PBOPlus Blog

Should a CEO concentrate on Function or Process?

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:12:00 GMT

We have Two Choices:
First Choice: Either split the company into “Functions” and within their “Sub-Functions”, search for opportunities and revamp looking at 16 components within each of them.
Often solutions may be cross function. Which is right?

What is the biggest resistance to moving from FBO to PBO ?

Wed, 19 May 2010 13:11:00 GMT

Loss of identity for functional manager

What do you mean by People Power?

Sun, 09 May 2010 13:09:00 GMT

All the power that resides inside each individual – latent or harnessed is called people power. It is of four types viz

What is so unique about PBOPlus?

Tue, 04 May 2010 13:07:00 GMT

Q: What is so great about PBOPlus? What are we pitching?

Are Function Based Structures an Impediment to Growth?

Sun, 02 May 2010 13:06:00 GMT

If a culture, country or an organisation has to develop innovation, freedom of thought, liberated mindsets, out of box thinking, outward to inward thinking then it should develop its people to think without fear across boundaries and develop a mindset where things can continuously improve and evolve.

A function based structure essentially acts as an impediment towards achieving a free thinking, liberated society.

Why would that be the case?

When a person starts working in a function a person starts associating his/her identity with that particular function and as the person gets older and deeply entrenched in to a function it gets harder and harder to think beyond the function which is more like a personal identity now.

This would further make a person control the functional domain and guard it closely. Such a person would always be circumspect and suspicious of others entering in to the domain and will be very insecure. A mindset of this nature can never allow a society and an organisation to think beyond narrow lanes of a function.

Is there a solution in place?

The simplest solution or one may argue the only solution for the above mentioned issue would be to create a culture or an atmosphere around a team based working. In a team everyone assists everyone else, there are no hierarchies and people embrace learning across functions as well as across different vertical levels.

This can be achieved by aligning the structure of the organisation from Function based to Process based. The kind of culture this structural change will bring is that of ownership, empowerment and liberty to operate. It will further create agility and quicker responsiveness.

Best fit people should be aligned with best fit processes to deliver best fit solutions.

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Cultural Resistance to Strategy : A Headache for the CEO

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:05:00 GMT

A CEO is perhaps a little anxious about the resistance to his vision and strategy across the organisation. One of the core reasons why a lot of strategies don’t come to fruition is because of the resistance to the change that an implementation of the strategy would require. The prime source of this resistance comes from the People and the Culture developed in an organisation.

What is Culture? – Simplified

Culture is nothing but the perception/belief about What is right and What is wrong. If the beliefs are too strong and the people are not prepared to change their beliefs either then:

the organisation is not ready for the change; OR
the cultural belief is to learn only one function and guard that function closely;

Hence, it becomes absolutely paramount to assess (measure and check) the change resistance factor of an organisation before even imploring the idea of implementing the vision or the strategy.

How a CEO may assess Change Readiness?

A CEO should search and assess if his main source of worry comes from the following:

Not enough autonomy given to the employees;
Lack of transparency and not enough sharing of information;
No culture of multi-skilling of functions;
Introduction of layers to obtain false control;
Lack of incentives for internal customers (employees) to make external customers happy;
Structure is too rigid and can’t be changed;
Work place design/layout can’t be changed and
Technology can’t be upgraded.

In addition to these factors the CEO would naturally be worried about the following too:

The gap in the elements which will set future targets;
Too much fat in the company;
Organisation is too slow to respond to customer expectations.

If the above mentioned factors are the main sources for anxiety then it can be safely said the organisation needs to think along the lines of Process Based Structures. Adopt best-fit solutions by designing best-fit processes and aligning the best fit people to own and run the processes.

In addition to pacify the anxiety factors, this structural change will not only create a liberated work environment but will also alter the culture of an organisation significantly to embrace changes and new ideas.

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Self-Sustained Leaders or Managers ? PBO or FBO?

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:55:00 GMT

PBO develops a culture of self motivation, self direction and self management. This promotes leadership qualities, team work and quality output of processes resulting in greater value-add for the clients. A direct comparison between the PBO and FBO management would reveal the same.

