[aHr #5] reinventing governance, decision-making... on steroids

Shift the corporate HR function from a transactional focus to one of enablement, benefiting business agility by transitioning to a more resourceful human centered Enablement Agency.

This series shed a perspective on the past, present & future challenges in the world of Human Resources. What is expected of HR in terms of enabling flexibility, collaboration, speed and adaptability rather than delivering programs, policies and strict rules?
Howto cooperate with the rest of the business to deliver value with the business instead of to the business? Howto tweak our ways of working from process to purposeful impact…
As we’re crafting an effective program for Agility in HR we’ll include evolutionary insights and invite your feedback in the comments.

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TL;DR

Dora helps her company to shift toward more Employee-Centricity while questioning the outdated power structure of the whole organization. How could she inspire a different perspective that would help decentralized decision-making, a faster GoTo Market. As she touted “everyone's voice matters”, She aimed for better cohesion while Involving the people in making and evolving decisions that affect them, so that engagement and accountability increase, and we make use of the distributed intelligence toward achieving and evolving our objectives.?

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Dora, our adventurous HR Business Partner at Unison Group, evaluated the successes of previous change efforts and the impact they began to show. While she felt overall positively appreciated by the thriving enthusiasm of some supporters, she reflected on the core structure of the organizations. She faced another big headache: the company's old-school hierarchy. It felt like trying to navigate a maze blindfolded. No matter how hard she tried to untangle the mess, more problems popped up like weeds in a garden.

The archaic Power structures were still fully embedded in the Organisational chart, people got trapped in more then 6 levels of hierarchy, a overly simplified model to frame the control functions between managers & subordinates. How to flatten while keeping everyone on board?

She found a visual aid = JTBD template to define and communicate her plan

So, when we notice the org chart slows down the decision-making, I want to help codesign our communication and governance structures, so that we can have people close to the urgent problems have the trust and means to take responsibility.

This framework provides an excellent way to identify critical journeys and map them to possible solutions.

In her direct circle of influence she mapped a radiant flow of connections. The roles started to cluster and become more self-organized circles with interchangeable owners, individuals who take responsibility instead of resources being assigned and managed.

She was wondering how to leverage the interrelatedness of social and technical aspects of the organization as a whole. Her ideal target state was a joint optimization, with a shared emphasis on achievement of both excellence in technical performance and quality in people's work lives, bringing awareness about the integration of Social and Technical Elements: These systems blend technology with human social elements.

This term refers to the interaction between infrastructures of societies and human behavior. In both cases these are not isolated elements, but interactive elements that influence other processes.

Social technical therefore means, among other things, that technology alone cannot be the driving factor in the implementation of new work processes and systems. Equal attention must be paid to both aspects to ensure a high-quality and satisfying working environment for employees.The design and performance of any organizational system can only be understood and improved if both 'social' and 'technical' aspects are brought together and treated as interdependent parts of a complex system. Not an easy nut to crack so she looked up some websites, articles, books & podcasts

One fine day, while skimming through business books, she stumbled upon "Reinventing Organizations" by @Frederic Laloux. The title sounded like a superhero movie, so she dove in. Laloux's ideas about the future of organizations hit her like a bolt of lightning. He talked about stuff like Self-Management, Wholeness, and Evolutionary Purpose. Dora felt like she had struck gold. “From what value consciousness is our company controlled today?’

How to break up the pyramidal structures and replace by flowing, more natural hierarchies, so the power could come to those who have the most expertise, passion or interest. How to tweak our Orange organization with heavy performance orientation into a more complex, adaptive system with distributed authority & shared intelligence, strong accountability, and ownership?

The pursuit of self-control, evolutionary meaning, and holism. To do this, traditional hierarchies of power must be abolished and power must be distributed equally among all members of the organization. But how does it work?

"Let’s shift from external to internal yardsticks in our decision-making."

Dora decided it was time to shake things up at Unison Group. She wanted to throw out the old Command & Control rulebook and introduced an experiment of Team Self-Management. The next 1 month = No more micromanaging bosses breathing down people's necks! Teams got to call the shots and talk to each other directly, like friends at a bar, but also learning to own the decision and take full responsibility. She even introduced something called the "advice process." It was like asking your mates for opinions before buying that funky shirt.

Of course, not everyone was on board with the change. Some old-timers clung to their comfy chairs and corner offices like koalas to eucalyptus trees. But Dora wouldn't take no for an answer. She explained the perks of self-management like she was selling tickets to Disneyland. She pitched a pattern of S3: the Consent Principle with a clear concept of Objections. If not in agreement with the proposal, then share a strong argument or a genuine concern. They formalized a clear process and moved on.

When reflecting on whether or not you have any objections to a proposal, existing agreement, or activity, they most consider the following questions.

• How would continuing in this way fail to adequately respond to the driver and or fulfill the requirement that the proposal or agreement is intended to address in an effective way? (effectiveness)

• How would continuing in this way lead to undesirable consequences or risks in the same domain, in the wider organization or beyond? (side-effects)

• How would continuing in this way lead to waste, or miss out on worthwhile ways to improve? (efficiency)

There was this one team leader who couldn't let go of the reins. He was like a kid holding onto his favorite toy for dear life. But Dora wasn't fazed. She convinced him to give the advice process a spin. Lo and behold, his team whipped up a plan that was cooler than a polar bear in sunglasses. That day, he became a convert to the self-management gospel.

Dora didn't stop there. She wanted Unison Group to be a place where people could be themselves, quirks and all. She encouraged first everyone in her small circle to spill their guts (metaphorically, of course) and share their stories. No more pretending to be robots!

There was this one time when a team member was going through a rough patch. Instead of bottling up her feelings like a shaken soda can, she let it all out. And guess what? Her team had her back like a trusty sidekick. They even made her a cape of moral support until she got back on her feet.

In a few weeks the playing field was leveling. We need a higher determination and distributed decision-making that arises from their role as “living entities”. This new organizational structure should enable wholeness, self-organization, and evolutionary meaning. 

Last but not least, Dora hammered home the idea of Evolutionary Purpose. She wanted Unison Group to think big, like outer space big. Teams weren't just building products; they were shaping the future. Take this one team in Customer Support, for example. They weren't satisfied with just scoring a review after sales. They wanted to save the world, and prototype a way of nudging customers to enlarge their satisfaction and retention, one personal compliment at a time. And boy, did they deliver!

The initiative taking became a driver for normative working agreements, decision-making making totally decentralized; individual motivation peaked and Customers felt this cool vibe and shared it online as they became proud ambassadors.

Dora's shake-up turned Unison Group into a buzzing hive of creativity and happiness. People skipped to work instead of dragging their feet. They made clear company-wide arrangements about delegation and governance. And the company was churning out innovations faster than a pizza delivery on game night.

As this journey was a rollercoaster ride of challenges, ups & downs, she mostly enjoyed the small celebrated triumphs. Through it all, she kept her sense of humor and her eye on the prize. Who knew reinventing organizations could be so challenging and also much fun?

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In the next episode, Dora tries to break the Silos…