how to influence in a matrix organization

Indeed, 87% of individuals in companies where objectives and incentives are not aligned rate the ability of individuals in their company to influence others as poor or only moderate., All too often, however, such training is focused on helping people to be more persuasive and better at getting others to agree with them. Bank of Americas A. W. Clausen recently described to Forbes his ten-year effort to move loan officers from the traditional industry concerns with building loan volume to the pursuit of profit. In Phase 2, matrix was embraced by an influential minority of large and sophisticated companies as the only organizational answer. In the absence of clear lines of authority, and without the ability to effectively collaborate to harness differences to their advantage, organizations struggle to make decisions efficiently and execute effectively. Here are a few project management software options you can check out to make matrix management work for your team. The philosopher Arthur Koestler, a student of fundamental phenomena, has pointed out: All complex structures and processes of a relatively stable character display hierarchic organization, regardless of whether we consider galactic systems, living organisms and their activities, or social organizations.8 8.Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up, London, UK: Hutchinson & Co, 1978, p. 31. What kinds of styles of signals were sent out by the key management actors in previous years? Second, we wanted to discover to what extent current theory might be borne out by actual corporate experience. A new paradigm for influence one built not on extracting agreement from others, but on embracing differences while engaging on joint problem-solving. California Management Review is a premier academic management journal published at UC Berkeley, by Inspiring:Getting people excited about your idea. Furthermore, embrace technology and use it to your advantage. At IBM, partial reorganizations regularly shift attention temporarily to one new thing or another. We dont even have information systems that report it in several places. They possess the ability to make decisions quickly and execute with efficiency, and to engage in continuous learning and innovation. Discover our latest thinking and experience on matrix management from working with hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of participants in workshops on this topic around the world. This highlights a fundamental leadership challenge that organizations must acknowledge: Matrix structures are hard. By sharing your email, you agree to ourPrivacy PolicyandTerms of Service. Your information will be used to send you emails in relation to your product or resource. cmr@haas.berkeley.edu Tom Peters was a principal in McKinseys San Francisco office, who served at the firm from 1974 to 1981. (eg, Cost cutters are the real winners.), What is the view toward risk? Despite many differences of focus and emphasis, we found they held in common an underlying set of concepts. But hands-on management of the major thrust can be much more than a supplement to formal systems; it can become the primary shaping and guiding force of the enterprise. Moreover, even the matrixs strongest advocates warn of various obstacles to implementation.3 3. Koestler argues that the fundamental feature of hierarchies is the polarity between the self-assertive tendency and the integrative tendency.. These softer forms of power are extremely useful in large complex organization as they sit in the background subtly influencing decisions its the way we do things around here and just as this power becomes more useful it becomes more difficult to develop in large, diverse, matrixed and multi-site organizations where true values may be different and developing a common approach is more time consuming and expensive. Stakeholder management is a dynamic, three-step process: 1. A decision matrix can help you evaluate the best option between different choices, based on several important factors and their relative importance. Reorganization, as they see it, is no more than a means of enhancing organizational effectiveness over the short-to-medium term in response to changing internal and external pressures. There are perhaps six critical tests of the possible thrust: Once the thrust has been selected, it must be identified and announced. Team building and conflict management became the order of the day. But the same drama will continue to be played out. 2. Paradoxically, however, the flexible organization must be underpinned by a unified value system geared to long-term continuity in order to secure the commitment of its members in this turbulent environment. And doesnt matrix occasionally work? Normative based on values and right to manage most people accept that there needs to be some authority in organizations and many will buy in to the values of good organizations they work for. First we have to realize which of these types of power we have access to to get things done. Three years later, however, the company was losing momentum faster than before. What is called for is, in fact, the antithesis of undirected restlessness. Are Tech Layoffs a Major Disruption or a Just Minor Course Correction from Past Excesses? Massive shakeups can be engineered on the same envelope by replacing solid lines, symbolizing authority and responsibility, with dotted ones, signifying merely the right to advise and consult. If you want to find out more about how you develop and elevate your teams communication skills to be more effective you canfind out more here. Structure is only one of several levers available to the senior executive who seeks to rechannel (and thereby enhance) the energies of a ponderous organization. They do not seek to achieve responsiveness through major structural shifts. Alfred Sloan decentralized General Motors because he could not coordinate the detailed strategies of an agglomeration of car companies, each of which he hoped would