Designing for Success: Agile Organizations & Effective Structures

All right, everyone.
Welcome to today's live program with Achieve Engagement
and the Leadership Ex Leadership Network.
My name is Zach Doms, president at Achieve Engagement
and your head of community.
And I'm so excited to come together as a network globally
to really continue sharpening our crafts, our skill sets,
our research, our insights, so
that we can continue building a better world of work.
And that's really what our purpose is all about.
At a achieve engagement,
it's rethinking the ways in which we can do that.
So that's why we always bring you different thought leaders,
researchers, practitioners, people in the field
who are doing this at the highest level, so
that you can be exposed to new frameworks
and strategies that you can take action with
back in whatever culture or context you're serving in today.
I love the activity already happening in the chat.
If you haven't already, let me know
where you're calling in from.
I'm back in Denver. I was just in Charlotte with a bunch
of our network members that yesterday, so we're keeping the,
the community rowing here.
Hailey in Massachusetts. All right, Patsy in New York.
Joyce in Atlanta. Andrea in Colorado.
I'm in Colorado and Denver. Great to have you in here.
We got Cape Town, south, South Africa in the house.
We're going global. Maria and Austin, more Cape Town.
This is awesome, Louisiana. Oh my gosh. All right.
Ton in Atlanta. Good to see you in here.
Andre, Montreal, Los Angeles, east Coast, Philly.
I really appreciate you all digging into this
and showing up today, especially whatever
time zone you might be in.
It might be the middle of the day.
Some of you might be the end of the night.
So it warms my heart that you're taking time outta the day
to improve yourselves and learn and grow as a network.
I'm really excited for this program specifically today,
because I think it's gonna be really timely
for a lot of us, right?
This is typically the time of year.
You're doing some strategic planning right now,
you're unwrapping some of the topics
and things that you wanna work on in the next year.
Maybe you're even doing some strategic planning just
to finish that you're strong
and you're like, Hey, what are some of the structures
and the ways that we can align our people
to ensure we can execute these things?
Like how do we actually make those two worlds play well
and compliment each other?
And if anything, make sure your org strategy
and your people strategy is aligned so that it enables you
to achieve your company strategy, right?
So put in the chat how many of you're doing
strategic planning right now,
or you're, you're starting to at least think about it.
I hope so. I I know it, it seems early maybe
for some folk, but put in the chat.
Yes, no, let me know where you're at with some of this,
but I'd love to hear where are you with some
of your strategic planning initiatives right now?
Working on org design redesign. Awesome, Joyce.
Lemme know where are you in some of this today?
Are you just starting it?
Have you been part of the conversations?
Have you been thinking about your own department in this?
Start thinking about that as we go through this.
This will be a, a quite a,
a peer-to-peer learning experience.
So as we're going through this too, I want to encourage you
to ask questions, you know, surface things
that you might be navigating.
Let us know if there's something specific you want us
to dig into, because it's gonna be a
really powerful hour together.
So that being said, I'm gonna stop sharing
and welcome one of our good friends
and advisors to the network.
Uh, Christina Car Sik.
Uh, she's, uh, an advisor,
subject matter expert for our network.
And when I was thinking about like this time of the year
around strategic planning
and how could we maybe bring someone to talk to
aligning the people strategy org design
and make sure we're kind of working in a cl uh,
holistic way, and is there a framework we can learn?
Christina is the person that I first thought of.
So Christina, let me share this.
Stop sharing, awesome to see you.
Thanks for being here with us,
and I appreciate you taking some time with us today.
Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here
and excited to just basically jump right in here.
So I'm gonna start sharing my screen. All right, everybody.
There we go. And we're gonna jump in.
So, a couple of quick things.
I am extremely passionate about this topic.
Org design goes way
beyond just simply designing for your org.
It really, you'll see throughout this presentation,
it takes in many elements of building an organization.
So we're gonna talk through how you do this
and how we do this
as HR executives from a very strategic perspective.
Um, it's a very heavy topic. There is a lot in here.
So I'm going to make mention
that I will be relying on my notes.
Um, I wanna make sure that number one, I stay on topic.
'cause like I said, I'm very passionate about this.
Number two, I might have a little bit of a DD.
So, well, the last thing I wanted I wanna do
during this presentation is Chase any type
of purple squirrels around.
So we wanna stay focused,
and I wanna make sure that you get the absolute
most from this session.
So let's go. Welcome.
Today's session is for designing for designing for success,
building agile organizations
and effective operating structures that go hand in hand.
We'll explore how to align your company structure
with this strategy for maximum impact.
We will walk through a practical framework for agility,
talent, um, talent, philosophy, strategy, and culture,
and how they all come together while tackling
common scenarios.
As HR leaders and executives,
we play a pivotal role in shaping the organization
that can adapt and most importantly, thrive.
So let's go, let's jump right in. Okay.
Uh, right before, actually I lie, we're gonna give you,
I'm just gonna give you a little taste of who I am
and what I do, and then we'll jump in.
So I am Christina Kartik, founder of, um, founder of
Kartik Partners, and at Kartik Partners.
