I’ve been busy this week at J&J preparing some online communications, managing the transition of our two graduating coops, and preparing for my own eventual transition out of the Global Procurement organization. As a bit of background, when i took this position the hiring manager and I agreed that this was probably a “set it up and move on” sort of opportunity - which matched with my concerns about the New Jersey commute. So, while the work has been great, I’ve decided to excercise this exit clause and end my work with Global Procurement sometime around the end of July.
During my time here, I’ve been able to to gain valuable insight into the challenges of enabling real e20 transformation in a large organization. And of additional benefit to me is a year of plumbing the murky depths of SharePoint, while managing the expectations of the platform as potion for all things e20. An extremely valuable experience in these times.
But what is possibly the most valuable thing I learned came to me just after I updated management with my future plans. My own frustrated efforts to get this organization on board were infused with a lightening of my own Culture 1.0 constraints. To put it plainly; I’m leaving, so I’m less worried about frankly expressing my frustrations and expectations to this community. And when I did that, I immediately saw results. And then it hit me: To truly, boldly enable enterprise 2.0 in any organization you have to do it from afar. If the change agent is an integral part of the organization, she is entangled in the same 1.0 constraints she is aiming to cut through.
So have my own efforts have been fettered by my 1.0 thinking: I was reluctant to bug my CPO about blogging, reluctant to nag the community too much, reluctant to push my own manager to open up his decision making, and politically unable to influence any leaders to seriously consider how their existing work efforts could be opened up to e20 characteristics - all because I couldn’t help but work within the cultural norms of the organization.
As organizations get more and more serious about enabling e20 transformation in their organization, they’d be best served to engage an outside consultant who has no place within the organization, and who is unafraid of pushing leaders and workers to challenge themselves to change the way they work.
I’d love to hear comments from others who may have felt the same constraints.
