Effective organisations successfully meet their goals to remain competitive, and the ones who are more efficient than their competition win the market. Therefore, organisation effectiveness is the holy grail for companies regardless of the country or sector.
However, when organisations seek to increase their effectiveness, they often practice outdated techniques, such as headcount reduction or reporting line shuffles. Although these tactics can be practical for specific situations, repeating them can have an adverse effect. You could risk demotivating your workforce and eroding your company’s competitive edge.
The 5 Lenses
To have an effective organisation, you need a mindset shift to encompass a versatile view around Strategy, Capabilities, Structure, Process, and Mindset. This will shine a light on all the issues plaguing your organisation to develop a clearer perspective. This is necessary because implementing changes in one area without considering how they impact others will become out of sync, or in photographic terms, out of focus.
As photographers do, business executives should use various lenses to seek diverse perspectives to improve their strategies for optimal results. Here are the 5 lenses of organisational effectiveness that every business leader should adopt.
Lens #1: Strategy
A lack of clear priorities and resistance to tactical changes lead are among the top reasons for strategy execution failure. If you do not know where you are heading, a random road
may or may not lead you to success. In this continuously changing business environment, yesterday’s goals may no longer be relevant today.
Reflect upon what makes your organisation unique and what your customers would say about your business that is different from your competitors. If there is a distinction between both these versions, consider whether your basic assumptions about your business are still valid.
What is your distinctive quality to win in the marketplace? Having this clarity regarding how
organizations use their resources to create a competitive advantage is critical for organisational effectiveness.
Lens #2: Capabilities
Common sense tells us that building capabilities are essential to enhancing and sustaining competitive advantage. In a 2020 survey by McKinsey, the proportion of respondents who rated the importance of building capability to a company’s long-term growth as “very” or “extremely" important jumped to 78%, which is a 19% increase to pre-pandemic times. However, 45% of them do not have any significant plans to build capability.
78% of respondents in a 2020 McKinsey survey rated capability building as very or extremely important. Yet 45% of them do not have significant plans to build capability.
Assessing how critical roles contribute towards your strategic goals can help you identify any significant gaps in roles or skills. Keep in mind that external capabilities should also be included in this review and analysed based on vulnerability and risk management.
The pandemic led to an astronomical rise in online learning. Coursera declared a 644% rise in its 2020 enrolment compared to 2019. Since nearly half the companies do not have a building capability plan, it remains unclear how this learning increase contributes to a business’s strategic goals.
Lens #3: Structure
Do you know the rationale behind your organisation’s structure? Many companies’ structures can change over time through the revolving doors of their leaders. In REORG, Heidari-Robinson and Heywood highlighted the common pitfalls of reorganization, especially organizational design focusing on reporting lines.
Think about how well your workforce aligns with your current structure. Critical roles that are not utilized in the right parts of your business will never realize their true potential. If you are a product-oriented business and your engineers are not showcasing their strengths in the driver’s seat, this will jeopardize your competitive edge.
Keep this link to strategy as the guiding principle and motivation to contemplate your current structure’s strengths and weaknesses. The efficacy of sharing information and critical decision-making should not be overlooked if you prioritize closing these significant gaps to improve effectiveness.
Lens #4: Process
Focus on specific and relevant areas that will help your organisation create a competitive advantage. Evaluate these in tandem with the effectiveness of the underlying systems that expose your pain points.
Be relentless in eliminating operational controls ("speed bumps") that add no business value.
Keep processes and systems as frictionless as possible. Keep in mind that controls manage risks and speed bumps, such as validations that add no value and should be eliminated.
Tracking these key processes in an organisation helps to maintain a steady pace. If the data shared includes leading indicators of your business performance, this can signal when intervention is required before the impact hits.
Lens #5: Mindset
Regarding the direction of your organization (as stated in your strategic goals) and the observed weaknesses observed through the other lenses, pay attention to behaviours that are working against your business. Employee surveys can provide valuable insights, as well as customer satisfaction and social media feedbacks. What are the underlying beliefs that are driving these behaviours?
The most important factor to acknowledge is the extent to which your organization has a growth mindset. According to Carol Dweck, people with a fixed mindset believe that talents are fixed traits that cannot be improved. On the contrary, people with a growth mindset fathom that skills and talents can be nurtured if enough effort is invested.
If your business operates in a continuously changing environment, nurturing a growth mindset is the most important strategic move that a CEO can inspire.
Your Organizational Snapshot
“It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see,” - Henry David Thoreau
An effective organisation needs a simultaneous view of multiple facets to ensure that they are in harmony. Assessing your effectiveness through each aspect to understand how all the lenses interchange can allow you to gain a comprehensive view of opportunities that enhance your organization’s effectiveness.
The Benefits
Organisations are living and breathing entities, with different internal and external forces pulling them in various directions. Thoroughly analysing your organisational effectiveness in each silo can potentially lead to adverse domino effects.
This synchronised multi-faceted review through the 5 lenses enables you to keep an eye on the bigger picture. Furthermore, engaging your team during the review is an empowering move that will send a loud and clear message on who you are as a leader.
A Call To Action
The role of HR has never been more vital as companies navigate through these rough seas of change. CHROs can partner with their CEOs to facilitate this extensive review adopting the 5 different lenses of organisational effectiveness. Hiring an external consultant to streamline the process is an exceptionally viable solution to provide a unique vantage point from a fresh perspective.
Although organizational development is not a fixed science set in stone, adopting a holistic view of Strategy, Capabilities, Structure, Process, and Mindset can provide an enhanced focus. Effective leadership is the primary motivational force, and business executives need to integrate these 5 lenses to reexamine perspectives, strengthen awareness, and inspire workforces towards a new vision of achieving greatness.
With these strategic photographic factors, you can reframe business problems, refocus your attention and resources, and re-energize your workforce to drive significant organisational change with advanced momentum collectively.
Valerie Tan Ronchail specialises in Organisational Strategies. Start a conversation with Valerie at valerie@mingz.co or LinkedIn
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