Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There
A new lens for inspiring collaboration
I’m fascinated by the art and science of helping people collaborate and so spend a fair amount of time reading about it. After devouring the (amazing) book “Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There” I was skimming the resources at the end and followed the breadcrumbs (aka googled) my way to this article:
Where the authors predict (in 1967!) the rise of product management as a discipline.
“…one of the critical organizational innovations will be the establishment of management positions, and even formal departments, charged with the task of achieving integration”
where integration is:
“the achievement of unity of effort among the major functional specialists in a business. The integrator’s role involves handling the nonroutine, unprogrammed problems that arise among the traditional functions as each strives to do its own job. It involves resolving interdepartmental conflicts and facilitating decisions…”
Sounds like Product Management to me.
The authors go on to describe what these “integrators” do, structural options, and traits of successful ones (ambitious, flexible, articulate, good social skills…). Interesting for sure since the attributes most needed for great PMs are still much debated, but what inspired me to write this article goes back to Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There.
Differentiation/Integration
The book is based on what the authors describe as D/I theory — Differentiation/Integration theory. Looking back on when I was successful at moving a feature team forward on tough problems with no clear right answers, without force and without a leaving wake of disgruntled people, this theory describes what I (accidentally) did.
After reading this, my hope is that you can do it repeatedly and on purpose.
