My observation is that there are intrinsic characteristics of R&D organizations and the scientists, technicians, and engineers who typically staff these enterprises, which are favorable to organizational success generally and to matrix management success, particularly:

1. Practitioners typically exhibit uncommon passion for their quests; they are adamant in their zeal to achieve breakthroughs; yes, it’s personal as well as professional

2. Scientists tend to be collaborative by nature as well as by tradition, and by virtue of the underlying requirements of scientific endeavor; they are quick to see the whole picture and accept – within their standards and limits – the respective compromises that will be needed to achieve integrated science. Collaborative capability in a shared-fate culture is essential to matrix management success in any industry.

3. The investigative mind inquires constantly and is quick to detect redundant and/or unnecessary procedures or steps, or to prompt useful conversations that promote efficiency.

4. The incessant pressure to produce results requires “all hands on deck” motivation and action. “Add pressure and stir” tends to blur the boundaries and enhance integrative action in the R&D environment; that said, it should be acknowledged readily that in lesser organizations, the exact opposite can happen, accompanied by turf-protecting “circle the wagons” dysfunction.

This is not to say that non-R&D organizations, regardless of structure, don’t evidence passion, collaborative tendencies, investigative minds, and incessant pressure to deliver results. Don’t get me wrong: They most certainly do. However, there is much to be learned from the special culture that emerges regularly from a gathering of scientists, technicians, and engineers. Their dominant behavioral habits and culture are often favorable for matrix management success. We can learn much from them. They exhibit constructive traits in strong dosage – traits which deserve emulation well outside of the special world of R&D. Someday they may well teach us how to clone the best of what they have to offer. Until then, we study, learn and apply the lessons they impart regardless of the industry in which we find ourselves.

 Strengthening the shared-fate culture is essential to effective matrix management or other networked approaches to accomplishing the mission. The shared-fate culture is also necessary for developing seamless strategic alliances or partnering arrangements with other organizations. Your partners can’t work effectively with your organization if they are becoming frustrated about which one of the “Seven Faces of Eve” they are seeing.

One way of describing the shared-fate culture is as a “collaborative community.” Another synonym is the notion of “organizational alignment.” However, to achieve a shared-fate culture, collaborative community, or organizational alignment requires that win-win behaviors trump zero-sum behaviors in your enterprise. Sound like a cliché? If we merely talk about it, it is a cliché – one that is much easier said than done.  Making real change is heavy lifting, akin to teaching the proverbial elephant to dance.

Beyond high-altitude exhortations about why the shared-fate culture or the “one-firm concept” is so essential lies the hard-nosed reality that Performance = Motivation X Ability.  In other words, people not only need to have the ability to collaborate, they must be motivated to collaborate, feeling in their gut that this is in their individual as well as collective best interests.  Conceptual training alone cannot achieve necessary change, and jingoism certainly won’t get it done.   Few individuals will disagree intellectually that all employees share the common fate of the enterprise – at least not openly.  The Kumbaya moments are free, but translating this intellectual understanding into daily action is the only thing that matters.

Changes in values and behavior are essential as is heightened motivation to do things differently.  Changes in behavior precede changes in culture, not vice versa.  Shared strategies for managing “hot intersections” where cross-functional hand-offs occur are also essential if fractures, fumbles, fizzles and foibles are to be averted. Also, weaving a web of explicit, value-adding interdependency among key players is necessary for success. And there’s even more to it than that.

Strategic Futures has created an exciting and powerful one-day program called Building the Shared-Fate Culture to help your organization transform itself into a collaborative community.  The program is both motivational and instructional, rather than just one or the other. Overcoming entrenched organizational defense mechanisms requires both skill and grit. Please contact info@strategicfutures.com to learn more about how we can help.

Matrix management presupposes collaborative communities, both within our organizations and among them when they are involved in strategic alliances and other multi-firm endeavors. Indeed, academic contributors are emphasizing the need to develop and nurture collaborative communities within your organization before you seek to form collaborative communities with external partners.  Structurally, this is what I call the “multi-organization matrix” requiring that matrix management be well-practiced in each of the participating enterprises prior to linkage.

A matrix management success factor involves the nurturing of a “shared-fate culture” which both reflects and fosters collaboration among people and the functions they deliver. The successful shared-fate culture requires a clear set of values which promote teamwork and trust. The shared-fate culture presupposes that employees be both willing and able to cooperate with one another. Caution: This condition must not be assumed but instead must be cultivated consciously. 

