How might we think about organisation, reform and change?

We should be most focused on the boundaries of our organisations. The places where our customers, peers, collaborators and competitors interact with our organisation.

Well-worn and circular discussions of visions, aspirations, culture, leadership and values often plague our discussions of change and reform. What if we were focused on how we are organised to deliver capability instead?

From a capability perspective, we might conclude that our organisation is: 1) an arrangement of specialist knowledge and skills; 2) a system of social patterns and practices (there is a method for diffusing and incorporating the lessons of experience); and 3) a system of processes for sharing resources and resolving conflicts (there is a system of control).

We might draw from this that our capacity to control and order information and knowledge is central to these activities.

Indeed, we might begin to see that our organisation has no substance beyond communicating information and knowledge. And, most intriguingly, this information and knowledge are not, as it is often asserted, entirely resident in the bodies and minds of our workforce; instead, it is a function of how we organise to communicate—the networks of communication—that have the workforce as one of many resources that are available to us. 

Every aspect of our organisation and how it operates communicates something about our organisation to its workforce, customers and competitors. But, we can see that the message we communicate most clearly is how we are organised to deliver. Everything we think about the way the world—what we care about and don’t care about—is expressed through how we deliver.

We should be most focused on the boundaries of our organisations. The places where our customers, peers, collaborators and competitors interact with our organisation. The place where information and knowledge transactions occur, services are consumed, resources are shared, and conflicts are resolved. This is where our organisation's values, innovation, transparency, professionalism and capability are most visible. We determine our vision, aspiration, culture, leadership, and values at the boundaries.

A different capability perspective organisation might see it as a system of services. In this view, our organisation is a fluid and adaptive configuration of people, technologies, processes and information organised to create and deliver value. Its strategic goal is to use its specific skills, expertise in network management, and extensive relationships to intelligently translate our intent into products and services and assist customers. To remain competitive, our focus must be on productivity—we must be organised to deliver valued products and services at superior cost efficiency.

Unfortunately, a familiar ‘managerial’ focus shapes our discourse on change and reform. It leads us to be trapped in circular discussions and tinker at our organisation's margins rather than dealing with the core issues. Most devastatingly, we believe the stories we tell ourselves rather than testing the reality that is evident at the boundaries.

A capability-based approach expresses reform and change in terms of what needs to be done to support current and emerging requirements. It grapples directly with the drivers of changing performance expectations. It focuses our dialogue about the strategic objectives and the capability required to ensure our organisation remains aligned with the strategic environment and relevant to those who consume our products and services. To help, we might ask ourselves:

What is happening at the boundaries of our organisation?

How do we need to be organised to deliver?

How do we build and sustain that organisation?

Who is responsible for shaping and sustaining our organisation (and who will monitor the boundaries)?

What hazards do we face, and what risks is our organisation accruing around the decisions we have made and continue to make?

Organisationally, how will we manage these risks?

These questions may help separate what we require of the ‘organisation’ from the noise of vision, aspiration, culture, leadership, and values. They may help to strip the organisation back to its core and provide a framework for leaders to build toward a solution.