Month: March 2011

The past week I involved both gathering and distributing resources – mainly book title, articles, and websites. There was no single event sparking this, rather each meeting (of which I had a minimum of five each day) spawned something to look up or pass on. So I thought I'd collect in one spot everything that I put in my gunny sack on during the week and see if there were any themes or patterns or whether it was just a random collection of stuff.

Articles
Note that I'm not employed by M cKinsey Quarterly and nor do I get a commission for promoting their articles but I did like four that passed through my in-box this week and I passed on the details to colleagues.

The first was on people and productivity called "Question for your HR chief: Are we using our 'people data' to create value?" Circulating this question to people has resulted in a conversation generated on how should and could we improve our methods of tying analytics and performance measures together in order to track, forecast, and look for patterns and themes that will inform how we make decisions. I'm also interested in how the organization can improve productivity (assuming we can get a handle on measuring the productivity of knowledge workers) and streamline processes. Interestingly someone in the organization has highlighted the 'cultural barrier that discourages sharing of data and using it to manage the business.'

Then there were three interviews with CEOs in very different industries, and in different countries, on leading organizational change. This seems to tie in nicely with the previous article as it is possible, likely even, that having good insight into any metrics and analytics would then enable us to change the right things to improve organizational performance and effectiveness.

"Flying people, not planes": The CEO of Bombardier on building a world-class culture
Pierre Beaudoin explains how a company driven by engineering goals learned to focus on customer expectations, teamwork, and continuous improvement.

Reinvigorating a corporate giant: An interview with the chairman of India's largest infrastructure company
A. M. Naik describes how he established a culture of value creation at one of India's leading companies.

Scaling up a transformation: An interview with Eureko's Jeroen van Breda Vriesman
A member of the executive board describes how the Dutch insurance group first transformed its health division and then started to roll out the changes across the entire company.

The final article that caught my eye this week was one in the Economist on Groupon Anxiety. Essentially this is about the viability of their business model which was the reason I paid close attention to it. I'm facilitating a session in May at the APDF Summit (Association of Professional Design Firms on Why Business Models Matter and Groupon is a good case example to talk about.

Books
Someone asked me to recommend a basic book on Organization Development for HR Pracitioners in China who are new to the concepts and thinking. This was a good challenge for me as there are hundreds of books available on Organization Development – indeed I am writing a chapter for one that is to be published later this year – but what is there for beginners that is easy to read and not daunting in the theory? One that meets the bill is The ASTD Guide to Organization Development. It is basic and there are better approaches to Transition Management than William Bridges – but that said, his approach is easy to describe and follow. Apart from that caveat it seems as if it will meet the bill. I'll find out soon as I am going to China to work with that group.

Linked to that piece of work I found the The Consultants Big Book of OD Activity that has fifty tools in it. Again this book is useful for beginners as it gives an idea of what tools are and how they might be used. Several of them are rather too lengthy and involved and having bought it I'm not sure it will be high value to me, as they are very US centric in concepts and values, but the tools are available to download online if you have bought the book. So the few that are useful I can easily get hold of.

An interesting conversation with a colleague about 'verbal tics' that she noticed people used – for example saying "I'm confused" a lot – led me to locate a book that I'd read an extract from several years ago You Are What You Say: The Proven Program that Uses the Power of Language to Combat Stress, Anger, and Depression . It seemed to reflect the idea that she had that you could give feedback and coaching support to people partly based on the language they used.

She, in turn, recommended to me Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln as giving an excellent insight into organizational politics. So that's now on my Amazon wish list.

Finally I attended the book launch of The Primes by Chris McGoff whom I used to work with. That was a fun event as I reconnected with a number of people who I'd been out of touch with for a while. The book is a lighthearted look at how to approach organizational strategy and change work by using 24 graphic concepts that are then discussed. The academic in me has some reservations about the approach but not everyone is an academic!

