Organizational Culture

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the definition and analysis of corporate culture. The integration, differentiation, and fragmentation views of culture are discussed. An argument is presented that states understanding corporate culture is necessary for managers within an organization. An analytical framework is then introduced to aid in the analysis, reinforcement, or change of one's organizational culture.

Introduction:

"Organizational Culture (OC) is the set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a group holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to various environments" (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007, p. 76). At the surface level, OC is observable characteristics in an organization. However, OC also includes shared and deep-seated beliefs, differences that cause conflict, and individual goals and motivation. OC both creates and is modified by the power structures in an organization. Additionally, OC is influenced by the wider society as a whole.

The most easily recognized part of the picture is an OC's artifacts. Artifacts are observable physical traits in an organization and include published lists of values, dress code, stories and myths, rituals and ceremonies, status symbols like offices and parking spaces, etcetera (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007). In fact, anything that you can observe which leads you to a conclusion about the beliefs and values of an organization can be considered an artifact.

Artifacts are created by the deeper values a company holds dear. Values can be espoused and enacted. Espoused values are touted publicly in an organization whereas enacted values are actually displayed through employee behavior (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007). If the two are different, conflict exists. Closely related to the values are normative beliefs. Normative beliefs are "thoughts and beliefs about expected behavior and modes of conduct" (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007, p. 84).

Other dimensions of OC include power and politics. Kreitner and Kinicki repeatedly mention printed value lists. Those lists come from upper management and reflect expected behavior. Similarly, promotions usually include status symbols like a parking space or a bigger office. Since behavior and symbols are two artifacts comprising OC, power and politics are part of OC and can change it over time. The other facet contributing to OC is culture external to the company.

From a global perspective, research shows that national culture significantly influences organizational culture. Anglo/Nordic regions are less sensitive to uncertainty and power. This leads to organizations that act like village markets. Latin regions have a high sensitivity to power and a low sensitivity to uncertainty. Companies in these regions follow more of a defined pyramid structure (Schneider and Barsoux, 1997).

Local cultures can similarly influence groups in an organization. The Brownfield and Greenfield groups were observed in a 2005 study (Sharpe, 2006). The Brownfield group was an urban and established union culture believing in an "us vs. them" relationship with management. The Greenfield group was rural and had not been introduced to union practices. As whole, the Greenfield group was more malleable and better accepted the culture management wanted to instill.

All in all, OC needs to be examined from a much deeper perspective than just artifacts. Beliefs and values as well as political and cultural issues need to be examined to obtain an accurate picture. The question becomes what perspective to use for examining OC.

Integration, Differentiation, and Fragmentation: A Multi-Lens Perspective

Organizations are cultures represented by patterns of meaning, values, and behaviors (Myerson and Martin, 1987). In their 1987 paper on culture change, Myerson and Martin make the following base assumptions:

1. OC is resistant to change.
2. OC is adaptive and always in a state of flux.
3. Organizations are cultures.
4. Cultures and cultural change need to be viewed from three distinct yet interrelated paradigms: Integration, Differentiation, and Fragmentation.

To get an accurate picture, cultures need to be analyzed through several lenses (Myerson and Martin, 1987).

Integration:

From the integration perspective, culture comes from the top down. The values of top management become the values of the culture to which everyone agrees. OC is viewed as a closed system with no external influences. Cultural change is viewed as an organization-wide and drastic phenomenon that should be implemented and controlled by top management (Myerson and Martin, 1987).

Integration focuses on similarities rather than differences. The manifestations of culture (rituals, story-telling, etcetera) are only observed if they are consistent with each other. Integrationists believe that all levels of the organization share a common view.
Inconsistencies and ambiguities are largely ignored or treated as anomalies.

However, there is always conflict in an organization, so integration perspective tends to produce a simplistic and shallow view of the corporate culture if used alone. This is because integrationists tend to only focus on the superficial manifestations of culture such as the espoused values of management, which are easy to control (Myerson and Martin, 1987) and ignore the very real issues of societal culture and conflict. Thus another perspective needs to be used in conjunction for a more accurate analysis.