eventually dominate its own markets. Influence without authority is a core skill in managing in a matrix organizations structure and is one important element included in our matrix management training program. Its central conceptthat simultaneous decisions can routinely be made along multiple dimensions with fragmented accountabilityoverestimates the information-processing capacity of most human brains and the problem-solving capability of most social systems. Ltd 2023. The last point provides an important clue to alternative strategies. Trust and credibility:If youve helped others in the past, youve developed trust which can be repaid. One way to communicate effectively is to have a well-coordinated communication plan. But unless the management of implementation becomes the dominant preoccupation of senior management, little changes. The operators and their analytic guns sat on the other. One of todays most renowned students of organization, Nobel laureate Herbert Simon, provides a compelling theoretical framework supporting a similar point of view. Top managers were spending more time than ever before in meetings or in airplanes taking them to and from meetings. A matrix structurewith its multiple, informal links across customer groups and functional, geographic, and product domains of the firm, as well as its limited influence of central authorityrepresents a functional form that encourages an organization's members to increase communication and coordination across organizational boundaries, promote . Multi-site and remote working makes this one more difficult to apply in complex companies so when you do have the opportunity of presence use it to top up the tank of goodwill and reinforce relationships not to deliver PowerPoint presentations to darkened rooms. Problems arising from product-line growth and attendant shorter life cycles called for more attention by headquarters to various engineering and manufacturing issues. The chronicler of events, as many commentators have noted, also has the opportunity to single out and call attention to his own themes. For most the move proved successful; strategies became more coherent and divisional managers could be held broadly accountable for their operations. Tom Peters on leading the 21st-century organization, Harnessing the power of informal employee networks, The past and future of global organizations, Cheryll Barron, Format fears at Philips,, Charles G. Burck, How GM turned itself around,, Stephen A. Allen, Organizational choices and general management influence networks in divisionalized companies,, Stanley M. Davis and Paul R. Lawrence, Problems of matrix organizations,, Theodore Levitt, A heretical view of management science,, Norman McRae, The coming entrepreneurial revolution: A survey, the, What do most down-the-line managers perceive the organizations general approach to business to be? Managers can redirect an organizations attention by changing the nature of the questions they ask. Taking advantage of this opportunity, one president sends out three or four notes after each meeting, with a circulation of 10 to 15, on things that he liked in presentations and discussionsat least half to junior participants. There are many ways enterprises choose to define a matrix structure. This does little to break the cycle of conflict that arises as people with different goals, and different ideas about how to achieve them, seek to operate effectively within matrixed organizations. When people think influence is about getting others to agree, giving them better skills to do so does little to enable them to leverage differences for better decision-making, for learning, and for innovation. But trouble arises when multiple functions are unable to balance competing objectives and synthesize conflicting points of view to advance the goals and success of the enterprise as a whole.. There emerged a common theme from our interviews: Stop worrying about permanent structures; concentrate on temporary systems to achieve a limited agenda.. Being open rather than defensive when others disagree embracing and leveraging differences unlocks learning and innovation.. In the words of Harvards Theodore Levitt: Model builders seek to simulate everything from cash flows to balance sheets twenty years hence to next years labor negotiations. For instance, an historically finance-oriented companys presentations are largely vast arrays of numbers. Too often, what tardily emerged from the decision process was a lowest-common-denominator political compromise. Refocusing a large organizations attention on a new theme is no simple task. Organizational influence are the characteristics or attributes of an organization and the impact they have on the people and work completed within, including project management. As he now explains: I wanted the word to get around our organization that Im aware of whats going on. Ashs next dramatic step toward reshaping the companys attitudes will be to move its headquarters to Los Angeles. As a result, neither staff (planning) nor line (division management) could be held clearly responsible for medium- or longer-term performance. A matrix organization is defined as one in which there is dual or multiple managerial accountability and responsibility. Others are detailed persistent intervention in the daily routine, and the calculated use of signals that will be credible in the light of the organizations history and culture. It is those we shall now explore. And so on. I mentioned earlier that collaboration is a great way of influencing. Specialization of labor means that goals and priorities will never really be perfectly aligned. Second we have to consider what will be the consequences of using this style of power on our followers this is rarely taken into account. Thats three times as many as two years ago.. In most such cases, however, there is a time, before the calcification of the culture has gone too far, when less drastic action can save the day. In a matrix organizational structure, the authority of a