Life in a Matrix

The 4th trend we see in managing in matrix organizations is a move toward higher levels of central control. This tends to lead to lower levels of empowerment and slower speed of response in companies with matrix organization structures.

There are many factors in complex companies that subtly undermine confidence and trust - when people do not respond as you expect, are they being uncooperative or is it time zones, distance, cultural differences etc.. that make them respond differently than you expect?

Of our 1200 Speed Survey participants - 34% think their company currently has too much central control (only 17% think too little) and 43% think the trend is towards more central control.

Unfortunately central control can lead to delay, cost and frustration as local people become dis-empowered and high levels of escalation back to the centre make the organization unresponsive and unable to make best use of local capabilities.

We think the problem is one of trust in local capability but we also believe that the right place to control is fast and close to the action.

Powerful trends towards centralization including a tough economic situation and regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley are making things worse.

The key to effective decentralization of control is to build capability first (you don’t want to empower idiots!) by building skill we build confidence and it is then easier to delegate and give real autonomy.

When we give autonomy we can expect more from our people and exercise real, immediate control at a local level - not 6 weeks later at HQ.

For coaching, training and consulting on how to do this, contact global integration now or read more about this in my book Speed Lead.

How do you deal with the control / autonomy dilemma in your matrix organization?

Desperately sad day yesterday saw my team Reading FC relegated from the Premiership on goal difference on the last day of the season. It was a long drive back from Derby.

What can we learn that applies to the world of work.

You need a balance of talent and teamwork. If you do not have enough individual talent leavened in your team all the motivation and effort in the world is not enough.

The loyalty of fans in football is very different from that of normal consumers. We will be back next year, just travelling to Barnsley rather than Old Trafford.

The way we address the complexity at the heart of our big picture and of our clients needs is to bring ideas, consulting and training in 4 key areas. The first of these is Cooperation.

We believe that there is too much cooperation going on in matrix and other complex organizations. People tell us there are too many teams and too many meetings and conference calls. Many of our clients introduced a matrix to increase cooperation across the traditional business silos, but the danger is that everyone becomes involved in everything.

The trick is to connect people only where it adds value but unfortunately teamwork has become a religion rather than a technique to be used selectively. 1200 of our speed survey participants tell us they spend 40% of their time in meetings and over half of this is wasted.

Our response to this is

1. Create simpler ways of working  less “spaghetti” team work and more “star” groups (see more about how to do this in the first 2 chapters of my book Speed Lead or some more background to the idea in the article The Teamwork Myth - please note this is 2MB so takes a while to download)
2. Apply this methodology systematically to produce fewer, better meetings, conference calls and teams.
3. Apply our speed techniques to faster delivery of teams and projects.

The result of this can be to save a day per week of unnecessary work and speed up the delivery of teams and projects by 25%.

If you want to create more effective cooperation in your matrix, or just to save a day per week why not ask a question here or contact us and find our more?

Number 5 in our summary of the matrix management skills covered in our skills for the matrix training course is influence without authority. In matrix organization structures people have competing priorities and demands on their time.

We may have solid line (direct reports), dotted lines (indirect reporting) and a plethora of virtual teams and projects. As an individual in a matrix organization I will have several people “bidding” for my time and attention. As a manager I will be trying to influence individuals who I have no traditional line authority over.

In this environment influence with authority becomes a core skill in getting things done.

The first thing to realize is that it is the individual resource doing the work who has to manage the trade-offs. If you have 3 bosses, all with competing demands the reality is that you are the one who really decides precisely how much effort and attention each strand of work receives.

Managers in this situation cannot just fall back on traditional line control (even if they have it) or the fact that a certain level of effort has been agreed with the individual’s line manager.  

Effective influence in a  matrix depends on 3 things.

1. Understanding what the individual values - a key mistake in influence is to offer what you think is valuable not what the individual you are trying to influence does.
2. Understanding what you have to offer. In many work activities there is “something in it for them” which will attract an individual to give the work more attention. It may be technical challenge, variety or just storing up favours for the future. Whatever it is (from the perspective of the individual remember), if you can identify it, you have a potential source of influence.
3. Understanding your sources of power. If you do not have traditional authority, you need to identify other sources of power to get things done; in a matrix two of the most powerful are expertise and the power of your personal network.

Not everyone finds this comfortable. We meet many managers who bemoan the loss of traditional power and authority and spend a lot of time fighting (vainly) to get back the sense of control they had in the past. We also meet individuals who feel uncomfortable at the pressure they are under to serve multiple bosses.

This is however the reality of matrix management.

What methods of influence and sources of power have you found effective? 

We have been doing some work with a company called Big Picture Learning who specialize in creating graphics to communicate complex issues quickly. Our big picture communicates what we at Global Integration see as the big issues in working in matrix and other complex organizations.

Part 1, at the centre of the graphic are the key drivers of complexity we deal with in our ideas, consulting and training work.  

These are the reasons organizations come to us and the areas we specialize in.

Matrix and virtual working are our 2 biggest area of operations but companies tend to approach us when they have either reached a level of scale and complexity where their people managers need new skills (such as greater international integration or the introduction of a matrix organization) or when a trigger event like a major merger or reorganization makes them realize that they need to tune-up the capability of their people to cope with new levels of complexity and challenge.

The big picture also summarizes the key themes in my book Speed Lead- faster, simpler ways to manage people, projects and teams in complex companies.

I will post the other 4 panels of the graphic over the next week or so and the complete image at the end of the series.

If you are can’t wait to build the skills your people need then contact us now.

I seem to have met a lot of project managers this year and in recent weeks I have spoken at a couple of events for project managers working in matrix organization structures. It seems project management is on the rise. Is it a good thing in a matrix organization, or is there also a dark side?