Differentiation:

The differentiation perspective focuses on disagreement and contradictions instead of consensus. The focus is on the cultural contribution of groups and individuals instead of the leaders of an organization. "A culture is composed of a collection of values and manifestations, some of which may be contradictory" (Myerson and Martin, 1987, p. 630). Stories may be inconsistent with the publicly touted values. Likewise, espoused values may be different than enacted values. Differentiation also acknowledges that factors external to the organization can contribute to its culture. For example, societal groups contain class, racial, and ethnic identifications that people bring with them.
The cultural diversity tends to create conflict as well as overlapping and nested subcultures (Myerson and Martin, 1987). In fact, Myerson and Martin (1987) point out three distinct subcultures:

1. Counter-cultures: Express disagreement with the dominant culture.
2. Orthogonal subcultures: Indifferent to each other and dominant culture.
3. Enhancing subcultures: Reproduce top management's views in an
exaggerated form.


Cultural change is viewed as an incremental rather than a corporate-wide phenomenon. A group's culture is what gets changed instead of the overall OC. Changes can come from modifying the structure and members of the groups or from external cultural or environmental factors. Changes may also come from the relationships between subcultures as well as the dominant culture (Myerson and Martin, 1987).

Many researchers use a hybrid approach that combines integration and differentiation perspectives (Myerson and Martin, 1987). The hybrid approach accounts for the backdrop culture espoused by management as well as any differences between groups and individuals. This approach is interesting because it can be applied recursively. An integration perspective can be used at a corporate level. The differentiation perspective can be used to view the differences between large corporate subgroups. At that point each subgroup can then be analyzed from the integration perspective, which in turn analyzes the subgroup's subgroups. This process continues until one reaches the individual level.

Fragmentation:

Fragmentation tends to focus on individuals, flux, and ambiguity. This perspective feels that people are in agreement on some things, disagreement on others, and indifferent to other items at the same time (Myerson and Martin, 1987). Fragmentation accepts ambiguity as the norm, feels that subculture and organizational boundaries do not exist, that culture is always changing and cannot be controlled. The metaphor Myerson and Martin (1987) use is that of a web. People are nodes in the web connected by whatever concerns they have in common at the time. Cultural change takes on an individual focus. As individual concerns change, the web changes, and the culture has changed.

Implications for Managers:

OC influences a company's financial performance. An 11-year study of 207 companies in 22 industries showed that financial performance was higher in companies with adaptive and flexible cultures (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007). Other studies show that incompatible cultures are the reason 7 out of 10 mergers and acquisitions fail to meet their financial promises (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007). The author therefore argues that understanding OC is part of a manager's job. A manager needs to decide if OC or subcultures need to change, be reinforced, or left alone. The only way to fully understand the scope of OC is to actively analyze many dimensions from several viewpoints. While the underlying theories to manage culture, groups, and individuals are beyond the scope of this paper, Figure 1 presents a 3 by 4 grid framework for analyzing one's culture from the three perspectives and four dimensions. Theories relevant to each perspective and dimension intersection are listed.


Figure 1: 3 by 4 Analytical Framework




Integration:

From the integration perspective, the political view needs to focus on the corporate hierarchy since that is where culture comes from. The four dimensions of power are where the focus needs to be since these are often exercised at the managerial level in an organization. The dimensions are: decision-making, non decision-making, symbolic, and system power (Clegg and Hardy, 1996). Since the integration perspective is a closed model, societal influences will be overlooked (Myerson and Martin, 1987).

If the goal is maintaining the existing culture, one can do nothing or reinforce the existing norms and values. Human Resources (HR) can be told what to look for when hiring someone to make sure they fit the culture. Formal statements, making sure espoused values are enacted values, the design of physical space, slogans and sayings, explicit rewards, and promotions are all integrational maintenance tools since they are implemented at a managerial level. IKEA's reinforcement of the "IKEA Way" through printed material and HR practices is a good example of this concept (Grol and Schoch, 1997).

If changing the culture is desired, the process of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing the culture is necessary. Gordon Ramsey is a master of this technique. In his television show "Kitchen Nightmares," Ramsey goes into a failing restaurant and turns it around by changing the culture. He initially unfreezes the culture by frankly pointing out all of the flaws in the restaurant and verbally tearing people down. In the change stage, he then redesigns the menu, the interior, and verbally builds people back up. The culture is refrozen in a meeting after the first successful dinner service.

