I recently completed a project for an NGO where I assisted an internal working group in developing a new organizational model for the NGO head office. This NGO carries out long term development and emergency assistance, and the head office comprises experts in various fields (e.g., logistics, water supply and sanitation) as well as so-called program coordinators who support development projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Two alternative organizational models had already been developed before I became involved. Yet the challenge was that the two models had only been described at a high conceptual level, which led to a lot of questions from managers and employee representatives, who could not understand how the new models would work.
In addition, there were also several open issues that had not been closed. For example, the models left open the question of how to organize one of the key teams – the emergency preparedness team (which assists country representations when there is a disaster): Should it remain as a team or should the people in this team be transferred to other units?
The deadline for concluding the design process was approaching fast, so we had to find a way to quickly address these challenges. During one working session, we decided to map the entire structure of one of the main departments using Post-it notes. We used the following procedure:
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Each sticky note represented one position/role, for example, Advisor or Assistant (we wrote the name of each role on the note)
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We used different colors for different categories of roles, for example, we used red for line managers and two shades of green for two types of subject matter specialists, and blue for the roles within the NGO’s emergency preparedness team.
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We placed the notes on the board to indicate how the team groupings in the two alternative organizational models would look. I took the picture shown above with my phone camera during the session, and it shows one organizational model mapped on the left board and another on the right board.
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Once we had mapped the two alternatives, we started playing with various modifications that we thought could improve the overall design further.
Both the client and I were surprised by the speed at which we are able to come up with new ideas using the method.
When the proposal was presented later by means of a Power Point presentation, we chose to keep the same color scheme as we felt that it helped us communicate how the different categories of roles would be grouped in the new model (see example below).
I think there are three reasons why this approach is so effective:
- It forces you to do a “reality test” of conceptual models that may only have been presented (and understood) at a high level. Rather than talking about how great it would be to have a “process based” or “geographical” or “customer oriented” organizational model, you specify the details of the model and also get a sense of how easy or difficult it would be to implement it (the color coding is important as it makes the key changes implied by the model obvious, such as the distribution of the “blue” team shown above).
- Working together using the wall creates a better group dynamic compared to the endless point-counterpoint discussions that tend to ensue when seated around a table and listening to someone’s presentation. Instead of discussing, we design something together!
- Having the basic building blocks defined in advance facilitates a creative process where you may quickly combine and re-combine the building blocks until you have a good “constellation”. (By the way, when designing the overall structure for a larger organization, each sticky note could represent a sub-unit or team rather than a role as in this example.)
In fact, if you first do a session with Post-it notes and then go to your desk to draw some illustrations using PowerPoint, if feels like walking in a bed of glue in comparison. Instead of using a few milliseconds to stick a note to the wall, it now takes several minutes to draw and align a box properly, adjust the fonts and formatting etc., and that may add up to several hours (or days) before a complete presentation is done.
Nonetheless, it is also important to document ideas and solutions electronically so that they can be stored, distributed and communicated. So I am afraid we need to keep PowerPoint in our tool box until something better comes along.
I should add that although the sticky note approach encourages improvisation, it needs to be well planned and well timed. It is no use starting to restructure units in this manner unless you have basic information about how the organization works or what the goals of the exercise are. In my experience, a session like this is most useful somewhere in the middle of a design process, at the stage where the goals are relatively clear and when you have started to formulate preliminary ideas for new design solutions.
Related post:
Participative design processes: The case for “low tech” workshops
There are quotes that summarize a lot of organizational design wisdom in a single sentence. In the document posted below, I include six quotes that I particularly like and briefly explain how I interpret each of them. Let me know what you think.
Happy holidays and best wishes a well designed 2012,
P.S. If you haven’t seen it yet you may also take a look at my earlier post about metaphors.
Most of the clients I work with are concerned about finding the best possible organizational model, given the particular strategic goals they pursue and the constraints they face. Yet some also mention to me that they believe reorganizing the firm will be beneficial in itself.
There’s actual some support for this view in the academic literature (although I have not come across any empirical research). The key idea is that complexity gradually increases in most organizations (see my earlier blog post about this topic). Over time, organizations tend to add units, layers, processes, and systems. Increasing bureaucracy means that things move slower. More complexity may also lead to more stress and conflict within and between sub-units of the organization.
In his books about complexity and design, MIT professor Nam Suh has explained that we can observe periodic behavior and reinitialization in many technical, biological, and human systems. He uses airline scheduling as a case. Airlines can reinitialize the system by moving planes down during the night. All of the uncertainties that accrue during a day (delays, maintenance issues etc.) can then be terminated to ensure that they do not extend into the following day. Professor Suh claims that such periodic behavior is critical in order to avoid the build-up of unnecessary complexity.
Maybe a reorganization is a bit like this. I am not saying that the particular organizational model that one selects is irrelevant – in fact, I think it is critically important – but the mere act of reorganizing may have some positive benefits too. When we reorganize we break up established patterns. We regroup units. We place people into new roles – sometimes people whose skills and competence were neglected in the old structure. Although any reorganization certainly has a cost it may also help ensure that the complexity of the past is not carried forward into the future.
