We were presenting out the results of an organization restructuring during a steering committee meeting at one of my clients. The Chief Commercial Officer said of the new design “I love it. I am a big fan of dotted lines.” I smiled and nodded, but inside I cringed. Trying to overcome silo issues through the … More Ways of Working: How to Intentionally Bridge (not break) Organization Silos
Organization Network analysis (ONA) is a tool to measure patterns of collaboration between people within and across organizations. Leading companies use ONA to amplify people analytics and make data-driven decisions to enact change, drive innovation or execute strategy. Network analysis allows us to visualize how communications, information, and decisions flow through an organization. The Other … More Organization Network Analysis: Unleash Human Potential
Given what I do every day, it no longer surprises people when an idea on how organizations could be designed more effectively appears in my mind from a seemingly bizarre source. It recently happened as I sat with my tween daughter and watched the “Barbie” movie with her for the third time. Yes, even a … More “Barbie” and the Dichotomy of Organizational Life
Organizations evolve over time. Leaders regularly make organization design decisions tailored to a specific person or a unique business need at that particular moment. Perhaps they are giving a high performing resource an opportunity to grow and learn a new part of the business, so they move another function under their purview. Perhaps a manager … More A Primer on Spans and Layers
The European Organisation Design Forum, or the EODF, is a community of leaders in the world of organization design. According to the EODF website, its mission is to, “build and advance the community, practice, and strategic role of Organisation Design. We’re driven to fulfil our purpose of creating a connected community, exploring inspirational perspectives to release organisational potential.” One of … More The EODF Summer Book Edition: Find My Book There
Recently the CEO of my client – one of the most well-known retailers in the world – told my team that he wanted to see his organization data “de-averaged” as part of a benchmarking effort he had commissioned. I was ecstatic. The tyranny of averages plagues us all! How refreshing that our enlightened CEO understands … More Beyond Organization Benchmarking
Today is the day. My book is officially being released. To recap, I’m going to cover several different topics surrounding the following context: A typical work environment is fraught with unclear scope of authority, misleading goals, agreement without cooperation, ineffective motivators, unclear decision rights, wrong information, and misleading structure. The Six Common Challenges When we … More Release Day Is Here! Get To Know the Peopletecture Model
Over the past three weeks I have shared a series of posts about my new book: Strategies for Organization Design: Using the Peopletecture Model to Improve Collaboration and Performance. In the book, I describe the three longstanding challenges that plague organization design: 1. Design decisions are not linked to human behavior. 2. Design solutions are … More The Third Challenge: The Overlooked Power of Horizontal Networks
Over the past three weeks I have shared a series of posts about my new book, Strategies for Organization Design: Using the Peopletecture Model to Improve Collaboration and Performance. In the book I describe the three enduring challenges that plague organization design: 1. Design decisions are not linked to human behavior. 2. Design solutions are … More The Second Challenge: Over-Focus On the Individual
After more than 20 years of organization strategies consulting, I believe the same three challenges plague traditional organization design: 1. Design decisions are not linked to human behavior. 2. Design solutions are focused primarily on the individual. 3. Design ignores the power of horizontal networks. The first fundamental gap in the existing models is that … More The First Set of Traditional Organizational Design Challenges