He responded to my message on the History of Corporate change and I
thought I'd pass it on as he makes many points worthy of consideration.
Just for your information my Dad is an economist by schooling (and his
early career) and a software engineer today. . .
Here's his reply:
I don't know if your theory is correct or not. It would take a
significant effort to verify your theory, if that is possible at all.
Is it a good theory?
That probably can be partially determined by exposing it to other's and
listening to their perceptions about your theory. Their feedback may cause
you to significantly change the theory, or their feedback may simply
refine what is already a good theory. In any case, there are probably a
number of explanations for downsizing and flattening. I am not sure the
two are related, but then I haven't thought about it a good deal.
One of the significant problems of technical managers is that it is very
difficult to maintain expertise in both technical and managerial issues.
If one decides to pursue the managerial career, one's departure from the
technical realm may disqualify one from correctly making
technical/managerial decisions which we normally think managers should
make, or at least those decisions managers have wanted to make, and have
the authority to make. Do we have such a thing as technical managers vs
non technical managers? Even technical managers who have a good technical
background, but are not doing technical work on a day to day basis can
become incompetent to make decisions normally reserved for technical
managers.
This is becoming even more true with the advent of so many process
oriented standards which must be complied with. Compliance insures that a
manager devotes almost all his time to "process" management, rather than
"technical" management. Who does the technical management in this case.
Is our preoccupation with processes creating a new type of manager, namely
a process manager? Are organizations willing to pay for another type of
manager? If not, will process improvement ever work?
If we flatten the organization, break people up into teams, and try to do
away with one layer of management, do we end up with teams that are not
really empowered, but still have responsibility? Do teams have the
expertise to staff themselves correctly during all phases of development
of a product? Are teams able to go through a metamorphosis as they and
their product matures, so that they can meet the staffing requirements of
the development process through all stages of development. In the initial
stages of development, do all members of the team see themselves as system
analysts, and then all members of the team make a transition to
implementors, and finally to testers as the product goes through its life
cycle? Do we need the same number of systems analysts as developers as
testers? Or if this is not the case, exactly how do teams deal with
staffing and product development issues? Is the staffing of the team
always in flux through the development cycle to address these issues?
Which members of the team lead out in the areas of process issues,
technical issues, and technical issues?
I think Corporate America often strikes off in search of a silver bullet
before having made a commitment to pay for and complete the learning
process which enables the silver bullet. Hence, things like reengineering
are begun, and before they are well understood and thought through,
abandoned for another "great" idea, which also hasn't been fully thought
through. Do we benefit from these forays into various improvement ideas?
Have far do we go along with a bad idea before we should abandon it? If
we rarely go all the way up the learning curve, how do we know whether the
idea when fully understood and implemented, would have been good or not?
While I don't know the answer to these questions, I do think we are too
fickle, too much tactically oriented, and rarely commit resources of any
magnitude to ventures which would provide true strategic advantage. We
don't seem to care about winning the war, just the next battle. Do we
know how to evaluate a style of management which is strategically
oriented, and defers present profits for future profits? At some point in
time, a system built like ours may have to face its Waterloo, and lose the
war. Are American companies loosing their international competitiveness?
Are there signs that America may loose many economic and social wars
before it finally succumbs as a military victim?
We need good thinkers to think these issues through and change the
American business culture.
--Terry Compton tcompton@sprynet.com
Posted to the LO list by Ben Compton <BCOMPTON@novell.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>