functional manager flows downwards, while the influence of the project manager flows horizontally. What Is A Matrix Organization? Insoluble conflict? The postwar boom and subsequent economic growth led to mushrooming product lines and organizational complexity. But that begs the question of how they learned to cope. Gamesmanship and political jockeying were widespread. Central staffs will always seek to grow and assert control over a division. Employees will report directly to two or more managers. Adding influence to the Stakeholder Analysis Adding influence lines to the Power and Interest matrix lends a subtlety and depth to your analysis by revealing the importance of Stakeholders within each box in the matrix. Using place. Leading teams in a matrix structure is very different to leading a team in the traditional business hierarchy. Under the time-honored principle of management by exception, the organization runs itself until divergence from plan triggers off a warning signal. Executives time can be spent most effectively on activities characterized by a succession of small, discrete events, occurring rapidly enough to demonstrate movement and provide opportunities for visible feedback. It was tougher than ever to get products to market; new product opportunities were slipping by time and again because engineering would never let go. This traditional style of power may no longer be available to you, strong worker protection in some parts of the world, or the need to retain talented people may mean this style is normally unacceptable. Employee Satisfaction And Economic Uncertainty Can They Work Together? Roy Ashs multiple tactics for redirecting attention at Addressograph-Multigraph are instructive. Weak/functional matrix: A project manager with only limited authority is assigned to oversee the cross- functional aspects of the project. . Rather, the CEO will nudge the organizations attention toward the new theme by asking himself how (by down-the-line appointments, by a noticeably large dose of capital in a previously undernourished area?) Your information will be used to send you emails in relation to your product or resource. GallupsGlobal State of the Workplacereport highlighted that a dismal 14% of employees in Australia feel engaged. This, in fact, is one weakness of the matrix structure: since everything is tightly wired up, all issues on the agenda are in a sense perpetually up for grabs. The key to success in the purposeful management of change is probably timing. In the course of a year, he may send thousands of such personal signals to various parts of the organization. There can be little doubt of the success of this approach; in a recent comprehensive survey, a majority of the chief executives polled ranked GM first among US companies on two counts: having a coherent management philosophy and a high caliber of top and middle management. These are among the few elements that can still be centrally controlled in the vast empire that is now GM. Economist Kenneth Arrow observes: There is a real value to putting an item on the agenda. In a matrix organisation, leaders need to make the effort to connect with staff and understand the issues affecting them. This may sound like a cheap shot, but frequently the top team can give a theme life and credibility merely by touching on it. The task of the executive becomes that of managing the tension between fast-paced external shifts and the requirements of internal stability. It changed its short-term strategy to one of expanding into a related line where its low-cost tradition would pay off. Sloan was the first to identify the conscious management of that shifting balance as the CEOs key task. He is the author of numerous books on business management, including his seminal work, coauthored with Robert H. Waterman Jr., In Search of Excellence: Lessons from Americas Best-Run Companies (Harper & Row, 1982). Youre not the only leader who thinks their outcomes are the most important, so how do you leverage influence with your audience to achieve your goals without direct authority over staff? In short, the players werent ready. What Is a Matrix Organization? Influence is the art of boosting the importance of your ideas or projects within an organisation with many competing priorities. Knowing the responsibilities and skills of other leaders is essential because youll understand how your work affects them and more importantly, how they might be able to help you. One vivid instance of the matrix malaise is reported in a recent article by Cheryll Barron in the British journal Management Today. Systems, especially planning systems, readily become the focus of organizational gamesmanship. However, the more sophisticated organizations are no longer (if they ever were) pursuing the one right structure. A well-known wisecrack describes the matrix as an organizational design where everyone can say no and no one can say yes. Based on the findings of our multi-year study of organizational effectiveness, that joke succinctly captures daily life at many companies. Paul Sticht, Business Week reports, has turned R. J. Reynolds from a decentralized holding company into a centrally-run marketing company in five years. Leaders who havent built relationships, earned trust or gained credibility will be on the back foot straight away when it comes to influencing. This is great if you can develop it and we can all work to improve this one by earning respect. Clearly, something had to be done to regularize matters again. Its success rests on the same delicate balance between the powers of persuasion and coercion that underline GMs basic system.2 2.Charles G. Burck, How GM turned itself around, Fortune, January 16, l978, p. 86. This is a key part of your communicators roadmap. Up through the early 1950s, most companies were functionally organized. For example, a consumer-goods company designed a strategy to expand its product line as competition closed in on its historically successful bread-and-butter item. 34165. The way we do business has changed dramatically, and many could argue thatleadership development that builds the ability to communicate with influencehas never been so important. The Employment Act of 1946 amounted to nothing more than a statement that full employment was at last on the Federal agenda. Indeed, a look at the postwar evolution of corporate structuresfrom functional to divisional to matrixsuggests that the end of the line has been reached. The most obvious difficulty is geographical. Marketing and purchasing, for instance, have been substantially centralized. Vertical roles are the most familiar the coach (referred to as the boss in Vertical Management or Matrix Management 1.0) and the direct report. The new CEO contrasted it with presentations from two renowned marketing-oriented companies whose communications focus on customers, products, and the competition. Staff need to feel engaged and have a sense of belonging. The postwar boom and subsequent economic growth led to mushrooming product lines and organizational complexity. When differences arise and disagreement occurs, we need to think of influence not as a matter of seeking agreementfromothers, but rather seeking itwiththem. We need to focus not only on being persuasive, but also on being open to persuasion. Our historical cost advantage is lost; the only way we can stay in the ball game is to optimize our production facilities worldwide., But you cant close the Livorno plant! In part, of course, their inherent instability is due to changes in the competitive or regulatory environment. Systems snare management at many levels; senior executives, for example, too often take what is put before them at face value, without asking what hidden assumptionsassumptions made, perhaps, by a blinkered staff analyst four layers downunderlie those plausible projections. Indeed, the shape of the organization chart is less and less relevant to their solution. The matrix design keeps open communication between teams and can help companies create more innovative products and services. Its part of the new CEOs plan to keep things moving and to kill the fear of change. (eg, The old man preaches line autonomy, but there are six guys he talks to before hell authorize a $25 dinnerand every damn one of them is staff.). Consider the following: The most successful companies, notes Economist editor Norman McRae, have been those restless enough to be unsure what their management styles should be. 1. If matrixleadershipis confusing for you as a leader, spare a thought for the employees reporting to multiple managers. We are deep content experts in remote, virtual and hybrid working, matrix management and agile & digital leadership. Instead, differences specifically, the inability to embrace and reconcile them represent an enormous challenge for most companies, their leaders, and employees at all levels. Diversity can play an important role in helping people to develop matrix-related competencies, such as the ability to listen with respect to different. (See chart, Contrasting approaches to influence, which describes typical actions and outcomes of these behaviors.). They should be unobtrusive, yet ultimately pervasive in their impact. Structure is crucial, but unchanging structure is a snare and a delusion. By contrast, command-and-control is a much simpler way to lead. So he took the plunge. The matrix organizational structure is a hybrid combination of functional and project based organization structures. In the matrix, the strict chain of command is broken up. A Framework for Orchestrating Industrial Ecosystems, Berkeley-Haas's Premier Management Journal. The answers to the following questions can give a fairly precise measure of a chief executives opportunities to bring about significant change: When these questions are not asked, a company can find itself unprepared to execute the changes it hopes to bring about. Learning and development in communication is the key to cut-through, 4 Secrets Of Effective Leadership & How To Learn Them. A stakeholder map is a visual, four-quadrant influence-interest matrix used in project management to identify stakeholders and categorize them in terms of their influence and interest in the project. Indeed, in the latter case the structure often fits the basic strategy like a glove; hence its continuing success. If I was trying to build a power base to get things done as a matrix manager I would focus on expertise and relationships as a great place to start if you have traditional authority, that is a bonus in the matrix structure. Ensure that teams are more diverse. The number of SBUs was increased sixfold, not because of market pressure but in order to raise the level of excitement again for another five years. What types of power work best in your company? Quick. Becoming a strong communicator and influencer could be the key to getting your proposals, ideas and projects over the line when you dont have direct authority over teams. Haas School of Business But those that opposed it so violently were not deceived; in the long run, this recognition was decisive. Everyone would have to talk to everyone else. At its worst, selling spawns conflict, stalemate, and gridlock. They build intricate decision trees whose pretension to utility is exceeded only by the awe in which high-level line managers hold the technocrats who construct them.5 5.Theodore Levitt, A heretical view of management science, Fortune, December 18, 1978, p. 50. See an interactive graphic of our matrix management learning path and the content of our training modules on these topics. Complexity in the matrix can become a grinder that undermines morale, damages relationships, and makes execution of even routine tasks unnecessarily difficult and inefficient. Coercive use of, or threat of force. The focus can be shifted; the stage set can be arranged. Consulting and collaborating: Asking for help or involving others can create an attachment to your idea. It is the painstaking infusion of tension to bring about the kind of dynamic imbalance