It is necessary to (re)shape the way we structure and manage the organizations

Today we no longer need space and time to do business at all

It does not have to be a reform that disrupts or destroys them, as did the poorly executed projects of reengineering, on the contrary, the reform that I defend should refrain from thinking of structures to think of modus operandi, that is, we need to change our way of be and let go of our behavior still very much centered on the culture of "what am I?" or "who am I?" to take another stance, based on the culture of "what do I know?" and "what are my responsibilities?".

Although it may sound philosophical, the idea is much more practical than it seems.

Let's see how to transform organizations.

Until recently, we lived in two dimensions: time and space. Everything we did, or had to do, forced us to first find a space and only then did we think of time, which also influenced the search for space, almost a vicious circle.

Everything we wanted or needed to do had to be done in the dimensions of space and time. Today the space is called digital and it completely fills the planet on which we live (who knows in the future to fill the universe). Precisely because of the universalization of space is that everything we have to do will be done only in the dimension that remains: that of time.

The other dimension, space, is no longer relevant to do what we did having to go somewhere. Now all the places come to us.

The new electronic dimension is called Cloud Computing.

Cloud computing is the use, as information technology, hardware and software services, through a network, between them, and more precisely as support, the Internet itself. The main idea behind cloud computing is to eliminate or reduce the cost of IT acquisitions as much as possible. The basic principle of cloud computing is that it has no acquisition cost, just use. The only acquisition cost is the machine that will put the user on the network.

The name cloud computing comes from the indefinite and abstract form of the clouds that very well represents the complex infrastructure that supports the concept of computing anywhere. Of course it should be for everyone that the acquisition cost will be maintained for companies of all sizes, and for those who "sell" cloud computing services.

But…

Wait, no more talk about cloud computing, or at least not as hotly as it was some time ago.

It's all right. The IT industry is always trying to reinvent itself, with rare exceptions, "reheating the soup" served rather than drunk, for lack of conditions to do so.

As IT is always evolving, even though by recycling old ideas, we are already talking about sky computing, which means that all clouds would be in very little time interconnected under the same universe.

What did we gain from all this?

It's all right. The IT industry is always trying to reinvent itself, with rare exceptions, "reheating the soup" served rather than drunk, for lack of conditions to do so.

As IT is always evolving, even though by recycling old ideas, we are already talking about sky computing, which means that all clouds would be in very little time interconnected under the same universe.

What did we gain from all this?

Some companies have already discovered that space no longer has the same importance it had five, 10 or 20 years ago. Very few companies have discovered that in order to exist, to do business, to have employees, time counts rather than space. The absolute majority of companies, however, still cling more to space than to time. These companies remain pachydermic (having 10 or 200 thousand employees, no matter the number of employees), moving slowly, occupying huge spaces, swelling and shrinking, always suffering from the disastrous effects that inertia (enemy of agility) impinge to their structures addicted.

The attachment of people (still) to positions, titles, and other superficial manifestations is one of the greatest difficulties in enabling companies to benefit quickly from new ideas and to transform their organizational structures into "non-structures" and, consequently, of the new Information Technologies. The name in the "boxes" of organizational charts still counts much more than the knowledge people have and what they can and should do with it.

The cook!

This is the example I like most to exemplify my concept of Mobile Organizations. It sounds strange, does not it? A cook, who may not even be a kitchen master or a French chef, knows his job is to cook. However, with each new day he must be prepared to cook what the client wants to eat.

Anyone who has some kitchen knowledge has realized that cooking is only the first part of the knowledge a cook needs to have. I would say that in this first part are the basic knowledge about cooking, such as what means a handful of salt, a pinch of oregano, a drop of vanilla, a tablespoon of such an ingredient, a teaspoon of another and so on . The second part of the knowledge needed by the cook is constantly generated by the use of both parts. This second part is responsible for his ability to, every day, every moment, cook something different even though the ingredients are exactly the same.

I once saw how practical this example is.

He had been watching Olivier Anquier for a long time on a visit he made to Juca Chaves at his home in Salvador when the presenter challenged Juca to make a prosaic fried egg. Amazing, what's the secret of frying an egg? Yes, Olivier's dish was more consistent, more beautiful and clean, and by the comments, more delicious than Juca Chaves's!

Organizations can cease to be rigid structures, created on organograms that serve no other purpose than to fuel the "bonfire of vanities." But in order to change the way companies work, there is a need to change the culture of organizational organizations, making it possible for the people who work in them to be more than just a "box" hanging on the organization chart.

There is one more point to which I must draw your attention reader, reader, the incredible compulsion that we have to believe in news, even if they are not so new...

Today there are some words that are fashionable, words we call buzzwords, and as if they were harbingers of the new times, prophets (false?). These boast the need to be creative, to reinvent ourselves all the time, to learn to learn, always!