A Unique Look at the Berlin Wall: A United Germany as Metaphor for Collaborative Strategic Planning
When the Berlin Wall opened, and eventually came down, global television audiences joyfully witnessed one of the most dramatic and symbolic news stories of this century. This event is a metaphor for walls coming down around the world.
This paper examines several unique dynamics operating in Germany providing a climate of cooperative ventures. These factors may aid in institutionalizing strategic planning globally -- planning that is collaborative (as opposed to mostly-competitive approaches used by humanity in the past).
The challenges faced by Germany in its telecommunications sector provide interesting data for analysis. The general principles are examined below, along with several theoretical models of collaboration. Finally, a specific planning case study is examined -- international cooperation in the education and training for telecommunications leaders required in this decade and the next century.
Introduction
The author is Principal Investigator of a research project examining the dynamics of hundreds of negotiations leading to treaties that harmonize the telecommunications of the twelve-member European Union (EU), a consumer population of more than 350 million. In European capitals, focused interviews are being conducted with telecommunication representatives from government ministries and the private sector. Survey data are also collected.
Major factors analyzed in the research project include:
overcoming barriers to economic collaboration
negotiating technology standardization issues
achieving open communication network agreements
the U.S. as provider in a "fortress" Europe
privatization of government communication entities
At present there are twelve EU members. All twelve member countries are being visited: Germany; the United Kingdom; France; Spain; Portugal; Italy; Greece; Ireland; Denmark; and the "Benelux" nations of Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
An economically integrated Europe is larger than the United States in population and nearly its equal in gross national product ($4.6 trillion versus $4.9 trillion). EU officials, headquartered in Brussels, estimate that 7% of this GNP will be in the telecommunications sector by the year 2000.
Collaborative Strategic Planning
The author's theoretical model of strategic planning (Plude, 1981) begins with shared needs and designs cooperatively to meet these needs. This model was conceptualized when the author was studying at Harvard University with the organizational behavior theorist Chris Argyris. Collaborative theory is being enriched currently by the project's research associate (Hongcharu, 1991). In the writings of Plude and Hongcharu, these theories have been applied to the technologies of direct broadcast satellite and high definition television respectively. Such new approaches to conflict resolution stress cooperative action in planning, rather than in conflicts.
It has been said the European Union is a process, not an event. Although scheduled to become a political union at the beginning of 1993, the negotiated process under development is where the EU machinery is being constructed and oiled for operation. This strategic planning process forms the basis of analysis for the current research project.
A United Germany in the European Union
Research in Germany uncovers multi-tiered strategic planning:
a. re-tooling its telecommunications ministry, recently restructured;
b. integrating the two Germanys into a Federal Republic;
c. providing a leadership role in a united Europe.
Each of these tasks is daunting; together they seem overwhelming. However, when I asked one ministry official how in the world it could be done, he replied: "It's easy!" And his explanation seemed to demonstrate the research hypothesis.
He noted that before the Berlin Wall came down there had been communication between telecom officials in East and West Germany. West Germany had communication with and equipment in the Eastern sector (to reach Berlin); this process required cooperation. When the Wall came down, when it was still not clear whether and when there would be a united Germany, the Telecommunications Ministers from the two sectors were already meeting and strategizing about more effective collaboration. So when Germany was politically united, a decision had already been made that telecommunications policy for both sectors would be the same. Therefore, this strategic planning collaboration made the rest of the job "easy."
This provides one of the best case studies of the importance of cooperative planning (based on need) as a deterrent to conflict. Most negotiation strategies (and much negotiation literature) deal with resolving conflict once it has occurred. Collaborative strategic planning organizes, around needs and pressures, to minimize the potential possible occurrence of the conflict.
Thus, collaborative approaches, as opposed to strategies of opposition, involve institutionalized planning that takes the initiative on cooperative efforts. The entire EU vision is based upon a consortia of twelve nations struggling to establish policies and practices to build mechanisms in telecommunications (and many other sectors) that facilitate a collaborative group design. Examples of such structures include:
consultative decision-making
government institutional reform
joint research and development
standardization
common trade policies
uniform government procurement procedures
resisting nation-state monopolies
encouraging competitive growth while minimizing adverse intra-competitive practices
The research project hypothesis is that these cooperative ventures are not just altruistic, but productive and efficient. The project also seeks to develop better theories of collaboration and negotiation by tracing a methodology of building such structures. Such techniques could be employed by America (to keep competitive through collaboration) and could aid in the development of emerging Eastern European nations, and less developed countries throughout the world.
When data analysis is complete, project information will form the basis of a telecommunications policy conference to be held in Washington DC in 1992. Thus, government officials and private-sector representatives can observe the EU collaborative structures and discuss how these approaches might be helpful in United States strategic planning.
