Too good to be true? - Is Apple really that good?
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Given the years of FTE cut backs, massive rises in the numbers of contractor resources and SI's used, I find the 'revelation' in this weeks Economist (click here to see the article titled 'Lessons from Apple') very saddening. Should I be sad, or should I just get real?
I have three soap box issues which to me highlight how far behind the cultures of many organisations are from the visions offered by, 'collaboration', 'virtual teams', and 'networks of innovation' – key ingredients for, learning, adapting, and surviving, in today’s New World:
1. Due to fear, poorly thought through incentive plans, and job/bonus/pension/school fee protectionism, ideas 'not invented here' are perceived as threats, and 'quashed' at all costs.
2. The increased usage of contractors, SI's and niche consultancies is a good thing, and has significantly changed the way many organisations manage and deliver core processes, and capabilities, such as IT. The big issue for me is that whilst this change has been going on, there has been little change/progress in the way we link up, or exploit, the true power of combining all this knowledge and experience, into a cohesive and productive team. (by the way, buying cool software tools won’t fix this).
3. When you combine these together, you get the knowledge held by the contractors, etc. leave, when they leave, (no organisational memory retention/recall) and a lot of ‘blame the 3rd party’, so no trust, collaboration, learning, adapting, or innovating together. You also end up spending more time developing strategies to overcome internal issues (mainly time wasting politics) and spend very little time coaching and encouraging your team, building learning networks of innovation, ensuring customer advocacy, reducing costs, increasing revenues, etc…
I know in reality it’s not as bad as all that – After all, your organisation and it’s people are managed, measured and rewarded to, share, collaborate, learn and adapt together to meet the changing needs of your customers and shareholders alike… You probably also work at Apple then?
