Life in a Matrix

In complex companies we are connected to many teams and networks and the people we work with tell us they spend about 2 days per week in meetings and conference calls and 50% of this is irrelevant.
This means that many of us spend 8 years of our career in unnecessary meetings and calls – and some [...]

 Episode 2 - Dismal meetings, surprisingly useful coffee breaks [8:04m]: Download

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Thanks to Green Pointe Partners blog post Matrix management resources and the kind mention – some good links there to articles on Matrix Management.
One particular one worth looking at is the Smith & Nephew cast study article on some practical issues they experienced in matrix management in the corporate accounts sales process.
Enjoy

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I just got back last night from an enjoyable trip to work with a new global team meeting  face to face for the first time in the north of Scotland. We worked on many  of the classic issues of working in complex and distributed teams but the venue made an important difference.

The castle we held the meeting [...]

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Is matrix management to blame for problems at UK Customs & Excise?
 
When HMRC, a UK government department lost computer discs carrying the personal data of 25m people last year, the incident was blamed on mistakes by junior officials. But a report just published focuses its criticism not so much on individuals as on the “unsuitable organizational [...]

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At Global Integration we have just completed a flash movie introduction to what we think are the main issues in matrix management – managing people in large, complex, virtual and matrixed organizations.
You can either

Press the play button underneath the image below – this will play the show within  this blog page
Or for a bigger full screen [...]

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Regular readers will know that we think there is too much cooperation going on - and this is the subject of the first episode of our new free podcast series
 
A subset of this is the seemingly overwhelming urge to share information.
 

 
How often on our conference calls do we experience a moment like the one [...]

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Right at the very top of organizations the matrix structure may have relatively little impact – after all everyone still works for you! This can lead to senior mangers underestimating the degree of difficulty their colleagues face in matrix management and in making the matrix organization structure work in practice.
The role of senior matrix leaders is, however, [...]

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