I was in a committee meeting at my daughter's school yesterday. We were talking about the progress of several technology initiatives, and what more could be done to move them along and report status to the school's board of trustees. Four people in the room were business executives; one was a former schoolteacher -- now the IT director for the school.
The IT director had made remarkable progress in implementing the recommendations of the committee, despite being set back by a personal injury. With a small team, many of the initiatives had been completed. Those initiatives had to do with getting infrastructure in place. The only initiative that had fallen behind somewhat was the rollout and training of staff and faculty. So, the group was focused on how to communicate the progress made to date to the board.
An interesting dynamic followed. All of the business-trained committee members were thinking similarly about what needed to be communicated: progress vs. plan, expenditures vs. plan, places where the plan needs to change, indicators of effectiveness of the technology investment. The schoolteacher-turned-IT director seemed to be thinking along different lines. On the one hand, he did a great job of showing what had been done -- what labs had been updated, what new laptops had been purchased, pictures of the new digital music studio, and so forth. But when the discussion got to, "where do we go from here?" things seemed to stall out.
It was clear after a moment that the business executives shared a language and culture of work, despite the fact that none had worked together, as far as I know, and I was new to the group. It was also clear that there was a communication gap between us and the school's IT director regarding how to move things forward.
His thoughts seemed to get stuck in several ways. He had just lost an important staff member (1 of 4), and he wasn't sure how to replace him. He seemed to be overwhelmed by the prospect of training the faculty on all of this technology (the only initiative that was behind schedule). And he seemed not to take hold of the thrice-repeated recommendation about how to summarize his progress to the board (he may have understood, but he was not giving feedback in the meeting confirming his understanding or seeking clarity).
We tabled the discussion for later, when he could have some time to think about it. But the temporary disconnect was palpable. I started thinking about what that disconnect was, where it came from. But it seems like a good example of different cultures of work.
When I say "culture of work", I don't mean the culture of a particular place. I mean the assumptions, values and norms for successful activity in a particular field. The culture of work of the executives in that meeting was predictable: planned/actual, benchmarking, customer feedback. And everyone was thinking about similar techniques, artifacts, and strategies to move forward -- and even to help the IT director break through his feeling of overwhelm.
The temptation in the meeting was to "fix" the IT director -- to get him trained in real-time on the culture of work that the others shared. We all deferred that until a later meeting.
Maybe by then the IT Director will come in having processed the feedback he received and return with a game plan that is consistent with the business executive culture of work. Or maybe we'll find ourselves at the next meeting with an increasing desire to "fix" his thinking or approach.
We'll see.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
The difference between Dubai and Iran
I was at a dinner party last night at the home of a Harvard Business School professor.
The gathering was for parents of our children at a local school,most of the conversation was to introduce ourselves and talk about our kids. Near the end of the party several people were gathered, and the conversation was quite curious, so I listened in.
A few people in the conversation were familiar with the Middle East and had visited countries there -- the Harvard professor being the most well-traveled and informed. They were talking about what countries were working and what were not, how the US had already won the war of public opinion through McDonalds before our incursion into Iraq -- which now has made us the bad guy just about everywhere. Nothing that new here.
Then the professor started talking about the small Gulf states, such as Dubai, Yemen, Kuwait and so forth. He commented that they are probably more comfortable with the US than Europe is. Someone asked the obvious question of what he thought was the reason for this. His response was that, historically, these nations had two characteristics. First they were port nations, facilitating trade via the Gulf. As such, their posterity relied on their ability to "work with everyone." So, culturally, they have learned how to be successful as an impartial facilitator of trade. Secondly, the nations were fairly small and could be goverened by the ruling families. I'll call these "trade states."
This stood in stark contrast to countries like Iran, who see themselves exerting their sovereignity as a nation with a distinct identity and will. Iran is not alone in this. Russia, China, US and all of the European states are like this. Several African nations are or are trying to become like this, too. I'll call these "sovereignity states."
The difference between these states and the "trade" states is that the latter are dependent upon the former for existence. They essentially provide a service to the former states, and as such they can survive and thrive with a stability that comes from their successful handling of the trade role.
What makes sovereignity states survive over time is internal growth and stability. Without those, sovereignity states cannot hold together.
What was interesting about the discussion was that, at first, it was thought that capitalism could be the stabilizer in both of these kinds of states. But, capitalism plays a different role in each of these states. In trade states, capitalism is the necessary lingua franca of trade, so it is very natural there. But in sovereignity states, capitalism is not intrinsic -- though it may be the most pragmatic. Worse, though, is that even if capitalism is adopted in such states, it alone does not ensure healthy growth or stability. This is because there is a critical ingredient that must accompany any stable nation.
And that is altruism.
We talked about the studies that have been done around individual benefit maximization versus global benefit maximization, and it is pretty clear that, without the concept of a "common good" that people are at some level willing to sacrifice their own benefit for, there is no way for a society to hold together on its own in such a way that personal liberties can flourish long-term. Instead, power sloshes to a small corner of the country, and dictators have to hold things together.
So, whether we promote democracy or capitalism, countries must develop a spirit of altruism and "common good" to hold together, or we'll just be creating more Iraqs.
The gathering was for parents of our children at a local school,most of the conversation was to introduce ourselves and talk about our kids. Near the end of the party several people were gathered, and the conversation was quite curious, so I listened in.
A few people in the conversation were familiar with the Middle East and had visited countries there -- the Harvard professor being the most well-traveled and informed. They were talking about what countries were working and what were not, how the US had already won the war of public opinion through McDonalds before our incursion into Iraq -- which now has made us the bad guy just about everywhere. Nothing that new here.
Then the professor started talking about the small Gulf states, such as Dubai, Yemen, Kuwait and so forth. He commented that they are probably more comfortable with the US than Europe is. Someone asked the obvious question of what he thought was the reason for this. His response was that, historically, these nations had two characteristics. First they were port nations, facilitating trade via the Gulf. As such, their posterity relied on their ability to "work with everyone." So, culturally, they have learned how to be successful as an impartial facilitator of trade. Secondly, the nations were fairly small and could be goverened by the ruling families. I'll call these "trade states."
This stood in stark contrast to countries like Iran, who see themselves exerting their sovereignity as a nation with a distinct identity and will. Iran is not alone in this. Russia, China, US and all of the European states are like this. Several African nations are or are trying to become like this, too. I'll call these "sovereignity states."
The difference between these states and the "trade" states is that the latter are dependent upon the former for existence. They essentially provide a service to the former states, and as such they can survive and thrive with a stability that comes from their successful handling of the trade role.
What makes sovereignity states survive over time is internal growth and stability. Without those, sovereignity states cannot hold together.
What was interesting about the discussion was that, at first, it was thought that capitalism could be the stabilizer in both of these kinds of states. But, capitalism plays a different role in each of these states. In trade states, capitalism is the necessary lingua franca of trade, so it is very natural there. But in sovereignity states, capitalism is not intrinsic -- though it may be the most pragmatic. Worse, though, is that even if capitalism is adopted in such states, it alone does not ensure healthy growth or stability. This is because there is a critical ingredient that must accompany any stable nation.
And that is altruism.
We talked about the studies that have been done around individual benefit maximization versus global benefit maximization, and it is pretty clear that, without the concept of a "common good" that people are at some level willing to sacrifice their own benefit for, there is no way for a society to hold together on its own in such a way that personal liberties can flourish long-term. Instead, power sloshes to a small corner of the country, and dictators have to hold things together.
So, whether we promote democracy or capitalism, countries must develop a spirit of altruism and "common good" to hold together, or we'll just be creating more Iraqs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)