On setting up an organisation

Let's say you are a leader looking to start a new firm. You have resources, the mandate, and the authority. You also have that manana from heaven - a clean slate. 

Here is one recommended approach to putting your organisation together, if you have the resources.

Organisation Structure

Obviously, one of the first things you will think about is Organisation Structure. 

This part outlines the steps to create an organisation structure that will actually work. 

But first, lets talk about the things that DON'T work. 

• The Structure is led by the leader, not the consultant 

A therapist knows the right behavioural elements, but they don't tell you what to do. Instead, they do the frustrating job of pestering you with questions until you realise what you want to do. There are two kinds of consultants you can bring on board - the first, will do what a therapist does, bring the org structure from within you, because you have to live with that structure, not them. 

The second kind will come in and tell you how you should operate, and put 15 analysts on the job. 

Get the first kind. With one key difference. When they see you doing something that is obviously not going to work, they tell you that upfront. If there is enough trust in the relationship, this leads to mutual learning and saves time. If not, the consultant will have to use the option of asking questions until you realise what is going to work for you. 

Here is why the leader is the key decision maker on culture. 

In Nov 2020, the new CEO, Thierry Delaporte, completely overhauled the org structure of the company. This is the email that he wrote to employees then: 

https://www.cnbctv18.com/information-technology/wipro-ceo-thierry-delaporte-writes-mail-to-employees-highlights-organisational-changes-full-text-7469451.htm

Less than a year later, Wipro had changed its story completely. 

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/a-frenchman-sitting-in-paris-turns-wipro-around/articleshow/87091176.cms

How was a behemoth like Wipro transformed in under a year? 

The leader created an org structure that allowed them to monitor the business in a way that worked for them, and then appointed people they trust in key roles. 

THAT is the power of leader led org structures. 

• There is no such thing as Industry Standard or Industry Best Practice 

The only thing that matters is common sense and alignment. Some industries have to do some things more than some other things. We take inputs on that, sure, we understand what others are doing and how its working for them. But we do not make those practices our goalposts. Not in anything, and certainly not in strategic things like Org Structure or Business Planning. 

In an emerging industry, we have the luxury of defining the industry standard. In legacy industries, that bandwidth may be a little lesser, but its there. 

In the early 2000s, all Indian IT companies moved to this grid structure - Verticals and Horizontals - Industry * Geography. It was this matrix structure that was dismantled by Thierry Delaporte. 

What Works aka How to define an Org Structure 

A. Define your first line. 

How do you want to view your business. If you had to get 5 key things about your business on your fingertips and have 6 people on a hotline, what would those numbers be and what would be those 6 roles? 

That's the first step - to define your first line. 

B. After that, do a culture workshop. 

A Culture Workshop is the most important thing that you will do in the Org Structure journey. Write out the 6 words that reflect the culture that you want. 

A CEO I worked with recently was insistent that the word he wanted was "family". Even in a competitive industry like IT, he did not want to create a culture focused on competition or personal excellence alone. When thinking of work, he wanted people to think of the office as a family they belong to. 

In the two years since then, we have done 3 employee dipsticks and family comes right on top when people talk about what their culture is. Trust comes a close second. :) 

C. Then, write the JDs and hire the right people 

JDs are important, esp for your direct line of reporting. Hire the right people. People who bring their own functional expertise, and more importantly, share the same keywords for culture. 

Trust has two components - Intention, and Action 

The first is about shared values. The second is about delivering results. Trust is a biped, it needs both to walk the talk. Ensure you bring people who share the values, but can also deliver business results in a foreseeable time frame. That is the only way that their teams and your stakeholders will trust you. 

C.1 The Compensation 

Do have numbers in mind, but be flexible. This is the only place where "industry standard" almost trumps "What we bring to the table." 

D. The Org Structure guidelines

The next step is to create guidelines for an org structure. You can decide lean and efficient, or gig workers preferred, or diversity first - anything works. But do have a small set of guidelines that you communicate clearly to your first line of command. 

E. Let them make their own organisations 

After this, let them make their own organisations. In fact, have this as a key interview question - as a department head, how would you like to structure your organisation. 

Making it Run

A. Involve your own HR team as early as possible. The longer you let consultants run the show, the harder the KT. 

B. Put HR processes in place. Follow an HR Portfolio management approach. Don't go piecemeal. 

C. Invest in human process excellence. Don't think of the function as paper pushers. Give them aggressive talent targets and give them the teeth to bite. For instance, if a manager loses more than x% of their team over a period, they should be able to highlight that as an organisational process. If they find it hard to fill a position for more than x weeks, either they complain or you complain "We are trying our best" or "Market is tough" is not acceptable response. 

D. Hold your HR accountable. Typically, HR tends to enter the room with reasons like "Business needs". But there will be no business without people. Their core job is to marry business needs with talent aspirations. That is literally their job description. If you bring a numbers based approach to HR, you will find that it is hard to hire the right HR talent, but once in, they will LOVE working with you. 

E. Do NOT compromise on values and culture. It never pays. Its very short term, and it guarantees failure. Even if the values route appears to be longer, more painful and far more expensive, remember that markets can stay volatile a lot longer than economies can stay solvent. So, responding to volatility with volatility-supporting behaviour does not guarantee success. 

Why Social Media is a Great Way to Do Organisational Change in Cross Cultural Change Scenarios

 

By now, everyone who has studied communication in any form is aware of the 55/38/7 rule of communication – your communication is 55% body language, 38% your tone of voice, and only 7% words.

