THE ORGANISATION
INNOVATORS STUDIO
THE
bureaucratic hierarchies to a network of teams
™
THE
™
Copyright © 2024 Robert de Bruijn
First edition.
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PATH INSTITUTE
4
The organisation innovator’s studio
Between 2010 and 2019, US public companies reported more
than $550 billion in restructuring costs typically the result of
poor financial results followed by belated or inept attempts at
strategic renewal. Organizational inertia is endemic and costly with senescent companies hang on closing facilities, killing
brands, throttling R&D, reorganizing, shedding staff, merging
with rivals, and lobbying for regulatory help.
zation, and thus the economy, evolved in a golden age; the little ice age
ended around 1850 just in time for the second industrial revolution to get
started. In 1800, about 20 percent of the British population lived in urban
areas. By the middle of the nineteenth century, that proportion had risen
to 50 percent. And the period after world war II has seen global trade flourish in a period of unprecedented peace and cheap abundant energy.
The data on organizational resilience in the face of an increasing rate of
change and increased uncertainty is not good. Only eleven percent of
companies that made up the Fortune 500 in 1955 are still on the list today
while the average age of a company on the S&P 500 has fallen from sixty
years in the 1950’s to less than twenty years today.
It is in these golden conditions that the theory and practice of modern
management rapidly evolved in the industrial revolution in response to
the pressures of quickly scaling economic activities. It was particularly suited to the complicated, deterministic world of the industrial revolution.
In the early 1990’s technologists at AT&T predicted that video streaming
would become commercially viable by 2005 and they were right. YouTube
launched in 2005, Apple TV appeared in 2006, and Netflix streamed it’s
first movie in 2007, but AT&T wasn’t anywhere to be seen. In 2005 Google
missed the opportunity to take a pioneering role in social media despite
a commanding lead in search. And when Apple iTunes was slow to offer
streaming content, it opened the door to upstarts like Spotify.
Information communication technology is not, however, the only factor
driving the rate of change and competitive uncertainty. Modern civili-
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The dominant practice in the management of work
If you have a digital device in every pocket, a car in the garage, and plenty
and cheap food in the supermarket, it is thanks to the inventors of modern
management. Modern management was invented to solve the problem of
inefficiency and places the pursuit of efficiency ahead of every other goal.
One of the key tenets that informed the structure of organizations can be
traced back to Frederick Winslow Taylor, the first self-styled management
consultant. Managers were to define the ‘one best way’ for tasks to be
done, and workers do it in exactly that way for the highest efficiency and
output.
Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
5
others. Most valued is obedience; employees who are able to follow orders.
Next is diligence; people who work hard and take responsibility for results
followed by intellect (knowledge). To be effective in jobs, people need to
be smart and eager to improve their skills in the service of the organization.
1.
2.
By the turn of the turn of the twentieth-century the idea that laborers
could not be trusted to make good decisions was so ingrained that when
Frederick Winslow Taylor published his Principles of Scientific Management
in 1911, the organizational hierarchy was already clearly established with
managers being the brains and workers the brawn or as Taylor said of the
type of man best suited to load pig iron, “so stupid and so phlegmatic that
he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up, the ox”.
To be fair, Adam Smith did not share this view of laborers, saying of the
men who worked assembly lines, “He generally becomes as stupid as is
possible for a human being to become.” What Smith is telling us is that
the very shape of the institution within which people work creates people
who are suited to the demands of that institution.
The pursuit of efficiency values certain work capabilities in employees over
Obedience
Diligence
3.
Intellect
4.
Initiative
5.
6.
Creativity
Daring
Employee characteristics most valued in bureaucratic hierarchy (Hamel & Breen, 2007).
The characteristics of the dominant form of modern management, the
professional bureaucratic hierarchy, are well suited to leverage these capabilities in the pursuit of efficiency. The characteristics are;
•
•
•
There is a formal hierarchy.
Power is vested in positions.
Authority trickles down.
INTRODUCTION
Adam Smith, one of the father’s of the industrial revolution, was convinced
that people (laborers) were by nature lazy and wouldn’t do anything
unless you made it worth their time. And so we created a factory system
consistent with the idea that laborers were purely extrinsically motivated,
and created jobs in which there really wasn’t anything you could possibly
get out of your daily work, except for the pay at the end of the day. Once
that system of production was in place, there really was no other way for
the majority of laborers to operate.
6
The organisation innovator’s studio
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Big leaders appoint little leaders.
Strategies and budgets are set at the top.
Central staff groups make policy and ensure compliance.
Job roles are tightly defined.
Control is achieved through oversight, rules, sanctions, and incentives.
Managers assign tasks and assess performance.
Compensation correlates with rank.
Everyone competes for promotion.
Over the last century, the bureaucratic hierarchy has gotten flatter due
to reorganizations in bids for greater labor productivity, but hasn’t disappeared. Front-line employees may be better educated but are still expected to obediently follow decisions made above. Lower-level managers are
still appointed by senior managers. Strategy still gets set by the people
with big titles and big salaries at the top. There may be fewer mid-level
managers but those that remain are doing what managers have done
since the birth of professional management –setting budgets, assigning
tasks, reviewing performance, and cajoling their subordinates to do better.
Gallup, a research company, conducts a yearly global survey on workplace
engagement. The 2023 State of the Global Workplace report estimates
that, “low engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion [annually].
[...] Poor management leads to lost customers and lost profits, but it also
leads to miserable lives”. Globally, 23% of respondents indicate they are
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engaged in their work (they find their work meaningful and feel connected to the team and their organization. They feel proud of the work they do
and take ownership of their performance, going the extra mile for teammates and customers), in Europe that’s just 13%. Globally 59% of respondents indicate they are ‘quiet quitting’ (they’re disconnected from their
employer just filling a seat and putting in the minimum effort required),
in Europe that number is 72%. Best-practice organizations from Gallup’s
research have that number (72%) engaged employees in 2022 compared
to the global average of 23%. Gallup’s researchers find that 70% of the
variation in employee engagement scores is attributable to managers and
their talent (or lack thereof ) in the role. In today’s organizations (over) control, centralization, and hierarchy in the singular pursuit of efficiency are as
common as they were a hundred years ago. With low engagement costing
an estimated $8.8 trillion annually and the global economy once again
slowing Gallup concludes that there’s one thing leaders can do and that’s
change the way people are managed.
Complexity and uncertainty in the digital age
The digital revolution of the twenty-first century has lead to a tipping
point in the economic system from complicated and deterministic, to complex and dynamic. While obedience, diligence, and intellect, are most valuable in the pursuit of efficiency, initiative, creativity, and daring are most
Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
7
A new organization operating system
The world is becoming more turbulent faster than most companies are becoming more adaptable. And while every day companies refresh products
and improve processes, by contrast strategic transformations tend to be
convulsive and organizational transformation either trivial or traumatic.
We stand at a point in time where the current dominant management
technology paradigm, the bureaucratic hierarchy, has traveled an S-curve
from inception to maturity. No more efficiency can be squeezed out of the
technology.
Management, like economic theory, is what Professor Barry Schwartz calls
an idea technology. Idea technologies, he argues, are more powerful than
‘thing’ technologies (such as digital) because if a ‘thing’ technology isn’t
any good it disappears. Science creates ideas, ways of understanding, in
addition to things and in the social sciences the ideas that are created are
ways of understanding ourselves. Such ideas have an enormous influence
on how we think, what we aspire to, and how we act, as we’ve seen Adam
Smith’s ideas about laborers had on the development of the factory system.
The bureaucratic hierarchy is to the desktop computer operating systems
as the agile network is to the smartphone operating system. Operating
systems of computing devices are essentially a collection of rules for transforming inputs to outputs. That’s a fair description for management too;
the technology of management is an organization’s operating system.
Compared with the momentous changes in technology and living standards we’ve witnessed over the past three quarters of a century, the practice of management has evolved only at a snails pace. In the future, it is
vital for organizations to start treating the technology of management and
organization the same as they do their products and services.
However, computer operating systems are continuously updated. There’s
a rigorous process in place to signal issues, write new code rules, test the
new code, and then overwrite the old code rules when an update of the
system is conducted. Some updates are patches to security issues, some
improve on the architecture, and others add features, or upgrade existing features. Originally computer operating systems were only updated
once every few years when a new version of the OS was purchased. When
smartphones were introduced new OS architectures were created from
scratch, designed specifically to meet the demands placed on the system
by the devices they’d run and the users of the device, with updates released continuously.
INTRODUCTION
needed in complex, dynamic economic conditions of uncertainty.
8
The organisation innovator’s studio
Management seldom, if ever, has defined processes for correcting and
improving itself. No system for signaling flaws and weaknesses, no system
for architect new structures, no system for testing new management ideas,
no system for rewriting the processes. That is, no process for improving the
decision making process and for continuously adapting the structure to fit
the circumstances of the environment. Instead they continue to propagate
the same organization models and management thinking that emerged as
fit-for-purpose at the start of the industrial age. Why? Why are organization
operating systems not designed to meet the needs of specific organizations in their specific environment? Why do we not continuously test and
update the operating system to meet the changing needs of the organization?
In the digital age, organization’s must treat their organization and management practices the same as they do their products; rapidly adapting to
be fit-for-purpose, or increasingly fall. The operating system of the organization that is fit-for-purpose for the digital age coordinate’s thousands
without the burden of overseers, keep’s a tight rein on costs without stifling creativity, enables both discipline and freedom without these being
mutually exclusive. Management innovation is the ultimate advantage
for organizations for long-term success. More than operational innovation,
product innovation, or strategic business model innovation, management
creativity, and daring of employees.
Research by Pink (2009), and Schwartz (2009, 2014) into what makes jobs
fulfilling suggests three main factors; the work has a visible human impact,
the work enables genuine talents to be used, and the work empowers the
exercise of discretionary judgment. How would you feel at work if;
w
You had the right to design your own job?
w
Your team was free to set its own goals and define its own methods?
w
You never felt encumbered by rules and red tape?
w
You were trusted in every situation to use your best judgment?
w
You were accountable to your colleagues rather than a boss?
w
You had the chance to help shape the strategy of your organization?
w
Your influence and compensation depended on your work and abilities
and not your rank?
innovation creates great value by unlocking the potential in the initiative,
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Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
Management Innovation
Strategic Business Model Innovation
Product & Service Innovation
Operational Innovation
The added value pyramid of different forms of innovation
(Hamel & Breen, 2007).
