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Saturday, October 23, 2010

Hyper Social Organization

Paul Gillin on Hyper social organizations:

" ... I’ve been looking forward to reading The Hyper-Social Organization since I first heard François Gossieaux and Ed Moran discuss the findings of their “Tribalization of Business” research at a conference two years ago. I wasn’t disappointed. In this groundbreaking book, the authors expand upon ideas laid down in their early research that are both simple to grasp and momentous in their implications.

The assumption in The Hyper Social Organization is that human beings are basically social animals and that our behavior is fundamentally tribal. Given the opportunity, we seek help from others when making important decisions and willingly share our own advice in return. The popularity of social networks and collaborative projects like Wikipedia attests to these instincts.

In a business context, however, tribes have barely been a factor. Our ability to tap into networks of like-minded people has been limited by space and time. The whole relationship between institutions and their constituents is hard-wired around the assumption that people on the consuming end of the transaction are mostly in the dark. This is been a huge advantage to suppliers. Basically, he who shouted the loudest had the edge. That won’t be an advantage in the future however ... "

1 comment:

Mark Montgomery said...

The danger here is very commonly found today in painting a broad brush over highly individualized human animals. A significant portion of the world's smartest people have preferred relative isolation-- particularly when working on their most important projects. I have personally known several, and have found it favorable myself at times.

We need to be very careful about populist messaging -- haven't read the book -- but from this text it borders on indoctrination, instead of science-- which is fact finding.

This sort of thing can be useful, but the danger outweighs the benefits when authoritative figures suggest that it's the only path-- particularly when it directly contradicts the world's leading minds.

“That little word ‘WE’ I mistrust and here’s why:
No man of another can say “He is I”. —Albert Einstein (cited-- Dukas and Hoffmann, AE: The Human Side, 100 http://einstein.biz/quotes )

.02 --MM