Getting What You Intend from Your Organizational Design -- Business Breakthrough 3.0 with Ken Gavranovic

On this episode of Modern Digital Business, Lee invites Ken to discuss organizational design principles and the importance of aligning teams and leaders to drive desired outcomes. The conversation covers various topics such as the Kubler-Ross change curve, company culture, and the "Valley of Despair" during a migration or transformation projects. They also share practical guidance on implementing Agile methodologies and how to articulate the value of that to higher-ups.

This episode announces the new book, Business Breakthrough 3.0, written by Lee Atchison and Ken Gavranovic. Lee and Ken emphasize the importance of effective communication within organizations.

Quotes

Creating Dynamic Organizations: "If you can really think through those patterns, not only do you build a highly profitable, fast moving organization [...] but it's also a win for the employees, because when you create that kind of dynamic organization, customers love the business, and employees simply love their job."

— Ken Gavranovic 

"Measuring Organizational Improvements: Companies often make one of three mistakes when they determine what data they want to measure. They either measure not enough data, measure too much data, or just measure the wrong things."

— Lee Atchison

The Importance of Instilling Company Values: "If you think about employees that say they're engaged, the quality of work that they do, versus somebody who feels they're just a cog on the wheel, they're just going through the motions. And the efficiencies are night and day at all scales of organizations."

— Ken Gavranovic

The Power of Subconscious Mentality: "When I think of in our own subconscious minds, the thing that comes to mind the most is when you see commercials for restaurants showing you pictures of food that make you hungry, and you're more likely to spend more money, the more, the hungrier you are."

— Lee Atchison 

"The Importance of Organizational Design: if you have poor organizational design, you're going to have poor results."

— Ken Gavranovic

"Organizational Structures: If you want to have your organization respond in a certain way, you want to organize it in a way that allows that response to occur."

— Lee Atchison 

The Importance of Instilling Company Values: "If you think about employees that say they're engaged, the quality of work that they do, versus somebody who feels they're just a cog on the wheel, they're just going through the motions. And the efficiencies are night and day at all scales of organizations."

— Ken Gavranovic

"The Valley of Despair": "But so many companies will actually stop right in the middle of that valley when things are worse than they were before and won't finish their project or won't finish the migration because they've lost track of what they really valued in the migration and frankly, why they started doing it in the first place."

— Lee Atchison

Q&A

1. What is the importance of organizational design in driving desired outcomes?

Answer: Poor organizational design can lead to unhealthy friction and frustration. Therefore, it is important to be intentional about organizational design and set up people processes to drive desired outcomes.

2. What are the consequences of lack of alignment between teams and leaders?

Answer: Lack of alignment between teams and leaders can cause friction and misalignment in the organization.

3. What is the Federated direct line reports center of Practice?

Answer: Detailed principles like Federated direct line reports center of Practice can help with organizational design.

4. Why should leaders be careful about what they