Organization Design that Works with Jonathan Edwards of Kanso Design - OrgDev episode 33

Why is effective organization design essential for your business's success? In our latest podcast, we explore how aligning the key elements of your organization can create a seamless, efficient operation that drives your strategic goals. We sit down with Jonathan Edwards, co-founder of Kanso Design, to discuss how thoughtful organization design can simplify work, unleash your team's potential, and deliver tangible business outcomes.

💼 About our Guest
Jonathan Edwards, Co-Founder & Partner
Kanso Design https://www.kansodesign.org/
Connect with Jonathan here:   / jonathankanso 
You can follow Kanso Design here:   / kanso-design-ltd 

Jonathan is a seasoned organization design leader with over 20 years of experience in driving business change, delivering complex programs, and enhancing organizational effectiveness. His expertise spans multiple sectors, where he has supported global businesses and teams through organization redesign, operating model development, performance improvement, cost reduction, and large-scale change initiatives.

Jonathan has contributed his skills to renowned companies such as Burberry, John Lewis, Expedia, London Heathrow, and the British Council.  He excels in combining strategic vision with detailed analysis, adeptly handling complex and sensitive issues while fostering consensus around solutions.

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

Transcript:
(00:00) hi and welcome to the org Dev podcast so organization design is a critical component of organization success get the right architecture in place and you can catapult your organization to success get it wrong and it can destroy value and create enormous efficiencies but what is it how do you do it and what are the different approaches to help us explore this we've invited the brilliant Jonathan Edwards of canzo design to unveil some of the mystery behind it and he's done it in organization design in many fascinating organizations he's work
(00:30) to iconic organizations such as experion British Council Lloyds bbery John Lewis BBC and even London hea as well he co-founded canzo design in 2019 he has over 20 years experience in business change program delivery and elevating organizational Effectiveness now one of the things we really like about Jonathan's background he's a chartered mechanical engineer by training and that gives him a really interesting perspective he's an Australian turned British person by bird uh he also likes adventure and typically
(01:02) a trip to the mountains at any time possible as well and he's got three children so so Jonathan we're absolutely delighted that you're joining us today we're really glad it's taken a little while to get this conversation in place because you've been so busy but we're really pleased you can join us today yeah great intro and yeah my Australian background I keep pretty well hidden you can see if you can pick up any remnants of it as I speak brilliant welcome Jonathan Lov to have you with us
(01:27) so to just kick us off just tell us a bit more about canzo design and your role so uh so we set up Kenzo design about 5 and a half years ago and Garen as you said I've been in organization design for for a good long while uh I've done jobs as a permanent employee I've done jobs as a contractor uh but it was about six years ago that I was uh back in Contracting and feeling like maybe there was a little bit more to to to what we could do so I was having conversations with three others simultaneously and there were similar
(01:55) sorts of conversations about you know it was great being a contractor and we had some really common values about how we delivered value for organizations and uh the fact that you know really at a core and I'll talk a little bit about um our value our values for Cano design but it was really about developing solutions that the client bought into and they were part of so co-creation uh was was really at the core of that we saw a lot of consultancies not necessarily doing a good job of it so between the four of us
(02:22) we decided to set canzo up we're an organization design consultancy and we provide uh all services relating to organization design it's a bit of a Gray Line around the boundaries um as all of our professional uh Scopes are but yeah we provide organization Design Services we're a team of about 15 people uh and we've been going for five years so and you're our first organization design guest so we've had a lot of people who kind of dabble in it and do organization how do you define organization design
(02:49) what does it involve from your perspective so I think I think the core thing around organization design and I should say because I know D and garant that this is an organization development podcast so I should contextualize to say that every time I mention OD I mean organization design I don't mean organization development so I think it's really useful Danny to kind of make that distinction about about what the two are and so uh really I think the core of organization design is about work it's about what is the work that needs to get
(03:15) done to deliver the Strategic Ambitions that the organization has got to do and what is the best way of organizing that work and of course uh in all you know in all design we think about whole system design and think about all the different levers and all the different layers that can be pulled so it's not just about organization structure it's not just about a role definition but it's thinking about how the organization works together and how teams Crosscut across the organization and collaborate
(03:42) together and how things like processes and skills and partners and suppliers and technology and data can all be used to uh to create a system that really works so organization design is really around uh it's really around models it's around work it's about workflow it's about understanding how those roles can be decided across the organization to best fit in and I think you know just thinking about the distinction between or Dev and or design I think that uh for me you know both of those are informed
(04:12) by strategy they're both under the banner of organization Effectiveness and they both need huge experience but I suppose design is more structured it's more Sy systems thinking it's more analytical um I suppose detail oriented you know there's always this balance about how much detail we go into but it's about designing the wiring the organization whereas maybe or development is more about Behavioral Science and culture and um and and the people side of things um and really you need both of those to work together to
(04:40) get a really effective organization um can you sit in both seats at the same time I think some people do but I think it's worth saying that it's about coming up to the simil similar sorts of challenges from two very different perspectives uh to try to get an organization that's working effectively and I think either can be a full-time job and each is uh each is definitely a professional in its own right and then canzo design that's you Che a carefully chosen name do you want to tell us a bit
(05:04) more about that so when we when we started we started off the uh the Journey of Cano design sitting in a pub in a basement for about a year we were having lots of conversations about what was important to us I talked about our values and just to say our values uh quickly it's about enabling ambition of the organization it's about Simplicity and you know design is a complex process and we always find this job of uh when we work with our clients of how do we cut through complexity and just make the design process and choices as simple as