9
Empower Collaboration Negotiate goals for individuals and teams to
Hamel’s Principles of Management 2.0
Embrace Activism Performance benefits from diversity and dissent when
people stand up for what they believe, disagree on matters openly, give
and receive constructive criticism, and negotiate best outcomes.
Act on Trust People act on good faith and have an intrinsic motivation to
contribute value.
achieve.
Celebrate Openness All information, communication, and decision making within an organization is transparent and accessible to anyone.
Spark Innovation When employees share and follow their passion and
self-interest, unplanned opportunities arise.
Celebrate Learning Real-time information and decision making draws on
everyone’s experience and expertise in open discussion. Speed is importReward Experimentation New ideas can pursued without negative career ant. Making mistakes, even failure, is a vital part of learning.
consequences.
Support Serendipity Unplanned interactions –chance–, leads to benefiCede Autonomy Direction and decision making can come from anywhere. Empower people and teams to use their own judgment to achieve
goals and where they commit their talents.
Nurture Meritocracy All members of the community are equal and have
an equal right to lead and follow. People & ideas succeed based on intrinsic quality.
Foster a Community People with a shared purpose who organize and
engage with each other.
cial outcomes.
Sustain Meaning People have an intrinsic desire for their labor to have
meaning and find purpose in their work. Organizational purpose is more
than profit, it is the ability for individuals to contribute meaningfully to
outcomes.
de Moree & Minaar’s 8 Trends of Progressive Organisations
From directive management to supportive leadership Most command-and-control structures of conservative organizations operate with
INTRODUCTION
Separate research by Hamel and Moree & Minnaar respectively articulated
the principles of progressive management distilled from the practices of
organizations from all continents, cultures and industries. These principles
are the foundations for designing new organization operating systems.
10 The organisation innovator’s studio
a directive management style. Team leaders, supervisors, managers, vice
presidents and directors ‘direct’ subordinates. This form of management
is based on control, power, and fear; directing others in what and how to
do their job. Progressive organizations typically foster leadership that is
supportive of those ‘closest to the fire’. Authority is not linked to rank, but
rather to the ability to lead by example. Leaders challenge the way things
are always done and encourage others to do the same. Leaders do everything in their power to remove barriers to performance.
From rules & control to freedom & trust Conservative organizations
have a bureaucracy in place to ensure employees follow the rules. Policies
are formulated in an attempt to predict and control the outcomes of what
people might do. Progressive organizations act on the belief that employees are responsible adults who can be trusted. Adults don’t need extensive
control and perform best when given a high degree of autonomy. They
can be trusted to do their own job in the best way; where, when, how and
with whom.
From plan & predict to experiment & adapt Plan and predict is a fundamental tenet of the management practices of conservative organizations
in which yearly budgeting, resource allocation, and plans are all cascaded down the organization chart in the belief that the future is stable and
can be predicted. Progressive organizations focus on experimentation
in everything they do: products, ways of working, and even structures.
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Change is no longer a once-in-a-year event but part of every-day work. As
the business environment gets more complex adaptability is increasingly
important. Progressive organizations believe it’s better to experiment and
fail than to never make mistakes at all.
From centralized authority to distributed decision making Conservative organizations centralize decision making assuming that decision-making competence is increases in proportion to the position in the hierarchy.
Progressive organizations tend to be highly decentralized. They act on
the belief that employees on the front-line have the best understanding
of customers, suppliers, and production machines. Therefore, front-line
employees should make the majority of the decisions in order to be responsive to client needs. In progressive organizations, we see distributed
decision-making authority which brings with it increased responsibility
and accountability.
From secrecy to radical transparency Conservative organizations tend to
limit valuable information to the leaders who are authorized to make the
important decisions. Information access is provided on a ‘need to know’
basis. Progressive organizations are ‘open by default’. They grant front-line
employees the access to company-wide data like documents and financials, in real-time. This fosters an ‘ask anything’ mentality, promotes collaboration in and outside the organization and leads to better decisions,
faster, and problems solved sooner.
Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
11
From profit to purpose Conservative organizations focus on maximizing
short term shareholder value in the form of profit that can be redistributed
to the owners of the firm. Progressive organizations focus on building a
workplace around common purpose and values that fosters communities
of like-minded employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders
and gives people energy, passion and motivation.
From a hierarchical pyramid to a network of teams Conservative organizations organize around a command-and-control structure where managers do all the thinking determining how and when workers will do work
and workers obey and do it. Progressive organizations typically turn a pyramid into a network of teams responsible for their own results. Each team
has skin in the game. They feel the impact of their (financial) successes
and failures increasing responsibility, entrepreneurship, communication,
adaptability and the willingness to support each other. They are connected as needed to other teams to form networks of teams.
Making organisations future fit
We do not need to accept that the management practice of the industrial
age continue to be the dominant philosophy informing the design and
management of contemporary businesses. Failing to innovate management is not an option if business hopes to stay open for business. Changing, however, requires managers to start thinking and treating their organization and management practices the same as they do their products
and business processes; rapidly adapting to be fit-for-purpose, or increasingly fail.
INTRODUCTION
From job descriptions to talents & mastery Conservative organizations
tend to distribute activities based on job titles and descriptions forcing
people to work on things they are supposed to do, but not necessarily disposed to do. We know that doing what you are good at increases motivation and engagement. Progressive organizations offer people the freedom
to choose their tasks and responsibilities. In progressive organizations,
employees craft their jobs based on their interests, talents and strengths.
12 The organisation innovator’s studio
Chapters at a glance
Industry uncertainty and volatility
In this chapter, you will collect and analyze data on industry forces to gain
insight on the trends towards volatility and competitive uncertainty in the
industry.
Using the Exploratory
At all times the chapters are outlined on each double page. Chapters yet to
be started are on the bottom left of each even page (below) and chapters
you have completed are at the top op each even page.
Organization capabilities for managing disruptive change
In this chapter, you will interview employees of the company using an
interview format to gain an inside perspective on organization capabilities
related to agility.
Gap between industry trends and organizational capabilities
In this chapter, you will identify, -based on your conclusions on industry
trends towards volatility and uncertainty, and your conclusions on organization capabilities -, if there is a gap, and if yes, what that gap is.
Management innovation to address the gap
In this chapter, you will review management practice literature to identify
practices that could be introduced to the structure and management of
the company to address the gap.
Appendices
Includes everything else from additional resource links to end notes and
bibliography.
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Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
13
INTRODUCTION
14 The organisation innovator’s studio
The organisation innovator’s brief
Your job, the job of organization innovator, is to design a new
management ‘operating system’ for an organization of your
choosing. One that is fit-for-purpose for the digital age. One
that engages employees to contributing to the organizations’
goals.
You will embark on a journey diving deeply into the industry’s trends in
the digital age shaping competition and immerse yourself in the organization’s capabilities for managing disruptive change. The main legs of the
journey are briefly outlined below and in-depth in the pages that follow.
To start your journey, select a studio ecosystem. Identify an organization
to adopt as your focal firm and identify the industry in which it competes.
The organization should employ minimally 250 people.
Next, conduct an analysis of the industry gathering data to support conclusions on the situation in the industry with respect to change in uncertainty and volatility; i.e. complexity of the environment.
Next, interview minimally three employees of the organization to identify
capabilities and disabilities the firm might have for managing disruptive
change.
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Next, conclude what complications, if any, arise from industry trends on
complexity and organization capabilities for managing disruptive change.
Formulate the complication in a the form of a question to help guide your
search for answers in management literature.
Next, conduct a review of found management literature to formulate
management innovations, appropriate to the business strategy, to make
the firm more resilient to disruptive change. Propose minimally two possible innovations, recommending one.
Introductory Reading
Organizing for the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company
(2021, March). de Smet, A., Gagnon, C., & Mygatt, E. McKinsey & Company.
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/organizing-for-the-future-nine-keys-to-becoming-a-future-ready-company
Kiechel, W. (2014, August 1). The management century. Harvard Business
Review. https://hbr.org/2012/11/the-management-century
Lastly, prepare a paper including your rich insights on internal and external situation, the complication, question challenging the organization,
potential and recommended management innovations.
Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
15
Dare to fail
Approaching complex challenges requires a non-linear design-like approach. Design, on the other hand, is nonlinear, divergence and convergence, conflict, and confusion. The most challenging aspects of a studio
is really staying ‘at the belly of problem’ and asking more questions. For
those more familiar with linear problem-solving methods not knowing
where you will end up can be uncomfortable. But invest in the time and
space to think. Framing the problem better directly affects the quality of
designed policies, programs and systems.
Aerosmith, the rock band, has a practice they call dare to suck meetings
where every two weeks the band members come together to share
musical ideas –no matter how bad the idea seems to the creator. Rather
than be embarrassed that something isn’t good enough or ready to share,
it allows band members to share song ideas and musical experiments that
other members can build on or refine. Even for musicians as experienced
and talented as Aerosmith, not everything is a diamond in the rough.
Some stuff just really does suck; but they can laugh about it.
Learning circles
TRANSPORT
FOOD
[ENERGY]
MEDIA
CONSTRUCTION
Organization innovator studios.
Exploratory participants form learning circles of eight. All learning circle
members take responsibility for the successful exchange of ideas, and
use own initiatives, preparation, and careful thought to contribute in
a meaningful and constructive manner. Ideas can be shared, articles
discussed, work presented, options evaluated, and statements checked.
Participants determine the needs of the circle. A weekly rotating chair will
define the agenda for the next circle gathering allocating time to each
item, and informing circle members of preparation.
Learning circles maintain a similar practice. In dare to fail demonstrations
innovators share work-in-progress thats pools insights, celebrates
learning, enables debate, and ignites new paths for exploration.
INTRODUCTION
Studios
16 The organisation innovator’s studio
The double diamond
Task packets
The Design Council’s double diamond framework is a visual description of
the design process. The diamonds represent an iterative process of first
discovering and understanding more about the situation and problem.
It involves speaking to and spending time with people who are affected
by the issues. Discovery is followed by defining (framing) the challenge
better and then developing possible answers to the challenge, thinking
broadly, seeking inspiration from elsewhere and co-designing with a
range of different people. Having diverged on solutions you can lastly
home in and deliver, testing out solutions at small-scale, rejecting those
that will not work and improving the ones that will. Exploring possibilities
is critical to finding better solutions. Settling on first ideas risks the possibility of missing potential that can only be discovered by prototyping and
testing alternatives.
