Organizational Effectiveness - Getting Started

This is the second in a series of posts in which I am sharing my thoughts about a framework for organizational effectiveness. I’m trying to keep these installments short, so hopefully each will be a manageable read. Please share your thoughts, and let’s learn together. To read the previous post, click here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/organizational-effectiveness-introduction-mike-hoffmann

The main takeaway from my previous post, which was the first in this series, is that rather than trying to directly measure and improve the productivity of our product development teams, leaders should focus on creating the conditions for productivity. These conditions are:

• A clear and aligned strategy
• Culture of trust and accountability
• Empowered people who possess a growth mindset
• Processes that put quality first and are optimized for flow

These conditions don’t happen by accident. Leaders must consciously decide to create them, and it’s the most important thing they can do to improve the productivity of their organization.

Visually, I’ve come to look at these four areas like this:

While a high-level visual summary is nice, it doesn’t give us much to go on if we want to improve organizational effectiveness. Within each of these four areas, though, there are four sub-areas that give greater context and provide more tangible actions to improve an organization’s effectiveness in each area. I’ll dive more deeply into each of these sub-areas in future posts. But for now, see if you agree that they describe an organization where the priorities and direction are clear, where people know what they need to do, and where they have the right tools to get it done. This is what I mean by having the conditions for productivity. Obstacles have been removed and people have everything they need to get stuff done.

With so many places to focus, it can be hard to know where to start. To simplify things, I suggest start where you’re feeling the most pain and then go from there.

When an organization is struggling with productivity, the usual place we focus is process. And I think that’s ok. Start where you’re feeling pain. But you can’t stop there. Because a change in process is almost certain to affect other aspects of your organization. 

If you’ve ever implemented agile or DevOps at an organization, you know what I’m talking about. The first time I implemented agile I was laser focused on getting the process right. What I didn’t realize at the time was that agile is as much a way of thinking as it is a way of working. Until we were able to address our strategy and culture issues – defining roles, organizing around value delivery, putting quality first, delivering incrementally, and being part of an agile team – we struggled. And leaders had a crucial role to play in solving those problems and getting us moving forward.

So organizational effectiveness and productivity aren’t something leaders can push down to their subordinates, make someone else’s problem, and wash their hands of. Strategy and culture are driven by leaders. These are what set the stage for people to work productively within a defined set of processes, and leaders must take this job seriously. They will never get the results they want if they don’t.

Driving these things forward is an active pursuit because organizational effectiveness and productivity aren’t something you HAVE; they’re something you DO. It is unending. Everything is changing, all the time, and organizations are complex, adaptive, unpredictable, non-linear systems. 

But take heart, leaders. The work is difficult, but it is good work. Giving your people clear purpose, communicating transparently, building a culture of trust and accountability, and providing space for people to learn and develop is about the most fulfilling thing you can do on a personal or professional level. And even better – it’s good for business.

As I said earlier, organizations are complex, adaptive, unpredictable, non-linear systems. In my next post I’m going to talk about a framework for how to work within these conditions of uncertainty. And after that, we’ll dive more deeply into each area of organizational effectiveness.