What about transparency within organizations? Many emphasize the benefits of sharing information freely, as a way of empowering employees and improving the quality and speed of decision making. But there is also a “dark side” to transparency. This article looks at three main areas where too much transparency creates problems and offers some guidance on how to get the balance right.
Category: Management/Collaboration/Org Design
Digital Isn’t Software Or About Technology, It’s A Mindset
The most dominant companies are now digital-first. Think Netflix over Blockbuster or iTunes over Tower Records. Aaron Dignan founding partner at TheReady explains in this talk that for future success companies need a purpose, responsive structures and processes to support it, the right people, and (most importantly) how these need to be combined to make products that serve a community larger than any employee or organization.
Watch 53 min video published by 99U
The Organization Of The Future: Arriving Now
In today’s digital context organizations face a growing imperative to redesign themselves to move faster, adapt more quickly, facilitate rapid learning, and embrace the dynamic career demands of their people. A growing number of leading organizations are taking the leap of faith to explore, experiment and adapt new ways of organizing and running their operations with the purpose of actively building organizational structures for effective value creation and high-performance in a digital economy.
Authored by Deloitte University Press
10 Years Of Data On Baseball Teams Shows When Pay Transparency Backfires
Pay transparency has started to gain popularity along with the trend of overall more transparent information flow in organizations. Because our perceptions of pay are often wrong, why not simply inform workers of what everyone in the organization makes, in order to stave off speculation? Rather making pay information accessible without context or hiding it, organizations, the data shows, are be better off forming transparent performance metrics, matching pay to those metrics, and having open conversations with employees about where they stack up. That, more than anything, is what a truly transparent compensation program would look like.
Written by Aaron D. Hill on HBR
Does Your Company Need A Director Of Getting Sh*t Done?
Systems and processes serve an important role in any organization. This is something Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite, realized as his company has scaled from a few dozen to nearly 1,000 employees. Systems ensure that projects get done, quality is maintained and there are no surprises. The problem is that bad systems often end up in a kind of corporate Bermuda Triangle.
Written by Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite
Introducing Goal Science Thinking
Goal Science Thinking is an approach that uses OKRs as a foundation and turbo-charges them by applying human behavioral psychology, increasing engagement, and enforcing regular practice. Essentially, it leverages all the tricks and hooks we mortals use to stick to good habits — only re-imagined to help large teams stay on top of business targets.
Article on First Round
Organizing For Speed, Agility, And Adaptability
As digital transforms the business landscape, the successful organizations will likely be those that can move faster, adapt more quickly, learn more rapidly, and embrace dynamic career demands.
Article by Deloitte University Press
Cut The BS: Organizations With No Hierarchy Don’t Exist
There is growing excitement about self-management, bossless leadership and new governance models such as Holacracy for structuring and running organizations. The claims are often about the potential of “flat organizations”, which is often put synonymous to “having no hierarchy”. While the idea may seem enticing to many, there is nothing inherently wrong or bad about hierarchy. In fact, hierarchy does not need to disappear from organizations, but it might need to change.
Article by Francesca Pink, Co-Founder QuiShare Fest
Everyone Is Too Busy Is Not A Prioritization Strategy
Being busy should not be a badge of honor, a goal to aspire to nor be used as an excuse to not do the critical work required to reduce the uncertainty of digital product development. In fact, the deeper issue with “being busy” is the lack of an objective, safe way for teams and leaders to say “No” and prioritize work. Productivity should rather be measured by the impact the work has on customer behaviors and outcomes, with a focus on building a customer-centric culture that empowers teams to make evidence-based decision not only on the efficacy of their work but on what work they choose to do.
Article by Jeff Gothelf
The New Manager Death Spiral
As a new manager, you’re likely to want to prove yourself. So you work late, and you do your very best to kick ass and make a good first impression. This is the approach that worked well for you as an individual, so, of course, it’ll work when leading a team. This is where the Spiral begins because the initial thought is actually, “I can do it all myself. I’m the Boss.” But what you really need to learn to become is being a leader of your team, not the boss that’s in charge of making decisions for them.
