Page 138 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

Focusing on Results 127

In the HBR article “Simplicity-Minded Management,” Ron describes
four kinds of organizational complexity. It’s up to you as a leader to sim-
plify these types of complexity when they appear:

• Structural mitosis: changes in organizational design that get in

the way of getting things done. You can address these by periodi-
cally examining your department’s or unit’s structure and adjust-
ing it to make sure it serves the strategy you have set as simply as
possible.

• Product proliferation: adding new products and services without
taking any away or creating multiple variations of products or
services. Run a portfolio review of your department’s or team’s of-
ferings. Which are the most profitable or have the highest growth
potential? Which best meet your customers’ needs? Which yield
diminishing returns? Which can be standardized? Eliminate or
change those that no longer fit.

• Process evolution: ways of getting things done that are outmoded.
To simplify overwrought processes, bring together many busi-
ness stakeholders at different levels to redesign them from the
ground up.

• Managerial habits: behaviors that get in the way of results. Invite
your own team members to suggest how they could streamline
their interactions with you. Perhaps you could delegate cross-
functional issues more clearly, run meetings more effectively, or
simplify your pattern of daily reporting.

All organizations suffer from different degrees of complexity in these
areas. Your team may uncover some, but you should also do your own diag-
nosis of which need simplification, and in what order.
At XL, for example, Macia identified two key areas of complexity in
her first months at the company, one having to do with the organizational
structure and one with the evolution of the underwriting process. Because
they both cut across the two divisions of the business that reported to her,