Blog Articles about Organizational Effectiveness
Page 1 of 1 page(s)
February 06, 2010
Beware the Second Wave
This week I spoke with four people who have lost faith in their organizations. All four are successful. All four have very valuable and difficult to replace skill sets and business contacts. All four are feeling disaffected and not supported. All four are in different organizations.
These four people weathered the recession quite successfully. They came out of the other side of that recession tunnel, looked around and were disappointed. People they cared about had left their organization. There are new leaders and they don’t like them all. There is a new strategy and they are not at all sure it is right.
These four people may be part of the second wave. The first wave of change happened last year as most organizations restructured in response to the recession. For most organizations these changes resulted in planned terminations.
The second wave is when you lose your best people. They stuck it out and they are not sure they like what they see. Beware.
December 09, 2009
Smaller is Better Sometimes
I am currently working with three leaders who are in the midst of restructuring in some way. Two of these leaders ended up with smaller senior teams. They went from a large span of control (10 or more team members) to a small but powerful team of 3 or 4.
I got to see one of those teams in action in the past few days. What I saw was a team that was nimble and able to make decisions quickly. There was deep trust within the team as some team members made decisions that the team supported without needing major detail. Discussions were strategic and remained on track without major diversions. There was an “evenness” to the quality of the input from the individual team members – there were no weak links in terms of talent.
The leader of this team turned to me yesterday and said the following. “It is easier to lead a smaller team.” Indeed it is. Simply, things happen much more quickly with a smaller number of people.
The trend lately has been to “delayer” organizations and expand spans of control as wide as 15 people. The lesson here for me is clear. One size does not fit all. Sometimes large spans of control make sense. They fit the leader’s style. They fit the organization’s needs. Sometimes they cost more in terms of strategic decision making than the payroll costs they save.
As another client said recently, “I added a layer of VPs. I added payroll costs but I increased the efficiency of the group and reduced the overall cost to the organization.” If you want to drive change, consider adding a layer sometimes.
Page 1 of 1 page(s)