I see that I've now reached my word count describing the books and articles so next week's blog will be about the websites that came new to me this week. One pattern in what I've collected this week is immediately obvious to me – I give to others references to books and articles, and I receive from others useful websites. A second pattern, revealed by a quick glance down the websites list, shows that the ones I've collected are useful productivity and sharing enhancing things rather than information imparting sites. I wonder what I'll collect in the coming week?

Last week's memorable discussion focused on new business models. One person arguing hotly that there were no people with the skills and know-how to change legacy computer company business models into cloud computing business models, or how to change company IT departments running standard software and hardware into 'cloud' departments (or no departments).

This may or may not be true. That same day I'd been reading an article, The Business of Sharing, on the new business model of renting/sharing items. Organizations mentioned who used a renting model included Zipcar, Bag Borrow or Steal, Netflix, Rent that Toy, and TechShop. Couch Surfing and thredUP were discussed as sharing models.

These are all new, or newish, business models in the US, maybe less to do with cloud computing but all illustrating the point that there are, perhaps, specific skills to generate new business models. Taking the argument into the internet world I suggested that in the emerging markets there were skills available – not so, countered others. Their view was that the world of cloud was too new to have enabled people to develop skills necessary to build viable businesses.

OK – no point in arguing with a fixed view. But later in the day I turned to a previous article that I'd filed (I teach a course on business models on an MBA program and collect articles on new business models). It's called The wiki way: Two cyber-gurus take a second look at how the internet is changing the world

It is interesting because it takes the view that 'the web is the most radical force of our time' And in discussing the book "Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World" by Williams and Tapscott the article author endorses the book author's view, saying "they are surely also right to predict that it [the web] has only just begun to work its magic".

Both articles point to the notion that new business models are not an outcome of developed skills, rather as people have ideas about new or different ways of doing things and then try putting them into practice they develop skills to continue along the new path. It's rather like someone taking up running – they learn how to get better the more their running improves.

A legacy model does not have to wait to find in the market the skills needed to change it. Within any organization the skills exist to do things differently if the will and the power structures enable these to surface and act. One of my favorite books on this theme is Debra Meyerson's, The Tempered Radical

It struck me as I watched my colleagues not listening to each other but forcefully putting their views and over-riding anything that sounded different from what they were saying, that listening, reflecting, asking open questions, and allowing other views to surface might be the very skills needed to help change legacy business models to new business models. Technical skills in cloud computing could well be of at less value than interpersonal skills in helping people with the ideas surface new thinking and then helping them act on it.

Question: We are responsible for assisting government offices to design their organizational structure. The process is as follows:

1) Government Ministries/Department draw up their strategic plans

2) Once the plan has been accepted they start working how they need to adjust their organization design to ensure implementation of the plan. Some do Business Process Re-engineering and some don't because it is not a requirement.

3) When the request for structural help come to our Department, we tackle the request by looking at the following elements:

• Unity of command and direction
• Chain of command
• Span of control
• Division of work
• Standardisation

We do workflow studies and we use the norms to design positions on the structure.

The problem we experience with this approach is that it has not been agreed upon as a policy framework; the structural principles are being rejected as they do not address the strategic direction of Departments.

The question I am asking my colleagues and myself as a head of the Department is:

Are there other approaches to Organization Design that can solve the issues at hand? How do we ensure that we develop a policy framework and get buy in and build capacity of Departments to do their organization design?

Answer: Your current approach is 'Position Management' defined by one US government agency as "the assignment of mission functions to organizations in a manner which ensures legal and properly accomplished work load while making optimum use of human resources." Position management is only one aspect of an organization design and comes towards the end of the design phase. NOTE there are five phases in an organization design project: assess, design, plan to implement, implement, review and evaluate.