Telecommunications in a Unified Germany
Peter Quander heads the European Policy and European Affairs Section of the Federal Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in Bonn. He spoke at length with the author recently about interfacing strategic planning on the three tiers: ministry operations; a recently-united Federation; and an emerging European Union.
Many technology and policy issues require creative collaboration. What almost seems required is an algorithm, a formula that meets this or that need. The concept of consensual politics is a good example.
In the earlier days of EU development, unanimous votes were required on many policy decisions. With the deadline for German unification fast approaching other procedures are emerging such as weighted voting and qualified majorities. Interesting criteria are sometimes utilized. Gross national product per thousand of population is one interesting formula. In fact, however, it is simply a rough sense of appropriate numerical representation among large, medium and small nations.
The term "framework" was used frequently as Quander and I talked. Many studies and papers are being organized and funded at the Brussels headquarters of the EU and, indeed, within most member countries. This is especially true of the telecommunications sector of the emerging unified economy. The widespread discussions engendered by these studies provide a framework for directives from Brussels. These may not be laws directly but they give a framework for the process of initiating specific national laws. This procedure wisely sets down guidelines while allowing member nations to do the legislating within their own borders. However, all legislation that emerges will require compatibility because of the collaborative vision of the framework.
The EU does pass direct laws, but many of the directives are not laws for the EU. There tends to be a momentum to implement guidelines because the markets flow over borders, but sometimes members can drag their individual feet on a policy. Much potential conflict is avoided by this collaborative strategic planning approach.
Another example of the collaborative momentum is the desire within each nation to improve its telecommunications services and to help its own product sector be competitive. This telecom infrastructure and the manufacturing industries are vital to the total economic environment within each nation's borders. This goal would seem to pit each EU country against each other and, indeed, there is a degree of competition. However, in order to be competitive, one must collaborate. This is a basic need and dynamic pushing EU countries into cooperative strategic planning. If each country develops its own technical standards, if all research and development is independent, then all lose and few can any longer afford such losses.
Germany, for example, in past years invested heavily -- and independently -- in telecommunication switches. They were, however, analog and the rest of the world was going digital. This was a costly lesson. Germany now knows it makes a lot of sense to collaborate on standards and research and development. There's time enough for competition when a specific product reaches the market. At the procurement stage the best product will usually win. Here the marketplace decides.
Some homespun tactics also get involved in these planning strategies. Quander referred to "the oil flick theory" -- if a drop of oil is released it will spread quickly around, even affecting a large quantity of water. This is how some cooperative planning concepts spread.
Another interesting finding is that variations can be celebrated; far from causing problems these differences can enrich collaborative planning. Quander mentioned that the Germans from the Eastern sector had a lot to offer their "more advanced" colleagues from the West. It seems that many of these good ideas grew because of limited resources in the East; they had to be more improvisational because of these limitations. It is obvious to Europeans that the United States has much to offer in marketing technology products to the EU. What is needed, however, is a mind-set that is somewhat flexible. Instead of forcing American telecommunications on Europeans, whether these products fit or not, American planners need to become flexible and collaborative also. Companies that have learned this lesson are already at work at joint ventures in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom and in Germany. This is true of the regional Bell telephone companies.
Germany's history has taught its leaders the value of collaboratives. World War II history is most recent and painful, perhaps, but much of the history of Empire in Germany has consisted of regional structures. Experience exists, therefore, in its culture, concerning the difficulties of warring fiefdoms and the administrative experience of holding many regions of the Empire together. This history of regional authority is reflected today in the German "Lander" or state, where much political power resides. The unification of the two Germanys just added five new states. Thus, coordination within the Federal Republic of Germany requires strategies not unlike those needed when Germany collaborates with the various nation-states of the European federation. On both levels collaborative strategic planning tools are being sharpened.
Building Collaborative Educational/Training Structures
On a more specific level, interesting cooperatives are forming to meet the need for education and training for telecommunications leadership in Europe. Here, too, American educators and policymakers need to study the data and hopefully it will lead to action on this side of the Atlantic.
EU planners, aware of the import of education and training, also struggle with the European language problem: nine languages all equal - no reference language. There is a growing emphasis on programs that are collaborative.
Examples include:
1. COMETT - Community in Education and Training for Technology
This program stresses cooperation between higher education and industry by developing transnational training schemes. Featured are multi-national consortia and exchanges of students and qualified personnel. The second phase of this project (from 1990-94) includes support for 120-180 consortia, 3,500 exchanges, 200 short-training courses, 150 joint-training projects and 36 model pilot projects.
2. ERASMUS - European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students
The main purpose of this program is to promote student mobility and cooperation in higher education. It provides financial support to assist universities and other higher education establishments to develop inter-university cooperative programs throughout Europe. Grants are available to support students who travel under these joint study programs and to help meet the extra costs of studying abroad.