Differentiation:

The political focus from the differentiation perspective needs to be on the various subgroups in the culture and their interaction with each other as well as the backdrop culture found in the integration perspective. Additionally, values and beliefs that are injected from the surrounding social culture also need to be given some thought.

Reinforcing the culture revolves around conflict management, helping to speed group development, and group based rewards. When IKEA opened in France, they reinforced their informal culture. This led to employees not listening to managers because the French tend to culturally view informality as weakness (Grol and Schoch, 1997). If change is desired, it needs to take place at a group level by restructuring members, size, group focus and rewards. In the case of IKEA, they had to implement formal group training and communication patterns in France (Grol and Schoch, 1997). Additionally, people can be rotated to see things from other group's perspectives to effect change.

Fragmentation:

Fragmentation has more of an individual focus. Politically, people need to be assessed within the five bases of power: reward, coercive, legitimate, expert, and referent (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007). A person's own network of people and groups both inside and outside of the company are what determine the societal dimension from the fragmentation perspective. A person's beliefs are influenced by their network and will likely be at odds with some part of the backdrop culture found in the integration perspective.

Since the fragmentation perspective views culture as always changing and unmanageable (Myerson and Martin, 1987), the best a manager can do is to try to align the espoused values with individuals through rewards and individual motivation. Strategically, the more powerful individuals will likely have more influence so managers should concentrate their efforts on the more powerful.

IKEA's informal, relatively unstructured culture can easily be viewed from this perspective. Employees are encouraged to informally learn by doing and the only way to advance is to learn as many lateral jobs as possible. Additionally, one needs to know how to work within the culture to advance (Grol and Schoch, 1997). This will cause changes to employees' cultural webs as they learn different jobs and thus change the corporate culture on a micro-level.

Conclusion:

Managers need to understand their OC and decide if it has the best impact on the company from a financial perspective. In order to understand the culture, a great deal of thought and analysis must take place. To get an accurate picture of the culture, a manager must apply the Integration, Differentiation, and Fragmentation perspectives to several different dimensions of the corporation. Only then will a manager be able to determine if changes or reinforcement are necessary. If either is needed, a plan can be enacted to meet the goals. Again, the only chance of change or reinforcement plans succeeding is if the culture is well understood.


REFERENCES

Clegg, S.R., & Hardy, C. (1996). Chapter 13. Handbook of organizational studies. (pp. 220-237). London: Blackwell.

Grol, C., Schoch, and CPA. (1997). Chapter 7. IKEA: Managing cultural diversity. (pp. 88-112). Paris: Centre de Perfectionnement aux Affaires.

Kreitner, R. & Kinicki, A. (2007). Chapters 3, 8, 10, 11, 15. Organizational behavior. (pp. 74-106, 234-268, 302-370, 474-506). 7 edition, New York: McGraw Hill.

Meyerson, D., & Martin, J. (1987). Cultural change: an integration of three different views. Journal of Management Studies, 24, 623-647.

Schneider, S., & Barsoux, J. L. (1997). Chapter 4. Managing across cultures. (pp. 77-105). London: Prentice Hall.

Sharpe, D. R. (2006). Shop floor practices under changing forms of managerial control: A comparative ethnographic study of micro-politics, control and resistance within a Japanese multinational. Journal of International Management, 12, 318-339.

Motivation Theories

ABSTRACT: Goal setting and MBOs are proven motivators that are commonly used. However, they should not be the only motivators in an organization. This paper examines Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene Theory (MHT), Job Design, and Equity Theory. Each theory will be described, and analyzed. A hybrid model is proposed to better analyze any workplace.


HERZBERG’S MOTIVATOR HYGIENE THEORY


Description

“Frederick Herzberg’s theory is based on a landmark study in which he interviewed 203 accountants and engineers” (Kreitner and Kinicki 2007, p. 240). Motivator Hygiene Theory (MHT) states that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are not opposites. The opposite of job satisfaction is no job satisfaction. The opposite of job dissatisfaction is no job dissatisfaction. Motivation can be achieved through job satisfaction.

