Recruit, Inspire & Retain

Organigraphs to Explain Your Organization to Potential Employees

Walk into any organization—not the nice, neat managerial offices but the factory, design studio, or sales department—and take a good look. In one corner, a group of people are huddled in debate over a vexing logistics problem. In another, someone is negotiating with a customer halfway around the world on the Internet. Everywhere you look, people and products are moving, crisscrossing this way and that. You get a snapshot of the company in action.

Ask for a picture of the place, however, and chances are you’ll be handed the company’s org chart, with its orderly little boxes stacked atop one another. The org chart would show you the names and titles of managers, but little else about the company—not its products, processes, or customers—perhaps not even its line of business. Indeed, using an org chart to “view” a company is like using a list of municipal managers to find your way around a city.

The fact is, organizational charts are the picture albums of our companies, but they tell us only that we are mesmerized with management. No wonder they have become so irrelevant in today’s world. With traditional hierarchies vanishing, and newfangled—and often quite complex—organizational forms taking their place, people are struggling to understand how their companies work. What parts connect to one another? How should processes and people come together? Whose ideas have to flow where? The answers to those questions not only help individuals understand how they fit into the grand scheme of things but also reveal all sorts of opportunities for competitive advantage.

The approach is an organigraph, a tip of the hat to the word organigramme, the French term for organizational charts. Organigraphs don’t eliminate the little boxes altogether. But they do introduce new components called sets, chains (these 2 being more traditional top down structures), hubs, and webs (forms that reflect the varied ways people organize themselves). They are much more useful than traditional charts in showing what an organization is—why it exists, what it does. Organigraphs have been able to demonstrate how a place works, depicting critical interactions among people, products, and information. Moreover, executives have used their organigraphs to stimulate conversations about how best to manage their operations and which strategic options make the most sense, much as hikers use maps to investigate possible routes.

Each organizational form suggests a different philosophy of managing. Sets suggest that managers stay away from the action, watching and comparing. The chain puts a boss above as well, but in this case above each link—a manager for each and a manager for all. In other words, the chain of command is laid over the chain of operations. The chain of operations is clear and orderly, and the chain of management exists primarily to keep it that way—for control.

It is when we move on to hubs and webs that management moves off its pedestal. In the hub, management appears in the center, around which activities revolve. Management at the center has an interesting implication: whoever is at the center becomes the manager. For example, if the hospital patient is a hub, then the nurse—not the doctor, not the chief of staff—is the manager. Why? Because the nurse coordinates the array of services that converge on the patient. In a real sense, nursing is managing—which means that managing can extend beyond formal authority.

Managing at the center implies something profoundly different from managing on top. While the chain controls, the hub coordinates. The chain may pretend to empower; the hub brings together people who are intrinsically empowered. And where can we find management in the web? In a web—a project or an alliance, for example—managers have to be everywhere. In practical terms, that means out from behind their desks—in design studios, in airplanes on the way to offices and clients, and in other places where real work happens in order to facilitate collaboration and energize the whole network. They need to encourage people who already know how to do their work and do it well.

In a web, management can also be everyone. Whoever draws things together becomes a de facto manager. All kinds of people are managers who do not carry that official title, be it scientists in a research lab or salespeople in the field.

Adapted from Briefing, Sept/Oct 2006

Commercializing: Increasing the Value of Your Organization’s E-Learning

Extending the Value of E-Learning
Assume for a moment that your organization is considering the development of a self-paced,
e-learning program. As an e-learning stakeholder in this organization, consider the instructional content being provided by the organization and used for this program. While the program objectives are intended to support goals that are internal to the organization, could these objectives also support the goals (or requirements) or other organizations? To this point, consider the following questions:

1. To what extent could the intellectual property (content) contained in this program be “repackaged” and sold to other organizations?

2. Does the organization that might be sponsoring the development of your program possess a recognized “brand” in the broader marketplace that could be leveraged in selling your program?

3. Is it possible to identify external stakeholders who may possess existing distribution channels for your organizations’ e-learning if it were to be repackaged and sold commercially (e.g., professional associations aligned with your organization’s industry or mission)?

4. To what extent could your organization generate a revenue stream (or a return) from this investment that would be made in developing a self-paced, e-learning program from this content?

5. If you were to identify a market opportunity for your program, could you forecast a potential revenue stream over a one-year period and justify a dollar figure as a part of your program’s return on investment?

6. Could you identify other organizations that might have a vested interest in the content being produced for your program and who may be interested in contributing resources or funding toward its development?

Adapted from Kord Kutchin's article in Performance Newsletter Sept/Oct 2004

From Briefing