Chapter 7: Correctly Re/Organizing the Enterprise
The key result of an effective Re/Org is work alignment—everyone works in harmony with one another up and down the enterprise. The elements of work alignment affecting work execution and organizational support are introduced.
Achieving Work Alignment with Full Knowledge of Work
The Language of Work Model(tm) provides two key outcomes that are not typically found in conven-tional re/organizing: alignment and transparency. We will look at each of these separately, but they are always a consequence of using a truly systematic re/org process.
Businesses have long believed that aligning all their parts would be terrific. Silos would cease to exist; turf fights would disappear, because all parts of the "machine" would understand the role of the other parts. Each could then focus on being the best it could be, rather than, unintentionally or otherwise, undermining other units, departments or divisions.
Alignment has links to business efficiency and effectiveness that cannot be left to chance. This kind of alignment is critical and well-documented in other available resources. Thus, enterprises have long specified their mission/vision and goals and have tried to align their competitive edge and strategies to these.
However, what we are addressing here is alignment of a different kind. It is the alignment of the content (WHAT) to the method (HOW, WHO, and way of ORGANIZATION) of the work that is to be accomplished, supported, and managed in the service of those business plans. This kind of alignment cannot be attained by good intentions or even by well-defined strategies and plans. No matter how well we construct and understand business plans, they always lack an operational view of the work. Such an operational view is made possible and embedded in a behavioral definition of work known as the Language of Work Model(tm).
This chart illustrates how using the Language of Work Model(tm) to define work at various levels and layers of work, allows—indeed demands—alignment among the what, how, who, organization of teams/management, and support. Because the Language of Work Model(tm) is both systemic and systematic, its use allows work to be defined by the same six "buckets" or elements of work. Using these six elements to define work at the various levels inside complex organizations does not negate all the institutional and technical knowledge surrounding the institution, but instead provides clarity to the non-experts in all other areas of work.
For example, focusing on the details of following arcane tax rules in multiple countries makes listeners want to run out of the room with their hair on fire or makes their eyes to glaze over. But every employee can understand that a deliverable for an accounting department is "taxes calculated, ameliorated [legally lessened] and paid." And when they discover that one of their own outputs—perhaps "sales reports produced"—serves as an input to another department, many complaints and the need for management to track down information can be sharply reduced.
Aligning work execution and organizational support (the subject of Chapter 9) is made possible by using a common model that is explicitly about work—work alignment within work execution and with organizational support.
The next chapter will illustrate a high-level (i.e., there is not much detail) example of how work alignment should play out in business to best organize or re/organize an enterprise.