Free information -> lateral networks -> less authoritarianism

Anyone who owns a computer knows that storing and exchanging information has gotten much, much cheaper. I'm in the midst of a full backup, and I have 60 GB (60GB!) of stuff I don't want to lose. Take out the music, and there's still 10GB of spreadsheets, photos, documents, databases, etc., that I'm backing up over the Internet (over the Internet!).

What does that mean to business? To Andrew McAfee of Harvard Business School, it means nothing less than a reordering of power and, eventually, a revolution in the management approach of companies. In his always-excellent blog, McAfee discusses MIT Professor Tom Malone's theory (from his book "The Future of Work") that cheap storage and fast networks create more lateral information flows within companies, and that upends hierarchies. Writes McAfee:

Until recently there was also a pretty simple rule of thumb within hierarchies: information flows followed decision rights. A decision right is exactly what it sounds like: the power to make a call, settle on a course of action, arbitrate a dispute, etc. A Gap store manager has decision rights over who to hire, but not where to open a new location; that decision right resides much higher up in the company.

Information flows have historically followed decision rights for two simple reasons: effective decision-making requires information (often a lot of it), and information has historically been expensive to gather and transmit. As a result, it made sense to be stingy when amassing and sending information, and to only send it where it would be put to best use -- as an aid to decision-making....

Malone’s theory, however, goes much farther than just outlining how information flows change. It also predicts how decision right allocations will change as a result. His thesis is a simple and powerful one: decision rights will also become more lateralized as information costs plummet, leading to greater power and autonomy at lower levels within a hierarchy -- in short, greater decentralization....

The strong form of this hypothesis is that companies will become less hierarchical and authoritarian, and more democratic and autonomous. Command-and-control approaches will become archaic. Pyramids will become pancakes. The fleetest, most innovative, and most competitive companies will be those that push decisions downward and empower the people closest to the action. The information gathering and filtering bureaucracies that most large companies have built up will become superfluous, and will be pruned. They’ll be replaced by networks of interdependent yet autonomous units that are given the decision rights necessary to pursue the company’s goals.

This will be good news to Traci Fenton of WorldBlu, who's been out in front of the workplace democracy movement, leading what seems like a lonely struggle. Traci, technology is on your side.

[I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that McAfee's post is not a wholesale endorsement of Malone's theory of increased workplace democracy and decentralization. If you read the whole thing, you'll see that he isn't quite sure about it, and in fact finds some evidence in favor of increased centralization due to these same technological factors. I hope Malone is right.]

management leadership information technology networks hierarchies

It's not just the network, it's making the network work

I was discussing this recent post about the ability to connect being more important than one's individual work output with my Vice President of Common Sense (a.k.a. Maura).

She said, "There are lots of people who can create networks, but there aren't many who can use those networks to get things accomplished. That's the real difficult task."

And I really couldn't respond to that at all, because, you know, she's right.

networks social networking connection collaboration

Your genes aren't simply on-off switches--surprised?

The New York Times today discussed the recently-published findings of the National Human Genome Research Project about the structure and function of genes. Rather than being independent agents--this gene causes heart disease, this gene causes a predisposition to Alzheimer's, etc.--genes in fact are part of a highly-interconnected, complex network that guides how we grow and age.

The press release announcing the study findings says, in part,

The ENCODE consortium's major findings include the discovery that the majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional molecules, called RNA, and that these transcripts extensively overlap one another. This broad pattern of transcription challenges the long-standing view that the human genome consists of a relatively small set of discrete genes, along with a vast amount of so-called junk DNA that is not biologically active.

The new data indicate the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network. In this network, genes are just one of many types of DNA sequences that have a functional impact. "Our perspective of transcription and genes may have to evolve," the researchers state in their Nature paper (link - $$), noting the network model of the genome "poses some interesting mechanistic questions" that have yet to be answered.

I think any student of human nature would agree that there are lots of "interesting mechanistic questions" about how our bodies deploy their genetic inheritances.

According to the Times, this has serious implications for the biotech industry, specifically that its assumption that manipulating one part of the genome can have a highly-focused result with limited side effects. If the genome is a "complex, interwoven network," then unpredictable side effects are more than likely, they're nearly guaranteed.

So, as we all know in our guts, we need to be careful when messing around with Mother Nature. And maybe biotech drugs need just as much testing for side effects as those old-style ones.

New York Times biotech networks

Who you know may be more important than what you can do

I read something today that was so counterintuitive it just might be true. Patti Anklam, the author of "Net Work, A Practical Guide To Creating And Sustaining Networks At Work And In The World," quotes in her blog fellow knowledge management expert Stowe Boyd on the value of personal networks:

It will happen, he said (or I am paraphrasing; I did not take notes), that having a larger number of connections is more important at work than simply doing a job well, or in his words, on a great slide show from his site titled Flow): "Productivity is second to Connectivity: network productivity trumps personal productivity." That is, the more connections you have the more resources you have to bring to a task: all work can be co-work.

I read this on a day when I talked to people in Chicago, the UK, suburban Washington and Seattle. And when I emailed a former colleague in Texas to locate someone's phone number to get to the Washington contact. And... you get the picture.

I had always looked to my intelligence as the supreme asset I brought to the workplace. It's taken me nearly forty-five years to learn that my (virtual) Rolodex is far smarter than I am.

And it works harder too.

(Photo by Frances Twitty via istockphoto.com)
networks social networking connection collaboration

The power of "weak ties"

"Smart World," a fascinating new book by Richard Ogle, paints a carefully-wrought, exhaustive picture of how creative breakthroughs happen. The persistent myth of the solo inventor, toiling alone in her workshop, is forcefully put to rest. In vibrant examples such as Crick's and Watson's discovery of the structure of DNA, to Gutenberg's invention of movable-type printing, to architect Frank Gehry's reinvention of modern architecture via the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Ogle makes the case that true breakthroughs come from immersing oneself in the ideas of the day, drawing inspiration from fields near and far, and synthesizing something new from these.

One area Ogle focuses on is the value of so-called "weak ties." In the same way that your most-distant connections can be the best source of a new job, given that their distance connects you to many you couldn't otherwise reach, so weak ties in the invention network serve as a potent energizer to creators. Writes Ogle about the invention of cubism by Picasso and Braque in the first decade of the twentieth century:

Cubism broke with a five-century-old tradition of figurative art by reaching out to a science [physics, where the theory of relativity was just gaining adherents] that was becoming radically more abstract and geometric, and in the process overturning our commonsense view of the world. This move created a weak tie that connected art with a whole domain of thought that was far removed from it.... Connecting to the hotspot of early-twentieth-century physics and the focus on abstract geometric form that it triggered released an avalanche of new ideas that spontaneously multiplied and are still playing themselves out. ("Smart World," p. 135)

What he means is: new ideas in one area + creative people searching for innovation in a distant one create the potential for a weak tie. Once the tie is made, the creators draw inspiration or analogies from the new area into their area of expertise. The stage is set, then, for breakthrough creativity.

And think about this. Most ideas that have changed the world were labeled crazy or heretical at one stage. So when people who hear your ideas shake their heads, dismiss you or say you're reaching too far, they may be right.

Or you may be onto something.

reading list innovation creativity invention networks