Christopher Kedzie coined the term Dictator’s Dilemma in the early 1990s in reference to the fact that a dictator’s attempts to prevent opposition by controlling access to information and limiting the ability to use the internet for communication or community building has the inevitable effect of harming business and damaging the economy, resulting in conditions more conducive to rebellion. The tighter the restrictions imposed, the more extensive the damage to the economy becomes, and the more the risk of rebellion grows.

The same concept applies to hierarchical command and control approaches to business management. Attempts to achieve quality and efficiency by tightly managing and directing projects and processes requires central ownership and control of information and limits on  communication, making autonomous collaboration impossible, with the inevitable effect of more errors and higher opportunity costs, decreased efficiency and lower quality. 


 

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