While there is caution in the use of these numbers without qualification, it cannot be denied that a large part of our communication is non verbal.
 

The complexity of Cross Cultural Change Management

I have often observed that in closed eye experiments where we listen to Oriental and Western tones, the Oriental tone typically appears sing song and the Western tone appears aggressive to the non Westerner. What this means in plainspeak is that the interpretation of the tone is very dependent on our cultural context.

Likewise for body language. Challenges of cross cultural interactions based on interpretation of body language are well documented. For instance, Tibetans greet each other by sticking their tongue out. That is the gesture used by most of us to tease.
 

And it gets better…

To make things more interesting, the figure of 93% applies most to the expression of emotions. In plainspeak, that means that team members are most likely to be misunderstood by other cultures when they are trying to communicate their deepest part – emotions.

So, why do I feel that social media, which ordinarily seeks to make communication more complex, will in fact be an advantage in cross cultural change management?

Watch this space to find out. 

Why Social Media is a Great Way to Do Organisational Change in Cross Cultural Change Scenarios- II

 The last post spoke about the challenges in cross cultural communication.

When doing change management, we take the normal change management challenges (resistance to change, high or low context culture, personality types and motivations, et al.) and apply a multification factor to that. Ergo, it’s a complex thing.

So why is social media likely to facilitate change, especially in a cross cultural scenario.

This post lists 5 reasons why Social Media is a great Change Management tool for cross cultural groups (even if they are not co-located)
 

Words

When put this way, it appears obvious. 93% of communication about emotions happens non verbally. It is more likely to be misunderstood across cultures. So we take that away and replace it with words. Only words. With that, we have taken away factors that cause over 90% ambiguity.

The communication is not “rich” but it’s unambiguous to a large degree.
 

ONLY positive feedback

Ever noticed that no social media platform has a dislike button? If you don’t like something, you either take the trouble to write a negative comment, or you keep quiet. When you take the trouble to write, you also have to “explain” your criticism. But liking is free. This may appear to be a small thing, but it’s a big factor in reducing negativity in teams, especially teams that are not co-located.
 

Written Communication

The thing with written communication is that even in the most informal avatar, it has to be structured, at the very least. Writing forces the brain to think and place sentences in a logical order. This means that when we share ideas, they have gone through one round of internal sanity check – not always possible in oral communication.
 

“At your convenience” communication

While “at your convenience” is a standard benefit of social media, across time zones, it becomes a key differentiator. A person might post a question, and within 24 hours, colleagues from across the world will have had a chance to look at it and respond, within their work day. This way, we can engage teams from all over the world on the same thread of discussion.

When doing change management, sometimes, the difference in release times becomes a bone of contention. This way, everyone can be onboarded on the same thread.

For instance, when should we plan solution validation with key end users? In an email world, the email will be sent to Change Management leads in all countries, answers compiled, and an excel sheet prepared at the corporate office. Using Social media, everyone’s answers will be visible to everyone else, everyone can see when someone is planning a session and will automatically propose dates to avoid a clash. Everyone can see the direction of travel and pick up dates that are congruent with that direction. Then, the specialist can travel to and cover all locations in a single leg.
 

Time to get used to each other

How many friends do you have on Facebook, whom you knew only slightly in the real world, and have got to know better since you saw their posts, political opinion, pics with kids? I have a lot of them.

That’s the beauty of social media – blogs, discussion threads, yammer, et al. You get to really know people – slowly, by and by.

Perhaps this is the best part of using Social Media for cross cultural change – the engagement doesn’t have to end with the project. You can stay in touch, and build a network of change managers who can help in more than one project or program. Over time, this group will get to trust each other and also create cross location cohesion. In a multi country environment, cross country cohesion at all levels is very necessary.

Conclusion: Can one go wrong in using Social media as a Change Management tool? Oh yes! The benefits up here are not automatic. Like all tools, success is a function of the user’s skill and the tool’s inherent excellence. Have fun using social media at work!

Investment: The Core of a Change Management Program

I play this online city building game. It’s a MMG (Massive Multi player game) which means that you don’t just build a city alone, you also interact with other players, attacking their cities and protecting your own. Obviously, the game rewards you for this mutual destruction.

At level 6, I attacked a Level 22 player, and won! Imagine my happiness. Which was successfully doused when, 2 days letter, I got a threat message from the said player, telling me that my cities will be “destroyed” in no time. I laughed, and wrote back to him, saying that it is only a game, and that he could destroy all he wants. I can walk away from the game in 10 minutes and never look back.

At level 30, when the same player attacked me, I wasn’t so amused. I sent *him* a message saying that I play a solo game, and that he had better stay away from *my* cities.

So, what changed? This: I became more *INVESTED* in the game. Suddenly, there was a stake to protect.

That’s what this post is about. We brought that learning back to the Change Management projects we were doing. The objective of change management is not to familiarise and train. It’s not to remove resistance or aid adoption.

The CORE of change management – is to make your user *INVESTED* in the change. It becomes theirs and *they* have a stake to protect.

In designing change management interventions today, the first question one asks is, “Will this make them invested in the new state of things?”

I have found that this change in perspective has greatly enriched the interventions. It makes it mandatory for us to find what will get them invested. And it has helped me understand that time is a major factor in ensuring this *investment*. Like leadership and parenting, it cannot be rushed, nor squeezed into “quality time”.