Our mission is very simple.
We are here to help visionary leaders avoid toxic creep,
which unfortunately, I'm sure you're all too familiar with.
By embedding best in class people
and operating strategies,
we operate in three specific areas.
The first one is as fractional executives
and operators that sit internally
and partner, um, to unlock your strategy
with your biggest asset, your people.
We also advise and coach HR executives
and aspiring HR leaders on how
to get their seat at the table
and secure it, as well
as guide them on everything we discussed today, as well
as creating and executing your talent strategy Additionally.
And lastly, we work with HR teams
to support strategic projects
by bringing best in class solutions
and working alongside, alongside those teams in execution.
Okay, enough about me.
Um, I will mention really quick
after this presentation, if you'd love to connect.
I love connecting on LinkedIn.
Please look for me, it's actually very simple.
I'm the only Christina, Christina with a K ek. Nevermind.
When you add my second, last name, Eric,
there is no one else.
It'll be easy to find me on LinkedIn.
Okay, let's jump into this.
All right, I'm gonna talk through our agenda real quick.
This is our roadmap for the next  minutes.
We'll begin with core principles.
The core principle, I should say
structure follows strategy, right?
The strategy is the key element that will unlock everything.
Then introduce a framework
for building an agile operating model.
Operating models are key. We're gonna talk more about this.
If anybody is familiar with this concept,
it really depends on where you are in your growth.
What you never wanna do is try to introduce something
that's ,  pages.
It never gets adapted.
So we're gonna talk about how to implement this
and ideally, ideally, it's best
to implement it sooner than later.
Very lightweight, and then build as you go.
We'll also explore talent, philosophy, strategy
and culture, how talent, philosophy, strategy
and culture guide organizational choices with examples such
as structuring around a visionary founder,
creating cross-functional teams,
and fostering customer driven cultures.
I'll share key questions to consider case scenarios
and best practices from research along the way.
All right, let's go. Okay, we start
with a core principle, as I just stated,
in organizational design
structure must be driven by your strategy.
Your org design should be a reflection of what you're trying
to achieve strategically.
For example, if your company's goal is rapid innovation in
tech, you might need a flatter, more flexible schedule.
Um, structure. Misaligning, these absolutely spells trouble.
Imagine a company that says innovation is a priority,
but keeps a very rigid bureaucratic hierarchy.
What do you think that's gonna lead to? You must.
It's not, unfortunately, it'll lead to misalignment.
You have just created an environment in which teams will
struggle to deliver results,
and that's not what you're looking to create.
Research backs this up. Nearly all companies will tweak
or overhaul their structure as their strategy shifts,
though unfortunately, most efforts fail
to deliver the expected benefits.
The takeaway, be very intentional.
Start with the strategy,
then align everything else around it.
Throughout this presentation, we will make reference
to frameworks like the McKinsey's, um, seven s model
that ensures all aspects of the organization,
not just the org chart,
but also processes, people skills, leadership styles
and core values are all pulling in the same direction.
So I said this is complex,
but it's everything we do as people.
Barters. Okay, now let's jump into, um,
practical framework for agile operating models.
Okay? Essentially, this is how you run
and organize your company on a day-to-day basis
that is flexible.
The key here is it's good for any size organization
and ensure it ensures that you're effective.
We're gonna break this into four pillars
in the next couple slides.
We're gonna go through each one.
Before doing so,
I wanna call out the first pillar setting direction.
Often, it's not always,
but often executive teams do not expect us as HR leaders
to impact this area.
Not for any type of mal-intent, but simply
because HR has played a tactical role for so long,
they have simply put us into this box,
but it's time to break away.
It is time to reshape our image
When we are business executives, first,
we understand the constructs of our organization,
the talent better than anyone else,
meaning we understand the nuances that are associated with
how to build the talent around the strategy.
If we can't understand the strategy,
we simply can't do our jobs.
Therefore, we play an intricate part in setting up the
foundation for strategy conversations as well
as facilitation
and guiding this discussion to leave with tangible results.
That's the key. We've all been part of organizations
where the strategy gets, gets published,
and we're all kind of scratching our heads, like,
what, how do I align?
How do I impact? HR can play a really pivotal role in making
sure, again, there's tangible results when you leave
that just like the operating model,
the talent strategy, um, the talent, I apologize.
The company strategy should not be pages, right?
It has to be something that can be absorbed,
and that's where we fit in
and we can help lead those conversations,
bringing it back to the model.
These four pillars create a cycle
and a system that evolve with you as you grow.
Like I said, with the operating model, it's something
that you wanna start, start lightweight, and then you build.
If you're a young company, this is amazing
and it's the best time to implement.
We'll explore each of these pillars as we go.
So we're gonna jump to the next slide. All right.
In the past, in particular, within the startup world,
the focus on setting direction was often forsaken with the,
with the ideology.
We had to build the plane as we flew it,
throwing things out there and seeing honestly,
if it would stick or applying other company's best practices
without fully thinking through how to apply it
to our organization.
Simply put, we were operating in a world of unknown,
doing our best, not only to survive, but to thrive.
