15 October 2016

Bernhard Sterchi

Aligned Autonomy

How to systematically manage contextual behavior in an organization.

The case: industrial strength is not enough for a service culture

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Ordered SystemsSame input produces same output

Complex InteractionsEvery situation is slightly different

Industrial Management

• Process

• Worflow

• Checklist

• Documentation

• …

Doing the right thing – now!

• Common Sense

• Experience

• ????

Necessity for aligned autonomy: The Brand Experience Cycle

4

coherentsignals frommanagement

STRONG

BRAND

consistentcustomer

experience

consistentvalues

purpose-creatingstoryline

clearcorporate

self-image

consistentstaff

decisions

What makes a strong brand? Not corporate communications, but the consistent customer experience across a number of interactions.

Behind each customer interaction, there is a staff decision.

Behind each staff decision, there is a tradeoff – cost vs. quality; short- vs. longterm; standard vs. customized etc.

Consistency amongst those decisions produces a consistent customer experience, and thus a strong brand.

“Time Out” – Systematically address behavior at team level

5

Customer interactions, exception handling, dealing with the unpredicted etc., belong to the complex domain. Each situation is slightly different. Exhaustive regularization is not possible. All you have is tendencies, dispositions, plausibilities. Behavior is contextual.

But it should be aligned across the team.

It is therefore at team level, close to the individual context, where we need alignment of what influences behavior: • values• interpretations• sense of priority• understanding of context

We need regular exchange on typical situations in the team. Discuss appropriate behavior and possible alternatives in the one example. Once you have discussed a number of examples, opinions and behavior start to align.

The Time Out applies 4 principles of complexity management

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EXPERIENCE

EXCHANGE EXAMPLE

Augment experience

instead of instructions

Alignment across a

series of examples instead of exhaustive

regulation

EXPERIMENT

Experiment and adapt

approaches instead of one guaranteed solution

Exchange and influence in

teams instead of individual learning

Strategic Storyline connects local interventions to general principles

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What is happening out there?‣Customer need, competition, technologies, regulations…

How does that define us?‣Our role‣Our strategy‣Our principles‣ Define the grand narrative that guides our focus

Connect to the example you are discussing in the Time Out‣ Use the few principles above to give sense to the

desirable behavior in the example at stake

Every organisation has a limited number of ”grand narratives” that define it. They give sense to the

individual, local behavior which contributes to its enactment. By repeatedly connecting everyday situations to the storyline, people learn to make sense by themselves. If you do this in a team, you

start aligning the sensemaking.

Structure of Time Out discussion (if you prefer a process…)

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TEAM LEADER

PROPOSE A SITUATION

1. from recent experience

2. generalise3. stop at prompt for

action: “What would you do in this case?”

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

1. each team member

writes down in key words

2. compare diversity

RELATION TO STRATEGIC

STORYLINE1. discuss what is

desirable, what is less desirable, what is out of

bounds

CAPTURE

1. keep a short “diary” of

the cases and the discussions’ key

argumentations.2. make it accessible to

the team

WHAT CAN WE DO?

1. rules of thumb

2. if applicable (rarely): decide on measures

WHY IS IT DIFFICULT?

1. why are we not doing

it?2. dilemmas

3. obstacles

1

6 5 4

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Generic examples of Situations for Time Out discussions

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• (Shop): A customer walks into the shop with a broken product. The guarantee has expired a month ago, but the customer was abroad. What do you do?

• (Teamleader): The existing CMS (reporting system) is tedious to fill in, and it does not match the actual processes and division of responsibility. But for the moment it’s what we have, and top management is using it. What do you do?

• (Expert): Something is wrong. If you fix it, it would be fast and you would be sure it’s right. But it’s another team’s responsibility, and they have made the mistake in the first place. What do you do?

• (Manager): One of your direct reports proposes a solution. You know it could be much better. You don’t know all the details. Time is an issue. What do you do?

• (Manager): People say: “We want to change in the direction you ask of us, but we don’t have the time and money to do so.” They have many examples. What do you do?

• (Teamleader): People say the strategic decision xy doesn’t make sense for us. You agree with most of their examples, but if you say so top management would loose credibility. What do you do?

• (Manager): You have just proclaimed a rule. The next example you encounter would justify an exception. Everybody is watching. What do you do?

Option: Transform the Time Out into a corporate culture management tool (Sensemaker)

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• Capture the situations discussed in time-outs across the company.

• Teams auto-signify the situations according to a few criteria.

• The resulting quantitative meta-data allow for statistical representation in clusters and fitness landscapes.

• The availability of the narrative behind the data allows for pragmatic interpretation of the clusters.

Consequences:

• “What can we do to move the clusters?” for top management.

• ”Look what others have done.” for teams.

• “Editor’s pick” to nudge future team discussions.

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Bernhard Sterchi, Palladio Trusted Advisers, Gerbergasse 30, Postfach, CH-4001 Basel, +41 78 783 72 44, bernhard.sterchi@palladio.net, www.palladio.net

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