My wife is currently undergoing a PhD in International Relations at RSIS, here is Singapore. She focuses on the contribution of Track Two Diplomacy to the management of regional security issues in the Asia Pacific. We happen to have interesting conversations as more and more we find out how our respective fields of interest, research and work are intertwined. In fact, what emerges is that the problem managers face are similar to what diplomats face. Both have similar solutions and both solutions have a hard time surfacing. Let’s detail that.

Track Two Diplomacy

Definition

Wikipedia states that “the term multi-track diplomacy is based on the original distinction made by Joseph Montville in 1981 between official, governmental actions to resolve conflicts (track one) and unofficial efforts by non-governmental professionals to resolve conflicts within and between states (track two)”. In fact, Track 2 emerged operationally at the end of WW2, with people and organisations pressing for demilitarization.

Reasons

It has been progressively recognized that:

• Senior State representatives address one type of issue: issues regarded as “strategic”. Issues of low political profile are not addressed.
• Senior State representatives address one level of issues: extreme technical or expert issues are not addressed. The same applies to highly contentious strategic issues that hinder negotiations on the official level and threaten to block negotiations and cooperation among states (territorial disputes, ideological differences).
• Senior State representatives don’t have the skills and ability to tackle efficiently those issues: issues are not addressed in depth, i.e. in context.

Implications

This explains why pressing issues, such as poverty, environmental issues or more broadly commons management, are hardly addressed or a long time after awareness spread among general public.

This gives room and legitimacy for alternate stakeholders (NGOs, think tanks, for-profit organisations) to surface and take accountability, via alternate platforms of dialogue. In addition to the high-level approach that naturally ends up with top-down policies and issue (or conflict) resolution, there is room for contextual approaches that lead to bottom up (re)solutions.

Value Proposition

• Track Two surfaces and makes explicit issues, that Track One does not address or poorly addresses because they remain implicit at its level.
• Track Two focuses principally on everything that happens before the explicit decision making : exploration, socialization, participation and collaboration. That is the making of the decision. On the contrary Track One focuses on the formalization of the decision making (mediated meetings and documented agreements).

Current Issue

Track Two is given limited, however increasingly recognized room on the official scene. Track Two participants work below the radar. They keep on being evaluated upon the same standards as Track One … and therefore questioned.

Enterprise 2.0

Definition*

As I have previously written here, Enterprise 2.0″ is a new wave of a larger trend that encompasses all business trends since quality management (I refer to the first initial wave back in the 50′). This trend is conceptually about deconstructing the model of organization Taylorists have settle as well as the model of management Chandler has contributed to craft and that is combined into Fordism. The trend is concretely to adapt production environments to the evolution of the economy (materiality & knowledge).

Reasons

• Senior Management addresses one type of issue: issues regarded as “strategic”. Issues of low political profile are not addressed.
• Senior Management addresses one level of issues handle: extreme technical or expert issues are not addressed.
• Senior Management don’t have the skills and ability to tackle efficiently those issues: issues are not addressed in depth, i.e. in context.

The dominant, bureaucratic way of doing things in big organisations is relevant, at a certain level. This level is the high-level one: from the senior management perspective it is efficient. Seen from above the world looks always simple. The devil is in the details. This high-level approach leads to standardization: one size fits all. The way the problem is addressed by bureaucratic routines is not relevant on the ground. There is always a missing bit: context. Bureaucracy at some point is blind.
Bureaucracy is both objectively and subjectively inefficient. The organisation as a whole could perform better. The perception by people on the ground is poor, whether employees or clients.
This creates organisational schizophrenia, demotivates and disengages people. This leads to further inefficiency, which impacts performance and illegitimates people in command. The current distrust in Corporate America that some people report is not the result of the world financial crisis. The problem is deeper and it dates back, big time!

Implications

This gives room and legitimacy for alternate stakeholders (employees, customers and NGOs) to surface and take accountability, via alternate platforms of dialogue and action. In addition to the high-level approach that naturally ends up with top-down policies and issue resolution, there is room for contextual approaches that lead to bottom up (re)solutions.

Value Proposition

• Enterprise 2.0 surfaces and makes explicit issues, that bureaucracy do not address or poorly address because they remain implicit at its level. Social computing helps formalising the tacit interactions that happen around explicit processes, to make them happen.
• Enterprise 2.0 focuses principally on everything that happens before the explicit execution: exploration, socialization, participation and collaboration. That is the making of the task. On the contrary bureaucracy focuses on formalization of the decision making (ritual meetings and documented outputs).

Current Issue

Enterprise 2.0 is given limited, however increasingly recognized attention and room on the corporate agendas. However, it often is taken from the technological angle and results in importing new tools. It is unidimensional. Enterprise 2.0 is confused and restricted to traditional collaboration (explicit transactions to perform a task). ROI keeps on being the alpha-and-omega of evaluation. Enterprise 2.0 is therefore being questioned, including by early adopters and evangelists like Dennis Howlett.

So what’s the point of paralleling Enterprise 2.0 and Track Two Diplomacy?

• Enterprise 2.0 is just one element of a broader change (that impacts different environments);
• This change is not about technology, but society. The progressive emergence of the crowd as an active actor, willing to relevantly take ownership and accountability for a broad range of topics is the real driving force. Technological devices that create platform for awareness, conversations and actions on-line - say 2.0 to be trendy - have been invented and adopted to facilitate that already on-going social change. Technology is a result and remains a facilitator.
• There is a need to change the way we are being organised to be more efficient and effective (relations between actors, processes, metrics).
• If we don’t change the organisation, there is little chance to maximize investments in those 2.0 technologies.
• The question is therefore not whether we have to change, but how do we relevantly make this change happen so that we can benefit from the best of both approaches;
• To end with the painful and short-sighted schizophrenia organisations impose to themselves … and their members, us!
• No matter you call it - Enterprise 2.0 or Track Two Diplomacy - empowerment of the unusual suspects emerges as a key factor of governance.

* Don’t get me wrong the purpose is not to contribute to the conversation and add more confusion to the definition of Enterprise 2.0. If this were the case, Fred Cavazza would have had no moment of fame on the French blogosphere two and a half year ago, after a lunch with me at the Irish Corner … ]