Now we have the opportunity to truly learn
and revamp how we apply
and use big corp ideology to fit into our world in a way
that it truly does unlock our potential to thrive.
With that said, we've learned that applying frameworks
to create strong foundations are absolutely key in enabling
organizations to overcome challenges
and prevent organizations from literally
becoming their own blocker.
We've all seen that and been there
without strong frameworks and strategy.
Growth turns into roadblocks that disrupt momentum
and limit future success.
And you'll hear me say frameworks
and I like to utilize frameworks
because sometimes processes,
we start just creating them just to create processes.
When you're building an organization,
it's important to have fluidity.
So I always think of frameworks
as almost like the perimeter in which you hold water
and allow it to flow through, right?
The truth is, these are learnings
and pains we had to go through in order
to understand there is a better way
that will not stifle innovation
or agility in relation to this slide.
It means crafting a vision that people can rally behind
what McKinsey calls the North star a shared,
which is shared across the organization.
So many of you have heard
before, you need to know where you're going in order
to build for it or in order to get there.
If you're talking about directions, ask yourself,
do your employees truly know your top
priorities and your mission?
I really wanna take a moment, like,
think, think through that.
Oftentimes, unfortunately, more often employees don't,
they don't know how they tie into everything.
This is a critical step in building foundational blocks.
Once the vision and strategy are clear,
you can connect it to your org design.
This is the high level step where you decide,
given our strategy, what's the best way to organize?
If your Strat, for example, let me give you a couple.
If your strategy calls for rapid innovation,
then perhaps small product focused teams makes sense.
If it calls for operational excellence in multiple markets,
maybe a regional structure
with strong process governance is better for you.
The key is to intentionally align your building blocks
of your organization teams, department roles
with the strategies needs, right?
We wanna unlock the strategy.
It also is helpful to lay out a few design
principles upfront.
This is a really critical component
of it, so we're gonna talk more.
Okay? So once the direction is set,
the next step is alignment, making sure every part
of the organization works in concert, right?
Tools like OKRs help translate strategy into clear
goals across teams.
For example, if you're expanding into new markets, um,
you can cascade in, you can, uh, apologize, expand.
Say for example, one of your goals is
to expand into new markets, then what you can do is you can,
you can cascade the goals into marketing leads,
sales conversions, and product localization, right?
That's an example of how it gets cascaded down.
As leaders, we should champion transparency
and goals so that everyone understands the game plan.
Alignment also requires role clarity.
How many times is this sometime something
that we don't have, right?
Who owns what, who's doing what?
Um, this is critical to avoid. We've all been there.
Duplicate work or gaps in defining responsibilities.
Clearly, you can do this very easily through RACI charts.
I'm sure you've heard of that, or simple charters,
but this is critical so
that your people understand their role and responsibility.
Finally, alignment thrives on empowerment
with accountability.
Now, accountability is the big word, right?
Team should own their own goals
and allow them to be creative.
While regular reviews keep progress on track.
Don't forget, they all go together.
One can't exist without the other.
Tying performance management to key results
ensures everyone is measured on what matters.
In the end, most organizations strive for a culture
that is agile and high performing,
where people clearly understand their role
In the bigger picture, this critical element is often
missing, which leads to, we've all been there, chaos,
wasted energy spent on fighting fires
instead of building for growth.
And this can absolutely slow down growth,
and in some cases, stunted the third
pillar, enabling collaboration,
ensuring the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,
even with a strong strategy
and alignment, silos lock progress.
So we need to be deliberate in knitting the
organization together.
For example, if cross-functional te teams are a powerful,
um, tactic,
breaking down silos like marketing versus engineering, um,
we've all seen this, right?
Or engineering versus sales.
It's about enabling them to tackle shared goals.
This is a critical element.
Mapping interdependencies also helps everyone see
how their workflows impact others.
A key element here is empowering teams to reduce friction
by resolving issues directly
with clear escalation paths only when needed.
This is something as leaders, I'll be honest, I'm guilty of,
we often forget our team comes to us with frustrations,
and it's easy to say, okay, you know, I'll manage it
because you're just running and you just wanna execute fast.
That's not enabling trust within your teams,
and that's not gonna build relationships.
Remember, it's critical to take a moment
and empower your teams to talk to one another.
Nobody wants to be approached by someone else
regarding an issue they had with someone else, right?
But this really helps speed problem solving.
Most importantly, build trust within your teams.
Enabling collaboration. HR plays a key role by facilitating
collaboration through offsites workshops
or even formal mechanisms like initiative, um, briefs.
If you're not familiar with that concept, it's a great way
to bring small cross-functional teams together
to address challenges that span multiple functions.
These are considered them pop-up projects.
They make organizations more agile
and collaborative without bound by organizational charts.
So this is also critical.
I'd love to even talk more about that,
but it's probably its own webinar.
Okay, so the last pillar, pillar here is managing execution.
All right? Turns your plans into results
while continuously finding ways to learn and improve.
