How can you navigate emerging trends in organizational design?

Matrix structures allow orgs to respond with more flexibility and speed in a much more complex modern environment. Key principles: 1) Form follows function: Think critically about vision, goals and priorities for your business structure. Where do you need clear ownership? How are you measuring success and who will be accountable for which results? Structure around org needs vs. around individual players; 2) Every matrix needs role and process clarity: Use RASCI or other tools to agree on responsibilities, handoffs, etc. (and regularly review for adjustments); 3) Good change management is critical: Org change requires planning & ongoing OCM activities, with relentless communications on "why", "to be" future state, roles, measurement, etc.

Navigating the trend toward horizontal and networked structures in organizational design demands a strategic approach that focuses on flexibility, collaboration, and empowerment. Here's a succinct guide: Rethink Roles: Flatten hierarchies to allow for greater collaboration. Empower employees to take on multiple roles based on project needs rather than sticking strictly to job titles. Processes and Systems: Revamp these to foster cross-functional teams. Utilize project management software that supports agile workflows, encouraging iterative cycles and adaptability. Distributed Leadership: Decentralize decision-making to give more people a voice, thereby leveraging diverse perspectives for better problem-solving.

Communication becomes even more important as Organizations adopt horizontal & networked cross functional teams. Leaders can’t delegate this responsibility. Electronic bulletin boards, email, and other tools are useful, but none of them top a face to face conversation for feedback that everyone “gets it.” It reminds me that Lee Iacocca’s MBWA Theory, Management By Walking Around is still applicable in the “new” organizational structure.

Regular conversations with C suite leaders are vital. Understanding and getting their Perspectives on their plans and directions helps to put org design in a far better alignment and planning TOWARDS achieving results

More than anything else, org design needs to build the ability to listen to exceptions. Most structures are risk mitigating in their design- particularly when they become large and pyramidical. AI can help listen, act and create actionable versions of such feedback. And then leaders can communicate both the good and bad of those actions. People feel heard, their voices acted upon and will appreciate the feedback loop. Let the voices be heard by AI and the feedback be shared by real people. Not the other way round!

Addressing the trend of enhanced focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in organizational design requires a multi-faceted strategy. Assessment: Start by conducting an internal audit of your organization’s current DEI state. Use employee surveys, interviews, and data analytics. Set Objectives: Based on your assessment, establish SMART goals to improve DEI within specific time frames. Training Programs: Conduct regular training sessions on unconscious bias, cultural sensitivity, and active allyship for employees. Employee Resource Groups: Establish or bolster existing DEI-focused groups. Communication: Clearly and consistently communicate DEI policies. Review and Adapt: Finally, routinely review your DEI efforts.

Our graduation class had representation from 26 states in India and trust me the diversity of opinion, value systems, way of thinking was such an enligtning experience. The diversity helps evaluate multiple dimension of problems and contribute to sustainable and stronger solutions. Multiple divergent views aids to stronger better results as a team. lack of diversity impede a better solution. For example a Man can never think as a Women ! You need women to have perspective. A Brown Man can never think like a black man. You need a Black man to think like one. so on so forth....

When discussing DEI I think we all understand and know what needs to be done. The question is will the work be allowed? In corporate America there is a tendency to discuss the importance of DEI but it never truly transpires? You can implement as many policies and practices you like. But are the individuals at the table on board? If not the results will stay the same.

I’ve found that bringing diverse perspectives and thought process are critical in establishing policies, programs and practices to business and company platforms. More importantly a diverse panel or team helps to acknowledge a real life gap in opportunities and thus sets forth a company stance to move the pin needle closer to being an inclusive and aware business and company — where all are welcome, seen and are important to the core values especially in these times. When thinking about organizational design, it is important to see this in layers- layers to show growth, layers to show there is a voice for all, layers to show value in DEI efforts.

Don't forget to add Belonging to DEIB! Employees who have a greater sense of belonging are more productive and perform better than those who don't - which also magnifies organizational results!

