Friday January 07, 2005

The power of Distributed - journalism, work, power, organizations

Reading Dan Gillmor's very interesting blog about what he means by Distributed Journalism got me thinking. The idea that the whole is more than the sun of the parts is one of my core beliefs. It is a secret weapon that most people would agree with but few take advantage of. Distributed work is about trusting ht individual to make a difference. Distributed work is powerful for organizations, for computer systems and for nations.

The power of distributed work is in many ways similar to the power of teams. When I lead a team I see again and again that if you have a clear vision of what you are trying to achieve and if you give team members the ability to use their minds and their experience, i.e. Don't micro manage them. you will always achieve more than you originally thought was possible. It is one of the most exciting things about leading a team. One of the biggest mistakes a manger can make is thinking that she is in control, that she has all the answers and has to tell everyone what to do. One of the keys to success is autonomy. It is allowing the individual to make a difference and contribute to the whole. It's all about the distribution of power.

Several years ago I read an article in the Harvard Business Review called Democracy is Inevitable by Philip Slater and Warren G. Bennis. The article really resonated with me and has stayed with me. It was published in September-October 1990 but it was a reprint of an article originally published in the HBR in March-April 1964. It is an amazingly prescient article and very worth reading even today. It was republished because back in 1964 it predicted the failure of communism as a form of government. I found it even more interesting because it predicted the rise of what I would call more distributed organizations. I would even go so far as to say the article is a precursor to the Cluetrain Manifesto. Some of the ideas in the article are certainly dated but its basic precepts are that “Democracy ...... is the only system that can successfully cope with the changing demands of contemporary civilization” and that “Adaptability to change [is] the most important determinant of survival” Slater and Bennis say that what they mean by democracy is a System of Values which include:
1.Full and free communication
2.A reliance on consensus
3.The idea that influence is based on technical competence and knowledge
4.An atmosphere that permits and even encourages emotional expression
5.A basically human bias

Personally I think these ideas are exactly what blogging enables and what distributed organizations allow.

Distributed computing is one of the big reasons Sun became a successful company. Examples include products like NFS which distributes the file system onto the network or even SunRays which could be said to distribute the CPU across the network.>/p>

But even more powerful is that I believe distributed work is one of the reason Sun will continue to innovate and succeed. Sun's iWork programs allows Sun to attract and retain talent regardless of where they work. But most important is our culture and the power of the individual at Sun to make a difference. Blogging at Sun is just one manifestation of this belief in the power of the individual. Of course a key to success as an organization is a common direction and set of beliefs but this doesn't mean that centralized control and power works.

Its about democracy and trusting individuals. We will achieve much more together without centralized control than we can individually or in one big centrally controlled organization