This is important. This starts with communication,
regular updates, whether it's through the CEO
and honestly, it really needs to be like one,
this is a key element I constantly advocate
for your CEO should connect with your people
and think about ways to communicate
and create that transparency.
The the way they do that really varies on your organization
and its learning style, right?
Some organizations prioritize emails,
some organizations prioritize Slack.
Some organizations they like to see, right?
It, it all depends on where you are in your stage
and how you process information.
But hearing from the CEO regularly is key.
Then you have your team standups.
You really wanna encourage your leaders
to constantly communicate with their teams on
where they are, what they're doing, any of these changes,
and most importantly, all hands.
Again, I highly recommend, I'm sure all of you mostly,
or if all I would, um, that are doing all hands,
this is really critical to ensure
that everybody stays involved
and also has that transparency,
but also accountability through these.
What you wanna make sure is
that no one is working in a vacuum,
information is being shared
and people are working collaboratively
in managing their execution.
The second is measurement, right?
And you can do this with KPIs, OKRs, smart goals.
I don't care what you use,
but at the end of the day, what you want is to use something
to track your progress.
Everything from NPS for the customers satisfaction
to cycle time for operations, visibility into the metrics,
keeps teams focused.
And as I stated before, accountable, okay,
third, and sometimes this is forgotten,
and this is really, really key element.
Retrospectives, retrospectives
after projects take the time to reflect on what was working,
what could have been improved it in a,
and it's really critical here in a blameless way,
you're not gonna get to this if there is blame.
You really want to utilize this
as a learning opportunity, right?
This is critical. We all constantly learn.
We never do anything perfectly, but we can constantly grow
and be better and adjust
to the market if we're working in collaboration
and we're learning key
learnings from all of our projects, right?
This builds a culture of continuous improvement.
Finally, change in risk management.
One thing, I can't guarantee a lot of things in life.
One thing I can guarantee execution never
goes perfectly, right?
And everyone in this room, I'm sure can attest to this,
HR plays a big role in leading required change management.
Here. We lead the communication plan, we train staff,
and we're helping teams prepare
for contingency plans, right?
So we play a really strong part in this execution process.
Ultimately, managing execution means holding teams
accountable, staying transparent,
and being able to adjust quickly when data
or circumstances shift.
That's what truly makes an organization agile, right?
What you wanna make sure is you're collecting those metrics.
I like to say more importantly, insights.
Because what you don't wanna do is tracking data
that's lagging, right?
You wanna be able to see real time.
Are you green, yellow, or red?
You wanna get to red, you wanna be yellow, say, okay,
this is the time to shift.
Let's shift and adjust accordingly. Right? Okay.
All right. So now we're gonna jump topics
and we're gonna go, we're gonna take a little bit
of a break, and I wanna use this analogy
that I absolutely love,
and in all fairness, I stole from Stephen Covey,
and if anybody knows, he's an author,
does trainings well known, right?
Okay. So I love using the redwood forest at its metaphor.
If you've ever stood amongst these trees in California,
you know how truly inspiring they are.
Some of them are thousands of years old, years old,
and amongst the tallest living things on earth right now,
we all know California, their weather patterns.
I mean, isn't this crazy that they could live
through hurricanes and storms
and these massive beautiful trees, right?
So I'm sure you're thinking, oh,
they must have really strong roots, right?
Right. That's how they, that's how they last. Nope.
Surprisingly, redwood roots only go eight
to  feet deep, which is very shallow
for a  foot tree.
How? The question is, how do they remain upright through,
again, centuries of storms and earthquakes and so forth?
Their secret is that their roots extend
outwards instead of deep,
and most importantly, they intertwine with the roots
of the other redwoods.
Essentially, trees hold each other up.
They literally stand stronger together.
I'm sure you knowing where I'm going with this.
Additionally, this is a cool, um, fact to know additionally,
they have created their own supportive ecosystem
by releasing water vapor.
They ensure that the whole community of trees
stays moist and healthy.
I think it's super cool. This is a powerful analogy
for our organizations.
If we want our companies to weather turbulent markets
and big challenges, which honestly we've seen a lot,
especially in the last five years, we need the same type
of mutual support structure.
No team can thrive in isolation just
as each redwood depends on the forest.
Each department or squad in your company should be
connected to one another.
Sharing information, lending support,
and working towards common goals.
The culture should encourage people to reach out
and reinforce one another.
When one team hits a problem, others come to help.
That interdependence creates an organization
that can stand tall for the long run.
So when we talk about collaboration
and breaking silos, we're really talking about
building your own forest.
The underlining network of relationships, the end processes
that makes the whole organization strong and adaptable.
Okay? So we've talked about strategy
and how structure should follow strategy.
We talked about the importance of frameworks so
that you are operating at your, at your highest level.
Now, let's shift to what is also critically important,
and that's your talent philosophy
and long term org design, right?
So your approach to all things people is your
talent philosophy.
Oftentimes, we jump straight to the strategy, right?
And we go, and I should say, the talent.
We jump straight to the talent strategy.
And this is often why strategies go on supported,
because it's missing alignment amongst its management.
Now, why does this matter for org design?
