“You know what? It’s all about new. People love new. I love new. Hell, I’m new!”
- Mr. Stevens (realtor) in We Bought a Zoo
Getting companies clear on a more inspired future and designing that team that will fulfill that future forces some challenging, but incredibly valuable conclusions. We create the organizational design of the future without names. It has only boxes that are occupied by the positions, position agreements, and functions required to accomplish that future.
Then we start mapping the current team to that future. It requires that you acknowledge so many important things:
some of your legacy employees don’t fit your organization of the future
some of your folks might fit, but need further training or additional skills
some current team members need to massively change their attitudes to fit that more fully developed culture you will have when you get there
some of your legacy employees are going to have to step up to more significant roles and some or going to need to step down
We all have those people on our teams that we wished would change their attitude. Those that we believe just don’t have the skills or ability to grow to where we need them. Ones that have “peter principled” and haven’t been able to keep up with the demands of the job or changing industry requirements.
Org Design helps make those decisions and the required conversations much more simple and powerful. The motivation and clarity of that inspired future require that you make the difficult decisions you have put off for years. It also gives you a logical and pragmatic way to describe why someone no longer fits or has to step up in some way in order to stay.
Org Design and the Position Agreements that clearly define the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of that team of the future is the most powerful management tool we’ve ever seen. It changes everything and makes the most difficult changes far simpler than you could imagine.
You’ve all heard the expression, “the ones that got you here aren’t the same ones that are going to get you there”. Truer words have never been said, but how will you do that? What is the logical, pragmatic, and thoughtful way you will get that done? Org Design is the answer to both of those questions.
Vision is all about designing an inspired future that requires you become a new company. That “new co” is going to require some change in your team.
Consider
Do you desire for your company to be “different” and “more” in the future?
Are you clear on what the team is going to look like in order to achieve that future?
How are you going to get from here to there?