Our world is more interconnected and interdependent than it was a century ago, yet we still organize our companies as if we haven't learned a thing since then. The mechanistic management systems developed during the Industrial Age are rapidly loosing their effectiveness in today’s global economy. For a company to be competitive in the current business climate, it must upgrade its organizational systems to be in sync with a global operating system that is increasingly decentralized, quick, and dynamic. It’s time to rewrite the rules of business for a Democratic Age.
WorldBlu has identified six key drivers that are dramatically influencing companies to rethink their outdated, tired, and control-based management systems for organizational democracy:
Advances in technology are demanding organizations to be more decentralized, networked, and non-hierarchical. New information technologies are usurping traditional lines of communication, making significant amounts of previously unavailable or restricted information now accessible to virtually anybody. These changes facilitate greater employee choice, inspire highly informed corporate citizens, and create a new level of employee involvement that extends beyond traditional boundaries of engagement.
Technological advances have created a world where the speed at which a company can make decisions, turn new ideas into products and services, and deliver them determines a company’s ability to remain competitive and relevant. In a speed-oriented world, companies need an organizational system that thrives on change – not dies because of it.
In the past fifteen years, there has been a seismic shift towards countries embracing political democracy. Today, nearly two-thirds of the world is considered politically democratic, according to Freedom House, which conducts the annual Freedom in the World survey, a leading indicator of political democracy. As more nations become democratic, businesses will be pressed to rethink their command-and-control structures for an organizational system more compatible with a democratically-organized world.
The Baby Boomer generation is largely responsible for organizing and perpetuating command-and-control corporate structures. However, as Baby Boomers move into the final stages of their careers, they are increasingly pushing away from these structures and demanding more choice, variety, autonomy, and meaning from work. And Generations X and Y not only expect their work environments to be authentic and flexible – thereby —giving them maximum self-expression, autonomy, responsibility, and work-life balance – but they also thrive in these environments.
The Enron debacle has caused companies to scrutinize and rethink their rules of corporate governance as well as their operating values. This has created a trend away from Enron-style management practices towards more accountable, just, and moral companies. At the same time, the Enron ripple effect continues to influence the corporate social responsibility movement, galvanizing more businesses around the world to embrace a “triple bottom-line” ethic, and empowering consumers to shop at businesses that are in harmony with their values. Organizational democracy is in alignment with these key trends and supports triple bottom-line practices and corporate governance standards. But it goes even further. It focuses on a quadruple bottom-line, which includes creating an internal environment that encourages and rewards ethical behavior by employees.
Increasingly, people are demanding to be treated as people rather than minions, cogs, objects, or numbers. And there’s a mounting trend towards bringing humanity and individuality to the workplace. This “humanness” perspective is having a profound impact on everything from work hours to the design of workspaces to the kind of work that is being created.
