The debate that has raged on since the pandemic; personal productivity. Brant would argue that being in the office does not make someone more productive than working from home. In this podcast from a recent LinkedIn Audio event, Brant Cooper will go over how to maximize personal productivity by the use of a KANBAN board.
The transformation of support functions from mere cost centers to strategic partners requires a fundamental shift in perspective. Moving beyond a myopic focus on cost efficiency, these functions need to adopt a forward-looking stance. Embracing a customer-centric approach is paramount — support functions must treat internal colleagues as customers. In this way, they foster innovation, facilitate timely resource allocation, and collaborate with revenue-generating units to optimize desired business outcomes. By embracing innovation, nurturing collaboration, and aligning with strategic objectives, support functions can shed the cloak of the traditional “cost center” image and emerge as essential catalysts for organizational success in the digital era.
In this uncertain economy, businesses planning for the year ahead, will very likely include re-orgs. While re-organizing parts of the business might improve some efficiencies, it’s often disguising leadership problems rather than real productivity issues.
The end result is a bias toward making people work harder, not smarter. If you’re looking for a true solution to more efficient workflow, then re-orgs should be thought of from the bottom-up, not top-down. Empower the bottom, so your organization can react to changes to its environment, which generally occur at the edge, not the center. Agile teams define work needed. New information is relayed to the top. Leadership alters strategy, communicates plans, and allocates resources.
Dividing your company into execution (delivery) mode vs exploration (discovery) mode, as recommended by the multi-named mythology of “ambidextrous organizations,” “dual operating systems,” or “dual innovation,” will prevent you from competing efficiently in the digital age. There are 4 simple steps to create operating mechanisms for dual track teams, i.e., teams that are responsible for execution also explore.
When you scale based upon functions, you are likely reinforcing silos. You end up cascading tasks that one hopes align with organizational priorities.
Mission-based organization of the company, rather than carving work up based upon function is more impactful. In the end, most teams will look the same, as if they were carved up by function, but only because the mission dictates that. In other words, if a team has a mission that requires building particular software product functionality, the team will likely be composed of all software developers. On the other hand, if a mission requires a team to investigate what functionality will increase customer engagement, functions other than developers would be required. Learn how Moves The Needle has helped companies with mission-based organization.
