October 14, 2004
egofriction: culture vs technology
I’m seeing a huge gap in the market at the moment.
Companies change internally for two main reasons. Let’s call them “Culture” and “Technology”.
Yes, both affect the other.
My experience has been: if you’re part of the change process in a company, you’re either a “Culturalist” or a “Technologist”.
My experience has also been, the Culturalists and the Technologists are very bad at talking to one another.
So you get “we need a new ad campaign” or ” we need a new tech implementation”. But you never seem to get both at the same time, coming from the same place.
Why is this so? Egofriction, of course.
Sure, “Egofriction” is a silly, made-up word. But its eradication will mean big bucks to anybody who gets good at killing it.
I have a few ideas. You?
[UPDATE:] Heh. Gary Maxwell in the comments puts it nicely:
Merging two cultures and two technologies typically fail because each side seems to have a subconscious desire to have their culture and technology “win”. This is never admitted by either side, yet it is obvious that each side obfuscates its intellectual and cultural assets to prevent the other side from incorporating them. It reminds me of a bizarre courtship ritual that never consummates.
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Egofriction is perfect. I am presently going through the fourth corporate merger in my career; each one has been in the technology sector. Merging two cultures and two technologies typically fail because each side seems to have a subconscious desire to have their culture and technology “win”. This is never admitted by either side, yet it is obvious that each side obfuscates its intellectual and cultural assets to prevent the other side from incorporating them. It reminds me of a bizarre courtship ritual that never consummates.
My experience in this area tells me that mediated or facilitated processes (NOT touchy-feely at all, but content– and feelings-based (ok, we ARE talking about people working together)) can help in these kinds of changes. Anyone else with experience in this area? I’m currently involved in a move that will take more than 100 people who are in two-person offices with a door to cubes. And this is an IT organization. Ah, the tales we can tell!
“Wicked men obey for fear, the good for love.” — Aristotle
What the East calls the Ego, the West calls the Devil. It’s essentially fear, or the absence of love. We have seen the enemy and he is us. All the philosopher, mystics and sages say we project our inner battles “out there.“
EgoFriction appears essentially harmless (but infuriating) but Seth Godin made a good case in Free Prize Inside that it’s the equalivant of purposefully wrecking machinery in the good ol’ factory days. Destruction is more refined and subtle in the info/knowledge/creative age.
I ran across this book last night– Sun Tzu Was A Sissy — highly UNrecommend. It tries to be tongue-in-cheek humorous but it doesn’t work. It’s way too real.
“Company A takes over Company B.…[insert HR promises, blah, blah here]…Two weeks later, everybody from Company B loses their offices, their jobs, and their access to lunch. How come? Because the winner doesn’t want to suffer. The loser suffers. Ergo, if you’re suffering. You’re a loser. Go out there and make other people suffer. Then you’ll be a winner.“
Yikes. We’re all suffering and thinking we can pawn it off on someone else.
I don’t see a solution…other than each individual being responsible for the light and love they allow to emanate from their heart into the world. (And that’s actually enough.)
It doesn’t work because it’s way too real?
“Way too real” has always worked for me, Ev
Dianne, converting from shared offices to cubicles should be a cinch (I prefer the latter, so I am biased). But watch out for the turf battles over the “better” cubicle locations. Argh! What Neanderthals we are!
All the mergers in my life have been long distance, facilitated by one or two talking heads that venture to the enemy territory to perform “information exchanges.” I’m sure there’s a future in diplomacy for these types, but there is no place in BUSINESS for them!
If you look at the way we educate “technologists” (scientists and engineers) and “culturalists” (everybody else), is it any wonder there’s a rift? We educate everyone in university in these silos, give them specialized vocabulary that builds a wall between them and those outside their field, tell them how special each of them are, how they’re the best at what they do and why it’s important, and then wonder why, when they get out in the world, they’re incapable of working together! What a surprise!
Maybe if we spent more attention on cross-polination between fields of expertise as part of the education process, companies and (the world) would be a better, more productive, less conflict-prone place.
Dianne, the other thing is making sure there’s space for people to go off and think, doodle, create stuff with a selected few or on their own with the door closed when they need to — or else encouraging acceptance of off-site (from cybercafe to strategic awayday) work.
In my personal struggle with egofriction, the only thing that’s worked (and I wouldn’t say I was completely lubed yet!) has been my own realisation that it was me that was the problem that I could work on, not everyone else.
Nobody could *convince* me of that by any amount of fluffy-bunniness or macho-counter-egotism. I, like the light-bulb, really had to *want* to change. This isn’t to say that mediation and mutual understanding are useless, just that they deal with the symptoms not the root cause.
(On the way too real comment:) Dilbert is way too real and it’s hilarious, as are you. Hard to pin it down as to why, but Sun Tzu Was A Sissy just isn’t funny.