The challenge of designing a new organization operating system can be
broken down into smaller, more manageable packets of work shown on
the right. Each task packet has a point rating indicating a relative intensity
of the task. The packets are arranged visually to help your understanding
of a logical order in which to undertake work.
Gather
data.
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ive
rg
e
-d
LO
P
VE
DE
-d
ER
SC
OV
DI
Insight(s)
B
Ideate Evaluate
e
rg
ve
on
-c
Research
Rip the
scope &
brief
methods
ER
e
rg
A
V
LI
ve
on
-c
Dont’ know.
Could be.
General idea.
DE
NE
FI
Gather
data.
SOLUTION SPACE
DE
ive
rg
e
PROBLEM SPACE
Prototype.
Test.
Iterate.
C
Do know.
Should be.
Final solution.
Specific
problem
known.
Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
Week 1
Week 4
Week 8
INTRODUCTION
TASK
Competitor
Rivalry
TASK
Buyer Power
TASK
Supplier Power
17
TASK
Industry volatility analysis
EXTERNAL SITUATION
TASK
Threat of New
Entrants
TASK
Complication
question
TASK
Threat of Substitutes
TASK
Org. capabilities interview
TASK
Mind-map
literature
TASK
Org. capabilities interview
TASK
Org. capabilities interview
TASK
Org. capability
analysis
INTERNAL SITUATION
TASK
Literature
review
TASK
Answer A
TASK
Written report
TASK
Answer B
TASK
Companion
slide deck
18 The organisation innovator’s studio
t
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Sprint 1 - Week 1
Sprint 2 - Week 2
Sprint 3 - Week 3
Sprint 4 - Week 4
DISCOVER
DEFINE
DISCOVER
DEFINE
What is the external situation with regards What is the internal situation on
to industry volatility and uncertainty?
organizational capabilities to manage
disruptive change?
( The Management Century
(HBR).
( The Future of Management
Part II.
( The Future of Management
Part IV.
( The Future of Management
Part I.
( The Future of Management
Part III.
A( What is decision making?
( The Organization Innovator’s
Studio, Introduction, Industry uncertainty and volatility,
Assessment (pg. 48-53).
( Organizing for the future:
9 keys to becoming a future-ready company (McKinsey & Co.).
( The Organization Innovator’s
Studio, Organization capabilities for managing disruptive
change.
( The Organization Innovator’s
Studio, Industry uncertainty
and volatility.
( Corporate rebels, from profit
to purpose, from hierarchy
to network, from directive to
supportive leadership, inc.
case studies.
(McKinsey & Co.)
Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
( Corporate rebels, from plan &
predict to experiment & adapt,
from rules & control to freeB
dom & trust, from centralized
to distributed decisions, from
secrecy to radical transparency, from job descriptions
to talents & mastery, inc. case
studies.
19
Sprint 6 - Week 6
Sprint 7 - Week 7
INTRODUCTION
Sprint 5 - Week 5
Sprint 8 - Week 8
DEVELOP
DELIVER
DEVELOP
DELIVER
What complication arises from gaps
What management innovation(s) could
between the external situation on industry you recommend the business implement
volatility and internal organization
to make them more responsive to the
capabilities to manage disruptive change?
competitive environment?
( The Organization Innovator’s
Studio, Gap between indusB try trends and organizational
capabilities.
( The Organization Innovator’s
Studio, Management innovation to address the gap.
C
( The Organization Innovator’s
Studio, Paper structure and
writing tips (pg. 54-55).
D
4
The organisation innovator’s studio
20 Industry uncertainty and volatility
In this chapter, you will collect and analyze data on industry forces to gain
insight on the trends towards volatility and competitive uncertainty in the
industry.
required. Understanding how the five forces have developed generates
insight into the trend within the industry in regards to uncertainty and
volatility.
How unpredictable is industry competition?
The first and most important determinant of industry competition is
the industry structure; that is, the relative market shares of competitors,
and whether the market is growing or shrinking. This is referred to as the
intensity of rivalry.
Porter’s 5 Forces of industry competition
Michael Porter developed his insights into competitive strategy
in the late 1970’s publishing Competitive Strategy; techniques for
analyzing industries and competitors in 1980. Competitive Strategy was followed in 1985 with Competitive Advantage; creating
and sustaining superior performance. For decades these works
were the bible in business programs the world over on strategic
management.
In Competitive Strategy (1980), Porter described and explained the five
forces determining industry competition. Despite being several decades
old, the 5-forces remains a useful framework for analyzing industry
developments that is crucial for determining competitive strategy.
Using the framework to analyze an industry requires doing more than
brainstorming based on what ‘everyone knows’. Such generic work fails
to deliver actionable insight. Deep research on the trends on the forces is
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Next, the bargaining power of buyers and bargaining power of suppliers
are determined by the relative size and number of buyers and suppliers
respectively in relation to industry competitors and differentiation
between competitors and suppliers.
The threat of new entrants looks to determine if the threat of new
upstarts entering the market is increasing or decreasing. Attractiveness
depends on factors such as market growth rate, profit margins, and
barriers to entry and exit.
The threat of substitutes looks at the alternatives customers have to
the industry’s products and services, i.e. what products and/or services
might customers substitute for your own. For example, within continental
Europe international trains are an alternative mode of transport to air
travel. This requires investigating the offerings of adjacent markets to
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
21
POWER OF SUPPLIERS
INTENSITY
OF RIVALRY
POWER OF BUYERS
THREAT OF NEW ENTRANTS
Michael Porters’ 5 Forces of Industry Competition
determine if the threat of substitution is increasing or decreasing looking
at such factors as cost/benefit, customer jobs, and more simply how many
alternatives there are and the rate of entry/exit.
Research into industry trends will result in several graphs examples
of which are shown in the following pages. The graphs will help you
understand what happened, not why it happened. Knowing what
happened is the first step in gaining insight into the state of uncertainty
and volatility in the industry. The data needed is unlikely to be
conveniently available and you will have to piece it together from several
sources. Collecting the data is thus your first challenge.
EXTERNAL SITUATION
THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES
4
The organisation innovator’s studio
22 Industry uncertainty and volatility
A
Intensity of competitive rivalry
An industry with only two competitors of equal size is unlikely to show
great intensity of rivalry as both have more to lose by aggressively
competing. On the other hand, an industry with many small competitors
will show higher intensity of rivalry as each competitor will seek to win
market share from the others.
In growing markets the intensity of rivalry will be lower as competitors
can target new customers entering the market rather than the existing
customers of rivals. This assumes that all competitors follow a similar
competitive strategy and are equally efficient. Intensity of rivalry requires
knowing the growth rate of the market, who the (main) competitors are,
the relative market share, and business strategy of each. Investigate the 10
year trends in the following indicators:
34
44
46
50
•
The relative market share (%) of each the top 5 competitors.
•
The sum of the market share (€) of the top 10.
•
The total number of competitors.
•
Growth rate (%) year-on-year of the market.
•
The source of business growth (strategy); differentiation or cost
leadership.
50%
50%
B
23%
26%
25%
26%
C
15%
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
30%
15%
Structure of competitive field
D
23
change?
By representing the size of each competitor with a circle in markets A, B, C,
and D over page we present four hypothetical markets. You may assume
for the moment that a) the total market size is the same, b) the markets
are neither growing nor contracting, c) no market share is left unclaimed
by competitors, and d) all competitors following a similar strategy are
equally efficient.
competitors (#) market share top 5 (%) market growth rate (%)
Market A is a duopoly of two competitors with equal market share. Market
B is an oligopoly of four competitors with roughly equal market share.
Market C has a dominant competitor and two second tier competitors
with equal market share and power with the rest of the market divided
among several smaller competitors with roughly equal market shares.
Market D is divided among a great number of small competitors, none
of which have significantly more market power than any other. Which
market is likely to show the greatest intensity in competitive rivalry?
Now turn your attention to your own industry. Which market most closely
resembles your own situation and how has the market evolved over the
past decade? Let’s imagine for a moment that ‘D’ represents the state of
the market ten years ago, C the state of the market five years ago, B the
state of the market 2 years ago, and A the current state. Will increased
rivalry lead to greater volatility and uncertainty, less, or no significant
96%
90%
22
27
18
82%
13
74%
5%
3%
2000
2005
2010
4%
2015
3%
2020
Evolution in competitive field
In this hypothetical industry scenario, the market share of the top
five competitors combined has dropped steeply, as the number of
competitors more than doubled. Over that period the growth rate
of the market has marginally slowed down continuing to grow at
3% per annum in 2020.
EXTERNAL SITUATION
Example
4
The organisation innovator’s studio
24 Industry uncertainty and volatility
A
Supplier power
When there are many suppliers of the same input, and each is small in
comparison to the business; as in the case of employees, the suppliers
of the input will have little power to negotiate price (unless they band
together such as in unions). But when there are few suppliers and they are
large, that is each purchase they make is a significant proportion of annual
revenue for a business or the industry as a whole, the suppliers will have
significant negotiation power and may even be in a position to set the
price.
50%
50%
Investigate the 10 year trends in the following indicators of supplier power:
•
The number of suppliers of key inputs.
•
The level of differentiation between suppliers of key inputs.
•
The market shares of the top 5 suppliers.
•
The size of suppliers in relation to industry firm size.
•
The scarcity of key human resources, raw materials, and semi-finished
components.
B
23%
26%
25%
26%
C
15%
30%
15%
Structure of supply side
34
44
46
50
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
D
25
Direct your attention now to the suppliers of inputs (key resources) to
the business. How has the structure of suppliers developed in the past
decade? Have suppliers gained more or less power over your business and
the business of direct competitors?
oil, coal, gas, bio-gas, bio-ethanol, blue and green hydrogen, hydro, tidal,
photvoltaic solar panels, solar mirror, off-shore, and on-shore wind.
suppliers (#)
Are there few suppliers, as in A, or many suppliers as in D? Have smaller
suppliers been merging to create a situation as in A, or have larger
suppliers been splitting split up to create more, smaller suppliers similar to
D?
