Hack:
Demolish management, and let communities in – Companies and not-for-profits can learn from exchange
This Hack considers two types of entity, the not-for-profit and the modern non-hierarchical company of the innovation economy, and suggests some simple ways that each can learn and adopt from the other.
Not-for-profit
By learning and adopting from the contemporary firm, not-for-profits can step up to radical structural change for new futures. By disintegrating, demolishing and destroying hierarchical management and systems in the not-for-profit space, and adopting an autonomous self-managed team based approach, a not for profit organisation such as a museum could change its product offering forever.
Company
Firms with non-hierarchical autonomous team cultures could learn from a simple model adopted by some museums, by letting external communities in, to work together in an existing self-managed team on new product, sharing in potential gains and creating a competitive advantage for the company.
Not-for-profit
The not-for-profit sector has a history of slow-to-change traditional hierarchical structure, one that is evident in the not-for-profit museum. Funded by government (in NZ) and other external funders, and with CEOs reporting to boards, the structures in many of these organisations have followed a traditional hierarchical pattern, in many circumstances in place for more than 100 years.
In order to create and innovate by breaking down their self-inflicted hierarchies and boundaries, museums could learn and adopt from the autonomous self-managing team model practiced by many modern organisations, particularly in the knowledge and manufacturing sectors. By breaking away from a top down structure and what is at times described as elitist practice (one which produces product that only a few can relate to), the not-for-profit museum will facilitate employees to free-up their thinking, to be creative practitioners providing innovative experiences for the experience-hungry end-user.
Company
In some organisations, products and services are produced for end users guided by information gained from user surveys, focus groups and other evaluative mechanisms but with little direct end-user engagement. In some museums, a community approach to product planning (exhibitions) is utilised, by offering opportunities to passionate community members to come in to the organisation to work with staff on a new exhibition by following through on their ideas.
Not-for-profit
Move to creative autonomous multi-disciplinary teams in the museum
By creating self-managing teams, hierarchical barriers are broken down in organisations. Self-managing teams are enabled to self-monitor, self-lead, and operate autonomously, planning the way they operate as a team. Autonomy, flexibility, shared leadership and assisting each other to reach shared outcomes enables successful interdependence, cohesion, and greater creativity and innovation by employees; more so than in traditional hierarchical workplaces where creativity and free-thought has often been hindered.
Alongside team work, by taking part in planning the bigger picture, employees develop a strong sense of belonging and become more engaged in the larger goals of the organisation. The not-for-profit museum could group people from different specialisations to work together in self-managing teams on new products and services.
Change the way leadership leads in the not-for-profit sector
To enable an innovative team-oriented operating model, there needs to be an organisational shift, with a mindset change starting at the top and supported by the governors and funders. Leadership must be redefined, starting with the destruction of the traditional hierarchy, and moving to a concept of shared leadership. This change is viable if the organisation is going to retain the concept of ‘leadership’, but going a step further, a suggested solution for the sector is to demolish leadership completely.
Demolish what we know as leadership in the not-for-profit museum
The option for an organisation in this era of rapid change combined with the relentlessly higher expectations of end-users, is to disestablish leadership and management positions, decentralising and de-layering the organisation. Management could be reduced to only those positions that oversee functions such as the finance and human resources (if the latter is not managed by the teams). Leadership could be distributed throughout the teams for them to collaboratively manage as they choose. By reducing the desire to control, with the absence of controllers, and with collaborative direction setting open to everybody within and across teams, creativity and entrepreneurial talent will be unleashed and organisational buy-in will increase. The employees in the not-for-profit museum, existing as an arrangement of intra-dependent autonomous multidisciplinary teams would then self-lead and co-lead, working to meet the objectives and vision of the organisation.
Company
Corporations let communities in
The decentralized company opens up opportunities for working in multiple different ways in and between the self-managing teams. To add to these creative opportunities, a team could invite ideas for new product solutions from the external community of users and non-users, a concept similar to the community exhibition concept operated in some not-for-profit museums. By inviting external-communities in, to work with and lead a team on a new product or service concept, the team adds to its opportunity for innovation, adding to the organisation’s competitive advantage. The external participants could be remunerated depending upon the shared team gains after release of product.
