Organization design blog

In my mailbox this week came two similar questions.

The first was about my blog (March 14 2011) Position Management vs. Organization Design. This correspondent asked:

 Could you please clarify how you "Identify manpower flows"
 What is the rationale for suggesting identifying a possible flow for each scenario - will they be different?
 Isn't it an expensive endeavor to identify flows for each possible redesign scenario?
 And, what methods do organizations/consultants typically use to do so?

The second person asked "if you come across any linkage or material regarding OD and Strategic workforce planning, let me know. It's the puzzle I can't figure out right now. OD and then SWP or SWP and then OD...or is it a combined process?

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Having been well indoctrinated by David Allen (Getting Things Done), Stephen Covey, Time Management International, et al, at the end of each month I review what has happened in the way of meetings, ideas, books/articles recommended, and do something with them: file, trash ...
February 2011 has proved a rich picking on many fronts. As I do the cull among the reminders to myself to pick up library books, and buy milk I find

a) Approaches from individuals in South Africa, India, Namibia, Saudi Arabia, Finland- all interested in organization design training
b) Contacts from people wanting to enter the field of organization design - Frieda, Emily, Laura, Helle, Tiffany (why all women?)
c) Several book and article recommendations:
d) A host of ideas to mull over related to new ways of thinking about organizations most captured cryptically in my Daytimer in a way that leaves me struggling to remember more of the context e.g. the collectively circled three words "serendipity, spontaneity, sublety",
e) Notes of meetings I've attended (I now find I have 8 standing meetings a week, each of an hour) and during the month I've run three workshops with an average of 12 people each, additionally I've met one to one with over 30 people, and made first time phone contacts with several others.
f) Notes about meetings I've attended e.g. why is 'reset' the word of the moment?
g) Many, many actions arising from the meetings that I need to do something with or about.

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Organization design and development activity is usually not tracked or evaluated in any meaningful way. Practitioners do not know whether their work has directly resulted in improved organizational performance. A report from the UK's Roffey Park Institute highlights this deficiency in OD the Roffey Park Institute's report Best Practice in OD evaluation.

The authors say that

We approached our research aware that there are many practitioners in the field of OD who believe that its systemic nature makes it hard to measure; some hold a world view that says it's inappropriate even to try.

.... In the prevailing economic climate we would argue that it is critically important. And as we emerge into a post recession world, we believe that being able and willing to demonstrate the impact of OD on the effectiveness of organizations will be imperative if the discipline is to maintain and increase its credibility.

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I was contacted recently by a research student asking me to take part in his Delphi Study. The European Commission Joint Research Centre has a very clear explanation of what a Delphi study is.

The Delphi method is based on structural surveys and makes use of information from the experience and knowledge of the participants, who are mainly experts. It therefore yields both qualitative and quantitative results and draws on exploratory, predictive even normative elements

There is agreement that Delphi is an expert survey in two or more 'rounds' in which, in the second and later rounds of the survey the results of the previous round are given as feedback (Cuhls 1998). Therefore, the experts answer from the second round on under the influence of their colleagues' opinions, and this is what differentiates Delphi from ordinary opinion surveys.

Thus, the Delphi method is a 'relatively strongly structured group communication process, in subjects, on which naturally unsure and incomplete knowledge is available, are judged upon by experts', write Häder and Häder (1995, p. 12). Giving feedback and the anonymity of the Delphi survey are important characteristics.

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In my book on Organisation Culture I ask the question "Can culture be measured?" Here's an extract from the chapter that deals with that question.

Edgar Schein, in The Corporate Culture Survival Guide, discusses several reasons "why culture surveys do not and cannot measure culture":

1. There is no way of knowing what cultural dimensions are important in any one organisation. Even so, the surveys make an assumption that the dimensions they pick up are the same for all organisations that take that survey. In the example above the cultural dimensions being asked about focus on behaviour and include people's relationship to the organisation's mission, vision, and/or values: the "mood" of the organisation, the activities of leaders, what people complain about most, the structure of people's relationships. Without doing a lot more digging for information it is not clear on what basis these behaviours (if they are behaviours) have been picked out.

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It's a 'well known fact' that it is very hard to measure knowledge worker productivity. This I found out when I was asked how the productivity of people in staff roles who were teleworking should be measured. By staff roles I mean functional jobs that do not have readily available quantitative outputs attached to them. An internal consultant is an example - how is his/her productivity measured?

This question has come into focus as we grapple with extending teleworking. One of the resistances to it is that managers fear they won't be able to tell whether an 'invisible' worker i.e. one not physically present in front of their eyes, is being productive. The teleworker feels that he/she cannot prove value add productivity if the work involves, say researching for an article, or planning a strategy.

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I just received a report from Accenture called The New Generation of Human Capital Analytics. It synthesizes the work of several writers on this topic predominantly Thomas Davenport and John Boudreau in a practical way with useful case examples.

Reading it through HR and line managers could compile a checklist of things that need to happen to turn raw data into valuable business insights. To save them time - I've had a go at it. See what you think, and let me know.

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