MHT uses motivators and hygiene factors. Motivators are intrinsic entities and influence job satisfaction, while hygiene factors are extrinsic and at best produce no job dissatisfaction. Both factors can be seen in Figure 1. A base assumption of MHT is

Figure 1: Motivator and Hygiene Factors (Herzberg, 1987, p. 112)




managers can motivate individuals by building motivators into their jobs. Additionally, managers can reduce costs associated with turnover and job absenteeism by managing the hygiene factors to minimize job dissatisfaction.

Analysis


While MHT provides an extremely useful framework, it is not without criticism. One frequent criticism is the original study was based on US engineers and accountants. This limits the test to two job categories and one culture. However, since 1968, the test has been repeated over twenty times with different populations and cultures. The results were notably similar (Herzberg, 1987).

The theories’ double groupings are also criticized. While the motivators seem to correctly provide intrinsic motivation and job satisfaction, other surveys have found hygiene factors also provide job satisfaction (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007). However, Figure 1 shows both hygiene and motivators overlap to an extent. A modification of MHT can better account for the criticisms. One can view MHT as a four-part grid with all factors contributing to motivation and satisfaction. See Figure 2.



Figure 2: MHT Four-Part Grid

Herzberg criticizes himself for leaning too far to the industrial engineering viewpoint and not giving the behaviorist viewpoint enough weight. He feels that positive reinforcements are necessary in the workplace if only to create a pleasant working environment (Herzberg, 1987). The author feels this is a valid point and that reinforcement, both negative and positive, as well as MHT have an important role in organizations.

The last criticism is Herzberg’s theory seems to have an underlying assumption that all people are intrinsically motivated and self-starters. If this were the case, everyone would be in Maslow’s self-actualization stage. From the author’s experience, this is not the case. Many people have priorities lying outside the workplace and just want a 9 to 5 job. One can argue that motivators will have little effect and hygiene factors will be what the person cares about.

Although there are several criticisms, MHT does provide a solid foundation for analyzing motivation and job satisfaction. In fact, one can argue that the other theories examined can be described in terms of motivator and hygiene factors.



JOB DESIGN


Description

Creating motivation through Job Design (JD) involves changing the nature of an employee’s job to increase performance and job satisfaction. JD has four different approaches: biological, perceptual-motor, mechanistic, and motivational (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007). This article examines three motivational JD theories which are an application of MHT.

The first is Horizontal Job Loading (HJL). This is the ineffective practice of adding more of the same tasks to a person’s job. “(Horizontal) job loading merely enlarges the meaninglessness of the job” (Herzberg, 1987, p. 114).
The second approach is Vertical Job Loading (VJL). With this approach, employees are giving more responsibility and often take many of their manager’s tasks. This offers the opportunity for personal growth, achievement, recognition, and other HMT motivators. Herzberg performed a VJL study whose results are shown in Figure 3.


Figure 3: Vertical Job Loading Results (Herzberg, 1987)



The final motivational JD model is the Job Characteristics Model (JCM). This model, developed by Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham, focuses on restructuring a job by focusing on intrinsic motivation. The model focuses on three critical psychological states:

1. The perceived meaningfulness of the work itself.
2. The perceived responsibility for outcomes.
3. Knowledge of the actual perceived results of the work.

The psychological states are in turn influenced by five core job characteristics.

1. Skill Variety - Using varied skill sets. Affects work meaningfulness.
2. Task Identity - Ability to perform a whole piece of work. Affects work meaningfulness.
3. Task Significance – Affect the job has on other people. Affects work meaningfulness.
4. Autonomy – Affects perceived responsibility for outcomes.
5. Job Feedback – Provides knowledge of work results.

The core job characteristics influence the core psychological states, which determine the outcomes shown in Figure 4. To account for differences in effectiveness by individual, JCM adds three moderators that vary from person to person.

Analysis

While HJL does not produce long-term motivation, VJL and the JCM do. They have a lot in common. Both focus on intrinsic factors for motivation. VJL focuses on motivators while JCM focuses on the three core psychological states and what influences them. Both share a common weakness by ignoring extrinsic factors. The two theories are very different in two significant ways. First, VJL often focuses on taking over some of a superior’s work. JCM focuses on the work itself and does not have that underlying assumption. Second, VJL does not take differences in individuals into account for how effective it will be whereas JCM does.