(05:31) possible and the third one is about developing together which is the co-creation piece that I spoke about before but we had lots of brainstorming about the about the brand kzo design came out canzo came out it's a Japanese uh Zen philosophy and it means simplicity so it spoke really well to what we thought was in important in design and it's really about taking complexity and just focusing on the value focusing on the one thing that matters most and clearing out all the rest of the Clutter so you can get to
(05:58) the best choices for the organization when you think think about the sectors you work with or the clients are the particular sectors you kind of focus more on can we work with all sectors so we we're really pleased over the last five and a half years to have L lots of different clients in both private and public sector um and you know we have constantly have conversations about the benefit of sector expertise uh and and we recognize that there is a lot of benefit to come from familiarity of sectors but what we also see is that
(06:26) there's a lot of power and drawing experience and cross-pollination between uh between and across different Industries and I think what's surprising is you know we get into organizations and every organization says oh my organization is unique nobody else has challenges like me and we so say well you know talk through those challenges and what we hear are the same sorts of challenges time and times again it's about Clarity of accountabilities it's about Clarity of who wins the decision it's about challenges with how teams
(06:51) work together it's about do we have the right capabilities it's about are we really clear that our organization is set up to deliver our strategy in the best way so those sorts of challeng challenges are ubiquitous and uh and we see those across all the the all the industries we work in but no we've we've got experience of working across all those and it's one of the things I love about my job is that I'm working with three different clients at the moment and they're all in completely different
(07:14) sectors and it brings a huge amount of excitement and interest to the job so you have worked with a variety of really interesting organizations like Experian which is Information Services and then you've work with retail with John Lewis like what are those different kinds of challenges that each of those SE might be juggling with we're constantly hearing that accountabilities aren't clear that you've got lots of people playing into organizations and that they don't really know where they hand us off
(07:40) there are multiple teams working together often uh organizations have got some sort of Matrix organization you know that's a that's a necessarily evil in a lot of organizations especially where they're Global organizations or whether you've got cross cutting of kind of functions or product uh areas within the business Matrix organizations are often a feature uh and a lot of people don't like Matrix organ orations but whether it's Matrix organizations or not what we see as challenges in how teams
(08:05) really understand their role in the organization how they collaborate across the organization so it's really that glue across the organization of how the different parts work together that are the sorts of challenges we face and when we get into that you know there there's generally questions about yes and if you're really making a decision you really account clear on who's got the d uh for some of these things so I think really kind of ineffective organizations we also have uh you know challenges
(08:30) regards to efficiency so often uh clients come to us and they want to talk about efficiency in their organization uh we always balance that with uh well is it efficiency or is it Effectiveness you're after and of course we always believe that Effectiveness comes first and the first the first and most important thing is Mak sure the organization delivers for its customers uh and delivers the value it needs to do and then doing that in the most efficient way uh is a challenge we we fac into as well and one of the other
(08:55) challenges that we're seeing more and more is that um is that people in the organization don't necessarily know how to do organization design and they want to do organization design and they want to be self-sufficient in organization design and we love working with our clients to make sure that either through a project or by training we can help them become more self-sufficient we can help them do their organization design better themselves uh and that's that's increasingly becoming a challenge that
(09:20) we're seeing organizations coming to us with difficult question for you but I just of just I want to ask my own curiosity so is there a sweet spot about when you start thinking about bringing designers in because obviously you've got like dumb Bar's number at 50 so when things like that things start to get really complex in terms of relationships then you get to the point where potentially like they might start function as a functional organization then reorganize when is a good time for organizations to start thinking about I
(09:43) think we should maybe bring an objective view in and start to think about how the different parts fit together and how it all fits into the strategy yeah it's it's a challenge that we face in our organization and and for canzo design obviously you know I I wear Three Hats in my organization so I'm thinking about delivering great solutions for clients uh I'm thinking about running the business but I'm also thinking about winning new business and the winning new business part of it we ask ourselves the
(10:07) question as to exactly that question go what is the right point and how do we intersect with organizations at the right time to be able to kind of you know meet their need at the right time but I think that really what we discovered as we've gone along is that organization design isn't something we can we can't catalyze that in an organization the Catal that organizations come to their own point in the organization where they realize they've got a challenge and that can either be a Dawning realization where
(10:31) you've got you know uh potentially new members of the leadership team coming in that are catalyzing it or they're just getting to a point where they're not delivering the uh the results or the the value that they need to or it may be that there catalyzed for a change there might be m& or it may be a new strategy that they're trying to develop or a new product arm they're trying to develop so I think it can be catalyzed in a lot of ways but what we're finding is the organization reaches that point of their
(10:56) own accord and then at the right time we try to be there so they can say listen we're at the point where we need some support uh and and we can come in and support them and what do you find is the role of Diagnostics in this because obviously the clients got to the point where things are creaking and you know maybe they can't quite realize the ambition or they've got like a there's a reason to do it as well but what role does Diagnostics coming to sort of help you understand what's going on here
