Chapter 1: What Is A Game-Changing Design?

In the beginning was the link. This simple and yet profound disruptive technology of the Internet moved us into the world of virtual relationships and forever changed the accepted organizational form. The Web transformed traditional business boundaries from impenetrable firewalls to semipermeable membranes that struggle to control an inherently uncontrollable phenomenon—human-to-human interchange. The Internet was clearly a “game-changing design” that employed new technology breakthroughs that transformed traditional business practices.

Increasingly, however, technology breakthroughs are harder to achieve. There are strong indications that the next horizon of game-changing designs will represent radical shifts in how people think about and perform their work. The economic survival game of keeping ahead of competitors has become much more knowledge driven (Graen, 2008). Davenport and Harris (2007) argued, “At a time when companies in many industries offer similar products and use comparable technology, highperformance business processes are among the last remaining points of differentiation” (p. 8). What employees know and discovering ways to enable them to work together to grow that knowledge into competitive advantage is the next frontier, but industrial age methods, hierarchical and rigid organizational structures, and exclusionary cultural patterns of behavior hold us back from realizing the possibilities.