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About the guest
Dr. Andreas Wenger is a partner and co-owner of Transforma Consulting, a Swiss firm specializing in integrated business, tax, and legal advice for transformation processes. He holds a PhD in Political Science and has extensive expertise in strategy development, organizational design, and business transformation. Fluent in four languages, he is recognized as a thought leader in organization design and actively engages in the international community through publications and conference participation. Learn more about Andreas on his expert page
Summary
In this episode of the Org Design Podcast, Tim Brewer and Amy Springer welcome Andreas Wenger, a Partner at Transformer Consulting, to discuss the intricacies of organizational design. Andreas shares his journey into the field, highlighting how his academic background in organization science laid the foundation for his practical consulting experience. He emphasizes the critical importance of aligning organizational structures with the evolving needs of clients, particularly in complex environments.
Andreas recounts a compelling case study involving a care institution that successfully transformed its organizational structure to better serve its changing demographic, navigating the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. He illustrates how effective organization design can empower teams at all levels, enabling them to make decisions closer to the operational front lines.
The conversation also delves into the common pitfalls of poor organizational design, the need for leaders to develop conviction around change initiatives, and the vital role of time in implementing successful transformations. Andreas encourages leaders to view organization as more than just charts and structures, advocating for a holistic approach that fosters collaboration and innovation. Join us for this insightful discussion on how to build resilient organizations and navigate the complexities of change.
Show Notes
Transforma Consulting - https://transforma.ch/
Andreas on Linkedin - LinkedIn
Transcript
[00:00:00] Tim Brewer: Welcome to the Org Design Podcast. Thank you for joining us. I'm here Tim Brewer, one of our co-hosts, and Amy's joining me as well. We have the pleasure today of having Andreas Wenger on the call with us. Andreas welcome. I'm gonna give a bit of an intro. We got to meet each other in Milan for the EODF conference, which is amazing really good fun. You are one of the Partners at Transformer Consulting. So we're gonna get you to tell a little bit more about that on the show today. And you are joining from Zurich, Switzerland.
[00:00:32] Andreas Wenger: Yes, I do. Hi, Amy. Hi, Tim. It's nice to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to this talk.
[00:00:39] Tim Brewer: We start with this question on the podcast often, which is how did you end up in Org Design? Can you tell us a little bit about the story, about your journey, to doing org design full time?
[00:00:51] Andreas Wenger: Actually it's an interesting question because I must say I started with organization science, let's say like that, the structures already in my studies. I did a study on development of organizational structures of big companies and then I followed up on that in my PhD, where I did also on, on the design of big and complex organizational structures, but it was purely academic at this point of time.
So the question now is interesting. How did I morph into what this organization designed called normally? And that actually happened in two steps. I would say the first one is that I started to work for a consulting company, Mercer Management Consulting, which is called today, Oliver Wyman. And there we had we had some nice projects in Germany most of all, it was in the energy sector. At that time there was a liberalization going on and those companies, they started to discover their clients. So you had really to transform everything in the structure you did all the processes, and the operating model, and at the end you ended up with the cost structure and with the incentives. And this gave me really a very nice feeling on how you can integrate or you need to integrate all those aspects to get something that is, "this is really working the end" and with this experience in consulting, I actually I went on in, in similar projects but the real, the last point was when I really got into management for some years, I was responsible for international development of a big company and I had to work and to manage and to decide on that. And there, I really realized how important it's that, that you get those things together. And ever since I, I really, I believe that the organization design has a lot of potential and value for management, but also for consulting.
[00:02:35] Tim Brewer: What are the kinds of symptoms that expect to see from a poor org design? And what is the some of the funny or crazy things that you've seen over the years walking into organizations and talking to leaders about their org structures?
[00:02:50] Andreas Wenger: Yeah, probably one of the things you could say is that there is many times which people talk about organization structure, but in the end they mean management, or they mean leading, leadership, that the problem lies somewhere else but the structure is some, something that they can grasp somehow . It's clear, you can produce an org chart and then you can see something and leadership is maybe not that nicely, definable, you cannot define it in the same way as you can organization structure. So that happens sometimes that there is somebody reaches out and says, I have this and that problem.
And then we find out it goes a bit farther or this there's a, is another main point that we have to tackle. Lately, I've been I've been thinking a lot about those projects I did and one I did, especially was really, it keeps staying there and it comes back and back again, and I have to think about it. It's actually, it's a story that started before. COVID. And it's in an institution that is, is looking after people with poly handicaps. I don't know in, in relation to other countries, but for our countries it's quite a big one. It's like maybe two hundred and fifty people that are looked after. And a bit more of that, the full-time equivalence of people that are, are really in the administration, but most of all in the accompaniment of those persons. And it's, you asked why they came to me, and actually it was it was really an old organizational structure who dated like 50 years and it was built around a company or institution at that time who was basically looking after children. It was looking after children who had those poly handicaps. And in those 50 years, what happened is that, actually the people that they were looking after has changed, so their customers, in brackets, customers have changed. Now they have more than two thirds are adults And rest are children, And they have doubled the size of people too. They have had a classical functional organization chart. So specialties like accompaniments, schooling, care, and therapies, and stuff like that. At the top of the organization, they were overwhelmed by the work they had to do because everything, it's a classical of a functional organization who cannot cope anymore. You normally do that for one product or one service company, and suddenly you had more complexity, more problems to solve, and everything ended up at the top of the hierarchy.
