For the first time since the industrial revolution, organizations are changing at a fundamental level. The change is very much a work in progress in most organizations. But we now have many examples of organizations that are fully functioning in an entirely new way – that is, new ideas about how the organization is designed, about how work gets done, how people relate to each other
The elements of this fundamental change are:
- Networked structure. The structure of organizations is changing from being hierarchical to being flatter, networked organizations. One of the recognized problems in hierarchical organizations is that information travels too slowly, making adaptation difficult. Networked organizations are growing because social enterprise software has made the more immediate and broader exchange of knowledge possible, thereby facilitating the coordination between parts of the organization. The labor-intensive task of information traveling up the chain of command, across departments, and down another chain of command in order to coordinate, is greatly reduced by social enterprise software.
- Teams as the unit of work. Within networked organizations teams are now the unit of work. Tasks are assigned to teams rather than to individuals. It is teams that create new products, interact with customers and resolve the organization’s problems. This change has been necessitated by the increased complexity of the issues facing organizations, which require a diversity of expertise as well as greater manpower to accomplish. Increasingly, no one individual is capable of addressing these complex issues/problems by themselves.
- Self-governed teams. Given that there are no known answers to the complex issues teams face, the teams themselves invent the answer. To do that they continually try new ideas and learn from their actions, including their successes, and failures, and from their interactions, including other parts of the organization, customer requirements, customer satisfaction, and competitors. In order to learn, team members hold frequent conversations to reflect on their actions jointly. And based on that reflective sensemaking, arrive at decisions about what to do next, rather than relying on a manager to tell them what they should do next. They self-select the most appropriate tools and work practices to carry out their decisions. Each team develops work practices unique to their situation, and those practices change over time. Self-governing requires team members to have frequent and authentic conversations where they learn with and from each other.
- Focus on human relationships. To have authentic conversations team members give greater attention to developing more human and personal relationships among team members than would be found in traditional teams. Such relationships are based on 1) shared purpose, 2) respect for others’ expertise, and 3) greater knowledge of each other as human beings (Schein). Psychological safety, based on these three attributes develops only when these three conditions exist. Psychological Safety makes it possible for team members to enact learning behaviors such as, sharing mistakes, seeking feedback on their own actions, and discussing differences among team members openly rather than privately. Such behaviors are essential for team learning (Edmondson).
- Changed role of leaders. In self-governed teams the manager/lead is a coach or servant leader, rather than the decision maker. The traditional role of a manager in hierarchical organizations is framed as “power over” as in master-servant, parent-child, or teacher-student. Such relationships block team members from cooperating and collaborating internally by putting too much power in the hands of one individual (Jarche). Edmonson’s research found that “teams with minimal power differentials were better able to reflect effectively.” In many self-governed teams a lead is selected by the team or the role is rotated among team members (Laloux). This change in the role of managers/leaders also serves to increase the authenticity of team conversations because without the “power over” of a manager, the fear of speaking out is greatly reduced.
- Deployment of virtual teams. Whether a team is spread across the globe or co-located with members periodically work from home, social enterprise software has made effective virtual teams possible. The need to leverage in-house competencies, resources and capabilities have made virtual teams a necessity. Virtual teams are a new form of teaming, but like co-located teams they hold frequent conversations to 1) reflect, build and maintain close relationships, learn from their actions, and make decisions related to work practices. The more remote team members are, the greater the number of practices and tools are needed to establish and maintain close relationships. Virtual teams are most effective when they oscillate between face-to-face exchanges (in a variety of forms) and online communication (Dixon).
- Decentralized Governance. In a networked organization, governance is decentralized. How that decentralization is implemented depends on the organization’s size and the interdependency between its parts. In organizations with extensive interdependences, such as the US Army, the governing body is a team of teams, that is, a representative from each team meets together as a unit for coordination (McCrystal). Others hold frequent town halls both in-person and online (Turco). And still others, convene task forces composed of volunteers that manage issues like budgets, new projects, or changes to current policies. However, most networked organizations have merely developed, at the local level, a set of agreed upon practices to address issues such as conflict resolution, hiring, decision making, performance management, etc. (Laloux).
All of these changes require a higher level of collaboration among team members, as well as, between teams. And they require teams to have autonomy in how they accomplish their tasks, to hold more productive conversations, and to build deeper and more personal relationships.