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21st Century Organization

Trends, thought leaders, and workable models for the successful 21st century organization.

Tom Malone: Collaboration V Collective Intelligence & Decentralization of OrganizationsNovember 15

Clearly Cisco is "talking their book", their investment in a portfolio of collaboration tools including WebEx in hosting this conversation.

Still their interview with Tom Malone about the business benefits of collaboration, and implications of decentralizing decisionmaking on innovation, is recommended listening.

http://tools.cisco.com/dlls/tln/page/mp?id=160825

~  Jenny Ambrozek

change.govNovember 11

It comes as no surprise that President Elect Obama had a new website change.gov up within 24 hours of election in order to communicate directly with the populace - us, given the brilliant use of open technology used during the campaign.

CNN reported on 10/11, almost a year to the day of Obama's announcement at Google last year, that he would appoint a CTO with cabinet level position. That 2007 platform is spelled out here at VentureBeat, a Silicon Valley blog.

The pressure is on now for those in government and in business who do not yet get it that going digital democratizes information. Power has shifted in more ways than one. "E pluribus unum" has a new meaning - Who would think E also stands for electronic.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

Innovating Through Diverse Minds and ExperiencesNovember 5

Via Twitter Valdis Krebs shared his post "Building on Diversity" where he writes:

"Recently, I read an amazing book about Abe Lincoln -- Team of Rivals. In order to deal with a divided nation, Lincoln chose his cabinet from the best minds available. He ended up with a cabinet composed of mostly his rivals to the presidency. He chose these men for their abilities and experience. Lincoln knew the problems he faced were too much for one person. He knew he needed a team of experts -- all more capable than him in their specialities."

and applying an organizational network analysis lens explains:

"Lincoln was a master weaver in not only creating his team, but also managing them. A diverse team is difficult to manage, but usually produces better results than a team of like-thinkers. The key to Lincoln's diverse team was different thinking and different expertise and different styles. Yet, by appearance they were very similar -- all old white men. Same packaging, but different attributes."

Last year investigating InnoCentive as a new model for broadcasting

Have We Reached a Collaboration Tipping Point?October 30

JP Rangaswami's Supernova 2007 presentation was my highlight. I listened to the software initiatives he described, including BT's partnership with open source wiki provider TiddlyWiki. I wondered how did JP talk an estabished telecom company into these innovative initiatives, and how will these steps translate into British pounds?

A year on BT is a proud sponsor of a television special series, "Collaboration", hosted by Donny Deutsch on CNBC.   I don't know what audience BT is targeting (given the 8pm U.S. ET Sunday time slot), but you can find video excerpts on the CNBC site revealing the interesting array of presenters the program taps. 

Sunday night's episode titled "Profiting from Collaboration" included:

i. Ted Leonsis, (who lead AOL's Greenhouse program that created the Motley Fool and IVillage brands) talking about his long tail independent film venture, SnagFilms.  

ii. NetFlix CEO, Reed Hastings

W. or Abilene Paradox ReduxOctober 21

Politics aside, Oliver Stone's W. is a good flick for those looking for management, senior team dynamics, leadership development, executive coaching, corporate sustainability, global sustainability case material.  It struck me about half way through this otherwise flatfooted film that the best parts were the cabinet meeting re-creations and that we have been here before - on the road to Abilene, now gone global!

Jerry Harvey's Abilene Paradox:the management of agreement, first published in 1974 and one of the most reprinted management articles, continues to trap leadership groups, possibly entire countries. In essence it is the agreement of a group to move forward on an action that is counter to any of the individual's desires in the group. In the case of top leadership groups it is often the suggestion of the leader or a group member with significant power or influence that sets the ball rolling toward Abilene - the undesired destination.

Corporate examples abound.  Some have called this behavior pluralistic ignorance but I prefer pluralistic denial.  Ignorance implies no understanding, denial - well somewhere in the gray matter lurks the