Socially intense operations
Post web era revealing flaws in practitioners' view of organizational development During the initial years of the new millennium, it became clear that the established ways of leading, building and organizing efficient and attractive businesses needed to be revitalized. The so-called web-era had given most practitioners a doomsday feeling in the sense that established businesses would have to give way to new web-based businesses. In fact, it went so far that some established players started their own web-based competitors to compete with their own business instead of giving new players an opening into the business.
The confused feeling could well be traced to what we came to call the transition period. What we saw was that established businesses also had equally established views on how businesses should be built, managed, and organized. These established views relied on solid scientific and empirical basis as they had been formulated well over a period of some 100 years.
Society at large had learned, at least since the days of Frederick Taylor, to build efficient and rational businesses adapted for primarily industrial activities. With the strong growth of the service sector during the last decades of the 20th century, many of these established views had been influenced, but the result had mainly materialized as a copy of the lessons of industrialism. Porter's appreciated publications that influenced most service providers can be seen as a masterpiece in this area. Kursiv text In the highly confused situation that arose at the end of the last millennium, the need to get guidelines for how the service operations would develop came in high demand. The vision became the most central management tool and the visionaries, the bearers of the future vision and the faith in the future, flocked around the top management in all types of businesses.
In this era of visions, not only service operations came to be influenced by the vision doctrine, but it also splashed back on industrial dittos. The vision, which had been in the toolbox for longer some time, came to be seen as more or less a natural law for a given business. There was even talk that indicated that "an employee should be able to wake up at two o'clock at night and right there and then be able to rabble the company's vision", an expression showing how central the vision was and how much energy and resources were put into it as the overall management tool.
We have chosen to call the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the transition period and by that we mean in the real sense not the breach between industrial and service production but more so the breach between the views of how businesses should be built, managed, and organized.
Transferring fluent knowledge versus fixed knowledge Industrial production is predominantly about transferring knowledge through products. Since the infancy of industrialism in England, the world has learned massive amounts about how knowledge can be packaged into products and spread prosperity around the world. The service businesses also seek to add value through system affiliations through connection to products and to the production of services.
The efficiency mantras that industrial production has taught us, are the ones we are happy to transfer to the service production arena, and naturally so, since for the first time in history we have managed to manifest our knowledge on a large scale using the product as a knowledge carrier. It has become synonymous with finding the Holy Arch and therefore it seems logical for us to see all types of knowledge transfer through the same or at least resembling success equations.
However, we can state that the success of the service delivery has been highly variable with the industrial logic as the bearer of the answer to how the modern service-based business should be built, managed, and organized. As previously pointed out, the process metaphor, with its genes from the industrial arena, has significantly affected the parts that the service management school has addressed and in a positive way in many respects, seen from the efficiency perspective. However, as we have also mentioned, using the same logics has not led us to achieve the same success in all parts of service production area and what was supposed to provide the basis for an answer, the knowledge management school, failed in establishing itself as the complementary counterforce that it initially seemed to be posed for.
So, in addition to service management and relatively simpler service matters where the process has been and is in focus, the more complex services have instead come to be about the individual's capacity. It seems that the leaderships of many organizations today need to focus more on attracting individuals than building the actual businesses. Regarding these more complex services, the individual is seen as the obvious focal point for development and for delivery.
We have, numerous times, experienced that there is a built-in tension between the parts of the operation which are governed by the process and the parts that have become individual dependent in knowledge transfer and refinement. One way to illustrate this is by studying the performance of the individual-centered services.
In many, not to say in an overwhelming proportion, of cases studied, it turned out that the key individual performed a large part of the service delivery that was devoted to the process governed part of the business. The reasons given by the respondents were typically that "it goes faster if I do it myself" and "quality and customer relationship is my responsibility and then I want to do everything from A to Z to have control".
What can be understood in this context in the study of key individuals but which remain unspoken is a third reason which is about a combination of convenience on the one hand, in the sense that the development rate perceived by the key individual is sufficient, and, on the other hand, that if the process governed concepts of the entire operation, were used more frequently, which by the way would be in accordance with the business's overall intent, the expectation of available time at the key individual’s end, would create demands for change or development.
