Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
26 February 2021
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For #CloreSocialFellowFriday, Adrian Leslie reflects on the COVID-19 response and the need for horizontal innovation in the sector and beyond. Adrian is a Cobseo Emerging Leader Programme Fellow and a Membership Support Officer for The Royal British Legion.
During the past 12 months, the pandemic has changed the ways that individuals lead as well as the ways that organisations adapt to change. In this rapidly changing operational environment, it has been necessary to react quickly. However, while some organisations have flourished in these conditions, others are still struggling to react to the transformation.
One of the primary reasons for this slow response is rigid organisational structure. Today, most organisational change happens through a vertical model, where an idea moves gradually from senior management down through a complex change matrix and various stakeholders before eventually being rolled out. In this model, an idea may also be passed from an employee up the line to senior management through various levels of managers before being bounced back down. However this vertical change model is often over-managed, with too much time spent on developing the system, and too little spent on enacting actual change.
In a crisis situation like COVID-19, this model also becomes susceptible to breakdowns in communication. When organisational change isn’t communicated in a clear or positive way, it can lead to individual and communal resistance to the “process” of change rather than resistance to the actual change itself. Finally, a vertical change model may also be inhibited by a lack of effective leadership. This may not necessarily be due to the quality of individual leaders, but due to a failure to create an effective process.
Smaller organisations, and larger organisations which have converted to a more agile system prior to COVID, have tended to fare better than large ridgid organisations. This adaptability is reflected in both the quality of their in-house operations, as well as the timely services that they have adapted to provide to their client base. Without a cumbersome vertical system, there is a greater opportunity for staff to horizontally innovate and introduce change quickly. Similarly, a horizontal change model may contribute to a culture of collective ownership, as opposed to personal or departmental ownership. In a crisis situation, these more agile organisations may also be able to bypass traditional mechanisms of training and learning and development to implement transformative change quickly.
This trend of effective horizontal change modeling is visible in the corporate and charity sectors, as well as in historical military manoeuvres. For example, during the First World War there were many individual units who saw action on their own, with little or no immediate communication through the chain of command. These new tactics often involved moving new knowledge and ideas horizontally between units. Many of these tactics were eventually adopted as best practise by the senior commanders for the whole army. This process of crisis decision making bypassed the months of decision making that a traditional chain of command typically involves.
As leaders, if we are serious about reacting and adapting to the challenges of the future, we should consider how to empower our team to horizontally, innovate and adapt to challenges themselves. In turn, this will help to enact a more agile and less cumbersome change system.
You can find Adrian on Twitter at @NorthWalesMSO and on LinkedIn at adrianleslie.
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Posted 15 March 2021