Stuart Wigham is a boardmember of ODF from Birmingham, UK: I come here with a perennial question, one that is impossible to answer and yet intoxicating when one starts to consider the possibilities. Today, I want to consider the technology and the future of organizations and by implication, organization design.
I was prompted in my thinking by Naomi Stanford’s recent TEDx talk at Columbus University entitled ‘The future of work’ I cannot do the thinking justice I recommend viewing the video. I chatted with Naomi about writing this article and what subject I should choose and she posed the question on whether the construct of organizations would continue to exist in their current form. Good question, but probably overly ambitious for this my first blog for ODF. Instead, I’ve gone for something a little more digestible: much of it gleaned unashamedly from my conversations with Naomi over the years, I hope you enjoy it.
Data futures
One of my favorite publications, the Economist, helpfully published its quarterly technology issue this week so I begin with some statistics taken from page 13:
- 1,000,000,000 – number of Facebook users worldwide
- 425,000,000 – number of iTunes users worldwide
- 90% – percentage of the search engine market controlled by Google in Europe
As the Economist pointed out this week, if the number of people using Facebook were a Country, it would be the third largest in the world. This and the statistics above contextualize the following narrative. This month I would like to challenge the reader to think about the nature of technology and the future, rather than extol the miracles of what is happening, there are plenty of people doing that already!
In his article ‘The Future of Organizations’ written for the newly formed ‘Journal of Organization Design’ Jay Galbraith talks about ‘big data’ and the importance he believes it is taking on within organizations. The trends around data have become obvious in that organizations that have augmented data together have reaped benefits, just look at Google and Facebook, the power of such technology and those with the ability to manipulate it appears to be uncontrollable, although a caveat on this is that quantitative data is no predictor of the future, it can suggest likely possibilities, it isn’t however a Crystal ball….not yet.
So the world which we’re heading towards is where organizations who can capture and use good data have a competitive advantage through the ability to delve into the consumer demands and desires in ways that a few years ago appeared to be closer to science fiction than any possible science future. However there is a sense in which the future world in this context has an Orwellian (Nineteen eighty four) feel to it particularly if you consider the implications of Governments holding data or for profit organizations which have budgets as big or bigger than nation states.
For me, there is a question of who gets to control your information and decide what is an appropriate use of it, if I give my data freely to make a purchase do I by default give permission for that information to be used for other purposes? Not likely, but who has the choice and control of this? And the extent to which the augmentation of data can be used is not fully understood. Of course there are laws that protect data, I live and work in the UK and it is clear what those parameters are here, I imagine it’s similar in the USA. However, how do you know the way in which data is being used when it is given to an organization, do you know the connections that organization has to other organizations or other companies it owns? Totalitarian regimes have a long history of using data and control of information to suppress and control societies prior to and continuing since the information revolution. There is a narrative running underneath the use of data and the speed of which technology is developing that has yet to be debated with any seriousness in the West. I make reference to the West because of our democratic value systems and concepts of a free society. There are also questions relating to our own ethical and moral boundaries that we are too quick to ignore…well, we’re in difficult financial times aren’t we….. But these issues affect us all in how we behave and work with our organizations, in the search for efficiency, effective service delivery and going the extra mile for the customer, we could easily be complicit in a process that damages free will and an individuals right to choose how they engage with the world and ultimately the formation of new control systems that we’re barely even aware of.
It is easy to see benefits of ‘big data’ and the likelihood that its use will shape our organizations. But unregulated use of data leads to ethical concerns and these are starting to multiply. Just look at Facebook and how often it has been in the press because of changes it has made to user settings and ‘improvements’ to the user experience. In one of the lectures I’ve attended whilst being a PhD student the lecturer of the class talked about the next iteration of marketing. His view was that it would reach such a level of accuracy that consumers would think that they are making the choices for themselves, when in fact, the likelihood is that it’s as a result of the marketing they have been subject too. Scary stuff if you ask me, where is the line? Where are concepts of a free society in the application of this type of technology?
The sophistication of technology and the advancement of data use marches on, the first computer than can perform the same number of calculations as a human brain is being proposed as reported earlier this year.
Simple versions of the technology already exists and is integrated into our lives, if I want to make a call in my car, I simply press a button and speak the command to the virtual phone operator who calls mom, dad or whoever, how far away are we from more complex versions that can converse intelligently on our behalf? As a species we’re already in the place and have been for some time of manipulating nature to craft biological solutions for us. I am thinking here of using vaccines to prevent illness, the next iteration being using virus’ to kill diseases that we’re not able to do with conventional treatments. As computers arrive at a higher state of capability is it too far fetched to imagine that management consultant will be forced into extinction by computer aided designs and virtual consultants? Too far from reality? We may be there already, see this article in Fast company. Would allowing or enabling virtual employees or consultants to do work be an ethical choice? We are already facing this question as robots increasingly do work previously done by human.
The skill for organizations is to remain competitive in their use of data and technology whilst maintaining some sort of ethical parameters to operate. At present I am hopeful that we will continue to reap some of the benefits of growing technology and data sophistication. What I am less certain about, is whether we have the capacity to manage the ethical issues surrounding their use because the pace of technological development is progressing quicker than our ability to respond to the bigger questions. I am not sure the free market is a good place to locate these debates? On the virtual consultant issue, next month’s blogger, Bill Zybach reminded me in a conversation last week that there are many variations of the management consultant. The ones who stick with traditional approaches will probably be the first to become extinct, for the rest of us, we probably have a little more time left, assuming the concept of organization doesn’t alter too much.
Thank you for your interest, I trust it was thought provoking if nothing else! Keep designing great organizations!
Stuart Wigham, MA, MCIPD
