Based on communications with current and former employees, Microsoft’s midriff problem is one of middling middle management. The number of middle mangers swelled over the last decade, and they also are the employees making key management decisions, which includes who gets laid off or fired and where the remaining people work.

There are two ways to structure a company: One is the old traditional way with a vertical hierarchy. That worked for thousand of years from Egypt to the Roman Empire and British one as well. The problem with vertical structures is the lack of horizontal levels. But that’s where actually the work is done.

Lets have a look on a small company, like a coffee shop. You have some baristas, they are good in Coffee making and foam decoration. You have ONE shop manager, who is doing the administration work. Others are cleaners, waitresses, delivery boys. They all report to one manager. Scale it up to 3 coffee shops. Now the three supervisors will report to a new super-supervisor, who isnt in a coffeeshop anymore. . Scale it to 200 coffee shops and there will be more and more super-super-super-supervisors.
The question is: Why they have to report at all: Why they can’t just send the numbers of profit and the orders of supply, and another department is just analyzing?
Reports are a dangerous virus, that has affected nearly every company, and they are usually useless. Nobody is reading that shit unless he or she is a middle-manager, whos only duty is to read reports and create new reports.

When Joe asked former Microsoft employees about the last layoffs, he got thsi answer:

Out of a starting staff of nearly 20, four remained, all managers. I’m not sure what they manage.

That’s the point: Middle-Managers spend most of the time to keep their overpaid job. They lick asses to the superiors and kick asses of their employees. Sorry for the rude words, but that’s how it works.

If you have a look on Sharepoint or Groove, than you will see that actually this so called collaboration software reflects the Microsoft dilemma. Instead of easy sharing it’s actually more about structure and permissions. And because companies are used to Microsoft, they follow their way.

The question is: If Sharepoint and Groove are great tools to increase collaboraton with the goal of doing better, be more efficienct and innovative, why is Microsoft laying off people and the opposite of innovative? Because their products suck.

Look at Google on the other side: 20 percent time for own projects, leaner, sometime flat structure, less bureaucracy. Thats how you get ideas and new markets.

If you are a business in South-East-Asia and you want to improve the way your company works, let me now. My company and me can help you.

I don’t remember where I picked that up years ago, but I liked this description: Our work is like a cappuccino. The coffee, that’s our day job, what we do fro 9 to 5 and where me make a living from. Then we have some other work, we do that in our free time or on weekends, where we create websites for others, repair cars, sell art, whatever. We like that work, and we make some money from. We call it the milk foam or cream on top. And then there is the work we do as a volunteer, helping elderly people in the neighborhood, organizing summer camps, joining school committees. We like it, but there is no money coming from. That’s the chocolate on top.

Now, my work was pretty much like a cappuccino for years. I worked for a newspaper, got well payed, did some public relations on the side where I got some money to buy a new computer or stuff like that, and then I was organizing rock music events and stand up comedy nights, what I liked a lot, but what actually cost me money.

The change

I actually first changed my coffee taste. I switched from Cappuccino to Coffee latte. A Coffee latte is made out of one or two shots espresso and then a huge amount of milk. And I thought by myself, why not changing my work like that: Having some work like and espresso, where still a lot of money is coming from but in less time, and using the remaining time for the kind of work what you like, but is less paid? The hot milk? (Ok, you still can put chocolate on top)

The situation in Vietnam

Cappuccino and Coffee latte isn’t well known in Vietnam, people here are drinking Ca Phe sua da, that means Coffee with sweet milk and ice. But that actually describes their work as well. The very strong coffee is the daily hard work people are doing here. There is only a small amount of that sweet milk, where they can make money on the side. But there is a lot of ice in the glass, and thats the family duties: Caring for the parents and relatives, borrowing money to family members, helping them out with other stuff. No chocolate work, because you don’t really like it.

In Germany we used to have filter coffee, usually black. Even that fits if you see German people are very focussed on their work, drinking strong coffee without any milk and sugar, only doing their job. Hmm, what about the so called american coffee? That’s left for the comments section…

(Pictures by Thomas Wanhoff, http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnystiletto, http://www.flickr.com/photos/giovannijl-s_photohut under Creative Commons Licence

So what is contribution? Let’s say you want to build a house together and you ask your friends to help. You need an architect, someone who knows what kind of material you need and how to get it and then you need people to put brick on brick. The goal is to have a nice house. It’s not how much someone contributed, it’s about the quality of contribution. You would not see a lot of help if someone is always saying that he did it different or even better. You would like him to do better with your house, make a better design or mix the cement better or whatever.

That’s why people who see Google Wave as a chat fail. That’s why people who see a volunteer project as a chat fail. That’s why you fail in your company when you not raise your hand when tasks need to be assigened. It’s not just giving your opinion. It’s about taking action.

