May 12, 2005

from hierarchy to wirearchy

9 Comments

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A real gem from Jon Hus­band from last June:

From Hie­rarchy to Wirearchy: Over­view
What do you do as a leader

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9 Responses to “from hierarchy to wirearchy”

  1. David Hickethier says:
    May 13, 2005 at 2:24 AM

    I would love to see some dia­lo­gue on this one. As a lea­der who works with an extre­mely talen­ted group this has been weighing hea­vily on my mind for some time.

  2. Phillip says:
    May 13, 2005 at 2:47 AM

    It chan­ges the role of lea­der to that of ‘mas­ter disor­ga­ni­ser’. Ulti­ma­tely, line mana­gers will be wigh­ted down by the sheer num­ber of tasks at hand — the ‘CEO’ will need to be the catalyst of change as oppo­sed to the hoar­der of info/data/wisdom.

  3. Shelley Noble says:
    May 13, 2005 at 5:54 AM

    Dudes, read Death Sen­ten­ces: How Cliches, Wea­sel Words and Management-Speak Are Stran­gling Public Lan­guage
    by Australia

  4. sig says:
    May 13, 2005 at 6:47 AM

    *fin­ding and orde­ring book on Ama­zon*
    She­lley, maybe you can give me a clue — where are the non-males in this dis­cus­sion??
    I have a vague idea that the female popu­la­tion is less inc­li­ned to be direc­ting & con­tro­lling and thus less “mana­ging”.
    If that is so then we need more input and lea­dership from that camp in this dis­cus­sion (ris­king having my butt kic­ked using the term ‘camp’)!
    Am I onto something here? She­lley? Please put me right… :-)

  5. Jim Wilde says:
    May 13, 2005 at 1:12 PM

    Hi Guys,
    It is all in the con­fi­gu­ra­tion of the infor­ma­tion that makes lea­ders, lea­ders. Just look what hap­pens with ideas on blogs. We smash and trash them to create new ones. Lea­dership will be left to those who have ima­gi­na­tion and the know-how to con­fi­gure the infor­ma­tion into something use­ful — products/services/processes.
    We are already seeing billion dollar com­pa­nies like AES, W. L. Gore & Asso­cia­tes that are run by the emplo­yees. Those with ideas, lead the way. What’s more, we have com­pa­nies run­ning inter­nal and in some cases exter­nal mar­kets where emplo­yees bid for resour­ces in the open. Of course, there are always excep­tions.
    The com­pa­nies that don’t get it, will be acqui­red, down­si­zed, or bankrupted.

  6. Jon Husband says:
    May 13, 2005 at 4:07 PM

    Not only do we trash and smash ideas on blogs … but we DO offer other ideas, encou­rage each other, point to other inte­res­ting and use­ful infor­ma­tion, build the early parts of rela­tionships, think out loud without (some of) the cons­traints of repor­ting rela­tionships, etc.
    All the stuff of inno­va­tion and res­pon­si­ve­ness, the loo­sely her­ded energy of skunk­works … and even­tually, when focu­sed .. pas­sion boun­ded by res­pon­si­bi­lity.
    And .. irony of iro­nies .. we keep hea­ring about the relent­less need for inno­va­tion ;-)

  7. Bruce DeBoer says:
    May 13, 2005 at 5:57 PM

    My take is that those “com­mand and con­trol” type lea­ders are on the way out — shape up or ship out. In the arse­nal of the com­mand and con­trol type Mana­ger you found wea­pons labe­led “infor­ma­tion is power”.
    The new suc­cess­ful mana­ger or CEO’s share the Jim Wilde (above) view. Skills start with an intui­tive sense of balance bet­ween bot­tom up and top down; too much of either one slows you down or dama­ges your business.

  8. Timbo says:
    May 13, 2005 at 10:21 PM

    My grand­father and uncle were two very suc­cess­ful upper-level managers/CEOs. Suc­cess­ful in that their emplo­yees enjo­yed wor­king for them and res­pec­ted their inte­grity.
    They sha­red three mana­ge­ment basics with me that I think apply even more now than 10 or 20 years ago:
    1) Set peo­ple up to suc­ceed.
    2) Hire really smart peo­ple, then get out of the way.
    3) Make sure those you manage have the skills to do your job…and do it well.
    Does that track for anyone?

  9. Timbo says:
    May 13, 2005 at 10:23 PM

    Oh, and to sup­port what She­lley says, read “A bullfighter’s guide: Why busi­ness peo­ple speak like idiots” by Brian Fugere, Chel­sea Har­da­way and Jon Warshawsky