The same kind of thing happened in semiconductor design. Once the transistor density got high enough, designers of logic no longer needed to understand the physical intricacies of chip layout. Earlier, it happened with software–when computers got enough speed and memory, programmers didn’t need to know as much about the internal workings of the machine. The process is reversible, though, because new applications may arise where the underlying technology gets pushed so hard that designers have to know how it works in some detail.

Organizational politics will always play a role in how new ideas are embraced (or not) and executed. Watch the winners; they’ll show us something about how it’s done, but never all of how it’s done. It’s like the early days when American car makers wanted to tour Toyota assembly plants. American execs were amazed that Toyota permitted them to do so. When asked why, a Toyota exec was reported to have said something like, “Because you can’t copy the thing that makes our system work, our company’s culture.”

I have told you a million times before, don’t exaggerate!

Corporations are by definition complex adaptive systems, just as the markets in which they exist are, work goups within them are and the individuals within the work groups are (at a biological level anyway). But organisations have a number of factors that make spotting emerging patterns harder, both inside the organisation if you want to nudge it into changing and outside the organisation if you want to nudge markets to change.

One of the big factors inside the BMW organisation is internal politics and the greasy pole. Internal politics prevents BMW from being all that it can be.

I recently ran a business seminar at BMW, at their request. The people were all friendly, competent and driven, but internal politics was evident everywhere. Particularly the politics associated with BMW knows best and senior management knows best of all. It prevented direct discussion of the one big problem I was there to help them think about. I decided that I didn’t want to do any more work with BMW at that point.

The brand may exist as feelings in the mind of the customer (as Tom Asacker points out), but the whole organisation has a role to play in delivering a superior branded experience for the customer which creates those feelings (as John Aaker points out). The real BMW is much more (or much less) than the sum of a few glossy ads. And it could be much more than it is today. If only internal politics didn’t get in the way.