il2007: Organization 2.0…it ain’t what it used to be and it never will be again.

Rebecca Jones, Dysart & Jones Associates

this presentation will focus on the soft skills – problem solving and decision making as related to our new environments.

We are not in Kansas anymore – we have collaboration tools, and they have shifted the way that we are working. Collaboration is a tornado to our work process and to our hierarchies.

Our org charts are out of step with our 2.0 environments. The concept of where a job starts and stops and where our work starts and stops have changed.

blogs — how many people have blogs that are merged, personal and professional – what happens when someone says something about their organization on their blog? when are we on the job and when are we not?

Our technologies are giving us the opportunity to discover, and invent new ways to share, relevant knowledge with blinding speed (cluetrain manifesto, 1999).

will 2.0 solutions transform organizations? Yes and no.

Yes – it will empower employes and free up knowledge, decentralize decision-making process

No – our structures will stay in place. Hierarchies are a natural occurance, some people have more power than others.

Organization Structure Basics:

1. Past structures are not effective for the current environment
2. younger staff are more comfortable with technology and collaboration
3. younger staff are uncomfortable with top-down decisions
4. small agile groups move faster tahn large bureacracies.
5. in every org. there will be leaders and there will be followers.

1980’s and 1990’s we brought in “teams” – this is a cooperation:

collaboration and cooperation are not the same thing.

If you trace back customer complaints and problems – 85/15 – overwhelming majority of these problems come from the organizational structure itself and NOT the people.

Organization Design Principles:

1. Form follows function – what you are there to do will determine how you shape your organizatioal struction
2. Power structures (reporting relationships) determine loyalty
3. Collaboration decreases as distance increases
4. some relationships are weaker than others (we’re people!)
5. organizations are ecosystems – they need to be fed and watered, they grow and change – new titles for the same jobs do not represent real change.
6. stability signals staleness (& death)
7. clarity dissolves most, if not all, conflicts
8. hierarchies do work for some function.

Organizational forms are tools for shaping your work processes & employee relationships to support your strategic priorities. Structure should create an organizational focus on the right issues at the right time.

Sometimes you need to focus internally to better serve your public – focus on your structure and your training and your technologies. We’re not serving our public well if we are not set up well. (ex. airplane oxygen masks: put it on yourself first, then help others).

What is our library’s main focus?

community development? does our organizational structure reflect that?

What should we do?

organize the staff or staff the organization?

how do we want people working together? Ask not what the technology can do for the organization, ask what the organization wants the technology to do for the people.

You wouldn’t approach another problem according to the tools. You would have an idea of what you want and then select the tool for the job.

Form follows function – you need to be very clear on what your focus is and what you want to be doing for your customers.

forms and design involve drawing – strategic focus needs to be narrow to be accomplished.

New structure: use new and different positions (with different names) to work with the strategical plan. Your leadership will change according to your priorities.

If you want to focus on technology and training – change your leadership to emphasize this. Create client and staff development postion. create a web presence officer. Create an eContent officer (the web presence and the web content are DIFFERENT responsiblities). Employ a digital coach to help with transitions.

Hierarchies can lead to power-abuse…

Jon Husband, www.wirearchy.com – “a dynamic flow of power and authority based on knowledge, trust…”

Our traditional teams, in place & space, develop an inner authority based on the members’ commitment to shared purpose. In the new digital environment, power comes from information, expertise, and knowledge, the foundations of wealth and status 2.0.

need to establish ground rules (ex. what is the acceptable turnaround time?

“trust and the virtual team” -by charles handy — if we are going to be successful, we need to rely on trust and NOT control. The leadership needs to be communicating – clearly, consistantly, and effectively.

Administration needs to model colloaboration (not the same as cooperation).
Create a climate of trust.

good people in a poorly managed organization fail.

what we need for health: people have to want to be healthy. they have to initiate, communicate, collaborate, confident, entrepreneur, independence. people need to be rewarded for these things.

libraries – there is a dearth of resources on when things go wrong, but recommended article: Workplace Mobbing

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problems with our strategic plans: we’re taking on too much. your strategic plan should not have 5 priorities. DO ONE THING.

The best organizations with long term success focus on their focus.