All the specialists in the hospital share a common “score”; the care and cure of the sick.
What can we say about the requirements of the information-based organization? Several hundred musicians and their CEO, the conductor, can play together because they all have the same score. Similarly, all the specialists in the hospital share a common mission: the care and cure of the sick. The diagnosis is their “score”; it dictates specific action for the X-ray lab, the dietitian, the physical therapist, and the rest of the medical team. Information-based organizations, in other words, require clear, simple, common objectives that translate into particular actions.
Because the “players” in an information-based organization are specialists, they cannot be told how to do their work. There are probably few orchestra conductors who could coax even one note out of a French horn, let alone show the horn player how to do it. But the conductor can focus the horn player’s skill and knowledge on the musicians’ joint performance. And this focus is what the leaders of an information-based business must be able to achieve. And information-based business must be structured around goals that clearly state management’s performance expectations for the enterprise and for each part and specialist and around organized feedback that compares results with these performance expectations so that every member can exercise self-control.
ACTION POINT: Have a common “score” for your organization that clearly states management’s performance expectations for the enterprise and for each specialist, and that compares expectations to results.
The Ecological Vision
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker