Problem Based Learning

Raising the Bar: How Does a Business Keep in Touch?

One of the key things that every business possesses is knowledge. A business employing 10,000 people has a massive amount of knowledge within its organisation. Getting the business to use that knowledge effectively to meet a changing business environment is one of the challenges to business thinkers and leaders.

Lew Platt, the Chairman of Hewlett-Packard, summarised the problems he had in attempting to use the 'best practice' in the business to raise quality levels. He found the attempt very difficult and frustrating. In the end he was heard to observe, 'If only we knew what we know at HP.' (Source of quote: Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (2000) The Social Life of Information. Boston, Harvard Business School Press)

The move to digital production has been just one of the major changes affecting the print media business. © Photolibrary Group

There is clearly a problem in getting business organisations to respond effectively to change. One of the most important challenges facing business leaders is guiding their organisations through the change process. What is the best way to do this? Is motivation the key? If so, is the thinking of the likes of Maslow (1943) and Herzberg (1959) still relevant in a very different business world?

One leading business person thinks that we must think differently about the way we conduct business and organise businesses. Gerard Fairtlough was Chief Executive at Shell Chemicals. This giant company was the epitome of a hierarchical organisation. Fairtlough believes that it is high time that business challenged strongly-held assumptions about how it organises itself and how it manages and leads the organisation. He describes the addiction that organisations have to hierarchies as being the only way to operate and suggests that there are different ways to 'get things done'. Fairtlough suggests that talking to people, sharing ideas and knowledge and agreement and consensus are the ways to get things done.

Fine words indeed, but a good deal more difficult to do in practice!