THE DESIGN
OF ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE
Is your organization resilient?
As the world gets faster, more competitive, and less certain, if your organization is still operating with principles from the dawn of the industrial era, you are going to get left in the dust. It’s that simple. The world requires rapid strategic navigation, adaptation, and not only thinking outside of the box, but creating a new box to think in all together. This is where we step in to help you both clarify the way forward and carve a sustainable trail to success.
As a Future of Work consultancy, companyBE sits at the intersection of organizational design and purpose-driven change. What does that mean? We’re here to design better, more purposeful, and more resilient organizations that thrive in challenging, uncertain, and rapidly changing times.
What We Do
We help unstick your company from its stale ways, turning your recognition for change into reality. Let’s face it: With the pace of change, unstable environments, and ambiguous information, altering what “business as usual” means for your organization can be challenging at best and completely overwhelming at worst. We get it, and we’re here to help.
Combining data and analytics, design thinking, project management, change management, and coaching, we create and develop solutions that make use of the resources and capabilities your company has – or could have – to address both the underlying problem and its respective symptoms. We have a solid track record for scaling operations and solving organizational design issues.
We get to the root of the issues your organization faces – something that is essential in fixing the problem.Our end result is a clear sense of direction for your growing company that evolves in reaction to the environment around you.
How we do it
OrgMD
Before embarking on any critical, and often expensive, changes in your organization, undertaking an organizational diagnostic will ensure you have the data and insight required for success. Through our OrgMD diagnostic you will receive a comprehensive report on the DNA of your organization - the critical levers you have, and should be mindful of, to help guide a successful transformation. We’ll identify which are the right levers to push and pull to keep you on track, equipping you with all you need to fuel your organizational purpose as you blaze forward.
OrgCRISPR
Once you understand the DNA of your organization – and which genes require fixing – we use our OrgCRISPR methodology to alter your genetic makeup. We focus time and energy on the genes that are out of sync with your goals as a company, and ‘insert’ the genes that will result in desired impacts. The result is a resilient organization that is optimized for its environment.
companyBE focuses on organizations as living systems. To do so we focus on how aligned (or misaligned) the following six layers are:
Purpose Definition
Purpose isn’t just a buzzword. It is source of gravity that keeps everything in orbit around you, and without it … prepare to float off into vast expanse of nothingness. Employees today are looking for employers that stand for something more because they want to contribute to something greater than themselves. Customers are identifying with brands that speak to the social and environmental causes they believe in. Investors want to see companies act sustainably. B-corps, the redefinition of the corporation - if you have not yet clearly articulated your purpose and evaluated where you are or are not living up to it, you are at a sever disadvantage in the market. We will help you define your purpose and ensure it is embedded in everything you do so it isn’t just some words on a masthead.
Things we focus on:
- Purpose definition
- Purpose evaluation
- Purpose enablement
Scenario Planning
The future is plural. A lot can happen in a year, let alone five or even ten years– and it is completely unpredictable. You therefore need to explore what might lay ahead to help craft a purposeful and strategic response. This is where scenario planning will help your leadership to build the sensing and responding capabilities required to adapt to whatever may come. Through scenario planning we help you to build fluid strategy and an organizational design that evolves with that – one that’s a living and breathing organism. Always looking forward, we will help you identify your direction and the potential obstacles, solutions, and opportunities in the road ahead.
Things we focus on:
- Scenario development
- Artifacts from the future
- Futures indicators
Strategy Development
When it comes to a strategy, the biggest issues typically don’t include the establishment, implementation, and communication of one. The problem is that a strategy is often a static output that is limited in its openness to evolve as the world around it does. We design the evolution of your strategy through a unique approach to understanding the bones and DNA of your organization, and then help to identify the levers – or genes – that can be flipped on or off, to propel you forward in a meaningful manner. The North Star will not change, but the path to achieving it may.
Things we focus on:
- Strategic Options
- Where to play and how to win
- Wind tunnelling / evaluating
Structural Design
Once your strategy is outlined, it’s about the mechanics and moving parts; a consideration of how independent components of a system interact with each other. Effective structural design recognizes the best ways of allowing those interactions across your ecosystem, organization and teams to achieve desired outcomes. The problem is that, historically, the concept of structural design was predominantly theoretical and bureaucratic, offering solutions that may sound good on paper but don’t account for the fact that organizations are living systems. A theoretical, human-less approach isn’t going to cut it. Instead, we leave you with a resilient structure that lives and breathes, unbundles and recomposes, along with you and evolves in reaction to the changing world you inhabit.
Things we focus on:
- Ecosystem Design
- Organizational Design
- Team Design
Systems Building
Organizations are spending inordinate amounts of time and money focused on improving systems across the business. With each project they target improvements in a process, how and who makes decisions, updating a technology, or improving the way people work, all in the hopes of driving greater and greater efficiency. However, the result of this has been a Frankenstein of unconnected and ill-conceived components that fail to live up to their expected ROI. It isn’t enough anymore to swap out the old software for the new – it requires a critical look at the system as a whole and what the intervention means. We see massive investments in technology without understanding the readiness for adoption, without understanding the implications it has on how and what employees will need to do differently to optimize it. We see complicated RACI’s that are intended to reduce risk but that make it extremely difficult for employees to get their work done, and which result in even riskier workarounds and overloaded executives. Systems are the connective tissue between your people and your structure – and companyBE specializes in ensuring the effectiveness of the entire system and not just its component parts.
Things we focus on:
- Governance
- Processes
- Technology
- Ways of Working
- Evaluation
People Enablement
We are true “people people” – and you should be too. After all, it’s people who, as employees, are at the heart of everything you do. They are lifeblood of your organization, they are part of the external system that will make or break you, and they make up the customers you strive to help. Our human-centered and data driven design process ensures what you are doing will meaningfully impact the people you wish to reach. People are the filter through which we consider where to go and how to get there in our quest to turn good companies into great ones.
Things we focus on:
- The Talent Journey
- Attracting
- Acquiring
- Engaging
- Developing
- Retaining
- Performance Management
- Compensating and Incentivizing
- Culture
- Leadership
- Building Blocks
- Skills
- Psychometrics
- Relationships
