EOLVE!

Entrepreneur, May, 2001 by Mark Henricks

If you want to survive and prosper in a business world radically changed by the Internet, you have to master e-culture, according to management writer Rosabeth Moss Kanter. E-culture is about community and expresses itself in shared identity, shared knowledge and collaboration.

Moss Kanter offers four prescriptions to deal with e-culture. First, treat strategy development as improvisational theater by setting a theme for your company and encouraging experimentation within those boundaries. Second, use your network of partners often rather than occasionally. Third, rebuild your company as a community that values and implements input from the entire organization. (For example, have multiple channels for communicating between all levels and departments.) Last, win the talent wars. One trick: Recognize employees' outside interests by sponsoring special company lunches where workers can show amateur artwork or demonstrate hobbies.