Because structure only works if people, pros,
if people practices behind it are aligned, think
of your talent philosophy as your operating system
for everything people, right?
It's gonna help you just make decisions based upon hiring,
performance, retention and development.
It must connect to your culture.
A mismatch is like saying
pe we are a people first organization while treating
employees as if they're replaceable.
It undermines engagement.
And most importantly, the strategy.
On the flip side, when aligned talent
philosophy becomes a strategic enabler.
So let's talk about some examples here, right?
So you have Netflix, I'm sure you all know pro sports team.
That's, you know, that's their model.
It values top performance, market pay,
and freedom with responsibility shaping their flat high
accountability org.
While Salesforce on the other side, um, emphasizes ohana
focusing on inclusion, long-term growth
and mobility, different philosophies,
but both are intentionally and tied to identity, okay?
As HR leaders, our role is to help define
or clarify our talent, philosophy
and partnership with the CEO and executive team.
And it's essential, I'm going to repeat essential
'cause this is the part that's often missed
that you bring senior leadership in
and they are aligned, right?
Once it's defined or design should reinforce it, right?
So this is what I was talking about,
or design being quite complex
because you're taking multiple things into consideration
so you really can truly unlock the potential
of the organization.
One question. Always design for
business success, not individual preference.
This is something that honestly, as much as it was,
you know, part of my learnings as as I went to higher ed
and also work, we, we often veer away from, right?
It could be, I'll give you examples,
which I'm sure you're all familiar with, right?
You're hiring executives you work
with in an executive recruitment firm,
which I highly recommend.
And what do those say? All right?
We're hiring our, um, chief, chief financial officer.
They'll say, okay, but they have to report to the CEO.
You're not gonna get anybody if it's not reporting.
That is not how you build your org design.
You build your org design based on the business,
not on preferences, right?
And that's where we get it wrong quite often.
So when you're building
and you're starting to think out what's gonna unlock your
strategy, what's gonna, um, enforce your culture?
All of these pieces, right?
You wanna make sure that you start building it
with no names, you are building it with what you need
to be successful.
So don't use names, use titles,
and just focus on the design.
That's the most critical part, right?
Start with what the business needs and then you align roles
and people accordingly.
Now, I just said that, and I'm gonna throw a wrench in.
There is an exception when you're working
with CEOs as well as founders.
And if, if you're in technology founders are critical
to this because their vision
and strength really sit at the heart of the company.
This is where you wanna be intentional
and you wanna take them into account
and build around them, right?
So you must be, you must incorporate them very thoughtfully.
For others, individual skills
and aspirations,
a hundred percent should be considered in execute, in
execution, not in the development,
but they shouldn't dictate the structure in short
design around the business.
But be mindful of people as you implement. Make sense?
Okay, now we're gonna talk about the importance of culture
and leadership styles, right?
Um, these are considered the soft elements,
but they have real hard consequences
for your organization's success.
So we think about culture. I'm sure everybody here knows
it's how we do things around here.
It influences whether people prefer clear instruction
or independent decision making.
For example, if you have a very entrepreneurial
fast moving culture, implementing a rigid
multi-layer bureaucracy will likely fail.
People will go against it, ignore it, or leave.
Now, if you are an organization that's growing,
this can be catastrophic.
If your people start leaving, we all have seen it.
They hold intellectual knowledge so often in single points
of failure, they leave.
And so does that knowledge. So it's critical.
It's really critical to align both.
In contrast, a very conservative culture.
Imagine a company that's in a highly regulated field.
It might struggle if you suddenly adopt a free form.
No titles, no rule structure, right? It's not gonna work.
Academic research and practical experience,
both show affect, culture,
and structure need to be in harmony.
One influences the other in a continuous loop.
Now, leadership style, particularly of the CEO
or founders, is a practical reality.
You must account for some CEOs are visionaries,
but others are detail oriented, others are micromanagers,
others are coaches and mentors.
These styles will naturally blend
with the structure around them.
If you have a CEO that wants
to be involved in everything, we've all been there.
They might insist on many direct reports
or being in every meeting, which can become,
I shouldn't say, which can, which will become a bottleneck.
Part of our role as HR
and as advisors is to guide our leaders towards a structure
that is, that that best serves the business.
And in these cases as well, them sometimes,
even when it different differs from their natural style
while still leveraging their strengths, which is important.
This can be one of the hardest jobs that we do.
But when done well, the impact is quite significant.
If you'd like, uh, if you'd like to learn more about that
and how to do it effectively, please feel free
to reach out to me on the side.
I'll be honest, I can't go any deeper
'cause it could be its own topic and webinar.
Okay? Now we continue the conversation.
Most important culture is not static, right?
It's evolving as a company.
Scales, structure and culture evolve with it.
Like let's take for example, if you have an early on, uh,
it could be a startup or it could be a small organization.
Open decision making works, right?
Everybody's involved in the decisions it's talked about.
Once you get, you can say , I'd even say once you get
to  employees, especially globally,
this creates real bot bottlenecks.
Anybody who's been part
of a growth organization knows what I'm talking about.
This is normal for growth companies, though.
