If you were to re-organize a system, how would you go about doing it? Baal and I have spent hours arguing on this over the years (we had our reasons, believe me!), and emerged on two clearly opposite sides: I was all for the top-down approach, and Baal was for the bottom-up approach.
Imagine that there is a group of people, and you want them to change in some manner.
View #1: Leadership is the key to change. All great revolutions in the world happened because of great leaders. A leader who has vision and intelligence, is a dynamic individual capable of leading by example, and has the charisma to sway the people to the cause, is what you need. Bold changes call for bold decisions by bold leaders, and if the leader knows how to lead, the people will follow.
View #2: All changes wrought from the top or "management" is doomed to failure. By coercing, coaxing or enticing people to do what you want, you will never achieve your purpose, as any change is temporary, and any action is half-hearted. What you really ought to do is to spend time in educating the people with regard to your purpose. You need to bring about a change in culture: that is best achieved by preaching to them, changing them slowly but surely at the heart. Once your purpose is ingrained in every person, they will be willing and dedicated.
Sure, there is a middle path, but the basic question is one of philosophy, so you can't be a cat on the wall.
To my amusement, the same question appears to have been posed to the Tamil public through the movies Indhiyan and Anniyan. In the former, the hero tries to bring corrupt politicians and bureaucrats back in line by threatening, and doing, murder. In the latter, the hero urges the people to bring themselves back in line, to follow law and ethics to the letter, in order for our country to improve. Naturally, I'm oversimplifying here, but those who have seen the movies will understand, and those who haven't will need a LOT more explaining.
Having said that I was a staunch supporter of the top-down approach, I must say here that my stance has been eroded by the unlikeliest of entities: my courses! In the next post, I will explain to you the concepts of self-organization and distributed control, and how simple rules can drive complex behaviour.
Cheers,
Prashanth.
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5 comments:
The top-down and the bottom-up approaches converge not at the organizational level but at a mental level. If you believe that every person is a leader in his own right and is sane enough to understand the importance and implications of change in a certain way, it won't entail the top management to present an alien idea and coerce the bottom rung nor would the top management have to acknowledge the sudden awakening of its work-force, it becomes one symbiotic process as is observed today in industries driven by knowledge which is equally accessible by all concerned.
That said, the top-down approach works best when a large proportion of people you lead are fairly ignorant of the world outside, typical of the mass manufacturing sector, while the bottom up approach is often seen in industries where the management is often only as powerful as its employees like in the financial consulting industry.
Intern: does it matter? If you have a different answer for each, do share them with us.
I concur to a great deal with the comments made by HoH.
It all boils down to whether the people you are attempting to control are laypersons who like to be nose-led into doing what you want them to, or they are rational individuals who need a bit more convincing to appeal to their logical approach towards everything. So both techniques work and it all depends on the situation.
If you wanted to change all the people in India for the improvement of the nation: I'm talking increase awareness and responsibility, reduce corruption, etc etc... then which approach is better? Is strong leadership the key or is it a fundamental change in the people? The condition imposed by me is that you can't have both, so pick one and explain why!
I think in that case it has to be strong central leadership. Sometimes even bordering on autocracy to enforce some stringent laws.
--kk
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