Mobile Applications - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 470

The Model Builder's kit has a tight framework: a precise construction
sequence, no part interchangeability, and high integration. Erector Set has
a loose framework that does not encourage interaction among parts and
insufficiently discriminates among compatible parts. In contrast, each
component in the LEGO system carries all it needs to interact with other
components (the interaction framework rejects most unintended parts) and
can grow without end.
22.1.1 Stability versus Agility
Most large-scale change efforts in established enterprises fail to meet expec-
tations because nearly all models of organization design, effectiveness,
and change assume stability is not only desirable but also attainable. The
theory and practice in organization design explicitly encourage organiza-
tions to seek alignment, stability, and equilibrium. The predominant logic
of organizational effectiveness has been that an organization's fit with its
environment, its execution, and its predictability are the keys to its success.
Organizations are encouraged to institutionalize best practices, freeze them
into place, focus on execution, stick to their knitting, increase predictability,
and get processes under control. These ideas establish stability as the key to
performance.
Stability of a distinctive competitive advantage is a strong driver for orga-
nization design because of its expected link to excellence and effective-
ness. Leveraging an advantage requires commitments that focus attention,
resources, and investments to the chosen alternatives. In other words, com-
petitive advantage results when enterprises finely hone their operations to
perform in a particular way. This leads to large investments in operating
technologies, structures, and ways of doing things. If such commitments
are successful, they lead to a period of high performance and a considerable
amount of positive reinforcement. Financial markets reward stable competi-
tive advantages and predictable streams of earnings: a commitment to align-
ment reflects a commitment to stability.
Consequently, enterprises are built to support stable strategies, organiza-
tional structures, and enduring value creations, not to vary. For example, the
often-used strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) anal-
ysis encourages the firm to leverage opportunities while avoiding weak-
nesses and threats. This alignment among positive and negative forces is
implicitly assumed to remain constant, and there is no built-in assumption
of agility. When environments are stable or at least predictable, enterprises
are characterized by rules, norms, and systems that limit experimenta-
tion, control variation, and rewarded consistent performance. They have
many checks and balances in place to ensure that the organization operates
in the prescribed manner. Thus, to get the high performance they want,
enterprises put in place practices they see as a good fit, without considering
whether they can be changed and whether they will support changes in