Idealized Design for Virtual Teaming
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The document discusses the challenges and strategies for General Electric (GE) regarding virtual teaming amidst declining profits and restructuring efforts. It emphasizes the importance of idealized design, which involves creating a compelling vision and actionable plans to improve virtual collaboration, while also addressing potential pitfalls. GE must adapt its operations and leverage virtual teamwork to remain competitive in a rapidly changing global landscape.
![Idealized Design
"[An organization] creates its future by
continuously closing the gap between
where it is at any moment of time and
where it would most like to be"
(Ackoff, 2001, p. 3).
The idealized design approach "is
based on the belief that an
organization's future depends at least
as much on what it does between now
and then, as on what is done to it"
(Ackoff, 2001, p. 3).
Mission Statement
• Formulating the mess
• Ends planning
• Means planning
• Resource planning
• Design of implementation
• Design of controls
Idealization & Realization](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/idealizeddesignforvirtualteaming-200412161158/85/Idealized-Design-for-Virtual-Teaming-5-320.jpg)
![References & Select Reading
Ackoff, R. (2001). A brief guide to interactive planning and idealized design. Unpublished
Paper, Interact Consulting, May 31.
Ackoff, R., Magidson, J., & Addison, H. (2006). Idealized design: How to dissolve tomorrow's
crisis … today. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Bailey, S. (2013, March 5). How to beat the five killers of virtual working. Forbes. Retrieved
from https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastianbailey/2013/03/05/how-to-overcome-the-five-
major-disadvantages-of-virtual-working/#1442b78f2734
DeRosa, D. (2017, October 5). 3 companies with high-performing virtual teams. [Blog post].
Retrieved from https://www.onpointconsultingllc.com/blog/3-companies-with-high-performing-
virtual-teams
Flexjobs Corporation. (2019). Flexjobs. Retrieved from https://www.flexjobs.com/](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/idealizeddesignforvirtualteaming-200412161158/85/Idealized-Design-for-Virtual-Teaming-14-320.jpg)
Idealized Design for Virtual Teaming
- 1. Idealized Design for Virtual Teaming Olivier Serrat 2020
- 2. General Electric Industries • Aviation • Capital • Energy connections & lighting • Healthcare • Power • Oil & gas • Renewable energy • Transportation Size • 313,000 employees worldwide (2017) • Present in 180 countries across seven regions • US$120 billion in revenues (2017) Stakeholders • Communities & individuals • Customers & consumers • Employees • The physical environment • Shareholders Decline • Near- meltdown in 2017 • Profits: -$5.8 billion (2017) • Total return to shareholders: - 3.8% (2017) "Back to Basics" Strategy • Put customers at the center • Manage for operational performance first • Set fewer, more impactful priorities General Electric Company. (2019a). 2018 annual report of General Electric.
- 3. The Rise of Virtual Teaming Half of all American employees hold a job deemed compatible with telework (Flexjobs Corporation, 2019). FlexJobs reckons that telecommuting grew 103% since 2009 and expects that 50% of people will work remotely by 2020 (Flexjobs Corporation, 2019). GE had 106,000 employees in the United States in 2017, or 34% of its workforce (General Electric Company, 2019a). But, the virtualization of work is a global phenomenon. There are action teams; management teams; networked teams; offshore information systems development teams; parallel teams; project or product development teams; service teams; and work, production, or functional teams (Management Study Guide, 2019).
- 4. Virtual Teaming 4GE GE is carrying out extensive cost reductions that will impact operations, employee retention, and results negatively yet may not achieve the expected benefits (General Electric Company, 2019a). GE invested early in virtual, instructor-led training curricula (DeRosa, 2017). The advantages of virtual teaming are lower overhead costs, more satisfied employees, and higher scalability; the pitfalls can be cultural clashes, dearth of social interaction, lack of trust, less cohesiveness, poor team spirit, risk to reputation, and security and compliance issues (Bailey, 2013; Management Study Guide, 2019). Loss of institutional knowledge and loss of key personnel from restructuring mean that GE should take steps to retain critical knowledge and—the very subject of this proposal— upgrade and scale virtual teaming.
- 5. Idealized Design "[An organization] creates its future by continuously closing the gap between where it is at any moment of time and where it would most like to be" (Ackoff, 2001, p. 3). The idealized design approach "is based on the belief that an organization's future depends at least as much on what it does between now and then, as on what is done to it" (Ackoff, 2001, p. 3). Mission Statement • Formulating the mess • Ends planning • Means planning • Resource planning • Design of implementation • Design of controls Idealization & Realization
- 6. Envisioning "Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion," said former GE CEO Jack Welch (Tichy & Charan, 1989, para. 7). Without a compelling vision statement for virtual teaming that encapsulates decided purpose, GE will find it difficult to promote enrollment, commitment, and compliance toward shared meaning. Core Questions • What are strengths and assets of GE's virtual teaming? • What needs to be changed? • What would the dream end‐state of GE's virtual teaming look like in a perfect world? Building Blocks of the Vision Statement • Actions • Targeted beneficiaries • Services • Problems • Partners • Causes • Time horizon
- 7. Formulating the Mess Formulating the mess will be about identifying GE's Achilles' heel, the weakness that will lead to downfall if GE cannot adapt to changing internal and external circumstances. • The compass of investigations will include markets, services, organization, management, personnel, facilities and equipment, and external affairs and relations, to name a few parameters (Ackoff, 2001, p. 10–13). A team drawing representatives from across GE will conduct a situational analysis including • A systems analysis, viz., a comprehensive description and assessment of how GE operates • An obstruction analysis, viz., an identification of features and properties of GE, especially patterns of behavior and related influencing factors, that hinder progress • Reference projections, viz., forecasts of relevant aspects of GE's future • A reference scenario, viz., a prognosis of what will happen to GE if current behaviors and activities do not change and the analyses and projections hold (Ackoff, 2001, p. 5).
