Business schools steep their students in a sound curricula but a philosophy alone is not enough. To be effective today, managers must inject systems theory and systems thinking into the cultures of their organizations. It is through these systems and processes that values get institutionalized and until that happens, organizations are only just getting started.
What has Changed?
Today, the number of years a company has been in business, its size, location, financial assets, and even technology all mean much less than they once did. Look at the Pontiac brand as an example. Doing the same things faster is no longer a substitute for doing the right things. The development of new knowledge and deploying that knowledge with speed is the new charter for management.
There is a new paradigm that goes with this charter and that is resisting the temptation or even habit to micromanage and over-control. This is simply because managers are often able to do relatively little to motivate people but they have that capability to do 1000 little things that can demotivate them. Demotivated people typically do not deploy new knowledge.
Can this Process of Building an Organization be Sped Up?
Just as a biological organism has a drive to reproduce itself and a fear of death, organizations are also driven to replicate themselves and grow. They do this at their own pace and with their own internal models of “what good looks like.” What is important for a manager is these forces can only be facilitated, not accelerated.
Holding a sun lamp over a seedling will encourage more rapid growth but only to the point that the plant can assimilate that solar energy. There is a point of exposure beyond which not only is further exposure not beneficial. It actually starts to inflict more harm on the plant than if it were not there at all. The continual added stress can actually cause the plant to wither and die rather than grow and this same principle can be applied to an organization.
Many companies that need to generate more capacity do so but often through the limited view of a small group in management with their own preferences and prescriptions. This is not new. Going back to the days of Frederick W. Taylor, companies have continually tried to “engineer” human contribution. Companies predetermine the required levels of performance that a firm requires and then production roles are designed around those requirements.
Then, after all these predictions and prescriptions have been made, people are asked to conform to them about their own levels of contribution. They are frozen into their functions with little to no regard for the potential lost opportunity of perhaps a better way to do things.
The Role of Self-Determination
In the emerging world of greater self-determination, this type of engineered typecasting can often be described as a form of foolishness. Instead of encouraging the expanding capacities of people, they are often confined to the predetermined boxes of these predictions.
There is little emphasis on the creativity of the people nor are there anticipated levels of contribution that are higher as a result of their becoming fully engaged in their work. That's where the solution lies. The fear that people will not accomplish as much when left on their own is a considerable limiting force to reaching that solution.
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