(11:19) because obviously your objective you're coming in you've only got a partial view what what is that pathway yeah so I mean it's great and just to kind of before I dive into the diagnostic piece just to say that I think yeah pretty much every organ designer will come in with a with a a pretty standard approach for how you do organization design and that is you get in and you do some Discovery you do some analytics you do some Diagnostics to try to understand the organization better to understand where the organization is
(11:45) trying to get to and then you move from there into some sort of high level design and detail design now um that doesn't have to be a very waterfall uh process we can do it quite quickly and quite rapidly and this is one of the challenges that we try to get into with our clients is how we can get to a good good enough answer quickly enough so they can move forward to the next step but generally as you say we start with Diagnostics because we need to understand the organization we often find that actually the organization the
(12:10) client themselves they don't understand their organization very well themselves uh so there's a huge amount of power and just kind of playing back the a state to organizations and getting leaders across the leadership team to all see that in the same way and and you get realizations from that so internally we've invested in uh an analytics and analytics capability so we're only a small team but a big part of that small team is our analytics Hub uh so we've got some analysts and they always
(12:37) partner with with our jobs and they do and uh they help us with a diagnostic of the organization and that'll be a number of different things right we'll be thinking about the size and shape of the organization it'll be doing research it'll be looking at where the organization is trying to head to but bringing that together so that we can play back uh in a coherent and really strategic way to the clients kind of where they're at and where where the gaps are uh so Diagnostics is a huge part of what we do at the start and all
(13:02) the way through the design we always ask this question because we always find it really fascinating but what was your journey to becoming an organization designer well you've already given a little bit of that away Garen by by tell saying that I was an engineer at the start but yeah I did I I came over from Australia when I was a kid um I ended up going to bristle University and doing uh mechanical engineering so I studied mechanical engineering and I worked in factories for a few years and I suppose the engineering you know that gave me
(13:28) logical um analytic iCal type skills um problem solving skills and that that's those sorts of skill sets have have stayed with me and kind of stayed quar to uh to who I am today and what I do and I think that one of the key things that I bring to organization design is that kind of systems thinking I did I studied systems thinking at University um and so I like to bring that whole systems design aspect to all the work that I do so I think the engineering gave me that it also gave me some people Management on the on the shop floor uh I
(13:56) then went into Consulting and I was doing project and program management cons Consulting with PA Consulting uh for six or seven years uh and through that I learned two things I learned how to run projects and programs uh and I also learned my Consulting skills as well so that's kind of what I got from that phase of my life and then somebody uh came up with this great idea that I should join a team called organization Effectiveness and I had no idea what it was at the time uh but I jumped in with both feet uh and I've never left since
(14:20) uh and pretty quickly an organization Effectiveness I I HED in on designed I think cuz it married up with those engineering skill sets that I started at start began with in my career and uh yeah I've just found a real home for myself I just really enjoy the problem solving and working with clients um so haven't moved anywhere else it's really interesting you touched on something organization Effectiveness I think one of the things that we're finding from the podcast is just there's no two definitions of it so that that
(14:44) organization Effectiveness team that you invited into what what was their task what were they you know what was their mandate well I think organization Effectiveness I mean these terms all swim around each other and they're also bluring I think you know organization development organization design organization Effectiveness that the same sorts of things but I think that um largely I think the organization Effectiveness brings together the organization Design Elements and the organization development ele element so
(15:09) I'd bring that together but you can also have things in my mind I would sort of say that um uh organization Effectiveness has a change element to it as well because you really need to uh you really need to apply the change often it can have a communication or Employee Engagement aspect to it as well so I think employee organization Effectiveness can have all of those things but it's probably the broadest sense of the terms to how do you get an organization to really being at fully uh full organizational Health across all
(15:35) aspects and that needs some design it needs some change and it definitely needs some organization development as well so one of the things we like to do on this is just demystify kind of the field of organization development organization design so what's a typical week look like for you what what are you involved in doing yes absolutely so I think I said before that uh there are a few different aspects of my role as a leader uh as a small consultancy um for a small consultancy and those are uh first Business Development so I have to
(16:01) think about winning new business and converting that new business and that means constantly speaking to clients about their challenges and how we can help address those challenges uh secondly I need to run the business so um in our in our or organization we've got four partners and between us we split up the roles and I've picked up two quite fundamental elements I run the people side of things I'm the HR Director uh for caner design but I also run the sales process as well um so through that I'm always thinking about
(16:27) this balance between supply and demand and you you know how do this how does the staff that we have match the demand and how when do we need to reach into our broader pool of Associates to kind of fulfill that demand as well so that's a constant juggling act that will never go away uh and of course the third and most important one is actually delivering great solutions to clients um so my week will be a jumble of all of those three and I think that one of the things I love about my job and I think probably many busy people love is is the
(16:52) juggling the juggling of different priorities and I love the fact that I'll be talking about delivering one project here talking about delivering another project here and I can play different roles on that I can be either be leading a project where there's a team of people who are delivering a designed solution playing a QA role playing a guidance role and playing a complient relationship role or in a lot of cases us as partners are absolutely doing the work we're getting in and we're kind of
(17:15) drawing the models we're doing the activity analysis we're doing the azis analysis um I just come out of a really in-depth project doing an organization diagnostic for a client which went on for two months uh we deliver a really thorough report on that and I had my hands all over that so um sometimes leading sometimes doing uh but balanced with uh meetings so always dotted through the the uh the week are conversations with clients to say what sort of challenges are you having uh and how can we help address those uh and as
