W A Y S O F W O R K I N G :O R G A N I S A T I O N A L M O D E L S

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H o w t o e n g a g e y o u r o r g a n i s a t i o n t o b e t t e r s e r v e c u s t o m e r s a n d s i m p l i f y t h e b u s i n e s s

We believe …

... that the best investment an organisation can make is in improving how its people collaborate.

Matter Group

W A Y S O F W O R K I N G : O R G A N I S A T I O N A L M O D E L S

Most large organisations have either a functional/hierarchical structure (Figure 1) or are managed as matrices (Figure 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2

How to engage your organisation to better serve customers and simplify the business

Although alternatives to these two models are frequently discussed, they are rarely implemented at scale. Organisation models with names like Supercell Autonomy, Holocracy, and Participatory Self-Organisation litter the business press, and contain excellent insights; however, most large organisations adopt a model that tends towards a functional structure or towards a matrix.

F U N C T I O N A L / H I E R A R C H I C A L S T R U C T U R E

Finance Admin

Product A

Production

Sales

Administration

Purchasing

Marketing

HR

Product B

Production

Sales

Administration

Purchasing

Data

IT

Product C

Production

Sales

Administration

Purchasing

Innovation

Staff Functions

M A T R I X S T R U C T U R E

Admin

Business Unit/Product/Geography A

Business Unit/Product/Geography B

Business Unit/Product/Geography C

Marketing and Sales

HR R&DProduction

Matter Group

* A DesignForum is a large-scale collaborative workshop.

Both of these structures have strengths and weaknesses and when our clients choose to shift from one organisational design to another, it is usually because the burden of the existing design’s weaknesses is perceived to be greater than the trauma of transitioning.

Our clients call us either when they plan to shift to an alternative design or have recently done so and face challenges making the new design work effectively.

A Major Italian Insurer

The small Leadership Team of a major insurer was receiving growing feedback from dissatisfied customers – especially large corporates. We convened the top 55 executives for a three-day DesignForum* to inject customer-centricity into the heart of this insurer’s structure and its DNA.

This large team mapped the strengths and weaknesses of its product-oriented structure and designed a new, market-centric structure so that the remarkable technical expertise that grew up around the product focus could be maintained while ensuring the responsiveness and strategic coherence of a needs- and customer-centric organisation. The same team mapped out a robust transition plan.

The transition was launched immediately following the DesignForum. The speed and lack of friction of this transition was remarkable. Where resistance did arise – particularly in a business unit where individual expertise was felt to have been devalued – we continued to facilitate and refine the transition plan and the to-be model.

Functional/Hierarchical Organisation Matrix Organisation

Strengths• More efficient decision-making • Clear accountability

Weaknesses• Prone to working in silos or fiefdoms• Tendency for organisational units to

become inward-focused

Strengths• Better alignment across business units• Less functional duplication

Weaknesses• Decision-making is slow and

ambiguous• Unclear reporting lines

We adopt a highly-participatory approach to facing organisational challenges. Matter doesn’t supply pre-cooked answers but rather builds a collaborative forum in which the people who are affected by an organisational change are brought into the design and implementation of that change process.

When we are called before an organisation model is launched, our job is to:

• Help you identify the latent strengths of your as-is model, both to help you assess the real cost of change and to identify those elements that should be preserved in the new model.

• Help you and your team collaboratively design the to-be model, to optimise its strengths, mitigate its weaknesses, and ensure understanding and buy-in to avoid the natural resistance to change.

Matter Group

When we are called after a new organisation model is launched, our job is to: • Help those who might feel they are the objects of change to become the

protagonists of the new organisation.• Co-design ways of working that optimise the to-be structure while maintaining the

historic strengths and pride that individuals might feel is jeopardised by change.• Identify and manage those aspects of the organisational transition that caused the

greatest resistance and generated the least value.

A Major Aerospace Manufacturer

Together with our partner WoW: Ways of Working, we worked with the engineering division of a major aerospace manufacturer to reduce the complexity inherent in its three-dimensional matrix organisation. Our task was to facilitate the radical simplification and acceleration of decision-making processes without sacrificing the technical excellence that represented the pride and the growth platform for this company.

We facilitated a three-day DesignForum for the top 120 engineers to co-design principles of simplification. These principles were then applied, department-by-department, in subsequent DesignFora across the entire division. To alleviate friction and accelerate the transition to the simpler paradigm, our partners ran an Acceleration Zone* on-site for nearly two years, thus reducing the costs and the risks associated with this enormous change in the division’s ways of working.

* An Acceleration Zone is a dedicated, temporary in-house space in which groups construct, test and execute solutions with an innovative approach while being supported by a small, dedicated team of facilitators and graphic facilitators.

Matter Group

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