No. 6: Bust the Functional Silos
Breaking down organizational silos allows for cross-functional collaboration within the company to foster innovation. The resulting cross-pollination of ideas ensures that the product or service is representative of customers in a diverse marketplace. Individuals from different disciplines look at business challenges in different ways. When teams that represent a variety of disciplines focus on the same problem, diverse ideas can be generated and then combined to achieve novel solutions. One of the greatest benefits of cross-functional collaboration is that employees are exposed to a different part of the business and thus gain greater insight into how the company operates as a whole.
A NEW TALENT OPERATING MODEL THAT LEVERAGES TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE AGILITY
Now is the time to disrupt the existing 20th-century operating models and create a new talent operating model that helps companies optimize their internal resources. With the advances made in artificial intelligence and machine learning, there are new and effective tools to deploy talent within organizations. But the technology only enables the process.
We believe the new talent operating model is the most critical component of the Inside Gig. It is about changing the way a company operates to best use and reskill the talent it currently has. To employ talent in a different and more dynamic way, modifications are needed in all areas of the talent operating model: culture, leadership, ways of working, HR programs and processes, team development processes and so on. However, you can’t simply flip the switch and change to a new talent operating model overnight. Our approach lays out a 10-year road map detailing how an organization can build on smaller modifications to shift to the future of work.
Former U.S. president Barack Obama once said: “Change in the abstract is easy.”5 Truer words have seldom been spoken. In Part Four: The Inside Gig in Action, we lay out our recommendations for making a successful transition to a new talent operating model. We share case studies from two organizations—HERE Technologies and Tata Communications—that have made this transition, so you can learn from their experiences of successful implementations.
We believe the future of work will look very different than it does today. Organizations must adapt to become more agile as they shift and change based on new technologies, new skills and new business competitors. This book is a guide to one path to take in, as we like to say, “tiptoeing into the future of work.” You can follow this path to create companies that are more productive and more innovative, while offering employee experiences that drive high levels of engagement and organizational performance.
PART ONE
The Time for the Inside Gig Has Come
In this volatile business of ours, we can ill afford to rest on our laurels, even to pause in retrospect. Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.
—Walt Disney
CHAPTER 1
Disrupting the Talent Operating Model
Once we rid ourselves of traditional thinking, we can get on with creating the future.
—James Bertrand
WHAT IS A TALENT OPERATING MODEL DESIGNED TO DO?
HOW OFTEN DO YOU THINK OF THE OPERATING model your company is built on? You might think about your car’s operating system more than you do about how work flows and gets done—especially when the “check engine” light comes on. Let’s begin by discussing current operating models and then open the door to our ideas about what change is possible and even imminent in the way work is done.
Organizations are built on operating models and systems designed to deliver value to their customers and shareholders. An operating model links strategy, organization design and execution. While many operating model designs can be found in various books and articles, for our purposes we have adopted the one shown in Figure 1.1 Operating Model.
Figure 1.1 Operating Model
Marcia Blenko, Eric Garton and Ludovico Mottura, “Winning Operating Models That Convert Strategy to Results,” Bain & Company, December 10, 2014, www.bain.com/insights/winning-operating-models-that-convert-strategy-to-results.
In this model, strategy and values are defined by an organization’s leadership team; they provide the foundation upon which a company operates. The first three areas of the operating model—structure, accountabilities and governance—are owned by the executive leadership team. Structure refers to the high-level organization chart that sets out how a company organizes itself to take advantage of scale and expertise. It provides an understanding of how resources are organized and coordinated—functional lines of business versus matrixed structures; global centers of operation or distributed authority to regions. Accountabilities delineate the roles and responsibilities for the organization’s primary entities, including where accountability for performance (profit-and-loss ownership) lies. Governance refers to how processes and activities that cut across structures are managed or regulated, particularly as related to information flow and decision-making. It describes the management processes or operating committees that participate in making decisions on business priorities, including how resources are allocated and how organizational performance is measured and managed.
The ways of working address four people-related processes:
1.Organization culture
2.Leadership behaviors that support the business strategy
3.Decision-making styles and processes
4.Organization design to optimize performance across the company
Finally, the capabilities of a company (people, processes and technology) focus on areas that are also usually within the realm of HR, but not exclusively. Capabilities involve defining the type of talent or resources that are needed and how to focus their efforts; the processes that specify how a company attracts, manages and rewards its employees; and the technology that’s adopted to ensure organizational productivity.
Figure 1.1 Operating Model is a visual representation of how an organization operates. In this book, when we refer to a talent operating model, we are focusing on the ways of working and the capabilities that an organization cultivates to execute its strategy and goals. This chapter offers a broad description of the talent operating model that underpins a new way of working—the Inside Gig—and how this model differs from traditional talent operating models.
TYPES OF TALENT OPERATING MODELS
Traditional Talent Operating Models
Traditional talent operating models generally define the ways of working and capabilities that support the organization in achieving its goals. While aspects of culture and leadership behaviors are unique to each company, most organizations have decision-making styles and an organization design that support a hierarchical management style. Command-and-control systems are the epitome of traditional talent operating models; however, some organizations, while still hierarchical, have adopted collaborative approaches to work. In these organizations, decision-making styles and organization design might encourage collaboration, but important decisions are still made at the top. The capabilities these companies develop mirror this relatively stable work ecosystem.
In a traditional talent operating model, candidates interview for a specific job because they have a defined set of skills that meet the requirements for that role. Candidates are provided with a job description