3As
Extracted from the public Notion original. Notion record created 2019-12-05. Last edited 2019-12-05.
We have been in the habit of seeing our organisations as either a set of functions (HR, IT, Marketing, etc), a set of markets, or a set of product lines. All organisations structure themselves in one or more of these ways.
When businesses scale into various regions this of course impacts structure but is rarely fundamental to the structure unless each region runs a fundamentally different business (either intentionally, or as an acceptable side-effect of structure) and your operating model is diversification (under this model).
Each of these types of structure has issues - briefly:
- Functional organisation creates bureaucracy as each function tries to optimise in isolation
- Market-based organisation is hardly organisation at all in that the deeper into the organisation you go the less clear the structure becomes
- Product-line -based organisation systematically forgoes efficiencies as cost optimisation interferes with governance
The answer to all of these challenges is capability-based governance.
Capability-based governance is a separate topic but it's important to acknowledge that capability-based governance should be addressed before anything that follows.
This post is about core capabilities or orientations that all organisations have; and that to a lesser extent each capability in a capability-based governance approach must both contribute to and inform.
Think of these as the 3As:
- Agility
- Awareness
- Alignment
Agility
Agility is the ability to respond. It can be a prime mover, and an innovator, when it’s set free - but it’s typically about reacting and changing efficiently. However, when all of the focus is on Agility (and not Awareness and Alignment below) we can expect diminishing competitive advantage and convergence within industries.
Awareness
Awareness is taking notice at scale and in context. Awareness is inward facing where you are understanding how value is created, measuring performance, identifying gaps and opportunities. Awareness is outward facing when it’s making sense of trends, understanding customers, and reading the market. Awareness goes right to the edge of the chasm of action - and then takes a step further to make that action simple, straightforward, and inevitable.
Alignment
Alignment is staying close to your strategy, values, plans, chosen markets, and customers. It’s also adapting these knowingly and knowing when you don’t know. Alignment is both grand strategy and what takes its place when that approach is rejected. Alignment is investing in the right things - not just choosing from a set of investments proposed by others.
As a service company Aware Services makes a firm claim on Awareness. The boundaries leak into Agility and Alignment but that's not our focus.
In an organisation, each capability (claims management, marketing, sales, regulatory compliance, etc) can be thought of as a narrow band, a ring that must cover all of these dimensions.
Specialization of a services company can be on either one of the As or to focus on a number of specific rings that align to the capabilities client organisations’ require (and also therefore cover all of the As)