Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
If you give the employees not only tools to effect real positive change but also a sense of ownership, some say in operations and a voice of some type, they'll work harder, do better work, and stick around. Why isn't this common knowledge? I've been workplaces where this was the M.O., and it was great.
You are not the customer.
The article talks about how business-related interest groups can be developed and how they can help the bottom line, but they don't talk about all the other non-business, 'special-interest' groups and how they function within the corporation and how they help productivity & morale, even if the results are less than fiscally apparent.
Reminds me of this article that someone linked to yesterday about how companies can do wonders for recruitment if they use low-cost, high-value devices to lure workers (free soda, juice, lunch, etc).
Also, did anyone else read 'Wall Street Journal columnist David Wessel' and think 'nuklear' ?
What it comes down to is companies have finally realised "People need friends" Im not suprised it took them so long Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of the cube farm *laughs sarcastically* Or perhaps it is just a waste of time?
Can't we all just get along
I'm all for democracy in the workplace, after all, why only demand democracy and freedom from our governments. But really, if a company views this as a way to motivate its workers to improve the bottom line, then it isn't genuine -- you just give your workers enough freedom so that they shut up and work harder for you. Can the workers fire the CEO? Cap his/her salary? Decide the company should do good in the world rather than just exist to enrich shareholders?
There are steps towards genuine democracy in the workplace, like the recuperated factory movement in Argentina where factory workers refused to shut down the factories that were closing and instead, run them themselves, for themselves, and for the community. We really need to recognize that we don't live in a fully democratic society if we spend most of our waking hours working in what is effectively a tyranny.
Deconstruct the State
The US economy is more efficient than the Soviet ever was precisely because decisions can be made by those with better access to relevant information and individuals are free to make decisions that best suit their own interests. They voluntarily align their interests with others through enforceable contracts. Control from the top over how individuals allocate their resources is counterproductive. What is important is a stable, predictable legal framework and a solid, unmanipulated currency.
The same principle also work with a corporation. Investable assets should be controlled by those who have proven their good judgement and how they invest those assets, say in new products and services, should be guided by the information they have, not directives from on high (not that those are never suitable, sometimes they are).
There are many mechanisms which can put into place that leverage the capabilities of a free market. This is quite different, actually, from democracy, where everyone decides what the organization does. Each player actually decides the best use of the assets he has, rather than trying to decide what others should do.
In such an environment, leadership focusses on building this framework, creating incentives and making the system work better, rather than on dictating what should be done within the framework.
If a business is self-governing, one wonders why a dividend check would be going out every month to the company owners. What are they doing? The workers are doing all the work, the workers are managing the company, all the owners are doing is taking a profit from the wealth created by the workers. For part of the day the workers are earning their own wages, for part of the day they are working for free, all the wealth they're creating in that period going to profit.. You could say capital reinvestment, but capital reinvestment does not go into a dividend check, and that money was created by the workers anyhow. It is just a grand ripoff, no different than serfs plowing wheat, or slaves picking cotton. Democratic indeed, it's not democratic at all unless you own it. There are much better examples of what is really a more democratic workplace. Like this for example. This sounds like one of those "safety circles" corporations set up, in an attempt to prevent any kind of democratic controll in the workplace.
Why do these people "need" leadership? Will they fail at their tasks without it?
Without leadership, who gives them the tasks?
Without leadership, who makes sure they actually do the tasks rather than sitting whining on Slashdot all day?
Most of the places I have worked, half my coworkers were idiots. I don't want them having any say on how things should work.
Before you break out your Little Red Books and start chanting "Workers of the World Unite!" you may want to RTFA.
The "Eureka Groups" mentioned in the article were formed for the express purpose of fostering the development of expertise and sharing of knowledge within the larger organization. The groups were self-governing in that they elected "leaders", but these people--and everyone else in the groups--had day jobs. They all had bosses. Their bosses had bosses, and their bosses' bosses... and so on... whose boss' "boss" were the shareholders of the company.
An egalitarian, colegial environment is usually what you see when ideas are the main currency of the organization. But once you start talking about cold, hard cash, accountability (e.g., who did the shareholders entrust their money with) becomes paramount. Particularly as the goals of the organization become larger, more formal command structures become necessary just to keep track of the sheer complexity of the business.
In the end, whenever you talk about getting together with other people to accomplish some sort of task--be it producing edible food on an organic farm, or designing and assembling a full automotive product line--someone needs to decide how all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. You can take your pick when it comes to governance--the structure you need will depend on what you're trying to accomplish--but you'll always need to find some way of making decisions, setting direction, etc.
Now, if you want to talk about actual business decisions being made democratically, the best example is... drum roll, please... a democratic government. Want a good example of a product created by a democratic government? The Space Shuttle comes to mind...
In any event, it's easy to sit in a cubicle knee-deep in code, engineering drawings, etc, and wonder what your boss does all day. While you're sitting there, posting on Slashdot and contemplating the ways in which you might be able to avoid doing things you don't like doing, your boss is involved in deciding what kind of work you're actually going to be paid to do.
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