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Shared Services Simplified or How Barry Bonds’ Bat Weight Explained GoC Thinking

Written by: Jon Hansen

Article Overview: I was recently asked to provide a contextual point of reference that would assist the uninitiated public in understanding the reasons why the GoC’s Shared Services program has become such a contentious issue. The Answer was Baseball! Rather than getting into a complicated dissertation of the differences between an agent-based model versus an equation-based model where the prescribed processes reflect and therefore adapt to stakeholder characteristics and objectives, I tried to think of what I would say to one of my sports fanatic friends. And it hit me, the answer is baseball!

Shared Services Simplified or How Barry Bonds’ Bat Weight Explained GoC Thinking

I was recently asked to provide a contextual point of reference that would assist the uninitiated public in understanding the reasons why the GoC’s Shared Services program has become such a contentious issue.

The Answer was Baseball!

Rather than getting into a complicated dissertation of the differences between an agent-based model versus an equation-based model where the prescribed processes reflect and therefore adapt to stakeholder characteristics and objectives, I tried to think of what I would say to one of my sports fanatic friends. And it hit me, the answer is baseball!

Think of it this way, what would happen if the Commissioner of Baseball delivered an edict that all players had to use the same bat. Same weight, same length, same everything. Would it make baseball a better game?

What about hockey. Would Wayne Gretzky have been as successful as he was if during his playing days the hockey hierarchy made it mandatory that all players use the same sticks, the same skates and so on! You see where I am going here.

The fact is that each player is uniquely different, and while there are established “generalized” standards in terms of equipment specifications, by and large there is a vast and somewhat diverse number of products that are in use. And each piece of equipment is carefully selected by the players themselves to reflect their individual skills and adapt to their unique playing style.

So, if the Commissioner of baseball extended his reach beyond the realm of centrally establishing a set of guiding principles based on maintaining a balance between player proclivities relative to equipment and ensuring a consistently fair game by dictating a single or “shared” uniformity to one particular type of product what would happen?

And while this is an overly simplified analogy of the Shared Services concept, it is nonetheless a reasonable reflection of the GoC’s desire to arbitrarily enforce a single platform across the entire government enterprise regardless of individual department interests.

Tunnel Vision

Like individual athletes various government departments and agencies have selected different “equipment” through which they can best meet their unique organizational requirements from an operational standpoint.

Transport Canada for example has made a heavy commitment to Oracle, while Heritage Canada is firmly established within the SAP platform. And while the objective is to deliver value at both the department level as well as on a collective government-wide basis, each are using the tools they feel most comfortable with in terms of “playing at their peak levels of performance.”

Rather than recognizing the individual skill sets (re unique operating attributes) of individual departments or agencies, the GoC hierarchy has made the decision that they alone know what is best in terms of delivering superior results.

In essence, the “Commissioners” of the Federal Government have decided to make all players use the same equipment rather than establishing a collaborative guideline in which important differences are taken into consideration.

Worse yet, and as demonstrated by past player strikes and lockouts in the professional leagues, external stakeholders such as the fans (or in the case of the GoC, suppliers) are left out in the cold.

Adaptive Capacity leads to True Stability and Consistency of Outcome!

Unfortunately the GoC Shared Services strategy employs the somewhat simplistic and unimaginative approach of imposing centralized control at an operational level. This is based on the belief that centralization of functional capacity will provide a stable platform through which best value results will be achieved. Think of the “one bat” for all players scenario.

History has proven that this conclusion could not be further from the truth. In reality, the adaptive capacity of a program reflects a collaborative process in which key stakeholders work toward identifying and achieving a collective, best value outcome. In practical terms, the unique operating strengths of different stakeholders are actually leveraged to achieve both stability of process and consistency of outcome.

Ignoring the steroids fiasco for a moment, while Barry Bonds used a 32 oz bat to hit 73 home runs in 2001, Mark McGwire preferred a 35 oz bat to hit 70 dingers in 1998.

And as a means of illustrating the importance of being able to adapt to changing conditions, Babe Ruth started out using a 54 oz bat early in his career, only to ultimately change to a 27 oz bat in 1927 when he hit his 60 home runs.

Can you imagine telling the Babe or Bonds or for that matter McGwire that they could only use one type of bat? Would it have made them better players? Even more important would it have made the game of baseball better?

Thinking beyond the Known

So in the absence of tangible evidence that a broadly applied Shared Services strategy, in which an unwilling majority of key stakeholders are being dragged along kicking and screaming, will produce superior and sustainable results, why do it?

At the beginning of all my conferences I state that the one objective that I am hoping to achieve is to inspire the people in attendance to think outside of the framework of that with which they are most familiar and comfortable.

There is nothing radical or innovative about a Shared Services strategy. It is not representative of a new lexicon in supply chain terminology or principles, nor is it particularly creative when instituted as an enterprise-wide program.

However for most traditional thinking executives, especially from within the IT ranks, it is a comfort zone of familiarity from the days when technology was seen as the future of business (anyone remember the paperless office), and computers which usually occupied an entire floor or two were managed by a rigid set of standards and individuals few understood.

In a dynamic world where synchronization has replaced sequential process thinking, this tenet is not only out of step, it is out of time.

Or to end where I began, let’s not limit the batters to a standard that stifles their ability to do their best for both themselves and the game as a whole.

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Article Tags: analogy, answer is baseball, better game, commissioner of baseball, contentious issue, desire, dissertation, edict, fair game, goc, government enterprise, guiding principles, hierarchy, point of reference, proclivities, reflection, skates, sports, uniformity, wayne gretzky



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