Harvard Professor Andrew McAfee, asked the question Is Management the Problem? at a recent Enterprise2.0 conference. I wasn’t surprised at the question, but at what appears to be his expectation that management is the problem. He was advised by conference panelists that current issues have less to do with managers and more to do with users.
He also asks, "If Enterprise 2.0 tools and approaches really are so beneficial and powerful, why haven’t they spread like wildfire?" Which I believe is rather presumptive statement, given that the number of Enterprise2.0 installations is still rather quite small.
The fallacy may lie in this presumption and may have something to do with excessive early stage optimism. I think Professor McAfee’s question may be self fulfilling. Again, he ponders, "If Enterprise 2.0 tools and approaches really are so beneficial and powerful, why haven’t they spread like wildfire?"
Maybe it is because not everyone senses the benefits or power.
As one follows along with current writings and conference presentations, Enterprise2.0 suffers slightly from understanding of “what it does for me” and what problems it solves. Some evangelists suggest that you just take a leap of faith and let the discovery process determine how best to use the technologies.
In “Is Management the Problem?” McAfee expresses some interesting insight into management within a hierarchical organizations, although with somewhat of a negative slant. To me, more time is necessary to answer the question, since I believe that there is insufficient information available to managers regarding real benefits, problems solved, changes to business operations, links to business goals, integration with current systems, etc.
So, let’s first explain Enterprise2.0 business benefits and power to managers, and then let’s see if “management is the problem”. Things take time, and we are barely at step 1.
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