(17:42) you said Garen earlier on that when those challenges come up it's not as simple as you know you've got a solution this is how we going to help fulfill that solution it takes a real thinking about right before we start off a project we really have to think carefully uh about what is the best solution there's no one way of tackling design problem problem so we have to be really considered to really understand where the clients at really understand what they're trying to achieve what their organization can deliver where
(18:07) they need help and how we can get the right balance and mix of scope so that we're delivering something that's really effective for them um and coaching them often in the process as well because uh often you know clients well clients are coming to us for our expertise and that means they don't always know how to do this uh so helping the clients to think about how they do it and how they can get value from it it's an important part of it as well uh my week therefore is kind of mixed with client meetings
(18:30) delivery meetings but also running the BD call Operations calls it's a whole bag of different things and that variety is something I really enjoy and then when you think about organiz design what do people get wrong most often what are the myths about organization design you like to oh where I start with that I I used to work with uh with with a lady in in bber plug jamy um and uh and I loved for she was one of she was a tutor in my early days in organization design I think when I was working at Burberry I
(18:57) was there for seven years that's when I really cut my teeth and uh and got into organization design and I think I discovered then that the best way of knowing you knowing that you know your trade is when you have to train other people uh and it was at burry that I started training other people across the organization and how to do organization design um but uh but my mentor uh she she said that you know she always always came into conversations saying the first thing they do is put an organization structure on the desk it's like we just
(19:24) push that to one side because organization design isn't about organization structures but of of course this is this is the misom that people come in and they think what I need is a structure chart but it's not a structure chart what you need is to understand where you are understand what you're trying to get to and understand the work that needs to be done in your organization and across your organization to get that strategy delivered so fundamentally it's about the work and about mapping out the 2B
(19:48) with a future focused mind uh about uh about mapping out that work and designing an organization including structure charts including role definition including workflows and how decisions are distributed across the organization and what sort of capabilities you need uh it's not just about structure sh so I think that's probably one of the big misnomers another big challenge we get is is organizations just really struggling to let today go and being really future focused and kind of just releasing the shackles of the
(20:14) constraints of today's organization and we're constantly you know trying to build well we're constantly building that into our conversation you know keeping in the future unlocking what would you do if you're designing an organization with a blank sheet of paper um uh and finally probably the third one these are just off the top of my head the other one that people love to leaders love to do is to design around the people that they've got uh so you know so the reason we're in a job really as
(20:39) organization design professionals often is is it's not just because of the expertise but because leaders haven't really got the time to think about how they set up their organizations and Garen we've said you know this is something I've said in our in our conversations is that leaders come to this and and they're promoted because of their skill in a certain function or discipline uh their development that they have it's about behavioral it's about you know setting set it's about
(21:03) you know role modeling it's about change leadership but really there's a missing in organization uh sorry in leadership development around organization design you know there's a core job of leaders which is to set up their stall in the right way and that means making sure that everybody in their organization knows what they need to do knows how they fit in and knows how information and decisions flow across the organization um and I think there's probably in my mind there's not enough focus in leadership development on that
(21:28) it's before you get to the change piece what are you actually setting your organization up to do and how are you setting it up in the best way um so I think we one of the challenges we have as Leaders who don't really get organization design they don't really understand it because that's not what they've come from but of course that's what they're that's what we're there to help them with uh to help them through that process and we see a really big spectrum between leaders that get it and
(21:50) leaders who really struggle with it so I think that's one of the balances what we're always managing as we go along as well I think it's something we find as well is just getting leaders or find this head space just to look up and look look forward rather than just be in the in the moment firefighting I'll play one more on as well if I can and and and that's just really about kind of strategic alignment I think you know we love to get into organizations at the starting point uh you know we we what are you trying to
(22:13) achieve as an organization where are you trying ahead and and one of the questions we ask is you know you clear on your strategy uh and generally we get a lot of nods around the table of everybody says yes we clear on our strategy so you then go and ask five or six leaders what their strategy is and you get five or six different answers and often there's a lot of Sy ity but often there's a lot of difference as well so uh so one of the challenges is well one of the opportunities there is to play it back and to real build really
(22:36) kind of build alignment around that so the work that we do so that's another another feature that plays into our work there's a real psychological element to this isn't there there is the the understanding processes and changing systems in that as well but I guess there's a it's getting them to actually visualize the organization in a different way that kind of traditional thing we hold on to which is the organization chart the thing that you get shown on day one so is educating them to look at it in a different way
(23:01) and then the other thing is you know you talk about the ones that get it and don't get it there's a certain amount of assertiveness in this though isn't there because you are potentially moving people out of roles you're delving into the world of consultation that there is risk attached to that as well how do you help managers get through those phases with them uh I suppose lots of different questions in there and it kind of gets me thinking about lots of lots of different things one of the key things
