Thoughts on Connectivism in the Workplace

So the connectivist team structure seems to be where entrepreneurial teams are headed – and even intrapreneurial teams within organizations too. It does sound great in theory – building a wider network of knowledge that doesn’t just exist within the main group, decision making is distributed and there’s possibility for many CEOs. But this makes me think, maybe there might be “too many cooks in the kitchen.” Anyone else?

I’ll relate it to the company I worked at before beginning this program – an online school that has been around for over 20 years but still maintained a startup mentality: young, gutsy and even eco-friendly. There was a relatively flat management structure – not a lot of hierarchy but a ton of managers at or around the same level. At times it felt like chaos – who is in control here? No one to rein in the good ideas, re-focus the not so good ones and direct the organization.

So I can’t help but think an entrepreneurial team might have the same issues – especially if the team is large with lots of type-A personalities. Or maybe the chaos is just a byproduct of the theory and meant to challenge the group!