Technology

Using leadership development to overcome functional myopia

During the construction of a new house a few years ago, I stopped by the site one afternoon. As I was walking through the house, I found the drywall contractor finishing his work on what would become the dining room. He’d done a good job, except for one thing: the insulation contractor hadn’t insulated the walls yet.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

“I’m doing what I’m getting paid to do: laying drywall.”

“But the insulation is not on the walls yet!” I complained.

“That is not my problem,” he replied. “They pay me to do the drywall.”

This contractor measured his work by how well he did on the drywall, if the job was done on time, and if he made a profit. In doing his work, he did not consider how his work fit into the general plans of the house; he didn’t care if the walls were insulated or not.

Similarly, in high-tech companies, design engineers traditionally measure their work by the elegance of their designs, whether the design of a new product includes all the latest technological advances. Your product designs can win industry awards, but if a product isn’t what the customer wants, if it’s loaded with cost-increasing features that few customers will use, the design exercise makes little sense.

“Functional myopia” exists when an organization, or a person, becomes so focused on its local or group goals and standards that it loses sight of the overall goals of the company. No individual or group is exempt from this syndrome, from the petty cash clerk to the legal department, the engineering manager, the salesperson, and the drywall contractor. I am sure that you have experienced and been frustrated by the functional myopia of many people and groups that you face on a daily basis in your personal and professional life.

Functional myopia can undermine each and every turnaround or renovation company’s efforts. At best, it can slow progress toward company goals. At worst, those goals may not be met at all. If I hadn’t visited the construction site that day, I wouldn’t have known something was wrong until I realized how cold the dining room was during the winter. In the case of the high-tech manufacturer, the myopia of design engineers often results in products that customers do not want or that are priced so high that they are not competitive in the market. Functional myopia can subvert the best laid plans of any organization. For instance:

* The purchasing department, when looking for the lowest cost supplier (its traditional measure of performance), may overlook product quality or timeliness of delivery, thus thwarting the company’s attempts to improve quality or reduce delivery. time to market.

* The material manager of a factory may accumulate a key material so that it is always available locally, even while another of the company’s factories may have to close for several weeks due to a shortage of that material.

* The legal department can delay a key industry alliance for months, arguing with the other company about minor and inconsequential wording changes to the association agreement.

* The training department can stop sales of a new product by adhering so rigorously to its standards for course development that training on the new product is not available until six months after it is ready for shipment.

The list of ways that functional myopia can harm organizations is endless. But if everyone works for the same company, how does functional myopia happen?

The roots of functional myopia

Startups don’t suffer from functional myopia. In a start-up company, there is a small group of entrepreneurs who constantly work together with a common purpose: to develop that first product or service and sell it. But as the startup grows, the initial small group expands and with that expansion comes functional specialization. As each function expands, departments get larger and the focus tends to shrink to department work, and employees often lose sight of the overall goals of the company. Research, design, manufacturing, marketing, and service become sequential activities, with each group waiting for the previous group to finish their work before passing it on. Functional myopia has three basic roots:

CULTURAL ROOTS: Cultural issues, dealing with corporate norms of behavior in general and individual functions and organizations within the company, can take many forms. They can appear as stereotypes of various functions, some attributable to long-standing rivalries, others to actual differences in status, as reflected in pay scales and perks, such as office size. Each profession has its own standards by which it measures the quality of its work. At the simplest level, you could say that design engineers are measured by the elegance and performance of their designs, they manufacture based on how economically a product can be manufactured, service engineers on the “mean time to repair “People buy to get the lowest prices. suppliers, etc. These goals are often in conflict with each other. For example, a design feature can improve performance but also increase manufacturing cost, or a certain manufacturing method can reduce production costs but increase service costs. The resolution of these conflicts cannot always be carried out on the basis of objective technical criteria. More often, it is a political process, where politics is defined as “the art of the possible”.

ORGANIZATIONAL ROOTS – Many manufacturing companies have grown into hierarchies in which each function has its own department, and communication between functions takes place primarily at the top of the respective departments; vice presidents of engineering and manufacturing can meet regularly to discuss problems, but managers and lower individual contributors in their groups often do not dialogue. These are commonly called “chimney” organizations. Because the members of each organization cannot see beyond their respective chimneys, their focus is local or myopic. To be successful, they must adhere to the standards and practices of their respective roles. Even if they thought there would be some benefit to working more closely with their counterparts in other roles, the limits of their respective chimneys prevent this from happening: “Just do your own work and let the other department worry about yours.”

ADMINISTRATIVE ROOTS: Because companies are geared towards people’s achievement, there may actually be disincentives for most employees to remove their functional blinders. “If my performance and salary reviews are based on my own organization’s standards and goals, I’d better make sure I abide by the rules.” Therefore, trying to cooperate between functions or organizations can result in a worse performance evaluation, even if it is better for the overall objectives of the company.

Correction of functional myopia

Given the root causes of functional myopia, how can organizations overcome these barriers to get employees at all levels to work together, consider the big picture, and optimize overall company results, rather than individual functional goals? Functional myopia can only be overcome by addressing all three root causes. To achieve this, a three-pronged approach is required:

  • EDUCATION AND TRAINING programs can help overcome cultural barriers and develop cross-functional teamwork. Charting out business processes to understand how each group’s work is codependent on the work of other groups is a good place to start.
  • Changes in ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN can help eliminate chimneys and open lines of communication between functions and groups.
  • Changes to ADMINISTRATIVE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES to link individual metrics and rewards more closely to overall company goals can help people focus more on helping the company as a whole achieve its goals.

To correct functional myopia, organizations must examine their economic value chains, both internal and external, in order to maximize overall productivity and profitability. When functions operate only to maximize their local goals, they lose sight of the big picture and often make decisions that cannot be justified in the larger context.

The Role of Myopia Correction in Leadership Development

In his book, The Leadership Pipeline , Ram Charan and his co-authors describe a series of transitions, from individual contributor to individual contributor manager, then manager of managers, to CEO. To be successful in each of these transitions, the employee must broaden his vision, overcoming functional myopia to see a bigger picture. At each higher level of the organization, the employee must consider a broader range of employees and roles to be successful.

The design of the LDP described in my book, Feeding your leadership channel, encourages cross-functional collaboration, in class and on active learning projects, and through educational sessions helps participants broaden their views of the organization and their understanding of the business. It is through this combination of activities that the LDP model helps participants overcome their functional myopia.

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