that has always been the hallmark of the successful, growing organization. Increasing your influencing skills is integral when it comes to succeeding in matrixleadership. Research from theHarvard Business Review(HBR)shows that only 9% of employees consistently demonstrated self-awareness. Division presidents will always protect their direct reports from central-staff pressures. Running an effective & engaging virtual meeting. Our audiences span all levels, from CEOs to operational teams around the world. As the snippets of data reviewed above suggest, growing organizations are always in motion. Working at cross-purposes, they often end up in interpersonal conflict. Typically, businesss response went through three phases. Surprisingly, perhaps, we found no basic differences between our two sets of respondents with respect to one central issue: Organizational restructuring is no longer the answerif it ever wasto the most difficult problems of shifting organizational focus. While he must not get too far out in front of the organization, he must also take care not to sound like the voice of yesteryear. Its an awful task to contemplate. The first three traditional types of power have been rather undermined in the matrix organization structure. Many leaders communicate only when they need to, but to succeed in a matrix organisation, communication needs to be more deliberate. Monsanto reorganizes like clockwork each year. Podio: communication and collaboration. But a model of influence based on compliance leaves an enormous amount of value on the table, and is more likely to undermine collaboration across organizational . For one thing, we definitely feel it is a disadvantage not to be responsible for saleswe have people who dont feel the need to sell the product tomorrow, and yet have part of the responsibility for profits. When selling behavior predominates at scale across an organization, it produces (at best) sub-optimal compromise. Identify your alternatives. Stakeholders have power. At times, cultural constraints can be so binding that only radical surgerya change of CEOs and a massive dose of new bloodwill suffice. One observer in a large company recalls: The breakfast meetings were the breakthrough. The result is a blizzard of plans, committees, interfaces to be checked out, and papers justifying everything. The Power/Influence Grid, which is also known as the Power/Influence Matrix in stakeholder management, is a simple tool helps you categorize project stakeholders by the power and influence they have on the project. (eg, We talk profit, but we eat, sleep, and breathe share.), To what extent is the company really decentralized? One of the companies we investigated, for example, has a broad slate of commodity-like products. No structural solutionsleast of all overdetermined structures like matrixcan ever resolve the healthy, coherent tension between centralization and decentralization. Relationship The power of trust, shared goals, sense of identification. 38% of our study participants respond that the dominant influence mode at their company is selling trying to convince others why your idea is best and/or how it will benefit others to agree with you or provide support. The matrix organization is the structure uniting these other organizational structures to give them balance. Participating agents are constrained by their specialization and role within the organization, but their influence varies . The Interest / Influence Grid helps classify project stakeholders by their Interest and Influence in an engagement. We dont use the phone. Its about listening too. Strategy Making in the Boardroom: Do Directors Really Need to be Independent? Four more useful types of power to develop in a matrix organization structure include: Expert power from superior knowledge, skills & abilities. Breaking the hold of everyday systems execution is not easy. Its also quite simply a great (and necessary) way to get things done. When you have a disconnect between managers and staff, productivity takes a big hit. But the objectives of these efforts were unclear, and the headaches only got worse. Tie that in with aLinkedInreport which found 48% of staff see transparent communication as a key to feeling they belong, and you can see why a strong communication strategy is one of the most importantleadershipqualities you could have. Leaders need togenuinely engage with employees, particularly front-line staff who make the business run. 1. Management can keep ahead of the process only by constant, deliberate experimentation with new organizational missions and themes. I get calls from my 12 division presidents each month, telling me about last months sales, profits, and cash flow, says a president. His predecessors had always summoned support from the headquarters building which had long lived up to its official name, The Tower. Using this structure prevents teams from needing to realign every time a new project begins. . The Dark Side of Generative AI: Automating Inequality by Design, 38% of respondents reported working in a highly matrixed organization, An additional 52% reported working in a somewhat matrixed organization, Even at organizations with fewer than 100 employees, 67% of respondents reported their organization was somewhat or highly matrixed, Unclear roles paralyze decision-making, delay execution, and spawn conflict and frustration, Individual contributors and managers at multiple levels grapple with multiple reporting lines, a lack of dedicated staff, and extended, virtual teams comprising individuals pulled in different directions even as they are expected to work closely together to achieve common objectives, Everyone, from senior leaders on down, struggles to work with others who have different goals, priorities, and operating procedures, Nearly six times more likely to report that joint problem-solving is the dominant mode of influence in their organization, Nearly three times more likely to report that it is.
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