Whilst most executives have a very good understanding of collective complexity at a strategic level, relatively few consider the forms of individual complexity that the vast majority of employees face.
Source: How To Become A Disobedient Organisation | Paul Taylor, March 2017
I felt this was a insightful take from Paul's article. Individual complexity across multiple systems and reporting systems is becoming a serious impediment for service delivery. Just look at examples like Help Joy help you. On the unusability of internal systems. | Disambguity | Leisa Reichelt, July 2014
70% of us are not engaged in the work we do with over a third saying our jobs are meaningless.
This lack of engagement with work comes at a time when we need more world changing ideas than ever before.
This lack of engagement is a challenge that need to be addressed. Are organisations failing to identify and allow passions and interests to flourish in ways that are beneficial to their business? Perhaps there are opportunities hiding just under the surface that a better more human approach to organisational design might unleash.
In the most complicated organisations managers spend more than 40% of their time writing reports, and between 30 – 60% of their time on meetings.
This really resonated with me. I know that this has been my experience in middle management roles. Keeping the decision making factory informed is important.
However, there is also the issue where some managers take on more than they can chew. If you are supposed to be across 10, 20, or 50 plus projects how much value and insight can your expertise and understanding bring?
There could be a very simple reason for the growth of organisational complexity:
We are employing more managers than ever before. And management is the least efficient activity in your organisation.
Older organisations are often bad at change and innovation for a reason – they are designed that way. They are built to execute on delivery — not to spend time thinking about things or engaging in discovery. That execution is what made them successful in the first place.
The move towards transformation continues but the challenges remain difficult. It is nice to have someone like Paul explain the issues so well.