So we started a quite a thorough process, which was very interesting because actually normally you go out in organization design, you talk with people, it was the customers. What do you want? And there in this situation, you couldn't go out to the customers and ask what do you want?
So we had to spend really a lot of time trying to figure out what their needs were and how we could respond in the organization, this social technical system on their needs, and a really thorough process, became more self-managed,
On the top, getting rid of the functional and then morphing into customer oriented. Now it comes to interesting point, and that's why I'm going back to it often again in my thoughts, is the going live was actually planned for April, 2020.
And we tend to forget, but in 2020 there was a major problem. And you can imagine such a institution with fragile customers, which are really, uh, it's very prone just to get in troubles. They were scared to change so fundamentally as organization. And actually they did it. They did it because they thought if you just stay like that we will end up having more troubles in the organization.
We cannot cope with such a complicated situation where everything goes to the top and we have to decide. And after the first way they, they implemented it and and the result was amazing.
I went back to them to talk to them. I followed them up and they told me, yes if they wouldn't have done it, it would have been so complicated to, to really survive this crisis with this, with the new organization, they were really able just to, to take the decisions at the basis to really organize their work in, in, in the small families and small groups of customers and of people who are looking after them.
If I think back now, I think it's a perfect situation to, to demonstrate that sometimes when it comes to go live of a situation of a new organization, we are afraid, there is, there's fear or worries are around, they probably not explicit. They're implicit somewhere, but we tend to find strategies just to prevent certain things to happen if we go live, because the old is still strong and the new things are still theoretical somehow. And then, you find situations you work on the details, you try to optimize all the solutions before you, you do something you start to discuss a lot.
Give it a try and to be really, to find the courage also, just to take the step and start to implement, and without having all the solutions, because the reality tends to change anyway. And we have to face the fact that as individuals, if we have something new. We can only really adapt and find out how it's going to be if we expose ourselves to such a situation.
So exposition to a new system helps really, it's the only way actually just to do away with our fears also with worries that we have in such a strong situation. And for me it's also thinking, if they were able to do it in a such difficult situation, why shouldn't we be able?
[00:08:18] Tim Brewer: Yeah, that's super interesting, and inherently complex situation to change or high impact. We talk about leaders looking at big changes in their organization. How do you help people get over that? What are the kind of practical things a leader can do in their organization when they, they can see a case for change? They see the need for it, but they're acknowledging, "hey, this is gonna be really high impact". This may impact specific individuals and their work here. How do you help them work through those impact situations?
[00:08:50] Andreas Wenger: Yeah, I think it's one of the things I really believe in, is that, if you have the chance just to spend some time really preparing the solution, then that's an important piece of the puzzle. If you just go in and then you try just to know everything better or just to do it in a small circle, it's complicated because It's maybe crowdsourcing is not the right the correct term to think about it.
But if you have more people just who are really in it and then also start really believing in a situation. You will never be able to find out everything and to define everything, and it's just it's, it doesn't help neither because you just get lost in tactics. You don't you lose the big plan somehow.
If you have really time just to develop this story and conviction of some thing that will happen in a story that will unfold in the future. That helps a lot, I think. And then what also helps, I think, is our examples, actually, just to illustrate the, as the example I told you if I can go out and reach out and then I, tell them stories and it's like everywhere you realize that, it's common sense. Normally a lot of things are common sense and then you just have to see that others are also doing it.
Also failure, we can overcome it. So I really believe that getting involved and then really also having a story to believe in, this is a good way just to help in those situations.
[00:10:13] Tim Brewer: Yeah, I can't remember Amy. It was one of the, if you don't, in, someone said to us, if you don't invest in conviction. Or, don't get people to that point of belief, which you talk about, so that they have conviction around a change, you'll end up either paying the price or having to invest into conviction, or you'll have to invest into convincing and always convincing is harder, like convincing everyone post a decision when they're all trying to block it. And I think that's a really good lesson for leaders to think about when leading change that they're much better developing a conviction from within their team than having to spend all their time convincing through and beyond past the end of the change.
[00:10:54] Amy Springer: I'd love to dig a bit more into the, which step of the process, Andreas. So it sounds like you were talking a lot about, you maybe once a design is chosen, having people involved in all the aspects of bringing it to life and communicating it. What about before that decision's made, the conversation around strategy, op model, a few different structural options. Where are we bringing people in?