We have noted that for key individuals in these situations, the view of development needs does not always correlate positively with the management’s view of the needs. A very probable explanation for this is that key individuals live so intimately in their external relationships that the perspective becomes largely different. This can be perceived as a problem, needless to say, and the indications signal that many good business ideas have fallen on the relatively closeness and developed relationship between key individuals and customer representatives as they get stuck in a not- invented - here - like situation where the relationship over time creates an information inferiority rather than the opposite.
On the other hand, if handled properly, there is often a strong creative force in the key individuals that can be traced to their relative closeness to customers and partners and to the simple fact that they get to guide themselves during the day and they avoid the risk of being interrupted in their daily work. We have time and again seen examples of how the most knowledge-intense concepts are actual development incubators. The trick is to spread the knowledge in the business as a whole and not to allow key individual dependencies to arise. This is to many the million-dollar question. We believe we have an answer which lies in the moving of packaged, conceptualized, knowledge across the archetype concepts (S,K,R) identified (see below).
Above all, key individual dependencies, but also in many cases mental fatigue have come to light in this development. We have documented severe situations surrounding key individual dependencies. Situations that have negatively affected the key individual in question and others in his or her vicinity.
The fact that the individual is the central factor in the equation also becomes clear when we see to the broader perspective where several concepts and functions have come to dominate the scene in recent years. All aimed at handling the key individuals. We talk about talent management, cutting-edge competence, key individuals, rigorous recruitment, and development processes, expanded HR functions and a general attitude that the individual rules the labor market and that established businesses must adapt to a large extent to accommodate these individual capacities and wishes. Employment conditions in many different forms are adapted to please the key individual. Sometimes we have asked ourselves why these individuals are employed at all, given that they live as self-employed entrepreneurs under the wings of a hiring company, they might as well run their own business.
In other words, it is these highly qualified key individuals who will carry out the knowledge transfer in the more advanced cases of the business. There is often an unspoken established truth and fear of building a different image than that these individuals are the central building blocks on which the business rests and not least prevails a strong fear of "disturbing" these individuals, a fear that is about being seen so central to the business that it risks being shaken to the grounds in case the key individual decides to leave the company.
In summary, we can conclude that the contemporary perspective of business leaders and owners seems to be: • That the knowledge that can be transferred to a process-oriented part of the business is regarded as owned by the business and corresponds to the structural capital being built and thus becomes considerably easier to defend in terms of investment and, • That the parts of the business that handle services with a more complex and higher knowledge transfer component are to be handled by individuals whose loyalty may be the compensation for the structural capital not built to a large extent and that loyalty can be secured through co-ownership programs, bonus programs and various other measures to tie the key individual to the business. • That at a higher level, the business must work to produce both simpler and more complex services to ensure efficiency and to build lasting value. In other words, liquid knowledge will be made as solid knowledge as much as possible according to the prevailing management doctrine. In this context, practitioners tend to point out new future openings for this movement using AI and technology in general.
Social intensity portrayed over three service concept archetypes
There is reason to believe that aggregated and jointly processed knowledge takes development forward, that a large part of the processing takes place through interaction between units represented by individuals who understand and operate in organizational gaps and that this phenomenon will exist for a considerable time, to a large extent and that these interactions are valuable for individual actors and for society.
The challenge seen from this perspective means that we benefit from establishing some clear starting points in our effort to portray the socially intense environment and operation: • The transfer of knowledge is central. • The transfer of knowledge differs depending on the complexity of the service. • The transfer of knowledge takes place to varying degrees between individuals, organized in one of the operations of the participating parties. • The transfer applies to liquid knowledge and does not handle fixed knowledge transfer, i.e., products. • Parts of the business can be more easily process-oriented, while other parts are difficult to fit into strict process logics. • There are different archetypal knowledge transfer concepts that complement each other.
