Thursday, December 3, 2009

How Charismatic Is Your ERP System

While conducting “research” for another project, I stumbled across Max Weber’s notion of classification of authority, which was news to me, as is most serious Western thought.

According to Weber, there are three types of authority:

1. Charismatic
2. Traditional
3. Legal

Weber defined charismatic authority as being derived primarily from, well, charisma, or personal magnetism. Examples of leaders that embody charismatic authority include Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Adolf Hitler, and Mahatma Gandhi.

As for traditional authority, Weber defined this as a type of authority exemplified by the “handing down,” or inheritance, of power from generation to generation, as in a monarchy.

Legal authority is exemplified by the majority of modern states, and it refers to, you know, the boring kind of leadership, where people are elected peacefully, and nobody talks about riots, military coups, or chads. Examples include Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

As you may have noticed, much of what I write has a wandering point that I like to, uh, “disguise” as sheer nonsense. So here’s the point (sort of):

What Kind of Authority Does Your ERP System Wield?

That depends on which of the following applies to your organization:

1. CHARISMATIC - We bought our ERP system based on a charismatic salesperson and a glitzy demo.
2. TRADITIONAL - We are ruled by our legacy system, and always will be.
3. LEGAL - We used a structured selection methodology to purchase an ERP system.

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