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What then are the management practices of \u201cthe frictionless corporation\u201d that enable \u201clabor, information, and money move easily, cheaply, and almost instantly\u201d?<\/p>\n
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Over the last year, a group of companies interested in finding out joined together to form a Learning Consortium for the Creative Economy<\/a>, sponsored by Scrum Alliance<\/a>, a membership association of more than 400,000 members with the mission of transforming the world of work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Following nine site visits conducted during the summer and a retrospective review by the members, the group\u2019s findings and recommendations are now available here<\/a> and will be presented on November 6 at the Drucker Forum 2015. The session will be live-streamed (free registration here<\/a>)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The most important finding of the Learning Consortium is that \u201cchanges in mindset are more important than changes in hardware or software.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhere the management practices and methodologies were implemented without the requisite mindset,\u201d the Learning Consortium reports, \u201cno benefits were observed.\u201d When technology is deployed with traditional mindsets, the organization is not agile enough to exploit it. To succeed, management must draw on the full talents and capabilities of those doing the work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The key message of the Learning Consortium, writes Andrew Hill of the Financial Times<\/a>, is to \u201cset staff free without plunging them into chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Enlightened managers, \u201cin some traditional-looking companies are already shaking up their approach without drama\u2026 Basic changes include the switch from rigid five-year plans to adaptable rolling strategies<\/a>; or the use of a military-style mission-command approach<\/a>, where chiefs set a goal and allow frontline troops to work out how to reach it rather than dictating every step.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Learning Consortium, writes Hill, has \u201ccome up with several useful snapshots<\/a>, after visiting each other\u2019s operations to observe these new practices. They found, for instance, that self-managed teams were not just tiny curiosities. They could scale up to handle complex cross-border work. Ericsson<\/a> \u2014 hardly a fresh-faced start-up at nearly 140 years old \u2014 has given autonomy to 2,300 engineers in 110 teams, co-ordinated from Athlone, Ireland, to produce enterprise software for huge telecoms operators.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMicrosoft<\/a>, latterly a byword for how bureaucracy can bury innovation, has made similar strides. At its development division in Seattle, 4,300 staff make applications for software developers, working in a way that would put Google to shame. Open workspaces are in and individual offices are out; so are top-down programmes that shackled everyone to a sluggish two-year release timetable.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A detailed account of the Learning Consortium\u2019s site visit to Microsoft is available in two articles here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The site visits changed the members\u2019 image of Microsoft, which was less like the giant battleship they had expected and more like \u201ca flotilla of speedboats operating and maneuvering in an orchestrated fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough there were many variations observed during the site visits,\u201d the report says, \u201cthe Learning Consortium observed a striking convergence towards a set of management goals, principles and values that are markedly different from the management practices of hierarchical bureaucracy that is still pervasive in large organizations today. Although there was no \u2018one size fits all\u2019, the site visits revealed a family resemblance among the goals, principles and values of the companies visited.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The mindset includes:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIndividually, none of the observed management practices are new,\u201d the report says. \u201cWhat is new is the way that the new management goals, practices and values constitute a coherent and integrated system, driven by and lubricated with a common leadership mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe leadership principles that were observed in these site visits are not a random collection of fixes. They fit together as a mutually reinforcing set of management patterns. Once an organization or unit embraces the leadership mindset, and pursues it consistently over a period of time, it affects everything in the organization\u2014the way it plans, the way it manages, the way people work. Everything is different. It changes the game fundamentally.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAnother universal feature of the site visits to organizations where the goals, principles and values are being successfully pursued is strong leadership<\/em>. This was not only true in organizations that were in transformation from an entrenched legacy culture of hierarchical bureaucracy, where courageous championing of the different goals, principles and values is a sine qua non of progress in overcoming an adherence to the status quo. It was also true in newer organizations that were founded from the outset with the goals, principles and values of the Creative Economy, where continuous championing and vigilance are seen as necessary to preserve the organizational culture, and to prevent reversion to hierarchical bureaucracy, especially as the organization grows.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Members of the Learning Consortium will be on hand at the Drucker Forum session to share and discuss the Consortium\u2019s findings including: Richard Sheridan, Chief Execuive Officer of Menlo Innovations<\/strong>, Ahmed Sidky: Director. Development Management at Riot Games<\/strong>, Paul Madden, Head of Product Development, in Ericsson<\/strong> Athlone, Ireland, Chad Lindblom, Chief Information Officer, CH Robinson International<\/strong> and Thomas Juli, Senior Manager HR Organizational Development of Magna International<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n About the author:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe world,\u201d writes Alan Murray in Fortune, \u201cis in the midst of a new industrial revolution.\u201d The \u201cfrictionless corporation\u201d of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[99,21],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1082,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions\/1082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2015_steve_denning_01\"](\"http:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/2015_steve_denning_01.jpg\")
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Steve Denning\u2019s<\/a> latest book is The Leader\u2019s Guide to Radical Management.<\/a> He is also the author of The Leader\u2019s Guide to Storytelling<\/a>, The Secret Language of Leadership<\/a>, and a regular blog<\/a> on Forbes.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"