Embrace Process, Think End Backwards OR Perish

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:53:00 GMT

A typical CEO of a company would be worried about the customer and competition. A closer inspection will reveal that both these very critical variables are beyond the control of an organisation. The best-fit solution would be to in-corporate these variables in order to realise the value for a customer.

Before we go any further, let’s first understand the very complex and an ever changing customer space of modern economy.

Customer is Supreme – Most businesses are driven by commodities (98% according to an estimate) and the customers have plenty of choices in today’s market to make a selection from. No matter how much loyalty a customer has for a brand and how much differentiation an organisation can offer, let’s face it in the end the decision to buy or not lies with the customer. In order to buy a product the customer will have to make a choice. Customer needs and demands can’t be ignored.

Un-predictable Customer Landscape – The current customer landscape is extremely un-predictable. It changes very rapidly and erratically at times. This requires for an organisation to have a quicker TAT, agility and dynamism to adapt to a constant change. This can only be achieved in a Process Based Organisation by designing a process across functions, horizontally and end backwards.

Relentless Competition – The competitive landscape is pretty relentless too as everyone is trying to adapt to an ever-changing variable of a customer. Quicker responses to address competition will gradually give Competitive Advantage to organisations. This can easily be achieved in a Process Oriented model and culture of working.

Our Product must be sold – Further we would like to make an organisation believe in itself totally. An organisation in order to grow must have the mindset that if a product has to be sold in a pool it has to be ours. This mind-set becomes even more crucial when the customer has a large pool to choose from. Industry share may fall in a year or a quarter but an organisations revenue should not fall based on this argument. This claim was substantiated last year when during GFC Coke had its sales increased by about 36%. It will only happen if the responsiveness to customer demands is quicker and the needs are taken care off. A process based organisation would be able to meet these very demanding tasks rather easily.

Process based organisation and an end backwards mind-set will be the way business and organisations will run. If you are not prepared or ready for this massive change then it will be very difficult for you to operate.

The change is here and a futuristic organisation will adopt it. Please make no mistake about it this is the way forward. Embrace process world and gain competitive advantage or perish. The choice is yours and the one that needs to be made rather quickly.

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Are Function Based Organisations Killing Creativity, Innovation and Great Ideas?

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:52:00 GMT

We strongly believe that the Function based Organisations (FBO) are killing great minds of their employees and hence killing the creativity, innovation and any great idea that may crop up otherwise. Let’s take the example of an average person who is a CEO at home and very much behaves like one. For instance, much like a CEO this person manages the money, looks after the operations of home, does financial forecasting, strategizes for the growth of the household and the family members etc.

Sadly as soon as this person enters into the professional domain he is labelled as an employee. To make things worse this person (who is an employee now) is subjected to a treatment which he is not used to. He is asked to behave, operate and function in a manner conducive to the function he is looking after. The company essentially wouldn’t trust a typical employee with the money, important decisions and looks at him very suspiciously. This is very different to what this employee’s natural state of mind is. In his natural state of mind he is a CEO of his world, makes his own decisions and contributes towards his well being and of the people around him.

This controlling mechanism of the organisations further restricts an employee’s free spirit and his ability to think by making them operate within a function. An employee typically feels he has been caged. Ideally people would need liberty to be able to contribute towards the strategic objectives of an organisation or towards the value addition for the clients.

IS there a solution in place to deal with this very depressing phenomenon?

Yes there is indeed. Much like the solution to most great problems the solution to this problem is rather simple as well. The structure of an organisation should be transitioned from Function based to Process based. This will ensure that an employee thinks and operates across various functions and takes ownership of his own output. This also ensures a best-fit solution for the organisation whereby they provide a happier and a liberated working environment, design best-fit processes and ensuring best-fit people own these processes.

Another question that a FBO should ask itself is whether an employee would ideally like to work hard and deliver the results ? OR Would rather like to bludge and get scolded by the managers? An answer to this question itself will essentially determine whether an organisation is on the right track and if they are ready to take the next step of turning in to a PBO. A question most companies in India have started asking and something they will have to look for pretty soon if they are to compete globally.

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Process or Boss – Who should come first?

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:50:00 GMT

If the processes have been designed with customer at the centre (this is the only way to do it as per PBOPlus), then customer must be placed first in all the situations, followed by line boss, followed by functional boss and lastly self .