‘The traditional organisational map describes a world that no longer exists.'
New technologies, fast changing markets, and increasing global competition are intensifying the pressure on businesses to change the way they both structure and operate that will significantly impact business relationships and the 'traditional workforce’.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), through a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, provides organisations with one of the greatest opportunities to change to leverage performance and productivity utilising the most powerful technologies that mankind has yet experienced.
Already AI is taking out the task element of many jobs in healthcare, accountancy, legal services, retailing, manufacturing and most sector of business. This will increase. Rather than take jobs away and so replacing humans, AI is creating more interesting, as well as demanding, and engaging roles for people who can focus upon giving greater customer service as well as building closer supplier-customer relationships that positively impact the bottom line.
The problem, and the challenge, is that to maximise upon this opportunity requires significant ‘transformation’ by businesses, many of whom are not forward thinking nor ready to make the most of what AI offers: they are structured and operate around ‘the traditional organisational map [that] describes a world that no longer exists’.
Whilst this opinion could have been made only yesterday it actually dates back to an article on ‘boundarylessness’ published in 1992[1] - an alternate approach to organisational structure and working that is growing in popularity today after first entering the canon of business two years earlier in 1990 through Jack Welch, the then Chairman and Chief Executive of GE.
Welch, writing in the GE Annual Report, said that: ‘Our dream for the 1990s is a boundaryless company… where we knock down the walls that separate us from each other on the inside and from key constituencies on the outside’.[2]
Welch’s vision was to remove the boundaries that would allow GE to compete successfully through being able to act with speed, flexibility, and innovation and thus making GE ‘match fit’ to grasp the opportunities of rapid technological opportunities as the business moved into the 21st century.
To be ‘boundaryless’ the business would need to reshape four key boundaries:
Vertical boundaries - the ‘floors and ceilings’ of the organisation – which separate people by hierarchy, titles, status, and rank.
Horizontal boundaries - the ‘internal walls’ – which separate people by function, business unit, product group, or division.
External boundaries - the ‘external walls’ – which divide companies from their suppliers, customers, communities, and other external constituencies.
Geographic boundaries - the ‘cultural walls’ – which include aspects of the other three but are applied over time and space, often across national borders and different cultures.
As the authors of the 1992 article point out: ‘…once traditional boundaries of hierarchy, function, and geography disappear, a new set of boundaries become important…these new boundaries are more psychological than organizational. They aren’t drawn on a company’s organizational chart but in the minds of its’ managers and employees.’[3]
For the authors ‘boundarylessness’ is about mindset but creating the ‘boundaryless’ business is far more complex and multifaceted than just changing the mindset - the beliefs and attitude - of people about hierarchy, function, external boundaries, and geography. More crucially if the boundaries are removed, and here there are many challenges, the real ‘boundaryless’ organisation is all about how well people collaborate.
The assumption that humans have been designed to collaborate and do this naturally is flawed: the reality is that many people not naturally collaborate, for collaboration is a mindset (see blog ‘Collaboration – It’s about Mindset’, 19th April 2018).
The issue here is that people are faced with an emotional dilemma - a ‘double bind’ - of two mindsets - beliefs that they have about ‘boundarylessness’ and ‘collaboration’.
Our mindset is extremely influential upon us, for it reflects our beliefs through our attitude and behaviours but fortunately as humans we can, and do, change our mindset through insight; new experiences; support; and over time.
Welch discovered the challenge of mindset after emerging frustrated from a regular Friday session with his managers in late September 1988 at Crotonville - GE’s Management Campus. His frustration was that he could not see the ‘boundaryless’ organisation he was envisioning happening in the future unless he could get people to understand. For Welch "the talk was not being walked" by the managers - the ‘disciples’ - that were going through the weekly change programme that Welch attended each Friday.[4]
Welch recognised that he had trouble changing his manager’s beliefs - their mindset – and that all is work would come to nothing unless he did something. His answer was to "... force leaders who aren't walking the talk to face up to their people" - Crotonville had to be re-created in a thousand different places throughout GE.
A ‘Workout’ programme was conceived as a participatory programme to change minds through delivering the Crotonville messages right down into every part of the organisation. Meeting, in small groups on the shop floor or in offices, employees would define problems and develop concrete proposals through building trust between leaders and people; fostering empowerment; eliminating ‘waste’; and preparing the way for the concept of ‘boundarylessness’.[5]
By 1992 over 200,000 GE employees, some 66%+ of the workforce, had experienced ‘Workout’ and some 20,000 employees (8% of the workforce) were participating in related programmes. Crotonville programmes involved a further 10,000 managers a year (4% of the workforce).
‘Workout’ was a major contributor to GE success - in just 2 years it had shaped the company into a dynamic, global company through gaining major participation on a way not seen in GE before[6]. With the 'boundaryless' initiative introduced GE was being significantly transformed.
The lesson for creating the ‘boundaryless’ organisation is clear. For it to be successfully achieved collaboration and collaborative work environments have to be first developed and embedded at every level through the building of a culture of mutual trust, learning, and inclusivity.
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[1] Hirschhorn, L. & Gilmore. T. (1992) ‘The New Boundaries of the “Boundarylessness” Company’, Harvard Business Review, May-June 1992.
[2] General Electric Company Annual Report, 1990.
[3] Op.cit. - Hirschhorn, L. & Gilmore. T. (1992)
[4] Noel M Tichy & Stratford Sherman (1993) ‘Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will’, Doubleday, NY.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid