At the head of each chapter you will see a quote from a book on organ- ization design. Any one of those quoted would be useful to skim through or read in more detail. Jay Galbraith and David Nadler are well- known writers in the field and books of theirs are worth looking at.
What is Organization Design?
17 work in a highly bureaucratic and/or hierarchical organization, it might be too much of a stretch to start a process which is essen- tially organic and rather free-flowing. It is not a highly engineered or blue-printed approach. If you have a high need (or your organ- ization does) for clarity, known deliverables and rigidly defined outcomes then this method may not be for you. Essentially you are working with an emerging shape that crystallizes rather than a pre-defined shape.
■ Do you know what to do next? Having got to this stage in the book you should already be starting to think about what to do next in relation to your project. The types of things you should have in mind are questions around team membership skills and attributes, roles of the various stakeholders, time and resource that will be required, documentation and process controls that would work for you, risk assessments and quality assurance, and most importantly the communication and involvement planning.
■ Have you talked to other people about organization design?
Organization design takes many forms and it is good to talk with other people about their experiences of what works and how they have approached it. The more you can exchange knowledge on the topic, the more confident you will feel about your own skills and readiness to undertake the change. The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development in the UK is a useful source of advice for HR practitioners as is the Society for HR Management in the US.
■ Are you feeling ready to start? If you are not feeling curious, excited and ready to learn more about the OD project at this stage then you need to consider whether it is something that you will be able to work on intensively for a significant period of time. Organ- ization design requires focus and attention, not least because you have to keep the business operating as you re-design the organiza- tion around you. Organization re-design is a similar process as having your bathroom or kitchen remodelled. Many of you will know the difficulties of keeping your household going effectively and smoothly as you have this done – it is often a hard enough task without the builders being in situ.
References/Useful Reading
Galbraith, J. (1995). Designing Organizations. Jossey-Bass.
Kondrasuk, J and Lewison, J. (1997). Organization Structures: A Primer.
Society for Human Resource Management.
Nadler, D. A. et al. (1992). Organizational Architecture: Designs for Changing Organizations. Jossey-Bass.
Summary – The Bare Bones
■ Organizations will perform the way they are designed to perform
■ Organization design is more than organization structure
■ Design choices begin by knowing the business strategy and what it aims to deliver
■ To improve productivity, performance and profit you need to get a good fit between people, work, the informal organization and the formal organization
■ The organization design approach described in this book is partici- pative and collaborative
■ You need good change management skills
■ Communication heralds your first actions Do’s and Don’ts
■ Do at least skim read the whole book so you have a broad under- standing of the process
■ Do think about the good and bad change management pro- grammes you have been involved in and get ready to apply your learning from these
■ Do start the communication and involvement process right now
■ Don’t think that collaboration and participation don’t pay
■ Don’t try to make the process linear. It is iterative (but presented in a linear format here for the sake of clarity)
■ Don’t neglect to develop any technical skills you will need going forward
2
You and Organization Design
‘Leaders who take the same risks they ask of others – changing their own behavior and giving up a measure of comfort and control – truly inspire and energize others.’
Hesselbein, F. and Cohen, P. M. (1999).
Leader to Leader. Jossey-Bass.
Overview
Both of you (HR practitioner and line manager) are, in your different ways, leaders of the OD project. This chapter starts by asking you to think about the particular skills that an OD project requires you to have. In the collaborative approach, that this methodology is based on each partici- pant plays a different role. Presented are some ways of working out your own role in relation to other people’s roles in the design process.
Following this is an explanation of what to do in each phase, with a short discussion on the importance of being clear about your own and the other participants’ capabilities.
This discussion is followed by a tool that will help you assess your skills and then the self-check, do’s and don’ts and bare bones summary.
Think about Your Organization Design Skills
For those currently in operational HR, you need to be aware that you will need to take on a very different role from that of a conventional HR practitioner. Organization design work (indeed any change management
work) requires you to move well beyond the traditional boundaries of managing transactions to mobilizing a number of strategies to improve human performance and organizational effectiveness.
Equally those of you in line management roles who are initiating and implementing the change need to be confident that you have the chutzpah to carry it through. It is you who are setting the course and you who must visibly lead the way. You will be asking your staff to take a risk by doing things differently and you can inspire and energize them in this if you are willing and able to change your own behaviour and to give up some meas- ure of comfort and control. If you do not demonstrate that you are com- pletely committed to the new agenda you will not get it off the ground.
As you read through this book draw on your experiences of change programmes. Try to recall how you have felt about them either as an instigator of the programme or as a recipient of one. From these various perspectives think about what leadership attributes you have seen in operation which have worked, which have not worked, where you would do things differently, and so on. This reflection will help you match your skill and experience with what is presented here (it will also enable you to make comparisons, consider what similarities and differences there are between this approach and others you are familiar with and integrate anything new with your existing knowledge base).
Think about your own change management skills. How might you apply these in each of the five phases? You will see that the OD project involves you in initiating activities that invite or require people to do things differently. Identify where you may need to become more skilled or to adapt your current skills. To work effectively on an OD project you need to have between you the attributes shown in Figure 2.1.
Must have Nice to have
Organization analysis skills Highly developed conceptual skills Problem-solving skills Constant creativity
Ability to build commitment Ability to think originally Ability to build involvement An optimistic outlook Knowledge of power and political realities Empathy
Positive ‘can do’ attitude Ability to advise in a non-directive manner Line management experience Influencing skills
Listening skills Networking skills
Strong tolerance of ambiguity Persuasion in selling ideas
Figure 2.1 Organization design skills
You and Organization Design
21 Additionally you should have demonstrated technical skills in change management and facilitation.
Assuming that you have the attributes listed you then need to think about your style and behaviour in deploying them. It is not an exagger- ation to say that your behaviour and that of other managers at the vari- ous levels of the organization can make or break a change programme.
Work Out Your Respective Roles
This organization design method assumes a partnership role between the HR practitioner and the line manager. Further, it assumes that both will have presence in the project from inception until the second review.
This means that you must be ready, willing, and able to work together on the OD project for as long as it takes.
For your partnership to endure through the ups and downs of the com- ing months you will both need to either have or develop a keen sense of self. You need to be fully aware of your own strengths and weaknesses and in what situations you deploy these for good or ill. You also need to know what you want from each other in the partnership.
This is necessary because what you are jointly aiming to achieve is to turn the vision of a new organization design into a value add for the organization. You both need to believe in the vision and have a joint understanding of its objectives. With this common ground you need to be able to see how and where you can jointly deploy your skills to get the vision and objectives operationalized.
If you can forge a strong working relationship with this common pur- pose it will start off powerfully. However, as with any relationship you need to take certain continuing actions to sustain it and also to keep on renewing your commitment to it. What you will find as the OD project goes forward is that your roles, responsibilities, and activities change but the commitment to its success must remain constant.
Starting up the partnering relationship requires you to like and respect each other enough to be open and tell the truth. To get to this stage take some time to establish rapport and learn what each other’s needs and expectations are from the project. Develop enough confidence in each other to know that if you say you are going to do something then you will do it. At a basic level, you have to be able to trust each other. As in any
relationship, you may not always get your way, but you should each be able to have your say.
One of the tensions inherent in this kind of partnering process is that as well as the role you have in the OD project are the roles that you have elsewhere in the organization. Some of these may bang up against the role you are playing here. For example, line managers leading OD projects may recognize the need to employ an outside facilitator to run a work- shop, but they have a managerial role to work within a strictly defined budget for the department and know people are under a lot of work pres- sure so attending a workshop may not be in the best short-term interest.
As an HR practitioner you may feel that some of the organization design proposals are going to mean lay-offs and you know that your HR col- leagues are already suffering from the fall-out and flack of previous reduction in force programmes.
For both of you success in this sort of multiple role working requires you to be able to balance the various demands of each without becoming stressed and demoralized yourself. You need to be able to maintain your optimistic outlook and ‘can do’ attitude for the duration of the OD project.
If at this stage you can see the inherent role tensions being too great you would be wise to question whether you are the right person to lead or work on this project (in spite of what it may feel like you always have a choice).
You need to work out the roles you will play in the project for all the reasons presented below. There are probably further reasons that relate to your specific situation and you should consider them as well.
First, in order to give each other clarity on what a partnership means to you. If you think of the HR practitioner as being the consultant to the OD project and the line manager as the leader of it then the likelihood is that the line manager will take one or more of the project leadership roles along the continuum summarized in Figure 2.2 and the HR person will adopt one or more of the multiple consultancy roles summarized along the continuum summarized in Figure 2.3.
Clarity and understanding around where each of you naturally falls on the continuum will help you work through how this can be used in your partnership role to deliver a value added project.
Second, you need to know what your own level of change readiness is because a large measure of your success in your organization design role will depend on your readiness to change your own behaviours. If you are going to be asking other people to take risks, think laterally, give up what
they know and embrace uncertainty, you must be prepared to do the same yourself and show that you are doing so. If one of you is less willing to demonstrate changing behaviours than the other then part of the partner- ing relationship will involve coaching and encouraging the less willing partner.
Remember that when you initiate an OD project you will automat- ically be impacting (and changing) the culture of the organization.
Behavioural changes in the people will have to happen if you are to get the best from the new design.
As you think about the organization design work, you are planning, think about your readiness to change in other aspects of your life. When you have changed, was it a staged process? Generally, people move from You and Organization Design
23
Strategic management
→ Tactical
management
→ Operational
management Give direction: Why do we
want to do this?
Plan oriented: How do we achieve the goals
Action oriented: What, when, where, and who
Thinking long term, beyond the immediate problem
Thinking three to six months ahead
Thinking days or a few weeks ahead
Challenging the organization Solution oriented Listing jobs to be done, quick fixes
Redefining the problem to be tackled
Organizing, planning, and co-ordinating
Spotting opportunities for immediate action Giving an innovative
perspective
Planning within an appropriate and flexible framework
Mitigating risks
At whichever point on the continuum defining the task, planning, briefing staff, controlling, evaluating, motivating, organizing and setting an example
Figure 2.2 The role of the line manager
Facilitator role Expert role
Objective Fact finder Alternative identifier and linker
Joint problem solver
Trainer educator
Informational expert
Advocate
Questions to encourage reflection
Observes problem solving process and gives feedback
Gathers data and stimulates thinking
Identifies alternatives for the client and helps assess consequences
Proposes alternatives and participates in decisions
Trains the line manager
Determines policy or practice
Represents the line manager argues the case on his/her behalf Process
counsellor
Non-directive style Directive style
→ → → →
→ → → →
Figure 2.3 The role of the HR practitioner
not thinking about changing behaviour (precontemplation), to thinking about it (contemplation), to planning to change (preparation), and then testing out ways to do it before actually starting (action).
Where people find themselves in circumstances which they have not chosen they have a much harder time changing. To move forward, people need strategies to make the ‘pros’ of changing outweigh the ‘cons’.
Your roles are critical in providing the ‘pros’ of change and encourag- ing people to change. Thus you need to demonstrate your own capacity to change.
Third, you need to figure out your roles so that together you can be more than the sum of your parts. You need to be able to work together effectively to resolve conflicts and dilemmas and you need to present a joint and consistent front as the project ramps up and is implemented.
There are many useful tools for assessing your strengths and from these you can assess how yours will mesh with other people’s strengths. You will each have different strengths to play to and the project needs a bal- ance of strengths to get it off the ground. You may find as you assess your own strengths that they are not sufficient for the project to go forward with. At this point, you have some choices – among them developing yourself or recruiting other people to get what you think you need.
Know What You Each Need to Do in Each Phase
Each one of the five phases requires the line manager and the HR prac- titioner to be working together but on different aspects of the project as Figure 2.4 shows.
This difference in your activities dictates the role that you each play.
As a rule of thumb each phase requires a slightly different role emphasis from each of you as Figure 2.5 outlines.
Be Open with Each Other about Your Capability
If you have not worked with each other before, you need to be open with each other on your capabilities and attributes, to maintain a dialogue on the progress of the project and to identify issues and concerns as they arise. This sounds easier than it is but a good starting point is to schedule time to discuss what attributes each of you brings to the project. Also on
You and Organization Design
25
Design phase Manager activity HR practitioner activity Preparing ■ Deciding that change is ■ Coaching the manager for change necessary to achieve business to decide (or not) to
outcomes (including assessing change
the drivers for change) ■ Providing information and
■ Assessing various options for support to the manager to
making the change help him/her
■ Evaluating the chosen route make the right choices (organization design or not) in ■ Probing and challenging order to feel confident about the to ensure the manager
way forward is on solid ground in
■ Ensuring the sponsor is his/her decision supportive of the way forward
Choosing to ■ Determining the scope and ■ Drafting the high-level re-design boundaries of the project scoping document
■ Getting sponsors and ■ Following up with sponsors stakeholders on board and stakeholders
■ Identifying potential project team ■ Guiding and suggesting leaders and members for the high- on potential project team level and detailed-level teams leaders and members Creating the ■ Initiating the design process ■ Helping manager and high-level ■ Keeping a firm grip on its project team define and design and progress via the high-level and agree
the detailed detailed-level teams – Core business purpose design ■ Intervening and stepping back – Unique selling point
appropriately – Vision, mission,
■ Keeping the day-to-day objectives
business running – Principles
– Boundary statements – Critical success factors – Measures of success – Target areas – processes,
systems, technologies, facilities, skills, culture, people
■Working with the project manager to manage the assignment including creating the project structure and plan, process mapping, identifying issues, and opportunities for improvement Handling the ■ Leading the transition process ■ Surveying responses to transition ■ Motivating people to work change and relaying to
with the changes manager
Figure 2.4 Manager and HR practitioner activity