It is clear that project management is an important element of operating a matrix. The additional focus and emphasis these roles give to major projects being run across the organization can be invaluable in making things happen. There are also many activities that lend themselves to being managed as discrete projects.

A great advantage of project management in the matrix is that managers can (usually) focus just on delivering a specific piece of activity and not get sucked into all the day to day complexity of the matrix.

But it also seems to me that project management is being used as a prop to support weak “lateral” management in the matrix structure. When they are unable to get things done they appoint a project manager to push work that should be delivered in the course of their normal management jobs.

Symptoms I have seen include

• very large numbers of project managers being appointed (up to the hundreds in one case)
• project managers bringing additional “governance” to activities - more meetings, reporting, control etc.. (which as we have seen can make activities slower, less satisfying and more expensive)
• project managers ignoring people development and other longer term issues in their focus on short term deliverables (which to be fair is their job - but the power of projects can tip the balance away from longer term development)
• normal management activities being re-badged as “projects” because the managers nominally responsible are weak or have not achieved their objectives.

Have you seen these symptoms in your organization? Do you think project management is under or over used?

An, often unintended, consequence of matrix organization structures is that the real decisions about trade-offs and priorities are made where reporting lines intersect - at middle management levels (what I call the matrix middle). This means that matrix organizations are effectively led from the middle. The matrix management skills of middle managers are the most important factor in making the structure really work. 

Now delegating responsibility is fine, providing we also give these middle managers the information, skills, authority and confidence to make decisions. If we do not then we can expect to see high levels of escalation that will lock up the matrix and make progress slow and hard to achieve.

In a previous post I wrote about why senior managers underestimate the impact of a matrix, for them the primary loyalty is to the “global”; priorities, objectives and perspectives are usually aligned to the central organization’s goals. At the other end of the scale most people have local jobs (even in the most global companies 80-90% of people look after local customers, work in factories, offices, stores etc.. with a local focus)

The matrix middle sit between these two groups and have to find the right balance between the global and the local on a daily basis.

Number 1 tip on making your matrix organization structure work - invest in the development of the the matrix middle.

What does your company do to make the matrix middle’s life easier?

T5 turned out to be a pleasant surprise. With online check-in and hand luggage the trip through to airside was very fast. The building is pretty impressive and there were no obvious design flow problems and some improvements - for example you move from the check-in desk straight forward (no fighting your way back through the queue) to the security area.

Lots of space and seating and the lounges are huge. Hope it all runs smoothly when you use it too.

This week I will be travelling to San Francisco (where our US office is) , Napa Valley (for my USA team meeting - though I suspect wine tasting may break out) and to Oregon to meet with a new client - more on this when I get back.

I am a pretty regular traveller, for years in my corporate career I averaged 3 countries a week and often in developing regions where air travel was unreliable and sometimes downright scary.

But on Monday I will face a new travel challenge - Heathrow Terminal 5. I am leaving this message in the hope that if I have not posted in 10 days or so, someone will notice and send a search party.

I managed to schedule travel for the last month to actively avoid the new terminal - there are always teething problems with a big new project to be fair but this one seems to be particularly bad. On the other hand the UK press are rabid in portraying any negative aspects so half of me thinks it will be fine.

With hand luggage only (I can work for a week and run 2 training courses out of cabin luggage) and online check-in we should be OK. I will let you know how it goes.

One of the biggest differences in working and managing in a matrix organization structure is the fact that we may have multiple bosses.

Traditional hierarchy (literally “holy-order”) existed for thousands of years based on a single, clear line of command and control. It lasted so long for a good reason - it worked.

In a matrix we recognize that the world has become more complex and that there are multiple perspectives and priorities. We recognize this in our organization structure with multiple reporting lines to several bosses who reflect the different interests of functions, geography, product line, technology etc.. etc…

These multiple reporting relationships can cause real problems - particularly if the managers’ ideas and objectives are not aligned, and even worse, if they hate each other.

 I sometimes compare this situation with my family. When my kids were young they would come to me and ask “Dad can I do this?” My first response was “What did your mother say?” because I know that, in a family matrix, alignment is essential otherwise the kids will end up doing what they want.

Unfortunately in a corporate context, when an individuals tells one boss what the other has said the response is often ”what does that idiot know about priorities, you should concentrate on what I say!” This can put the individual in an untenable position

Here are some tips on managing multiple bosses from our skills for the matrix training program

• Get onto your managers’ shoes - see your role from their perspective and priorities
• Create a summary of each managers objectives, style and preferences and in particular any areas where their priorities conflict or intersect (what we call the “pinch points”)
• Be explicit about how you will work with each of them, how much time they can expect, how often you will meet with them, define your service level standards etc..
• Make explicit any differences on expectations so that each of them is clear about what you can and cannot do (often managers are only aware of the workload that they create so may not appreciate how busy you are on other priorities).
• Keep your manager informed, nobody likes to be surprised so keep them in the loop in critical areas - “earn the right to be left alone” by building their confidence in you.

The biggest sign that things are going wrong is high levels of escalation- make a note of the issues you have to escalate so you can discuss recurring problems with your bosses (more on escalation in a later post)

If you feel pulled in different directions like the person in our first matrix cartoon on alignment then this is also a clue

I once asked a boss of mine in my corporate career who was head of a global function how I could manage the 2 most senior executives in the organization when they got involved in issues - his best advice was to try and be in a  different continent from the one they were in at all times - I guess this helps too.

You may also enjoy these 2 articles I found on the two-boss scenario and juggling your work for multiple bosses

There is not much literature on this topic but one book  have seen is Managing multiple bosses by Patricia Nicholson I read it some time ago and remember it as being OK for an introduction to the topic.

What have you learned about managing multiple bosses in a matrix organization?