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The Management Innovation Exchange or MIX is truly a great place for learning about innovative management practices and ideas for reinventing management. I highly recommend it if you have a passion for re-defining the ‘way things work’. In fact, I too contributed a “hack” to make people managers more accountable for their employees by building attrition costs into the managers’ P&L.

I am putting together a small list of hacks and stories which I found most interesting on the forum:

• Julian Birkinshaw of the London Business School writes a thought-provoking piece on “What is Your Management Model?” We have all talked about business models, but not much about the management model. How are we going to make choices about people, effort coordination, objectives etc.? How will we balance a traditional vs. a new-age management practice? Ultimately, what’s more important – the business model or the management model? Must Read.

• Jordan Cohen of Pfizer tells a great story about how to make people more efficient by taking out the routine work out of their work. Fascinating example of outsourcing low value-adding tasks.

• Matt Sholsberg asks us to reinvent the wheel. And for a reason – the wheel itself is over 5000 years old!

• So many organizations are still contemplating about social media. How to adopt? How to ingrain? How to measure success? Srinivas Koushik of Nationwide shares the story of how they built the social web into the very fabric of the organization.

• Chris Grams shares his experiences and ideas on how can organizations become “open” and engage their employees. Great ideas if you want to build an organization based on trust, transparency, openness and collaboration.

What are your ideas? Or if you like, “hacks” to re-invent management?

There are various areas in which organizations need to reinvent the way of doing things. But, to me, one of the most worrisome issues is the issue of rigid hierarchies, control mechanisms and collaboration. I believe these are critical barriers to maximizing enterprise performance.

Often I find that “information” is the key. It is one of the most powerful sources of individual competitive advantages in an organizational context. In most cases, we find that the higher  you are in the hierarchy, the more information you have. Authority is the mirror image of the information one has. In a way, how much should you know is dependent on where you sit across a range of job grades! And, we are not just talking about sensitive information like detailed financials or diversity reports (though I don’t feel these are sensitive!). We are talking the essentials – information about product / services, procedures, systems, repository of innovative ideas, best practices, customer insights or even people – as to who specializes in what or who is the “go-to” person for a particular issue. And, all this information is usually sitting pretty somewhere “up” there! Far away from people, who might need it the most!

If this issue is unchecked, often I see cases of “information hoarding”. As humans, we like to “own” things – put a seal on them – “mine”! It appears we sometimes do the same with information. Especially, when organization structures / practices / culture does not place enough emphasis (I am not talking about mere lip service) on sharing. Worst of all, the whole system sometimes ends up rewarding the ones who hoard information. After all, information is power and one can succeed with the right information. So, that becomes the norm. The message is out. “Hold on to the information. You are better off keeping it to yourself, rather than sharing it with everyone. You can get things done. Win that big bonus. Become a star. And you can outpace others in office.”

What does this lead to? Sooner, rather than later – poor enterprise performance. Let me give some examples, which you might be able to relate to:

• You call your bank’s phone-banking line because you have a wrong transaction in your account – nothing very major. The phone-banking rep puts you on hold to look into the manual on how to address the problem. Doesn’t find the right information and transfers your call to the “relevant” department. Again, no resolution. Looks like something is missing in the manual. Or maybe, some one sat there up in the corner office and designed it without knowing the ground realities. Finally, the call is transferred to the “manager”, who is able to reverse the transaction and closes out the issue. You look at your watch and realize that was 20 minutes of your time for a $10 transaction!

• You are attending an exhibition where companies are demonstrating some fancy manufacturing machinery. It’s a big event. You set your eyes on a piece of work, and you reckon it can improve your plant’s productivity by 10-15%. But, you are worried about energy consumption and ask the company’s reps “I know this machinery can be customized to a customer’s needs. Which specific components are most customizable from the point of reducing energy consumption, while maintaining productivity?” The rep looks at you, looks at his colleagues. Smiles. “I will have to get back to you.” Wonders to himself “Boss knows!”. And, you move on to talk to some of the other stalls at the exhibition.

