A new Philosophy

As we have been making the first moves towards applying our ideas to concrete market situations, a number of issues are propping up. I’ve been thinking about one in particular; the seeming discrepancy between the power of our concepts and conviction and the apparent lack of response, or at least commitment, from the market. Interest? Yes! Enthusiasm? Yes! Committment? Maybe later!

What is it that we are trying to sell? How can we understand the reluctance in our partners and clients?

In thinking about these questions the following ruminations entered my mind.

There are a number of tools, methods and concepts out there that also cover some of the issues we are addressing with our collaborative networks. There is the notion of ‘communities of practice’ championed by Etienne Wenger, which is certainly collaborative and valuable, but does not involve our multidisciplinary approach; there is 3^rd generation knowledge management, which recognizes the fact that people--not information or systems--should be central to any approach to knowledge management. There are things like ‘competence management’ and ‘personal development’ which pay attention to the aspects of work that are important, and in fact essential, to individuals, and yet difficult to translate readily into financial (shareholder!) value. All of these ideas are being used to organize and implement better, more effective/profitable, ways of doing business.

So what value are we adding? What convinces us so profoundly that we have a unique contribution to make to the general theme of people-centred collaborative models? First of all I would say that we integrate the important elements of existing models. But this is perhaps an easy answer.

The main idea we’re selling is, that what is needed is not some extra method or toolset to add to the organizational structure, what is needed is a whole new way to organize as such: a new philosophy of organization. The centrally managed organization, diversified into divisions and business units, obedient only to shareholder interest, is too inflexible to respond accurately to changing markets. More importantly internal organizational boundaries seriously sabotage integration of information across processes. Responsibilities are completely fragmented. In addition to this the organisational departmentalized structure significantly hampers the exchange and creation of knowledge. We are victims of our own ‘knowledge is power’ adagio.

We need to let go of the desire to control processes from the outside, from some kind of distant higher-up management perspective. All the solutions to the problems of efficiency, and more importantly effectiveness, are already available to the people actually operating the processes. Involve them and your innovations are sure to come, your changes are sure to last…
We claim to provide solutions to this transition, and I am convinced we can deliver. Let’s create the opportunities to do so.