The oft-overlooked challenge in transforming towards collaborative communities is to avoid fostering a “group think” culture where conformity always trumps creativity. Indeed, a continuum of personalities must be factored. As one example, some employees may be “Dark Angels.” Dark Angels are often high producers who are viewed as significant assets by management precisely because their hard work leads to results, time after time.  However, at the darkest end of this personality continuum such individuals can be more feared than trusted by their colleagues.  Dark Angels can have a poisonous effect upon the formation of a collaborative community, let alone the shared-fate culture. Without reverting to the “cranky genius” caricature, it’s not unheard of for creativity to be accompanied by some anger and/or alienation.  The leadership challenge is to find the right balance where collaboration does not degenerate into quasi-robotic conformity and ensure simultaneously that creativity is heightened rather than stifled. In other words, let’s keep everyone awake – conscious and creative. 

I consult in many environments, particularly R&D but not exclusivel,  where this delicate balance between creativity and community is a near-constant dynamic tension, which must be managed carefully. Pursuing our example, the iconic Dark Angel may harbor disdain for peers, subordinates, and top management. In the end, such disdain limits professional impact and, ultimately, professional advancement – thereby adding to this anger and alienation which will eclipse creativity in the end. We do not assist the Dark Angel, the organization nor ourselves when we fail to coach the Dark Angel into the collaborative community we seek to build. However, we must coach this talent in a way which strengthens rather than weakens their creativity, and which encourages them to participate collaboratively by being themselves – but in a way which permits acceptance of them for who they are and for who they are becoming by the community into which they have been integrated.  A tall order—but it can be done.  Although the Dark Angel is our example for this posting, these principles apply to us all, regardless of where we sit on any chosen continuum of personalities.  Getting to creative and successful collaborative communities requires more than platitudinous exhortations and wishful thinking.  Getting the job done requires genuine leadership, management and careful coaching.

That said, there are numerous ways in which the vertical leader can and should add value in these “long-term deployment” circumstances. The notions of “care” and “feeding” are useful to begin a partial discussion of this challenge.

By way of “feeding,” vertical leaders should provide coaching and mentoring to matrixed staff, keeping them connected with “home base.” What kinds of skills should the employee be acquiring so that s/he is prepared for the next assignment several years out? How can these skills be cultivated? How can work assignments, training opportunities, and other learning platforms be leveraged on behalf of all matrixed employees as well as for the individual employee? Vertical leaders are positioned uniquely to shape a strategic human capital plan and to ensure its implementation throughout the enterprise, cutting across any and all individual projects which are underway. The vertical leader occupies a unique vantage point not only for creating this plan but also for implementing it.

With respect to the “care” dimension, vertical leaders should provide the technical and/or scientific leadership which transcends all of the projects. This should involve the identification and correction of “sticking points,” “fumble/fizzle points” and any and all types of “hot intersections” which are causing pain and frustration for the projects and the matrixed staff who are executing these projects. Effective vertical leaders work together to identify the most significant thorny patches which afflict numerous, if not all projects, and then correct these areas of trans-project difficulty so that all staff may enjoy greater success with less frustration. Such corrections are difficult to achieve project-by-project, but vertical leaders can generate the tide which lifts all boats.

There are other opportunities for vertical leaders to have deep positive impact. Suffice it to say that if a vertical leader believes that s/he is disconnected from staff or insufficiently accountable in an environment of multi-year projects, it’s time to take a fresh look at how to effectuate the care and feeding of the matrixed employees.

I said what I meant and I meant what I said. The adoption of matrix management involves people assuming new roles and working these roles in a new configuration of relationships. It’s change…and change has no natural allies. My experience tells me that participants in the matrix organization must be “sold” not only on the benefits of matrix management but, most importantly, they must be able to visualize themselves achieving success as they play their new role, transacting business through relationships with others who are also playing matrix-altered roles. Visualization is powerful. Prior to buying a new automobile, we must be able to visualize ourselves driving that car. Similarly, as we adopt matrix management, people need to be able to visualize themselves achieving success using a different model than the one that has led to success in the past. Mixing metaphors, each player in the matrix organization must be able to visualize themselves driving that new role on a sunny day with the convertible top down.  If they harbor negative fantasies that they will be stuck on the side of the road with a broken-down jalopy in a rainstorm, we’re going to have a heck of a time changing roles, relationships and behavior consistent with the matrix model.

In summary, constructive expressions of resistance to organizational change should be welcomed within reason.  These conversations provide golden opportunities to explore the specific difficulties that an employee is having in visualizing herself as being successful in the new matrix-managed order. If there is no resistance whatsoever, you should be concerned unless you’re strolling in the graveyard by yourself. If you are abjectly dismissive of healthy resistance, you miss an opportunity to achieve breakthrough success.  The best approach is to explore useful questions and answer them in an authentic manner to achieve growth and change that benefits everyone.