People are not so stupid as many bosses might think. That’s why the company is actually successful, because of smart people. The same sense they use to discover company “secrets” they use to research the market for new opportunities. So use this sense and communicate more open with your staff.

and that’s the problem: Vietnam has still ap problem with sharing information. That’s why there is no innovation coming from here, that’s why they need foreign help in nearly every sector. If you sit on your information and keep it, that you will never know if it’s right or wrong and how to do things better. If others don’t share you will never get a new idea. And so Vietnam still sticks with coffee, rice and fish (and Nike shoes) as export goods.
The recent web events I joined (except the Webwednesday) are transforming from open geek meetings into beer driven small talks with nothing to learn. In opposite, joining a 2 hours afternoon meeting in Phnom Penh last month brought me a lot of ideas and contacts.

In a world, where are no secrets anymore, just information you don’t know yet, it’s kind of stupid to hide your ideas. Together with openness in import rules thats the biggest challenge for Vietnam: Transforming into a member of the new global business order.

So, if software companies cannot use Google documents, who else? It’s not that Google is complicated. It’s that word is just working fine, and people don’t want to change. Most users don’t see the great advantage of collaboration. They might be because you just want to be on the safe side: Send a document by email and your work is done (for now). Shall other now review it.

What most companies don’t understand and see: Collaboration is the only way to work more efficient and faster. You can fire people like crazy to safe cost, but the work still has to be done. So you need to change your behavior, they way you work together.

Some advise, above all for my Asian friends:
If you want to create something, like a proposal, architecture draft, whatever, and you call for a meeting, then give up hierarchy: The only thing a boss should do in a meeting is taking care that people stay with the topics. Don’t try to lead the discussion when it comes to ideas. Don’t hide information (like someone did in a meeting where he called the client by skype chat and did not invite the others oin the meeting for a conference chat).

If several people need to work on a document, save time while working together like you do in google docs. You can not only save time, you can discuss issues faster and better and you still have an overview about recent changes.

Content first: Sometimes people start with the template first, creating chapters, formatting them, drawing graphs. Bullshit: Text first, make up then.

And: Powerpoint is for presentation, Word is for reading. But most people still use Powerpoint as a kind of landscape word format.

Last but not least: Never send Powerpoint presentations to clients if the animations aren’t really important. Send a pdf and its find. Clients are bored about time wasting animations with flying bullets and text that drops down for no reason.

The workflow for creating a presentation collaborative:
Create a Mindmeister Account
Start a Mindmap
Invite other collaborators
Work togterh on the Mindmap simultanoulsy
Insert pictures, icons, whatever you like
Export as Mindmanagers
Import in XMind
Start presentation
Done!

Want to know more about this? Ask me for a one day workshop about collaboration, mindmaps and more effective presentations!

But we still go to our office everyday from 9 to 5 (or even longer). When I talk with companies about collaboration and a break up of traditional structures, most of them say, it’s important to have the staff at one place because of the communication.

I doubt that. Even colleagues sitting next to each other talk on Skype instead personal. Supervisors sending emails about everything to their staff, just to have it documented. It seems more that they want to control people instead of giving them space for communication.

So why not thinking about letting people more flexible and mobile? In a city where everyone is complaining about the traffic and the time they need to go to work, it should be easy to work online and mobile.

Things companies should think about:
If your staff has a webmail access, why not having a core time spending in the office and let them spend the rest of the time at home or whereever they want?

If staff spends, let’s say, two or three days in the office and the rest somewhere else, they might even work harder and more. It’s worth a try I think.
Companies can save money for office space and, more important, might have more motivated stuff.

When I was meeting companies, I was sometime surprised about their offices. A lot are very basic building, not really representative and impressive. Why not inviting clients for meetings to better places like coffee shops or hotels. You can rent a conference room for less money and have a nice environment.

Yes, this is not working for every company and not for every department in yor company. And yes, I know that a lot of companies do this already. I know people who always ask me for meeting in a coffee shop just to have a chance to leave the office. So there is a demand for working mobile. Let’s give it a chance.

I am currently developing workshops together with some experts to guide companies trough the new features of the internet. We will offer workshops about:

(Online) Collaboration tools
Open Source migration
Intranet portals
Social media

As an independent consultant I do not prefer any software or software developer, although we know reliable companies for different kind of projects. My aim is to provide you the best solution for your needs. In the workshops you will get an overview about whats on the market and how your company can benefit from.

Both questions I would answer with a strong YES. There are two kind of management schools. One is old-fashioned, but still very successful: It’s the “start on the low level and end up at the board”. That means: Learn about the company you are working for.
Another school teaches you: Go to Harvard, get your MBA, and then start right at the management level.

The latter means you are kind of able to manage everything. That might be the case for certain management skills. But, and this is my strong believe, when it comes to a crisis, you are lost.

The reason is: A company is not just for itself. A company normally sells something, either service or products. And a company has customers. So it’s just important to know a) your products and b)your customers.

In a crisis like the one we have now, the Managers are doing what they learned at school. They take a look at the numbers and trying to reduce costs as well as to ask the banks for more money.

The Businessmen are focusing on the products: Can we produce better quality with lower costs? Or do we need more innovation? Do we really understand our customers and what they want?

That’s the difference. You will be able to understand your customers and products if you never had a sales call or just used your own products. Look at Apple: No products will be marketed if Steve Jobs hasn’t played around with it for weeks.

That’s why I think a CEO, or business owner of any kind, should know about what his business is about. A lot don’t.

Picture by http://www.flickr.com/photos/acaben