The matrix is an organizational mystery to me. So popular, so reviled, so dysfunctional, so often suggested by the major consultancies.

My first encounter with the matrix was in the eighties when one of the major consultancies had suggested a matrix to the big international chemicals company where I was working. Fantastic product company, but they needed to know about marketing and markets, to which the matrix was the answer. The new region to which I belonged got a forceful manager who quickly made his mark, pushed the right sort of issues and quickly got the product division to hate and undermine him. A “war” in which we in our market had to do our best to survive, while keeping customers happy and churning out plans and reports in all directions to keep the matrix happy. Good job that chemicals were so profitable then that they could afford using 20-25% of our resources for planning and reporting.

Not so long ago I did a specific organizational audit in an exceptionally profitable company. They had been wrestling with the issue of emulating their one-product/one-market success to more products and more markets. The big consultancy had solved this by implementing a matrix. Now everything seemed to be decided in committee, where all participants appeared to have the right to veto decisions for their particular market/product. Accountabilities were vague and unclear and role descriptions inflated. Good job they have all those profits so they can afford all those people sitting in meetings.

In one organization where I worked the combination of the matrix and Parkinsons law led to the proliferation of jobs. On the product side of the matrix they started adding people to deal with market areas and on the market side people to deal with product areas. The least one could say is that we did double our efforts.

My most absurd encounter with the matrix was in a major government agency, interviewing a manager with a vertical responsibility. Being a seasoned bureaucrat used to sitting in headquarters issuing edicts he was concerned with his mandate. “Look here”, he said pointing to the intersection between his vertical and a specific horisontal responsibility. “Look at that box”, he said, “could one not draw a diagonal in that particular box, so that I am in charge of that resulting triangle, and the horizontal manager in  charge of the remaining triangle”.

I believe that the matrix was an honest attempt to address the fact that people need to cooperate to get stuff done and that drawing the matrix was the quickest way of fixing that. However, the nature of people does not seem to have changed. We still had the same issues with power, office politics and accountabilities. The managers on the top team more concerned with making their mark and jockeying for pole position.

More about what I think matrixes are attempting to solve and alternative solutions will follow in coming ports.

If writing a book seems too big a commitment at the moment, what about just doing a case study?  A case study stands on its own, but could also end up being part of any book you might eventually write.  The nice thing about the case study is that it’s nicely bounded—you just have to tell what happened starting at the beginning and telling the story through to the end.
Case studies also have the merit of being real.  A good case study doesn’t need to rely on profound theoretical insights or novel frameworks; we all love and can learn from a good story.  Furthermore it’s a good chance to practice articulating your ideas and can be re-purposed into an article or speech.

Pitfalls
If you had any sense of unease at the thought of writing a case study it is probably because you have read bad case studies in the past. There are many ways to be bad, but they all boil down to the story not being credible. I’ve seen cases where cases about minor consulting interventions were credited with the 1990s turnaround of IBM. I’ve seen cases where the simple linearity of the story doesn’t ring true. Worst of all is reading cases where you know something about the organization and think “It wasn’t like that at all!”

So the most critical thing in a case study is that it has to be thoroughly truthful. Aim for that, rather than aiming for something that flatters your work, and people will be interested in the story.

Why it’s difficult to tell the truth
As artists have long known, in human affairs there is never just one truth.  Furthermore, in real life there is seldom a clear beginning and rarely a definitive end. Reality is a tangle of causes, outcomes and perspectives and even for stories where we were a leading character we may only know a small part of the whole tale.

This should not be cause for discouragement, but it should serve warning that telling the story of your case study will require some research into other perspectives, some artistic decisions on  how to tell the tale and a good deal of humility.

Managers can handle complexity in a story, they understand that things get messy and go off course, don’t feel you to dumb down the case to drive home your own conclusion.

Some Recommendations
You will have to simplify reality to tell any kind of coherent story, but let the reader know you are aware of what you are doing. Give enough context so that the reader has a perspective on how your story fits in with the other things going on in the organization at the time.

Talk to as many people as possible who were involved in the case to broaden your own perspective. If there are disagreements about what happened or why, then include that as part of the commentary. You don’t need to be the omniscient narrator, you can just tell the story from the viewpoint of a well-informed participant.

Co-writing the story with one or more of the key managers involved will add breadth and credibility to the case.

Pay attention to the missteps in the journey. After the fact we like to tell straightforward stories about how we analysed the situation, identified gaps and implemented processes to address those gaps leading to a remarkable ROI. In reality, we wander about trying to make sense of the situation, make foolish mistakes, run into unforeseen barriers, fail at some things, and succeed on others.  Try to include some of these meanderings in the story; the missteps are usually the most enlightening part.

How to get started
Pick a case you know very well and then approach the organization involved and see if they will participate. Let them know that this is not meant to be a puff piece but a serious contribution to the management literature (but that of course you’ll let them OK the draft before anything is published).

It’s not essential to get formal agreement from the client, you can always write a case about an anonymous organization, but it clearly better to do so.

Next it’s a good idea to review your emails to remind yourself of the chronology of what happened.  After that you have the relatively easy step of interviewing participants to get their memories of what happened and why.

