Self-Governing Online Worker Communities

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Oil-services company Schlumberger is doing something unusual for a big corporation: fostering the creation of online groups of employees with similar interests and allowing these communities to govern themselves and choose their leaders. Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel talks to John Afilaka, a geological engineer who was elected to lead the company's rock-characterization community. 'Mr. Afilaka campaigned to increase technical professionals' influence on top management's research-and-development priorities and to forge better links among various communities. He claims progress on both.' Richard McDermott, a consultant, tells Wessel such a management structure is unusual: 'People...see it as a real democratic institution in what is otherwise an authoritarian institution, a business.' Wessel notes: 'Other companies, apparently, are scared of that.'"

Comments

Real democracies wage real war

[joelsanda]

People...see it as a real democratic institution in what is otherwise an authoritarian institution, a business.

If these are like America's democracy can they declare war on another country because it might have a product they don't like, even if there's no evidence the product exists?

Step up to the bar

[Loundry]

If you want to sound less like a self-indulgent teenager, then I reccomend removing "WTF?" from your vocabularly.

Do you have someone who tells you to get up every morning? Tells you to brush your teeth?

This assumes that all of the decisions made across an organization of arbitrary size (say, 300,000 people) are as trivial as decisions of personal hygiene and individual discipline.

Moreover, does your "leader" at work give you every task you must accomplish?

That's not what the parent poster's question implies. No leader can give out every task, certainly. A good leader would expect that those he leads do not need to be micromanaged. Furthermore, I think what's more important than "Who assigns the tasks?" is "Who prioritizes the tasks?" The leader's job is often to remove the bullshit from the lives of those he leads so that they can do the jobs that they excel at. The reason why those being led can't do these jobs effectively is because they're often not privy (nor *should* they be!) to the politics that would keep them from doing their jobs.

There is no reason these functions...

snip. I think you believe this because you hate someone telling you what to do. I don't blame you -- I hate it, too! That doesn't mean that the functions performed by a "leader" (the use of that word is bordering on rhetoric, both pro and con) are unnecessary. Tell me, what is your experience in working in a large organization? I'm interested in your experiences both as a leader and as one working under a leader.