To prevent problems, communicate, communicate, communicate.
Effective communication, facilitated by technologies, is the glue of the
networked company and collapsible corporation. In collapsible
corporations, communication is the dynamic structure between the
individual members that shapes and guides the progress and actions of the
people. It is the communication that co-ordinates and not formal written
procedures.
The success of dynamic organizational forms such as collapsible
corporations is inversely related to the quantity and quality of
communication between members around the world. Problems arise when
communication slows or stops and progress is taken for granted- requiring
hyper-communication to achieve subsequent residual recovery of right
direction. Problems are just uncommunicated differences- in actions and
expectations.
This intense deliberate communication is itself a transaction cost- it
needs working hard at and may not always be business- you provide
deliberate opportunities to other people in the collapsible corporation to
explain and notify about problems- but naturally they do not actually
arise every time members communicate. But the benefits from avoidance of
misunderstanding achieved from effective and honest ongoing inter-personal
communication- facilitated by technology tools such as the Internet and
mobile phones- make such dynamic organizations possible and also prevent
greater, later costs incurred from error correction. Not to engage in
routine ongoing dialog can easily turn out to be false economy.
Of course, the communication needs to be timely and truthful for it to be
valuable- it needs to be proactively stated, discussed, openly, honestly
and fully disclosed. Respect and trust and so on were and are important in
relations between colleagues, with some people easier to talk and relate
to than others, but primarily, as long as activities and approaches were
agreed to by other managers, you were okay. It was consensus and inclusive
decision making and proactive communication before the event that formed
an important part of the consistent message and activity from employees
around the world, despite their geographical operating autonomy. People
were accountable primarily for achieving the results they were set by the
company consensus.
regards, sincerely simon buckingham
2 new articles weekly on a Monday at: http://www.unorg.com/weekly.htm
--"Simon Buckingham" <go57@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>