Nokia vs Apple, we can see how that one’s going, how about Google vs Facebook? What these matchups have in common is they are both between organizations with distinctly different cultures, one a collective and the other a dictatorship. I’m hoping that they are descriptive enough that it was obvious that the collectives were Nokia and Google and the dictatorships were Apple and Facebook
The way I would define a collective is one that is consensus driven, long running, incremental innovators. Dictatorships of course are driven by a singular personality or vision, fast moving, and favor revolutionary innovation.
Anyway, as I was thinking about these ideas I was watching a video about Grant McKracken’s book Chief Culture Officer and he brought up the idea of “cultural metrics”. I wonder if different metrics would be more appropriate for different organizations? It seems to me that collectives last longer but are slower moving and more prone to incremental innovation, so metrics that improved time to market, and rewarded more revolutionary innovation might be appropriate. Dictatorships? Not sure what would be appropriate for them, what metrics would Steve Jobs listen to anyway?
Image source: dannysullivan
Original Post: http://experiencecurve.com/archives/dictatorships-vs-collectives-strategic-metrics-for-organizations
