[p2p-research] Fwd: more chapter reviews for The Firm as a Collaborative Community

[Michel Bauwens]

see also: http://p2pfoundation.net/Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tom Haskins <haskinstom87 at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 2:48 AM
Subject: more chapter reviews for The Firm as a Collaborative Community
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>


Hi Michel

I've completed my chapter by chapter reviews of the Adler/Hecksher book.
Here are the potential additions for you P2P wiki page Firm as a
Collaborative Community<http://p2pfoundation.net/Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community>
.


Chapter Six: Collaborative Learning Communities in Health
Care<http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/collaborative-learning-communities-in.html>

Chapter Nine: Collaborative tribal market
hierarchies<http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/collaborative-tribal-market-hierarchies.html>

Chapter Ten: Dead set against
collaborating<http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/dead-set-against-collaborating.html>

Summation: A conspicuous absence of process
transparency<http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/conspicuous-absence-of-process.html>


Tom Haskins has been reading the book, and took extensive notes.
[edit<http://p2pfoundation.net/Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community?title=Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community&action=edit&section=2>
] Chapter Two: Bureaucratic vs. Collaborative Efficiency

"In the second chapter, Charles F. Sabel *contrasts the efficiency of
bureaucratic hierarchies with the efficiency of collaborative communities*.

In my view, bureaucracies efficiently employ enormous workforces to execute
the same routines everyday. The staggering amounts of conformity
successfully avoids both the high cost of deviant conduct and the expensive
impacts of high maintenance personalities. Sabel shows us how these
efficient organizations function inefficiently when faced with crises. The
conformity to foregone routines need to be dropped while new problems get
defined, new solutions get proposed, new evaluations get completed and new
changes get fully implemented. Collaborative enterprises handle crises much
more efficiently. He calls this "A Real Time Revolution in Routines".

Collaborative enterprises cannot be efficient in the bureaucratic sense.
Their functioning involve extra efforts, unforeseen expenses and necessary
duplications to arrive at different "path dependent" outcomes. Collaboration
is more improvisation than routine. What collaborations can do efficiently
is explore options, decide on the least-worst alternative and make changes.
Collaborations are inherently resourceful, enterprising and responsive to
unfamiliar situations.

When we've adopted a collaborative outlook, efficient bureaucracies appear
stagnant, slow and unresponsive. When we're chasing after cost efficiencies
and economies of scale, collaborations appear costly, unmanageable and
plagued by exceptions to the rule. Because these two mindsets are
incompatible, "skunk camps" were created in the eighties to launch new
products within big corporations. The team that developed the Macintosh
computer stayed away from the rest of Apple. More recently Clay Christensen
has advised us to "apply tools of separation" to any disruptive innovation
developed internally, rather than seek consensus or majority vote in favor
of the disruption.

Bureaucracies and collaborations are both efficient in their own way and
strike a good balance between them both." (
http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2009/12/paradox-of-collaborative-efficiency.html)



 [edit<http://p2pfoundation.net/Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community?title=Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community&action=edit&section=3>
] Chapter Three: Peer Learning as Weakness

"I've been assuming that P2P learning would link together learners who are
close in their level of current comprehension and curiosity for furthering
their mutual development. Maccoby is a psychoanalyst who has given us great
insights into workforce motivations in previous books: Why Work and The
Gamesman. He suggests that this latest generation has developed an
interactive social character that contrasts with previous bureaucratic
predispositions. He makes psychological connections to the widespread
texting, tweeting and accumulating of fans, followers and friends online.
He's related behavior patterns I call "approval seeking" and "people
pleasing" to their feeling abandoned by both working parents. He connects
their absence of longer communications and deeper relationships to the the
pressure-cooker nature of their own jobs as well as the emotional disconnect
from both parents.

Maccoby cast Gen Y's predisposition toward collaborative endeavors as a
weakness. He implicated some of my assumptions about peer learning as a
set-up to fail, infect others with incompetence and get stuck easily. He
thankfully provoked me to rethink peer learning immediately." (
http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2009/12/rethinking-peer-learning.html)


 [edit<http://p2pfoundation.net/Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community?title=Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community&action=edit&section=4>
] Chapter Five: Hierarchies can collaborate

*1.*

"In Beyond Hacker Idiocy - The Changing Nature of Software Community and
Identity, Paul S. Adler reveals how huge software development projects
evolve into collaborative dynamics. Bureaucracies don't necessarily rule out
the inefficient and serendipitous process of innovative collaborations.