Figure 4: Job Characteristic Model (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007)



While it is generally agreed VJL and JCM increase long-term motivation, each theory has its critics. The criticisms of VJL are usually pointed at the binary approach of HMT. Watson wonders if the Herzberg survey questions themselves falsely increase the appearance that the two factor approach is accurate (Watson, 1986).

JCM critics point to research that states it can reduce performance as easily as it can increase it (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007). This represents a high risk since redesigning a job can be time intensive and costly to implement.

A criticism of JD in general is that it concentrates on a limited set of motivational work features such as skill variety and autonomy at the expense of other important factors like social environment and work context (Humphrey, Nahrgang, and Morgeson, 2007).




EQUITY THEORY


Description

Equity theory (ET) states that motivation and behavior are a function of perceived fairness in the organization. Employees subjectively compare themselves to a similar person. The comparison person can exist in the organization, or have a similar title in a different organization. The comparisons are based on the concept of inputs and outcomes. Inputs consist of an employee’s human capital, hierarchical position in the company, and the amount of work they do. Outputs are what the company provides and include pay and bonuses, inclusion in decision making, fringe benefits, promotions, and job security (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007). There are three equity outcomes:

1. Equitable Situation: Comparison person has an equal input to output ratio.
2. Negative Inequity: Comparison person has a higher input to output ratio.
3. Positive Inequity: Comparison person has a lower input to output ratio.

ET assumes that a person will try to resolve inequities. The resolution can be cognitive (justifying the inequity mentally) or behavioral (increasing or reducing inputs). Different people have different equity sensitivities. There are three groups:

1. Benevolent: Insensitive to inequity.
2. Sensitive: Quickly resolves negative and positive inequity.
3. Entitled: Has no tolerance for negative equity. Expects positive equity.

ET was expanded into the concept of Organizational Justice. This examines how fairly people feel they are treated at work and consists of three parts:

1. Distributive Justice: Perceived fairness with respect to reward distribution.
2. Procedural Justice: Perceived fairness in allocation decisions.
3. Interactional Justice: Perceived fairness in how decisions are implemented.


Analysis

Equity is a subjective concept. How an employee perceives the situation has far more bearing than the situation itself. Forethought, democratic decision-making, and good communication seem to be the keys to maintaining Organizational Justice. A manager should think about perceived equity before giving a reward. “Research shows that positive perceptions of Distributive and Procedural Justice are enhanced by giving an employee a ‘voice’ in decisions that affect them” (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2007, page 244). Interactional Justice requires communicating the “why” of a decisions and treating people with respect and dignity.

Equity sensitivity reliably predicts lower motivation when pay is low and has begun to examine the wide ranges of behaviors that inequity may invoke (Ambrose and Kulik, 1999). It can also predict Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs) by sensitivity group. Equity Sensitive people perform far more OCBs than Benevolents or Entitleds when perceived organizational justice is high (Blakely, Andrews, and Moorman, 2005).

Ambrose and Kulik criticize equity sensitivity research in a few ways. There is a lack of referent standards to analyze research results, studies are not long term, and experiment measures are often based on subjective measures by those interviewed. This may have caused mixed study results.


CONCLUSION

Individual motivation is such a complex topic that no single model seems able to adequately cover it. It then seems logical to develop a multidimensional analytical framework that combines several models. A proposed hybrid model can be seen in Figure 5. It allows for the analysis of problems, actions (positive and negative reinforcement) and proposed changes from the following six perspectives:

1. Intrinsic Factors
2. Extrinsic Factors
3. Equity Factors
4. Goal Factors
5. Social Factors
6. Individual Factors

Using this model ensures a broader perspective when analyzing the workplace.

Figure 5
The Multidimensional Analysis Model forces a manager to analyze a situation across several theories instead of one or two.





REFERENCES

Ambrose, M. L. & Kulik, C. T. (1999). Old friends, new faces: Motivation research in the 1990s. Journal of Management, 25, 231-292.

Blakely, G. L., Andrews, M. C., & Moorman, R. H. (2005). The moderating effects of equity sensitivity on the relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors. Journal of Business and Psychology, 20, 59-273.

