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A story by Chris Houston, for the 1996 Virtual Organization Issues Forum, January 16, 1996 at Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The two friends walked through the garden together, talking intently. They were an unlikely pair - one a young energetic corporate type, fresh from the trenches, from negotiations and factories and hallways of frantic commerce, ready for the boardroom. The other, older, the caretaker of the garden in which they walked.
xxWithout modems and rental cars, without airplane and laptop he brokered crusty seeds into life, nurturing, and tending, urging newness from the hard soil. Theirs was a strange partnering, trusting, open and candid. The young man brought in the data, his stories, and his wrestlings - all the facts of the information rich world in which he plied his trade. And from the vantage point of wisdom, the old gardener gave them meaning and drew his own enlightenment. And so they walked, together, often. This was such a time.
xx"Slow down, Peter" the old gardener protested. "Stop telling me of MIPS and networks, of alliance legalese and value chains and propositions, tell me about people. When you travel in the virtual world or whatever you must call it, whom do you see? Tell me about the people you meet. Perhaps if I knew them, I could understand this world you describe better."
xxThe young man paused, to think, as he had learned he must and began to introduce the people whom he knew.
xx"First meet Sanjiv. He's wringing his hands because the group of engineers he leads will not get out of their offices and immerse themselves in the world of their customers. Some have worked together for fifteen years and know little of what is going on within their own organization let alone in the world beyond. Sanjiv, driven by his compelling vision for the explosive innovation the market demands, wonders how to reduce the enormous need his people have for a certainty and clarity that long gave way to unpredictable ambiguity. They hang on to the only safe structure they know, afraid of what might happen if they simply created an 'employment pool' from which project team members were drawn as needed.
xxThen there is Ron, he leads key product businesses in a large multinational. Against all odds he's built a flourishing business that all but the customer wanted to ignore. Now he needs alliances, internally and externally. The market is running away from him. He needs to establish teams in his departmentalized manufacturing plants and to build a much greater degree of collaboration across functions. He finds this all very unsettling.
xx"You would like Jennifer", said Peter. "She used to do market research - now she scours the company in search of the rare talent she needs to build a team to create a brand new business within a business - to accomplish the impossible - to cannibalize a business from within, because the market demands it. And she is succeeding, not because of systems, or because she's more aggressive or smart - although she is, but because she's building trusting relationships one person at a time. In two years she has grown a business 30% per year to over $500 million with just two direct reports yet nearly 2000 people are involved."
xx"Another friend is Jack who grows daily in the conviction that the huge R&D function he leads must radically change the way it engages the line businesses and especially customers in the development process. But in the endless cycle of earnings reviews and the treatment of R&D as a variable expense, Jack has had to fight to keep some constancy in the world of his engineers who feel unappreciated by the businesses and yet must work much more collaboratively with them if the voice of the customer is to be heard. His team is little help. They fight too often over roles and responsibilities which, they proclaim, if only he would clarify, all would be well. But it'ss not that simple anymore."
xx"And Mark, is the new president of a small technology company selling what was, just two years ago, a camera in a box, is now an image supply service. In partnership with a creative merchant bank, Mark is searching the horizon for alliances and acquisitions, not big ones just single entrepreneurs with good ideas he can leverage and incorporate in his constantly evolving product, now become service."
xx"And you should know about Peter. He's been an employee of a financial services company who has told him that he is now 'an independent business'. If he'd wanted to be independent he wouldn't have chosen to be an employee, waiting for instructions from his manager. Peter doesn't want to be a 'franchise'. For Peter, the company has lost its way and so has he."
xx"Some of them seem to be really struggling" observed the old gardener. "Do they not like this virtual world of which you speak so breathlessly?"
xx"Some are no doubt flourishing, but for many it is a world that is perplexing and sometimes frightening. This virtual world creates perplexed and sometimes fearful people who find it hard to trust. But trust is the heart of the virtual organization. It is the glue that replaces control in a world that needs to evolve more rapidly that the old strictures allow."
