Manager 2.0 seeking Employees 2.0
Kathy Sierra’s got a great post applying the Web 2.0 jargon to a management approach in the vein of Tom Peters and his spiritual colleagues. Creating Passionate Users: Manager 2.0
One of the best companies I’ve worked with does their best to take a “2.0″ approach to running the business. In 2000, the principals took heavy shipments from the Cluetrain and from then on have done their best to run a shop that focused on employee community and conversation over organizational hierarchy.
The approach has served them well, but one problem comes up from time to time: for this kind of approach to really work, you’ve got to surround Manager 2.0 with enough Employee 2.0 to establish the kind of community of practice that Manager 2.0 thrives in. If you don’t, all the 2.0 management goodness gets lost to community destroying Employee 1.0 distrust, apathy, hierarchy building, and turf guarding.
March 30th, 2006 at 10:22 am
One of the great things about being in a creative industry (mine is animation for film) and coming from fine-art training is that the Employee 2.0 is built into your lifestyle. Artists cannot succeed without a community of thought and trusted critique to support them. So as artists learn to make art, they also learn to exist in an enlightened business structure.
I believe that in the next 20 years, those who receive an education that promotes this Manager/Employee 2.0 mentality will be running the world. I also believe that achieving that will rely on great math and art teachers. Hopefully our nation (and states) can clue into this and begin investing more in art education — and I mean real art education with academic training of the skills and thought processes of creating, not just the feel-good critical studies.
April 1st, 2006 at 1:27 am
I see what you’re saying, but I don’t entirely agree that traditionally creative industry gets 2.0 for free.
I think you’re right that there’s a tendency toward 2.0 thinking in industries that have historically valued creativity, but I’m not sure it’s always baked into management or employee behavior. Coming back to the employee theme, I’ve known artists and other creatives that were very 1.0 in their approach to teamwork and dealing with managers as well as those that were the very soul of 2.0.