Jim Whitehouse is currently CEO of Red Hat, “the world’s leading provider of open source enterprise IT products and services”.
Prior to that, he worked for over a decade at Boston Consulting Group and then seven years at Delta Air Lines, from September 11, 2001, first as acting treasurer and then moving up to finally become its chief operating officer, leaving when Richard Anderson became CEO.
The purpose of this book is to contrast the organisational ethos of Red Hat with other companies where Whitehouse has worked and studied, to suggest that an “open” organisation is more suited for today’s fast-changing landscape, and to give advice of how to go about changing or creating a more open organisation.
As we are told continuously by experts (and know from our own experience), speed and agility are the key to a company’s success. Yet, no matter how fast we move, we are often too slow to keep up with external forces, or indeed the competition.
The larger the organisation, the slower it is. Layers of bureaucracy ensure that change requires meeting after meeting, and even after a strategy has been agreed upon, poor execution means it often fails.
People aren’t looking for new work since they are so busy processing the work they already have, and although it would be lovely if everyone was enthusiastic or passionate about their jobs, in general, they aren’t.
In contrast, Whitehead offers the open organisation, which he defines as “an organization that engages participative communities both inside and out – responds to opportunities more quickly, has access to resources and talent outside the organization, and inspires, motivates and empowers people at all levels to act with accountability“.
Put that way, of course, no one would disagree. It sounds wonderful, the sort of place we’d all like to work. But the rub is how you achieve it.
There’s much to admire in this book, not least Whitehouse himself, who comes across as a decent, fair leader, who takes pride in his achievements while assigning most of his successes to the teams and individuals he has worked with.
Nevertheless, the examples given outside his own direct experience are short on detail, and although Red Hat is continuing its success and is mentioned hundreds of times, the ups and downs of working there are mainly narrated through the prism of Whitehead, and so become his own experience of leading the organisation rather than what it’s like to be led.
He says that new recruits often find it disorientating and “chaotic”, and there are hints of forthright disagreements, with people taking criticism of their work personally (“We’ve learned to embrace the phrase, ‘You aren’t the code.’“).
But it would have been useful to hear more from those who aren’t in leadership positions, and who have been on the sharp end of the internal forums.
More importantly, it’s difficult to relate how the experience of this company, which operates in a specialised sphere of open source software, can be applied to other industries.
There are anecdotes about the tough but ultimately rewarding years at Delta, but it’s only at the end of the book that Whitehead asks what surely must be the crucial question: “Can a bottom-up, participative system develop something as complex as a jetliner, considering the requirement for such close coordination among the various parts?”
In other words, can the lessons of the book be applied to other industries such as his previous one? Ironically, this question is one that Gary Hamel, Visiting Professor at London Business School and himself a successful management guru and author, asks Whitehead.
And his answer? “The more I thought about the problem, the more I realised that it’s the wrong question… The right question to ask is, ‘Could an open ecosystem in aviation produce a superior aircraft over time?’ And to that question, my answer is yes.”
Well, maybe, but if the only way you can answer a question is by changing the question so it fits the answer you’ve got pre-prepared, then it might point to a larger problem.
In summary, much of the book is good, if not surprising, advice which most readers would already know, but perhaps would find useful having repeated.
So there’s no doubt that having more debate, more communication, more time spent with those actually meeting customers or doing the work is of value to managers and leaders.
And it’s good to get feedback and act on it. As Whitehead says on several occasions, asking people for their suggestions and then ignoring them is bad for morale, and bad for the company.
However, there are times when a decision has to be made even when it’s unpopular or against the advice received. Whitehead’s solution is to “make sure you explain it to people“. Hardly earth-shattering.
Again, he says there’s no point in having a mission statement that no one can remember or even understand. “One executive I knew, when he visited other companies, carried a $50 bill with him to use as a challenge. He would give that $50 to anyone who could recite the company’s mission statement. Guess what? He still has his $50.”
We’d all agree, but then reading Red Hat’s own mission statement — “To be the catalyst in communities of customers, contributors, and partners creating better technology the open source way — doesn’t seem particularly inspired.
After all, Delta has its Rules Of The Road, which include “debate constructively, decide definitively and support actively” – which sounds “open”, but comes just after “set clear roles, responsibilities and expectations”, which doesn’t. (You can read Delta CEO Richard Anderson describe the last ten years at the airline in the Harvard Business Review)
So whether this book will convince us “how open principles of management-based on transparency, participation, and community reinvent the organization for the fast-paced connected era” really depends on the industry you are in.
You may enjoy reading the appendix – “How does Red Hat make billions of dollars selling free software?” – though. Now, if there was a way of transferring that to the industry you are in, it really would be worth the price of admission.
