Many companies use virtual teams in order to promote communication, sharing of resources and “horizontal” activity across the traditional geographic and functional silos.

Breaking the silos with virtual teams

In the early stages it is common for financial reporting, local objectives and problems with alignment and legacy power structures to discourage people from working in virtual teams that cut across the traditional “silo” organizations.

When virtual teams are not as effective as companies hoped it is common to introduce dotted line, or even dual solid line reporting structures to allow the virtual team managers to exercise more control and power to counter the influence of the traditional silos. In project driven organizations the main power may eventually lie with the horizontal or project stream of activity.

In virtual teams we have “matrix working” even where we don’t yet have a formal matrix organization structure.

If we can find away to make virtual teams work effectively we may not need the formal matrix structure to support them.

Find out more about our virtual team training and skills for matrix working.

How well do virtual teams work in your organization?

Dec 04 2008

A matrix organization structure introduces, or at least recognizes, the real life complexity of our business environment. Geography, function, technology, business unit and technology (among others) are important, so why not recognize this reality in our matrix organizations structure.

However, a matrix organization structure also introduces a higher level of internal complexity and some additional people management challenges, so there must be significant advantages to a matrix organization structure that outweigh the matrix people management challenges.

Matrix organization structures were introduced in the airspace industry in the 50s to cope with complex projects. Since then many thousands of organizations, often prompted by the large strategy consultancies, have adopted the matrix organization structure to help deal with internal and external complexity.

At its simplest the matrix organization structure just reflects this external complexity in the internal structure. Companies realize that geography is important but so is function, and so is customer grouping, product and technology. Instead of choosing a dominant organizing principle we choose to reflect all of these important strands in our structure, we have solid lines to product group and function, dotted lines to geography etc…

In a sense then, a matrix organization structure is a recognition that we cannot choose which of these is more important, so we need a structure that allows them to be balanced and prioritized on a daily basis.

What this means is that, when we choose a matrix organization structure, we are deliberately trading some clarity in return for more flexibility.

The matrix organization structure itself, solves nothing, it is how people work together in the matrix organization that makes it succeed or fail - and often this is the neglected bit.

At a more detailed level the advantages that most organizations seek through using a matrix organization structure include

• improved ability to access resources across the old functional and geographic silos.
• better coordination on shared technologies across the organization (such as IT)
• Faster decentralized decisions
• improved access to a diverse range of skills and perspectives.
• improved global or regional projects
• broader and more multiskilled people development
• increased communication and coordination across the business
• reflects the needs of global or regional customers

As we can see, most of these are about improving the way people work together and breaking down traditional barriers to cooperation.

The idea of the matrix organization structure is to enable faster response and adaptation to a complex world. The matrix structure can deliver this, provided people have the skills to make the matrix work.

In our experience working with clients most of them do not communicate the benefits of their matrix organization structure clearly enough, all people see are the challenges and not the benefits that make a matrix structure worthwhile.

Why did your company introduce a matrix organization structure?

Listen to our podcast on matrix management

Nov 28 2008

Leadership training has changed little in the last 30 years. If you search for leadership training programs at the web sites of the world’s leading business schools you will see approaches that are very similar to the leadership programs offered in the 70s and 80s. Just because it worked then does not mean it works today.

It may have worked in the 70s!

However, the practice of leadership has changed hugely. We operate in multiple locations, across timezones, with highly diverse groups of employees and in much more complex and fast moving organizations.

This gap between the new reality of our environment and the old-fashioned skills we teach on our leadership training programs not only means that a lot of leadership training is a poor investment, it may even make things worse by promoting out of date solutions to today’s real leadership challenges.

After 15 years training leaders of ever more complex teams in over 300 of the world’s leading companies in 40 countries and delivering over 100,000 participant days of training we have reached some startling conclusions with major implications for leadership training and development.

Successful companies grow, and as they grow, they become more complex and it takes more time and effort to get things done. Eventually complexity undermines what made the company successful in the first place; the old, entrepreneurial spirit breaks down, bureaucracy increases and progress slows.

Four key leadership training myths are getting in the way of us developing the leadership skills and leadership training programs we need in this new more complex leadership environment.

1. “It’s all about teamwork” - Even great companies are struggling with an epidemic of cooperation – Managers spend 20% of their time in unnecessary meetings. Everyone feels the need to be involved in everything and teams are the answer. Team working is no longer a technique but a corporate value. Yet teams often do not work and are expensive and difficult to run. But still our leadership training tends to assume that teamwork is the answer to any problem.
2. “Communication is the answer” - Lack of communication is a problem of the past – the challenge now is how to disconnect from the mass of trivia and see the few really important messages. The average FTSE Company pays its people to write, send, read and delete over 240,000,000 pointless emails per year. Yet still we leave our old-fashioned leadership training programs with the assumption that more communication will make things better
3. “We need to be in control” - Decentralized control and information in manufacturing have given us a quality revolution over the last 15 years. Management control in other areas however, has become more centralized and this is causing a damaging cycle of micromanagement and low expectations of people at work. Yet still our leadership training programs promote unrealistic expectations of leaders who know all the answers and over-manage their people.