In accordance what we wrote above, we have mentioned two schools that have acted norm-setting or idea-promoting for the development of service production. One, service management, can be said to be suitable mainly for services with relatively low complexity and the other, knowledge management, which never became a school, but at least was intended to, handle services on the other side of a complexity continuum.
In our research and later in our practice, we have identified these two schools as present in the everyday life of a given service business. We illustrate these two with the table below:
| Characterstics | Service concept | Consulting concept | Advisory concept |
|---|---|---|---|
| Concept type | "S" | "K" | "R" |
| Degree of knowledge transfer in the customer meeting | Low | Average | High |
| The team's inner support | Pep talk | Supporting | Sharing |
| Team situation example | (Telephone) customer service desk | Bank counseling personal lines | Due diligence |
| The customer meeting | Minutes | Defined type meetings, 20 - 100 minutes | Series of meetings, often challenging to set meeting end times |
| Recruitment criteria | High pace, flexibility, scheduled working hours, telephone- and mail efficiency | Developed own drive, experience from one-on-one customer meetings, a will to support other team colleagues | Strong professional knowledge and know-how, project experience, experience from takin on different roles in customer meetings, will and experience from sharing knowledge |
| Customer formation | One individual | One individual | Several reps from client's and customer's side, often third party, partner, in meeting |
Based on our experience of management consulting, we felt that there was a lack of a level between these two identified positions. We drew on our own experience and, also, conducted interviews in other businesses and in the process, we were able to define a third archetype that we came to call the “K” concept.
When we compiled our impressions and sorted these positions according to the degree of bilateral knowledge transfer, an image emerged that showed three archetypal knowledge transfer concepts. We came to call them the service, the consulting, and the advisory concepts, differing in the degree of bilateral knowledge transfer in the customer meeting.
Definition of the socially intense operation Our field of investigation is services, but no, they are not services for which established definitions are sufficient. We therefore see a need for a deepened definition of services.
Socially intense operations and services are defined on the same basis, which is the first feature. Within the service management school, services are defined separately and operations separately. What we saw early on during our journey was that the socially intense operation as we described it became synonymous with the definition of service. The point is that by eliminating the product as a knowledge transfer unit, the two definitions are merged.
This suggests that previous definitions of services have probably emerged from the logic of the industry, where the product is central as a knowledge-transferring unit. As a logical consequence of this, it is almost impossible to describe socially intense operations without also describing the organizational consequences of running such operations.
Given all this, we can see a definition of socially intense operations as follows: • It handles the transfer and refinement of liquid knowledge. • What happens in the socially intense operation is activity or rather series of activities. • It occurs in three archetypal concepts to which three similarly archetypal teams are connected. • It focuses on the organizational gaps because it is in these gaps that a large source of knowledge can be found, which is why it is fundamental that the customer participates in the activities and, likewise, the partner(s). • The socially intense operation is a product of the knowledge flows and the demand to participate in a certain flow at a given time. Therefore, the ability to organize becomes more important than determining the optimal organization. • The performed activities are happen now. Consequently, the socially intense operations will primarily be viewed in a short-term perspective. • A given can company handle hundreds of socially intense operations per day. • The socially intense operation demands an elaborated view on leadership.
In practice, it is beneficial to talk about the degree of social intensity. An operation should decide which degree it considers appropriate. The socially intense operation in its fully developed form, has proven how hard it is to define socially intense operations in general terms. What we can state, however, is that in its fully developed form, the operation will "become what it becomes".
In other words, the knowledge refinement that takes place and that leads to activities, can be regarded as a natural phenomenon that develops in accordance with its own conditions. That is why the notion of degree of social intensity becomes an important concept in practice.
A crucial argument in that context is that industrial logics is about an efficiency mantra built on specialization. The socially intense logics prescribes exactly the opposite recipe as we turn away from specialization and instead place emphasis on keeping the steps in the production tightly knit together. The basic reason for this view, and thus that the focus is on organizing rather than organization is that production is an interaction between three participating parties and that the interaction between them takes place in an organizational gap.