Herzberg, F. (1987). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review, 65, 109-120.

Humphrey, S. E., Nahrgang, J. D., & Morgeson, F. P. (2007). Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 332-356.

Kreitner, R. & Kinicki, A. (2007). Foundations of motivation. In J. E. Biernat (Ed.),
Organizational behavior (pp. 240-259). 7 edition, New York: McGraw Hill.

Watson, T. J. (1986). Chapter 4. Management, organization and employment
strategy: New directions in theory and practice. (pp. 87-132). London and New York: Routledge & Kengan Paul.

Mass Dissemination

Mass dissemination of information can occur on a macro or micro level. Both are important and have specific uses. Let’s explore macro mass dissemination first. It is the art and science of mass dissemination of information to the general public.

As Seth Godin pointed out in ‘No One Expected a Tornado,’ “Bottom line: the first thing to rehearse is your communication strategy. You can't predict weird events, but you can get really good at alerting people when they happen.” Macro mass dissemination contributes to your company’s public face. In Seth’s example, the emergency response system was far too slow in letting people know about problems that were going to affect them. This leaves a negative connotation for the system. Seth’s point is: manage your communications better to create a positive impact.

The same holds true for micro mass dissemination, which is private group communications. Micro mass dissemination is critical for project management and daily operations. Take a company wide email system roll out project as an example. When something goes wrong, the primary stakeholders need to know so they can arrive at a course of action. This proper course of action rarely occurs in a vacuum. Additionally, any users affected by the problem need to be alerted as well to maintain a proactive, customer friendly stance. Again, Seth’s point holds true: manage your communications better to create a positive impact.

The communications concept is easy to grasp but often hard to master. If you do not have a communications strategy, macro or micro, for whatever you are working on, create one. A little thought about who needs to know what when can go a long way.

The Faster Computers Get, the Longer it Takes to Do Something

Moore’s law is often misquoted as processing power doubles every 18 months while the cost gets cut in half. The official version of Moore’s law states “the number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost doubles every 24 months.” With the speed of hardware accelerating so quickly, why does it take longer to do something on a new machine?

Does Gate’s law hold the answer? Bill Gates did not create Gate’s law, but Microsoft does sometimes adhere to its base premise: Software generally slows by 50% every 18 months. The slowdown is due to additional software features and “code cruft.” Is this why it takes longer to do something every time you get a new machine? No.

Does Wirth’s Law explain it? Is software really decelerating faster than hardware is accelerating? Perhaps this is true sometimes, but not always. That’s not why things are getting slower either.

The root cause of actions taking longer on new hardware and software combinations is ease of use. Ease of use increases the number of times you have to click to do something. Each extra screen and subsequent click adds several seconds to a process. A second in computer time is an eternity. In fact, we are heading towards a global crisis: A horrible world shortage of mouse clicks!

The first time I tried Vista was its official release date eight months ago. It took an hour to find where everything had been moved. Thanks, 60 minutes I’ll never get back. However, not only was the location different, the process of doing something changed. The new processes forced me to click at least one additional time any time I wanted to do something.

Connect to a remote server running 2000 - one extra click. Switch how mail is setup in Office 2007? Several extra clicks. Change the IP address method from DHCP to a static IP? Extra clicks, a blue screen, and a complete rebuild to XP for stability. Thanks, 120 minutes I’ll never get back. Eight months and numerous updates later, Vista runs very quickly and reliably on my 64-bit dual core machine with 2 gigs of RAM. My new machine cost a little less than my last machine and is more than twice as powerful. However, still it takes longer to do anything because of the extra clicks.

OS X, while far more streamlined, has a similar phenomenon. Take mail for example. Adding a new account, the program tries to auto connect to the server. It you have changed the default server settings, you need to wait until the connection attempt times out for both POP3 and SMTP. Start any MAC Office program – up pops the Project Gallery requiring an extra click to get to create a new document. Time to hunt through the preferences to turn that off. Mail and Office: Thanks, another 20 minutes I’ll never get back. Again, it takes longer to do things because of extra clicks.