xxThe old man paused and thought. Slowly he ran the soft and friable soil through his worn fingers. He chuckled as a cocky young blue-jay came hunting his daily hand-out. "You know what to do!" he called after his feathered friend. He turned to Peter.
xx"It seems these friends of yours face three dilemmas", said the old gardener. "Not that they are really new, but theirs is a world which challenges their answers to some fundamental questions. They struggle with an uncertain sense of place, with ambiguous roles and finally with not being sure who they are anymore. Let me try and explain. You may have to help me again with the names, but their faces I can imagine. First we'll start with that reluctant independent business person. What was his name?"
xx"Peter", said the young man, noticing that that was his name as well. "Ah yes, Peter. Poor Peter doesn't know whether he is going to be inside the circle or outside. Peter must deal with the dilemma of Place - that intersection of time and physical space that is so personal for Peter and which gives him a sense of belonging. Peter's place gives him his 'bearing'. It is his Place. But, in this virtual organization, his sense of place is greatly confused by the endless shifting of the landmarks. Employee or supplier or customer - he can't tell. Place is Peter's dilemma. As it is for the people working for Sanjiv, the bright scientists who don't want to leave the certainty of their department and end up spending most of their time on customers' premises and in a project pool never knowing what excitement lies ahead. They fear losing their place of belonging.
xx"And I think you understand this one as well", the old gardener chided softly. The twinkle in his eye brought back the remembrance for Peter of that painful farewell party for a client when the young man, watching the festivities realized, he himself had no place to leave. His office-less, virtual, knowledge-based, service world had no structure, no formal place, no definitions of territory, just a network of relationships that defined his place.
xxHis own experience the teacher, the young man spoke. "It's the same for Mark. His place is with the new partners he is bringing in. Place is with a new agent in Hong Kong, an alliance partner in Brussels, an acquired network of customers in Hollywood. Not at the busy factory in Burlington but with the R&D alliance partners in Ottawa, an intricate web of critical, trust-based relationships that are the heart of the burgeoning enterprise he leads.
xxAnd for Jennifer, with little in the way of organization to manage, her place is in nurturing the relationships with people whose commitment she seeks. "We'll go after their hearts, not their clock numbers she'd say."
xx"But there is another challenge", said the gardener, "the dilemma of role".
xx"Take your friend Ron, your product manager. I'll wager Ron's skills at control and enforcement seem as useful in this relationship role they were foisting on him as my seeds without decent potting soil. I can just hear him grumbling "how on earth do they think they will get any decisions made with committees all over the place. This stupid organization, with more dimensions than Newton ever figured on, is just an excuse for leaders who can't decide how to make things simple."
xx"You're right", said Peter, "why just the other day Ron's new boss, Steve, was wondering how to help him take on his new role. The plant simply could not continue to function with Ron insisting on making all decisions - every morning. The closely coupled supplier network needed to function much faster and each product line needed to make its own scheduling decisions if they were to produce the variety of models demanded by their retail customers. Besides, the new integrated order processing system, whereby the factory actually managed the shelf space at key retailers, required immediate response which Ron simply could not provide quickly enough. He couldn't run it all anymore. It had become far too complex. He just doesn't know what his job is anymore."
xx"I think I would like Jennifer", mused the gardener. "She understands. Jennifer is a relationship manager - that's her role. She nurtures the people who can succeed and she's building a community that others want to emulate. Some will succeed because they will realize that Jennifer's secret is not control or power but influence through trust and building common cause with a team that is passionate about what they are trying to achieve. Others will try to imitate her, and some of them will fail. They will not understand her secret."
xx"How right", thought Peter, "the whole company was being reorganized around Jennifer's model, but all they could see was structure, they just didn't get the relationship part. Little real trust is in evidence despite the fanfare of supposed learning."