(23:25) we have to do at the start of an organization design process is to think about who's going to be involved and there's a real balance within this is that we think about closed design and open design and people centered design so the smallest end you can have a small group of people who are you know leaders in the organization you can come up with an answer and you can move forward with that answer at the other end of the spectrum you can engage a really large number of people across the organization through surveys or working groups or
(23:51) whatever it is uh so that you can get a much broader level of input I just between those obviously you know you can move faster with a smaller group and engaging lots of people takes longer so there is an aspect of how much effort and how much resource there is and how much time you want to spend on it but obviously the more people you engage then the more likely are to to get to an answer that a is going to work and B that people are going to commit to because they've had some think they've helped co-create it right that's that's
(24:14) just a big part of the process I'm just interested when you think about that kind of participative kind of involving people engaging people have you got a preference in terms of so I I you know I think there I know a lot of designers and I'm passionate about about involving people the organization about taking people along the way but I also know that a really big challenge for organizations is is not egging things as well and actually know that there's I think there's a sweet spot really you
(24:40) know what you need is enough just subject met expertise enough knowledge of the business about where it is where how work gets done you just need enough of that to be able to come up with an answer I think what's really important as you go along is that you're engaging throughout but I think that as soon as you say to somebody we're starting a design process then the change has started the change doesn't start when you say we've got a you know we've got a solution we now move to one implementation that's the
(25:05) latter parts of the stages the change starts as soon as you have have a conversation so in order to say okay well I want to do a design piece of work will you partake in that the immediate thing for every contributor is what might that mean for me you know how's that going to affect my role does that mean I'm out of a job does that mean that actually I'm going to have to give this up or give that up so we have to build build a lot of trust at the start of the process and also encourage people to really think on behalf of the
(25:30) organization not themselves uh to step out of their role to to to think at a an Enterprise level and on behalf of the Wilder organization so I think that's something that we we have to manage but of course the more people you do that the more people you engage in the design conversations and the optionality then then the more challenging that becomes or the more effort has to go into not just engaging within the design conversation but also managing the change side of it as well I think in my sweet spot it's having a a small enough
(25:56) group that you can move quickly b a big enough group that know you've got design expertise in there and you can answer you can get to a robust answer but then I think importantly sharing uh in complete thoughts as you go along so if you get to a high level stage and you think listen we haven't decided about the impact on individual roles yet we don't know what that is yet but broadly we're heading in this direction and that's a point that you can engage teams and test thinking uh and get teams to
(26:20) contribute and say well actually know I've got a better idea and and sometimes you can get really great ideas out of that sort of process testing thinking is so important isn't it because you want the operational reality in the conversation not kind of just a kind Ivory Tower version of the way the organization Works what what do you enjoy most about your role like is it a particular part of the process is it or like what is it you enjoy most about the org design element I I love juggling I love the multiple priorities I love
(26:44) being able to uh to work between all these different things but I think what goes hand in hand in that is I feel really lucky to be able to get into different client organizations and be sitting in those contexts and learn about the uh the organizations I said that the third value of canzo design was about developing together and what I really love about that value is there's two sides to it there's developing it together in terms of we develop we co-create together but there's also we develop together we learn together um
(27:12) and so we really believe I really believe that as you go through a design process everybody's learning everybody's learning you know for some people it's about learning about organization design uh for us if for me it's about learning about the client it's about learning about the different contexts and the different challenges that organizations have and thinking well how and I pull that and enr enrich my own understanding of organization design and industries so I think I just feel really lucky that
(27:34) I'm able to work across you know in parallel in multiple places uh different client organizations and different uh and and you know different stakeholders uh I think that's what I enjoy about my job the most and is there anything particularly interesting you in the kind of field of organization design any new things coming through that you're interested in well there are and i' I've got to say I'm a bit of AIT maybe I'm too traditional on this but I think that there's this real balance between
(27:58) innovation um and just doing things well and simply and I think there's some really good you know solid logic in organization design in in just trusting the process and and and applying the process in a really robust way so that's really understanding you know the organization where they're trying to get to really thinking about the optionality uh really you know making sure that you've got whole system solutions that are going to work in practice so I'm a big believer in doing the basics well and doing the
(28:24) core well of course there's always lots of new um uh new new Innovations coming out but if I'm honest I think that a lot of those Innovations they're quite hard to apply and they they may be specific they may be relevant to very specific organizations and specific contexts but the value I find in organizations is doing the basics well and delivering design well you ever have pick people pick up the phone and go I want to have it like Spotify I want squads we have but I mean is that Innovation anymore I mean you know
(28:53) that's been around for so long it's and we we we do get that of course we get that and we get uh organizations with with predefined uh views perspectives of what they want exactly as you've said and you know we definitely had that we want it like Spotify but of course you know we all know that Spotify works at Spotify Spotify doesn't work anywhere else and anybody who's implemented an agile organization kind of knows that you need to build it around your organization in your context and I think the context is
(29:21) so important I think you know we talk about benchmarking in organization design and clients love to say you know give me some benchmarking that will give me the answer and I think there's a real balance between that and stealing good ideas is a great thing to do and you know we should always take great ideas from other organizations and try to apply them but they have to work for the organization and I think pretty quickly you look at benchmarking and you can say well hey how much can we really rely on the data like do does it is it really