Have suppliers been leaving the market at any great rate to leave fewer,
and thus relatively larger suppliers over? Or have new suppliers entered
the market to create a greater range of suppliers with relatively smaller
share of supply? Has the total volume of the supplied resource been
increasing or decreasing? Is the supplied resource differentiated or a
generic commodity? Suppose our business has as a key inputs sand and
electricity. Sand is an undifferentiated resource. One source of sand is
indistinguishable from any other source of sand (for the purposes of our
hypothetical example). The suppliers of sand have consolidated in the
past years to form two big suppliers. On the other hand, many new smaller
electricity suppliers have entered the market offering differentiated
electricity with respect to it’s fuel source and CO2 emissions including
supply share top 5 (%)
130
137
16%
19%
21%
2010
2015
2020
122
104
9%
2000
2005
Evolution in suppliers of a key industry input
In this hypothetical industry example, the numbers of suppliers
of a key input has increased by a third while at the same time the
share of supply of the top 5 suppliers has doubled.
EXTERNAL SITUATION
Example
4
The organisation innovator’s studio
26 Industry uncertainty and volatility
A
Buyer power
When there are many buyers and each is small (in purchase volume) in
comparison to the business; as in the case of consumers, the buyers have
little power to negotiate lower prices (unless they band together such as
consumer collectives). But when there are few buyers and they are large,
that is each purchase they make is a significant proportion of annual
revenue for a business or the industry as a whole, the buyers will have
significant negotiation power and may even be in a position to set the
price.
50%
50%
Investigate the 10 year trend developments on these indicators of buyer
power:
•
The size of individual customers in relation to firm size, over time.
•
The existence and development of customer consortia, over time.
•
The existence and development of consumer protection regulation,
over time.
B
23%
26%
25%
26%
C
15%
30%
15%
Structure of demand side.
34
44
46
50
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
D
27
customers (#)
Direct your attention now to the customers to the businesses in the
industry. How has the structure of buyers developed in the past decade?
Have buyers gained more or less power over your business and the
business of direct competitors?
demand share top 5 (%)
74
63
12%
Are there few big buyers as in A, or many small buyers as in D? Have
smaller buyers been merging to create a situation as in A, or have larger
buyers been splitting split up to create more, smaller buyers similar to D?
81
8%
49
9%
7%
Have buyers been leaving the market at any great rate to leave fewer,
and thus relatively larger buyers over? Or have new buyers entered the
market to create a greater range of buyers with relatively smaller share of
demand? Has the total volume of demand been increasing or decreasing?
2000
Which market is likely to show the greatest buyer power? Which market
most closely resembles your own situation? How has the situation evolved
over the past decade?
In this hypothetical industry scenario, the total number of customers has doubled and the share of demand of the 5 biggest
customers has halved.
2005
2010
2015
2020
Evolution in demand side
EXTERNAL SITUATION
Example
4
The organisation innovator’s studio
28 Industry uncertainty and volatility
Threat of substitutes
Example
Investigate the 10 year trends developments on these indicators of the
threat of substitute products and services.
Direct your attention now to the threat of substitute products and services
to industry incumbents value propositions. Are there increasingly more or
fewer alternatives to your value proposition?
•
34
44
46
50
The adjacent markets offering substitute products and services and the
relative strength of the main providers within each adjacent market.
•
Price-quality attractiveness of value propositions in adjacent markets.
•
Developments in disruptive technologies and business models in adjacent markets delivering value propositions at lower cost or lower complexity.
For example, over page a petal diagram shows incumbents of the credit
industry at the center and emerging substitutes from adjacent markets
such as operating system developers including Apple Pay, social platforms
with own payment solutions, and alternative payment solution providers
including buy-now-pay-later built on a cheaper technology infrastructure.
The first visual analysis is, however, static. It only shows the current status
quo, but does not help in visualizing a trend. The second visualization
shows the introduction of substitute offerings into the market over time.
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
META
PAYPAL
BUY NOW
PAY LATER
WALLETS
PAYPAL
GOOGLE
AFTER PAY
APPLE
AD
DISCOVER
VISA
STRIPE
4
ADJACENT
ET #
KLARNA
MOLLIE
ADYEN
PAYMENT
GATEWAYS
E T #3
K
AR
iDEAL
AD
J
A
CE
N
PAYMENT
TERMINALS
2005
2010
APPLE
AFTER PAY
MOLLIE
2015
2020
Introduction of substitute solutions over time
In this hypothetical industry scenario, the rate of new entrants into the
market is increasing with time.
MASTER- AMERICAN
CARD
EXPRESS
SQUARE
2000
KLARNA
GOOGLE
iDEAL
AD
JA
#5
ADYEN
STRIPE
AMAZON
ARK
TM
RK
META
T#
MARKET #2
JACENT MA
AMAZON
PROPRIETARY
PLATFORMS
SQUARE
M
Current state of substitute solutions to payment processing from the
perspective of incumbent credit card providers
EXTERNAL SITUATION
T MARKE
NT
CE
ET
EN
AC
J
D
1
A
29
4
The organisation innovator’s studio
30 Industry uncertainty and volatility
Threat of new entrants
Example
The threat of new entrants does not include the actual new entrants as
these are included in the intensity of rivalry analysis. Rather, the threat
of new entrants looks at the attractiveness of the industry to outsiders.
Indicators for attractiveness include market value, growth, profitability,
barriers to entry (or the lack thereof ), and new disruptive technologies that
would confer a competitive advantage to new entrants. The greater the
threat level, the greater the uncertainty.
Direct your attention now to the threat of new entrants to the industry. Is
the industry becoming more or less attractive for new entrants to enter?
Investigate the 10 year trend developments on these indicators of the
threat of new entrants.
34
44
46
50
•
The average rate (%) of returns in the industry.
•
Market size growth rate (%); customers entering or leaving the market
year-on-year.
•
Developments in regulatory landscape making the industry more or
less attractive.
•
Developments in disruptive technologies that enable serving
customers at significantly lower cost than the incumbent technology
infrastructure.
•
Customer and supplier lock-ins and the absence, or existence of, other
barriers to entry.
Are the average rate of returns in the industry increasing or decreasing?
Is the market size increasing or decreasing? Are there regulatory
developments that will make it easier for new entrants to gain a foothold
in the industry such as anti-trust legislation breaking up large incumbents
or regulatory movements that signal protecting incumbents? Are there
new disruptive technologies that enable significant cost reductions or
performance increases valued by customers?
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
31
27m
7
2000
2005
24m
8
2010
21m
7
2015
18m
8
2020
Evolution in market attractiveness indicators
In this hypothetical industry scenario, the total market value is
steadily decreasing year-on-year while the rate of capital returns
remains stable.
EXTERNAL SITUATION
rate of return (%)
market value (€)
4
The organisation innovator’s studio
32 Industry uncertainty and volatility
Conclusion on industry uncertainty and volatility
Having collected all the data and created graphs to help you understand
what happened, the next task is interpreting what it means when you
take all the trends together: is the competitive environment becoming more
volatile and less predictable? Let’s take another look at some of our key
indicators.
First we present trends on competitive rivalry. What can we say about the
state of competitive rivalry? Let’s start by stating the obvious facts.
The number of competitors is rising, the market share of the top five is
declining, while the total market value (size) is shrinking.
What can we deduce from these facts? We might infer that new entrants
market value (€) competitors (#) market share top 5 (%)
27m
24m
21m
18m
20
22%
13
2000
34
44
46
50
2005
18
18%
2010
16
19%
2015
18%
2020
are taking market share away the top five incumbents but may have taken
more share away from smaller incumbents. We could expect rivalry to
increase in a market that is shrinking in value while the number of competitors is rising.
New entrants entering a shrinking market seems odd. If new entrants
are gaining and holding market share; how are they doing this? It may
suggest that returns on investment for smart innovators is high. But what
might they be doing smarter? Are new entrants out-competing incumbents at their own strategies (product leadership, customer intimacy, or
operational excellence), or finding new ways to innovate?
Next we present trends on supplier and buyer developments. Again, let’s
start by stating the obvious facts. A third more suppliers have entered
the market by a third, the market share of the top five suppliers has more
than doubled over the same period, while the number of customers also
doubled and the share of demand of each buyer has halved.
From this we might infer that a fair amount of consolidation among suppliers has taken place, with supply being dominated by big suppliers with
many smaller suppliers looking for opportunities. At the same time, the
market size has grown strongly while each customer represents a smaller
percentage of sales on average, putting them in a comparatively weaker
negotiating position today than twenty years ago.
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
33
supply share top 5 (%)
customers (#)
demand share top 5 (%)
122
104
16%
130
137
19%
21%
81
74
9%
12%
49
63
8%
9%
7%
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
A growing market, with more competitors with relatively less market share,
and more suppliers with relatively more market share, suggest a supply
squeeze that will intensify competitive rivalry while competitors become
more numerous and diverse increasing rivalry further. The outlook for such
an industry may be increased volatility and uncertainty requiring a highly
agile organization to navigate the stormy seas.
EXTERNAL SITUATION
suppliers (#)
4
20
The organisation innovator’s studio
Industry uncertainty and volatility
34 Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
In this chapter, you will interview employees of the company using an
interview format to gain an inside perspective on organization capabilities
related to agility.
Understanding organizational capabilities will require interviewing people
in the company. To gain insight on organizational capabilities for managing disruptive change we use indicators and questions formulated by Gary
Hamel, the author of The Future of Management and Humanocracy.
Conduct minimally 3 in depth interviews
Interviews must be with current employees of the firm and are preferably a
mix of both front line employees and managers.
Documenting interviews
To document each interview making use of the pdf form provided for that
purpose. Capture interviewees complete answers to open questions and
enter the answers of interviewees to choice questions yourself.
The interview process
1. Contact prospective interviewees
Make a list of people you know who might be able to refer you to people
in the industry and use LinkedIn to research people working in the indus-
try. Draft a courteous introduction introducing yourself and your reasons
for contacting the person (see example next page).
2. Prepare interview
Collect information on the interviewee by reviewing their LinkedIn CV,
publications and social media posts, and researching the organization they
work for. Only ask questions that you can reasonably be expected to not
know the answer too, or alternatively to confirm matters your background
search turned up. Draw up a list of questions for the interview and send
these in advance. Organize logistics for when and where to conduct the
interview.
3. The interview itself
Set the right atmosphere and recap purpose and time frame of interview.
