How Great Companies Think Differently - Parte VI

Self-organizing communities can be a potent force for change, propelling companies in directions they might not have taken otherwise. People with no formal orders serve as explorers and entrepreneurs. For example, had it not been for self-forming networks, IBM might have lagged behind or even missed out on two big business ideas: virtualization and green computing. These emerged as among IBM’s top strategic priorities after an Innovation Jam in July 2006, a web chat spanning several days to which over 140,000 employees contributed ideas.

The virtualization initiative came together outside of formal structures and, initially, as a voluntary activity. Some 200 early adopters of virtual platforms—such as Linden Labs’ Second Life and similar platforms—found each other through the company’s chat rooms and created an ad hoc group of people who shared ideas in their free time through avatars and weekly phone calls, with conference lines sometimes open in the virtual world, too. After a year of informal self-organization, the network found an IBM executive sponsor. IBM then designated virtualization an emerging business opportunity and provided funding for it.

My argument has come full circle. A logic that justifies treating employees as self-determining volunteers—in essence, as true professionals who care about high performance because they believe in the company as institution—makes it important to have a motivating purpose and values to provide coherence and common identity. The first enables the last. The six principles I describe in this article are interrelated and share many characteristics. Especially for great global companies, institution building is not the result of carrying out specific activities but a coherent, holistic pursuit in which elements reinforce one another, are inextricably intertwined, and reflect a logic and leadership style that permeate the corporation.

Skeptics abound, of course. Firms that present themselves as institutions concerned with serving society often come under more scrutiny than others do, and they must withstand criticism about the gap between stated aspirations and performance, financially and socially. If they make money while doing good, they will be criticized for manipulation; if they do some good but not enough to solve complex problems, they will be criticized for lack of courage or commitment. Despite a growing number of advocates for a new kind of capitalism that finds win-win opportunities by creating value for both business and society, there is still controversy over the obligations of business.

The great global enterprises are not waiting for grand new theories or perfect answers. Their leaders already use an institutional or social logic to supplement economic or financial logic in guiding and growing their enterprises. Institutional logic cannot be captured by cost-benefit equations or reduced to the language of economics, and yet it turns out to be a powerful driver of financial performance.

Leaders in the great companies can tell a different story about the basis for their decisions. In so doing, they are able to produce new models for action that can restore confidence in business and will change the world in which we live.

Fonte: HBR by Rosabeth Moss Kanter