It took a pandemic for some companies to 'get it'. And some are still not getting it. It is unnecessary to have every employee to commute to work everyday to sit on a chair within bricks and mortar to do what they can do in their chair at home. I know so many people (self included) who had to drive 1-2-3 hours one way daily to get to work, then the same to get home. It doesn't take years to experience burnout with sort of schedule and traffic aggravation. It can take months. I applaud employees who are voting with the feet to leave companies stuck their caves for companies who finally 'get it."

With things getting back to pre-pandemic "normal", many companies are now back on-site or have adopted a hybrid work environment. To assess an organization’s readiness to support remote work, experts propose the use the “FLOCS” formula: Function (some work requires a high degree of coordination; such work is most effectively done in person), Location (if most workers live around an area, it is easy for them to come to the office), Organization (some firms are organized in small groups who prefer to meet in person, others prefer daily virtual meetings), Culture (some firms have a strong culture that depends on in-person relations), Scheduling (a scheduled rotation for on-site work could reduce the office costs of the firm).

There has been such a large debate around remote work. The data shows that employees are more productive, they work more hours and you see an increase in company profits. What we have to understand as employers is that people are looking for work autonomy. Can I start my day off at the office, then go to my parent teacher conference and finish my day at home? Or go back to the office. I feel that more employers should adopt the remote/hybrid model. As for team calibration you can make it mandatory were you meet once a month or bi weekly face to face.

Here are several Org Design ideas from pandemic/ remote work lessons. Major Theme: Connecting Individuals to the Org’s Purpose. Examples: Deriving insights from individuals who are closest to the point of service or product delivery. Striving to understand the wholeness of an individual’s life. Major Theme: Connecting Individuals to the Org’s Ideals. Examples: Promoting work/life balance including physical well-being and mental health. Rewarding individuals who surface and help solve organizational problems. Major Theme: Connecting Individuals with Best Practices. Examples: Creating effective models for the location of work – remote and/or onsite. Leveraging technology for economies of scale, job satisfaction, & better decision-making.

Com base nas experiências recentes com a equipe, o trabalho remoto e híbrido surge como uma solu??o inteligente para superar limita??es locais de qualifica??o. Embora ofere?a benefícios como a flexibilidade, e o bem estar do colaborador, percebo que é essencial um comprometimento maior da equipe presencial para apoiar efetivamente os colaboradores remotos. A falta de intera??o diária com os clientes pode representar um desafio, exigindo uma comunica??o detalhada e uma responsividade consistente. Em meio a esses obstáculos, reconhe?o que, em certas situa??es, os colaboradores em home office s?o cruciais para suprir lacunas de qualifica??o local.

In today's world, any company intends to build a sustainable and long-lived business needs to design their organization to excel at data-driven decision making, making good use of data analytics for designing the best customer journey strategy and ensure not only their services and products, but their entire team and touchpoints consistently deliver an exceptional customer experience. Businesses that focus on their customer when making all key decisions such as: product or service design, company culture, hiring and training, encouraging pilot projects on great ideas that improve customer experience and life, etc., have a much greater chance at succeeding. That's the kind of business I love working for and building!

I like that data and customer-centric are paired up here. There's gold in them hills. In my experience and in the roles I've held this involves a lot of pioneering. There's no beaten trail to follow that leads to rock solid lag and lead indicators with heaps of quantitative data that you can start building dashboards and goals around. The trick to getting started here, that I've found, is putting yourself in the customer's shoes and asking questions about that experience that you need data to answer.

Recentemente, no desenvolvimento de uma marca de petiscos para cachorros, tivemos a oportunidade de integrar-nos ao time de produ??o e vendas, analisando minuciosamente todos os dados por eles recebidos antes de iniciarmos a cria??o dos produtos. Foi crucial obter informa??es desde a composi??o, diferenciais, janela de mercado e outros fatores, a fim de desenvolvermos um público e uma identidade que atendessem a essas expectativas.

Most facets of organizations rely heavily on data. Think about it: Finance, Sales, Manufacturing, Operations, etc. all track analytics from revenue to sales to production, etc. HR must understand the business sufficiently to develop meaningful people analytics for decision-making and actionable purposes.