Most leadership training programs still carry these inaccurate assumptions from a much simpler leadership past. Leaders are working harder and harder to apply out of date skills to more complex, multi-site, virtual, cross-cultural and matrixed organizations. The answer is not working harder with the old skills but implementing faster and simpler ways of working.

Find out more about our book “Speed Lead – faster, simpler ways to manage people, projects and teams in complex companies”,

Our Speed Lead leadership training offers some challenging but practical alternatives in all of these areas.

See how your organization compares for unnecessary cooperation and communication at our free “Speed Survey”

Nov 20 2008

Many of our clients are currently taking a hard look at their travel budgets - driven by a desire to reduce costs, time and carbon emissions. Cutting the travel budget is a time honoured way of reducing costs in the short term but can undermine effectiveness in the long term.

We have been focusing on the people management skills of managing without travel in our remote and virtual teams training for nearly 15 years and have developed some practical alternative to regular face to face contact. We also offer specific managing without travel training programs based on your corporate objectives.

Now we can also offer managing without travel - without travel. Using podcasts, webinars, conference calls and other remotely delivered methods we can take your people through a methodology for reducing travel whilst still getting things done.

As an example please listen to our latest managing without travel podcast at our sister site “Life in a Matrix”

If your travel budgets are going to be tight during the downturn but you still need to get things done please contact us to find out more about managing without travel.

Nov 17 2008

I read an interesting report last week Global Supply Chain Trends 2008 - 2010 by PRTM Management Consultants. Their top 2 findings were that Globalization is accelerating within supply chains, and that this is driven mainly by pressures to reduce cost and penetrate local markets.

But the finding that caught my eye was number 3. “Despite average cost reductions of 17% per globalization initiative, many companies have difficulty realizing savings in management costs. In some cases management costs actually increase due to the more complex coordination of domestic and international activities.”

This is hardly surprising,, companies have invested tens (sometimes hundreds) of millions in supply chain integration software and systems implementations but have spent a small fraction of this on equipping the people who manage these systems to deal with greater complexity and cross-border cooperation.

Sharing information and workflow is a great start in creating an integrated global supply chain but it does not eliminate the problems caused by people working together across distance, cultures, timezones and through technology. We also need to develop global ways of working alongside the systems. 

We also need to use these complex systems to insulate human beings from some of the complexity they don’t need to know. So long as we are working from a common flow of information that coordinates the activities of the supply chain we may not, for example, need to have a complex organization structure too. A matrix organization alongside an integrated supply chain system for example may be unnecessary.

Find out more about our consulting and training for people who work in complex companies

Nov 10 2008

Matrix management training can mean different things to different people. When clients call us they can use the term matrix management to describe many things. They may include virtual working, multi-site teams, organizational complexity or dual reporting lines.

To us, matrix management training is about developing the skills to operate in today’s complex reporting structures. It can encompass all of these elements and the precise balance required depends on the particular challenges of the specific organization.

We typically provide 3 levels of matrix management training for groups with different needs

1. Matrix management training for leaders which focuses on the strategic and leadership challenges of operating in matrix organizations with competing priorities, high levels of connection and alignment challenges. This kind of training can be targeted at middle and/or senior leaders.
2. Matrix management training for teams - Teamwork is different when teams have multiple (often competing priorities). New skills are required to prevent high levels of escalation and increasing central control in an environment where team leaders may not have any traditional authority to get things done.
3. Matrix management training at the level of personal effectiveness. Training in how to set up and manage your network, shape your role in an ambiguous environment, manage escalation and influence without authority

As you can see, matrix management training can include a whole range of new skills and ways of working. It is not just a traditional management training approach with “and don’t forget you now have 2 bosses” added at the end.

In some cases the skills we learned in managing simpler organizations can become counterproductive in matrix management - in matrix management too much cooperation, communication control are common symptoms so increasing teamwork and communication may hinder rather than help, our training needs to reflect this reality.

Find out more about our matrix management training.

Listen to our podcast on matrix management

Oct 29 2008

For many managers their teams now include people from external partners, customers, suppliers and internal resources where they don’t have traditional management control. Outsourcing takes this the a new level with an external partner, often in another time zone and another culture. In some cases the managers involved did not welcome outsourcing (it made their lives harder and exported the jobs of their colleagues).

Here is a typical story we hear in our outsourcing consulting and training work.

A US multinational decides to outsource some simple transactional activity to India. It makes sense on a strategic and cost basis.

