A global energy company with 800 leaders had reorganized itself into a more LEAN and scalable organization. Were decisions made in an effective and efficient way?
Recalibrating Decision Making From Slow to Nimble
A global manufacturing company needed to recalibrate its decision leadership structure to speed up its. decision-making process.
To design the optimal leadership structure, the company needed to gain insight into the informal decision network of its ~800 leaders.
Specifically, they needed to know:
- How the leaders would support a change in structure?
- How leaders collaborated on decisions across the matrix organization?
- Who the informal decision sense makers in the leadership group were?
What insights were revealed during the project?
The data confirmed the strong support and need for improved speed in the decision-making process.
Specifically five findings made it clear:
1. The word “slow” was used 3 times more than the 2nd most used word to describe the decision-making process
2. Top management held the central network positions, illustrating a very rigid hierarchical structure
3. 80% of the top informal decision sense makers were at the top hierarchical level
4. The hierarchical network barrier was more than double compared to the benchmark
What actions were taken?
Number of decision fora were cut from +20 to 8. Informal decision sense makers were involved in their design to ensure organization acceptance.
In addition more nimble decision making was achieved through:
- Mandates and guidelines were established for all ~800 leaders
- Informal decision sense makers were enrolled as members in the new decision fora. “Work with the organization – not against it” was the principle
- Roles and responsibilities, meeting structures, and escalation processes were clearly defined for the decision fora