Not-for-profit
The ability to work in an uncontrolled environment opens employees up to creativity
Creativity gives birth to innovative practices, strengthening the output of the organisation
Employees will have equal rights and say, strengthening their position in the organisation
Employees will develop a strong sense of belonging as their feeling of ownership increases
The output of the organisation strengthens and increases numbers of end users in the long run as product development improves.
Company
New ideas from external communities joining forces with creative autonomous teams allow for greater innovation
Risk taking is considered normal, enabling teams to work with external communities
Buy-in from the external community increases as they see their ideas reflected, adding to the company’s sustainability
Not-for-profit
Through vision-ing workshops, and gradual organisational change by management and governance, change the traditional expectations and thinking of all staff, work with the dissenters, clarify a pathway to change
Leadership must change the expectations of funders and governors – by assisting them to comprehend the benefits for the employees and long term benefits for the organisation and its end-users
Governors must change the operation of governance, by looking outside of the traditional Board model and designing a plan for advisory oversight, including a shared responsibility for achieving outcomes between advisors and teams (by acknowledging that some oversight will always be necessary)
Leaders design a process for change to leadership – gather buy-in from enlightened leaders who will re-design the structure, including management joining teams on an equal peer-reviewed platform
Company
Teams will develop protocols across teams, to ensure that there is a fair consistent process in place for contracting to work with external parties, including legal support
Training to occur to ensure complete buy-in from existing teams before inviting communities in.
The organisation will prepare to accept some unmitigated risk, which may mean product failure
Interesting piece Cynthia. It is ironic that in an age when virtually every management text book, course and senior management workshop focuses upon how important 'innovation' is - that most organisations still ignore once of the most valuable tools to foster fresh thinking, better processes and new ideas - through collaboration.
In his great book 'Where Good Ideas Come From' - Stephen Johnson clearly shows that commercial and social progress is not from lonely, brilliant, secretive individuals - but from sharers, explorers, traders. In summary, smart collaboration with relevant 'others' beats being smart every time. In my work, I have seen how effective partnerships can provide what Moss Kanter called the 'collaborative advantage'. Whilst the mechanics and the mutual value is important, it is also about the soft stuff too, the learnings obtained from working, sharing & joint problem solving.
One thing I would question from your article however, is your questioning of top-down leadership? A common theme in most successful long term partnerships is the high level of strong, senior management support and input to help smooth over any issues and champion progress. Of course, you want a 'spirit' of collaboration that permeates throughout - but it has to be focused and that has to be the role of good leadership. Also, really important to have individual owners - who are accountable for elements of the relationship. In my experience, if the organisational relationship is too broad and non-specific it is very easy for people to wriggle out of doing anything! It becomes a corporate 'aim' but does not get on anyones to do list. I've had the misfortune to host a range of partnership kick off meetings over the years where plenty of people like coming to the meetings to 'input' and 'put there ideas on the table' - but are very quiet when it comes to taking away and pioneering the way forward. Collaboration is not about putting things ON THE TABLE. Its about TAKING THINGS OFF IT. "I will send you the plan" / "I will sort a meeting for us". So whilst you do not want senior leaders dominating the relationships - management is really needed to ensure that the collaboration is well focused and well resourced and does not drift.
On a separate note - I'd be very interested in your thoughts on ways to manage and encourage 'creative' and 'smart' people to work together? I have worked with both entertainment and techie worlds and my thinking is that the arts/museum world may also have very strong personalities. Often - it can be a struggle to get very expert people from different organisations to work together. It is often the real cultural and personality challenge as their is a high degree of personal pride, be it academic, artistic, technical - and that can lead to very strong opinions and personalities (as an old manager told me once 'somebody once told them they were clever, and they've never forgotten it!). So - again, there is a strong need for senior management to facilitate and nurture the conversations. And, to make hard decisions sometimes. It is good to take on board everyones opinions but at the end of the day, for the collaboration to work and gain momentum - the final project team has to be made up of smart people who can work together, not just smart people protecting their own ideas. If you're interested in this area, I've written about the challenges and opportunities of partnership and collaboration within my blog; http://andrewarmour.com/ and on my main website - http://www.benchstone.co.uk
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Thank you Andrew for taking the time to provide me with such a long and interesting comment, this is much appreciated. I apologise for taking a while to respond. Collaboration and partnerships are in my mind a necessary practice for survival, in life, in work. Frequently I find that people working in traditional settings in particular ignore the collaborative possibilities in front of them in the workplace, let alone asking employees what they want, what they would do, how they would plan for the future of the organisation. Further on from that, all being equal (or not?), it seems to me that one of the most logical places to go for ideas and input for success must be to the community. I am somewhat heartened by the apparent success of crowdsourcing, an approach of the now and likely still an approach of the future that will grow in many different ways. This appeals to me because the collective advantage is still so unknown - who really is out there, whom we are inviting to work with us?
