The authors of “Wikinomics” make bold claims, and offer four provative principles that re-define how companies are competing in today’s increasingly collaborative world. What might it be like to go that way? Find out how people may react.
The Wikinomics authors, Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, assert: “twenty years from now we will look back at this… as a critical tipping point in ecomomic and social history. We entered a new age… based on new business models where the nature of the game changed.” They go on to describe four principles - openness, peer-to-per working, sharing, and acting globally - as defining how successful 21st century firms will compete.
The new ways of competing were first demonstrated in software (Linux) then spread into publishing (Wikipedia) and music (iPod, iTunes) and now we can see mass collaboration in many sectors (pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, aerospace, education, government) becoming mainstream and a new orthodoxy.
Do you know any leader who still boasts of their company being hierarchical, closed or secretive? But has your organisation yet managed to shift in that direction? Tapscott and Williams quote Bob Dylan and say this will... "shake your windows and rattle your doors". You can try a quick litmus test to find out. Notice what happens when you raise the Wikinomics idea!
I did this recently to help a client team think about their vision to 2020. I invited them to consider adopting the four Wikinomics principles, and generated a surprising range of reactions: "this is really inspiring"..."this was a wild storm"... "I wish you had given this earlier"... "you are giving me a headache"... "it's too big for us"... "we've got too much going on right now"... "have you any smaller more practical ideas?"
In summary, aspect that a few of them most loved and embraced, many others rejected!
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Perhaps unsurprisingly shaking windows provokes defensiveness, but despite this we can expect leaders to continuing throwing open their doors, to co-create entirely new economic eco-systems.
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