The structure of the connectivity

As soon as this pattern of associations emerge, it starts to explain why the environment of e-commerce is totally different from that of the bricks and mortar world of the Industrial Age. It provides a reason as to why conventional corporate strategies with their emphasis on managed teams are having such a hard time coping with e-commerce.

The leaders of managed teams are having to spend too much time organising and motivating team members, leaving them little time to concentrate on the overall function of the team. Team members themselves are forced away from individuality and specialisation and compelled towards working in sympathetic harmony with other team members. Such an arrangement works well in a physical environment but is very inefficient and unstable in a world of extreme connectivity and multiple specialisation.

In the environment of the Internet, project leaders shouldn't be team leaders in the traditional sense. They have to be primarily solution providers and decision makers. Most of their time should be spent on the demand side of their network of organisation where they can act as channels through which demands are being satisfied. Unlike the traditional role of leader managers, they haven't the knowledge, resources or time to train and educate a team because the range of knowledge and expertise that may be called upon will not only be huge but also constantly changing and evolving.

Such solution providers will need to be constantly maintaining and replenishing a pool of contacts who are experts in the various areas that may need to be co-ordinated into a solution. It doesn't matter if they are odd-balls or unsociable. All that matters is that they are unquestionably expert in their field and reliably produce what is asked of them. Solution providers could not possibly afford to hire such a pool of experts on a permanent basis. It would mean using their time inefficiently. This necessitates creating virtual teams on the fly, as and when they are needed by the demands of the system higher up the demand-supply hierarchy.

The individual experts and specialists, for their part, will not want to be involved in any "Jack of all trades" employment situation. They will want to be carving out a more profitable existence for themselves as experts in their chosen speciality niche. They will resent any time being spent in areas that have no relevance to achieving and maintaining this aim. The only managed team they will be interested in is the team of helpers that assist them in their speciality service. In this way they will be more like the artisans of the pre Industrial Age: acting as tutor and inspirational head to a team of dedicated apprentices, who work cheaply for their master in order to learn the intricacies of the speciality before starting out on their own.