Last week I met with a group of HR executives to discuss issues around organizational design in their respective companies. It was an interesting session and, as you might have guessed, we came out of it with a clear sense that there are no “one size fits all” solutions out there. How we structure ourselves is governed by a variety of drivers ranging from alignment with business objectives, the industry, history, ownership, maturity, growth strategy, the economy of specific markets, budget and revenue constraints, leadership characteristics and more. The most important thing is to keep questioning structure at the leadership level. Is it still working? Is it right? What’s changing?

Here are some of my favorite quotes and suggestions from this session:
• “We are truly a global business. We don’t drop things from a Helo and tell people to implement. ‘People would ‘walk’”
• “We don’t have this stuff around structure figured out yet. It is evolving. The answer for you really depends on where your company is at and what you are trying to achieve at a particular point in time.”
• “Our org model is how we win and how we differentiate ourselves from our competitors. Our focus is on local depth and global breadth.”
• “Have your leadership read “The Starfish and the Spider” to anchor their discussion around structure and org design. When you cut tentacles off the starfish they grow back but the starfish model is complex. Once you have chopped the head off the spider it is DEAD. What’s appropriate for your company? Here are some of the questions you can address to your leadership team:

1) Are we a starfish, a spider or something in between?
2) What are we doing to maximize the value from our structure?
3) What type of structure do our competitors have?
4) What organizational structure should we have to compete most effectively?

Here is a link if you want some more info on this model:
http://ugnchicago.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Starfish-and-Spider-Ori-Brafman-Summary.pdf

• “One of the ways we moved our global HR organization forward was by engaging everybody in a benchmarking project to establish Best HR Practices for our company. Each region was asked to rate themselves against benchmarks in all aspects of HR. Yes, some recalibration was required, but ultimately this process allowed everybody to see where their own strengths and weaknesses were as well as those of others. By building the whole project around “what can we learn from each other” people started seeking others out across regions and across the globe to access best practices.”
• “Managing HR in a decentralized model can be very challenging. The onus on corporate HR becomes one of using influentials skills. It requires real relationship building to get people talking and sharing across the world. I have to be collaborative, not directive and help them see the value of sharing?”

This group engaged in interesting discussions on a number of different topics as well. For example,
• How do we best integrate HR when we operate in many different countries where the cultures and values are significantly different?
• To what degree does your talent drive your structure?
• Is your structure leading to culture or vice versa? Or both?