The
way we do business has changed and continues to evolve. The change
and evolution, however, is not evenly distributed and is confusing
about what the 'right' path is.
When
I learned to drive, the car had a 'stick shift' (manual
transmission). As I was perfecting the skill of keeping my heel on
the brake, my toe on the gas, and my other foot on the clutch to
avoid hitting the car behind me on a hill, I had to figure out how to
shift the gears without bringing the car to a sudden dead stop.
As
time went by the stick transmission was replaced with the automatic
as standard equipment and it became rare to drive a car (and now
trucks too) without an automatic transmission. Technology changed -
driving a car became less complex – almost everyone now uses the
new technology and skills needed to drive a stick shift are
disappearing . Old skills become obsolete or must be replaced with
new techniques as the technology evolves.
In
the 1950's – 1960's business adopted a military hierarchy - worker,
supervisor, middle manager, director, senior management. The
supervisor and middle managers served the role of trainers and
mentors, as well as pushing to get the targeted output. Over time the
managers
Technology
blossomed in the 1970's – 1980's and company-wide systems and local
computers could compile the reports; the middle managers devolved to
doing some entry, some analysis, but became 'measurers' and
'reporters' with little time or contact with the doers.
As
financial changes were required – who had the large paychecks and
now only indirectly affected production? Middle Managers. They became
all but extinct during the right-sizing era.
As
managers shifted to working with the systems, the supervisors
absorbed the oversight duties vacated by managers, and the doers
(workers) collectively became more responsible for their own
supervision – no longer the sole province of the
supervisors/overseers.
Now
the pyramid has flattened out and other models have replaced it. The
hub and spoke approach has management/resource (hub) supporting
multiple project groups (spokes) to get results (rim). Ad hoc
collaborative, project-based teams collect the needed resources and
best talent from inside and outside the organization to do the
project – when completed, the team disbands, freeing the resources
and personnel to join the next project.
Technology
has significantly reduced the raw labor needed to do the work,
advances in communications – telecom, video, world-wide
connectivity – have broadened the talent and resource pool, and the
doers now must be perpetual students to continue to be viable in a
technology era.
Moore's
Law, which applies to computing evolution, predicts that the
speed of computers will double every 18 months and the cost per
transaction drops as the speed increases – many say up to 50%. The
Doer's
Theorem advocates you must reinvent your skill-set and expand
your experience portfolio about every three years to remain viable in
the labor market.
It
took big business to make big money in the past. Today it takes big
ideas implemented to make big money – like Zappos,
Amazon,
Facebook,
Google.
Structure and size is no longer an unassailable requirement to
succeed - individual contribution and innovation combined with
collaboration has become a strong independent force to create
successful, commercially viable products and services.
As
leaders we must recognize when business evolution has created a new
normal and find ways to leverage it for the benefit of the
organization.
What
are your thoughts?
Join
us - March
13th Sales
Lab’s Rainmaker 12 is Lessons
from Makers
at
the Capital
Technology Management Hub on
Tuesday, March 13th. The featured CTMH speaker will be Dick
Davies on
the topic of The
Direct Economy – How
to Profile from the Most Lucrative Market in the History of the
World!.
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Info