(29:47) kind of telling us the truth but be actually how applicable it is to our to our context and the the benchmarking to that organization well it's slightly different and they're trying to do slightly different things and they're at a different market and they've got a different shape so I think there is is value in benchmarking and there's definitely value in research and understanding different ways of doing things and stealing good ideas but also want has to be cautious about benchmarking as well and and the extent
(30:07) of the value that that can uh and that can have and it's not a crutch for leaders that they say well okay if that organization does it it must be right for us often that's not the right answer and like the Spotify example it needs different application to make it really work for that client yeah we've we've quickly come to conclusion if we launch the web the podcast again we call it it depends [Laughter] you got the Insight already Garen we should have trademarked that name as well shouldn't we say yeah so
(30:36) one thing we often see with organizations is they oscillate between they'll you know they'll go with things like a centralized approach and then they'll go to decentralization and then back again do you see that a lot in the work that you do with kind of organizations my perspective on this and I think that there's no perfect model you know we know it's like you know project managers know that when they develop a plan the plan's not right you know as soon as they start to soon as they start to deploy it well something
(31:00) changes and it's the same with design you know we can't we can't design a perfect design you know everything's going to be imperfect what we can do is give you a good model uh and and a good set of you know outcomes or or or or structure that allows you to move towards that you've got to constantly reinvent it and you got to apply it and as you're changing and as you're implementing it you have to learn from that and then continue to adjust so I think you know to talk about what you
(31:22) were saying there Danny about this kind of pendulum what you really get is you get organizations saying oh this Matrix organization doesn't work Matrix organizations must be the problem the problem isn't necessarily the model the problem is potentially how the model is being implemented and I think this is where you get this pendulum swinging you know we tried centralization that wasn't quite right now we've tried kind of deploying it out to local that's not quite right the truth of the matter is
(31:46) the best answer is probably somewhere in the middle and the best way of getting to the answer is to sweat the detail to sweat the logic to say okay we can prove through good design thinking that this model somewhere in the middle probably is the right answer the challenge then is then applying it and really applying it well and you know one of the big challenges of Matrix organizations is they don't work because people aren't told how they're supposed to play within a matrix organization they're not told
(32:10) about their jobs they're not told about you know what's my relationship with this person supposed to be what's my relationship with that suppos person supposed to be and who makes the decision that's not clarified so what happens is organizations develop a matrix model put it in place and then don't tell anybody how they're supposed to play with it and then wonder why it hasn't worked so I think really it's about it's about sweating the detail enough that people who are actually in the jobs know how they play
(32:34) in the organization and really kind of focus it on implementing and for me that's the risk about pendulum swinging that you don't want this and you don't want that you really need to focus on just getting one model and or a model that works you today and really applying that in practice and thinking about how you do that and I think things like role design are really important as well you know this is this balance between high level models in design versus detail but it's really important for every
(32:56) individual in the organization to able to jump into a job and say listen I understand what the scope of my job is I understand what I'm supposed to do versus other people in my team or in corresponding teams how work flows between us what those handoffs are and what you're expecting of me and what you're not expecting of me and that comes down to just designing jobs really well and this is where I think design is really interesting because it needs this really strategic high level model thinking but it also needs to be able to
(33:21) get down to individual jobs and say this is what's expected from you and your job uh so that individuals are clear and that's those Balance from strategic conversations to quite um detail orientated um or definitions is is one of the things I really like about the job partly strategic partly analytic on detail and what what do you think gets in the way because everything you've described makes complete logical sense but why is it that organizations May shy away from that level of detail I I think
(33:46) there I mean my iMed I think there's quite an easy answer for that which is design thinking takes quite a lot of time right you know you have to invest in design thinking and I think that busy leaders who have got other things to about you know performance issues performance issues with their team performance issues with their organization uh stakeholders to manage risks appearing you know that's their day-to-day and so leaders don't really have the time and the bandwidth to be able to spend lots of time on design but
(34:12) to think about design properly it does take time you know it's an investment to really understand where do they really understand where they are today do they really have alignment about where they're trying to get to often that alignment isn't there as I said before to the degree that you you'd want it and then kind of all of those thoughts about what are the different interpretations how how could we model this what are the options how do we access those options so by the time you actually get to the
(34:33) point where you say this is the model like leaders have often said okay well I'm exhausted but not exhausted but you know I've invested a lot in this process so they just want to get on with it so I think one of the challenges is leaders trying to move ahead too quickly without saying okay we've got this in terms of a broad high level design but actually sweating this into the detail so that individuals are clear takes another level of uh of work uh and I think it's just about encouraging leaders to kind
(34:57) of stay true to the course and work that through the worst thing you can do and I think it comes back to Danny's point about pendulum is you design a model you throw it into quickly before you really thought about how it's going to work in practice and then it doesn't work in practice and then you say the model was wrong um so I think it comes back to a similar sort of point yeah's an element of sticking with it isn't there and go you know working through the difficult bits and and making it work and that