xx"But why is role so important?" asked Peter, "Why does it matter so much?" The old man smiled. "Many of you and your friends are trapped in the illusion that you are what you do, you become fiercely possessive about role and fiercely competitive about accomplishment within it, for your role tells you, it assures you, of who you are. However, this virtual world in which you try to live demands endless adaptation of role, and so presents you with the most intense dilemma of all, it can and does challenge fundamentally who you are. It profoundly challenges Peter, the insurance agent, who is to become an independent business person instead of an employee. For Ron, who is to become an enabler of teams, and for Sanjiv's engineers who need to become a virtual pool, this struggle with role takes them to the third dilemma, the Dilemma of Identity."
xx"Peter, you tell me this headlong pursuit of the virtual is driven by a powerful and inexorable force - to satisfy the unique needs of each unique customer. Your friends need to build alliances for a competence they don't have so they can take advantage of a customer's willingness to buy. They need to partner with other suppliers to create a whole service offering. Because that's what customers really want."
xx"It's clear even to me, Peter, that each customer demands something a little different from the other. It's relentless. The virtual organization responds to, feeds and even champions individualism - each customer receiving precisely what they want. New markets are people wanting something a little different from what is already available. Virtual products, conceived and supplied as they are consumed, are each different from the last and from the next. What drives this world of endless variety, of ceaseless customer demand? Your virtual organization is a technologically-enabled response to the demands of individuals - individual consumers, customers, and suppliers - a relentless drive toward the satisfaction of individual wants and needs. Your segments, as you refer to them, get finer until they end up with just one person in them. Do you see where it's all leading?"
xx"And here your friends are trapped because when they consume, they are celebrated as "individuals" but when they produce, they must become "we" for it is only teams, people working in community, that can be flexible enough to respond to these demands. As a part of these virtual organizations, how are they to live then? Are they the unique individualistic consumer whose every need and whim is to be satisfied, immediately and uniquely, or are they the "community", part of and indistinguishable from the network of relationships that defines their place in this virtual world. No wonder they are confused!"
xxThe two walked in silence for a while as Peter reflected on his friend's insight. Ron's anguished and often angry face came to mind. "He wants his sandbox - his "I world" so badly that he keeps asking me to be assured that his job is not really changing" thought Peter. "Ron doesn't 'get it'", he said out loud to himself.
xx"No, he doesn't", affirmed the old gardener, knowing the puzzlement of his young friend. "The world of relationships is deeply unsettling to Ron. He is not comfortable in it and resists its uncertainty. His power base - itself an "I - world" phrase - is being eroded by consumers demanding products faster and by competitors who are giving them the variety they demand."
xx"But he'll fail" protested Peter. "Ron badly needs to reach out to the research community and to the sales force and draw them into the planning and innovation process. But that is not who Ron is. Ron is in charge of his function. He is an individual - a proud and, in the past, a successful one, but he now needs to submit his individualism to the team, to the community of suppliers and trade customers who would line up at his door to work with him if he would only invite them in. Ron won't - down the hall, Jennifer did and it has made all the difference."
xxThe old gardener chuckled. "That's the dilemma of this age. Your customers want a problem solved - no matter who does it. They want it done right the first time, and cheaper - no matter how much diversity of skills is required in such a complex solution. The forces of individualism can only be served by the cohesion of community. These two solitudes, Peter, will create more and more tensions for the people who live in virtual organizations. "
xxFor many hours the two friends walked and talked in the garden. Peter telling the stories he saw in his travels, the old gardener reflecting on what he heard, taking it all in. As they stooped picking spent flowers' heads from the glorious array of fading color, the old man turned to Peter and said.
xx"Peter, you have to lead your friends on a journey to the Heartland."
xx"If they are to build trusting relationships in the virtual organization, they must cross over from the land of Dilemmas and first take the journey to the heartland of authenticity - as persons, they first have to be real. We cannot build a true partnership with a mirage or soulless associate. Indeed, such relationships, while they may have some commercial viability for a while, will rarely last the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' much less the absurd and unpredictable gyrations of this global marketplace. "
xx"Remember that new president whose high-tech conference you had to dismantle until he became real to his people? Your friends have to become real to their virtual partners."
