The sentence at the top of this post is from early in the book and provides a crucial diagnosis of how the culture in firms such as Lehman's were a direct contributing factor, if not the main cause of the financial crisis. It reminds me of a saying regarding management teams - if I have eight people in a room all saying the same thing, I have seven people too many – essentially showing how Lehman’s chose the one voice, dedication to the corporate line and aversion to conflict over any different points of views.
In the communication world I think this mindset has the potential to be challenged like never before. The focus on social media and collaboration tools is done in the hope of better discussion, to challenge the status quo and promote idea sharing. The benefits are clear for every one to see - but in order to do that there needs to be an acceptance of risk, criticism, discussion and debate.
Are collaboration and social media concepts that in many cases will never truly be adopted, or used to their true capacity in some firms because of the belief that to have a different opinion is to be disloyal or be branded a trouble maker?
The lesson learnt from Lehman’s was that these differing and conflicting thoughts and opinions were shared among the employees with email trails demonstrating the true, yet publicly unsaid, internal criticism of the organisation. The failure of the management to embrace the opportunity, warts and all, means that social media and collaboration tools could not play any part in averting the final outcome for Lehman.
It will be interesting to see what lessons other businesses, especially investment firms, learn and whether social media/collaboration tools can be embraced to discuss a healthy dose of conflict.
JH
No comments:
Post a Comment