(35:19) doesn't have to you know that doesn't have to take huge amounts of time you know can accelerate that really quickly and I think as well uh you we're talking earlier about when you can engage people I think that detail design is a good time to engage more people because they're a bit closer to the work uh and of course I think the more you can engage people then the more likely it is to stick because you're engaging the people who are actually going to be doing the work as well and what do you
(35:39) find most challenging about the work you do so um I think there probably a couple of things I think that one of the things that we're really constantly challenging ourselves with is this balance between robust thorough design versus moving at PACE and you know recognizing the the cost and the time challenges and the pressures that organizations are under to move ahead quickly so I think I said before about you can have quite a waterfall approach which can take quite a long time but we're constantly challenging ourselves to say how can we
(36:08) get to a design a design answer more quickly and where is it appropriate to move ahead and say actually we don't need a perfect answer here we just need 80% uh because that's enough for us to move forward versus where do we actually need to sweat the detail and I I was saying before to kind of get stuff right so I think that's one of the balances we're trying to get to you know we we're always thinking that uh design and change isn't the old school design and change which we have to design
(36:31) everything and then we Implement everything in in one go you know design and change is a journey for organizations and that means you can design in Pockets across the organization you get different parts working in different phases you can really prioritize so that balance of where to focus and how to prioritize and how quickly we can accelerate to get into value is is definitely one challenge that we we're thinking about and I think the other one it probably comes back to leadership again do they really understand even what organization
(36:56) design is you know I think that in the organization development world I think you've probably got a similar challenge as to getting leaders to really understanding the value that organization development can bring and it's the same with design you know everybody's got a different lens on what organization design is and many people think it's an organization structure chart so just are getting people to understand what a design processes and what that means in terms of you know Blue Sky Thinking in terms of having a
(37:19) clear mindset in terms of letting go of the past in terms of options you know really important part of design is thinking about options and really giving putting giving yourself time to explore options in order to have confidence that the one you choose to go with is the right one um so I think it's it's probably you know getting leaders to really understand what organization design is and the value it can add and why we go through a process in the way that we do so if you look back at your career and all the kind of various roles
(37:45) and organizations you've been involved in what are some of the biggest lessons you've learned so far that you you carry with you I I think probably the first one is that starting and running your own business is actually hard work like they say it is so we've been doing for six years now and it's and it's full on but in a really rewarding and enjoyable way but I think it's uh it's getting your your feet into the shoes where you realize the kind of real implications of that but I think I think from a from a
(38:08) design perspective um I think uh probably a few things I think one is the importance of context so organizations need to be spec need to be relevant and they need to be designed in a way that takes into account and is is relevant to their context uh so really kind of putting your feet in in in the context of the organization understanding that is a huge huge part of making sure that you're developing solutions that are going to work in practice I think keeping it simple you know we I said canzo designed canzo is keeping it
(38:35) Simplicity it is Simplicity that's really challenging because design some of these conversations are really complex there's a lot of complexity in organizations and that's one of the things that we you know really challenge ourselves to do on behalf of our client is to simplify things as much as possible and just to make the choices as as clear and transparent uh so that's always a journey um and I think the third one is probably that uh that one that uh I just talked about which is change doesn't have to be big bang it's
(39:01) not about sort of saying listen we're going to fix everything in one go and scaring the horses it's about saying what are the problems we can fix today you know some of those problems you know if you're going to redesign a model they're quite chunky questions but how can we chunk it up and how can we do it so it's more of a journey uh and so that leaders and organizations can feel the benefit of that as they go along rather than kind of waiting for some big bang uh so I think that not trying to fix
(39:23) everything in one go would be another learning yeah it's really interesting and we were talking to some from the Department of work and pensions who does the design there and and she said a lot of organizations are actually switching over to continuous design because that kind of big bang approach raises anxiety doesn't it as well do you feel that organizations adopting that kind of pose is potentially a positive way of seeing organization design so it can happen much more round the work as it's
(39:45) required yeah so I mean I'll segue into another another aspect of what we do which I talked about briefly which is about efficiencies and I think you always get this with efficiencies where you know maybe the organization gets a little bit too fast or a little bit too heavy maybe performance goes down and then CFO comes in and says listen we can't afford this anymore we need to take 10% out of our organization go uh and I'm sure we've all seen circumstances where that is done in an inelegant way and actually it's done in
(40:11) a kind of we're just going to cross boxes off an organization salami slicing and ultimately that really damages organizations you know much more grown up way of doing a much more mature way of doing is having a cultur of efficiency and having recognizing that efficiency isn't a step change that you make periodically it's a way of being um and I think it's the same with design it's about recognizing that changes are constant and you're constantly revising and trying to optimize your design
(40:36) thinking both about efficiency and Effectiveness uh within that uh rather than a big bang how do you invest in your own Learning and Development what does that look like for you so I've I've always I'm I'm a practitioner and I kind of learned this as I went along is that actually I I I learn best by doing uh and I think I love that because you know as you said Garen I've been lucky enough to work with lots of different organizations on lots of lot of design challenges um I also said that I think
(41:01) in Burber I realized that as soon as you realize you have to train people then it really sharpens your sword you know you really have to know well actually I've got to be able to articulate this in a way uh that is going to provide insight and provide uh provide benefit for others so I think that as I've gone along I've used actually training others as a mechanism for making sure that I'm ahead of my game as well uh and and and staying on top of that uh but I'd say that every single client job we do as a