Then the writing begins and this is relatively easy because you simply start at the beginning and work through to the end. Don’t worry too much if your first pass is a bit messy, once you’ve got it out on paper a second pass will be much more coherent.  Consider getting assistance from a professional writer if the writing step is a barrier to getting the case study completed.

Don’t Hack Jack!

Our underlying beliefs and values drive our behaviors.  Jack Welch believed, “If you’ve got 16 employees, at least two are turkeys.”   From this belief flowed the talent management systems at GE.  One of the most controversial (and unfortunately emulated) practices was that of cutting the bottom performing 10% of employees annually.

Judy at the Employee Factor, who also questions the practice, posted some statistics showing that these beliefs and practices are still common.

Systems telegraph values and drive behavior.  
In addition to, “two in 16 employees are turkeys,” what does the practice of cutting the bottom 10% of employees annually telegraph and drive?  (Hint:  It’s not trust nor engagement.)

Values Telegraphed:

• We don’t trust or expect our managers to hire appropriately.
• We don’t trust or expect our managers to deal with under-performing employees so we will micromanage the process.
• Perform at all costs or you are gone.
• Don’t set your sights on anything with a return that is longer than one year.  You may not be around the second year.
• All factors that influence employee performance are within the employee’s control.  (False)
  
  

Behaviors Driven:

• Managers who hire well are now penalized, as they will be forced to eliminate team members every year.  With this system, competent hiring managers are put in the untenable situation of either firing good employees, or they must intentionally seek out and hire dead wood with an eye toward firing them at review time.
• I will not help my teammates as they may end up higher on the list which puts me lower on the list.  I can’t risk that.
• I may need to sabotage my teammates in order to make the top nine on the list.
• I may need to do something that will get me my performance numbers in the short term but that I know is not in the long term interest of the organization.
• I must fudge the numbers, pay a kickback, cover up mistakes… in order to make the top nine.
  
  

If you believe that:  I’m OK.  You’re OK.  Let’s fix the system, you would design your organization accordingly.  We need to equip, train and support (through systems design) line managers to successfully discharge their managerial leadership duties.

Jack Welch is brilliant, and I admire many things about him, this is not one of them.  I have a more positive belief set regarding human nature and our desire to do meaningful work.  All we need to do is create work-enabling systems that eliminate conflicts of interest for employees, and send them off to work.

I’m OK.  You’re OK.  Let’s fix the system.  In my next post I will discuss how I would take an offensive rather than a defensive approach to low performance.

Have you ever been the victim of a bottom 10% cut?  Have you ever been forced to cut an employee who didn’t deserve to be cut?.

A small group of passionate practitioners who want to change the world!

Stage One

For seven years we’ve worked hard and had some fun while building strong foundations for the society’s future work.  

We’ve established our legal structure, governance, banking, payment systems, insurance, auditors, by-laws, and policies in Toronto.  We also established a legal office, bank account, a payment processor and an Amazon.com store, all in the USA to better serve that market and the world in US currency with world-class fulfillment services.  And we have Ken Craddock’s extraordinary comprehensive bibliography of our field and an enviable collection of donated books, articles, dissertations, videos of practitioner interviews and presentation -- all available 24-7 to the world through our web site.  

Our accomplishments have earned broad credibility and built trust among our affiliates and corporate and university co-sponsors.  These good works include three world conferences, two in Toronto in English, and one in Buenos Aires innovating with simultaneous translation and using SKYPE video to offer virtual speakers.  Other accomplishments include a variety of special events, executive briefings, public professional development workshops, teaching clinics and video interviews with senior practitioners on four continents.  We've published a major book and built a second-generation web site that can now support our substantial library resources, events, journals, on-line professional development programs, database management, emailing, surveying and on-line store sales.

Stage Two?

What will stage two look like?  

What's desirable and possible given the environment and our vision, energy, capability and resources?

At this point, we need to refine and align our vision and goals, build a more robust and sustainable business model, and develop activities that engage, develop and support our affiliates at a higher level.

The board is scheduling a number of strategic discussions with consultation and input from our ABC (academic, business user, and consultant) affiliates leading up to our Organization Design Summit, October 22-25th .

Through our ABC synergies, we have amassed a mountain of resource materials.   However, some say that our resource library is overwhelming and that they don’t know where to start.

So for the time being we are beginning to organize our web site in three different ways:

• By occupational role and the questions and opportunities inherent in each role
  
  • Academic
  • Manager,
  • Consultant
• By activities and their related opportunities and questions.
  • Learning
  • Managing requisitely
  • Consulting  (GO Consulting Network)
  • Teaching and Mentoring
  • Writing and Publishing
  • Researching
  • Publicizing – messaging and postiioning
• By practice issues
  • Implementing RO in small & medium size organizations
  • Implementing RO in global organizations
  • Assessment, coaching and talent pool management
  • Implications for Society
  • Practice in the Latin American Region in Spanish
  • Practice in the Australian, New Zealand, & South Africa Region

Over the next five or so months we will be organizing new special interest web pages, and inviting you to participate in on-line discussions, surveys, and teleconferences as the board continues its strategic discussions.

Soon, we will invite you to log into the society web site and to edit your registration / profile to indicate your interest in the above special interest groups.