xx"I well remember", mused Peter. "It's like Jack who freely admits to his team that he does not have the skills he needs to drive a certain process forward. They applaud his candor and begin to trust that, when he knows what he's doing and when he doesn't, he'll say so. Or like Ron's boss who went to a key Japanese supplier and apologized for jerking them around so much and now has a model of a virtual supply chain."
xx"A what...!," interrupted the gardener. "Sorry," laughed Peter, noticing his jargon. "It's like a friendship between people who make things together instead of just selling to each other."
xx"Then there are the leaders of the insurance company who were beginning to configure a picture of their virtual organization that is so radical that it scares them. Now, they are afraid to share their thoughts with their peers because they might be wrong and look stupid."
xx"That is just their first qualification to lead", said the old gardener, "They have to go there first and that is the second journey on which you must lead them, to the heartland of personal experience."
xx"Peter, remember, you told me about Mark, searching for alliance partners. First he had to learn to let go of full control of the firm he 'owned' and join with a merchant banking partner in a trust-based relationship before he could persuade two other entrepreneurs to give up their 'control' and join with him in a greater venture that none of them could do alone. He had to go there first."
xxThat's just like Sanjiv, thought Peter, who long ago gave up caring about the rank and status his peers sought and now, with more vision that most, is helping his team release their grip from the symbols of their own security. Now he's helping them to redefine their sense of place, but only because he had to redefine his own.
xxSo, too, Jack, as he seeks ways to build in customer involvement to the development process and to create truly cross-functional and cross-disciplinary teams, has to himself walk down the hall-way to the business unit leaders, to work out issues one-on-one in a way hitherto unusual in the tightly walled chimneys of the functional organization.
xxIt was all beginning to make more sense to Peter as he began to mull over the kind of bridges he had to cross first before he could step up to challenges that his friend so clearly laid out.
xxThe old gardener interrupted Peter's musings. "If this virtual world, this world of trusting relationships, is to become more real, then your friends will need to be more candid and open with each other: you'll need to lead them to the land of trusting first."
xxThe journey to the heartland of trusting first is like relationship "chicken" - who will give trust first. Not who will get it, but who will give it. Who will disclose, collaborate, or offer first?
xx"Your friend Jennifer has learned this with her business within a business. She went after hearts not employee numbers and won commitment rather than headcount. Mark freely shares his product concepts and ideas with future partners, confident that it is the only way he can build healthy alliances and that his competitors lack the ability to follow even if they did have his product designs. But Ron, with his sandbox, doesn't understand this at all. Steve, his team leader, does and gave away strategy to win a valuable partner. But not Ron, he holds everything close to the vest and I doubt that he will succeed, and nor, regrettably, will his company for as the leaders grow personally, so grows their organization."
xxThe two friends walked for a long time in silence. Peter puzzled at how the old man seemed to understand the world that was at once so foreign and yet so familiar to him. Both excited and uncertain, Peter looked at the old man as he questioned him again,
xx"What will you choose, Peter? This virtual world is yours, not mine. What are you going to make of it? It can degenerate into something fiercely destructive or you and your friends can seize the opportunity it presents to build stronger and more effective and personally enriching communities in which to live meaningfully. You can build virtual organizations that have their foundations only on sand - literally the silicon in these microchips you tell me fuels this revolution - where only electronic signals between systems of networked pc's link individuals together, or you can join Jack, Jennifer and Mark, Sanjiv and Steve who are succeeding and build on the solid foundations of complex, multiple, healthy systems of relationships between persons, working together in trust and community, fostering common values."
xx"You will find the former rigid, yet ephemeral, deeply un-satisfying to those who work there, including yourself and ultimately un-satisfying to the customer - who will see to their demise. Alternatively, you can build the latter which you will find flexible, durable, personally sustaining and likely to deliver consistent value to customers, suppliers, alliance partners and fellow employees alike. Which will you choose, Peter? Seems to me like quite a time to be alive."
If you have any comments or questions for Chris Houston, please contact him.
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