Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Industrial Style Management: Posing problems to the evolution of the enterprise

In a recent post by Mike Gotta at the Collaborative Thinking blog, he discusses the current style of management and how it will influence the growth of enterprise 2.0.

The majority of current management structures today focus on these key things: formal hierarchies, boundaries that are set up by either function or geography, decision making that starts at the top and moves down, defines the process of structure that defines official work activities, workers are given roles that define their rights and participation levels, and workers are valued based on their productivity.

What does this foster? It allows employees to experience leadership, decision making and an information sharing environment. This, however, does not support innovation, growth, or the management of human capital. All three are things that are vital to the process we are now calling Enterprise 2.0.

This type of environment also neglects and does not know how to deal with social networking. This also neglects to see the value of a highly collaborative environment that also encourages knowledge sharing. So what can be lost by the current industrial style management? The actual enterprise can be lost. The survival of the fittest applies business as well. This type of management must keep up with the necessary changes. Because whether we are talking about social software, knowledge management, or human capital management, the evolution of the enterprise must keep up or they will get left behind.

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