415. Untangling Organizational Design with Gene Kim & Steven Spear
May 1, 2024
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Gene Kim and Steven Spear discuss the three mechanisms of successful organizational design: slowify, simplify, and amplify. They address the evolution of organizational design and the need for management education to evolve. The podcast delves into enhancing efficiency through modularization, standardized interfaces, and breaking down complex tasks for improved productivity and innovation.
Slowification, simplification, and amplification are crucial mechanisms for successful organizational design.
Fostering collaboration and problem-solving within teams is essential for effective organizational management.
Addressing small problems proactively can lead to significant enhancements in organizational performance and safety.
Deep dives
Focus on Organizational Design and Collaboration
The podcast episode delves into the importance of organizational design and collaboration for effective operations. Gene Kim and Steve Speer, co-authors of 'Wiring the Winning Organization,' emphasize the significance of organizational structure in fostering creativity and problem-solving. They stress the interplay between different organizational movements like lean startup, agile, and design thinking to enhance management in the 21st century. The episode highlights how tying together various methodologies can lead to effective organizational management.
Unifying Theory of Organizational Design
The discussion revolves around the concept of a unifying theory of organizational design outlined by Gene and Steve. They address the common problem faced by all organizations, which is the need for effective collaboration and creative problem-solving within teams. By focusing on creating conditions that facilitate fruitful collaboration and address impediments to creative collective action, they propose a unified theory of organizational design. The episode underscores the importance of understanding the conditions that enable effective collaboration and problem-solving in various organizational contexts.
Significance of Solving Small Problems
A key takeaway from the podcast centers on the strategy of identifying and solving small problems before they escalate. The example of healthcare facilities optimizing their operations by addressing minor issues to prevent major complications is explored. By emphasizing the necessity of dealing with small problems proactively, the podcast highlights the impact of this approach on enhancing overall organizational performance and safety. The narrative underscores how focusing on resolving small issues can lead to significant improvements in workflows and outcomes across different sectors.
Emphasis on Continuous Improvement and Problem-Solving
The podcast episode advocates for a culture of continuous improvement and problem-solving within organizations. Drawing parallels to successful systems like Alcoa's workplace safety practices, the importance of addressing small problems in operational processes is underscored. By encouraging a mindset that prioritizes identifying and remediating minor issues before they escalate, organizations can enhance their efficiency and outcomes. The discussion highlights the positive outcomes of fostering a culture that values continuous improvement and proactive problem-solving strategies.
Organizational Efficiency and Problem-Solving: Learning from Alcoa's Success
Alcoa exemplifies the success derived from focusing on systematic coordination and problem-solving. By addressing minor issues within their processes, Alcoa achieved substantial savings totaling 700 million dollars initially and then repeated this success three years later. The emphasis on swift problem resolution and sharing lessons learned underscored the importance of organizational design and culture in facilitating effective problem identification and resolution.
Learning and Adapting in Management Education: Shaping Future Leaders
The conversation delves into the evolving landscape of management education and the necessity for adaptive learning approaches. Emphasizing experiential discovery over conventional analytics, educators discuss the need to instill a mindset of continuous evolution and problem-solving in future managers. The discussion also highlights the role of technology in enabling personalized, asynchronous learning experiences to enhance leadership capabilities and promote organizational agility.
Could the secret to organizational success be as simple as going back to basics?
Gene Kim and Steven Spear’s new book, Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification presents practical, grounded research on organizational management and design. Gene is the chair of the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit and Steven teaches at MIT Sloan.
Gene and Steven walk Greg through the three mechanisms of successful organizational design: slowify, simplify, and amplify. They also discuss how the field of organizational design has evolved and what still needs to evolve with management education.
*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*
Episode Quotes:
Three mechanisms of a successful organizational design
We now have everything we need to be able to describe the three mechanisms that must be in place in any high-performing system. You got to slowify, meaning we move the most difficult problems from production into planning and practice, where work can be redone. We can do experiments. We can learn where we can simplify where we actually divide up the problems. We partition them so that they are easier to solve. And there's three dimensions of that. And then there's amplification, this overlay of how do we create a system that can amplify even the weakest signals so that when someone needs help or when there's danger that we can quickly detect and correct or ideally prevent from happening again.
What the term ‘slowification’ means
38:39 The reason why we had to create the word ‘slowification’ is that we have a lot of adages for slow down to speed up or stop sawing to sharpen the saw, and the absence of the word prevents us from doing it or thinking it. (38:46) But the whole notion is creating time to be able to solve tough problems not in production but in planning and practice. To solve architectural problems, not during the normal sprint or what have you, but actually making time for the architectural spike or the period of technical debt reduction to enable people to do their work easily and well.
The wrong way to measure success
A lot of these metric-driven organizations, the pit they fall into is they don't account for the return on investment of discovery. They measure activity but not accomplishment.
The great advantages of technology in management education
And now, because we can do education at a distance, we can do asynchronous education, we can have education which is interspersed with either structured experiences or just natural experiences that people have. We can now actually teach one by one as needed as ready situation where information is pulled from the instructor to time and place and situation where it's needed, rather than being forced by the instructor in a formulation that the instructor thinks is right but may have nothing to do with the readiness of the student.
