As I was getting up this morning I found my thoughts drifting back to 2006. I am not sure why, someting to do with leadership and gaining competitive advantage had been whirling around in my head, probably related to some current client work.
By 2006 at Price Bailey, we had restructured the leadership function and constitution, and the new Board had put together a great one page plan, and had definitely implemented some radical and much needed action. The business was on a new footing. However, the more positive side of our plans were not proving so easy to get going.
Is it easier in implementation to get rid of problems than it is to gain new advantages? Certainly seems so from most of the practical experiences I have had with clients over many years and in my own business. It's a bit like an accountants profit exercise...anyone can cut costs, but few can grow income. I am sure you get my drift here.
The key to this is structure change, and it is something that many strategic plans miss. As soon as you have agreement as to the new goals for an organisation, you must address the structure and assess how it will need to change.
Structure comes in two forms inside a business. There is the explicit structure; departments, roles, responsibilities, reporting lines, levels of authority, policies and procedures, etc.
Then there is the hidden structure; skills, teamworking and rapport, beliefs and confidence, communities and friendships, alliances, customer ownership. Hidden structure includes things that appear explicit but are not really written down anywhere, like meetings, informal management processes. Just look in that key database of any business, the outlook calendar, and you will see the glue that is preventing new activities in everyone's week!
Structure is like an iceberg - perhaps 10% of it is visible, written down, really how it is, above the surface. The real weight and content is normally all hidden away below the water line. To get things going in a new direction, you need to address what is under the water!
What we found was that while we had set out a new vision and leadership function within the firm, we hadn't changed the management structure or any of the old informal rules of the firm, so we had a hybrid of old PB with new PB grafted on, and they didn't really work together. The restructure process involved reshaping departments and roles and frankly all of the informal aspects to line up towards the new strategy. It took a year to get it in place and to get over the initial phase of re-alignment that everyone in the firm had to go through.
Once it was done, everyone's market focus was much clearer and the positive agenda (looking after our customers more consistently and appropriately and getting growth) really started to happen.
So the message from my breakfast today seems to be:
If you are struggling to get the change you have planned for ask yourself this question: is my business the right shape to deliver that to me? Take out your pencil and rubber, and draw up a structure that is best suited to deliver your strategy on the right. Draw out the existing structure on the left. The change you need is in the gaps between the two structures.
Don't get me wrong, that was not all that was needed. The years of work that have followed have been as full as the restructure year. But without that change, they could not have taken place in the way they have.
So watch out! You're shiny new structure will quickly develop a heap of new hidden weight. Keep things visible from now on. What are the key performance indicators and other forms of feedback you need to ensure that all that informal bonding is congruent with your new goals? And what can you do to influence the forming structure towards your goals? Immediate engagement with the new tasks and continuous improvement are crucial to getting as much alignment as you can.
I hope the coalition get to read this blog. Perhaps it was something on the Today Programme that set this off. Have a good weekend.
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