>Simon--you've probably told us before, but would you mind explaining what
>you mean by "market means" in the context below?
Doc, sorry for my lack of clarity. Basically, you can manage and organize
by rules (formal) or communication (informal). I believe in the later,
because no set of rules can be developed that encapsulate all scenarios
and views.Different people respond to the same action in different ways-
what is acceptable to one is not to another. No policy can account or
incorporate this diversity- only a process of communication can generate a
collective consensus which allows progress to be made.
What I mean by markets is methods that are solved by the invisible hand of
human relationships and communciation rather than the institutional hand
of formal policy and rules. You can either formally be told not to behave
in a certain way or be formally told not to respond to certain people who
behave in a certain way OR alternatively you can decide for yourself not
to behave in a certain way or take someone's advice about how you behave
or respond to certain behaviors in a personal way.
> What I'm interested in is the practical application. When you say, for
>instance, "copy someone's >e-mail to an intranet," do you mean that you
>should expose their practice?
>I am specifically remembering the organization where flaming e-mails were
>often broadcast--the sender felt relatively safe in letting everyone see
>how brilliantly they verbally assaulted their colleagues.
Yes- tell other people you don't like the practice- this is "name and
shame", "reputation management", and other market-based ways of
communicating your dislike in a way which embarasses the person who you
think is behaving in the "wrong" way. The example you get of "verbal
assault" could very easily backfire- depending on how other people
respond. If I saw someone doing that and felt it was "wrong" I would tell
them and others- how I respond to it has nothing to do with my company's
rule book- I feel the way I feel naturally and am not going to let someone
else's rules govern my behavior- this would be the most unnatural thing in
the world.
>What I'm concerned about is that the organizational culture needs to have
>been developed in such a way that people generally know that certain
>actions or inactions are "wrong."
This whole are of organizational culture and socialization is changing
very rapidly- it used to be that people were heavily socialized and there
was a formal rulebook and everyone therefore did know what was acceptable
practice.
It is still the case that what one person considers "OK", another
considers "wrong". Hence the need for communication- so that someone can
ask someone they respect and trust BEFORE they act in a certain way- take
their advice- for non-routine actions that are unclear. In this way,
instead of the organizational policies and procedures hitting people for
stepping outside the bounds of accepted behavior, the collegiate
atmosphere in the company prevents socially unacceptable behavior from
happening in the first place. Same end, different means!
>My concern, I guess, is more about educating those
>people in organizations (especially government entities) where we find
>hierarchy, bureaucracy, politics and power plays--where fear is still the
>primary motivator (protecting one's turf, resisting change). If you've
>covered this in one of your articles, perhaps you'll point me to it.
I agree- for me, organizations will move to more social constructs in
which people do business with each other because they like and respect and
complement each other- not because they happen to all have recruited by
the same human resources department without each other's input or consent.
But even hierarchies are social constructs where people are not just
accountable to the rulebook but also to each other- there is always
someone's advice you can take- and this "communication" is the lifeblood
of the company.
You can either have a rulebook set by top-down means that people refer to
to find out what is acceptable OR communication throughout the company to
determine specific responses to specific situations involving specific
people. In a complex, distributed, diverse, unorganized world, I believe
in communication!
Hope this helps.
regards sincerely simon buckingham, NEW BOOKS THIS WEEK @
http://www.unorg.com
--"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>