When presenting EA initiatives there will be those in the audience who acquiesce, and there will be naysayers. I think there have been many discussions on how to promote these initiatives, as well as techniques to deal with known challenges or pushbacks. Pushback should come at no surprise, since enterprise architects are agents of change, and as such, in some eyes, represent a threat to the status quo, particularly when the organization is too comfortable in it. Culture can be such a powerful force that can counteract and resist initiatives for change, no matter how good the initiative, or how brilliant the strategy. As Peter Drucker points out, "culture eats strategy for breakfast."
But before we dismiss these issues as par for the course, there's one "elephant in the room" that we also need to address and put out in the open. The sensitive issue of "corporate politics", "turf wars", and other dysfunctions, needs to be brought out, since these can act as road blocks to change. These I think, in many places, is a never ending dynamic that cause toxic fumes to suffocate the organization, and ultimately draws out circus caricatures. EA's initiatives will be dead on the tracks when architects get caught in the cross-fire, or worse - directly embroiled in these conflicts, and EA becomes part of the problem. As we have noted in class, these organizational issues create silos, and these silos smother collaboration and productivity, drive people crazy in their frustration, and ultimately puts the company mission and goals in danger.
Surely we've all seen this. For the most part of my consulting career (from days of Apple IIe and IBM360), I've been inside quite a very long list of organizations -- some excellent, some less so, some big, very big, small, and very small; some very popular global companies, and some quite obscure. And it happens equally in any of the verticals e.g. banking, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, and yes, even wicked-smart technology companies. So it's definitely not limited to EA vs. IT vs. Business, e.g. the list goes on with the folks from Quality vs. R&D, vs. Finance, vs. Production, vs. Marketing, vs. Sales. Admittedly, it appears to be the nature of the beast. And while even excellent companies are not perfect, they do tend to show a lot of "perfect moments". For the others, sadly, these perfect moments are spare, if not elusive.
The Nature of the Elephant.
Hopefully, it's only limited to resource contention, since this is less of a challenge than all other reasons. Otherwise, it's best to hunker down for a protracted solution when these silos, turf wars, and dysfunctions are caused by deep political rivalry, seemingly juvenile personality clashes, and deep irreconcilable biases. I hesitate to say "irreconcilable" but there are cases indeed when it is veritably so, and almost impossible to reconcile -- short of a god-like intervention.
Patrick Lencioni has written best-sellers on dysfunctional organizations and teams, and sums up the five main dysfunctions as shown below, and points out the usual manifestations. Note that the lack of trust - that thing that we talked about in class, serves as base for all dysfunctions.
image source: http://minglam.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-five-dysfunctions-of-team.html
Resolving Dysfunction.
According to Lencioni, we can start by building trust -- as was also pointed out in class. We do this by having the courage to open up and having a sort of "vulnerability" to take good risks on people -- i.e. generous in giving the benefit of the doubt. Trust allows other people to speak up without fear of retribution, and thus foster healthy debates. Healthy discussions lead to more ideas, which result in more confidence in the decisions made, and thus a higher degree of buy-in and commitment. Higher commitment makes it easier to take accountability, and a strong system of accountabilities creates a reliable system of metrics with which to measure results. By doing so, the organization can strengthen its culture, and in turn transform confusion and in-fighting into clarity and alignment.
image source: http://ianchadwick.com/blog/the-five-dysfunctions-of-a-team/
The Culture of Nice.
It's also good to note that the principle of "being nice" also applies. But it only really makes sense when everyone is nice to everyone else - as a cultural practice, and not just nice to people in their own turf, or only nice to people they want to be nice to. Thus being nice actually translates to a higher principle - the principle of "Diversity". More and more, global competitiveness ultimately requires embracing this concept, and more so the practice of such. Those who remain parochial will be far from the hall of legendary companies, and to one degree or another, will be left in the margins.
Leadership and "Adult Supervision".
On a lighter take, I would think that this phenomenon is often closely analogous to juvenile pettiness, and as such, can perhaps be solved by better "adult supervision". True leaders who can command respect will be able to gain consensus and move the organization forward into a happy stable future. For those at the grassroots, we can promote and uphold excellent leaders by supporting those who truly matter to the survival of the company. Moreover, if we are genuinely committed to saving the ship in which we float, we need to neutralize those who are merely political sycophants, mainly concerned with their own self-preservation and the advancement of their individual position.
Conclusion - The Good Politics.
My blog posts so far appears to be assuming a theme on leadership - and I suspect rightly so. Looking at the bright side, there are a lot of good people in most organizations, who are enlightened and well-meaning. Not all of the notions of politics are bad -- and the good side of politics can be used to facilitate healthy consensus building towards strategy execution. We can only hope that those in management who are well-meaning, will also master the good political skills, enough to survive the political jungle, and are enabled to pursue the good things towards company mission.
EA can play a role in organizational leadership. With its mission to bring big picture clarity to the organization, it can help transform the culture by enabling genuine diverse collaboration and team esprit d'corp, in order to successfully execute on strategy.
So there we have it. It can be a messy topic, but it's good to discuss how the sausage is made from time to time.
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