Posted by Yogesh Malhotra on July 14, 1997 at 18:47:22:

In Reply to: Re: How to Facilitate Dialog & Knowledge Creation? posted by Jeff on July 14, 1997 at 15:18:38:

Jeff,

Welcome to the discussion. You have asked a question that is shared by many other middle managers of several other U.S. corporations.

Although, you haven't provided the details about the core product / services of your company, however the key question would be if your company's survival depends upon the 'efficiency' criteria or the 'effectiveness' criteria. Let me briefly elaborate on what I mean by this distinction.

By efficiency criteria, I mean the world of doing 'more of the _same thing _' better than before. This is the world of scientific management, Hammer's original reengineering framework where everyone was expected to march to the beat of the organizational drum. It is the 'old' world of Brian Arthur that is dependent upon projectin g the past into a predictable future and anticipating that organizational competence will ensue based on doing what you have always been doing. This kind of 'hardwiring' may be present in organizational routines, procedures, management control systems, and information systems. Essentially, given specific goals and procedures for achieving those goals, employees are expected to do their best to meet the underlying objectives.

By effectiveness criteria, I mean the world of 're-everything,' a world in wh ich the past may not be a reasonable predictor of future at least over the long term. This world is Drucker's world in which the theory of business doesn't adapt to the changing reality of business and organizations attempting to do 'more of the same' get caught in the death spiral (Nadler & Shaw 1995). This is the world that demands innovation and creativity on the part of organizational members for the sustenance and survival of the organization.

The neat dichotomy may not exist, both worlds are prese nt in most organizations, and the organization's processes may oscillate between the two worlds described above.

The critical question is: Does your organization need innovation and creativity? Perhaps, the answer is 'yes' - at least concerning many of the core processes that underpin your organizational competence. You have laid your finger on the problem by stating: "Within our organization, we have very little discussions on new ideas. There are several reasons, such as that our company is very top- down oriented and there are several subtle disincentives for coming up with new ideas."

The pertinent questions seem to be: Once you have identified the disincentives that stifle innovation and creativity, what would you like to do to minimize / eliminate those disincentives? I am not suggesting an overnight transition, however, depending upon the commitment of the middle management and the junior employees, even such transition may not be ruled out. The key issue would be if you (and other middle managers) are _genuinely_ concerned about the current state of affairs and are _willing_ and _capable_ of changing the status quo. Once you have done soul searching as to what you are willing to give up for what you would like to achieve (*), you may need to communicate your conviction to the junior employees. At that point it will depend upon the willingness of those employees to 'buy into' what you are trying to 'sell.' Of course, they would need to see incentives, tangible or intangible, in doing dialog or sharing new ideas.

Proactive solicitation of new ideas may help and so may allowing employees to stretch themselves to achieve. Sharing of the organizational vision and mission and its overlap with individual motivations and incentives may help. I am reminded of the case of a company discussed in a Wall Street Journal front page in 1995 in which the coal handlers were playing active decision-making role in investing the company's multi-million dollar pension fund. Similarly, a newly recruited engineer was given the responsibility for negotiating a billion dollar even when the most significant negotiation he had done earlier related to a mortgage for buying a used car. This case is illustrative, however, many companies are giving the opportunity to the employees to come up to the level, given their optimism in the capability of their employees coupled with their willingness to take the risk of failures involved in the learning process.

Getting to the gist of the story:

(a) first, identify what are the disincentives that impede dialog and sharing of ideas;

(b) second, identify what you want to do to eliminate / minimize those disincentives (rather, why not create some incentives) - of course you would need the top management support in this process, however therein lies your skill to communicate to them why it is critical for the organizational survival and competence (if you believe so).

(c) third, share your _genuine_ concern and your willingness to 'give up' something to beget something... of course the issue that would need to be addressed is: Why would your employees care about what you think? There could be several reasons, however, the reasons that project the 'shared' goals/future/present/vision/competence/survival/(bread & butter) of the organization and the individual may help in 'bridging the gap.'

(d) fourth, take tangible and proactive measures to deliver on the above: create infrastructure for the process to happen - [for instance] by inviting anonymous feedback on issues that employees don't want to voice in open... asking them how to go about doing it... the underpinning motivator is the genuine sincerity of what you are trying to make happen... coupled with actions that can speak the same.

(e) finally, do it... by showing genuine tolerance when you see them trying with sincerity, although not with the greatest finesse to begin with, to make the process happen.

Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) talk of the organizational knowledge vision that fosters personal commitment of middle managers and frontline workers by providing 'meaning' to the daily tasks they are performing and a sense of direction to the kind of knowledge that they should be seeking and creating. The "strategic equivocality" of the top management's vision encourages an "active investigation of the alternatives to established procedures". At the level of the implementing staff, ambiguity of the knowledge vision translates into "interpretive equivocality" which facilitates "reflection-in-action" resulting in "creative chaos." For mo re details you may like to have a look at the following references and read the online article:

Hot Products from Hot Tubs: How Middle Managers Innovate

(*) such as the need for 'absolute control' - one may even argue that such notion of control is a myth - most knowledge workers, to a large degree are self-controlled, see for instance:

Manz, C.C., Mossholder, K. W. & Luthans, F. "An Integrated Pers p ective of Self-Control in Organizations," 19(1), Administration & Society, May 1987, pp. 3-24.

Manz, C.C. & Sims, H.P. SuperLeadership: Leading Others to Lead Themselves, Prentice-Hall, Berkeley, CA, 1989.

Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. The Knowledge-Cre ating Company, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 1995.

Have the conviction to do! Share your conviction with others! Do it!

Best of luck!

Sincerley,

- Yogesh

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