DESIGNING GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONAL AGENCIES Organizational Design: Aligning Government for Success

The Wrong Approach to Stronger Performance?

State governments spend millions of dollars and countless hours of staff time each year striving for stronger performance. However, evidence suggests that performance has not improved to the same degree as the expended past effort to achieve it [1]! Perhaps these government agencies are tackling the wrong problem! Or, at least, going about it in the wrong way!

With an understandable desire to improve performance, some agencies may attempt to “fix” performance issues directly. They may, for example, look directly “upstream” to the immediately linked contributor prior to the performance outcome… and attempt to fix it! If so, they are working on symptoms; they are not working on the undergirding core organizational system issues causing the performance.

It is important to note that a system, even a human organizational system [2] such as the government agency, will produce repeating patterns of performance behavior [3, 4] unless systematically changed. This simply is a physical reality of system behavior [5]. Small, incremental modifications to direct links to the observed performance will not significantly improve the system’s performance, it may make it worse! This is what quality expert Edwards Deming spoke to over a quarter of a century ago, referring to it as tampering with the system, “Harmless tampering? Acting without knowledge, particularly profound knowledge, can quickly ruin a perfectly good system” [6].  Tinkering (another often used term by Deming!) with a system will not produce sustained changes to performance behavior.

So, where to turn?

As we learn from organizational design [7-10]: Outward business performance cannot be “fixed”. Only the inward organizational dynamics can be strengthened by designed systematic intervention! State governments should ensure effective organizational design as a critical first step in building stronger agency performance by analyzing, aiming, aligning, and adjusting the interrelated and interconnected constituent parts of the government agency [11, 12].

Let’s take a brief look at each of these four fundamentals!

The Path to an Effective Organizational!

“Government must work constantly to improve performance and do more with less. State government provides critical services that protect the vulnerable, educate the next generation, maintain our quality of life, and build the infrastructure that supports economic development. It is critical that these services be provided as effectively and efficiently as possible” [13].

Analyze: Of course using performance symptoms is wise! Your family doctor does much same thing: understand presenting symptoms as a guide for deeper analysis and discovery of the core health issue. Government agencies should do the same thing, trace output and outcome performance symptoms back to core organizational problems. It is important here to recognize that the family doctor in his/her analysis compares the symptoms against a model of human physiology. It is much the same with organizational effectiveness practitioners in their diagnosis; practitioners should use a guide to help identify core organizational elements causing the performance issues. They will be greatly aided in this by the use of models, as we say at AIOE, using organizational diagnosis models as “a two-dimension map to better understand the three-dimensional organizational dynamic!” So, for example using any of the well-known organizational models such as Galbraith’s [8] Star-Model, Nadler and Tushman’s [10] Congruence Model or Weisbord’s [14] Six-Box Model will help the organizational practitioner in diagnosing organizational “health” issues!

Aim: As in architecture where “form follows function” we believe that structure follows strategy. So, any anticipated organizational intervention should include an in-depth review and understanding of strategy. Of course, the assumption here is that a strategy exists! However, if a clear strategy has not been developed and integrated into routine operations, the intervention will be well-served by beginning with a strategy development exercise.

Align: Experts in organizational design focus extensively here: Aligning all organizational resources (human and physical) in harmonious, efficient and ethical manner to achieve strategic objectives. As Nadler and Tushman [9] suggest, “The only real, sustainable, source of competitive advantage lies … in an organization’s ‘architecture’ – the way in which it structures, and coordinates its people and processes in order to maximize its unique capabilities.” The government agencies will benefit from clearly aligning their organization in such a way as to work congruently with their strategy.

Adjust: But, aiming an organization with sound strategy and aligning all resources (at least so far on paper!) has to be followed up with action: Change management or systematically adjusting these agencies is necessary to implement the new alignment and its supported stronger corporate culture.

 

I’d enjoy connecting with you on all things organizational effectiveness! Please leave a comment at the bottom of this page, share this message with your colleagues on LinkedIn, or contact me directly at McElroy@theAIOE.org. And be sure to check us out:

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For more on Dr. McElroy’s research and writing be sure to review Measuring Intellectual Behavior and Leaders: Essays on the Science of Leader Development and Action.

 

References

1. Thibodeau, N., Improving the organizational architecture of public enterprise: An investigation of the effect of the federal government’s latest effort through the Veterans Health Administration, 2003, University of Pittsburgh: Ann Arbor. p. 350.
2. Scott, W.R., Organizations: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems. Fourth ed. 1998, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 416.
3. Gharajedaghi, J., Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity – A Platform for Designing Business Architecture. 1999, Boston, MA: Butterworth Heinemann. 302.
4. Axelrod, R. and M.D. Cohen, Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier. 2000, New York, NY: Basic Books. 184.
5. von Bertalanffy, L., General Systems Theory. 1969, New York, NY: George Braziller. 295.
6. Aguayo, R., Dr. Deming, the American Who Taught the Japanese About Quality. 1990, New York, NY: Carol Publishing Group. 289.
7. Lawler, E.E., From the Ground Up, Six Principles for Building the New Logic Corporation. 1996, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 316.
8. Galbraith, J.R., Designing Organizations, An Executive Briefing on Strategy, Structure, and Process. 1995, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 164.
9. Nadler, D.A., M.S. Gerstein, and R.B. Shaw, Organizational Architecture, Designs for Changing Organizations. 1992, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 284.
10. Nadler, D.A. and M.L. Tushman, Competing by Design, The Power of Organizational Architecture. 1997, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 240.
11. Newton, S. and P.C. Borstorff, SMALL TOWNS DON’T ALWAYS HAVE SMALL PROBLEMS: ASHVILLE CASE STUDY, 2011, Jordan Whitney Enterprises, Inc: Arden. p. 1-9.
12. Bryant, J., Health agency looking to be more efficient. Atlanta Business Chronicle, 2002. 24(50).
13. Anonymous, PA Office of the Budget Names Deputy Secretary for Performance Improvement, in PR Newswire2007: New York, NY.
14. Weisbord, M.R., Organizational Diagnosis: A Workbook of Theory and Practice. 1978, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.