Continuous Fluid Structures
If you look at an org chart from 1886, you may be surprised that it looks exactly the same as many org charts in 2024. There is a big box at the top and then lines that cascade to a few smaller boxes underneath and those have more smaller boxes underneath and so on.
This organisational structure approach was created more than 125 years ago. Think about it! When work was very predictable and standardised. When we knew what we wanted to produce and how. It was also created as the perfect system for people to do what leaders told them to do and not think for themselves. But today’s world of work is very different to what it was. Things are unpredictable and volatile; the type of work we hire people to do is “knowledge work”, where their main capital is knowledge and their ability to think. But we hire these people and we put them in an organisational structure that is 125 years old and is designed to stop people from thinking and take orders instead.
The biggest revolution in the world of org structures came in 2012, when Henrik Kniberg and Anders Ivarsson published the whitepaper Scaling Agile @ Spotify, which introduced the way Spotify approached agility. Basically, they introduced a new model to organise their teams in cross-functional “squads” with customer outcomes in mind. A group of squads would form a “tribe”; and people that perform the same job (let’s say developers) would form a “chapter”.
This model has been since then copied and pasted by many organisations that try to be more “customer centric”; but in many cases has been done very poorly and forgetting the main mindset and principles that sat behind the original Spotify Model. If you work for a big organisation, you probably have had a bunch of consultants in the last few years telling you that now your title needs to change from “Marketing Manager to “squad lead’ or “scrum master.
I think having an org structure – regardless of which one – creates a false sense of control to leaders. In fact, the thing that gets “touched” every time when things don’t go well in organisations is the org structure. How many restructures has your organisations gone through in the last few years to end up in the same place? This is because org charts and job titles actually constrain organisations from delivering the right work, by the right people, at the right time. Having an org structure is a form of pouring “concrete” over your organisation.
So, what is the solution?
I believe the solution is to have “continuous fluid structures” led by the work. What does that mean? Imagine not having a set org chart or even job titles; and every quarter people in your organisation get together and decide what is the work to be undertaken; and from there teams do emerge and come together to deliver on those outcomes. And when the quarter finishes, we interrogate ourselves again and we either continue with those initiatives / teams or we change them and other emerge.
That is how we operate at Neu21. Now, I understand we are a relatively small company (about 30 people) and things get complicated when you try to scale this model to companies that are bigger. But I do believe it is possible. You just need to be more deliberate and disciplined in your approach. There are only two things that stop organisations from trying this:
1. Not being able to deal with the lack of ambiguity of not having a set structure; and
2. The sense of identity we give ourselves at work through our “job titles”.
For more on org structures and these two things, book your FREE place at our upcoming online event. 7 May, 8am AEST. Book Here
