The most important skill business leaders can have today is the ability to lead significant organizational change. It is rapidly becoming clear that business not only has to cope with change but with an accelerating rate of change. (see “the Singularity is Near, Ray Kurweil, 2006). As the rate of change increases (exponentially, not linearly), problems increase in complexity.
How can any organization, and in particular T&CD, face down the dual challenges of rapidly increasing complexity and rate of change? It is the author’s opinion that exploiting synergy is the course most likely to lead to success. Focus groups drawn from all across the organization (see section 3) can give a jump start to this process. Trained facilitators should assist the groups to organize as networks which will continuously develop emergent practices and collaborate around common goals. Although collaboration tools such as ShareK are available, it is unlikely that anything substantial can be achieved using web-based tools alone. Sharek was basically introduced to replace the ill-fated Livelink, but this cannot capture the imagination of the new generation brought up on online games. Serious consideration should be given to acquiring a 24x7 social environment for online teaming such as Protosphere (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=protosphere&search_type=&aq=f )