Present your interview agenda. Pose your questions (using the same questions to guide every interview). Be prepared to let go of interview agenda
questions when the interviewee shares additional information but always
come back to your agenda of questions. Do cross-examine to ensure you
have understood their viewpoint correctly and fully. Do ask if there are
other people they feel you should interview and ask to be introduced by
email. Do not argue a point with interviewees; they are the expert, not
you. Conclude the interview by summarizing main points and introducing
next steps you will take; a) provide a transcript for review for approval, b)
44 Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
46 Management innovation to address gap
50 Assessment & learning agreement
35
Questions on strategy & structure
What best describes the business value strategy?
4. Follow up
Send a thank-you email and attach your interview transcript for the interviewee’s acceptance.
Companies that have taken leadership positions in their industries [...] typically have
done so by narrowing their business focus, not broadening it. They have focused on
delivering superior customer value in line with one of three value disciplines—operational excellence, customer intimacy, or product leadership. They have become champions
in one of these disciplines while meeting industry standards in the other two (Treacy &
Wiersema, 1993).
5. Analyze
Analyze data and draw conclusions. Share your learnings and insights
with interviewees, providing them with the final report.
Product Leadership
Low focus
High focus
Customer intimacy
Low focus
High focus
Operational excellence
Low focus
High focus
Introductory message to prospective interviewees
Dear [name], I am conducting an assignment for my studies at [university]
into organizational behavior and management innovation. I have selected
your case company because [insert personal motivation here], and would
like to request an interview with you to learn more about the organizational
capabilities at [company] from your perspective. The assignment looks into
the volatility and uncertainty of the industry environment and the organizational capabilities at the case company for managing disruptive change.
The interview will naturally be confidential and I will be delighted to share
my final insights report with interviewees. Please let me know by [date] if you
accept my request for an interview or if you would like to know more about
the assignment before accepting. Sincerely, [your name]
Focus is on offering customers leading-edge products and services combining cutting
edge research and development.
Focus is on segmenting and targeting markets precisely tailoring offerings to match the
demands of niches by combining detailed customer knowledge with operational flexibility to respond quickly to almost any need, from customizing products to fulfilling special
requests.
Focus is on providing customers with reliable products or services at competitive prices
and delivered with minimal difficulty or inconvenience through outstanding efficiency
and quality control.
Would you sketch for me the organization structure (organogram) as you
experience it and walk me through it? [Note: find an official organogram on
website or annual report to compare the subjective experience.]
What new challenges to the business will stretch your company’s organization structure and management practices to the breaking point?
INTERNAL SITUATION
outline when results of the research will be available to share and, c) thank
them for their time.
4
20
The organisation innovator’s studio
Industry uncertainty and volatility
36 Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Questions on organization capabilities & values
How would you rate your organization on the following capabilities:
Goals are...
Would you say the organization’s goals are ambitious or conservative?
Gutsy
Timid
Risk taking is ...
Would you say the organization is open to doing new things or doing things differently?
Embraced
Shunned
Speed is ...
Would you say the organization make and implement decisions quickly, iterating when
needed, or deliberately, ensuring the best possible decision and implementing it methodically?
Flat-out
Slow & sure
Creativity is ...
To what extent are employees supported to think differently and experiment?
Unbridled
Repressed
Autonomy is ...
To what extent are employees empowered to use their own judgment to achieve outcomes?
Expansive
Cramped
Commitment is ...
To what extent are employees engaged with and by their work?
Fervent
Tepid
Nonconformity is ...
To what extent are unconventional perspectives encouraged?
Encouraged
Punished
Information is ...
How readily accessible is mission critical business information to employees?
Transparent
Need-to-know
Learning is ...
How does the organization improve processes and practices?
Continuous
Ad hoc
Structure is ...
Does the organization evolve continuously to change or convulsively in response to
crises?
Dynamic
Static
What are the frustrating incapabilities that plague your company (refer to
organization characteristics likert questions)?
What values does your company have the hardest time living up to? What
are the biggest gaps between what’s said and what’s done (refer to organization characteristics likert questions)?
What tough balancing acts does your company never seem to get right;
the critical trade-off where one side always seems to prevail at the expense
of the other (refer to organization characteristics likert questions)?
44 Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
46 Management innovation to address gap
50 Assessment & learning agreement
37
Questions on personal attitudes
When the organization is faced with an important decision how does it get
made? Would you give me an example?
The questions come in pairs to control for socially acceptable answer.
Would you describe for me the last time a new idea or initiative was implemented; how did that go from proposal to adoption?
1[12] I believe that team members perform best when they are given targets and goals to achieve.
AgreeDisagree
What is the decision making authority of individuals and teams? To what
2[10] I believe that work should be carefully planned and cascaded down
extent can objectives be determined by the team and individuals responsiinto the organization and executed according to plan to achieve desired
ble for delivering them?
outcomes.
Could you tell me about the annual business cycle of your team with
AgreeDisagree
respect to planning, budgeting and resourcing? How does the team know
what to do and what targets to achieve? How does the team subsequently 3[8] I believe that it is best to supervise team members on what to do and
how to best do it to achieve goals.
go about achieving results?
AgreeDisagree
4[9] I believe decisions must be made by the top, most competent people,
and communicated down into the organization.
AgreeDisagree
5[14] I believe that the tasks and activities conducted by team members is
best described in positions and with job titles to achieve results.
AgreeDisagree
INTERNAL SITUATION
Questions on decision making & planning
4
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The organisation innovator’s studio
Industry uncertainty and volatility
38 Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
6[13] I believe that leadership and decision making should be in the hands
of those appointed.
12[1] I believe that team members perform best when they are able to
negotiate targets and goals to achieve.
AgreeDisagree
AgreeDisagree
7[11] I believe company information should be available to team members
only when their tasks require it.
13[6] I believe that leadership comes from anyone at anytime in a team.
AgreeDisagree
AgreeDisagree
8[3] I believe that team members must be trusted to do their job in the
best way acting on their own best judgment to achieve goals.
14[5] I believe that team members should choose their tasks and responsibilities crafting their jobs based on their interests, talents and strengths to
achieve results.
AgreeDisagree
AgreeDisagree
9[4] I believe decisions must be made by those closest customers, suppliers, and machines and communicated up into the organization.
[‡] I believe that employees need direction. Policies, plans and budgets are
best defined by leadership to help employees do the right things. Employees are best shielded from information not relevant to the task or their
jobs.
AgreeDisagree
10[2] I believe that work should be conducted by experimenting and
adapting to rapidly learn to achieve desired outcomes.
AgreeDisagree
AgreeDisagree
Bringing the interview to a close
11[7] I believe that company information should be transparent to team
members available when they want to know.
AgreeDisagree
Are there other matters on organization or management you feel I’ve overlooked that you would like to share?
‡ This question is included as a tie-breaker. See discussion on analysis.
44 Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
46 Management innovation to address gap
50 Assessment & learning agreement
39
Job title:
Company characteristics
prefer not to answer
Age:
Industry:
Company:
21 - 30
Number of employees:
31 - 40
50 - 250
41 - 50
251 - 500
51 - 60
501 - 1,000
61+
1,001 - 2,500
prefer not to answer
2,501 - 5,000
Gender:
male
female
I manage:
no team members
1 - 5 team members
6 - 15 team members
16 - 35 team members
36+ team members
not applicable
prefer not to answer
5,000+
INTERNAL SITUATION
Subject characteristics
4
20
The organisation innovator’s studio
Industry uncertainty and volatility
40 Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Analysis
Product Leadership
Arrange your data. The data on value strategy can be visualized with a
spider chart to represent the average views of the interviewees, as shown
opposite. Suppose the answers on businesses strategy correspond with
the blue marks.
Product leadership
Interviewee #1
Low focus
Interviewee #2
Low focus
Interviewee #3
Low focus
High focus
High focus
High focus
Customer intimacy
Interviewee #1
Low focus
Interviewee #2
Low focus
Interviewee #3
Low focus
High focus
High focus
High focus
Operational excellence
Interviewee #1
Low focus
Interviewee #2
Low focus
Interviewee #3
Low focus
High focus
High focus
High focus
WEB RESOURCE
The Essential Guide to Coding
Qualitative Data
https://delvetool.com/guide
Customer Intimacy
Operational Excellence
Value strategy represented in a spider chart.
The strategy is to have the best products tailored to customers and niche
markets.
The data on organization capabilities is both of a quantitative and qualitative nature. We focus in this discussion on analysis of the likert scale questions. In addition to the answers on the Likert scale questions you are in
the possession of the answers to open question. See guidelines on coding
qualitative data. Organize the likert question data. What is the striking
about the answers? Which questions display a strong reaction, i.e. answers
are predominantly to the left or the right of the scale?
44 Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
46 Management innovation to address gap
50 Assessment & learning agreement
41
Flat-out
Flat-out
Flat-out
Slow & sure
Slow & sure
Slow & sure
Creativity
Interviewee #1
Interviewee #2
Interviewee #3
Unbridled
Unbridled
Unbridled
Repressed
Repressed
Repressed
Autonomy
Interviewee #1
Interviewee #2
Interviewee #3
Expansive
Expansive
Expansive
Cramped
Cramped
Cramped
Learning
Interviewee #1
Interviewee #2
Interviewee #3
Continuous
Continuous
Continuous
Ad hoc
Ad hoc
Ad hoc
Structure
Interviewee #1
Interviewee #2
Interviewee #3
Dynamic
Dynamic
Dynamic
Static
Static
Static
For example, if the answers to speed, creativity, autonomy, learning, and
structure stood out due to a stronger response, what could you (tentatively) conclude? Keep it simple and straight forward to begin with.
É Decision making leans towards the slow & sure style.
É Employees are not encouraged to experiment or think differently.
É Employees have little autonomy on how to do their work to best serve
customers.
É Organizational learning tends towards ad hoc.
É Structure is static.
We may combine these results to say that the business seems to be a quite
traditionally managed, showing signs management practices that do
not change quickly, if at all. People do their jobs in a consistent way, and
change or improvement is likely to be initiated from the top in a slow &
sure way. The business might even be said to be very operationally focused, following standard operating procedures.
Respondent biases
The differences in answers between interviewees may be the result, not
only of their own experience within the organization, but also such factors
as their position within the organization. Use subject characteristics data
to check for any factors that may influence perspectives.
