Posted by Yogesh Malhotra on April 04, 1998 at 23:34:50:

In Reply to: Tayloristic culture posted by Robbert Northolt on April 02, 1998 at 03:23:53:

Jay and Robbert,

I tend to agree with Jay that many 'wise' managers are more acceptable of change - some examples being the top executives of companies such as Verifone (a global virtual company that places a lot of emphasis on culture and sharing of the 'philosophy'), EDS and Kao (re: some HBR and Sloan Mgt Review case studies by Ghoshal and Bartlett narrate how Kao's managers' job is to continuously question the 'status quo').

With the rebound against traditional notion of reengineering that was 'thrust' upon the masses and the backlash [of massive implementation failures] that resulted - top executives (including the proponents of the original 'slash and burn' thesis) have cautioned about taking a more cautious and humane approach toward human assets.

You have raised an interesting question: "But most of the existing companies still act in a Tayloristic way, so why not adjust KM to this culture instead of adjusting culture to KM?" The problem as I see is that acting in the Tayloristic (mechanistic) mode may cause the loss of flexibility and responsiveness to organizations in this era of 'customer delight,' 'decreased cycle times' and 'long term relationship-based transactions.' Of course many companies are still focusing on the short-term gains, however there is increasing realization about the necessity of taking the long-term view while focusing on short run efficiencies.

Your point about complacence is in consonance with the notion of Drucker's 'theory of business,' Senge's 'boiling frog phenomena,' and Nadler and Tushman's 'success traps.' It is human nature to resist change if the 'status quo' is delivering the performance [as visible on the short-term horizon]. However, there is increasing awareness about the need for being more sensate to the environmental changes and taking into consideration conflicting / opposing views (re: case studies narrated in recent HBR's coverage of 'creative abrasion' and 'How Managers Can Have a Good Fight').

You have noted that embedding sharing into individuals' jobs is unavoidable and should be measured. We had some discussion on these issues earlier, one thread being: You Can Take a Horse to the Water, But You Can't Make it Drink.

In essence, one may set up scales to measure sharing of information, however the questions that need to be addressed are those of compliance of individuals given that:

(a) It is difficult to isolate information from misinformation or disinformation because as acknowledged by you 'real knowledge cannot be shared,' only its artifacts are shared. The more complex the situation, greater the need for trust in establishing sharing of 'rich' information that relates to [potential] for action.

(b) Knowledge workers often consider knowledge as their key asset, therefore a culture of 'enforcement' and 'compliance' may have the unwanted effect of hoarding of knowledge by knowledge workers... here I am not referring to procedural knowledge that may be easily replicated regardless of the individual's experience and background.

Quantitative and qualitative measures are recognized in research methodologies, however, one may observe caveats about both methodologies. Quantitative measures such as messages sent / received via e-mail and messages posted on discussion boards may provide a poor surrogate of the 'information sharing performance' as one may observe from any listserv or bulletin board discussion. An overemphasis on quantity may lead to 'gaming' of the system that may lead to undesirable results such as less emphasis on quality of messages shared. An example from the retail field would be where number of transactions (say, widgets sold) are increasing, but the overall profits decline since the focus is on the number of widgets sold. Similarly, qualitative measures require a detailed understanding of the contextual and temporal issues. BTW, 360 feedback, in my view would provide quantitative measures if the measurement is based on numerical rating criteria without giving due attention to the understanding of the context behind the numbers.

Your point: "As about 70% of the information which can be obtained on a ethical manner, comes out of your own organization, disappointment will not occur very quickly," seems of interest, however history of organizations and their environments over the last 30-40 years may provide an opposing argument. Starting right from [Tavistock School's] Emery and Tryst's 'causal texture of the environment' (1960s) to recent arguments by Drucker and others focusing on organizational change phenomena, the common observation is that most change is occurring due to the interactions that are occurring _outside_ of the boundaries of the organization. Hence, organizations that are inwardly focused tend to fall behind and get caught in 'Marketing Myopia' (re: Ted Levitt's marketing classic of the same name published 30-20 years ago in Sloan Mgt Review) or their 'tried and tested theory of business.'

Thanks for a stimulating dialog.

- Yogesh

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Tayloristic Culture and 'Art of the Long View' Robbert Northolt 08:07:10 4/08/98 (2)
  • Re: Tayloristic Culture and 'Art of the Long View' Yogesh Malhotra 18:42:29 4/08/98 (1)
    • Re: Tayloristic Culture and 'Art of the Long View' Robbert Northolt 07:08:30 4/09/98 (0)
• Re: Tayloristic Culture and 'Art of the Long View' Jay Reay 20:11:44 4/05/98 (1)
  • Re: Tayloristic Culture and 'Art of the Long View' Yogesh Malhotra 13:20:38 4/09/98 (0)

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