Gary Hamel is emotional

In trying to come to terms with the low score of management personnel on ethics Gary Hamel observes that the tectonic plates of individual interest and institutional interest are moving in different directions. In seeking to explain this he defines trust: "Trust is not simply a matter of truthfulness, or even constancy. It is also a matter of amity and goodwill. We trust those who have our best interests at heart, and mistrust those who seem deaf to our concerns."  He goes on to conclude that this form of trust is absent in organizations and talks of means to enrich the connection of individuals with institutions.

The line of reasoning does offer a reason for the declining ethical standards in the corporate environment but it does not fit in with my experience of the work place. Trust in the professional environment is not decided by amity/goodwill but perception of merit. The present and future have great significance in our perception of security and meaning contributes far more heavily to them than emotion. It is possible there is another interpretation of trust in the professional environment, one that provides a direction to take constructive action.

My last post emphasised the importance of Feedback to success. Feedback follows from free-flow of Knowledge in context. I surmise trust is a product of free-flow, i.e., it prevails where free-flow exists. Free-flow gives meaning to the concept of a collective - they support the free-flow by having a shared belief in it. Thus trust and teamwork are synonymous in the professional workplace. Trust and teamwork (TnT) has a very high correlation with performance. Davenport has reported a study that found a 10% rise in TnT led to a 30% rise in performance. The relationship could be local but it is an indicator.

Understanding TnT as a product of free-flow explains the decline of institutions and the growth of self-interest among the leaders. The conduct of free-flow is overwhelmed as organizations grow in size. Interactions increase geometrically with size. Their undisciplined conduct emphasises self-interest, power and politics. The opposing tectonic movement is initiated.

Discovering Feedback

Feedback is the most powerful force known to engineering to enable a system get what it wants. Success stories like Hewlett Packard under David Packard, Nucor Steel during the time of Ken Iverson and others like South Western Airlines and Walmart have established the reality and power of the force for Management systems as well. I truly understood the relevance of Feedback to my work in the process of creating a submission for a Management Innovation contest. I created eight articles for the contest to explain my compelling delivery of Feedback and its importance. They did not win the contest but they did raise me to a higher and simpler level of understanding which I propose to explain in a future series of posts.

The eight articles in their logical order are as follows:

Perspective: The last article I wrote was The Hack 'Solving the ages-old problem of the 'ignorant diagnosis''. It introduces the fundamental and unsolved problem of Management.


1. The Hack ‘Achieving the ends of Knowledge with feedback’ presents the goals of Knowledge Management and analyzes why they were not achieved. It explains why Feedback will attain the goals, and leverages my sketches to introduce the delivery of its content and value with Dialogue.


2. Reliable means to raise Collective Ability is the core need for superior performance or success. My Barrier ‘Absence of a means to exploit the latent collective ability for pursuing success’ explains how the growth of interactions has overwhelmed means for collective creation and introduces the Conventional Wisdom that has held up progress.

3. Rich wisdom has accumulated on the way to success but Managements are unable to apply it. My Barrier ‘Neglect of the accumulated Management Wisdom’ defines the neglect of wisdom and how a compelling Knowledge Assembly Line may be conceived to manage the organization and discipline for taming Knowledge interactions.

4. My Barrier ‘The importance of dreaming about the free flow of Knowledge’ presents the deep significance of Dialogue and why free-flow is a rare phenomenon in the business scape.

5. The Hack ‘Creating a common language to unite stakeholders’ explains the development of a language for bringing the Knowledge Assembly Line into common usage and for converting the Knowledge captured into Dialogue for raising the Collective Ability.

6. Empowerment is the single most powerful force for Management Transformation. My Barrier ‘Change from within is a citadel that must be stormed – from within’ represents it is not enough to possess Knowledge, be empowered and perhaps even know how to apply Knowledge. It explores the internal barriers to successful empowerment and how they may be overcome.

7. The Hack ‘Compelling Energy for a quantum jump in organization performance with the same resources’ explains my harnessing of IT to deliver the Knowledge Assembly Line and its amenability to a swift roll-out across the enterprise.

The Irony of a Collective

It is easy to believe that it is more difficult to manage a collective than manage ones own self. The reality is, however, quite different.

To succeed the individual must organize the self to progress learning. Self-organization demands discipline and this is never easy. The individual must manage on her/his own. The organization of the collective depends on conversations. Given our breakthrough IT can be employed to not only efficiently manage conversations but also conduct them for learning. This makes it easier to drive a collective towards success than seek success as an individual.