Everyone at the C-level needs a proper sense of how fluid the technological environment is, and that technology policy must be highly adaptive. The pace of change means that companies must view investments in collaborative technologies as a part of R&D tied to specific corporate objectives. They must be much more able to jettison enterprise systems that no longer create competitive advantage.
Andrew Goldberg, Makovsky & Co.
The Flatter Workplace
Human brains are wired for a limited amount of collaboration, and, consequently, learning from each other. The technology march from email to collaborative software to social technologies has generated new opportunities for employees to interact creatively.
In the 1990s, learning systems began to proliferate. These software-based solutions are still primarily designed to standardize on-boarding and training of employees. They are now evolving to support more specialized training tasks among middle and senior management, and are increasingly evolving to enable the creation of collaborative networks across company boundaries.
This aligns with a desire that many companies have to flatten structures, ensuring the right people with the right knowledge, skills and experience are connected to get work done. While it is certainly true that a large number of companies are becoming less hierarchical and more market responsive, it would be hard to argue that this is general practice.
Most companies—as most institutions—gravitate toward structural hierarchies. “Flatness,” is really a euphemism for collaborating across institutional boundaries. It is really more of a psychological and cultural phenomenon, rather than a structural condition. If the system values and rewards working across boundaries, a lot of creativity can flow.
Enterprise collaboration and talent management technologies are really just tools. They work only as well as the corporate culture does. IBM is one good example. Once regarded as heavily centralized, over the years it has maximized the use of informal networks. Enabling technologies then facilitate the process of collaboration. One of the most recent examples is IBM Corp.’s (IW 500/10) new CEO Ginni Rometty, who solicited input from all corners of IBM to help redefine the company’s core values.
