EMPOWER YOUR ORGANIZATION'S GROWTH CAPABILITY
Organize for Growth & Innovation
The ability to make the same things faster or cheaper isn't as important as it once was. Today what's far more important is what an organization and its people can do with the resources they have.
In the traditional organization, the focus is on processes and efficiency. It is assumed that "everything" is predictable and conforms to predetermined ways of functioning. There are clear hierarchies, and the organization is governed by management systems and control functions. Title and rank are more important than ability and performance. There is more focus on the individual than there is on the collective team. Employees are motivated by salary and bonus, and the control methods in the traditional organization are a constraining factor. There is no room for employees and the organization to develop and grow outside the given framework, which also limits the organization's innovative power.
In the future organization, traditional principles of how an organization is governed have been turned upside down. Here one does not think it is possible to predict everything and "openness" is the key. Motivation is created by building commitment and meaningfulness in employees with a clear purpose; ie what value the organization contributes to its customers, and to the outside world in general. Transparency, empathy, collaboration, adaptability and mobility are key principles. Ability and performance are more important than title and rank, and the leader's role is not to control but to empower employees to grow and succeed. Decision-making is pushed out to the edges. Seeing opportunities and challenging oneself and the team to try new ways of working, seeing and testing the unseen create the foundation of the future organization.
The future organization is organized for growth and innovation enabling employees and teams to flourish, grow and make breakthrough innovations.
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ORGANIZE FOR GROWTH
More than 70% of digital transformations fail"
- Forbes
No kind of transformation ("digital" or otherwise) never involves technologies alone. They involve the people that use the technologies and the values that infuse how they use them. In fact, the ability to stake out and maintain a robust strategic advantage now depends on much more than technological superiority. An organization's culture - the principles that inform what we do and why we do it, along with the way of working that stems from this - is the key source of competitive advantage, and it is becoming more important every day.
Organizations are making technology investments and getting no results because they aren't prepared to change their organizational structures, behavior or ways of working. Outdated methods are used to structure, operate and lead the organization.
Organizations hoping to manage disruption will need to make sure they are building new cultural capabilities in addition to technical ones. And the way to change culture is not to first change how people think, but instead start by changing how people behave; i.e. what they do.
Design your organization for breakthrough growth in a fast-changing world
The golden mean between bureaucracy and agile
In the successful organization, bureaucracy and innovation are partners. They create a system where both elements continually improve and where people in each part of the organization collaborate to generate superior results.
Bureaucracy works when organizational tasks - what to deliver and how to deliver it - are clear, stable, and predictable (innovation, by definition, meets none of these criteria). Every company has to run its business with efficiently, getting standardized products out the door and delivering predictable services to customers.
The challenge, in a nutshell, is not to replace bureaucracy with agile but to find the right balance between the two. Every organization must of course run its business; i.e. it must be good at operations. But every company must also change the business, continually introducing not just new products and services but also new operating methods and procedures; i.e. must be good at innovating.
Although these tasks require different skills, they are not enemies. They are complementary, interdependent, mutually beneficial capabilities that need each other to survive. Insufficient focus on innovation leads to a static enterprise that will fail to adapt to changing conditions. On the other hand, insufficient emphasis on operations creates chaos - poor quality, high costs, and dangerous risks to customers and to the business.
The key is balance. Every organization must optimize and tightly control some of its operations, but at the same time, every organization must innovate. Agile, done well, frees and facilitates vigorous innovation without sacrificing the efficiency and reliability that are essential to traditional operations.
You have to find the golden mean between bureaucracy and agile for your organization.
How to generate continual organic growth
Harmonize existing structures with agile way of working
It may be difficult to break existing structures in an organization. And even if the will and awareness are there, leaders in many cases do not have the knowledge of where to start and how to proceed.
Spry Growth Loop offers you tools for harmonizing agile working methods with your existing structures. The framework with the nine focus areas helps you to balance structure and agile working methods based on your organization's current state. You get a common language within the organization and a deep understanding of how your organization's needs and can develop. You also get help to find your hidden driving forces in order to focus on changing behaviors and ways of working, which in turn improves the culture of your organization.
In the long run, you will develop the driving forces needed to create organic breakthrough growth and a great power of innovation.