Leading and managing the MOE

 

This is my fourth and final post on Arthur Yeung and Dave Ulrich’s new book, Reinventing the Organization. I’ve already dealt with Dave’s new organisational logic, the features of a Market Oriented Ecosystem (MOE) and the process for creating a MOE. The rest of the book deals with the consequences of choosing a MOE option.

The HR aspects of the model are dealt with by the book under the governance heading. Personally, I think these aspects provide more than just governance of the structure - many of them are actually a central part of the organisation form. Culture, in particular, is a key aspect of the ecosystem platform.

Arthur and Dave suggest HR activities will need to be tailored to a MOE and I agree. I actually think that we may need to do more tailoring than he or the case studies suggest. Eg Supercell is heavily focused on teams but they still believe “that one exceptional person equals a hundred ordinary people”. Perhaps it depends on what they mean by exceptional, but they certainly would benefit from recruiting people who can fit well within their teams (which many individualistic superstars often struggle to do). I make more suggestions about this in The Social Organization (TSO).

I’d also have liked to read more about the complexities involved in designing a non-MOE / more distributed ecosystem. These include, for example, how to bring partners with different capabilities together to support the overall capabilities of the ecosystem, and how to handle organisations with different cultures. However, in a MOE these difficulties are largely stripped out by the platform.

There are also some good suggestions on leadership, eg I agree that leadership in an ecosystem needs to be much more distributed than in a traditional organisation. But it’s interesting that they single out Lee Kuan Yew as a leader who ensures accountability. And I can see that this type of authoritarian leader might work well in a centralised MOE. Other more distributed ecosystems will need leaders who are much more consultative and democratic than this.

I also think Arthur and Dave begin an interesting point when they suggest that different types of leaders are required by the platform from the cells. Actually, for me, this is about the network and the cells - the platform needs designing and maintaining, but not leading, as opposed to the people and the network between the people which exists on or uses the platform.

And I think in many MOEs and other ecosystems and organisations, we’re going to need even more different types of leaders, including of networks and cells / horizontal teams, and also of communities and as is most commonly the case currently, of individuals working within functions. However, I do disagree that this should have anything to do with age.

I also think that in many cases, it’s going to be the same people working in various combinations of these different roles. So it may be that they are staffed by different people, but it may also be that the same people need to act differently in different capacities, eg when leading horizontal teams as opposed to when they’re leading communities.

Eg one of my recent posts discussed the challenges faced by people moving between project management and project member positions. I think if we’re asking people to shift between team leadership, network leadership, partner leadership and other roles the challenges are going to be much bigger than this.

I may focus on this agenda in my next book…

https://tinyurl.com/j9r5v9fj

Elements of organisational policy

 

Policy-making is not a ‘paint-by-numbers‘ process. Being clear about the structural elements of an organisational policy however, helps both policy writers and users to focus their attention on the purposes served and outcomes sought from working within the policy guidance.

This post follows on from my two previous posts on Organisational Policy, and is effectively part 3 in a series. Having offered distinctions between governance policies and operational policies in the first article, the second referred readers to toolkits and templates which could provide them with sets of boilerplate policies, for them to customise according to their needs. (See links below).

Most non-profit policy development is undertaken by committees of volunteers, who rarely have any background in writing documents of this kind. Relatively few associations and charities have policy staff who have been selected for their expertise in policy writing.

I find that non-profit organisations generally welcome guidance on what policies they may need to improve their governance and/or operations, and how to construct and implement these policies and procedures.

A compact and very helpful outline of one policy ‘framework’ is offered by the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute. While intended to aid Indigenous people to “design pathways into the future that maximise their self- determination through effective, legitimate governance”, it references “world-class governance practice” relevant for all non-profit bodies.

Source: https://toolkit.aigi.com.au/

The chart below offers a comparison of four examples of policy structure drawn from quite different sources:

• the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute
• The University of Melbourne Policy Library
• Nancy Campbell’s book Writing Effective Policies and Procedures: a step-by-step resource for clear communication (Amacom,1998), and
• the Institute of Community Directors’ Policy Bank.

Noteworthy common elements are highlighted in the chart. These suggest the essence of all organisational policies, regardless of sector or entity type, while allowing additional elements according to the nature and needs of the organisation concerned.

https://bitly.ws/3gDv2

Continuous Reflective Governance

 I’d like to amplify some points made in my previous post, which argued that directors need to continuously monitor their internal and external circumstances.

The header image above illustrates the point that reflective governance requires ongoing monitoring and evaluation to determine new and emerging priorities (the EDM Governance Model), and that the data being analysed includes information about the outcomes and impact of the actions you determined earlier. It also includes updated information about the context in which your work is now being undertaken.

The following more detailed version of this chart drills down into the external and internal dimensions in which that data and analysis arise. In this chart I selected one analysis tool for each dimension: the SOSTAC model for internal monitoring, and the STEEPLE model for external environmental scanning. You can choose whatever models you like from the many that have been developed over the years. This chart simply illustrates how the selected models define a collection of domains or categories in which you intend to collect and analyse data relevant to your strategy and operations.

While my previous post highlighted the need to look at both internal and external environments, this version also recognises that the three main aspects of governance relate to past (monitoring), present (evaluating) and future (directing) time perspectives.

The DIKW knowledge management model has also been included to make the points that directors need to apply sound evidence standards, and to ‘sort the signal from the noise’. Raw data without robust analysis may lead to poor decisions based on ‘false signals’. Data and information from both external and internal environments need to be distilled through your monitoring activities, to inform your analyses and decisions.

Future posts will look at some possible free or low-cost data sources for internal and external monitoring. These posts will seek to illustrate some ways in which non-profit boards can source reliable and relevant information to inform their decision-making and direction setting.

Governance ‘lines of sight’

 

To avoid oversights, directors need to ensure effective oversight.

How ironic is it that a key governance term can have opposite meanings depending on the context in which it is used? ‘Oversight‘ is one of the roles of board directors, meaning they oversee (monitor) the implementation of the strategy they developed, along with the organisation’s performance and conformance. When things go wrong however, a common reason is that there was an ‘oversight’; something important wasn’t noticed by a responsible person or persons.

Oversight is one of the four ‘lines of sight’ commonly mentioned when discussing the roles of the board, with hindsight, foresight and insight completing the quartet. A ‘Backgrounder’ published by the Ontario Institute on Governance (NFP Governance Leadership: Creating a Culture of Accessibility) features valuable material on these lines of sight, and pages 8-12 are recommended reading for all directors (and managers).

The chart below is an adaptation of one devised by Soumitra Bandyopadhyay, which was his take on the ‘analytics continuum’, or maturity model, popularised by Gartner.

My additions allocate the four lines of sight to the analytic modes, methods and activities, while also overlaying the board roles according to the EDM governance model (Evaluate, Direct and Monitor).

Not-for-profit directors new to the role can sometimes assume that their agenda pack contains everything they need to do their job. By referring to these more subtle models, they may discover there are other questions they should be asking, and that additional analysis may be required for the board to add value for the organisation.

https://cutt.ly/86LFfGC