Leaders as Readers - August
LEAD Director & CEO, Sandy Thompson:
With our current world being so reliant on science my favourite book right now is Organizational Physics by Lex Sisney who uses physics principles to describe how the energy of organisations impact on its effectiveness (don’t worry it is 4th Form physics).
Although written for for-profit organisations, the wisdom shared is universal and there is plenty of great discussion on the alignment of vision and values. The essence of the book focuses on how a good organisation design supports its purpose. Sisney argues a good team can only be as effective as the structure supporting it and surface level changes can be made, but old power structures remain. He quotes Edwards Demming: “a bad system will defeat a good person every time.”
The two most memorable and interesting concepts I have taken away are about creating and supporting a form (structure) to follow function (purpose), and also a new take on personality and temperament styles and their impact on organisations.
Sisney describes classic mistakes we make when redesigning our organisation structure and all five resonate with my experiences and observations in our not for profit organisations:
Mistake #1: The strategy changes but the structure does not
A poor restructure will increase attachment to the status quo and reinforce natural resistance to change. Restructuring done right will enable the release of resistance to change, while helping everyone to see the big picture, and understand and appreciate their roles in it.
Mistake #2: Functions focused on effectiveness report to functions focused on efficiency
Efficiency will always tend to overpower effectiveness. You will want to have those roles reporting to functions focused on efficiency (operations, quality control, administration, and customer service reporting to those who enable the effective delivery of your mission (frontline, client facing workers, community roles, team leaders, strategy etc). Otherwise over time the processes and systems become so efficient and tightly controlled there is very little flexibility. By its nature, effectiveness) which includes innovation and adapting to change, requires flexibility and the ability to experiment and learn
Mistake #3: Functions focused on long-range development report to functions focused on short-range results
The demands of today always overpower the needs of tomorrow. Yup. Check your your daily to do list – how many times has that big picture strategic work been put off to another day or week!
Mistake #4: Not balancing the need for autonomy vs. the need for control
This is an inherent tension for all organisations. Sisney suggests as much autonomy as possible should be given to those closest to the front line (working in the community) while the ability to control for systemic risk (eg accounting, legal, and HR) should be as centralised as possible. Instead of trying to make these functions play nice together, this design principle, plans for and creates a structure that attempts to harness the inherent conflict for the overall good of the organisation.
Mistake #5: Having the wrong people in the right functions
Your structure is only as good as the people operating within it and how well they’re matched to their jobs. This brings us to the second model that excites me about this book.
Sisney presents a new way of looking at the personalities in organisations and the energy they contribute to the whole. He takes the four classic categories of temperaments (achiever, creative, socialiser and logic/detail oriented) and categorises them according to whether they:
see the parts or the whole of a system
respond to or shape the system
work at a fast or slow pace
are process or task focussed
have a long or short term view
prefer structured or unstructured approaches.
Sisney proposes every person has a natural style that creates an energy and an organisation is successful when there is close alignment between job requirements and an individual’s style and experience. He has a great website with a detailed description of the four management styles so you can check out your style.
If you are considering a restructure and or have a team that is not functioning as well as you would like, this is a great read.