Circles are not more agile than pyramids! (Squads are not either!)

Agility and ‘VUCA world’ are not just buzzwords these days. With COVID-19 you can observe what uncertainty and ambiguity really feel like – and how fast organisations need to be able to react to changes.

With many organisations underway to ?become agile“ or ?transform to new ways of working“ there are all sorts of circles (such as sociocratic or holacratic organisations), network organisations or Squads and Chapters around. Team Leads become Chapter Leads, Project Managers are now called Scrum Masters, HR Experts get called People&Culture Experts; but does this really help you to become more agile?

My hypothesis: Circles and Squads are not more agile than the org charts and boxes within the pyramid you had before!

What is agility?

First of all we should define what ?agility“ means for me since there is no official/agreed definition yet. For me agility means the ability to respond to unknowns quickly, learning iteratively, having the ability to sense and respond by creating organisations which are not too stiff to deliver that.

If you know the Cynefin model, one could probably say it’s the ability to manoeuvre in a complex world and partly also in the chaotic world:

Graphic Source: resultsbased.org

How to design your organisation to deliver on that?

So much for the theory, but what are the key aspects looking at the organisation to deliver on these ambitions?

For me there are 5 key aspects in successfully designing such an organisation:

(1)   Don't create silos and kingdoms – role-based setup

This usually comes up quite quickly talking to any organisation. We want to reduce our silos. There are different aspects for this one for sure. I had a discussion just last week asking if silos just exist in our heads and are thus ?only“a question of the right mindset?

While I would agree to a certain extent, I think that structure can support this mindset a lot!

The magic bullet is to move from a job-based setup to a role-based setup.

What does this mean? In our traditional world we all have one job. ?Head of…“or ?Senior Project Manager“ or ?HR Specialist“ and so on. It’s a 1:1 relationship of person to job.

At the water cooler we talk about the different hats we are wearing though and not about our jobs. So moving into a role-based setup basically means documenting these heads and creating a 1:n relationship* – one person usually has many roles (see Sociocracy 3.0 framework). If I have more than one role, I am probably member of more than one circle or team or whatever. So naturally this reduces silos.

(2)   Close the power gap – break the ?one-leader-relationship“

Breaking silos with a role-based setup is a good starting point but probably is not enough. Also, there are discussions how to create a culture for experimentation and speak up and all these things too.

In my opinion splitting up the traditional job of a leader into more than one role is absolutely key for success. 

Think about it, you are not experimenting because of processes and fear, not because you don’t have any smart ideas (usually). So where is this power gap coming from? I believe it’s multi-facetted, but 3 topics pay into that account a lot: Compensation/Salary, Performance Management (and thus bonus) and promotions.

If I am responsible for all of these 3 topics you are likely trying to make me happy somehow – which makes a lot of sense. But is this person the right coach for you? Would you tell this person you are struggling? I know many leaders who are able to create an atmosphere where people are doing this, but it’s a potential hurdle.

Suggestion: split up these 3 responsibilities into different roles and assign it to different people.Probably the formal leader keeps compensation. Anything else will be difficult especially in bigger organisations. Performance Management could be done by the team (and maybe formally entered into HR systems by the leader); many organisations are experimenting with this or getting rid of individual performance management at all. Promotions could be done by a little ?Promotion Panel“ or so. There are plenty of option that will reduce the power gap.

(3)   Check your processes and change them!

For example, telling people, they are empowered is important. Running ?mindset trainings“ is too, but why don’t they take the accountability? Well maybe you have processes in place which tell everyone the opposite. If you tell me I am empowered, but you need to sign off that I am allowed to fix my broken mobile phone, which is critical for my job (really a no brainer decision then), why should I feel empowered? Or do I need to get my new Squad approved by a committee which is having a 5-gate-process for this? What if I want to experiment with a new web application, which costs 50CHF? Do I need to get your approval on this one too?

Long story short… reviewing your existing processes and challenging yourself for everyone if this is really a controlling element you need or if you just trust your people that they are smart and responsible corporate citizens will be key on your journey.

(4)   Reviewing and reorganising your circles every year will not be enough

In traditional organisation we restructure and reorganise our teams and areas every two, three, maybe four years to make them reflect how the actual work gets done or to refocus our resources to align with strategy and so on. 

If you don’t have an update process in place for your circles, squads and chapters or whatever you may have, you will not be more ?agile“ or nimble to react to changes. Sense and respond require a different mechanism, otherwise it’s tough to create a fluid organisation.

Implementing a ?system update process“, based on tension like in Holacracy, or anything else will help you get closer to that sensing and responding organisation. Reviewing, holding a retrospective, or a holacratic governance meeting every 4 weeks will increase your speed by 24 times (if we assume reorganisation every 2 years). No worries, done right there is no overhead and certainly you will not change all the roles every 4 weeks either.

(5)   Support and develop your people!

Last but not least, support your people on their growth journey. We all need to unlearn certain patterns and behaviours and learn and develop new patterns and behaviours which are in high demands if you want to be successful with points (1) to (4).

Critical skills such dealing with uncertainty, giving+receiving feedback, how to challenge a topic and not a person, asking good questions, taking accountability, letting go of control needs, dealing with conflicts etc. one will not learn overnight. 

Support the organisation and allow everyone to spend time learning!

What about ?agile mindset?“

For any organisation design, may it be circles, squads and chapters, value teams, mini factories, traditional pyramid structures or whatever you may have chosen, the mindset is absolutely critical to achieve your objectives. 

Two reasons why we didn’t focus on mindset too much here: One could fill (and many did already) books and it’s a well-developed topic already. Two, ?agile organisation structures“ is one of the most underrated and undervalued topics so far, which is why I thought writing about this might add a complementary puzzle piece to the ongoing discussion. 

What’s the conclusion then?

No matter what kind of structure you have chosen or want to transform towards. There are alwaysthree dimensions you need to look into:

• upskilling in agile methods and tools
• investing into mindset and capabilities
• developing the right organisational setup, which is the most underrated topic

Structure supports the development of new behaviours, as well as unlearning old patterns and this is what you ultimately want in a transformation! You will also be surprised how people you had a clear opinion of will change their behaviours in a direction you’d never have expected with the change of the system.

Human beings are system adaptors!

Coming back to our hypothesis in the beginning, ‘Circles and Squads are not more agile than the org charts and boxes within the pyramid you had before!’, the hypothesis, I believe, is true, if you just relabel or don’t take care of the foundational topics above. Putting these mechanisms in place though, I am sure this new structure towards self-managed teams will help you a lot becoming more ‘agile’.

*in fact you create n:n relationships since one role could be filled by more than one person