The Open Source Office

Distribution of power in the marketplace can lead to multiplication of power for the leader instead of dilution of power. In today's open-information world, is there any other option? It seems to me the issue for leaders is how to motivate the hearts and minds of employees as collaborators rather than how to direct them as workers.

"In the old gray-flannel organization, the executive suite was where the action was. In what’s now known as the open-source workplace, power is distributed. The ceo is no longer omnipotent --and the truly effective ones don’t want to be. The best ideas may evolve from the bottom up and sometimes from the outside in. New technologies such as private workplace wikis and blogs are disrupting command-and-control corporate structures. Any employee can create, edit, refine, comment on, or fix an idea. What some used to dismiss as a recipe for chaos is more likely a path to greater productivity.
The workplace becomes more transparent as power and information are instant-ly shared.

"Companies are even reaching outside their ranks to the virtual commons. Online fan clubs help lego Group design toy kits, so they sell out fast with no marketing. Procter & Gamble executives tap the wisdom of online crowds at InnoCentive, a Web network of 80,000 scientists, to find solutions for problems that stump their own staff. Such “peer production,” as some call it, creates value out of social behavior. In the new office, products, business plans, and even meeting agendas are created collectively instead of individually. "