Even the most ardent rationalist cannot easily dismiss the fact that a natural and open perspective on business development becomes a tasteful alternative to consider. At least this perspective is clearly seen from the service archetypes, K and R, that have relatively higher elements of knowledge transfer in the customer meeting.
The S-service is more difficult to understand as a co-producing phenomenon for some viewers, as the strong process orientation conveys a factory-like and industrial image that misleads the viewer. This is one of the reasons why a change of perspective is so welcome and by looking at the phenomenon from a socially intense perspective, the de facto range of services, across the three archetypal service forms, can be analyzed based on the same platform.
What we find, regularly, in our work is that many companies affirm conclusions and show an understanding of the strength of the socially intense approach, but that the ability or willingness to reach a fully developed form feels challenging or even overwhelming.
The discussion around the degree of social intensity can be described as a trade-off between, on the one hand, faith in the underlying theses and the will to control the business according to proven models and, on the other hand, the ever-higher energy exchange that arises the further up a business chooses to go on the scale of social intensity.
When it comes to the management of activities, we have, moreover, often seen that concrete goals play a relatively low role in the socially intense operations compared to other operations. It often seems to be a situation where activities are carried out and subsequently given meaning post-execution.
The contemporary challenge also contains a large portion of individual-based considerations that make implementation more difficult. The individual's special position in the contemporary economy is brutally strong and is continuously manifested through various theses, dictations, and ideas. We have come to regard this focus on the individual as a challenge rather than an opportunity in the sense that individual dependencies are, firstly, widespread and, secondly, in many cases counterproductive. Not least the pandemic that has swept across the globe like wildfire since 2020, has fortified the focus on individuals and probably resulted in deepened individual dependencies. Given the need for extensive knowledge refinement and cooperation in the in the external context, team is the crucial and necessary building block of the socially intense operation. Individual dependencies tend to break up the team, hence these need to be handled to foster genuine team performance.
Today's literature is flooded with thoughts and ideas about how we as individuals should be able to enjoy the same "degree of freedom" after the pandemic as during, referring to homework and the ability to work whatever hours suit the individual best. The whole debate is easy to understand but at the same time difficult to grasp.
If the conclusion is that the individual should be given the greatest possible degree of freedom and that by definition means focus on the individual's work effort as starting point, questions should be raised as to how joint learning and knowledge refinement should be cultivated at the local level, the team level.
Surprisingly very few observers highlight the side of the pandemic that concerns the development of vaccines. Vaccines were developed in record time a fact that hardly would have been the case if knowledge had not been refined in a larger context, using the power of teams refining knowledge in organizational gaps.
The socially intense operation begins and ends with the individual. From an efficiency perspective, we have found that the operation should not become dependent on the individual in the execution of activities. The fully socially intense operation "becomes what it becomes" in the sense that the knowledge that is transferred and refined cannot be controlled meticulously and at a detailed level.
For knowledge to be shared efficiently and refined, energy is required. It is a process to refine and just as for other refining processes, energy is required and energy rarely or never comes for free, not even in this context, but it arises at a lower cost if those who participate in the knowledge refinement do so on clear terms that are also liberating, in the sense that participation takes place within a framework with very high degrees of freedom, a degree of freedom managed by the team.
Why is there a need for a definition of socially intense environments and activities? It's just services, right? Services as services simply… Even if it indicates co-production, the existing service definition is based on an inside and out perspective. The easiest way to shed light on this is by looking at how individual services are defined in practice. They are defined on basis of customer and segment analyzes and then the service palette is steered up significantly to stay within given frameworks.
When we go through established definitions of services, they are primarily found within the service management school and those that are there are limited. Ex Grönroos' definition of services states that: 1. Services are more or less abstract 2. Services are activities or a series of activities rather than objects 3. Services are at least to some extent produced and consumed simultaneously 4. The customer participates in the production process at least to some extent
Especially point # 4 implies that the definition is intended for the types of services that the service management school focuses on. The same point also indicates an inside-out perspective with an industrialist emphasis. It would not be meaningful to discuss the production process and customer participation "to some extent" in services of a more complex nature. Furthermore, one important component, the partner, is not included in the definition, a fact that speaks for a strict definition of service based on an inside-out perspective.
