I recently
read that in the short term we in the West must not expect revolutionary new
technological inventions. Technological innovation will mainly need to build on
existing technology and therefore productivity increase on this basis will be
modest in size.
If that’s
the case indeed, more profits and faster productivity growth are to be expected
of social innovation. By which I mean the fixing of the energy leak which in
many organizations exists because people do not or too little cooperate. And
also I mean the stopping of the waste of money, time and talent which results
from dysfunctional beliefs about management.
That energy
leak and waste are usually not caused because employees or managers have bad
intentions, but because the organization through budgets and powers is
sometimes arranged in such way as to set people against each other instead of
bringing them together. And that in its turn is caused because we are saddled
with obsolete, dysfunctional beliefs about management and organization. These
limit, consciously or unconsciously, our space for movement and improvement.
Take the
views on management and leadership. In most organizations it are still mainly
forms of hierarchical thinking and command structures that determine which
concepts are associated with management. These include concepts such as power,
competency, the ability to override others. And far fewer – apart from
exceptions – a serving and facilitating attitude.
Then this
is what you get: managers who get a kick out of their decision-making-power and
who in intimate moments don’t keep secret that they are in that position
because they cannot stand that others tell them what to do. But who at the
same time do not but expect that others are able to do precisely that.
And you get
relatively many frightened employees, who have effectively been silenced.
That
pinches of course, and those managers may as well feel the pinching. They
largely, despite their formal power, fail to achieve what they aim at. And they
feel that more is needed, and – above all – something else: they should engage
in genuine consultation with “their” people. But at this point also impotence
enters the story: they have to listen but because of the way they have
organized things and because of their character structure that does not work
properly. They beg for feedback, but what follows is a deathly silence.
Touching, almost.
This is not
managable any longer by hurling in a top-down way some more behavioral science
and communication tricks into the organization. Here another way of social
interaction is required. Which justifiably may be called: social innovation.
Also see Trust