[00:11:21] Andreas Wenger: Yeah, I think there's the first thing is really also is about the business model you just pursue, if there is a change, as in my example, there was a change actually in what you are serving. So the business model there, eventually you have the operational team, but also the strategic team that is involved just to try to also understand what's going on. And the second thing that I often find in my projects is the operating model, what the value chain looks like, the processes, and that's a perfect moment just to get people involved because there they speak about what they are understanding or what they living every day. It's not understanding what they know and what they live every day. And there you can also get them onboard.
[00:12:01] Amy Springer: They often have great suggestions on things to change.
[00:12:04] Andreas Wenger: Absolutely. Absolutely, if you have different levels of discussion, because some are very, are very detailed and others are very comprehensive. So you need to sort that out. But afterwards, there are a lot of very interesting things that that come in us for a better future of this or of an organization, that's for sure.
[00:12:23] Tim Brewer: A question we will ask for those leaders that are listening into the podcast. Thinking what's the one thing I don't have time right now, maybe for a big transformation, but I do acknowledge that org design's important in my company.
What is the one thing I can do to step up into better org design, Andreas, is there a kind of behavior or a culture or a way of doing things or a simple conversation that any and every leader could have to improve their organization structures or their thinking about their org design.
[00:12:53] Andreas Wenger: I think one major thing that we should never forget, also leaders in this position, is that organization is much more than an OrganiGram. And if you see that you, it's always around, but it's just the surface or it's not even the surface. It's just a small glimpse that we have and we reduce the discussion. And I think to be aware, there's small and big things you can do but just to, to create the awareness that organization is much more, is more comprehensive than just this little thing that that is around everywhere, is a great thing actually to, to work into towards their direction where org design has then also the potential just to, to make changes or to, to get a better future there somewhere on the horizon. That I think is, that's an important thing. Yeah. Just to get to be aware that organization is much more than those small things we see.
[00:13:52] Tim Brewer: Yeah.
[00:13:53] Amy Springer: Andreas, you've, you're a rare person, who's sat on all sides of the table. You've been an academic, you're a consultant. You've also been a leader within an organization. Is there a clear, consistent story you've heard in all those experiences you would love to share to wrap us up?
[00:14:15] Andreas Wenger: Yeah, the consistent thing is, it's, it's probably, is it negative? I don't know if it's negative but, there's always the issue of time, around time and processes that I just described they need time, change needs time. If you want to we are talking about, we are not talking about just, as I said, not about org charts, changing org charts, but we are working with the people that are in those organizations, and time is always scarce, scare, scarce. Yeah. It's scarce. And that's, I think this is one of the things that, that we found out at the thing we should not lose just hope or also our, really our force to put our, putting our force in just trying to get time just to, to make those processes also possible.
I think that's is to be found in academics somehow because you, there you have you're looking into studies that need to come to, to prove some hypothesis. You need time, then it's also in consulting. It's always, a, it is always an issue because things needs to get done until a certain time point. And in management, of course, there is always pressure to get some results and that's that. So. time is a thing and that it's worth just to, to spend enough time on those issues.
[00:15:35] Tim Brewer: Transformer Consulting we talked about at the start of the call. If I was listening to the podcast and thinking, actually, this is super interesting. How do I know that I'm a good fit for Transformer Consulting? What are you typically working with? Where in the world are you working with leaders and companies? So if someone's listening on the call and thinks, actually, I'm gonna need some support in a change that I'm leading or a transformation I'm leading, that they know you are right to reach out to Andreas.
[00:16:03] Andreas Wenger: Yeah, thank you for this question. We are serving clients in Europe, mostly a lot in Switzerland, but also internationally, then in, in South Africa, we're having some clients and clients normally, typically, they, they come from a broad range of backgrounds, brand, sectors they normally are around, they can be small, they're small, interesting companies that are growing, which need a transformation in getting up certain steps of development, but also bigger companies that are certain, have a lot of products or services that they offer in different countries and have a certain complexity in their management. We offer a lot of international experiences and also know how just to tackle those situations.
[00:16:45] Tim Brewer: What size of organization are you typically working with in, in kind of head count?
[00:16:49] Andreas Wenger: Typically head counts wise, they would be somewhere to starting with 100, 150 going up to a few thousands.
[00:16:56] Tim Brewer: Awesome. That's super helpful. We will for our listeners, we will include. In your Author notes, your contact details and a bit of a bio about you so they can find you on org design experts section of our site. Thank you so much for joining us today on the call all the way from Switzerland.
It's been really great to meet you in Milan and then also to have you on the podcast today. Amy, as always, thank you so much for co-hosting the podcast. Great to have you and your insights on the call, and to everyone else have a great rest of the week. See you.
[00:17:33] Andreas Wenger: Thank you. Bye. Bye.
Functionly provides a comprehensive platform designed to streamline organizational design and transformation processes.
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As organizations navigate complex challenges and adapt to changing environments, Functionly empowers teams to collaborate effectively, ensuring that every voice is heard. This collaborative approach not only enhances clarity and alignment around organizational goals but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement, allowing organizations to respond proactively to evolving needs and achieve sustainable growth.