As I concluded this important assignment, it occurred to me that this agency is engaged in “dynamic mentoring.” What’s dynamic about it? At least a half-dozen dimensions, but here are three:

First of all, it is dynamic in the sense that crime today is always changing, particularly crimes involving the abuse of technology and/or financial institutions and instruments. Some crimes are variations on old themes, but others are unprecedented. For that reason, the technical competencies developed through coaching efforts are always in motion just to keep up with the criminals who are becoming increasingly skilled in their R&D (research and development) exploits.

Second, the older, more established employees have insights and skills to contribute to the more recently hired. However, the younger employees bring “tricks of the trade” learned through their recent formal education and/or prior jobs. There’s something for everyone in this mentoring equation.

The third dynamism is that employee-centered mentoring and organization-centered coaching feed on one another in an interactive, synergistic manner. As the employee grows in understanding and competency, areas for mentoring attention that were once invisible become relevant and find their way onto the mentoring agenda.

The program involves structured visits to headquarters and to other agency locations.  Pair-ups of mentors with mentees are decided by senior management based on a variety of considerations. Rotational assignments to provide first-hand experience in, e.g., executing search warrants, etc. build both competence and confidence. 

In a world where employee development is given short shrift too often, it is exciting and encouraging to see things being done right!

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is a risk-based approach to managing an enterprise, whose ancestry reaches back several decades to include Statistical Process Control (SPC), quality circles, Total Quality Management (TQM), and ISO standards.  ERM adherents, like their TQM brethren before them, often make sweeping, potentially dangerous claims that ERM is your “silver bullet” – it’s all you need to manage successfully. (Manage, perhaps although not necessarily lead). A few decades ago, this school of thought preached similarly that “TQM is all you need.”  During the TQM heyday, Motorola was contemplating deeply its TQM navel; Motorola was educating other companies as to its TQM theology, when the digital revolution passed it by like a speeding train. Whoops! Drinking the kool-aid rather than thinking ahead, Motorola had some serious catching up to do. 

Successful organizations align and balance strategy, systems and structure around their mission and customers. ERM is an excellent tool and an essential “system” in the triad of strategy, systems and structure. However, systems alone do not a thriving organization make. Systems are not strategy although they may masquerade as such.

It’s no surprise that incessant focus on risk cultivates a deeply risk-averse culture and puts it on steroids, painting creativity and change into a narrow corner. Why is that?  A risk-averse culture requires complete certainty in all things, much the way government bureaucracies operate — slowly and uncompetitively.  Staff get the message that rewards and recognition are based solely on the degree to which risks were mitigated.  They behave accordingly. Creative visioning and bold strategic thinking become heretical in extreme cases. Ask yourself: How would Steve Jobs fare in a zealous ERM culture?  

Don’t get me wrong: ERM and related approaches are valuable tools when used as part of a balanced portfolio rather than as a silver bullet.  Risk-based and risk-averse thinking has its place and time, used best when balanced with a creative, opportunity-driven strategic thinking process. Unleash the strategic thinking process first and don’t hobble it unduly. Thereafter, develop and apply your ERM templates interactively to make strategic choices and establish accountable dashboards.

Strategic planning and ERM are not mutually exclusive; they should complement one another. You wouldn’t drive without a front windshield, nor without your rear-view mirror. You need both to navigate successfully particularly when traffic is thick, fast, and erratic, as it is in these turbulent times.

I met Chris in his capacity as a top executive at Sasakawa Africa Association when I was engaged to provide matrix management assistance. Just minutes after meeting him in Nairobi, I knew that I had met a friend for life. He connected with people on an immediate and deep level.  Some executives are more task-focused. Other executives are more people-focused. Chris was both task-focused and people-focused and he was a virtuoso in both areas. I have worked with powerful executives around the globe. One shared characteric of successful executives? They all look directly into your eyes, without fail. However, with Chris it was different. Chris looked into your eyes and you could see his inquiring mind at work: Who are you, really? How can I leverage your talents so that you can join me as a force for positive change? It was so very powerful. It was unique. It was all about his mission, not his ego.

I would return from Africa and comment to my friends about the after-hours conversations we would have. The sparkling and sophisticated conversations about world affairs were a cut above the conversations I enjoyed in New York or Washington.  Why? Chris brought the energy. He brought the sparkle. He was truly a man of the world. He made it all special, instant by instant. What’s more, he had assembled a unique group of people who were up to the task and added to the energy he brought. And the task was always grand, never trivial, never small bore.

Chris had enormous gravitas. He was a force for good. I don’t know how many Christopher Dowswells populate this globe of ours, but it’s plain that there aren’t enough of them. Chris was what genuine leadership is all about. May we all be inspired by him and may each of us become ever more powerful in improving the lives of others wherever we may be, whatever our walk of life. There’s no replacing Chris Dowswell, but those of us who knew him encumber a unique debt: we owe it to him to do our best to try.