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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.'"
My company, , is also doing this - establishing "communities of interest".
:)
I figure, they'd rather I spent my time blogging with other employees than jerks like you.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
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.
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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' ?
Professionals have organized democratic professional organizations for centuries. In fact, the high rate of "society" membership among American colonists was one way they were prepared to design the longest-lasting democratic republic to date: the USA. Americans have continued to be "joiners".
What is changing is that these organizations are now possible, with low management overhead, within large organizations, due to increasingly cheap and complex comms tech, that's also easy to use. Scientific and engineering professionals are among the most likely to join professional organizations that elect leaders, and to use these techs. And our jobs are so complicated that they need to leverage our social skills to manage productivity. While those skills are increasingly unavailable to "management specialists" who therefore aren't really scientists or engineers. So the "privatization" of these communities is inevitable.
Of course, the Wall Street Journal won't see it that way. They instead see it as the "democritization of the workplace". Which it is, also. But that's because democracy is the best way for complex groups of productive people to specialize and work together. The WSJ inability to see it that way, to see it as a source of fear for other companies, says more about their attitude towards democracy than about their understanding of professional working structures.
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make install -not war
A Brazilian company that has been democratic for 20 years, and a book review (with excerpt).
Ok, this story wasn't posted by CmdrTaco... /.
/. powers, Taco will then cause an attack on your different communications mediums...
By using a combination of Java/WAP, your phone will also explode into a trillion fragments... All this by a direct attack on the open ports of your system (DNS, TCP and many, many other funny acronyms)...
In addition, I suggest you chill out... if provoked, there have been rumors of CmdrTaco commanding attacks towards his blasphemous underlings.
You see, phase 1 of the attack would see to it that your eMails and IP #s are posted on
Phase 2 would see your DSL connection burst in flames to the ground as eMail just pours in from all over the world... heck! You've got your computer sending you eMail!
By his all-mighty
By the same token, your cable/TV connection will receive an quantum encrypted channel 13 video feed... This will cause your TV's CRT beams to converge on a dedicated spot, which will, obviously melt the front glass an cause all sorts of mortal electron beam reflections throughout your house.
After extensive research, I've found out that when Taco is on a run, he's unstopabble...
After commanding any and all electronic devices that contain an electronic gate within (hell, a light switch will do!), Taco will use secret HTML/XML and some RSS feeds to jump onto your house's X10 electrical network.
Ultimately, he'll be able to broadcast massive InfraRed codes into your neighborgh's homes... Such IR codes will hi-jack your Jetta's stereo system and cause it to run-off in the middle of the night! This, using google Maps and some clever C# programming in unison with the feedback obtained from your town's traffic system.
In conclusion, chill out Radres... chill out.
and don't tune into channel 13
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.
Well, this self-governing community is not exactly a new idea. Peter Drucker actually advised General Motors to do ths same back in 1946, as recorded in his first Management book Concept of the Corporation.
General Motors didn't buy this idea and even thought it was some sort of usurpation and opportunist bet. Its CEO back then, Alfred Sloan, wrote a book in response to these suggestions and requests - My Years with General Motors.
Even though American companies missed the boat in forming better corporate governance by creating such self-governance communities, the Japanese picked up the idea. Of course they had a somewhat different goal to what it means to start a business, but in general this helped many Japanese companies to rise and shine at the level of where they are today - many world class manufacturers and industrialists.