Image used with permission courtesy of Many Cornet, www.bonkersworld.net
At a conference last week in Oslo, I attended a session where we discussed the state of academic research on organization design. An interesting talk was delivered by Professor Lars Groth of the University of Oslo (pictured below).
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Prof. Groth had analyzed some purported “new organizational forms” described in recent journal articles, including:
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Prof. Groth dissected these organizational forms and argued that they could all be explained by using the terminology and concepts in Mintzberg’s book on organization design from 1979. As an example, he claimed that the so-called C-form is basically another term for Mintzberg’s concept of the Adhocracy.
Prof. Groth was also interested in the connection between information technology and organizational design. He pointed out that people have been repeatedly wrong in predicting that new information technologies would change authority relations. The advent of computer networks was supposed to create non-hierarchical “network organizations”.
He argued that this belief was like thinking that the introduction of the telephone would remove the need for bosses in an organization. It didn’t; and organizations with computer networks are perhaps somewhat flatter than before but still hierarchical.
I agree with Prof Groth that there is a tendency to exaggerate “newness” and create buzzwords, rather than building on earlier established concepts. The effect is that we become unable to build cumulative knowledge about organization design as we keep on reinventing the same concepts.
I would like to take issue with him on a couple of points, though. First, I do think there are some organizational forms today that were not described in the older literature. As an example, Mintzberg’s description of the matrix form is not identical to the current concept of the multidimensional organization (something I discuss in some detail in my upcoming book).
More importantly, though, I think it is somewhat futile to look at “new organizational forms” separately from the purposes and functions that they serve. It’s a bit like an engineer taking apart an iPad and concluding – “Well, there’s nothing really new here, only a screen, chassis, microprocessor, and battery – we have seen all that before!”. Yes, we have, but innovation is not only about new forms, but about how you re-combine existing things to meet functional requirements that were previously seen as incompatible (in the case of the iPad, these functions could be excellent usability, affordable price, great visual design and connectivity, etc.).
So rather than looking at organizational forms in isolation, we should ask about functions: Are there organizations today that are able to create organizations that meet different functional demands that we have thought were difficult or impossible to achieve (in combination)?
As an example, Mintzberg (1979) was very critical of the prospect of democratic organizations where workers elect supervisors and/or participate in decision making. He pointed out that the available studies show that democratic governance in organizations lead to less efficiency and more rather than less centralization. The question we should ask today is whether there are organizations that are able to introduce democratic governance, while at the same time maintaining speed and efficiency. If so, that would be something new.
Creative organization designers are not the ones who invent new words for organizational forms but those that use already familiar building blocks (roles, processes, structures) in new combinations to achieve results that others thought were impossible.
Purely top-down decision processes are becoming less common. The leader is still responsible for making the final decision (as he/she should be) when it comes to organizational re-designs. But most leaders realize that organization design decisions are complex, that there may be multiple alternatives, and that people at lower levels of the organization may have access to information that should inform the decision. For this reason, some degree of participation and involvement is nearly always sought, by means of interviews, workshops, distribution and analysis of surveys, or circulation and discussion of proposed models among key managers.
Yet more participation does not automatically lead to a better process. One key challenge that I have noted is to strike a balance between divergence (creating alternatives/ideas) and convergence (getting closure and reaching consensus on a given solution). It’s relatively easy to ask 100 managers for their feedback regarding a proposed new organizational model. It is far more difficult to actually process the information that you then receive – each manager may have 5 or more concerns, and their concerns or ideas may (if you are unlucky!) be both sensible and thoughtful. So then you have 500 things that may need to be considered. Do you have the capacity for that? Do you have the time?
The key is to carefully structure the organization re-design process in manner so you get divergence and convergence at the right points in time. You want as many as ideas regarding possible problems and solutions at the early stage. Later, you want a finite set of decision alternatives that can be evaluated against each other.
It is also important to consider how to ask questions during the process. If a large number of people are involved, it may not be feasible to ask open-ended questions, particularly not at the later stages. Then the alternatives and decision criteria should already be established and accepted, so people should not be asked to offer their general opinion about what to do, but be invited to evaluate specific alternatives against the defined criteria.
A project team may also create various types of tools for handling the information that is collected. I sometimes use an “issue log” – a simple list in an Excel file – where I write down observations and ideas that I have myself as well as ideas and comments from those that I interview or work with in workshops. I try to categorize the issues so that I can quickly group and search through the items when the need arises.
Far too often, project teams ask for input from the organization, but have insufficient capacity for processing the information that they receive. The result is often the opposite of what is intended: Rather than increased engagement and ownership, people become frustrated and even cynical if they perceive the participatory process as less than genuine. If we want real participation in a re-design process, we need to plan how to collect, analyze, and act on ideas and suggestions from people that get involved.
