The five organizational systems

In the course of our research, we've found five organizational systems that generate these myriad signals:

* Culture: The behavioral patterns (habits and conventions) generally adopted within the organization.

* Structure: The definition of jobs and the reporting hierarchy (organization chart), as well as the processes that combine people into teams as work flows across organizational boundaries.

* Internal economy: The budgeting, priority-setting, pricing (chargebacks), project-approval, and tracking processes that determine how resources flow through an organization and to its clients.

* Methods and tools: The procedures, methodologies, skills, and tools that people in an organization use.

* Metrics and rewards: The feedback loops that let people know how they are doing so they can adjust their behavior, and the incentives for improving performance.

By redesigning these five organizational systems, leaders can permanently modify the behavior of an entire organization.

What's not on the list and why: strategies, people, and personal skills.

"Organizational systems are stable, influence everyone's performance, and can be consciously designed."

Dean Meyer

The process for planning a transformation involves all five systems. It engages a leadership team in developing a common vision of the end point, in assessing the gaps and analyzing their root causes, and in planning the right changes, in the right sequence, to attain their vision.

More on transformation planning....

Publications

TRANSFORMATION: RoadMap: how to understand, diagnose, and fix your organization (second edition).

Seminars

Great People Aren't Enough:
great leaders design healthy organizations where normal people can succeed

RoadMap® Transformational Leadership Workshop:
how to systematically design organizations to maximize human performance

Contact us for a free one-hour telephone consultation on your unique challenges.