What is the driving inspiration behind adding clicks? Simply put: If you add extra screens to chunk information it will increase the ease of use. I once took a Ph.D. level class in system interface design and one thing it stressed was to allow the user to see only three to seven pieces of information at a time. This means more screens to display information. Of course this design pearl of wisdom comes with a cost: More clicks. Because of the click cost, we have reached and even surpassed the point of diminishing returns. Especially when you factor age into the equation.

The younger a person is, the higher the probability they are very computer literate. Stop chunking the information into such small easily digestible pieces. More pieces equal more clicks. It takes longer to do something. Most people using computers are intelligent regardless of their degree of computer literacy. It would be far easier on users to keep the process of doing something the same as the last version of the software. Users already know how to accomplish the same task the old way, why make it take longer by oversimplifying something they already know how to do?

Developers take note: Add new features and eye candy between versions, but avoid “cruft” and extra clicks with a vengeance. I fear if we continue down our current path, one day I will have a different screen and corresponding click to enter each letter of my username and password.

LinkedIn: It’s who you know and who you want to know

Sometimes with the crazed hustle and bustle of the day to day, it’s hard to stay in contact with old associates. That is, until you find LinkedIn.com. This website, part of the growing trend in social networking, makes it easy to reconnect and keep in touch with old contacts.

How? You can search for people you know automatically or manually. First you setup a profile that includes your work history and any groups you are in. That’s when the system goes to work. It searches everyone else’s profile and finds people who worked for the same companies at the same time you did. People in the same groups as you are also included in the results. Optionally, you can manually search for people by various criteria such as name, title, industry, etc.

What do you do with all the people you find? Ask them to join your network of contacts. You can also invite any unlinked person to join your network as long as you have his or her email address. This is the point where the LinkedIn creator’s intentions get a bit warped.

As you browse through the profiles of all the contacts you find, you come across two types of people. Those that will link to anyone and those that will only link to people they know. Some market themselves as social networking gurus, which may or may not be the case. They are open to adding everyone to their already impressive number of contacts. This is not what the creators intended.

In fact, intrigued by one person’s website, I went to join their open contact list. LinkedIn asked “How do you know this person?” and one of the choices is “I don’t.” Well, I didn’t know the person so that’s the choice I picked and submitted my link request. My request was denied. The redirect page listed all these reasons why you should only link to people you know. None of which I found very convincing. But then I thought about how the site is supposed to work.

The site is to let you track people you know and to provide recommendations to each other. LinkedIn is a business based networking site. At some point, when you switch jobs or submit some sort of proposal to a company, all of your contacts’ connections come in handy. Someone you know can recomend you to someone they know in the company you are interested in. The recommendation’s strength comes from the fact that the person introducing you knows you or a person you know and can vouch for you. If you don’t actually know the people in your contact list, the references lose their value.

On the other hand, consultants and headhunters should have large prospect lists. They don’t necessarily need to know all the people on that list, but may want to get to know them when a mutually beneficial opportunity comes along. I see nothing wrong with that.

In fact both sides of the coin have their place. I feel that Linkedin should listen to the market trend. They should add the ability to keep a secondary contact list. Each person can maintain people they know and don’t know separately. That way the original intent of the site is not lost and new “I may want to meet you” functionality is added. Linkedin may also be able to turn this demand into another revenue stream. Any day of the week, an extra revenue stream beats fighting a losing battle.

A few changes are all the creators need to make and everyone wins. As the saying goes it’s not what you know; it’s who you know. Perhaps it should read: As long as you know something useful, it’s not just who you know but who you want to know as well.

Adopting New Technology

The technology life cycle has three distinct phases:

Bleeding Edge: The technology is brand new and few companies adopt it.
Leading Edge: The technology is generally accepted and many companies adopt it.
Over the Edge: At this point whoever has not adopted the technology is potentially losing out in some way.

When you adopt a technology can make a big difference.

Not all businesses need every new technology; it really depends on your strategic goals. In general, it is best to be an early adopter when a technology useful to your business is just transitioning to leading edge. In general, avoid bleeding edge technology because it has higher costs, is more likely to have significant bugs, has a higher probability of being displaced by the next best thing, and is generally less understood. The exception to that rule is if you gain a significant strategic advantage from using a bleeding edge technology.

