Harvard Business Review

There are two things a company needs to do - generate ideas and execute them well. The two activities are not best accomodated within a single function, although crosstalk is necessary. So, in the future, we will get rid of corporate functions like HR, Finance, Manufacturing, Sales etc and have only two functions - the ideas group (CEO) and the execution group (COO). The ideas group will be charged with sourcing, vetting and selecting the best IDEAS for execution. The execution group will be relentlessly focused on EXECUTING on the IDEAS passed on by the ideas group. Each group will, of course, have specialists - but these specialsts will work together, across specialities, in TEAMS. The IDEAS group will extensively work with external constituents, even on issues such as "how operational efficiency can be improved". Members of each group will be rotated through the other group to keep them fresh and thoughtful about the issues in the workplace. The EXECUTION group will throw up execution challenges to the IDEAS group to solve. The IDEAS group will extensively used open source innovation/web technologies etc; the EXECUTION group will use intranets, enterprise software etc to get the job done.

I really appreciate you thinking towards management 2.0:

more at http://blog.amusecorp.com

In my opinion, I call it the "Connected Intelligence".

1. Management 2.0 should be based on complexity thinking, meaning some of the components should 'emerge'
out of the design, rather than every component planned-in.

2. Competence needs to be Engineered (not people) to achieve Organizational Goals.

3. There should be talent filters instrumented that removes the fluff from the stuff, beyond the wisdom of the crowds rhetoric.

4. The Notebook Library of the employee's knowledge should become the functional equivalent of the number of years of service in the industrial age.

5. Management should focus on Generating Alternatives rather than merely on Decisions. (Design-based management)

6. Decisions and their rationale needs to be archived for understanding the context and reusing decisions in the future.

7. Insights Microblogs enables everyone to participate in providing insights to the Organization rather than specialization.

8. There should be a Cohesive Ambience of Information in the Enterprise, rather than different repositories of heterogenous information sources.

9. Tasks should be the "new atom" of management rather than projects. This will enable the Organization to micro-source work.

10.Innovation Processes should evolve into practitioner-based rather than adherence and conformance to standards and rules.

When thinking about factors that distinguish top performing companies, the root of their success often can be traced to the human equation. But how many companies are able to tap more than a fraction of their workforce potential? How many are able to take advantage of latent talents, ideas and contributive strengths waiting to be switched on? How many are able to unleash the power of remote collaboration & virtual team management? The companies that find the means to use a larger fraction of their human resources will undoubtedly supersede their competitors. That is their edge in the global economy.

Advances in information and communications technologies have enabled businesses to become truly global in scope. There is an abundance of technology available today for collaboration. However, a company's culture and processes that encourage people to share work in a productive manner are central to effective collaboration. Indeed, collaboration can only be beneficial when the technology is applied within the context of an enterprise culture that encourages sharing and open interactions between people. Successful collaboration arises from business strategy, aligns with business outcomes, and is supported by organisational structures and technology. Like any other process, it requires thought, preparation, support, energy, and communication.

For further insight on this topic, please visit: http://www.saastream.com/my_weblog/2007/11/unleashing-the.html

Design flaw: Charismatic leadership

The traditional approach to leadership focuses on the person of the leader and his charisma and ability to motivate followers. The new approaches to leadership shift the focal point to the followers. Their values and opinions should be understood and their actions should be shaped via dialogue.

A potential Web-based solution: Empowered networks. If you already use Facebook to stay on top of your social network, why shouldn’t it be used to learn about other members of organization, especially if global and remote working environment prevents personal contacts? Blogging and commenting are great ways to exchange values and opinions. Building empowered employee communities might put some pressure on executives, as it shifts the power to the bottom of organizations. It forces an organizational alignment which takes time and effort, but drives engagement and passionate execution.