3. PETRA - Partnerships in Education and Training
This initiative is designed to increase the availability and standard of vocational training while developing an initial European dimension in such training. The program establishes the European Network of Training initiatives. The Network will link these programs in each country with comparable schemes in other EU Member States. Grants are available to fund the work involved in identifying potential partners and there are annual renewable grants to build upon and develop existing twinning or partnership arrangements.
4. PLUTO - A European Network for Teacher Education
This program title is derived from the planet, not from an acronym. The PLUTO Network is a European group of individuals and institutions working to explore and develop the uses of advanced telecommunications in education. There are already active nodes in all countries of Western Europe with the exception of Switzerland and Luxembourg. It also has potential members in many of the Eastern European countries.
In the private sector also, training forums are emerging that are collaborative; this in spite of the fact that the firms working together on education and training actually compete in the marketplace. One such consortium is the European Telecom Management Training Group (EMTG). As its course catalogue notes:
The idea of EMTG was conceived when the Management College of the British Telecom, the Akademie fur Fuhrungskrafte der Deutschen Bundespost and the Scuola Superiore G. Reiss Romoli, the Management College of the Italian Telecom Group STET decided to cooperate on management training. The aim of the cooperation is to share the resources and the know-how of the colleges in order to provide to the telecom managers 'European managerial education and training' and to 'create a European mentality among those young managers who will need this sort of outlook for a better understanding of international problems.'
One recent EMTG Seminar held at the Management Academy of the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom in Berlin brought together management staff from Eastern and Western Europe. Topics included: political and economic changes (from the Eastern and Western European point of view); management development from the entrepreneurial point of view (with Eastern and Western European variations); the necessity of growing internationalization of telecommunications organizations; and an analysis of common fields of activity.
Many of these coordinated educational initiatives are stretching across boundaries and educational/training systems that are very, very different. Somehow, faced with the need, these differences are being massaged and cooperative ventures are forming. Individuals with whom I spoke longed to stretch these structures to include American institutions and firms. This is a fertile area for collaborative strategic planning. The technologies can help, of course, since teleconferencing can make many of these joint efforts distance-insensitive. What is necessary is the will to plan jointly and an environment that institutionalizes cooperative action (the way Americans have institutionalized a non-smoking environment, changing attitudes and policies).
A Call for American Initiatives
Americans have been so busy fretting about the competition from Japan we have not noticed that a coordinated structure is building in Europe that we must adjust to, and work through, in this century and in the next. As this research project moves forward much additional data will aid in this task. Already, however, some practical guidelines are emerging.
First of all, America must get its telecommunications public policy act together so this important sector of our economy has direction and drive. A recent conference of leading telecommunications experts heard Senator Tim Wirth call for another Marshall Plan -- a design for growth in Eastern Europe similar to the earlier collaborative vision that put Europe on its feet after World War II.
The same conference heard telecommunications public policy prophet, Henry Geller, plead for a National Commission to examine the telecommunications policy process in America. A similar Commission in Germany, the Government Commission for Telecommunications, was set up in 1985, composed of representatives from trade and industry, trade unions, sciences and politics, and headed by Professor Witte of the University of Munich.
The German committee worked more than two years analyzing the telecommunications situation in Germany and relating it to international trends. With such systematic study Germany was ready to revamp its own policy process, writing new legislation and restructuring it for the new decade and the next century. America desperately needs to walk through this process.
Secondly, communications educators in this country must become knowledgeable about the telecommunications sector (press and broadcasting and cable and satellites and fiber and telephony), rather than remaining in communications boxes that no longer fit. And the policy process must be appreciated and studied and passed on to students, not just awareness of the technological tools.
Thirdly, American communication educators (and American firms) must study the European Union dynamics systematically, and with a mind open to learning how these approaches can work in America and can work between America and European partners. Students need to be exposed to what is happening in Europe, especially communication students. (Recently 39 students from the London program of Syracuse University went to Brussels for a three-hour briefing with EU staff on how telecommunications policies and priorities are identified and structured there.)
A fourth arena requiring systematic planning is the research and development field. In the telecommunications sector changes occur in the technologies so rapidly, and the entrepreneurial opportunities are so vast, and the R & D costs are so extensive, we need to structure joint research and development, just as the European Union is already doing. Programs in the EU like RACE and ESPRIT broker partnerships for "precompetitive R & D" -- certain nations will commit to developing pieces of a total technology and will get reimbursed for a maximum of 50% of their expenses.
Much work lies ahead of us -- as educators, as corporate leaders, as government policymakers. Much of the task will require new tools -- a collaborative vision, a "shared mind" as journalist Michael Schrage recently titled his book:
... to a disturbingly large degree, most organizations lack the collaborative infrastructures that enable people to share their talents in ways that satisfy the individual's need for expression and the organization's imperative for results. As a result, people feel increasingly frustrated, and the organizations that employ them moan about declining productivity and shriveled morale. (xxiii)