- 8. Ends & Means Planning Ends planning will be the primordial process of defining GE's desired present state, principally by identifying gaps between the desired present state and the reference scenario. Crucially, the idealized design for virtual teaming at GE will have to demonstrably counteract the self-destruction prognosticated by the reference scenario in the formulation of the mess (Ackoff, 2001, p. 6). Means planning will be the process of determining what must be done (e.g., actions, good practices, innovations, programs, projects, policies, strategies, etc.) to close the gaps between the desired present state and the reference scenario. Vitally, means planning must obey two constraints and adhere to one requirement: the idealized design will have to be technologically feasible and operationally viable, which ought also condition the scope and scale of virtual teaming, for example subject to industry, function, business processes, etc.; also, the design will have to be such that GE can learn from successes and failures and adapt in consequence (Ackoff, 2001, p. 7–8).
- 9. Design of Implementation & Controls Design of implementation will the process of articulating the what, when, where, who, and how of the idealized design so it might be put into action: taking into account motivational, organizational, technological, and other relevant factors, this will call for the creation of schedules and the allocation of requisite resources to corresponding tasks (Ackoff, 2001, p. 6). Design of controls will be the process of deciding how to monitor the schedules and related decisions of the implementation phase of the idealized design, recalibrating for failure to avoid the archetype of Eroding Goals, accounting for unexpected success, and evaluating results after all has been implemented (Ackoff, 2001, p. 7).
- 10. Potential Pitfalls & Strategies to Avoid Them Idealized design promotes understanding of what is to be designed (or redesigned), boosts creativity, generates new approaches to what is feasible, expedites planning, and speeds implementation (Ackoff, Magidson, & Addison, 2006, p. 11). However, three potential pitfalls in the process of idealized design for virtual teaming stand out and demand that countervailing strategies be formulated. Synergizing organizational forms Reconciling integration, differentiation, and fragmentation Enriching idealized design
- 11. Synergizing Organizational Forms The relevance of idealized design of virtual teaming is heightened in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that increasingly calls for network forms of organizing to complement hierarchies and markets. Virtual teams are more important than ever; this is a strength and clear evidence of the growing power of networks. Nonetheless, the blend of virtual and face-to-face teaming must be determined according to criteria. What might they be? The degree of dependence on the means of communication, the worth of the information provided by the tools, and the need for synchronicity of information exchange are three factors that will condition the level of virtuality in GE; that said, the languages and cultural make-up of virtual team members as well as the sheer number of work sites will be other factors (Management Study Guide, 2019).
- 12. Reconciling Integration, Differentiation, & Fragmentation Martin (2002) distinguishes three perspectives on organizational culture: integration, differentiation, and fragmentation. Given the control the integration perspective typically exerts, GE will need to make sure it arrives at a shared vision for virtual teaming that also draws from the differentiation and fragmentation perspectives. Future Search conferencing is a 3-day event designed to represent an organization's system in one room; explore the entire system in context before seeking to act on its parts; and take responsibility for action (Weisbord & Janoff, 1995). In sessions lasting half a day each, participants look at the past (highlights and milestones), the present (external trends, responses to trends, and owning actions), and the future (ideal scenarios) (Weisbord & Janoff, 1995). GE can intersperse the four or five sessions of Future Search conferencing across the six phases of idealization and realization when it initiates idealized design for virtual teaming.
- 13. Enriching Idealized Design For higher chances of success, GE's experience of idealized design for virtual teaming should make the most of such tools as force field analysis, organigraphs, participatory methods, the premortem technique, social network analysis, stakeholder analysis, etc. throughout the six phases of idealization and realization. It does not use such tools, GE will miss out on opportunities for more "outside–in" by not being in sufficient dialogue with the many interrelated and interdependent components of its very open system.
- 14. References & Select Reading Ackoff, R. (2001). A brief guide to interactive planning and idealized design. Unpublished Paper, Interact Consulting, May 31. Ackoff, R., Magidson, J., & Addison, H. (2006). Idealized design: How to dissolve tomorrow's crisis … today. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Bailey, S. (2013, March 5). How to beat the five killers of virtual working. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastianbailey/2013/03/05/how-to-overcome-the-five- major-disadvantages-of-virtual-working/#1442b78f2734 DeRosa, D. (2017, October 5). 3 companies with high-performing virtual teams. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.onpointconsultingllc.com/blog/3-companies-with-high-performing- virtual-teams Flexjobs Corporation. (2019). Flexjobs. Retrieved from https://www.flexjobs.com/
- 15. References & Select Reading General Electric Company. (2019a). 2018 annual report of General Electric. Retrieved from https://www.ge.com/investor-relations/annual-report General Electric Company. (2019b). General Electric Company. Retrieved from https://www.ge.com/ Howard, M. (2002). Clausewitz: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press Martin, J. (2002). Organizational culture: Mapping the terrain. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Management Study Guide. (2019). Different types of virtual teams. Retrieved from https://www.managementstudyguide.com/virtual-teams-articles.htm
- 16. References & Select Reading Serrat, O. (2012). Future Search Conferencing. Manila: Asian Development Bank. Weisbord, M., & Janoff, S. (1995). Future search: An action guide to finding common ground in organizations and communities. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler. Tichy, N., & Charan, R. (1989). Speed, simplicity, self-confidence: An interview with Jack Welch. Harvard Business Review, 67(5), pp. 112–120.