| Governance
- the edge between Leadership and Structure
Leadership
can be visionary with effective executive style and still
struggle to succeed for lack of a working relationship with
the structure of the organization. This leads us to another
critical strand of DNA: governance. Governance has a number
of things in common with executive style and vision in that
all three very directly to the acts of accomplishment and
achieving the goal; they all attach directly to leadership.
Governance
addresses lines of communication, chains of command, policies
and procedures, etc. They are put into place to create reliable
and effective vehicles for activity within the organization.
Governance differs from executive style in that it does
not address the “style”of execution; rather,
it provides the pathway and boundaries, or the container,
for execution.
Anchored
by leadership and structure, governance must react to and
be accountable to both. Certain structures will not be amenable
to some types of governance introduced by the leadership.
On the other hand, leadership might resist certain types
of governance suggested, or demanded, by the structure.
Where
the vision energizes strategies and executive style calls
the culture into action, governance empowers the structure.
Empowered structure can participate with its anchor, strategy,
in decision-making while at the same time generating motivation
within the culture. When governance is effective, the structure
provide its proper share to motivation within the culture
to participate in the system. When motivation within the
culture is at an effective level, the culture's response
to executive style is enhanced.
Leadership
can push the system to reach for high production in an effort
to dominate market share. On the other hand, leadership
might endorse, or mandate, risky, cutting edge accounting
practices or create organizational charts demonstrating
high personal decision-making power and low accountability.
The leadership might require significant redundancy within
the Structure to ensure reliability. Or, it might create
regulations that become very rigid, aimed at tightly controlling
people’s time and behavior.
Perhaps
ideally, the leadership can engage in co-designing flexibility
in the structure, encouraging dialogue among the organization's
members, and a clear endorsement of integrity and internalized
personal values within the organization. The darker side
of this scenario might be a lack of leadership influence
in the how the structure is designed and run, leaving it
to flounder while alternatives abound.
From
a Structure perspective, working groups might be designed
to mount an aggressive expansion of market share as an example.
Lone wolves might be supported if they continue to bring
in the goods – and no questions asked. Left unchecked,
however, one might find the bottom line becoming the driver
for how things are done; lone wolves rule at the expense
of others. Structure might influence governance by creating
a context that strives for a safe secure path to maintaining
the status quo or protecting market share against erosion
by focusing attention on customer satisfaction and retention
rather than acquisition. Loss of overall perspective, however,
could see a failure to respond to vital market opportunities.
The
Structure might influence governance to expect teams to
create a 360-degree view of the marketplace, a consideration
of basic maintenance needs coupled with some risk associated
with growth. Reports include data from an array of sources
that satisfies the Leadership's desire for the “best”
picture of achieving success. Here again, data collection
and analysis as well as consideration of the “"what
if"” scenarios could log-jam the system if the
system is not balanced.
Motivation - the edge between Culture and Structure
Culture
and structure provide the anchors for the motivation DNA
strand. Motivation is an enthusiasm for participation; it
is the potential for action. But it is also more: it is
enthusiasm for action. Culture is motivated when the structure
provides the container for effective and rewarding work.
Likewise, the structure is “motivated” by the
culture's response to the container that has been created.
Although the structure is something relatively codified,
it is represented and maintained by people who have the
capacity to respond to perceived success and, therefore,
can respond through motivation. When the structure takes
on a form that satisfies the culture, motivation is created.
If not, motivation diminishes and the structure feels pressure
to change. If, on the other hand, the culture’s behavior
is synergistic with the structure, motivation is created
within the structure; if not, the culture might feel pressure
to modify its behavior.
The
Motivation DNA strand connects Structure with Culture. Keep
in mind that Leadership and Strategy both connect with and
influence Structure as well. These multiple influences increase
the chance that Structure and Culture might be conflicted
in places. Our assumption is that when Structure and Culture
are aligned, motivation is generated.
Motivation
could take the form of offering incentives for enlarging
market share, creating new markets, and doing what needs
to be done to get ahead. Or, its incentive process might
lead to externalizing rewards for work to the point where
the internal commitment dies. Motivation, on the other hand,
could be bolstered when reward and security are obtained
through maintaining the status quo, not losing ground, building
deep relationships with clients to insure long term stability.
The darker side here occurs when moving from the status
quo will not be considered out of motivation to maintain
safety.
Motivation
can be generated by gems that have been distributed in a
wide variety of locations: some rewards will be attached
to more aggressive approaches to new business but with a
caveat that relationships cannot be sacrificed for the short-term
gain; while other rewards might come from relationship-building
with existing clients.
Looking
at Motivation from the Culture perspective could take the
form of defining heroes and icons by their “attack”
on the marketplace and their “"take no prisoners"”
perspective on the competition. On the shadow side, these
people do what needs to be done –- whatever the cost.
A different Culture scene finds those most admired as the
ones who “"really" know people” and
have a capacity to satisfy the clients’ needs time
and time again. The value of dependable client relationships
is evident. Language within the culture is framed around
the concept of “"maintain it and they will stay"”
rather than “"build it and they will come".”
Gambling on the future is not in the vocabulary.
The
Culture might consider the “"build it and they
will come" perspective. But this attitude will be
attenuated by recognizing the value of what already is in
place. In this case, heroes are those who can transform
themselves to meet the challenge of standing their ground
or accept opportunity of a new adventure. A weakness here
may emerge as the inability to discriminate which heroes
are to be emulated at which times.
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