Three Organizational Design Actions Every OCM Practitioner Should Take

Organizational Design (OD) has been called out as a top human capital trend citing that “the way high-performing organizations operate today is radically different from how they operated 10 years ago.” As we begin 2021, we see that the way most organizations are operating now is totally different from how they operated a mere twelve months ago, accelerating the need for OD work to ensure long-term success. You may not have the skills nor experience to help redesign an organization, however, it is increasingly important that organizational change management (OCM) practitioners are able to identify the signs of organizational design and assess for impacts to organizational design, and are then prepared to advocate for organizational design support when needed. 

1. Look for signs of OD 

First, be on the lookout for signals that your change program may need organizational design and how OCM can support that work. Knowing what to look for and having the ability to recognize these OD signals will make you an even more effective OCM practitioner. For example, if you join a merger and acquisition program in an OCM role to support the system integration, your defined role in the program may be narrow and pragmatic, however, you can add tremendous value by maintaining a broad and strategic perspective, while remaining in your assigned OCM swim lane. In this example, your first priority, of course, is maximizing adoption of the combined technology; however, you can benefit the program and your OCM approach by keeping an eye out for related OD changes. Will the new combined IT organization require a new structure, new processes, or new roles? If so, is there OD support in place? Is there OCM in place to support those redesign activities? If no, call out lack of OD and OCM support for redesign activities as a risk to the program. 

2. Include OD in your change impact assessment 

Second, evaluate for organizational design impacts as part of your change impact assessment process. For example, you have been brought onto a technical project to provide basic OCM support, such as a Salesforce.com implementation. As part of the change impact assessment process, explore how the new technology will change how the IT function, the business function, in this case Sales, and how the enterprise will operate with the new system. A great way to do this is to walk through the relevant lifecycle with your stakeholders and to ask basic OD related questions along the way. In this example, the lifecycle is Sales, from the point that a customer is interested in the product, all the way through customer support. “If we are implementing Salesforce.com to support the Sales lifecycle, how will that new technology change how we operate? What new capabilities will be needed? Will today’s roles need upskilling? Will roles be combined due to efficiency or automation? Will there be new roles?  Where will these roles sit in the organization? Is anyone thinking about these changes?” As an OCM practitioner, as part of the change process, leveraging basic questions about structure, roles, and capabilities, you can begin to identify the impacts of the new technology on the organizational design to ensure they are taken into account. 

3. Ensure OD is addressed  

Finally, once you identify signs of OD or uncover impacts to OD, it’s critical that you ask your client or project manager, “Is there a workstream or person addressing organizational design changes?” If yes, make that person your new best work friend. Aligning with the organizational design workstream may inform the OCM team of changes that they did not necessarily see; it may expand the OCM scope as you learn that the change is more expansive than first understood; no matter what, it will make your OCM approach more thorough and effective. If no, advocate for the necessary organizational design support. Organizational design shares the same sad statistics as organizational change management and many programs fail when they don’t address their OD needs. All too often companies check the OD box by completing a “lines and boxes” exercise whereby leaders get into a room for a few hours and write names in boxes; this is not organizational design, rather, this is simply shifting deck chairs on the ship. This will not achieve the desired new way of operating, behavior, nor value. As an organizational change management practitioner, you can explain what good organization design looks like to help ensure the program gets the help it needs.       

Comfortable in your organizational change management swim lane? That’s OK. However, given the accelerating pace of operational change, it’s critical that every OCM practitioner up their game and the value that they bring by positioning themselves to identify the signs of organizational design, assess for organizational design impacts, and advocate for organizational design expertise when needed. 

This is part two of a three-part blog series focusing on the intersection of organizational change management and organizational design. 

• Top 3 Signs That Your Change Program Needs Organizational Design Expertise   

• 3 Organizational Design Actions Every Organizational Change Management Practitioner Should Take 

• How To Transform From An Organizational Change Management Practitioner To An Organizational Design Expert – coming in two weeks! 

Contact ChangeStaffing to learn how our consultants can help with both your OCM and OD needs. 

A very special thanks to Kelley Rainwater, Transformation Expert, Founder and Lead Instructor, Institute of Applied Organizational Design & Transformation, for her thought leadership and for collaborating with us on this blog series.