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So speaks Sea-Jin Chang, chairman for business policy at the National University of Singapore in this great New York Times story, How the Tech Parade Passed Sony By. Some really great insights into how once unassailable-seeming giants can fall from grace. Most interesting for me is the culture piece, the part of management (and innovation) that’s so difficult to get right–and yet potentially company-threatening when done wrong. Hiroko Tabuchi writes:
Sony’s recent leaders have had trouble wielding authority over the sprawling company. Sony remains dominated by proud, territorial engineers who often shun cooperation. For many of them, cost-cutting is the enemy of creativity — a legacy of Sony’s co-founders, Mr. Morita and Masaru Ibuka, who tried to foster a culture of independence.
What started as a positive – a culture of independence – has morphed and evolved to become a real problem for the company and its future survival. Tabuchi continues:
Executives complain privately of recalcitrant managers who refuse to share information or work with other divisions. One executive said he was startled to discover that a manager whose position had been eliminated had been rehired under a different title. (“Or maybe he never really left,” said this executive.)
This should, of course, be astonishing. Managers who don’t share information? Are you kidding me? But, of course, we know that it’s not only not astonishing, but likely a common condition within many large, established organizations. All companies are dysfunctional in their own ways, of course, but wherever human beings are involved, unexpected or suboptimal behavior is always mere moments away. Executives have to be very conscious about the corporate culture they are fostering–and yet way too many of them don’t even realize it’s something to be considered.
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