The Hindu Business Line : The human Internet

When our Internet connection or LAN (local area network) is running slowly or malfunctioning, we immediately call the IT (information technology) staff and ask for attention. Similarly, if the human connections are faltering, we must take up the issue just as seriously, indeed more so, argue Susan Bloch and Philip Whiteley in How to Manage in a Flat World ( www.pearsoned.co.in).

“The electronic and human internets demand equal attention,” they declare. Viewed thus, the time spent socialising or gossiping with the team, or phoning up a colleague simply to ask, ‘How are you?’, and so on “form a key part of making business work”, reason the authors.

They guide you to draw a diagram of your personal network, including external and internal contacts, as follows: “Describe visually the strength of those personal relationships (different people find different imagery works: a colour code; a system of lines and dotted lines; etc.). You’ll notice that it is probably very different from the formal organisational drawing, but is likely to be closer to the real dynamics of the teams and networks that you belong to. It’s a mini-human Internet.”

Make sure the human Internet is set up correctly before deciding on which parts of the electronic one are going to assist you for which details of the process, Bloch and Whiteley advise.

Fundamental to building the human Internet and leading a team is emotional intelligence. But the ‘plain vanilla’ intelligence and knowledge of products and services is also important. “We need both types of intelligence.”

Examples are not rare of engineers and programmers who get promoted to lead teams but who turn out to be poor communicators; perhaps they should have stayed in their technical discipline! “Equally, however, and perhaps even more damaging, has been the promotion of affable, articulate individuals who lacked technical knowledge and intellectual calibre.”

The metaphor of ‘flatness’ for the global economy can at times be unhelpful, the authors caution; for, the flatness idea may resound ‘the electronic Internet, rapidly changing markets and technologies,’ rather than the depth of human Internet. They warn of how one may tend to overlook the long-term commitment to building relationships, understanding culture and understanding markets, in the excitement of discovering new forms of connectivity in the flat world.

“The very high failure rate of cross-border mergers surely reflects the understandable impatience to take advantage of rapidly emerging opportunities without paying attention to regional and organisational culture — the human Internet.”

Take heart. Google, MySpace, Second Life, Orkut and so on are making times ‘interesting’ for humans to network more effectively than ever! “Changes go far beyond simply buying goods or services online to encompass life-changing activities engaging people all over the world in marriage, online gaming, podcasting and webcams.”

In conclusion, the authors call for a new language to describe the reality of management and business, because the twentieth century lexicon of assets, alignment, hierarchy, departments and sectors is inadequate “to describe the flat world of the human Internet — the complexity of organisations and projects, the nuance of leadership required, the temporary and fluid nature of teams, the degree of organisational overlap, and the dynamics required for success.”

What makes the difference, in sum, according to Bloch and Whiteley, is “the ability to deal with ambiguity, combined with energy, inspiration, communication, innovation, wisdom and understanding.”

These are the qualities that turn ordinary groups of people into outstanding teams, who trust one another, solve problems effectively and make sound decisions, the authors assure. “Those managers and leaders who cannot master these new leadership skills will stay stuck in the old way of doing things. They and their businesses will soon become extinct.”

A book that adds depth to ‘flatness’.

Review of digital economies

Online processing of Hajj applications is one of the e-government projects in Pakistan. “Each year about 1,50,000 Pakistanis undertake a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj,” informs Digital Review of Asia Pacific 2007-2008 from Orbicom and the International Development Research Centre ( www.sagepublications.com).

“To facilitate the process for pilgrims, a suite of applications has been deployed with the following features: online Hajj application submission, balloting of Hajj applications, travel management, passport printing, pilgrim tracking (in Pakistan as well as in Saudi Arabia), and a private tour operator management system.”

IT (information technology) industry in Pakistan is characterised by low barriers to entry, states the Review. Other features of the industry are “a preponderance of small units, intense competition from industry powerhouses in neighbouring countries, limited skill sets and a highly competitive global marketplace.”

Among the incentives offered by the Government to the IT sector are corporate tax exemption to export earnings, 100 per cent repatriation of profits, and tax holidays for IT venture capital funds.

And there are the controls too. The Prevention of Electronic Crime Ordinance, recently talked about in the media, names as punishable offences the taking of anybody’s picture without consent, the sending of unscrupulous material or messages through mobile telephones or Internet, and so on. Justifiably, there are fears whether the draconian law would restrict information flow.

A highly informative compilation of reports on 31 economies and two sub-regional associations.

Knowledge rewards

It is generally accepted that the competitive edge for businesses lies in learning and applying knowledge. But there is considerable debate on the reward packages required to recruit, retain and motivate knowledge workers, write Michael Armstrong and Duncan Brown in Strategic Reward: Making it happen ( www.vivagroupindia.com).

On the one side are theories that stress the role of financial rewards in attracting the best young brains. And, on the other, are those who say it is not just a question of money. For instance, Peter Reilly of the Institute of Employment Studies says, “Do not rely on pay, a different set of rewards needs to be available.”

Agreeing with him are Richard Reeves and John Knell who say that in a post-scarcity knowledge economy, money is losing its lustre and so the reward equation needs to be rewritten. “The image of the work-obsessed ‘techie,’ profiled so well in Tracey Kidder’s Pulitzer prize winning book about the foundation of Digital Equipment, working ‘thankless hours for not a lot of pay’ but at the technological ‘cutting-edge’ there for ‘the intellectual challenge, the teamwork, the pride of achievement,’ remains popular today,” the book notes.

We are likely to see more individualisation of employment contracts and a growth in pay differentials within and between different groups of workers, predict the authors, citing E.E. Lawler.

Emerging practice favours flexible rewards and working, the authors find. “Professional services firms such as Linklaters and PwC, which traditionally have been some of the most demanding in terms of the hours required from employees and with strongly chargeable hours-based pay systems, have been in the vanguard of the growth of flexible working arrangements and work-life balance programmes.”

An important motivator for knowledge workers is the freedom to choose one’s own schedule and location of work, along with the ability to have and ‘buy’ more free time.

“Back at FinSoft, ‘We organise our own working day. You can organise your own time with nobody looking over your shoulder,’” reads a snatch in the book.

“Autonomy appears to be a key non-financial reward that many knowledge workers value highly,” conclude Armstrong and Brown.

They wrap with a pithy recommendation of Reeves and Knell (2001), thus: “Much of the effort currently being devoted to the construction of fiercely complicated pay systems may be better devoted to the recruitment and development of front line managers who can create appropriate reward ‘spaces’ for their staff.”

Rewarding addition to the avid HR manager’s shelf.

Tailpiece

“The competition has come up with an answer to the Nano!”

“Pico or Femto?”

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