Building The Structures That Build Us

“We build our buildings and therefore they build us.” - Winston Churchill

As our companies grow, we build ever more complex systems based on lack of trust for each other, which costs us dearly. The fact that we do not account for it does not make the cost go away. We are weaving stress, office politics, cynicism and a pervasive dissatisfaction with work. Contrary to common belief, the elaborate procedures to control the organization abet wrong decisions and provide plenty of opportunities to makers of these decisions for acquittal. We are reaping exactly what we sow: We expect our teams to be incapable of making the right decisions and they respond by giving us the same. The elaborate procedures we build are building us.

Imagine a case where a company assigns executive vice presidents (EVPs) their budgets and, subject to an advisory process, renders them free in deciding where to spend the money. Furthermore, imagine the same company allowing each team to manage their own job descriptions as they wish within the broad guidelines provided. Support functions such as financial control, purchasing, human resources act as advisors, but do not meddle with the decisions. No more end of year grade calibration meetings, no more purchasing committee meetings that last three hours with a dozen executives around the table mostly checking their email. Approval procedures of any kind are almost inexistent, and things happen at the speed of light. Is it fantasy or not?

If we do not believe that a, say, CIO can make the right decisions around the choice of technology, why is he the CIO in the first place? If another EVP cannot be counted on to spend his budget wisely, why is he there? Would a tight financial control grip around their necks help them make the right decisions? If teams cannot be counted on to manage their own work, maybe we should rethink what kind of people we are putting in our teams. Why hire them if we cannot trust them to make the right calls? By inserting all kinds of control mechanisms, we are putting a distance between people and the consequences of the decisions they make. In essence, we are creating office politics and instigating stress build up across the board.

In a company where people are truly responsible for their decisions without a need for a noose around their necks, support functions like finance, human resources, procurement will also step up to much more strategic roles. The work they do for internal clients will be valued rather than perceived as a sort of burden. For example, finance team will help IT team define the right criteria for measuring the rate of return on the next technology investment and help them do a post-analysis to see if things worked out as planned. HR team will be an invaluable advisor to sales team for capability development and career management. Instead of trying to fit into roles predefined by business partners far removed from the realities of the day to day work, the operations team will have unlimited freedom in determining how the workload is distributed among team members. If a team member needs to take Wednesdays off for the next six months, so be it. The team decides how he gets paid by managing their own compensation budget. So long as the team delivers what they said they would, there is no need for meddling with their decisions.

The alternative to trusting our people is adding more layers of control, stricter regulation of decisions, a more mechanistic management style. This works as long as we continue to ignore the opportunity losses. Nonetheless, the point is worth remembering: We are building the complex structures which are also building us. The lack of trust we sow into our organizations is reaped as bad decisions, office politics and many creative ways for not owning the decisions made. Trust is a simple concept that could have a huge impact on the future of our firms and it shines the light on the path of least resistance in implementation.