that requires that all the little controllers have some common purpose.
One way of installing common purpose in all of those little controllers
(one per belly button) is spelled vision(sss).

We are no longer in the era of herding sheep. Modern managers must learn
to herd a mixture of butterflies and wildcats.

I suspect the points Jack makes above are situational, that is, they apply
or don't apply on the basis of situational considerations. It might be the
case, for example, that organizations engaged in the manufacture of what
might be termed "commodity products" are still very much concerned with
standardization, etc., whereas organizations in hotly competitive markets
where innovation is rampant and product lines turn over on short intervals
are no doubt much more inclined to focus on adaptability.

In general, I agree with Jack's observation that you can design a system
for maneuverability or for efficiency, but you can't have both. However,
I'm not inclined to accept that a given. Instead, I see it as a problem to
be solved. For me, then, the issue is not a choice between the two but a
matter of figuring out how to get both.


Regards,

Fred Nickols, Executive Director
Strategic Planning & Management Services
Educational Testing Service, Mail Stop 09-C
Princeton, NJ 08541
Tel = 609.734.5077
Fax = 609.734.5590
e-mail = fnickols@ets.org

People tend to choose professions that match their combination of preferences. Their education and work experience, in turn, reinforce the original preferences and associated skills. Proof to an engineer, for example, resides in numbers and equations. For example those of us who crave certainty and standardization are unlikely ever to have an equal appreciation of uncertainty, ambiguity, chaos and complexity. The part of problem lies with our business schools. Schools are good at producing analytical human machines. Standardization, maximization, fancy theories etc. They ignore that in real world the main issue is how to find a problem and how that is understood and translated across the whole organization. As Peter Drucker reminds us " Effectiveness rather than efficiency is essential in business. The pertinent question is not how to do the things right, but how to find the right things to do"
Modern organizations are not expected to last as long as 600 years merely because of great vision. The great vision of October revolution could not last 70 years. If there is a vision then adaptability is its heading line. To me, the role of a vision is not to create a community of like minded individuals. Its role is to create a community of unlike minded individuals, how they coordinate and align their efforts. And if you want an adaptable organization, you need to hire, work with, and promote people who are unlike you and who make you uncomfortable.




Imran Arain