Research tagged with "Org Design"

Many companies build cultures that are focused on controlling the output of low performers, rather than growing and unlocking everyone’s skills. This approach is low-ROI and ultimately problematic for high-performance cultures. Leaders spend an inordinate amount of time handholding their least productive colleagues, instead of helping their strongest contributors move faster and do more. Meanwhile, because these tactics are focused on pushing the work forward rather than figuring out how to get better, they fail to turn low performers into high performers. Ultimately, by failing to nurture skill or motivation, low performance cultures stunt growth and repel top talent. Organizations need to build cultures that are obsessed with high performers, focusing the culture on keeping high performers and making new ones. First, reduce meetings down to the minimum viable number, so top talent can spend their time on more interesting, impactful work. Second, ask questions to measure your team’s motivation and conduct monthly health checks. Finally, mentor high performers on concrete, high-leverage skills.

Enhancing organizational performance involves shifting from a task-based to a problem-solving model. The five-step process: factoring problems, assigning them to teams, mapping non-problem-solving work, ensuring the right leadership roles, and starting the strategy process creates clarity and velocity. These steps transform employees from order-takers to owners, fostering a high-performing culture.

Boeing was once synonymous with quality and safety. But as focus shifted from customers to stakeholders, their culture eroded, and with it their planes and reputation. This fate could have been avoided using three leadership techniques: health checks, goal checks, and skill checks.

Organizational structures are crucial to an operating model, yet constant re-orging significantly drains motivation and performance. So what's an executive team to do? Align to six first principles: form follows function, reporting lines are powerful enough, strengthen the horizontals, focus on feedback loops, align the strengths and passions, and finally, structure is a part of a system.