Avoiding Bad Surprises
Leadership
Watching your favorite team‘s coach discuss their failures after a loss in a game they were expected to win is painful but also insightful. In sports, there is a clear start and finish as well as a declared winner. The losing coach cannot deny his team’s defeat. In most cases, losing coaches seem a bit surprised at their team’s less-than-desired performance. It is not uncommon to hear a coach say, “We had a really good practice the day before the game” or “I thought the team was mentally and emotionally prepared to compete.” Often, a particular aspect of the team’s performance that contributed to their defeat will be the very thing the coach said they emphasized before the game.
In a sport like basketball, a team consists of only 15 players, less than 10 of which will actually play in the game. It would seem relatively easy for a coach to have good insights on every key member of the team and be able to confidently predict how they will perform. Contrast that with the challenge of the leader of a mid-sized or large organization that has hundreds or thousands of employees.
The point is not that sports coaches are clueless or incompetent, but that human performance depends on a number of variables they have limited control over. In order to mitigate the effect of those variables, teams and organizations invest significant time developing systems, structures, and culture.
The rapid pace of change creates another reality that makes it hard for teams and organizations to match their systems and structures with the changing requirements for success. For example, all the excitement and concern over AI has organizational leaders asking, “How will this impact the way we operate the organization?” In the world of college sports, the transfer portal and NIL money have completely changed the way schools recruit, retain, and develop their athletes. This is leading organizational leaders to look toward technology to create greater connectivity.
In the Strategy + Business article, “Ten Principles of Organization Design,” the authors observe that there is both a formal and informal component that drives performance. They identify the formal components:
• How decisions are made (Decisions)
• How people are compelled to perform (Motivators)
• How the organization formally processes data and knowledge (Information)
• How work and responsibilities get divided (Structure)
These four components are certainly ones that fill up the senior leader’s agenda as they are more easily observed and addressed. However, without considering the informal complements to each of these components, the authors argue that understanding and solutions fall short of what is needed.
The complementary components are:
• For Decisions – How people instinctively act or take action (Norms)
• For Motivators – How people are inspired to contribute (Commitments)
• For Information – How people make sense of their work (Mindset)
• For Structure – How people connect beyond the lines and boxes (Network)
These informal components influence how people think and feel which ultimately drives how we behave. It is important to note that both the formal and informal components do not operate in isolation. This may partially explain why coaches and managers can be surprised by poor performance. They may invest heavily in one component but not have all the building blocks in sync.
Through understanding the informal components, leaders can more effectively determine how to sequence organizational change. Interestingly, the authors recommend changing the structure last, not first. They reason that without changing the other components, especially the informal ones, the organization will simply return to its previous way of operating despite a different looking organizational chart.
When talking about a difficult loss, the best coaches also communicate optimism for the next game because they demonstrate a willingness to address the harder issues like commitment to the team and changing mindsets on what is needed to improve. They know there are no quick fixes, but an opportunity each day to move their team closer to reaching their potential.