Samen Werken is Fijn, Samen Kennis Delen is Fijner!

De moderne organisatie wordt Groter, Virtueler, kent meer Diversiteit en wil vooral een samenstelling zijn van Talenten. Het zijn deze 4 karakteristieken van de moderne organisatie die het Samen Werken binnen die organisatie tot een uitdaging maken en de organisatie zelf tot een Hot Spot! Een Hot Spot waar het Delen van Kennis cruciaal is voor de continuïteit van deze (moderne) organisatie.

Auteur Lynda Gratton besteedt in haar recente artikelen aandacht aan de uitdagingen binnen de Hot Spot, ze publiceerde een Hot Spot website en een boek: Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and Organizations Buzz with Energy—and Others Don’t

Professor Gratton geeft ons, die een Moderne Organisatie willen zijn, 8 interessante tips, tips die 'Lead to Success!' & wie van ons wil dat niet, Succes?

Lynda Gratton typeert de Moderne Organisatie alsvolgt:

• Groter: 'Whereas a decade ago, teams rarely had more than 20 members, our findings show that their size has increased significantly, no doubt because of new technologies. Large teams are often formed to ensure the involvement of a wide stakeholder group, the coordination of a diverse set of activities, and the harnessing of multiple skills. As a consequence, many inevitably involve 100 people or more.'
• Virtueler: 'Today most complex collaborative teams have members who are working at a distance from one another. Again, the logic is that the assigned tasks require the insights and knowledge of people from many locations.' 
• Diversiteit: 'Often the challenging tasks facing today’s businesses require the rapid assembly of people from multiple backgrounds and perspectives, many of whom have rarely, if ever, met. Their diverse knowledge and views can spark insight and innovation.'
• Talenten: 'Complex collaborative teams often generate huge value by drawing on a variety of deeply specialized skills and knowledge to devise new solutions.'

'Dat ziet er goed uit.' zou je kunnen zeggen. Alleen is het dan jammer dat Lynda Gratton bij ieder van deze 4 karateristieken risico's signaleert, risico's over de onderlinge samenwerking en risico's over de kennisdeling. De (moderne) organisatie is dan ook niet zo maar een Hot Spot!

• Risico voor 'Groter': 'Our research shows that as the size of the team increases beyond 20 members, the level of natural cooperation among members of the team decreases.'
• Risico voor 'Virtueler': 'Only 40% of the teams in our sample had members all in one place. Our research shows that as teams become more virtual, collaboration declines.'
• Risico voor 'Diversiteit': 'Our research shows that the higher the proportion of people who don’t know anyone else on the team and the greater the diversity, the less likely the team members are to share knowledge.'
• Risico voor 'Talenten': 'Our research shows that the greater the proportion of highly educated specialists on a team, the more likely the team is to disintegrate into unproductive conflicts.'

Dat zet de Moderne Organisatie in een iets ander licht, dat brengt management uitdagingen met zich mee. Voor dat laatste heeft Lynda Gratton nu een 8-tal tips, Eight Factors That Lead to Success:

1. Investing in signature relationship practices. Executives can encourage collaborative behavior by making highly visible investments—in facilities with open floor plans to foster communication, for example—that demonstrate their commitment to collaboration.
2. Modeling collaborative behavior. At companies where the senior executives demonstrate highly collaborative behavior themselves, teams collaborate well.
3. Creating a “gift culture.” Mentoring and coaching—especially on an informal basis—help people build the networks they need to work across corporate boundaries.
4. Ensuring the requisite skills. Human resources departments that teach employees how to build relationships, communicate well, and resolve conflicts creatively can have a major impact on team collaboration.
5. Supporting a strong sense of community. When people feel a sense of community, they are more comfortable reaching out to others and more likely to share knowledge.
6. Assigning team leaders that are both task- and relationship-oriented. The debate has traditionally focused on whether a task or a relationship orientation creates better leadership, but in fact both are key to successfully leading a team. Typically, leaning more heavily on a task orientation at the outset of a project and shifting toward a relationship orientation once the work is in full swing works best.
7. Building on heritage relationships. When too many team members are strangers, people may be reluctant to share knowledge. The best practice is to put at least a few people who know one another on the team.
8. Understanding role clarity and task ambiguity. Cooperation increases when the roles of individual team members are sharply defined yet the team is given latitude on how to achieve the task.

(Met dank aan de laatste HBR voor dit gecomprimeerde overzicht.)

Momenteel passen wij dit programma toe binnen een internationaal opererend Middenbedrijf, en met succes zo blijkt.

Overigens, bij de 1e hiervoor genoemde Tip die 'Leidt tot Succes' (nb: en dat deze tips, mits goed doorgevoerd(!), tot Succes kunnen leiden, tips die uw organisatie ook tot een Hot Spot maken, da's duidelijk hoop ik) geeft Lynda Gratton nog het volgende voorbeeld:  

'For example, when Royal Bank of Scotland's CEO, Fred Goodwin, invested £350 million to open a new headquarters building outside Edinburgh in 2005, one of his goals was to foster productive collaboration among employees. Built around an indoor atrium, the new structure allows more than 3,000 people from the firm to rub shoulders daily.'

The Royal Bank of Scotland als Moderne Organisatie dus, maar waar kennen we RBS ook alweer van? ;-)