There is a better way be proactive
to avoid this disruption.
We talked about operating models early on,
and this is a critical element, right?
So it how to act proactively is
by introducing lightweight guidance on how to manage, um,
how to manage decision making,
and then being intentional about, like I mentioned earlier,
roles and responsibilities early on.
This will preserve agility while enabling scale.
Right now, I'm gonna contradict myself. Culture isn't soft.
I know I said it earlier, but it isn't.
Over % of executives believe
a healthy aligned culture adds measurable business value.
It can either enable or honestly derail a strategy.
We are gonna move on to leadership
and its impact on culture.
Simply put, we all know this. Leadership matters.
Most employees leave their managers not their company.
It's a cri. It is critical to guide the CEO
and executive team to be very intentional,
not just about the company's values,
but also about the leadership tenets.
The leader Tenets are the behaviors
and practices that define
how leaders lead in your organization.
These tenets should be closely tied to your company's values
and they will guide how you hire, promote
and evaluate leaders together, they set the tone for how
structure actually works in practice,
this will help leaders understand expectations,
enable strong growth conversation,
and also creates, as I said
before, accountability, which is key.
When done right, it's a great attract for talent
and retention, which is an added bonus.
The key questions when designing the structure are,
does this reinforce the culture we want?
Does this reflect the leadership values
and capabilities We've defined?
If not, theor design will not stick
or worse, it'll create a culture clash
that undermines its performance.
Okay, so we've talked a lot about setup
and how you get here.
Now let's talk about org design in particular.
Let's talk about the different options
and the different scenarios we as HR executives
and leaders face, right?
So I wanna start with, many of us have worked
with a visionary, CEO.
If you haven't, I really hope you get an opportunity.
They're incredible to work with.
They are a bold, charismatic, and deeply passionate.
They can be the company's biggest asset,
but their strengths can sometimes create strain too.
Too many direct reports wanting every decision
or shifting priorities overnight.
You can't run a business this way.
The solution is often pairing the visionary
with an integrator.
The visionary generates the ideas,
the integrator drives execution.
If just like anything in doing this, you have
to define their roles.
Let's take an example, right?
If we think about jobs and cook at Apple
or Walton Ro Roy at Disney, Disney,
the integrator translates vision into action,
aligns the team and keeps operations steady.
If growth stalls
because the founder is in the weeds, that's the signal
To add an integrator, better known
as a chief operating officer, the goal is
to keep the founder in their genius zone,
key relationships, strategy, vision.
While a strong structure handles the rest done well,
it's a true win-win.
This is another example
of being very intentional about your company's direction
and building around what's going
to unlock your strategy while keeping your your CEO in mind.
Okay, now we go to structure,
cross-functional product teams, right?
One of the most effective shifts in product organization
has been moving from functional silos
to cross-functional product teams.
The old assembly line model where idea starts with product,
then moves to engineering, then goes to marketing.
We all know what that led to.
That led often led to slow cycles and misalignment.
The new model used by companies like Spotify, Amazon,
Google, create small squads or pods,
however you wanna call them, focused on product or feature.
These squads include engineers, a project manager,
designer, and others.
As they're needed. They are responsible from
end to end delivery.
Amazon calls 'em to pizza teams intentionally small
so they can move fast
and stay close, most importantly, to the customer.
Cross-functional teams will break silos.
They'll foster collaboration
and increase the key word accountability.
Each team has a clear owner that's typically a project.
Um, a product manager,
and I apologize, I said project manager.
It's project manager, manager
and product manager, um, who drives priorities and outcomes.
Alignment mechanisms like Spotify's chapters
and guilds keep expertise connected across squads.
This is important too, right?
So now you have collaboration
amongst departments happening in those quads.
Then it's also important to keep everyone connected.
For HR and leaders, this shift impacts hiring
and evaluation, right?
It again, these are all multifaceted By seeking now you
change what you're looking for.
Now you're seeking talent that has TT shape skillset.
What does that mean? They have depth in one skill, breadth
to collaborate, right?
So it's different. And often this emphasizes team outcomes
over individual ones.
So this is something to assess
during the hiring process as well as promotion.
Um, department heads still provide functional
excellence, but day-to-day te uh,
from a day-to-day perspective, teams operate
as many startups focused on speed and innovation.
Okay, now we're gonna organize for customer obsession.
Jeff Bezos said it best,
obsess over the customer, not the competitors.
Organizing for customer obsession means
it means structuring teams
and processes around the customer's experience,
not internal silos.
Traditional org charts think of, um,
often fail the customer.
Think of it as being bounced from sales to service
to billing to fix this.
Some companies use, um, journey focused teams.
What does that mean? Okay.
SaaS firms create customer onboarding groups
that own the first  days end to end of implementation.
This is measured by time to value
and onboarding satisfaction.
Now, in healthcare, let's take Kaiser for example.
They've integrated doctors, hospitals,
insurance under one roof,
and by doing so, they've improved outcomes
and satisfaction by removing silos.
A customer obsessed org also
institutionalizes feedback that's critical, right?
