Gary Hamel has issued a wake-up call to corporations that are floundering around with web 2.0 issues (which I have called “internet culture” because it’s more a value set than a hardware issue.) I recommend reading his book, The Future of Management, but most managers won’t because they don’t read books.

Unlike their counterparts in medicine, engineering, and computer science, business school professors don’t generally see themselves as the inventors of new methods, tools and approaches. Most study management as it is, and seldom dream of management as it might be, or should be. They describe, but they don’t create.

I’ve received the same message from clients. You can’t change management. You have to wait for them to move and let a new generation take the reins. Like Hamel, I’m too optimistic to accept dysfunction as destiny.

Let’s not trick ourselves. Adopting blogs and wikis to speed up obsolete management practices is admirable, but it’s a short-term fix.

While e-mail, Intranets, webcasts, and a burgeoning array of online collaboration tools have helped to make management more efficient, there’s little evidence that the Web has dramatically altered the responsibilities of business leaders, or fundamentally changed the way in which they do their jobs—at least thus far. Looking forward, though, there’s every reason to believe that the Internet will change the work of management just as thoroughly as it’s changed every other facet of commercial life. Why? Because the Internet is an immensely powerful tool for multiplying human accomplishment—a goal that is central to the work of every manager and the design of every management system.

Don’t believe it? Hamel points to five serious design flaws of “modern” management. Read Hamel’s words; I’ll provide shorthand descriptions:

1. Design flaw #1: Share of voice equals share of power. Solution? Democratize ideas. Encourage meaningful, cross-boundary conversation.

2. Design flaw #2: Creative apartheid. Make innovation everyone’s job.

3. Design flaw #3: Under-informed decisions. Use opinion markets to gather the wisdom of the in-house crowd.

4. Design flaw #4: A monopsony for new ideas. (That’s the second time today I’ve encountered that word. It means “a market with only one buyer.”) Set up in-house angel decision-makers who can invest in the ventures of intrapreneurs.

5. Design flaw #5: Persistent misalignment between power and competence. Fluid authority.

Are these changes going to occur rapidly? No way. Organizational inertia is HUGE.

Turkeys don’t vote for Thanksgiving, and senior vice presidents are unlikely to vote for a dramatic redistribution of authority. Nevertheless, the companies that take an early lead in webifying their management models are likely to enjoy even greater long-term rewards than companies which, like Amazon, pioneered new Web-based business models, or, like FedEx, have used the Internet to transform their operating model.

Hamel’s book won’t please everyone. Is it legitimate to build an argument around such oddball outfits as Google, W.R. Gore, and Whole Foods? And as with any call for giant change to long-established processes, management conservatives are going to suggest Hamel’s smoking something.

While the details will be a whole lot different, I buy Hamel’s core argument and plan to continue exploring management innovation here.

Related:

The Future of Management

internet culture

Gary’s Harvard Business blog

The culture of tomorrow’s corporations will mirror the culture of the internet.

For several years now, internet blow-back has shaped the thinking of management thinkers. You’ve probably seen my praise for internet values such as spontaneity, peer decision-making, radical decentralization, easy to prototype, bottom-up power, rapid response, viral connections, and so on.

Gary Hamel’s The Future of Management calls for a new vision of management. Managers will be challenged to create organizations that are adaptable, innovative, and engaging. Hamel identifies these internet characteristics that could easily pass for the new management imperatives.

* Everyone has a voice.
* The tools of creativity are widely distributed.
* Its easy and cheap to experiment.
* Capability counts for more than credentials and titles.
* Commitment is voluntary.
* Power is granted from below.
* Authority is fluid and contingent on value-added.
* The only hierarchies are “natural” hierarchies.
* Communities are self-defining. Individuals are richly empowered with information.
* Just about everything is decentralized.
* Ideas compete on an equal footing.
* It’s easy for buyers and sellers to find each other.
* Resources are free to follow opportunities.
* Decisions are peer-based.

Related posts:
Internet Culture and the Evolution of Learning
Work and the Web are Converging
Designing a Web-based Learning Ecology
One Man’s Net
Learnscapes
From Counterculture to Cyberculture
Roots of Digital Utopianism
The Future of Knowledge