We also want to raise a question mark for point # 3. We would like to say that there are relatively many services that through knowledge transfer result in an improved situation with the customer, a situation that indicates that the service is not always "consumed" at the same time as the service is performed.
We regard Grönroos’ “to some extent” that he uses in point #3 and #4, as indication that there are more to be said about these points and as an opening for scholars to continue working on.
Again, seen from a practitioner’s point of view, the established definition of services may be applicable to the S-services, and even if a typical company's range of offerings consists of S-services to well over 70%, the remaining parts (30%) are not within the same definitional basis and will, so to speak, stimulate lone islands in the operations outside the process factory. Islands that are often synonymous with the autonomous activities of individuals.
Since the definition of service as it is stated today does not clearly consider a bilateral flow of knowledge, large parts of the point of modern, socially intense, activities are missed.
Established service definitions do not consider differences in the degree of knowledge transfer, which should be seen as central given that the entire purpose of the business should be knowledge refinement and as a consequence knowledge transfer.
Since the service activities that exist today are based on visions, overall goals and control parameters to a large extent, an important part of the business' hidden life, the power of development in the organizational gaps, is missed. The difference between the vision level on the one hand, and activity in organizational gaps, on the other, are simply too great and the difference can be described in terms of time.
Activities take place now and constantly, but visions are realized over several years. The socially intense operation is active in the short time perspective, the very short, and this is because the activities are ongoing in the present with several parties involved, which creates a dynamic and short-sightedness that far from all operations can handle today. And in part, they do not manage this because they do not "organize", but they search for the creation of the ultimate "organization”.
The socially intense operation is by nature activity driven. We have noted an interesting linguistic aspect of this activity orientation: verbs, which describe activity, should be used in the internal language whenever possible instead of nouns. The basis for this is the need to highlight the importance of the activities. It should also be added to the definition that the socially intense operation is not only activity oriented as Grönroos states, but it also lives in the present in the sense that what is to be done should be done now because the subset of the socially intense environment, the socially intense operation, is a mayfly in the form of execution.
The whole matter is also a question of perspective in the sense of what a company is? By that we mean that when it comes to modern activities that in our opinion are to be regarded as socially intense, we can state that "companies do not exist". It is the activities and those who perform them that exist.
Implications for management of the socially intense operation: a few notes and questions
Goals and formulation of goals: It should be considered that activities can and often take place before goals are set - there are post execution rationalizations and is this all negative?
Implementation: It should be considered that intended implementations of systems, working methods, routines, etc. are often subjected to re-invention, a very troublesome fact for many leaders - but is re-invention all bad? Could it be that the actual activity has improved the solution that has been developed and implemented?
Leadership and management: What definition of leadership do you base your management work on? Could it be that part of the work for which the leaders are trained can not only be performed by the teams but should even be performed by the teams to give a better effect? Through research work where middle managers have been interviewed, we have defined leadership as that which is performed to reduce the degree of uncertainty, this then set as opposed to what is required when circumstances are favorable and characterized by low uncertainty, which could be called management but can often be performed by the team. Thus, the question of whether managers are needed can be raised.
The individual's special position and role: How rational is the contemporary perception and cultivation of the individual's special position? Can we see the individual's goal of being seen, excelling, and pushing his individual path to its peak as purely unproductive? What would the alternative solution be? Can the team instead become the central unit in the business? And how do we define teams and create an idea of team efficiency and then not only teams regarding time-limited projects but also for permanent work groups?
The competence focus: What is competence? Normally defined as knowledge + experience the socially intense perspective would suggest that the competence definition should reach beyond your own operation’s borders. As three parties interact jointly to produce a service, shouldn’t the competence definition in practice include the knowledge and experience of all three parties? And what does such a view do to the use of “competence”? Is competence merely a theoretical expression for which we never can define a level? Should we therefore focus on knowledge and experience, the two entities that we can put down in a cv?