Customer driven data is going to be critical for organizations to continue to see growth. I still find it challenges for site leadership to utilize the data appropriately. Due to time, training or lack of execution. Our teams will need to adopt this new way of making fact based decisions.

We cannot forget that organizational learning starts with individual learning. If employees are not encouraged to continually learn, if they are not given time to learn, if they are not given freedom to learn about topics of interest to themselves, if they are not given access to learning resources, if they are not given support to implement what they have learned, there will be no organizational learning.

Adaptiveness. As the business changes, as trends emerge, as new people add to the organization, one must adapt. Without adapting, or to say the least— without reevaluating organizational structure, your people might not be in the most optimal roles for the current times. This will then lead you down a route of lack of motivation, productivity, and business drive. Change in organizational structure offers fresh new ideas, perspective and often times a better way of thinking. It helps in retention and/or commits to a company growth mindset leading others to be intrigued to learn more and take on different roles to strengthen their skills and abilities.

Middle management is the lynchpin for any organizational change. If they are motivated to constantly learn and grow, this culture will pervade the organization.

In navigating the trend towards learning and adaptive organizations, focus on culture, leadership, skill development, and metrics. Culture Shift: Instill a culture that views failures as learning opportunities. Leadership Buy-in: Ensure leaders exemplify openness to change. Skill Development: Implement upskilling programs in critical thinking and problem-solving. Feedback Loops: Utilize timely feedback for continual improvement. Agile Practices: Apply agile methods in decision-making and project management. Knowledge Sharing: Facilitate inter-departmental insights exchange. Risk Management: Equip teams to proactively manage risks. Metrics: Use KPIs to gauge adaptability and learning.

I would be remiss if I didn't make a Knowledge Management (KM) plug here. To me, the learning and adaptive organization is nearly synonymous with the discipline of managing the collective knowledge. The stronger your KM muscle, the faster a learning turns into behavior and process change adopted across the entire organization. KM enables that agility at scale.

While it’s important to be aware of different working models and the dynamics of each, be careful you don’t get boxed into pushing the idea there’s a universal model that works for an organization or team. While it may sound nice to structure everything to work in a standardized way, it’s a recipe for failure. Too often organizations find themselves going too deep into the weeds of controlling how organizations and teams operate. Instead, help organizations determine the minimum viable structure needed. From there focus attention on equipping the leaders with the tools and resources needed to determine what works best for their teams and how to do it well. You’ll inevitably have to deal with trust issues, but it’s worth it in the end.

OD is no longer about focusing on structure and hasn’t been for a long time. The practice is now much more interdisciplinary, drawing on thinking from human-centered design, agile, business architecture, strategy, org behavior, change and systems thinking. Good designs consider the system that is and the system that needs to be built to carry the organization into the future, and they are malleable to be responsive to the complex ecosystems many organizations are situated within. Good designers are blend masters taking principles from these different disciplines and applying them in context at the right time.

In the organizational design, it is important to have a robust sourcing strategy as well. Organizations can no longer depend solely on in-house skills in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

The future of work demands reimagining how we organize and operate. But amidst dizzying change, anchor to timeless fundamentals - purpose, trust, and human potential. Technology can augment but not replace our humanity. So lead with empathy and wisdom. Reshape roles, yet respect needs for security and meaning. And pace transformation - people require psychological safety to take the leap. The journey brings growing pains but the rewards warrant the trek. With vision, courage and compassion, we can build better organizations and unlock boundless possibilities for the world.

Bereft of jargons, Organization Design (OD) is - structure with soul. Structure and soul both are important, soul being more important. In highly technical / knowledge based organisations, networked structure, in hybrid working model with strong support of knowledge repository and admin functionalities will be useful. Soul refers to the Values and Culture of the organization. This is the abstract glue which binds the teams together and is way more important than structure. Good companies know this very well. In any OD, individual / teams must be given full autonomy. Going forward, managing talented & remote teams will be challenging and for that extraordinary leadership will be needed. Mere Managers won't be upto the task. Thx!