Getting feedback from your client.
So they often do this by a couple of different ways.
By having a chief customer officer,
this can be really critical and advisory board
or frontline empowerment to solve problems.
And when you think of those three options, it could also
depend on where you are, right?
If you're early on frontline empowerment is, is easy.
You don't wanna create layers as you start to grow.
When you think of your org design, the chief
customer officer becomes critical
that they're reporting into the CEO
and the CEO who's obsessed about customers is hearing
from that person, right?
So again, it's all being very intentional in
how we weave the organization together
to unlock that strategy.
Okay, so now we come to some add-ons, right?
So right here, as HR leaders, one of the most powerful parts
of our role is asking the right questions
to spark insights.
And most importantly, alignment in strategic discussions
with executives.
We can use these type of questions to diagnose issues
and guide thinking without being prescriptive.
This is meant to be a resource.
Therefore, I will not bore you with reading these out loud
if you're interested in receiving a copy
of this presentation.
Um, so that you have these I'll,
I'll give you more information on how to do that at the end,
but please definitely reach out
and a couple slides, I'll go through that.
Okay? Now we have best practices and frameworks to leverage.
We've covered a lot of ground conceptually
and through examples.
This slide serves as a reference of proven frameworks
and best practices you can draw upon to validate
and fine tune your organizational
design and operating model.
Think of it as your toolkit. In short, leverage these tools.
They provide validation.
So it's not just our gut feeling that this is the structure,
this is the right structure,
but also it aligns to known best practices
and they provide a method to the madness of org design.
We in HR, are uniquely positioned to bring these frameworks
to the table and educate our teams on them.
It elevates the conversation from just org charts
to organizational effectiveness.
Now, similar to the prior slide, please reach out so
that you can get the presentation in the toolkit.
Um, and please do so by either three means
utilize ex leadership's platform
and reach out to Zach or myself there.
You can find me as I mentioned on LinkedIn
and reach out to me there.
And you can also go to ic partners.com
and you can reach out to me via the website.
The website does have a lot of useful resources on there,
so I do encourage it.
So please feel free to do any one of those three things.
Okay, I took a lot of your time today,
so let's conclude right?
In conclusion, I want to emphasize overarching theme,
intentional design.
Great companies don't succeed by accident.
They build themselves for success.
Today, we talked about how to do that in terms of structure
and operations.
If you remember nothing else from this session, I hope
that you remember that alignment between strategy,
structure, culture and talent is paramount
to building a strong foundation to any business and agility.
The ability to adapt, adapt
and collaborate fluidly is a huge competitive advantage
in an ever fast pacing changing world.
I encourage you all as HR
and business leaders to be the champion
of these ideas in your organization.
Often HR has a unique cross-functional perspective
to see silos
or misalignments that others might not even notice.
Use that vantage point.
Ask the tough questions, bring the data,
bring the best practices and partner with your CEO
and department heads to tune your organizations for success.
Learning and adapting.
Never stop and keep listening to your teams.
They often signal when the structure is hindering them.
For instance, if you hear repeated complaints about slow
approvals or confusions in responsibilities, that's a flag
to investigate.
Utilize that feedback loop.
All right, thank you all for your time and engagement.
I hope this session has sparked some ideas
and tools to drive positive change within your organization.
Okay, Zach, there we go.
All right. Yeah, I love all the claps coming in
and the hearts keep that coming.
Let's give it up for Christina. That was incredible.
I mean, talk about the roadmap to kind of
how we can start to do this.
So thanks for breaking that down.
I would love to ask you just two follow up questions.
I'm really curious to get your perspective on just as,
as I was even thinking about some of the things some
of our members are going through
and some recent conversations I've had with, so a couple
of our, our executives in our leadership network.
One of the first things I wanted to ask you was about the,
the culture and the leadership style piece.
And you mentioned like this could be a whole
webinar on its own.
So I'm not asking you
to like go too deep down into it right now,
but I think I've heard from one member specifically
recently, like they've done maybe a good job on the strategy
standpoint or at least they've been doing a lot
of strategic planning, but they're struggling
with maybe the culture and the leadership philosophy,
philosophy piece and like how you linked it, it kind
of makes it hard for them to then get
to the org strategy piece as well, right?
So I'm just curious, like as a CEO or a leadership team,
or even for the people leaders who might wanna help try
to facilitate this with their leadership team,
how do you start to define that?
Like what are some things that people can start to do
to help understand their leadership philosophy
or their leadership style so
that they can have a productive org strategy
that gets developed?
Absolutely. And I wish I can say
that this came organically to me
and I just learned this and I thrived on it.
I felt I felt hard on my face, um, to be able
to learn how to manage this.
And honestly, the key is communication.
I'll go deeper though, right?
When you get into an organization, first
and foremost, what I'm gonna ask anybody
or you get promoted, take the time to learn.
Most importantly, people wanna feel respected.
So if you go into an organization
and your biggest, like what you're looking
to do is make impact, that's great.
But don't make impact by breaking others.
Understand what the organization offers, understand the good
and rise with the good.
Yes, there will be things,
that's why you're being brought in.
