For example:
- Decisions travel up and down the hierarchy: the unit head waits for the director, the director waits for the executive office.
- Headquarters and regional or country offices each assume the other is responsible for the same decision.
- Staff in a matrix structure report to two managers, and no one has agreed whose priorities come first.
- A reform has been approved and the new structure is on paper, yet the work still follows the old lines.
- The board or governing body receives reports, but cannot always see where decisions stall inside the organisation.
- Ministries of health, hospitals and implementing partners depend on one another, yet none of them can instruct the others.
What often lies underneath
In situations like these, attention usually turns first to people: to culture, behaviour or leadership. A leadership programme follows, or a team retreat, a staff survey or a coaching track. Sometimes that helps. But when the problem comes back, the cause may also lie in how the organisation is set up.
In many cases, it has never been made clear who is accountable for what, and who has the authority to decide. People do their best in a structure that works against them, and it is often their effort that keeps the organisation going. Disappointing staff survey results, turnover and burnout can be signals of this.
What I look at
- Who is accountable for what, and does that person have the authority to decide on what it takes?
- At which level does a decision belong, and is it actually taken there?
- What may headquarters, field offices, units or partner organisations that depend on one another ask of each other, and who decides when they cannot agree?
- Do the management layers and delegations of authority fit the work that has to be done? Or is one manager breathing down someone’s neck, while another is pulled down into the weeds?
- What does the board or governing body see of all this, and what does it not see?
How I help
Clarifying one working relationship
Two units, offices or organisations depend on one another and keep renegotiating who does or decides what. I speak to both sides separately, read what has been agreed and reconstruct a few situations in which things stalled.
In one joint session we put the differences side by side and work out what needs to be clear from now on. The resulting agreement fits on one page and is confirmed by whoever has the authority to decide on it.
Duration: three to four weeks.
Seeing where decisions stall in the line
How does a decision of the board or executive office reach the people who carry it out, and where does it get stuck along the way?
I gather information at different levels of the organisation. The result shows, layer by layer, where decisions slow down, accountability becomes unclear or implementation departs from what was intended.
Duration: six to eight weeks.
Examining a broader organisational question
Sometimes the question is larger: a new structure that is not working, a governance arrangement that needs reviewing after a reform or a change at the top, or an organisation that has to grow without losing its character.
I then start by mapping how things actually work today: who does what, who decides what, and where the organisation is vulnerable. Only then do we look at what needs to change in roles, accountabilities, decision-making or structure.
Scope and duration are agreed in advance.
And then
A new agreement or structure has to prove itself in daily work. That is why I support managers through implementation, and after a few weeks we look back together: does it work in practice?
What it delivers
- Everyone knows who decides what, and decisions no longer travel up and down between layers.
- Units, offices and organisations that depend on one another know what they may ask of each other, including when something has to be decided quickly.
- Managers have the authority they need for the results they are held accountable for.
- Items that kept coming back no longer have to be worked out or discussed again.
- The board or governing body sees more clearly where things stall in the organisation, and where they work well.
Often, behaviour changes too. Not because people change, but because the structure no longer gets in their way.
What I have done
For more than thirty years I have worked on governance, organisational and leadership questions, in the Netherlands and internationally.
A few examples:
- For WHO, I examined how accountabilities, management structure and work processes in a unit of the Regional Office for Europe worked in practice, and what needed to change.
- In Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, I brought together directors of water utilities, municipalities and ministries to establish who was entitled to take which decision on tariffs and investment. This work was commissioned by, among others, the European Commission and the World Bank.
- For IRC in The Hague, an international organisation working on water and sanitation, I mapped how the organisation worked, where accountability and decision-making were stuck, and what needed to change in its set-up. I then coached its managers through the implementation of those changes.
- Inside the EU system, I spent eight years as Head of Unit at the European Training Foundation, an EU agency, and later led more than forty programmes training officials from over twenty-five countries in the management of EU funds.
- As a facilitator and coach in leadership programmes of the United Nations, I have worked with hundreds of managers and directors.
I have worked for and with the World Health Organization, the European Commission, the European Investment Fund, the European Training Foundation, FAO, IFAD, UNHCR, the World Bank and the EBRD, among others.
Contact
Does an issue keep coming back, despite attention to behaviour, collaboration or leadership? Then it may be worth looking at how the organisation is set up. I would be glad to think it through with you.
Robert Teunissen
rte@cac.management
+31 6 1290 8643
CaC Management BV, Leidschendam, the Netherlands