Many great concepts fail when implemented in the people/culture layer. Same concepts work fine if they are implemented in the technology layer. Take management for example and let us focus on conceptual/virtual management models. This has worked perfectly at the technology level and failed miserably at the people/culture level.
Back in the 80's, I was an IBM S/370 software support specialist who focused on such systems as Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS) and Virtual Machine (VM). Notice the word "virtual" in these 2 systems ! IBM was an early pioneer in bringing the "concept of virtuality" to computer technology. There at the technology level, we had many managers (real and virtual) who just worked fine in good harmony to produce the desired results with no conflicts, no contradictions and no clashes ! Unfortunately, our people/culture implementations of the very same concept still lack the desired level of harmony, maturity and discipline and hence we still have our 'personal' disputes, different views, conflicting priorities, and lots of clashes.
It was in mid 90's, when I wrote a report on "How to transform large organizations (like IBM) to cope with the new paradigm". Remember it was the 90's when we witnessed the dawn of open/distributed computing, peer-to-peer networking and the wide spread use of personal computers and local area networks. These technology innovations led to something parallel at the people/culture dimension with things like "flat and lean organizations", "horizontal vs vertical workflows", "service oriented mentality" and so on so forth.
Back to the virtual management concept. Deep inside the operating systems I mentioned we have some "real" managers that control//manage real/physical resources like processor, memory, disk space, .... and there are some "virtual" managers that manage virtual resources which -in reality- map back to physical resources, calling for full harmony/cooperation/coordination between these different managers at all times.
Comparing this to people/culture oriented organization charts, these organization charts are "vertical" by nature, with "pillars", "business lines", "functional departments" going top-down from the general manager to the janitor. These organization charts represent the "real" structure of the organization, with "real" managers who manage real/physical resources (employees) to get work done within these vertical silos. The trend to go "horizontal" across organizational boundaries between these silos created a need for "virtual" managers in charge of the cross-departmental flow as in the case of customer services and special projects.
Conceptually, this virtual/real management scheme should have worked at the people/culture level as it did at the technology level. Unfortunately this is not the case. Organizations have not yet been able to crack on this challenge to create the detailed working model between these new breed virtual (horizontal) managers who demand resources to get the job done (across the entire organization) and the real (vertical) managers who have the real control on the resources and are limited by the boundaries of their own roles and responsibilities.
This topic is still a challenge despite the fact that there are new approaches, techniques and tools (BPR/BPM, workflow, ..) that tackle the horizontal/cross organization relations, but the real issue is not the model but the reality of the people/culture philosophy and mentality that controls these people.
Back in the 80's, I was an IBM S/370 software support specialist who focused on such systems as Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS) and Virtual Machine (VM). Notice the word "virtual" in these 2 systems ! IBM was an early pioneer in bringing the "concept of virtuality" to computer technology. There at the technology level, we had many managers (real and virtual) who just worked fine in good harmony to produce the desired results with no conflicts, no contradictions and no clashes ! Unfortunately, our people/culture implementations of the very same concept still lack the desired level of harmony, maturity and discipline and hence we still have our 'personal' disputes, different views, conflicting priorities, and lots of clashes.
It was in mid 90's, when I wrote a report on "How to transform large organizations (like IBM) to cope with the new paradigm". Remember it was the 90's when we witnessed the dawn of open/distributed computing, peer-to-peer networking and the wide spread use of personal computers and local area networks. These technology innovations led to something parallel at the people/culture dimension with things like "flat and lean organizations", "horizontal vs vertical workflows", "service oriented mentality" and so on so forth.
Back to the virtual management concept. Deep inside the operating systems I mentioned we have some "real" managers that control//manage real/physical resources like processor, memory, disk space, .... and there are some "virtual" managers that manage virtual resources which -in reality- map back to physical resources, calling for full harmony/cooperation/coordination between these different managers at all times.
Comparing this to people/culture oriented organization charts, these organization charts are "vertical" by nature, with "pillars", "business lines", "functional departments" going top-down from the general manager to the janitor. These organization charts represent the "real" structure of the organization, with "real" managers who manage real/physical resources (employees) to get work done within these vertical silos. The trend to go "horizontal" across organizational boundaries between these silos created a need for "virtual" managers in charge of the cross-departmental flow as in the case of customer services and special projects.
Conceptually, this virtual/real management scheme should have worked at the people/culture level as it did at the technology level. Unfortunately this is not the case. Organizations have not yet been able to crack on this challenge to create the detailed working model between these new breed virtual (horizontal) managers who demand resources to get the job done (across the entire organization) and the real (vertical) managers who have the real control on the resources and are limited by the boundaries of their own roles and responsibilities.
This topic is still a challenge despite the fact that there are new approaches, techniques and tools (BPR/BPM, workflow, ..) that tackle the horizontal/cross organization relations, but the real issue is not the model but the reality of the people/culture philosophy and mentality that controls these people.
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