Unless you are able to demonstrate to the business managers that you are recommending certain structures and positions in a way that is a direct response to their strategic direction and plan you will not get their support. It may be too late for this year but your first goal must be to get involved with developing the business strategy with the line managers/heads of department. Here's a suggested way of approaching the issue. In terms of the five phases of the organization design methodology this falls in the design phase. You may or may not have the time/opportunity to go back and do any assessments – that might include a change readiness of the workforce to deliver the new strategy.

Step 1: Discuss the main themes of the strategy with the line manager. For example, one of the themes may be to "Reduce costs and tackle inefficiencies".

Step 2: In the same discussion find out how the manager is thinking of operationalizing this strategy. He may say that he is going to reduce headcount, or multiskill people, or merge two overlapping departments. Your job here is to act as a consultant and ask him, among other things, what is the new work flow going to be, what implications the operational plan will have on the workforce, and risks and consequences of his intended actions. You will go out of this meeting with a good idea of the ground that you would need to cover in a people plan for the manager.

Step 3: Develop a draft people plan to discuss with the manager, but keep it at a high level. Your plan will cover some themes like: maintaining motivation, teaching people to work in new business processes, moving people to new roles, laying some people off.

Step 4: Present the high level plan to the manager and show how your plan ties back to his delivering his strategic plan. Ask for his agreement to this plan. This gives you the go-ahead to do a detailed people plan and it is only at this stage that you start to think about the position management aspect. Here's an example of one element of a high level people plan

We are cost efficient and invest in what matters most to our customers

• Conduct regular organization reviews to identify areas for streamlining and improvement
• Deliver local change initiatives to meet cost/service quality targets
• Manage headcount effectively in line with business requirements eg deliver recruitment to meet volume/wastage targets, manage voluntary severance as appropriate
• Support the changes to the organization to achieve these successfully

Step 5: From the high level plan develop a detailed people plan with timeline that is synchronized with any other work that the manager is doing as part of redesigning to deliver his business strategy – for example he might be introducing some new IT software, or changing work flows. The people plan MUST align with this work. Suggest measures that will show him you are on track. You'll see that position management comes into play at this point.

Take the example of bullet 3 above in the high level plan example:

• Manage headcount effectively in line with business requirements eg deliver recruitment to meet volume/wastage targets, manage voluntary severance as appropriate

In a detailed plan you might be detailing actions around:

Future skills e.g.
• Identify future critical skill by level/family against different scenarios
• Assess the population against the requirement (skills audit
• Defind the skills gap
• Define what is trainable
• Define transition skill requirements

Numbers e.g.
• Identify headcount targets for Yr 1, Yr 2, and Yr 3 against different scenarios e.g. Scenario A re-engineer/automate; Scenario B relocate; Scenario C Outsource
• Identify future flexible resourcing requirements e.g. part-time, annual hours
• Identify manpower flows:
a) Natural flows (historical), Natural was wastage, internal organization flows
b) Identify induced flows required against each scenario and skill requirement. Number and skills to shed e.g. induced exit, redeployment, termination of temporary contracts. Number and skills to acquire e.g. based on volume, performance. Numbers to reskill/train
c) Identify manpower transition requirements including change programme resourcing

Position management
a) Develop a suggested structure and workforce positioning drawn from the information above
b) Check before implementation that the new structure and positions will deliver the business strategy (by doing walkthroughs of the work flow)
c) Manage the positions (position management)

Step 6: Present the detailed people plan – again showing how your proposal will deliver the strategy and giving information on how you plan to measure that it is actually doing so.

Once you have covered these 6 steps you are ready to do the planning to implement it.

Yesterday, in Richmond VA, I walked several times, to and from our hotel, past two statues – one the Reconciliation Statue, by sculptor Stephen Broadbent, part of the reconciliation project that emerged from apologies for slavery issued by officials in Liverpool, England, and Benin in West Africa.

The other, Thomas Crawford's statue in the Capitol's grounds of George Washington on horseback imperiously pointing a direction.