I am questioning top-down leadership because in my own experience that is frequently not where the ideas come from. That's not a new observation by any means, and the leader with foresight always makes it clear that they were part of a team and wouldn't have gotten ‘somewhere’ without them, but the team never reaps the same rewards. Although I was not writing about the rewards, I think we are often too quick to place the individual in the position of idol, could that role go to the group? Certainly I think that the most effective work is done without a dominant figure, although I agree that there is always a place for the person who pulls it all together, in saying that, it doesn't have to be the same person every time. Many people never get the chance of leadership - why shouldn't they? In the bottom-up, or completely decentralised space, this could be possible. Or does human nature prevent this? Why can't the team support itself? Or are we too caught up with the flies? (Lord of..). I ask these questions because I do believe that the capability for collaboration and for leadership is in all of us, yet some of us have to break through years of conditioning (gender stereotyping, negative nurturing, mixed-messages about our abilities etc) before we get there.
I understand what you are referring to when addressing the broad nature of relationships, but it’s also up to the team to bring those who wriggle out back on board. Your example of teams not following through is a good one, yet I would say that should those be examples of full time scenarios, where the rewards are dependant upon the effort, then your observations would be very different. Bringing me back to the decentralised team approach, I had been very struck by the work of one of the authors whom I referenced – Gill Eapen Flexibility – Flexible Companies for the Uncertain World. His concept of SOUL (self-organizing uni-layer) was the closest that I could find to mine, yet his is far more refined and well thought-through. He has come up with an alternative human structure that has no singular leader, and no defined hierarchy. In SOUL people come together by self-subscribing, so people are not actually hired, they voluntarily join; and all work towards a macro-objective about which they may actually not have any prespecified education or expertise (how far away from the present work situation this is!). He suggests that the SOUL might be financed by a group of shareholders, there will be no top officers and all participants would be agents of the owners, and SOUL participants may be owners as well. So the structure has no defined shape and no defined command and control. Compensation would be directly related to the success of the SOUL. I’ve paraphrased his description, but the idea should be clear. I think this is a concept that is not actually far off, if not existing already. (I couldn’t help think about it when noting a job advertisement for HIPSTER in SF recently).
Finally, I have had to think awhile about your query regarding thoughts on getting creative and smart people to work together. I’ve been laughing a bit about this, because I have come across difficulties in the arts/museum sector in this regard. You are possibly alluding to the difficulty dealing with people who don’t have to engage should they choose not too, who may live and work in a rarefied world so collaboration is a choice. I’m not sure of your circumstances, but people can be brought together when it’s a case of rewards (eg no engagement no reward) or when the facilitator is a highly enlightened diplomat. I’ve seen it in one organisation I was involved with, one manager unable to deal with the ‘difficult’ personality types, another completely capable of managing the same group. Note that I said facilitator, not leader. It isn’t all about leaders having the capability here, because many do not have the skills. Another method for encouraging people to work together is to make sure the carrot appeals to everyone to get the right mix – why are you bringing them together to work together? Why should they want to come?
Finally (again) I noted in your bio that you moved to New Zealand. That is where I am residing. But it looks to me as if you might now be in London? Just curious.
CWB
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interesting bourgeois piece Cynthia! I understood your original intent to destroy human energy within the boundery of civil society and the nature of its Company. A "radical" reform of society! Anyway, keep up the good work!
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Cynthia
This represents a beautiful and inspiring vision for change. I say pursue it, painting in as many details as you can, and especially articulating that shift in relationships and how people see themselves that I sense you see can be released by deconstructing hierarchy. I suspect this is a heart-felt point for you, and where your "stand" is on the need -- and opportunity -- for change. This is a great piece.
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