Self organizing virtual community case study
Major Oil Company exploits self-organizing virtual communities
Thanks to Brian Cleland for drawing my attention to an article in the Wall Street Journal by David Wessel entitled Motivating Workers By Giving Them a Vote.
In multinational organisations with thousands of employees spread all over the globe effectively sharing knowledge, expertise and experience can be a real headache.
The article describes the success Schlumberger have had in using online communities of practice with some 23 communities ranging from chemistry to well-engineering supporting 140 special-interest subgroups, and involving more than 11,750 employees as members.
Schlumberger attribute much of their success in this area to the decision they made to make the communities self-governing and even allowing each community to elect its own leaders.
Self-organisation is a critical success factor in sustainable biological communities.
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Bioteams Books Reviews
Team member responsibility problems
One of the main dilemmas for team leaders and members is the thorny issue of responsibility. We often fixate on the problem of leaders and members not taking enough responsibility but according to Dr Scott Peck they can also do damage if they try to take too much!
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