Previously the task were carried out by relatively poorly educated US workforce, the systems and processes were pretty out of date but the quality level was OK.

The operational mangers in the US and the people actually doing the transition work have no experience of working with India or of managing remote and virtual teams or across cultures. This is not “business as usual” and they are very concerned that they retain control over the quality of the work done.

As a result they redesign the process, adding many more controls and checks than existed before. In the training they repeatedly emphasise that the system must be followed to the letter an that no deviations are allowed.

The Indian workforce they recruit at the outsourcing partner are well educated, many are graduates, some MBAs. As they operate the system they see several problems with the process but hey do not have the authority to make changes.

The Indian managers, proud of their capabilities and achievements think they can do much more and push for greater responsibility and more work to come to India. The parent company is not ready to outsource more strategic or demanding tasks.

After a few months the Indians learn not to ask questions and just to operate the system as specified and controlled. If a problem comes us they escalate it to the US, as they have been told to. It is not very interesting work and staff turnover is high when a better offer comes along.

The US managers see lots of issues being escalated. “These Indian employees don’t have much initiative do they?” They respond by increasing monitoring and control to make sure the task is completed properly. Some who opposed the outsourcing originally say “I told you so”.

Indian employees react to this pressure by telling their partners what they think they want to hear, problems are not surfaced visibly and quickly and trust is undermined further.

Both parties are now stuck in a vicious cycle of increasing control, reducing trust and micro-management.

It’s easy to say that restoring trust is the answer but how do we build trust in a third party organization half a world away? We need a systematic process to build capability (we would be fools to empower people who don’t have the capability to do the job), confidence (in both parties) and support (finding the right level of control and accessibility to manage the ongoing relationship)

Find out more about our outsourcing services and about our training for people in complex, matrixed, virtual and global organizations.

Oct 29 2008

I was watching a program on volatility in the financial markets and the links to complexity theory (something I have been interested in for years). See my recent post on “a connected company is a complex company” at our Life in the Matrix blog.

One of the scientists used the visual of a double pendulum to show how 2 seemingly simple things connected can become very complex

I found this video on YouTube that reflects this effect very clearly - the double pendulum

As systems grow more complex and connected the effects can look very chaotic as you can see clearly in this second video - triple pendulums

So how much we connect people in our organizations has a big impact on complexity. Interdependence may be necessary but it is likely to cause “noise” and cost. Unnecessary cooperation and communication can cause these effects for little or no reward.

Check out our Speed Lead approach to simplifying complex companies.

Oct 24 2008

Working across time zones can be a challenge for international and global teams. But as my daughter (aged about 12 at the time) said when I explained what they were  “well they are not going to go away, so you better just get on with it”

In my book Speed Lead one of the chapters covers our core principles of working across time zones

1. Be aware - invest in a time zone clock for your computer or wall
2. Avoid time zones where you can - organize locally of perform the team work activities at overlap times.
3. It’s always local time in this time zone – do it locally
4. Take all the time in the world - take the benefit of having 24/7 resources across time zones
5. It’s a relay race not a rowing team – focus on the handovers from one time zone to another. Minimize work that requires simultaneous global working.
6. Win back your home and holiday time
7. Share the pain – rotate the time of inconvenient calls.

On point 1 - be aware of time zones I use the following web tools from timeanddate.com

• A personal world clock that I can set to show the time zones in the cities I work with most often
• A time zones calendar to plan the best time for calls across time zones

I hope you find these time zone tools useful. What are your best / worst examples of working across time zones?

Oct 24 2008

As the global recession tightens (or maybe it doesn’t) and we all cut back (or expand) business is good (or bad). It is schizophrenic to be a businessman these days.

Underlying business has been good in 2008 but many of our clients are now starting to feel the year end pinch - is it worse than usual or the start of a prolonged downturn - its hard to say but the signs are not good as the credit crisis works through to the real economy.

Nevertheless we have been here before with the tech crash, recessions, 9/11 and SARS and we know that someone is always doing well and that good companies use a downturn as an opportunity to get organized and update their skills.

In a downturn people costs always come under pressure; here is how we can help.

• Our Speed Lead training can save a day per week of unproductive time, make people more effective and increase job satisfaction by cutting out unnecessary cooperation and communication.
• We can help you increase effective control through managed decentralization rather than head office dictat.
• Our manging without travel program can help you continue to get things done when the travel budget is cut. If people are not so busy with travel they often have more time for development - use it wisely
• Many organizations react to downturns by increasing business integration and sharing resources at a regional and global level - if you need the skills to deal with more complex organization structures please let us know.

When people feel insecure and trust is low you can win a lot of hearts and minds by continuing to invest in their development.

Why not contact us and see how you can develop your way through the downturn.

Oct 21 2008