Do yourself a favour and check out this podcast on Westrum organisational culture. The piece on ‘Technological Maestro’ really stood out for us. We explore it and Westrum’s organisational culture in this article. Let’s credit Gene Kim and Dr. Ron Westrum for this fantastic content.
What is Westrum’s organisational culture?
We are big fans of the DORA (DevOps Research Assessment) programme that has been running for several years. Dr. Westrum, a sociologist, created one of the organisational culture models used in that study. He talks about three types of companies: Pathological, Bureaucratic and Generative. Westrum organisational culture is based on how the flow of information in a company can indicate company culture. Organisational culture is widely covered in the excellent book Accelerate by Forsgren, Kim & Humble.
| Pathological | Bureaucratic | Generative |
| Power oriented | Rule oriented | Performance-oriented |
| Low cooperation | Modest cooperation | High cooperation |
| Messengers “shot” | Messengers neglected | Messengers trained |
| Responsibilities shirked | Narrow responsibilities | Risks are shared |
| Bridging discouraged | Bridging tolerated | Bridging encouraged |
| Failure leads to scapegoating | Failure leads to justice | Failure leads to inquiry |
| Novelty crushed | Novelty leads to problems | Novelty implemented |
(Source: Ron Westrum, “A typology of organisation culture),”
BMJ Quality & Safety 13, no. 2 (2004), doi:10.1136/qshc.2003.009522.)
It is a groundbreaking model to describe organisational culture as we think about software delivery.
What is a technological maestro?
The second idea introduced by Gene and Dr. Westrum is the term ‘Technological Maestro’:
So let’s look at the characteristic of a technological maestro. This is a term that is used in history of technology a lot, technological maestro. So first of all, you’re dealing with somebody who has very high energy, that’s critical. The second thing is they know what questions to ask, that’s critical. The third thing is they’re good on the details too, and that’s unexpected. You don’t usually expect people who are good on the big things to be good on small things. But they also have to have a high standard and they have to be willing to get immersed in the activity itself…..
In a generative organization, you have good people at the top because they know what they know, and if the people at the top don’t know what they don’t know, that’s a very dangerous situation to be in…..
It is even more profound by something else that Dr. Westrum mentioned, which is Rabinow’s Rule Number 23 of Leadership, which is if you have a dope at the top, you will have, or soon will have dopes all the way down.
Transcript from the podcast, “The Idealcast with Gene Kim, featuring Dr. Ron Westrum”.
A Technological Maestro or “dope at the top”?
You can ask a good question about your organisation by peeling back the attributes. If you work in the dog grooming industry, the boss needs to know about dog grooming. How does the boss of your company shape up to these attributes? Do they:
- Have high energy?
- Know what questions to ask?
- Are they good on the details?
‘Technological Maestro’ doesn’t mean your boss is a Kubernetes expert (remember, the term is over 50 years old). It means they know the business and the people, and they have expertise. The expertise here is ‘deep detail’. If you are a software development company, your boss should be an expert in software development – past and present.
Generic managers shouldn’t rise too far up the company. If generic managers start to run the company, mediocrity can take over the organisation. Senior executives/bosses should have leadership capabilities and deep expertise. It’s the classic case of leadership over management.
The key takeaway for Westrum organizational culture:
As Dr Westrum points out, the flip side to a Technological Maestro is having “a dope at the top”. They are likely to hire or promote other “dopes”. It can slowly rot the organisation. We don’t like the “dope” phrase; lacking expertise is not stupidity. I don’t believe that someone who runs a company is a “dope”. A better way to describe it is that someone lacking expertise is damaging.
For employees, it’s a great way to size up your organisation by simply asking – “does the boss get it? Your boss could be a “nice person” or a “mean salesperson”. You could be in the wrong organisation if they don’t have the right expertise.
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