Hi Debbie,
I agree with you on the contribution of IT on group-performance. You spoke
of video-conferencing and of intercation between employees of different
departments.
Group-think may occur within a group, but how about group-think of one
group against another? Many organisations do not reach their potential
because of ingroup/outgroup phenomena. You always belong to a number of
groups, not always the same groups within a team. A modest one might exist
between an IT-department and other departments of an organisation. Also i
was once caught in a fight (did i say a fight, more a war) between a
number of factories of the same organisation, having the same customer.
Because one factory thinks another one might try to take over their
business and vice versa. The situation is something like a tragedy of the
commons: it is us versus them. And it was no use to try to solve this on
higher management layers, as there the same war was fought with different
politics.
So a major problem with big, multi-levelled groups has to do with
(semi-)overlapping sub-groups. In fact, i suspect that in many big
organisations much resistance to change has its source in the overlapping
sub-groups. When you have different loyalities, for instance a meeting
with your boss and your (internal) customer, or a meeting with several
members from different departments, a very difficult situation arises. In
such a meeting it just is not possible to speak your mind. I once did and
it only made matters worse, for everybody. Writing it on small pieces of
paper helped somewhat. It remained however trace-able and rather
super-ficial. Perhaps a reason that people intuitively resist sharing
ideas in a team or organisation has to do with these (sub)groups.
As i'm typing this, it may even be connected to all kinds of sub-consious
group/self-awarnesses, like being male or female, coloured or white, young
and creative or old and experienced.... Our ancestors have developed a
rich history of tribe-wars, and we're still able to make use of this
knowledge, only with new waepons. Perhaps this also explains the need for
outside consultants, who say just what everybody knows but are in a
position to do so.
Using "group-ware" leads to: "everything you always wanted to know, but
were afraid to ask". I would be pleased if i had a force-field analyses on
this subject: an inventarisation on the driving and restraining forces
(and their relative strenghts) to the use and implementation of Computer
Aided RElations.
Take care,
Jan Lelie
> I think very energetically that information technology (IT) can be used to
> significant advantage in organizational learning, and functioning, as well
> as inidivdual learning of many kinds (also an asset for organizational
> performance).
> And, as the discussion here in recent notes adds, the interaction in
> teleconferencing, say, is different from that in person, with some
> valuable additions.
> For example, an
> individual employee could interact with a manager of another department
> on-line who is virtually unavailable in person due to meetings, travel,
> direct responsibilities, etc.
--Drs J.C. Lelie CPIM (Jan) janlelie@pi.net (J.C. Lelie) LOGISENS - Sparring Partner in Logistical Development - + (31) 70 3243475 Fax: idem
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>