building a culture of speed and adaptability in a highly matrixed-organization
CONTEXT
Scope: Organizational culture & network design
Client: Fortune 10 Company
Employer: McChrystal Group
Our Fortune 10 client was faced with the challenge of doubling earnings by 2025, but their traditional timeline for project completion – 8 to 10 years from site evaluations to fully operational facilities – exceeded the desired time horizon. This demanded a change in their operating model, which resulted in a formation of a new organization. Built from disparate groups that traditionally worked in siloes, the organization was building new processes and relationships in-flight.
As the project's research lead, I was responsible for developing our learning plan, acquiring and managing our data, conducting interviews, and directing our analysis. The primary tools for analysis were R, Python, Excel, and Gephi.
Qualitative analysis included interviews and open-ended text analysis from the survey (35 interviews)Network Analysis identified network influencers and collaboration patterns (n=405)Quantitative survey assessed respondents’ sentiments on organizational processes (n=405)METHODOLOGY
Through three discrete modes of analysis, we identified several key risks to the successful implementation of the new organizational structure.
These network maps represent information flow through an organization. A core-periphery network structure is reflected in the image: while the organizations' leaders (most green circles) were well connected with each other, they were isolated from the broader organization; other employees (all other colors) were struggling to connect with each other. This posed a risk to its success, as the isolation of the various groups impacted the speed at which the organization could respond to leaders demands.
For example, while the core team thought they had effectively communicated organizational objectives, open-ended responses from the survey suggested that many individuals within the core group were not even aware of the organization’s existence.
Based on our initial analysis, we recommended that they implement a series of forums intended to expedite information-sharing and joint-strategy review exercises to strengthen inter-divisional connectivity. A year after the original project, we analyzed the organization again to assess progress. Our longitudinal analysis identified an increase in overall network density, decreased separation between groups, and increased distribution of network influencers, which indicated that knowledge sharing processes had been democratized and good sources of information could be found across both divisions and levels.