Veer points me to this post by Mayank. While Mayank brings to the post is a reasoning that strong competition is great for customers and for organizations.
I'd like to add to the fact that strong competition is beneficial to the organization when the organization is an 'open system' i.e. it senses feedback from and reacts to changes in the external environment. That means that an organization that hears and listens to negative and tough feedback from employees, vendors, customers and partners.
In these organizations there are no impediments for passing bad news from frontlines to middle and top management. These organizations do not pass the buck but take action on any sensing of change in the environment. Bureaucracy and organizational processes enable the change and learning to be embedded in the DNA of the organization.
However, if an organization is a 'closed system' where politics is played and blame-games are the norm, then strong competition only hastens the demise of the firm !
Hi Gautam
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, thanks for giving my viewpoint a place on your well-known management blog :-)
Well, you are right that organizations with "open system" will benefit most from competition. And chances are high that organizations with "closed system" may see their fall with increased competition.
But don't you think that it is very much possible that arrival of strong competitive forces might lead to trasformation of a "closed system" to an "open system"? When it is a matter of life and death, things can change fast. What do you think on this?
But there can be problems with open system as well!! Personal attacks can be a thing for which we have to tell the people not to, like in one case a fellow had put a gtalk status of not working with a person...whom he might be unfriendly with!
ReplyDeleteNow consider if we equate open system with an individual broadmindedness then these things will not work but if it is not the case then what ? Again the take is- with open system what will be differentiating line between personal and professional as relationships are kind of important in social media. I hope am getting it right ?