🌿🧭🌳 OD23: Team undiscussables ∙ Government as a System ∙ OD goodies
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1. Team undiscussables
IMD professors Ginka Toegel and Jean-Louis Barsoux have published an insightful piece in MIT SMR about tackling team undiscussables. Here are some key ideas and quotes:
Executives often talk about undiscussables as though they were all the same: views people hold and choose not to air in public. They are typically described as the elephant in the room, the 800-pound gorilla, or the dead moose.
Thinking this way both overlooks their complexity and makes them more fearsome. We propose a multifaceted view of undiscussables.
The more undiscussables there are, the more difficult it is for the team to function. If they aren’t discussed collectively, they can’t be managed intelligently.
(…) we’ve found that discussing undiscussables brings relief, boosts energy, and bolsters team goodwill.
Ignoring them invariably results in strained working relationships that produce ineffective meetings marked by a lack of debate. This leads to bad decisions that are made worse, because without open, honest discussion, a team cannot learn from its mistakes or correct course. Left unmanaged, undiscussables contaminate the team, choking its problem-solving abilities and capacity to learn and adapt to change.
However, the takeaway remains the same: In an increasingly fast-paced world, teams desperately need a space to talk about the way they go about their business.
The whole article contains detailed descriptions of the 4 types of undiscussables, examples from different companies and ideas on how to address each undiscussable.
Government as a System
Exploring across disciplines while constantly searching for ideas and tools that are useful for developing organizations, we get to intersect with the public policy domain more often than we initially expected.
Why not apply lessons from the quest to well-functioning societies in the journey towards high-performing organizations?
Policy Lab UK has published the “Government as a System” toolkit, describing 7 areas x 8 interventions that can be combined when tackling complex problems.
The 8 interventions for each area are positioned on the vertical axis from the “softer” (more collaborative, shared power) ones to the ”formal” (top-down power) ones.
Here’s a snapshot of the framework:
Since discovering this framework, we’ve started using it for making progress in the complex organizational initiatives that we’re advising (e.g. “increasing organizational agility”).
While not 100% applicable in the corporate context, the framework provides lots of inspiration for OD interventions, especially for the challenge of choosing actions that are (presumably) a better fit with the specific organizational culture and with the momentum of the organizational initiative.
“Is nudging a better option than educating in this particular context?”
OD Goodies
Curious about more resources on leading organizations?
Here’s a section with very short descriptions and links.
The “Making Remote Work” series led by the Organizational Design Community (ODC) and hosted by Skills for Mars has reached 11 episodes so far, featuring both academics and practitioners that are covering the topic of distributed work from a rich variety of angles: communication structures, social hierarchies, evolutionary psychology, adapting to virtual environments, all-remote organizations and many more.
The latest edition of the “Behavioral Economics Guide” was recently launched, featuring contributions from 30+ behavioral science practitioners. We can’t wait to study it and share insights that organizational leaders can use.
Deloitte’s “Human Capital Trends” is worth skimming. We’re recommending the following chapters in particular: “Ethics and the future of work”; “Beyond reskilling” and “Superteams: Putting AI in the group”.
Bain’s Situational Threat Index, which aims to “assist business leaders in planning and coordinating a gradient of business-contingency policies in response to a rapidly evolving situation” has been updated to 7/10 - “Severe multiquarter economic impacts in multiple markets likely. Was 6/10 when we published OD11.
The OrgDev newsletter is curated by Raluca and Bülent Duagi, the team behind Sense & Change. We work as OD Advisers to high performing cross-functional teams, guiding strategy execution and increasing team effectiveness in complex and uncertain contexts.
Thanks for sharing! Good stuff!
We're glad you found it useful, Sergio!