In the year 1066, King William the Conqueror had a problem; he could not take care of all of England. There were too many uprisings for one centralized power to manage.
Enter feudalism, a system that divided the land into fiefdoms led by lords in exchange for their loyalty to the king. Each fief became its own community, think castles and moats, with different laws of the land that consistently made life hell for the serfs. Then the merchant (middle) class rose, cities were formed, information was shared through trade...and feudalism fell (the Black Plague chipped in too).
There is a lot we can learn from history. As an organization grows and it becomes too large to be led by one person, departments are formed. The danger comes when these departments become fiefdoms. Organizational fiefdoms exist in different fields and come in different sizes. Is your finance department hidden in the basement? Do your executives sit in something called a "suite" on another floor? Since I am a tech-geek, I will focus on the web tech fiefdom.
Five signs of a web tech fiefdom
A note to tech fiefdom lords
The motivation behind the tech fiefdom is often fear. The fear of being unnecessary and losing your job. Rather than fear, I prefer to think like Guy Kawasaki who explained in a New York Times interview 'the goal is to make yourself dispensable -- what greater accomplishment is there than the organization running well without you?'
Many tasks that create the fiefdom are repetitive. Querying reports, formatting files, editing the same text on a website, resizing pictures, sending mass e-mails -- the list continues. You are holding yourself (and the organization) back when you refuse to train others and withhold access to information. Acknowledge security issues, but allow coworkers to access what they need on their own and explore the opportunity to innovate new tech at your organization.
Solutions -- Tear down that wall!
1. Open Communication
Fiefdoms fell because serfs began to share information and became a Merchant Class by learning new skills. Recently, a top financial tech firm called FactSet , opened a new internal communications system to its 3,400 employees. The system they chose is called Socialcast which is a many-to-many communication platform that is similar to a Twitter/Facebook/forum for a private group of people. Though FactSet already had e-mail and internal newsletters -- those forms of communication are one-to-one or one-to-many, and to have a conversation through them, simply creates spam.
In the first few weeks FactSet employees rushed to share innovative ways to deal with e-mail overload (over 80 tips were shared) and continued to increase cross department ideation. Socialcast has also created similar social dynamics to Wikipedia, where users are intrinsically rewarded by contributing and good participation builds positive internal reputation. In the coming months, FactSet will see that opening communication increases innovation, lowers walls, increases efficiency and reduces fiefdoms. Tips on using Socialcast in the work environment.
2. Tech Audit
Ask your organization or local fiefdom to create a list of skills and computer operations that everyone should have. Create an anonymous survey through Survey Monkey or Google forms and send it to the staff. I say anonymous because sometimes staff members are embarrassed that they don't know how to do a specific operation -- causing them to give a dishonest answer to save face.
Analyze the survey results and make them public. Consider using the results as the basis for a mandatory staff tech-training guide taught by the fiefdom.
3. Is your CTO part of your management team?
Top-down decisions around tech can have many unintended consequences that result in fiefdoms. If your organization depends on the web or robust software to achieve its purpose, you need to have a tech point of view at the management table.
Follow George Weiner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/georgecaweiner
What you identified in #2 -- the issue of the middleman -- is the reason behind this. The most common thing that I get told when suggesting ideas is "let's hold off on that for a while." A quick search of my inbox reveals that that phrase has been used 19 times since I began working for the organization.
What people (i.e. people at the top) have to realize is that anyone passionate enough to work at a nonprofit wants to be fully invested in the work of the organization, and part of that requires little things to be done without permission.
Three days ago, I added the words "click here" superimposed on an image so people would know without having to read the directions below that it was an active link. I was told that this was unacceptable and that I had to get that kind of thing approved.
If I'm the Ning Manager, shouldn't something as little as an image change be up to me?
Good luck changing this system... it's run by morons who play "high school" cliques all day-- everywhere, where you work too...
I dropped out of this bull years ago... I suggest you all do the same :)
You took those two words and composed beautifully written prose on the pitfalls of fear and laziness in the workplace. Well done, sir. Well done.
I always joke that I'm constantly trying to put myself out of a job by automating, training and evolving technology. Does anyone really want to be the guy who can make a PDF? Or the guy who can provide site stats? The more time these take in my day, the less time I have to be building new technology and focusing on work that actually requires a human being to do. True job security does not come from being a chokepoint - anyone can run reports with training - but in being visionary.