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This is one article from the issue of August, 2002.
For other stories and articles, go to the Current Issue.
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Editorial |
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How Sure Are We?
Is Collaboration Inherently Better?
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In  we take the position that collaboration is good and that collaboration across distance is different from traditional management.
How sure are we? How confident should you be that we're presenting a meaningful and practical view of contemporary best practices? In short (and in keeping with the Trust theme of this issue's "The Insider"): How much should you trust what we say here?
We can't tell you how much to trust us. We can expose our beliefs about modern business so you can decide whether we're worthy of your trust.
What We Observe
Clearly, the dark side of capitalism has emerged once again in American business. Liars and cheats at the highest levels forgot why they were in business: To deliver value to customers. When the purpose in the minds of the senior executives is to make obscene amounts of money, that propagates down through the organization as rewards for producing apparent value rather than real value.
September 11, 2001 challenged our assumptions about national security and the motivation and tactics of those who would destroy capitalism. It also made us face the value and utility (and insecurity) of huge, central office facilities.
Before that, there was the "Internet bubble," fueled by a few venture capitalists and entrepreneurs interested principally in how much money they could make, not the benefits they could deliver to paying customers. Most of what we now call the "dot.compost" is the residue of misguided focus on personal gain. There are a lot of new millionaires...and millions whose retirement funds have been drained.
And, even before that, we've watched urban areas become less and less attractive. Modern large businesses, office towers, and huge centralized campuses are an artifact of the 20th Century. The last third of that Century has seen people withdraw from work centers. The disadvantages of the commute (including pollution), and the evolution of the Internet have led to telecommuting and telework, and more people working in suburban offices or smaller satellite facilities. In short, closer to home.
What We Believe
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All these trends lead us to a conclusion: The development of huge city centers where we go to work was a fashion, and it's passing. In time, we'll rediscover what we always knew: A more distributed population is healthier, safer, and more conducive to living whole, balanced lives. More, huge, centralized work places are not at all inherently desirable. In fact, they rely on abuses of the systems and environment in which we live.
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World War II, when the British wanted to ensure survival of their country,
they moved people out of cities to the countryside.
Their studies
showed that would minimize loss of life from German bombing.
There's safety in
dispersing population, and that's of renewed interest in a world with active
terrorists.
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Even before our recent tragedies, smart people were moving out of dense urban areas to the exurbs and even to rural towns, seeking a more balanced life. We were not born to be "factory fodder;" employment is just one part of a whole life that also includes home, family and recreation (which we prefer to pronounce "re-creation"). There is a clear shift away from centralized productivity toward geographically-dispersed work teams.
Many of the best and most productive people have appreciated universal access to electricity, vast interstate highway and airway networks, reliable telephone systems and the emergence of the Internet. They've decided they can live a better life away from the noise, the traffic, and the anonymity of a large metropolis.
That presents a challenge to the captains of industry and may cleave business into two camps. So long as leaders of large business can convince people to work on corporate terms, centralization will thrive. On the other hand, many people are now resisting that mind-set.
There will always be some businesses that have major centralized operations (factories, shopping malls, ski resorts, etc.). There will be a growing number of significant intellectual contributors to business who will choose to live more balanced lives, putting work into—what for them—is more proper perspective.
The people who decide what to build in those factories, how to sense what a market wants to buy, how to get those product to market, how to get customers to buy can live anywhere. They're the so-called "knowledge workers," and they usually earn more than factory workers. That gives them the freedom to choose where they live. If they're particularly good, they're in great demand; if one employer insists they come to the office block, they'll find a more progressive employer able to adapt to new technology and new management methods. Ultimately, if they can't find one such employer, they become free agents, consultants, contractors, working with many different clients.
Implications for
Good writing happens when the author has a clear sense of the reader in mind, and understands that readers' values and experiences. When we write , we have in mind those people who live and work away from centralized office facilities and the managers who still want the contributions those people can make.
What's Next?
We don't know. We believe this shift started in the early 1970's, and it's only now beginning to become a generally accepted practice in many large organizations. It takes about 30 years for a paradigm shift to happen. That would suggest that we're about to see this new paradigm become commonplace. It also suggests that in another 20 or 30 years, there'll be another paradigm shift that renders this one obsolete.
In the meantime, for the next few years, you and we will be on a journey together, figuring out how to transform businesses and managements and our very lives, leveraging technologies and skills yet to be developed.
So long as we're all moving toward safer lives, happier people, richer lifestyles, and an increased standard of living (whatever that standard happens to be at the time), we want to be part of that movement.
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