Rejuvenating & Re-Imagining Organizations.

The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past. Edition 165.

For decades the fundamental beliefs of most organizational design were built on five assumptions:

1.    The Organization gives structure and directs work.

2.    Tenure and experience are critical to advancement.

3.    Most of the work is done inside an organization.

4.    Fairness requires a common set of rules and ways of working to be applied to all.

5.    Most employees are full time employees of the company.

These are now being supplemented and in some cases being replaced by the exact opposite realities and dawning realizations:

1.    The Organization enables talent to create structure and direct work. Talent does not work for the organization, but the organization works for talent.

2.    Expertise in a changing world and constant learning rather than tenure/experience are key.

3.    Most of the work is done outside an organization by suppliers and marketplaces to access talent when one needs it and to remain agile and cost-effective in a transforming world.

4.    Fairness means customizing programs for each talent to which everyone has equal access.

5.    Most staff are either contract workers, free-lancers, or fractionalized employees.

Organizations are now beginning to twist and transform into new shapes recognizing the realities of the world that is and will be versus the world that was or one may wish to go back to:

a)    Need to be designed from outside in versus inside out:  Companies need to be designed to be driven by marketplace realities about new competitors, transformational technologies and changing talent mindsets rather than historical category definitions, a companies historical moats, or the way management got to be management.

b)    Companies will have many models versus one model of working: Models will differ based on country, competition for talent and focus on current business or new innovations. A company with one way or one model is unlikely to have the multiple foci necessary for a shape shifting world.

c)    The focus should be on outcomes and goals versus process and control: Three key outcomes for any company are financial results, client satisfaction and talent attraction and retention. These three outcomes and goals should be what organizations should be optimized for.

This requires a significant shift in the mindset of management where they need to be willing to trust talent and teams who are doing the work to best decide how to drive the outcomes of financial results, client satisfaction and talent attraction and retention.

As a result the emphasis should be on:

Bottom Up versus Top Down: Talent will be asked to take the initiative and to drive the answers and management will guide and coach.

Frontlines Vs HQ: Teams working in different markets on different clients need to be empowered to solve the problem in ways that fit their markets versus some mandate from people far away from the competitive battlefield.

Freedom within a Framework: Besides a focus on outcomes Management needs to provide some frameworks and guard rails to ensure IP ownership, alignment with legal and other guidelines and some criteria where a quick sign-off may be needed from Management.

Every management team should ask if their organization is biased towards yesterday or tomorrow and if they are designing their companies to deliver on the mantras, they claim such as agility, personalization, trust and being future forward.

Agility: If being agile is important than companies need to be able to shape shift and move quickly. If this is true is the organization flexible on how and where work is done and how partnerships are initiated.

Personalized: Can an organization truly deliver customized products and personalized services if this is not built into the organizational structure. If there is one mandate, one way and one process how do people have the flexibility they need.

Trust: Can an organization engender trust with Clients and customers if they do not trust and empower their teams?

Future Forward: In a world of rapid technological change, new demographics, changing mindsets, new ways of working and marketplaces the proof of being future forward will be identified in organizational design.

Photography by Steven Friedman

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Rishad Tobaccowala helps grow companies, teams and leaders by helping them see, think and feel differently. Forty years of experience delivered through writing, speaking and advising in ways that are actionable and inspirational. For more about Rishad Tobaccowala click here.