Tangled in A Web of SPOCs
Let me start with a rider, this may be controversial, provocative but, very personal view. I thought about it many a times before I put it in writing. Also a disclaimer that this is not true for many people who sincerely deliver a task given to them but at times become victim of the system. With all do apologies to the people who may get offended by the article, here we go ..
It was quite late in the evening when I packed up for the day and as I sat in my car, I abruptly realized that my day had been filled with one call after another. While some of those were indeed quite important, there were an equally large number where my presence or absence wouldn’t have made any material difference. Some of these calls would be organized by people called SPOCs. Single Point of Contact (SPOC) created large web in many organizations. This is a self-fulfilling activity. Anything you would like to do these days would be requiring you to appoint a number of SPOCs. SPOCs then in turn will keep you busy for a long long time. If you want, you may meet someone in your organization who is a full time SPOC; that’s all they do!
By talking to many of my friends in different industries and countries, I have discovered that there is a unique SPOC creation cycle that works like a well-oiled machine in every organization while one wished to the see the same enthusiasm for real value added initiatives. To start with, an initiative is announced, which could well have been done through a couple of phone calls and some in person meetings. However, once the initiative is declared with a lot of fanfare, nicely designed mailers are sent out with the names of the SPOCs displayed like a list of honors. The job of these SPOCs then become like a post office collating the information and then redistributing those. You’re left wondering the value they have added in the process except for sending out reminders to send in the information. The SPOCs seldom add any value to the information they collate and distribute.
Step back for a moment to visualize how the same objective could have been achieved without SPOCs. I am sure we wouldn’t have missed anything without the layers of intermediaries cluttering the system. In this age of delayering the several tiers of management that we have created over the years, is there really any need for a SPOC culture to exist? In fact the very need for SPOCs reflects our inability to proactively deliver on something on our own that we should have done in the first place without the prodding of someone else.
Friend of mine who works in a Fortune 100 company told me that when any new initiative is announced in their organization, the very first activity that starts is – Let’s identify a few SPOCs. Only a few days down the line, you may just try to check what’s going on with the great initiative / project, you will notice the Web of SPOCs it has developed. Ring after ring – geographical SPOCs – central/regional/local, Vertical Business SPOCs, SPOCs from finance, HR, operations, and the list can go on and on. Mostly, none of these are any subject matter expert (SME) who will actually solve the problem or contribute. Most of the time, you need a magnifying glass to find the real SMEs those are working on the projects. Poor folks hardly get any time to do the real work but kept busy all the time to report status to the various SPOCs.
Now make no mistake, there is a clear distinction between a SPOC and someone who creates organization value. This person will be able to define and articulate the objective of a mission or an initiative, create the structure of the program, assign roles & responsibilities, determine the measures of success and follow through the execution of the plan. Now tell me how many SPOCs that you know can perform these tasks?
So why do we still create a web of SPOCs? I think and I am convinced that we do so to create jobs and roles for us when we don’t have any value adding work in our hands. This culture has to be done away with in every organization. This is not an option, but a survival issue now. It is time to reassess every activity that we do in our work and take a clinical view on whether we are adding value or just creating an employment opportunity for ourselves biding our time to be disrupted. Web of SPOCs that doesn’t add much value and work as a postbox and keep everyone busy by killing productive tome must be untangled and disbanded.
Delivery Executive @ IBM | Leadership, S/4 Hana Project Management
7 年It's very true .. Everyday we are creating SPOCs or being treated as a SPOC . .. Thank you for posting this Very true fact .. At least I'll think twice before I create any SPOC now onwards ...
|| Project Management || Network Operations || Service Delivery || Service Portfolio || Product Portfolio || Customer engagement || Software Services || Freelance Trainer || Competence Development ||
7 年Leadership observation !!! Although I need some more time to realize the entire things one after another as per the writer's motivation also to see the positives and negatives of assigning SPOC's and much more. With my very little knowledge and observation from work experience, my understanding about SOPC practice is as follows, Vision from " When we look for SPOC's" 1. We often seek for an SPOC's when we don't want to communicate to end contributor nicely, humanly, gently, patiently with a mutual interest. We want the presentable information has to be ready by the SPOC's avoiding our own accountability. We want someone at an accountable position as an SPOC for mistakes and trouble and we demand the leaderships. 2. We look for an SPOC when we don't have the knowledge of job/assignment flow or the process. Lack of knowledge and time too. To avoid multiple phone calls, discussion with peers or others. Simply we don't want to put our attention to understand " what others are doing and how " Vision from " When we put SPOC's" 1. When we don't want our stakeholders(Internal or external) to interact with a team directly for any kind information or updates. We are putting SPOC for such accountable position. when things are not upfront or transparent for its stakeholders. Sarcastically, we are paralyzing our other team members on the front of their own piece of responsibility and accountability. People are losing their ability to express and the capability to be a future consultant. Every job role in any organization is assigned SPOC for any function or process or task and they are very much responsible for communicating with other stakeholders. Despite having an assigned job role in an organization hierarchy, if someone needs additional SPOC's to run his show then it has two main reasons, 1. That position is overloaded with the responsibility and not able to manage the function singlehandedly. It's need a correction in job restructuring and distribution for a single person to handle. It's sometimes a nature of growing organization also. 2. That person is not able to manage the show properly due to lack of ability to communicate and understand the developments within its functional areas. Things are too much complicated and complex to understand by ordinary people. It's mainly happening with old organizations. On the other side, SPOC's practice is the best way to generate future ready leaders to manage the show of the said organization in a shorter period of time. We can see the SPOC's are the future ready leaders with the same practices. But if any organization want to become a group of consultants with brain, capability, and quality than in that case I think we must practice empowering every individual to grow with thier sense of responsibility and accountability. It can be done by simple way, "Replace SPOC's with assigned Job Role"- Empower Capability !!! It needs time, money, sacrifices of business interest, resources etcs. But it will help an organization to be developed in a full capacity of capable consultants to represent themselves a step ahead or near to its own stakeholders. My visions are very narrow compared to industry leaders, hence for any mistake in writing or expression, i am biding my apologies.
Enterprise Solutions Architect | Technology Leader | 15x (All) AWS Certified | Executive Coach
7 年So true. SPOCs are the new world secretary, great at organising meetings with no tangible outcomes; promoting tick-in-the-box culture with no added value. Unfortunately, everyone has to comply and follow the SPOC or face the deadly 'escalation' - another organisation killer.
Head of Enterprise Data Architecture
7 年This is the best analysis of the primary reason of the decay in the industry . We blame politics, policy and what not, but this is the cancer that needs to be cured for the betterment of all of us. Thank you for giving us this article .