I'm not a great fan of tons of bronze cast into shapes and memorials but stuck in my memory are The Awakening (1980) which is a 100-foot statue of a giant embedded in the earth, struggling to free himself, located at National Harbor, Maryland, and Edith Cavell's statue in London's St Martin's Square that has words, Sacrifice, Humanity, Devotion, and Fortitude carved around the base.

During the evening these four statues seemed to collectively call up images of organization in my mind. I started to wonder if organizations could have a challenge around designing a sculpture that encapsulated their organization – not a branding logo, but a kind of bronze-cast description/metaphor of it.

I was mulling over the George Washington one – his imperious pointing finger annoyed me. I was reminded of Star Trek's Captain Picard and his phrase 'Make it So'. Both these are kind of typical leadership gestures of "follow me, I know best, oh and incidentally if we can't afford all the equipment for you, that I deserve as leader you'll be fine wading through mud and organizational chaos in pursuit of my dream for you. Further I don't have a clue how to implement my vision for you, but I'll leave all that to you and woe betide you if you fail."

Maybe this was unfair. I am not a George Washington scholar and was simply responding to the visual impact of the statue. I haven't seen many Star Trek episodes, and haven't read the Wess Roberts' book Star Trek: Make It So: Leadership Lessons from Star Trek: The Next Generation (and the Amazon reviews suggest it isn't worth reading anyway) but implied imperious leadership is not what gets an organization through the good and bad times: a point not lost on John Chambers, Cisco, who in his delightful 6 minute You Tube video clip Teamwork and Collaboration confides that he's 'a command and control guy', and struggles to be participative and collaborative in his new order of things.

The reconciliation statue really did appeal to me. Visually, it's very simple and dignified – just an outline of two people embracing with panels designed by schoolchildren around the hem of the couple, but it seems to imply respect, integrity, and people trusting in each other. It's very moving on the 'less is more' principle.

Organizationally it represents mutual support, the power of networks, a higher goal achieved for the benefit of all, and the acknowledgement and coming to terms with a legacy with the chance to move forward: a kind of inclusiveness based on mutual reliance, respect for what people can bring regardless of position in hierarchy, and sensitivity to each other's inheritances. Organizations that manage this are few and far between. (Nominations welcome).

The Edith Cavell statue I've written about before. The power of this statue is much less in the cast of Edith herself, but in the words carved in the pedestal. 'Fortitude, Sacrifice, Devotion, Humanity'. Worthy organizational values indeed. Maybe the 'devotion' doesn't play out well in a world where the average length of North American/European, CEO tenure is around 3 – 5 years, depending on whose figures you're looking at, and job mobility and 'transferable skills' are touted as success factors for today's workforce.

Indeed 'devotion' to an organization is one that in many cases has betrayed loyal workforce members (think Enron), but this could be because the other three values were not in place at all levels in the organization. I'd like to think that the four words could be applied fittingly to some organizations, perhaps leavened by the additional word implying 'fun' or 'great place to work'. Just the four suggest unremitting seriousness.

The Awakening is a wonderful sculpture and I was very sad when it was moved from one of my running routes where I saw it on a regular basis, to National Harbor – a place too far to run to, with difficult cycle routes, and impossible to get to on public transport. (I don't have a car). This statue typifies many of the organizations I work with. They are struggling to get out of the holes they have buried themselves in – by default or not paying attention, or numerous other reasons.

Suddenly they realize they are in deep difficulty and have to do something to extricate themselves if they are to survive. Recent weeks have shown several companies unable to do this – Borders being the latest. My suggestion? Miniature versions of the statue are cast in thousands, and given to all employees in large organizations to remind themselves of the need to stay continuously alert – a difficult call as everything needs to sleep at some point, but only for the healthy number of hours that rejuvenate rather than enervate.

With these for sculpted pieces in mind, and having just returned from seeing further sculptures at the Picasso exhibition I wonder what statue or sculpture is an organizational metaphor for you?