INTERNAL SITUATION
Speed
Interviewee #1
Interviewee #2
Interviewee #3
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Industry uncertainty and volatility
42 Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Analysis of attitudes to organization principles
Analysis: conclusion
1 (12) I believe that team members perform best when they are given targets and goals to achieve.
Combine all the insights gained on strategy and structure, on organizational capabilities, on personal attitudes to formulate conclusions on the
organizational capabilities for managing disruptive changes keeping the
business strategy firmly in sight.
AgreeDisagree
12 (1) I believe that team members perform best when they are able to
negotiate targets and goals to achieve.
AgreeDisagree
Suppose you get the following response to a pair of control questions
testing attitude to organization principles. The subject agrees that two
contradictory principles; one from traditional management thinking and
one from progressive management thinking. What does this mean? It may
mean that the subject is giving what they think is the socially acceptable
answer to a question in one case and revealing their true attitude in the
other. But which answer is which? To determine this analyze all question
pairs to identify if the subjects overall attitudes favor traditional management principles or progressive management principles.
Use your reading of case studies from Gary Hamel’s book The Future of
Management (and Management Innovation Exchange website), and
Minaar & de Moree’s Corporate Rebels website to consider the strategies
of the companies presented in these case studies and the organization
principles applied.
When that fails to bring clarity the final question, denoted with [‡] may be
used to decide. Agreeing with this statement suggests favoring traditional
Tayloristic management principles, disagreeing with this statement suggests favoring progressive management principles.
44 Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
46 Management innovation to address gap
50 Assessment & learning agreement
43
INTERNAL SITUATION
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44 Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
The complication
In this chapter, you will identify any gaps between industry trends towards
volatility and uncertainty and organization capabilities for managing disruptive change, based on your earlier analysis of the external and internal
situations. Does the organization’s decision making capabilities and structure enable it to adapt fast enough to changing industry conditions to
remain relevant in the market?
Your analysis of industry volatility and on organization capabilities for
managing disruptive change has lead to this point. Based on your analyses
of the external and internal situation; do you foresee a potential conflict, a
complication, resulting from a mismatch between the nature of the industry environment and the organization’s ability to adapt rapidly enough to
remain competitive?
Take for example, a situation where analysis of capabilities reveals that
creativity at the organization is mediocre. In an industry that is predictable
such practices will pose no direct risk but when industry analysis reveals
that competition is increasingly intense due to new innovative entrants,
then the lack of creativity will be a complication.
On the other hand, if capabilities analysis reveals that decision making
speed is slow-and-sure and that learning and information are need-to-know
and ad-hoc while the value strategy is operational excellence which requir-
46 Management innovation to address gap
50 Assessment & learning agreement
ing rapid improvement cycles, then this confluence of organizational disabilities with value strategy will form the crux of the complication to solve.
It is important to clearly describe the complication citing the most relevant
evidence to support your insight. The next step is to turn the complication
into a question that will help guide the search for relevant management
solutions.
Example
When considering some of the hypothetical data presented on industry
trends and organizational capabilities we might arrive at the following
conclusion on a complication:
•
The business is focused on a product leadership value strategy in a
market that is declining in size, with an increasing number of competitors, who are taking market share away from the top 5 competitors.
•
Suppliers of key resources are gaining power as supply-side consolidates while an increasing number of smaller suppliers enters the supply-side. The growth in bargaining power of the top 5 competitors may
be neutralized to some extent.
•
There’s an increasing number of buyers and the share of demand of
the top 5 customers is diminishing while the total market size itself is
shrinking. The market may be fragmenting into niche segments.
45
É Decision making leans towards the slow & sure style.
É Employees are not encouraged to experiment or think differently.
É Employees have little autonomy on how to do their work to best serve
customers.
É Organizational learning tends towards ad hoc.
É Structure is static.
The organizational (dis)abilities for managing disruptive change are a
source for concern in the context of a product leadership value strategy.
Repressed creativity, and lack of autonomy of employees coupled with a
lack of organizational learning in an environment of increasing competition, requiring not just product and service innovation but also operational innovation, is a crisis just waiting to happen. A slow-but-sure decision
making coupled with a static organization structure is logical, however,
in an environment of increasing competitive rivalry is unlikely to be responsive to rapid market shifts and threats from innovative products and
business models; both product leadership focused and low-cost focused.
From complication to a guiding question
Turning the complication into a question has two functions; it focuses your
search for answers in management literature and second, it focuses the
attention of the intended audience on the big problem that needs solving.
For example;
“How can organization X empower employee creativity in order
to develop and improve new and existing products faster?”
This is a reasonably S.M.A.R.T formulation. For a question to be smart it
must be:
Specific - clarifies what you want to accomplish.
Measurable - clarifies how you will know when it’s accomplished.
Actionable - clarifies how the goal can be accomplished.
Relevant - clarifies why the goal is worthwhile.
Time-bound - clarifies by when must the goal be realized.
The question states what needs to be accomplished, “develop and improve
new and existing products faster”, and how to accomplish it, “empower employees creativity”, but fails to inform why the goal is relevant, how its realization can or will be measured, and by when the goal must be achieved.
COMPLICATION
In light of this one might reasonably expect the product leadership value
strategy to be under stress and may be unsustainable for much longer if
something isn’t done. The organization that might respond is characterized by the following:
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The organisation innovator’s studio
Industry uncertainty & volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between internal and external situation
46 Management innovation to address gap
Innovating the management ‘operating system’
In this chapter, you will review management practice literature to identify
practices that could be introduced to the structure and management of
the company to address the gap that make the company more competitive.
The 1-3-1 approach to solution advise
Your final answer must give the audience (a decision maker) several options and recommend the best or preferred option. This is often thought
of as the one-three-one approach. For the one challenge, formulate three
alternative solutions that the firm should consider implementing, and
recommend one.
Review management innovation literature
Review management literature to uncover (progressive) management
practices that are applicable to your case organization in order to propose
potential solutions to the identified complication.
Assigned literature
Assigned readings are aimed at expanding your understanding of progressive management practices. Create a mind-map of these readings and
include the mind-map as an appendix.
50 Assessment & learning agreement
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Future of Management Part I
The Future of Management Part II
The Future of Management Part III
The Future of Management Part IV
From profit to purpose + case, Corporate Rebels
From hierarchy to network + case, Corporate Rebels
From directive to supportive leadership + case, Corporate Rebels
From plan & predict to experiment & adapt + case, Corporate Rebels
From rules & control to freedom & trust + case, Corporate Rebels
From centralized to distributed decisions + case, Corporate Rebels
From secrecy to radical transparency + case, Corporate Rebels
From job descriptions to talents & mastery + case, Corporate Rebels
Found literature
In addition to the assigned literature, you must find and analyze minimally
eight (8) relevant journal articles and/or case studies to develop management innovation recommendations to address the complication.
Value discipline strategy context
Tayloristic management thinking has long considered command-and-control style management principles and practices to be appropriate for
all business strategies and environments. It has, however, long been
clear that there is not a “one best way” when it comes to management
A good example of management innovation that fosters community is
Patagonia. Patagonia’s value strategy is focused on product leadership but
it achieves this in part by fostering community among employees to be
committed to each other and the purpose of the organization. The shared
purpose is also what drives employees to create the best. Patagonia has
also shifted it’s legal structure to reflect its purpose to that of a stewardship company in recent years.
Applying principles of management innovation
PL
The principles of management innovation defined by Gary Hamel can be
used to create a scaffold for management practices and so may the trends
identified by Minaar & de Moree.
As an example, partial management ‘operating system’ visualizations are
shown for the value disciplines of customer intimacy, operational excellence, and product leadership. However, be mindful that a business cannot
exclusively focus on one value discipline at the expense of the other two.
The best companies therefore create management system that combines
principles.
47
Patagonia: principle of fostering a community
PRACTICE
Open book
management.
OE
CI
Main principle.
Supporting principles.
Practices.
PRACTICE
People
determine own
salary.
PRACTICE
People design own
workspace.
PRACTICE
Real time &
public objectives &
key results.
PRACTICE
Transparent salary
information.
Celebrate
openness.
FOSTER
COMMUNITY
Embrace
activism.
PRACTICE
Ask anything
at company-wide
Q&A. No taboo.
PRACTICE
Eliminate
symbols of
hierarchy.
PRACTICE
Companywide town hall
meetings.
Sustain
meaning.
PRACTICE
Safe to voice
dissent.
PRACTICE
Make human
impact or work
visible.
PRACTICE
Hire for culture,
train for skills.
PRACTICE
Craft own job.
ANSWER
of work as Taylor asserted. Different strategies benefit from different
management practices and organizational structure. Both Tayloristic,
command-and-control management systems and self-steering, decentralized-empowered, network-of-teams management systems may seem
more appropriate to certain strategies than others. But this is too simplistic. It is not the system, but how it is applied into organizational practices
that truly matters. The management ‘operating system’ of a business must
align with the business strategy.
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48 Management innovation to address gap
Adobe: principle of sparking innovation
Buurtzorg: principle of empowering collaboration
A good example of management innovation that sparks innovation is
Adobe. Primary value strategy is also product leadership just as Patagonia.
Adobe makes it easy for employees to experiment with new ideas through
the Kickbox and culture of learning.
A good example of management innovation empowering collaboration is
Buurtzorg who’s primary value strategies are operational excellence and
customer intimacy. Small, self-steering teams of healthcare professionals
decide when, where, and how to achieve objectives stimulating intrapreneurship.
PL
PL
PRACTICE
Celebrate lessons
learnt.
PRACTICE
...
OE
CI
Main principle.
Supporting principles.
Practices.
PRACTICE
Kill HiPPO
decisions -favour
peer review.
PRACTICE
Decisions made
by those closest to
issue.
PRACTICE
Career path
safe-to-try
environment.
Reward
experimentation.
PRACTICE
Innovation
kickbox with no
questions
asked.
Celebrate
learning.
PRACTICE
Key data is
real-time and
accessible.
PRACTICE
...
SPARK
INNOVATION
Support
serendipity.
PRACTICE
Kill, fixed annual
budgeting.
50 Assessment & learning agreement
PRACTICE
Free up time to
pursue loon-shot
projects.
OE
PRACTICE
Pre-approve
decisions based on
conditional rules
met.
PRACTICE
...
CI
Main principle.
Supporting principles.
Practices.