In my own language, there is a process of acculturation of the "cowboy
coders" to do both the "work and the paperwork". Once they see value of
leaving a paper trail of their own thinking, work and changes to the
project, they begin to value the required reporting process. They switch
from complaining about so many "rules and regs" and think instead about how
to improve them.

When collaborative dynamics emerge among the software coders, they work
together to improve the processes, policies and design standards they work
under. They get more buy-in to the imposed constraints because they have
participated in their formulation and final selection. The outcomes of
collaborative efforts yield less rework, cost overruns and schedule
slippages. They realize some "best of both systems combined": top down
controls and bottom up innovations." (
http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2009/12/collaborations-within-hierarchies.html)



*2.*

"According to Paul S. Adler's Chapter Five in The Firm as a Collaborative
Community, work processes gradually mature. The way work gets done migrates
from informal to formalized and externalized. Others can then move out the
learning curves for those processes more quickly. The quality of the work
improves as individual conduct becomes more consistent with everyone else
involved. When these processes mature into formalized procedures and
standards, a surprising thing occurs: collaboration emerges!


This emergent collaboration reveals a pattern of vanishing three kinds of
chronic management conflicts:

1. staff/line conflicts over authority and compliance issues

2. horizontal conflicts over expertise and access to special knowledge

3. vertical conflicts between managing up to please higher ups and managing
down to protect underlings

When collaboration emerges from mature work processes, those involved with
production then work together with those who look after quality measures,
schedule slippage and budget overruns. They benefit more from colleagues in
other disciplines who bring different viewpoints to undefined problems. They
realize more of both what they don't yet know and what they need to learn
from "inhabitants of other silos" who attend different conferences, meetings
and trainings. They also find fewer incidents of higher ups reverting to
authoritarian supervision styles. This means they need to protect their
brood less from mismanagement raining down from above. There is far more
listening to, trusting and respecting each other up and down the levels of
the hierarchy. This suggests to me that it is possible to realize the best
of both kinds of efficiency by investing in the maturity of work processes."
(
http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2009/12/collaboration-vanishes-chronic.html)

[edit<http://p2pfoundation.net/Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community?title=Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community&action=edit&section=5>
] Chapter Six: Collaborative Learning Communities in Health Care

"This chapter, Health Care Organizations as Collaborative Learning
Communities, imagines the collaboration only among the experts providing
medical services. The patients are the mere recipients, beneficiaries and
consumers of those services. There is no exploration of the patients
learning, trusting and collaborating more when also supported by additional
information access. Likewise the patients are not envisioned as becoming
more responsible for initial self diagnosis, periodic self medication and
ongoing self management of chronic conditions. There's no exploration of
community health programs, support groups and preventative efforts.

I expect the viable solution to emerge from the decline of privileged
professionals, due to crowdsourcing and other P2P dynamics. We only need
experts in charge of our health when we are feeling personally helpless and
very much dependent on them. As information, tools, working arrangements and
community support all come into play, collaborative efforts to keep each of
us healthy and to orchestrate quick recoveries -- will result from everyone
around us, including experts, contributing to those outcomes." (
http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/collaborative-learning-communities-in.html)



 [edit<http://p2pfoundation.net/Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community?title=Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community&action=edit&section=6>
] Chapter Nine: Collaborative tribal market hierarchies

"Chapter Nine of The Firm as a Collaborative Community explores
collaborations between enterprises. The author: Lynda M. Applegate sits on
an advisory board for the Nasdaq Exchange which gives her an intimate view
of its complexity. Her chapter is a treasure trove of insights that I had to
read more than once to extract all the value I was realizing.

Nasdaq is a market for the exchange of securities founded in 1971. The
Nasdaq Exchange and many of the member issuers of stock are institutions
with hierarchical structures. The ways they work together to maintain the
vibrant marketplace and their own institutions are intensely collaborative.
To facilitate the numerous transitions, adaptations and revisions needed as
the market grows or changes, there are special teams with cohesive tribal
characteristics that respond to each of those challenges. Nasdaq has proven
to be very responsive to setbacks as well as complex enough to be
sustainable over several decades. It provides a model for collaborative
endeavors that David Rohnfeldt would call a "quadriform society". It
embodies tribe, institution, market and network (TIMN)
functionalities."
[1]<http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/collaborative-tribal-market-hierarchies.html>

