Irving Wladawsky-Berger

Governance and Pragmatism: Moving Beyond “The Culture of No”

Checks and balances is one of the most important principles for making decisions and getting things done in a highly complex organization.  While we primarily associate checks and balances with the US system of government, I believe that it equally applies to any other complex organizational system.  It implies an organizational structure and a set of procedures to ensure that no one unit or individual has too much power over major decisions, especially those decisions that, if wrong, could have serious consequences.  It forces the different parts of the organization to cooperate.  It trades off short term efficiency and speed in favor of the longer term stability of the institution. 

Most large companies have set up some form of check-and-balances organizational structure, often embodied in the separation of line and staff management.  There is a built-in contention system in such an organizational structure.  In addition to supporting the line functions, the staffs serve as the checks-and-balances of the company, making sure that the activities of all departments and individuals follow the company’s strategy and are in compliance with business, legal and regulatory requirements.

The Rise of the Chief Digital Officer

At its recent Symposium/ITxpo 2012 in Orlando, Gartner predicted that by 2015, about a quarter of all organizations will have created a new seat at the senior executive table - the Chief Digital Officer.  Gartner’s prediction is based on the major transformation underway as companies are digitizing both their sources of revenue as well as their services. 

“Organizations are digitizing segments of business, such as moving marketing spend from analog to digital, or digitizing the research and development budget.  Secondly, organizations are digitizing how they service their clients, in order to drive higher client retention.  Thirdly, they are turning digitization into new revenue streams.  Gartner analysts said this is resulting in every budget becoming an IT budget.  To address these changes, organizations will create the role of a Chief Digital Officer as part of the business unit leadership.” 

I had not heard much about the Chief Digital Officer until I read about Gartner’s prediction.  But, the more I’ve thought about it, the more I like the concept.  Chief Digital Officer succinctly captures the future direction of the CIO role. 

“Chief information officer (CIO), or information technology (IT) director, is a job title commonly given to the most senior executive in an enterprise responsible for the information technology and computer systems that support enterprise goals,” is how Wikipedia defines CIO.”  While accurate, this definition feels somewhat dated.

Solving Big Problems in Our 21st Century Information Society

The November issue of the MIT Technology Review featured a provocative article, Why We Can’t Solve Big Problems, written by its editor in chief Jason Pontin.  The article focuses on a feeling, - commonplace in Silicon Valley, - that since the Apollo program that put a man in the moon on July 21, 1969, something may have happened to humanity’s capacity to solve big problems.  The article reminds me how much our society has changed in the last twenty years, in particular, the different way we solved big problems at the zenith of our 20th century industrial economy versus the way we now do so in the early stages of the 21st century information economy. 

The Apollo program was launched at the height of the Cold War.  In April of 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, reinforcing the fears that the US was falling behind the technical and military competition with the Soviet Union.  A month later, in a speech before a join session of Congress, President John F. Kennedy issued a challenge to the nation: 

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.  No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.” 

“This required the greatest peacetime mobilization in the nation’s history,” writes Pontin.  “Although NASA was and remains a civilian agency, the Apollo program was possible only because it was a lavishly funded, semi-militarized project . . . In all, NASA spent $24 billion, or about $180 billion in today's dollars, on Apollo; at its peak in the mid-1960s, the agency enjoyed more than 4 percent of the federal budget. The program employed around 400,000 people and demanded the collaboration of about 20,000 companies, universities, and government agencies.”

Reflections on the Nature of Human Organizations

Urbanization is one of the major forces transforming societies all over the world.  The rapid pace of urbanization is succinctly summarized in these sentences from the 2012 World Urbanization Prospects of the United Nations Population Division:  

“Between 2011 and 2050, the world population is expected to increase by 2.3 billion, passing from 7.0 billion to 9.3 billion (United Nations, 2011). At the same time, the population living in urban areas is projected to gain 2.6 billion, passing from 3.6 billion in 2011 to 6.3 billion 2050.  Thus, the urban areas of the world are expected to absorb all the population growth expected over the next four decades while at the same time drawing in some of the rural population.  As a result, the world rural population is projected to start decreasing in about a decade and there will likely be 0.3 billion fewer rural inhabitants in 2050 than today.”

In 1900, less than 15 percent of world’s population lived in cities.  According to the latest UN estimates, 52 percent of the world’s population now lives in urban areas.  That number is estimated to go up to 60 percent by 2030, and near 70 percent by 2050. 

Why are metropolitan areas continuing to grow at such a rapid pace?  After all, back in the 1990s, quite a few people were predicting that the Internet would cause cities to decline.  The Internet would enable people to work from anywhere, so they would choose to live in less populated areas, where lower costs and more space would let them enjoy a better quality of life.  Needless to say, these predictions have not come true.