• A customer calls you and asks you to come over to make a sales pitch on a specific subject, say business continuity services. Given the customer’s industry, you know that your colleague in another team had made a similar pitch a few years back. You go to her, ask for some materials that you can re-use. She says, “I am a bit busy. Getting on a plane soon. Will try to send something in the next 1 week”. Oh! The customer wanted the presentation tomorrow. And you get back to your desk and spend the rest of the day (and part of the night) in re-inventing something that already exists in a fine form. Talk about putting in productive hours at work!

The list is endless. And, the potential for productivity gains by addressing this area is endless too. I feel very passionately for this issue, since I have seen hundreds of people, including myself, being affected by this. And even more so, because now we really seem to have enabling technology to support information sharing like never before. And that is a very important development. But, technology in itself can never ever be the ultimate solution. It’s a tool, not an outcome. More importantly, it will have to be about imbibing the value of sharing, building a culture which supports and disproportionately rewards “information disseminators”.

We need to free up information. What has been your experience? How can we hack companies’ management practices and liberate the information to reach where it truly belongs – the people? How can we bust these islands of information? How can we build this component of “the ideal enterprise”. How can we do that? Tell me now!

Even though I never brought anything from Zappos, I am fascinated by the company. I have heard so many good things about the organization, their culture and customer service. I even brought myself the book “Delivering Happiness” by Tony Hsieh (Zappos CEO) and it is “next” on my book shelf.

Apparently, Zappos just completed their 1st anniversary of their merger with Amazon and Tony posted the email he sent to all Zappos employees when the merger was announced (highly recommended for reading). The communication instantly struck a very positive note with me. It was:

• The message and the details are crisp and clear.
• He explained the rationale for the decision by highlighting the top 3 reasons, which are easy to understand.
• He clearly assured people about the incoming change at multiple points in the email. And, his assurance was complete, not guarded.
• Every change brings forth a lot of questions in the employees’ minds and Tony tries to answer them. But, very cleverly, the most burning questions are a part of the body of the main message, while the remaining are parked at the end of the message. It is so important not to overwhelm people with information overload.
• Tony comes across as extremely transparent in his communication. For instance, he handles the departure of a senior executive very transparently. And by the way, the very act of publishing an internal company email on the internet sets a very high standard of transparency!
• Values are important. They set the norms. And it is critical for leaders to communicate, clarify and live the values. They really define the culture. In explaining his decisions, Tony makes references to Zappos’ values such as “Embrace and Drive Change” and “Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication”. This is a beautiful way to talking to people with your actions centered around defined, accepted anchors.
• And finally, for most of it, he keeps the language “Human”. I cannot emphasize enough on this and several leaders and companies miss this mark. Tony clearly says that he is sticking to a formal tone in some instances because of legal requirements. But, for most parts, his tone, flow and words are very human and not traditional “business-speak”. I mean – one of the most commonly used phrases in business is “We would like to thank you for your patience and apologize for any inconvenience caused”. Why can’t we simply say “We are sorry. We are terribly sorry. We are so, so sorry”! Isn’t that more powerful?

As a leader, what are your communication mantras? What should be done to connect better with people?

Many a times, I have discussed the issue of “image” with HR people and leaders. Companies try hard to build a strong image in the minds of the existing and potential employees.

And, I often wonder, how and where is this image formed and transformed? Internal branding? External advertisements? There are several, several factors which affect the image. But, I believe that the internal conversations about the company is what guides this image – the dialogue employees have with one another – the vocabulary people use when discussing internal issues.

Focus on the stories people tell internally about your company. Think what needs to be done to “change” the stories to your company’s advantage.

Clay Shirky throws an astounding number in his TedTalk – Collectively, humans have over 1 Trillion hours of free time per year! 1 Trillion. And what are we going to do about that? How could this large “cognitive surplus” be used? Or as an organization or a leader or a manager, how would you get your employees to invest more of their discretionary time for the organization?

Enjoy the Talk.

Update: Here is a quick review of Clay Shirky’s latest book on the subject of Cognitive Surplus.