See the pattern description
here<http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/collaborative-tribal-market-hierarchies.html>

"Chapter Nine further explores contrasts between Nasdaq and two other, less
successful large-scale collaborations. Situations where large buyers seek
set up "collaborations without trust" with their sellers end up breaking
down. Their unilateral price squeezing undermined the long term viability of
collaborations for both automakers and health care providers with their
suppliers. Both examples feed our appetites for a "peak hierarchy" phase of
evolution and a demise of obsolete bureaucratic institutions. However, this
chapter suggests that hierarchies won't go away, they will get integrated
into far more viable and sustainable combinations of collaboration, market
mechanisms and tribal cohesiveness." (
http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/collaborative-tribal-market-hierarchies.html)



 [edit<http://p2pfoundation.net/Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community?title=Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community&action=edit&section=7>
] Chapter Ten: Dead set against collaborating

Tom Haskins:

"In the many times I've taught negotiation skills and strategies, I've made
a big deal about the difference between adversarial and collaborative
contexts. I visualize adversarial negotiations as sitting on opposite sides
of the table, keeping secrets and working against the opposing side.
Collaborative negotiations sit on the same side of the table, sharing
information and working together to satisfy common interests.



   - Adversarial tactics threaten to walk away from the bargaining table, to
   throw a deal breaker into the mix and bring a winner-take all competitor
   under consideration. The negotiations comes down to price, rather than
   satisfying secondary and long term objectives. They leave a legacy of
   mistrust, guarded revelations and suspicions of each others' deceptive
   maneuvers.



   - Collaborative tactics explore each others secondary and long term
   objectives. They interact to uncover common ground, shared interests and
   mutually agreeable compromises. They set a standard for working together
   again, understanding each others' viewpoint and trusting underlying
   intentions.


Chapter Ten of The Firm as a Collaborative Community explores this same
distinction within industry supply chain negotiations. Following on Albert
Hirschman's 1970 book: Exit Voice and Loyalty, John Paul MacDuffie and Susan
Helper contrast the "exit approach" and "voice approach" in auto industry
procurement practices. Detroit automakers have long practiced the
adversarial, "exit approach" of dropping suppliers to force added price
reductions and relying on competitive bidding to get the best price.
Japanese automakers have a long history of the collaborative "voice
approach" of listening to suppliers while working together on cost
reductions. Large suppliers of parts for both kinds of automakers, like
Delphi, realized several fascinating differences within their organizations.


When faced with the adversarial, exit approach, auto parts were small,
poorly designed, and different for each model of car. Cost reductions were
sought from design 5%, material 50%, labor 15% and overhead 30%. Parts
suppliers were told by auto executives to "stop your whining" Cost
reductions occurred at the expense of quality which resulted in considerable
returns, rework and warranty expense. The automakers displayed a "sink or
swim" attitude toward the suppliers which undermined the long term health of
the Detroit automakers themselves.

When immersed in collaborative, voice approaches, auto parts have been
integrated into larger assemblies, become much better designed and are made
uniform across many different models of cars. Cost reductions were sought
from design 70%, material 20%, labor 5% and overhead 5%. The increase from
5% to 70% design impact necessitated much more delegation of design
responsibilities to suppliers, coordination of designs across bureaucratic
silos and learning by the automakers from the suppliers' considerable
expertise. Cost reductions were accompanied by improvements in quality,
reductions in returns, rework and warranty expense. The automakers displayed
a "we're all in this together" attitude toward the suppliers which nurtured
the long term health of their entire industry.

Neither the outcome measures, positive role models or the rapport with
suppliers realized by the "voice approach" has had much influence on Detroit
automakers. Having recently sabotaged their unusually collaborative, Saturn
Car Company, GM appears to be "dead set against the voice approach". This
provides us with a wonderful case of "conflicts with the adoption of
collaborative networks". To those not already benefiting from collaboration,
the change from working against into working together appears like a very
bad idea to be avoided at all cost." (
http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/dead-set-against-collaborating.html)



 [edit<http://p2pfoundation.net/Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community?title=Firm_as_a_Collaborative_Community&action=edit&section=8>
] Conclusion

In the conclusion, Tom Haskins writes:

"the value proposition of the book has been limited by their lack of process
transparency. It's loaded with good ideas, insights and case examples. It's
ideal for becoming more of an expert, like the authors themselves. It falls
short of nurturing our own collaborative praxis." (
http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/conspicuous-absence-of-process.html)


Tom




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