Symptom: There are cases where one group does the work and another is accountable for some key aspect of their quality or their business decision making.
To ensure quality, empowered people must be totally and exclusively accountable for the quality of their products. Any use of inspection or audit functions makes one group accountable for another group's quality. This generally disempowers those doing the work.
For example, operations may be accountable for the safety of anything dumped on them to run; however, without a say in their environment, they are not empowered to deliver safety.
Similarly, separating people into "learning" versus "doing" groups disempowers the doers. While R&D labs are fine, when a single profession is split into "future-oriented" and "day-to-day" groups, people on both sides are disempowered and cannot guarantee the quality of the product (a shared accountability).
The organizational structure empowers people when "whole" jobs are defined by lines of business, not tasks. For jobs to be "whole," each job should include all of the functions and authorities necessary to achieve its objectives -- that is, to run a business within a business. People are most motivated when they are treated like entrepreneurs within the organization.
Root cause:Structure, organization chart (whole jobs) copyright 2024 N. Dean Meyer and Associates Inc. All rights reserved.
