ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
Lack of Senior Team Alignmennt
• Overestimating the amount of senior team alignment that exists or assuming that enough will be built during the change process itself to create alignment
Poor Management of Stakeholders
• Paying minimal attention to how the world of stakeholders is responding to the changes being undertaken, ignoring negative reactions and skepticism
Resistance and Distrust
• Not building effective change management strategies to lead and manage the transformation
• Not taking into account how an organization’ s past experience with change initiatives may complicate or boost implementation
Insufficient Plan for Execution
• Inadequate resources to execute the changes and manage the transformation
• A change plan that does not include a systemic view of the organizational changes required to support the transofrmation
Lack of Followthrough and Accountability
• Lack of clear accountability for designing and implementing specific aspects of the transformation agenda
• Not being able to interpret and escalate key information to executives for rapid decision making and course correction
Lack of Meaningful Measures
M
L
H Service Delivery
• Lack of early warning measures( i. e., leading indicatiors) that allow an organization to know when plans are in jeopardy
• Stronger focus on longer term outcome measures and minimal attention to transfrmation metrics that would track the evolution of the transformation
Leadership was described as being a key factor in the success or failure of an organization – poor leadership can affect attitude, results and ultimately staff turnover. Securing leadership buy-in and support was seen as critical to the success of any design effort.
Culture was felt to be a particularly important factor in implementing and sustaining successful organizational change. Not understanding the existing culture and how it might need to change was seen as a key reason for failure in implementing a new organization design.
The role of council is to provide strategic guidance and advice – not to design the organization Councils are seen as a key stakeholder in organization design and play an important role in providing input to the process.
A clear distinction was made between participating in the process versus leading the process. It was strongly felt that councils should not play a direct role in the actual design of the organization as this was seen as an administrative role. However, it was felt important that councils be kept informed throughout the process.
Implementation is where change really starts Failure in design often comes from failure to execute. Organizations can and do expend a great deal of energy in
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Civil / Municipal Land Development Environmental Solid Waste Management Urban & Regional Planning Geographic Information Systems Mechanical Electrical Structural Architecture assessing and redesigning their organizations. Yet, what allowance is made for implementation of the approved changes? Often very little. Changes are assigned to those with the organizational accountability for the given change with no provision, resources or otherwise, to ensure that the changes will be successfully implemented.
In addition to providing the required support in implementation, it is seen as important that forms, policies, procedures and reward systems be aligned with the proposed organizational changes.
Failure in organizational design results from a number of factors Several factors were identified as contributing to the failure of planned organizational changes as noted above. Other contributing factors include:
• Lack of council support( and therefore the need for council to be engaged throughout the process depending on the scale of the review as noted earlier);
• Not dealing with the tough people decisions, compounded by putting the wrong people in leadership positions; and
• Not monitoring and evaluating progress against target outcomes, or making changes if the design doesn’ t appear to be working
The above diagram summarizes the common reasons for the failure of change initiatives.
Municipal organizations operate in a dynamic environment. They must continually respond to changing circumstances or expectations.
This article has identified a number of common themes in the successful design of a municipal organization. Overall, it was felt to be particularly important that the design be driven by a strategic plan, incorporate the collective experience of other municipal organizations while being tailored to local requirements and that staff be proactively engaged in the design process.
Ian Smith is the president of NDSIK Management Consultants.
24 Q2 2015 www. amcto. com