PRACTICE
Decisions made
PRACTICE by those closest to
PRACTICE
issue.
Pre-approve
Managers ask
decisions based on
questions, make
conditional rules
no decisions.
met.
Cede
PRACTICE
Projects/tasks
published on
marketplace.
PRACTICE
Negotiate tasks and
goals.
PRACTICE
Leaders are
chosen not
appointed.
Nurture
meritocracy.
PRACTICE
Eliminate
symbols of
hierarchy.
autonomy.
PRACTICE
Open book
management.
EMPOWER
COLLABORATION
Act on trust.
PRACTICE
Team
members review
performance.
PRACTICE
Craft own job.
PRACTICE
Pre-approve
decisions based on
conditional rules
met.
PRACTICE
Result-based
work; eliminate
time & place
controls.
49
ANSWER
Try it out on the case study on W.L. Gore & Associates in The Future of Management. Or take a case study from Corporate Rebels site or from another
source such as the Case Centre. First identify the principles of work at the
company and then how its put into practice. Doing so will help build your
understanding of how practices can reinforce each other to form an ‘operating system’ for the business.
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Industry uncertainty & volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between internal and external situation
Management innovation to address gap
50 Assessment & learning agreement
Task agency & complexity
The level of a unit of learning is determined by the agency the participant
must display in completing the task to an acceptable standard and the
complexity of the task itself. The task for this unit of study and the product(s) are considered moderate-high in complexity.
Task complexity High
Low
Participant agency High
Low
Rating for task complexity and required participant agency
Task complexity
The complexity of a task is determined on the basis of three components;
the product (attributes), the acts required to complete the task, and the
availability of information cues. (Wood, 1986).
Products are the measurable results created by acts. Tasks are identified
by the products associated with them and must be specified before required acts and information cues can be identified as task inputs. A product is a set of attributes. Product descriptions will include an object (e.g.
a trial balance, a report), or event (e.g. serve a customer, counsel a worker), plus some defining attributes, such as quantity, quality, timeliness,
and cost. Products often have commonly understood or generic product
names which refer only to the object or event (Wood, 1986).
The required acts for the creation of a product can vary from very specific
activities (e.g. clasping fingers), to more complex patterns of behavior with
an identifiable purpose e.g. lifting (Wood, 1986).
Information cues are pieces of information about the attributes of stimulus objects upon which an individual can base the judgments he or she is
required to make during the performance of a task. Not all task stimuli act
as cues and not all cues are information cues. Stimuli that are used to make
discriminations during the performance of a task are cues, and when these
cues are presented in the form of facts that can be processed to make
conscious discriminations, i.e. judgments, then they are what we refer to as
information cues (Wood, 1986).
HI-COMPLEXITY TASKS
LO-COMPLEXITY TASKS
Products
Many attributes
Few attributes
Acts
Behavior patterns
Specific activities
Information
Few, unclear cues
Many, clear cues
Rating assignment on product, act and information
Participant agency (self-management)
Agency is the ability to define an appropriate course of action to achieve
51
Task acts & products
The written paper and slides are the products which contain the evidence
of the acts of data collection, analysis, solution development, and logic in
thinking and writing.
Criteria of assessment
Data collection is the ability to collect various forms of data appropriate to
the challenge.
Data analysis is the ability to analyze various forms of information using
appropriate techniques to inform decisions.
Solution design is the ability to create evidence-based solutions or recommendations.
Communication is the ability to share ideas with clarity and coherence,
concisely and correctly, with complete information and with courtesy to
the reader.
Agency is the ability to use the given task information cues to determine
an own course of action to deliver products at a competent level.
Assessment checklist
•
•
•
•
•
Management innovation end report.
A bibliography AND a reference list.
Slide deck.
Interview records submitted in MS Form.
Appendices
• Mind map of assigned reading material.
• Coded interviews.
Bibliography & a reference list
A bibliography lists all materials you have read but not necessarily used in
the development of your report.
A reference list includes only those sources that have either been cited,
paraphrased, or otherwise referred to in your report. Previously published
or recorded interviews are included in the reference list but interviews you
have conducted are not. These are cited in the text as personal communications.
ASSESSMENT
a task, based on available information, and adapting behavior when task
conditions change, to use ones own professional judgment to complete a
task correctly and to a high standard. Participants needing little instruction
and few information cues, other than those already provided, to complete
the task correctly are demonstrating high levels of agency. On the other
hand, participants needing additional detailed instructions and feedback
to complete the task correctly demonstrate low levels of agency.
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Industry uncertainty & volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between internal and external situation
Management innovation to address gap
52 Assessment & learning agreement
Levels of competence
Bachelor students tackling this program are expected to successfully complete complex tasks at competent practitioner level.
L0
L1
L2
The novice accepts data at face value using only single sources and types, struggles to use frameworks, tools, and methods
for analysis correctly without extensive, detailed supervision and
instruction to conduct tasks to standard. The novice is unable to
use information to create and propose substantiated, logical, and
coherent conclusions and solutions.
The advanced beginner accepts data at face value using different sources and types of data, is partially able to use frameworks,
tools, and methods for analysis correctly, requiring close supervision and instruction to conduct tasks to standard. The advanced
beginner uses information to create and propose conclusions
and solutions that are only partly substantiated logical, and
coherent.
The competent practitioner is critical of data using but makes
limited use of triangulation, is able to use well published frameworks, tools, and methods for analysis correctly, requiring limited
supervision and instructions. The competent practitioner uses in-
formation to create and propose conclusions and solutions that
are largely substantiated, logical, and coherent.
L3
The proficient practitioner is critical of data using multiple
sources to triangulate insights, uses both lesser and well known
published frameworks, tools, and methods for analysis correctly
using mainly their own judgment. The proficient practitioner uses
information to create and propose conclusions and solutions
that are substantiated, logical, and coherent.
Assessment model
The rubric shows the criteria for assessment and weighting. For full details
on assessment criteria see your universities course guide.
53
20%
no
vi
be ce
gi
co nne
m r
pr pet
ofi en
cie t
nt
ASSESSMENT
SOLUTION
Use of management litera- 0 1 2 3
ture to define answers
Management innovation in 0 1 2 3
context of strategy
20%
DATA COLLECTION
20%
no
vi
be ce
gi
co nne
m r
pr pet
ofi en
cie t
nt
COMMUNICATION
no
vi
be ce
gi
co nne
m r
pr pet
ofi en
cie t
nt
20%
no
vi
be ce
gi
co nne
m r
pr pet
ofi en
cie t
nt
ANALYSIS
Industry uncertainty 0 1 2 3
Coherent & clear 0 1 2 3
Industry 5 forces 0 1 2 3
Organization capabilities 0 1 2 3
Concrete & concise 0 1 2 3
Employee interviews 0 1 2 3
Complication 0 1 2 3
Courteous & complete 0 1 2 3
Management literature 0 1 2 3
Uses information cues to;
20%
no
vi
be ce
gi
co nne
m r
pr pet
ofi en
cie t
nt
AGENCY
Put actions in context 0 1 2 3
Define a course of action 0 1 2 3
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Management innovation to address gap
54 Assessment & learning agreement
Report structure
The report takes the reader through step-by-step through the work
presenting conclusions at the end to establish the credibility of the work.
However, an executive summary is added to the start of the document
which has an inverse structure, starting with conclusions.
Executive summary
Provide an overview of the main points of the report. The reader should
be able to make a decision based on reading the executive summary
alone.
Introduction
Provide a synopsis of the case firm; it’s markets, business strategy, and key
facts and figures.
Situation
Describe industry developments and conclude whether the firm’s competitive environment is increasingly volatile, complex, uncertain, or ambiguous. Describe organizational capabilities for managing disruptive
change.
Complication
Describe any gaps between internal en external situation. Is there a prob-
lem? When the problem is improperly understood, solutions will fail to be
fit-for-purpose.
Question
Formulate a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound question to help guide the search for potential solutions.
Answer
Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive answers (solutions). Define
potential solutions based on literature review. Weigh the pros and cons of
each solution recommending one explaining your reasoning.
Tips for writing process
Writing is not a matter of simply dumping words on paper. You will be
more effective and efficient when you follow a disciplined writing process.
Before starting writing you will gathered all necessary data and evidence,
and analysed the data to form conclusions.
As a rule of thumb you will spend a third of your total time building the
logic tree, a quarter of your time actually writing out the thoughts into
sentences, paragraphs, and sections, a fifth of your time editing the logic
structure, and the remaining quarter of your time on copy editing and
formatting.
55
and placed in parentheses after the full version the first time the term is
used.
2. Draft
Your logic pyramid will make it easy to write sentences and paragraphs
that are logically connected. In this first draft do not concern yourself with
spelling, punctuation, and syntax. Rather, focus on clear sentences and
paragraphs.
situation in a single page.
3. Structural edit
Edit for logic flow. Review the structure and connections between paragraphs and sections. Do these flow from one to the other? Are the necessary connecting words and phrases present. Have you provided the reader
all they need to follow your argument? Edit for coherence and clarity
ignoring syntax, spelling, and formatting.
4. Copy edit
Now edit for syntax, spelling, and punctuation. Check that bibliography,
reference list, and a list of images or tables are present and correct. Check
that all in-text referencing is correct, abbreviations are consistently used
5. Executive summary
Now that you have all the details of your thinking laid out, write an executive summary that synthesizes the recommendation, complication, and
6. Format
Lastly, provide the reader with all necessary aids to navigate your paper.
Ensure that section titles are clear, that all titles of the same level in the
hierarchy in the pyramid use the same heading style, that line spacing, text
size, and margins make for readable text, that pages are numbered, that
the cover page is complete, headers and footers contain necessary information.
7. On appendices
Do not place information such a tables of data, images, or descriptive
analyses that are needed for understanding of text or referred to in-text in
the appendices. Appendices are intended for material that is optional to
understanding the text, but not integral to the text.
ASSESSMENT
1. Build logic tree
Structure the main body of the report according to Minto’s pyramid principle. For each section develop the logical structure before starting to write.
You may use sticky notes, for example, to build the pyramid logic on your
wall.
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Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between internal and external situation
Management innovation to address gap
56 Assessment & learning agreement
Learning process agreements
This learning agreement stipulates the terms and conditions for
participants and lecturers.
Participants may choose between conducting the learning activities as
part of a learning circle or through independent learning.
