Taming the Matrix Organization -- to Overcome Inertia and Implement Change
Accountability is a near-fiction in today's complex organizations. Too many individuals can weigh in to veto change. What needs to be done?
Credit: John O’Brien, The New Yorker, The Cartoon Bank
Matrix organizations are so common today that few individuals remember the days when there was one near-god executive in charge of a business or a client relationship or an office or an agency. Everyone reported to The Leader. The Leader was responsible for strategy, operations and results. If you worked directly for The Leader, you were part of a special club of individuals “in the know.” Chances are you were developing or working confidentially on a major change program — a new strategy, an acquisition, a new organizational structure, an expansion of the business in new directions or something else — not yet ready to be announced.
As a management consultant, I worked on many change programs, hired directly by corporate Leaders. During my years at Bain & Company, we would work directly for Chief Executive Officers, who sponsored and paid for our work. This was then a matter of Bain policy, clearly articulated by Bill Bain in the early days of the firm.
CEOs had private slush-funds for consultants; invoices were sent directly to CEOs and paid immediately. There were no procurement individuals, fifty-page master service agreements, approved supplier lists, purchase orders or six month delays in getting hundreds of approvals up and down the chain of command before any work could begin.
I’m not romanticizing or suggesting a return to those days. But it was fun and effective.
Getting things done is not easy today. Organizations have become multi-dimensional “networks” of executives or employees who are seen to have expertise in one dimension or another. The “network” is like an unruly democratic organization, made up of constituencies whose goals and priorities are in conflict with those of others. Networks are like herds of proverbial cats. Organizations are like Excel sheets, with rows and columns of cells filled with executives and employees. Does an individual report the row-boss — or to the column-boss? Or to both?
Meetings — the bane of most executives, who no longer control their days, their calendars or their priorities — require the attendance of 10-20 individuals, all of whom are required to weigh-in on whatever the meeting is about. A typical day at work is a day filled with meetings organized by the matrix.
The attendees at these “network meetings” report back to their respective bosses, and if change is afoot, the bosses will want to know what was said, what is likely to happen, and whether or not the attendee “did and said the right thing” to protect the boss’ interest in the outcome.
I once worked with a major ad agency CEO who wanted to implement a new policy: “Every client we serve will have its Scopes of Work (SOWs) documented in a uniform agency way across our global network of offices. No exceptions, even if our clients require us to document SOWs in their systems.”
A representative “Network Task Force” was appointed by the CFO, who was given this task by the CEO. Ten individuals were appointed, across offices and disciplines. Their brief:
Consider the proposed SOW policy.
Make recommendations about its implementation.
The Network Task Force found fault with the proposed SOW policy, finding that it would require too much work for Client Service people. These account people would have to become familiar with their SOWs, to document them in a uniform way and then to use the information to discuss the SOWs with their clients. Very little of this was being done at the time, which is why the CEO proposed the new policy.
The matrix organization had other ideas.
The Task Force felt that the Client Service people were already “too overworked.” They decided to protect these people from more work rather than implement an important SOW initiative.
The matrix organization, acting as if it had a monopoly on “truth” for the organization, rejected and embarrassed the CEO.
This outcome was, unfortunately, accepted by the CEO, who ratified the impotence of his leadership on this issue.
Matrix organizations will default to the status quo. Matrix organizations are conservative. They safeguard the current ways of doing business rather than propose new ways of working that may make their constituents uncomfortable (or, even worse, redundant).
What are the lessons for C-Suite Executives who wish to implement change?