You're being brought in to fix,
but don't undermine what's already been built.
That's number one. Because that's gonna create trust
because the leaders are gonna respect, oh, okay,
this person's not coming in and throwing me under the boss.
This person's not coming in
and saying everything we created is crap, right?
So it starts to open up the gates to a relationship.
Secondarily, take the time to understand
and meet with the leaders and listen,
and I know that sounds obvious, but it's not.
We are not taught to listen.
We are taught to listen, to answer, to respond, to defend.
That is not listening, right? Remove that.
Think about your body language, everything,
and truly listen to understand, listen, to clarify,
it's a skill that's not easy to create.
I can, and it's great
because that actually helps in personal relationships too.
But by doing all these things, you start
to learn more about the organization
and the most critical aspect, their learning style.
Mm-hmm. I like to consider us as hr, HR professionals
as chameleons, right?
We're most successful when we can adapt
and adjust to our environments.
So for example, what does that mean in practice, right?
So if I enter an organization
and the CEO as well as a lot of the executives,
their engineers, I'm gonna make assumptions,
of course it doesn't apply to everybody,
but generally, right, they, they process information
through a systematic way
and typically they like paper,
they wanna know like give me a one pager
before the meeting so I can prep
and I can come with questions.
That's how they process information.
Now that's how you start to build trust.
Now that's how you start to open lines of communication
and then you can start now impacting for change, right?
It's gonna be different. If you have a customer said go
to market CEO,
he's gonna need something completely different.
It's important to know your audience.
So if I, I said a lot, I'm gonna bring it back up.
First and foremost, we are not perfect.
We do not know everything and we cannot fix everything.
Go into an organization, be open, learn
and appreciate what's been built there is always good,
even in the most toxic there is always good, right?
Bring out the good to open that relationship, sit back
and listen empathetically not to defend or respond
and then you'll understand
what their communication style is and build around it.
And honestly, that's where child GBT
or any type of AI becomes an enhancer.
Because now what I do is I'm not, I'm not an engineer.
I, you know, I'm full force, run, run, run, blah blah, blah.
I'm passionate. So then I say, okay,
put my communications in the AI tool of my choice.
Say okay, I am speaking
to someone who's learning style is x, y, z.
Help me take what I'm trying to say,
inform it in what's gonna be most well,
well received by them, right?
So I'm sorry I went deep into that one.
I mean that I made awesome answer and just like feedback
and guidance for all of you that
probably are trying to do that right now, right?
Like for all of you that at the beginning said like, yeah,
we're already doing  planning
or even looking into  in many cases.
Um, next step would be to kind of maybe go through
what Christina just shared
and what I liked about
how you're approaching this is we're not like attacking
someone's current leadership
and trying to change who they are as a being.
Like you're almost starting with their strengths
and just also from a curious mindset
to help them even discover how they are operating
and what they want to amplify in their own style.
So it's like you're not trying
to create defensiveness within the leadership team.
Trying to create buy
and trust, which you just like alluded to is so important
as a part of the process there.
So, um, that was amazing. Thank you so much.
And we're like almost outta time.
So I'm just gonna share two more links in the chat here
as we wrap up everyone.
Uh, first as Christina shared,
if you wanna access the slides
or if you wanna message her with more questions as well
as maybe a ton of other additional resources,
the first place to go would be our ex leadership network.
This is kind of like our next stage
of the achieving engagement community
where we can interact more as in a peer-to-peer model.
We also have a Q4 mastermind series
that kicks off next week,
which is very much like kick off the month
with strategic planning with a peer group that you can talk
through it, you know, workshop through barriers challenges
or how you would approach certain things.
So you can start there.
There is a membership option to join
that piece of the network.
Uh, and you can start with the  day trial.
So if you wanna do the first mastermind for free
and just test it out and get a feel for it as well
as access some of the resources
that we're gonna post from this session, do that in there.
The other thing I saw, some of you also came in
with some last minute questions,
which there was a heavy one.
I wish we had more time. Uh,
but message Christina directly, like reach out
to her via LinkedIn.
I just put her LinkedIn in the chat there
and send her some of these questions.
Like I love this one that was coming in around, uh,
how do you design this best when you have different types
of potentially like org structures
and cultures where some of them might be
like loose principles
and more empowerment based versus governance, right?
Like if that's your culture, then
how does the strategy change in that environment, right?
Like I'm even working with a nonprofit now
that is very much like anti governance, you know,
like they're very more like social activists
and have very passionate values.
So how do you create org structure
and a strategy when that's the environment?
So I'm sure a lot
of you are also having those same exact questions.
Christina's your person, reach out to her, ask her directly.
But Christina, thank you so much for doing this today.
This was a incredible session.
Oh, thank you so much. It was great meeting you all.
Hope to continue the conversation.
Alright everyone that wraps us up,
we'll send a follow up email with some of this as well, uh,
as well as the Sherman HRCI codes
and we'll get the recording out there soon as well.
But thank you so much for coming out
and uh, have a great rest of your days
and we'll see you at the next one.
Bye everyone.