As we began to analyze our four organizations, our group observed a number of qualities that made the four organizations fundamentally very different. For instance, CIBC is a centralized organization, while 3M and LINUX are extreme examples of decentralization and J&J is a mixture of both. Similarly, CIBC and 3M strive for firm profitability as the primary goal, but LINUX is at the other extreme, refusing to allow profit margins to stifle creativity by curtailing the sharing of proprietary information with its customers. J&J is again somewhere in the middle; it intends to be profitable, but “increasing shareholder value” is considered the last priority in the “J&J Credo.” Finally, all four companies face different intensities of barriers to entry in their industry. 3M and CIBC have relatively low barriers, because their products are not free from replication. J&J has a powerful brand name, and their products have well-known reputations. A product like LINUX, though, is in an interesting position since it is free, its customers are its suppliers, and its customers will not accept commercial substitutes. Despite these significant differences, though, these organizations all share three major common threads, leading to some important clues for the form of the organization of the next century.

Vision from the Top

Each of the four organizations has a strong leader and management, who/which supplies the vision for the organization and emphasizes key concepts in order to achieve it. For instance, 3M’s organization of the technological innovation process emphasizes coordination and individual initiative. Leaders of the firm encourage learning across business units instead of allowing the isolation of business units from each other. Leveraging all corporate and outside resources allows 3M to develop products that customer truly demand. Like management at 3M, Linux Torvalis recognizes that the success of LINUX also requires a similar organizational structure to succeed, since LINUX has to allow collaboration with as many talented people as possible. Top management at J&J also sends clear messages to the ranks about the value of decentralization (e.g., “Decentralization = Creativity = Productivity” appeared on the cover of J&J’s 1981 annual report). Finally, CIBC’s leaders created and implemented their own strategy of selling derivatives which was fostered by a vision of a changing market for financial services.

Shorter Product Cycles

All four of the organizations face the need to innovate quickly in order to stay competitive with their peers. LINUX, for instance, was originally designed to handle this market environment as evidenced by its open code and existence on the Internet. Other firms, such as CIBC, have had to adapt their organization in order to utilize all its resources as quickly as possible; they have created an innovative, constantly changing, and competitive product to differentiate themselves in the market. J&J’s and 3M’s revenues depend heavily on products introduced within the past five years.

Sharing of Information

The most important lesson the group gleaned from the organization of the four companies was that all companies emphasized the invaluable nature of group knowledge. All four were structured so that there was a flow of information across business units and individuals. The objective of this sharing was to encourage creativity in the design and development of the product and to create an environment of continuous learning. The cultures valued communicating with colleagues inside and outside the firm, academia, and customers. They did not necessarily reward individuals who hoarded information for the advancement of the individual or business unit. The fundamental belief is that the collective will create the best product -- – the ultimate goal of the organization.