Choosing for independent learning requires demonstrating a track record
of successful self-management (agency).
Read the terms and conditions and the course guides before making a
choice.
Once you have made a choice sign and hand a copy of the agreement to
your lecturer(s).
 I wish to opt-in to learning circles. I have read the Course Guide in
its entirety and fully understand the responsibilities incumbent upon
me described therein. I accept and agree to the learning circle terms and
conditions.
OR
 I wish to opt-in to independent learning. I have read the Course
Guide in its entirety and fully understand the responsibilities incumbent
upon me described therein. I accept and agree to the independent
learning terms and conditions.
Signed:Signed:
Student:Lecturer:
Date:
Date:
57
Learning circle gatherings take place on campus unless otherwise agreed
with the learning circle facilitator. One learning circle may be missed.
Absence from a circle meeting must be communicated to the circle in a
clear and complete email not less than 48 hours before the learning circle
is to take place. Circle members who are ill, or otherwise unable to attend,
will not to be enabled to join virtually.
The participants of a learning circle will:
•
Be prepared, allocating the time and effort needed to conduct work.
•
Engage in learning circles supporting the learning and progress of
peers through providing constructive, critical, candid feedback on task
products.
•
Discuss trials openly to extract lessons from mistakes.
•
Openly share progress on the task at regular intervals.
The facilitator of a learning circle will:
•
Support the learning process with structure and questions.
•
Maintain records of performance for all participants.
•
Assess deliverables using the determined scoring method and criteria.
Facilitator and student members will:
•
Display conduct that is both professional and courteous.
•
Be prepared, rereading materials when in doubt.
Circle members who fail to adhere to the terms and conditions may be
removed from the learning circle by the facilitator and given independent
learning status. The terms and conditions of independent learning will
then be retroactively applied.
Learning circles that develop additional process agreements will also
define the consequences for members not adhering to the agreements.
ASSESSMENT
Learning circle terms & conditions
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58 Assessment & learning agreement
Independent learning terms & conditions
Independent learning entails conducting all activities independently of
regular lecturer supervision and peer support. Independent study should
only be embarked upon by those who are highly competent in one or
more of the key skills and have a strong track record of self-organization
and self-learning. The date, time, and place of assessment will be
communicated to the learner.
The independent learner will:
•
Organize their own work planning and manage their own workload.
•
Accept personal responsibility for own study success.
The lecturer will:
•
Schedule two consultations of approximately 45 minutes each with the
student. The first of the consultations will be focused on the student’s
work planning and questions for clarification and will be scheduled
in the first weeks of the program. The second consultation will be
scheduled in the latter half of the program and focused on progress
review and feedback on work-in-process.
•
Maintain records of performance during consultations.
•
Assess deliverables using the determined scoring method and criteria.
Both parties will:
•
Display conduct that is both professional and courteous.
•
Be prepared, rereading materials attentively when in doubt.
•
Agree on either in-person or on-line consultations.
•
Keep cameras switched on during on-line consultations.
59
ASSESSMENT
60 Sources for articles
McKinsey & Co
www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/
our-insights
Harvard Business Review
hbr.org/topics
Deloitte
https://www2.deloitte.com/cy/en/pages/human-capital/solutions/organization-transformation-talent.html
https://www2.deloitte.com/cy/en/pages/human-capital/solutions/strategic-change-organization-transformation.html
Notable articles
Aghina, W., Ahlback, K., de Smet, A., Lackey, G., Lurie, M., Murarka, M., &
Handscomb, C. (2021, June 4). The five trademarks of agile organizations.
McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/
people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-five-trademarks-of-agile-organizations
D’Alessio, G. (2022, January 31). Self-organizing teams: the power of distrib-
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uted authority. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/self-organizing-teams-power-distributed-authority-giovanna-d-alessio
Lee, J. (2021, September 14). Do self-managed teams work? Why we don’t
know yet. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-self-managedteams-work-why-we-dont-know-yet-jae-eun-lee
McDowell, T., Agarwal, D., Miller, D., Okamoto, T., Page, T. Organizational
design: The rise of teams, Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2016, February 29, 2016.
Page, T., Rahnema, A., Murphy, T., and McDowell, T., Unlocking the flexible
organization: Organizational design for an uncertain future, Deloitte, 2016.
Rahnema, A., & van Durme, Y. (2017, February 28). The organization of the
future: Arriving now. Deloitte Insights. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2017/organization-of-the-future.html
Salo, O. (2021, March 1). How to create an agile organization. McKinsey &
Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/how-to-create-an-agile-organization
Sisney, L. (2021, May 18). Top-down vs. Bottom-up hierarchy: Or, how to
design a self-managed organization. Organizational Physics. https://organizationalphysics.com/2016/10/13/top-down-vs-bottom-up-hierarchy-or-
The organisation innovator’s studio
Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
how-to-build-a-self-managed-organization/
Corporate Rebels
https://corporate-rebels.com/trends/
Management Innovation Exchange
https://www.managementexchange.com/m20-principles/
The Case Centre
Set the ‘Subject Category’ filter to ‘Human resources management / organizational behavior’ and the ‘Topics’ filter to further narrow your search.
https://www.thecasecentre.org/search/
Examples of cases accessible through the Case Centre.
Kleinsmith, N., Koene, B., & Gautie, J. (2018). Planespace MF1: The “liberated
company” experiment to build an innovative workplace.
After introducing major technological and process innovations which led to
stagnant productivity and a disengaged and dissatisfied workforce Planespace launched the ‘Liberated Company’ experiment.
Srikant, P. (2014). Pixar: creating a culture of candour.
Pixar attained consistency in its product delivery nurturing creativity and pro-
Rajakumari John, D., Srikant, P., & Prasad Gollapalli, S. (2009). Pixar: A creative powerhouse!
Pixar’s continued success is attributed to its innovation and collective creativity. This case studies how to build a sustainable creative organizational culture.
Gulati, R., Ciechanover, A., & Huizinga, J. (2019). Netflix: A creative approach
to culture and agility.
From its earliest days Netflix’s leadership fostered a workplace characterized
by values such as excellence, maturity, transparency, accountability, candor,
and autonomy. The Culture Deck documents how Netflix’s culture enabled the
firm to repeatedly innovate, disrupt, and pivot. The case explore how leadership continues to nurture the culture emphasising concepts such as ‘freedom
and responsibility’, ‘context, not control’, and ‘highly aligned, loosely coupled’.
Read, S., & Seybold, J. (2019). Guidewire (A): sprinting to success.
Scrum, a new way to organize projects had not been applied to running a
company as far as Seybold and his partners knew. Would building a new company, a new product and a new organizational form be possible?
Kleinsmith, N., Koene, B., & Ahlstrand, R. (2018). Flying parts: Best practices
in organizational innovation following implementation of new technolo-
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Sources for case studies
moting a culture of candour. The Braintrust, one of the key management tools,
is a peer review system with senior people actively involved in giving critical
feedback with the decision to execute vested solely with the Director.
62 gies.
Implementing a range of new technologies in the early 2000’s triggered an
organizational transformation: jobs and roles were redefined, a team structure
replaced a hierarchical one, lean principles were introduced to increase quality
and productivity, and employees became directly implicated in problem-solving, decision-making and innovation.
teams-work-why-we-dont-know-yet-jae-eun-lee
Sisney, L. (2021, May 18). Top-down vs. Bottom-up hierarchy: Or, how to
design a self-managed organization. Organizational Physics. https://organizationalphysics.com/2016/10/13/top-down-vs-bottom-up-hierarchy-orhow-to-build-a-self-managed-organization/
Hamel, G & Breen, B 2007, The future of management, HBR Press, Boston.
Bibliographic list
Aghina, W., Ahlback, K., de Smet, A., Lackey, G., Lurie, M., Murarka, M., &
Handscomb, C. (2021, June 4). The five trademarks of agile organizations.
McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/
people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-five-trademarks-of-agile-organizations
Ambile, T & Kramer, S 2011, The progress principle, HBR Press, Boston.
D’Alessio, G. (2022, January 31). Self-organizing teams: the power of distributed authority. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/self-organizing-teams-power-distributed-authority-giovanna-d-alessio
Kiechel W 3rd. The management century. Harv Bus Rev. 2012
Nov;90(11):62-75, 148. PMID: 23155998.
Lee, J. (2021, September 14). Do self-managed teams work? Why we don’t
know yet. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/do-self-managed-
4
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Hamel, G & Zanini, M 2020, Humanocracy, HBR Press, Boston.
Minto, B 2021, The Pyrimid Principle: Logic in Thinking & Writing, Pearson
Education.
Pink, D 2009, Drive; the surprising truth about what really motivates us, Riverhead, New York.
Rahnema, A., & van Durme, Y. (2017, February 28). The organization of the
future: Arriving now. Deloitte Insights. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2017/organization-of-the-future.html
Salo, O. (2021, March 1). How to create an agile organization. McKinsey &
Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/how-to-create-an-agile-organization
Schwartz, B 2009, Our loss of wisdom, TED Conference.
The organisation innovator’s studio
Industry uncertainty and volatility
Organisation capabilities for managing disruptive change
Gap between industry trend and organisational capabilities
Management innovation to address gap
Assessment & learning agreement
Reference list
Smet, A. D., Gagnon, C., & Mygatt, E. (2021, January 11). Organizing for
the future: Nine keys to becoming a future-ready company. McKinsey &
Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/organizing-for-the-future-nine-keys-tobecoming-a-future-ready-company
Hamel, G & Breen, B 2007, The future of management, HBR Press, Boston.
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Schwartz, B 2014, The way we think about work is broken, TED Conference.
Trevor Page, Amir Rahnema, Tara Murphy, and Tiffany McDowell, Unlocking the flexible organization: Organizational design for an uncertain future,
Deloitte, 2016.
Tiffany McDowell, Dimple Agarwal, Don Miller, Tsutomu Okamoto, and
Trevor Page, Organizational design: The rise of teams, Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2016, February 29, 2016.
What is decision making? (2023, March 13). McKinsey & Company. https://
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Wood, R 1986, Task complexity: Definition of the construct. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 37. 60-82. 10.1016/07495978(86)90044-0.
Hamel, G & Zanini, M 2020, Humanocracy, HBR Press, Boston.
Pink, D 2009, Drive; the surprising truth about what really motivates us, Riverhead, New York.
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