(41:24) learning organization you know we do research as part of that work and uh and you know lucky enough to work within a great team of designers and we're all different we all bring different experience so it's great to be able to share knowledge at the end of every project we do we really have the belief that it's important to St take stock and learn and uh it's great to say that but we actually do it you know we apply that um so just on Friday morning we were doing a wrap-up for a project that we
(41:48) finished a couple of months ago sorry a couple of weeks ago and we spent an hour and a half just going through all the different project aspects of the projects and thinking about what can we learn organizationally you know how does that affect our practice but also what can we learn individually as well and what can I take away from that what did I do well what could I maybe kind of take away for my next so I think it's largely through the work that we do but of course we do rely on Research as well and I would say as well I'm using chat
(42:11) GPT on a regular basis now you know as it came out I was you know not wary of it but not sure how I use it I dip into it at least once a week now uh and I'm constantly getting good insights from there as well as kind of web browsing too one of the reasons why we set up the podcast is to inspire the next generation of org designers and or developers as well so and and people that are watching this they could be actually within an HR function seeing design being done badly or opportunities to improve or there
(42:36) could be an external person that's curious what what advice would you give to someone who's actually potentially considering starting out in organization design or at the beginning of that Journey first one I'd say do it it's a great career I love you know to to to be able to go into organizations and to yeah be fortunate enough to about to learn about those organizations and to be in the different contexts and at a really strategic level understanding where organizations are going where what they're stuck with and
(43:01) helping organizations overcome that by providing solutions to that is is is a really great career for I don't know I mean it certainly attracts me right um so I'd say do it I think that um it's really important that you buil your skill set in it so I think you know get experience in designing Solutions make sure you actually like be clear on the distinction between development and design as well you know the the the system the design thinking it needs it is design I mean let it's called design
(43:28) for a reason you go through a design process all of those different things I've I've talked about solutionizing building models you need to sort of really enjoy those and problem solving as well I think you need to be good with strategy and with analytics and I'd say get good at analytics because it's a really core tool I still you know work with sprees and work with data and because actually it's really important to understand the detail as well as being at strategic level so I'd say
(43:53) familiarizes yourself with strategic thinking but also get good at handling data and being able to do analytics as well um but I think build breadth of experience is is really key and I think there's probably two main Roots into organization design you can either kind of join a big consultancy when you kind of start a career and you know you you just do organization from design one but pretty much all the or designers I know like me had a job beforehand I was an engineer um you know another one of my colleagues with an engineer another one
(44:21) was in finance so they had a career beforehand and they did jobs beforehand and I think that that that experience actually being in an organization and being on the other side is really important uh so build breadth of experience I think is is a really really big part of it loads of really good advice as as well thank you well brilliant thank you so much Jonathan we've really enjoyed the conversation been really insightful it's definitely started to unveil some of the mystery behind organization design Danny what
(44:46) are some of the things you're taking away from the conversation so much I think maybe the fact that context is king So con context really really matters and that's important to understand the context you're working in the importance of being really focused on what the organization ation needs to deliver it for its customers so it's not about the or chart it's about really understanding the organization before you start and and probably something about tradeoffs that there's no perfect
(45:07) answer so it's it's coming up with the one that best meets your needs and working with it yeah I I had four but it's now three now so just took one um yeah the things I'm Tak away is is the problem isn't about the model it's often it's about the implementation and I think that that's quite liberating isn't it so it's not an ideological old discussion people are having it's like no so what is it what's happened so far I really like the bit that Jonathan said about people aren't given enough
(45:31) information about their roles they understand the case for and they understand the the boundaries but they really need more information to be set up for success as well that's a level of detail that organizations need to invest time in but but managers often don't give themselves enough time to do it as well and and I guess one of the other things is just the tensions that you're constantly wrestling in organization design as well like the the need for a thorough robust design process but but Pace because often the drivers require
(45:56) Pace as well and kind of that need sort between efficiency and Effectiveness all those kind of tenses to currently wrestling as well so I found it fascinating um so Jonathan you joined we could have just cut the interview and said said that I me yeah we had to hear you say I really enjoyed it and it's always nice to talk about your trade isn't it so so listen thanks a lot for the opportunity I really enjoyed it no it's wonderful it's wonderful it's really good thank you and you join our portfolio of over 30 different guests
(46:23) that we've invited onto the podcast now that from all different fessions within org development and org design as well and Jonathan I think you take a brilliant place in there as well I think people are going to get a lot of value as well if people want to reach out to you or if they want to follow your work or if they're curious learning more about the canzo way what what's the best people way for people to reach out to you so I I'm on LinkedIn like we all are Jonathan Edwards search Jonathan Edwards
(46:46) at canzo design Ka ANS o and please follow canzo design as well we're doing lots of great work and uh and we can we tell lots of great stories on that on LinkedIn on a regular basis too pleased to hear from anybody about you know whether whether you're trying to come into design for the first time or whether you've got a challenge that we can help you with any any or all of the above and anything in between whether your listeners on the podcast or whether you're listening to on YouTube all of
(47:09) Jonathan's details will be in the show notes as well so thank you again a huge thank you for being so generous with your time Jonathan we really appreciate it and thank you again was great thanks thanks [Music] he [Music]