It is
perhaps bold and exaggerated to claim that the rapid advancement of technology,
particularly the Internet and mobile computing, have dramatically changes the
way people communicate with one another.
The fundamental nature of communication, as seen in the content of
communication, has changed very little in centuries – but it cannot be argued
that the speed and frequency of this communication has increased significantly
as a result of communication technology.
Meanwhile. the practices of leadership and
organizational management have been slow to change: the freedom of information
and communication have posed a threat to the traditional means of coordination
(i.e., control) and the notion that anyone can communicate anything to anyone
else without express permission, facilitation, or censorship has been
horrifying to traditional leaders, who want to prevent people from using this
ability, or wish to ignore that the ability exists in hopes it will go
away. It has not, and it is not.
By removing
the formal controls, technology has empowered people to speak freely – to
communicate directly with one another at their leisure, without protocols and
without permission. In society as well
as in organizations, this has broken the silos and enabled people to form large
and amorphous networks of their own choosing, doing whatever is most efficient
rather than what is permitted. Most
of this has occurred informally – social networking through Facebook and other
“social media” services – and its uses have been largely frivolous. Some of it has reached the political realm,
much to the chagrin of totalitarian leaders who used information access to
control their people. Some of it has
reached the commercial real, where autocratic managers controlled their workers
by much the same means.
Admittedly,
the instances in which free communication among people have toppled
long-standing institutions are rare – but likely far less rare than imagine:
when a small and nimble company has stolen the market from a traditional
corporate giant, it is often due to the benefits it has gained from a more open
structure and communication. As such the
nature of the revolution remains concealed: one company has toppled another
(never mind what enabled them to do so).
Regarding
technology itself, it is often relegated to a specific department and ignored
by the rest of the organization. Very
often the IT department is a staff agency with no strategic authority, and is
left to provide technical solutions to the demands of other departments in a
firm – and these other departments are merely looking for more efficient and
effective ways of going about business as usual, rather than considering that
the capabilities of technology enable them to do business in new ways that are
significantly different and superior to those of the past.
Of
particular importance is the democratizing power of technology – to put the
power of information into the hands of the workers, and to circumvent
leadership control. This undermines the
hierarchy and silo of traditionally organizational structures that in the
present age act as barriers rather than facilitators of organizational
effectiveness and efficiency.
But there remains
the question as to whether democratization leads to commoditization. Without leadership to guide an organization
in a distinctive manner, the mass of employees succumbs to crowd psychology –
superficial thinking, dramatic reactions, and predictability. Where the mind of an individual can conceive
of a distinctive approach, the mind of a crowd is invariably reduced to the
lowest common denominator. So while
there is the sense that the changes in technology should lead to a revolution,
one wonders if that revolution will produce a better result.
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