Waiting until a technology is over the edge puts you in a reactive instead of proactive position. This can leave you playing catch up with the competition without really getting the benefits of being an early adopter.

Framework for System Analysis and Design

Determining the needs for a system is really the hardest part of the system analysis and design process. It involves far more than just picking the right piece of hardware and software. Needs determination requires “soft skills” long before you can design and build the system.

Any system, be it a technological or a human based business process, starts with interviews. All stakeholders must be interviewed for several reasons:

1. Each stakeholder may have different informational and operation needs.
2. Including stakeholders early in the design process overcomes objections and resistance. Furthermore, it develops a necessary trust and a sense of ownership that creates stakeholder buy-in.
3. Someone will inevitably point out a dimension of the system that you as a designer have missed. For a system designer, it’s sometimes hard to see the forest through the trees.
4. Interviewing all stakeholders provides a global view, which in turn, allows the designer to build the system correctly from the beginning. This means that missed functionality does not have to be patched on as an afterthought. Patching functionality makes the system more complex and far more likely to break.
5. The information gathering stage is the least expensive part of the design process. Once hardware and software are purchased, the roll out costs mount quickly. The more information and stakeholder buy-in culled from the beginning, the more efficiently the system can be rolled out.

The interview process should yield the following:

1. A list of inputs for the system.
2. A list of outputs for the system.
3. A list of business rules that determine how the inputs are processed.
4. A list of feedback loops to ensure data integrity. Each feedback loop entails a method to cross check data entering the system to make sure it is correct. Call it a system of checks and balances.

Data integrity is extremely important and often overlooked. Data integrity is an expansion of the garbage in – garbage out theory. If the data business decisions based on have an element of uncertainty, then the decisions inherit that uncertainty. The uncertainty may even be magnified. This often leads to costly mistakes.

An example would be predicting demand to decide on cyclic and safety inventory levels. You will never accurately predict the future so you know there is already uncertainty in your decision. Plus or minus 10% is usually considered a good error percentage for predicting inventory. If your data is accurate and you create your prediction, you then decide what level of safety inventory you need to cover the 10% of uncertainty.

Now imagine that your base data is incorrect. You expect your prediction to be off by 10%, but it is actually off by 50%. You commit the resources to either buying too much or too little inventory. If you buy too much, the probability it will become obsolete increases. If you buy too little, the probability of lost sales increases. Both potentially costly scenarios can be avoided by proper system analysis and design. Additionally, you now have to redesign your system to ensure your data is accurate. If a system is not designed right the first time, you will eventually build the system again. It is far better to roll out new systems that provide new business advantages than fixing systems that were not designed correctly in the first place.

Once the interview process is complete, you can translate the system needs into goals. Communicate the goals to all stakeholders and adjust them if necessary. The goals are then translated to project milestones and assigned dates. Each project milestone is then broken into sub steps and resources are assigned.

One milestone will always be actually designing the system. If it is a technical system, this will also involve choosing software and hardware. I cannot stress enough the importance of designing a system to be as simple as possible. Simple systems have higher uptime, are easier to troubleshoot, and are less prone to errors.

Which machine will have a problem first, the one with fifty moving parts or the one with a thousand moving parts? Simplicity is good. Simplicity works. Design the system as simply as possible to meet your needs.

For example, there is a lot of material written on data silos, separate islands of information in companies. The idea of a data silo is great as long as you only have one silo. A single silo means that all of your data is in one place so no interfaces need to be designed to cross connect data sources and ensure data integrity. A single silo is simple. It is easier to create, manage, and troubleshoot. The two obvious choices are a single data silo mirrored to multiple sites for redundancy or a meta-framework that seamlessly links multiple data silos into a single virtual data silo. The virtual data silo adds an entire layer of complexity. The extra layer potentially represents a whole new arena for things to go wrong. This increases support costs and can disrupt data integrity, which can lead to uncertainty in business decisions.

By following a few simple system analysis and design rules, new systems can be designed and rolled out with far greater efficiency. Define your needs long before you design the system. All stake holders need to be involved in the interview process. Plan feedback loops to ensure data integrity. Derive your system goals and translate them into project milestones. Design your system to be as simple as possible. Remember the acronym KISS: Keep it Simple Silly.