Thinking Outside The “Box”

Recently, I attended a conference. I sat with a group focused on GTM strategies and how they were structuring their strategies to drive growth.

A few of the panelists started showing organization charts, discussing how they were restructuring their organizations to improve results. Each chart showed hierarchies of boxes, each with a functional name. Some showed how they were restructuring sales and marketing, moving to a Revenue structure. The presented the “before” and “after” org charts, the only thing that seemed to have changed is the CRO role and a RevOPs hierarchy combining marketing and sales ops.

In the presentation they described the roles of each of the boxes and the key metrics for the people in each box.

Our software tools/technologies, tend to reflect our “box” thinking. We have endless tools to help marketing content, demand/lead gen, social. We have tools to support our top of funnel processes, SDRs, BDRs,. We have tools that help AEs, Account Managers, Corporate Account Managers, Sales Support, and on an on. We have tech stacks that support our organizational structures, optimized to the work that’s done in each box in our organizations. While some provide us common data bases, for example CRM, the way we use them focus on the work that’s done in our boxes.

And our enablement approaches tend to be box focused. We develop programs and support for the people in each box. We understand the skills they need to achieve their goals and train them on each of those.

This has been the traditional way we have managed and developed organizations. Everything starts with the structure and the boxes. Everything stays within it’s box. Each box is optimized for its function. And life is good…… at least that’s the way we think it is. If each box is doing its job, meeting its goals, everything is perfect.

But the reality is, that even if each box is doing its job, achieving its goals, too often, overall things aren’t working right. We aren’t achieving the overall organizational goals. Something is happening as work moves from box to box. (My lean/agile friends are apoplectic, this can’t happen!)

Going back to the meeting I was sitting in, as people presented their org structures and how they had shifted the boxes around, I raised my hand, asking a question, “What’s the change in workflow?”

The speakers went silent, a few of the participants starred at me, quizzically.

I repeated my question. “I understand how you’ve rearranged the boxes and established metrics/goals for each box, but how does it all fit together what is the workflow?”

And this is the challenge too many organizations face, we focus so much on each functional area, their goals and performance, that we lose site of the whole–the workflow across the organization. We fail to look at:

• Are we aligned with our goals and metrics.
• Do we clearly understand roles/responsibilities for everything through the process? Are there overlaps that confuse things and waste resources? Are there gaps in the process?
• Does every step build on the previous step, helping us achieve our goals?
• What happens when one box/step isn’t working, how does it impact everything else?

And when the workflow is working as it is, we begin to think, “How can we improve it?”

To achieve our organizational goals. To build high performing organizations, we have to start thinking outside our “boxes.” We have to understand the workflow.

 

Afterword: As a sidenote, we have to rethink the technology we use to support our organizations.  Most of the software tools focus on optimization within a certain box.  They provide huge capabilities to improve efficiency within a certain function.  Even those platforms, while they tend to provide some data integration, they tend, also, to reinforce supporting the “boxes.”  (Just look at the structure of SFDC offerings.)

With the advent of AI and related tools, I suspect we will see a revolution in software tools that help use more effectively address workflows how are both more nimble and agile in adjusting those workflows, those workflows for overall organizational effectiveness.