Article by Alexandru Tulai, Change Management Specialist
This article is the result of the experience gained following long, sustained work in the field of organisational/cultural development, or indeed transformation. In these activities, my target is always to bring companies into a position that better suits them in the market. Although otherwise stable and solid, the symptom manifested by these firms is systematically the same: inability to scale, or in some cases a problem maintaining a volume of business already reached. First and foremost, the aspect I would most like to draw attention to is the most important one: this whole discussion takes place from the perspective of ensuring the sustainability of the organisation.
I have savoured countless discussions with owners or leaders of organisations, their results being used as a starting point in the analysis of an organisation’s performance, or perhaps even as an approach to organisational change by those in decision-making positions, and I think that something of what I write is well-suited to them.
The situations which arose while the change initiative was carried out gave further confirmation to a hypothesis that I have had for some time. The hypothesis concerns the appearance of imposture in an organisation. One might suppose that this is a pejorative term, but considering the circumstances in which it occurs I suggest it is not so; or at least not in the initial phase. At this stage, imposture is more likely to be a result of circumstance rather than intention.
Let’s take the case of a technology outsourcing (also known as a “loan”, “body leasing”, or “labour hire”) company as an example, as the IT field is one I am well versed in given more than 35 years experience (application creation, development of solutions and integrated IT systems, project/programme management, consulting for the implementation of integrated systems both operational and decision-analytical, and change management – execution of organisational strategy).
In this case, the business model assumes that activities with high added value, those that generate intellectual property, are carried out, in one way or another, by the client, whose results arrive at the supplier in the form of a solution model, business analysis, functional architecture, technical architecture, development specification, etc. The level of activity required of the supplier is development: the lowest in value, financially or otherwise, but also the most comfortable. It requires from the developers strictly technical knowledge, at the level of the development environment(s) of the solution (the application). As a result, the organisation’s recruitment process focuses on identifying and attracting developers with the best knowledge of the technology required by the customer. The team working for that client needs some guidance, and this is how the role of “team lead” appears in the discussion. Obviously, it will be filled by the person with the most solid technological knowledge, in whom the organisation’s management trusts (rightfully so), but this is where the fracture occurs. The client perceives this to be the head of the team, not its technical guide. The customer’s vision is, in the vast majority of cases, taken over and appropriated by the supplier, but the position of team leader is no longer a technical one, it is a managerial one. It presupposes other skills and competences, based on other knowledge. Implicitly, the organisation’s management has transferred the proven trust generated by technical skills to unproven trust in managerial capacity.
Here we have arrived at the moment when imposture can occur. If we look carefully at the recruitment method, it is very unlikely that the respective “team lead” will be a good team leader. Even if this eventuality is not impossible, their passion is directed to the technical area, not the managerial role or even the business (models, business processes, etc.). Exceptions aside, and these fortunate cases are very rare indeed, the only solution to avoid imposture would be non-acceptance of the managerial position by the technical person in question. But this position, at the level at which it is understood by all concerned (“team lead”, manager, etc.) does not appear difficult to hold. And it isn’t, in the first moments. Acceptance follows and, by default, the situation of imposture.
The symptoms are only seen when the time comes for a harder, more complex decision to be made. Because decision-making is the affected process. And let’s not forget that the decision-making process is the most important and the most difficult for any organisation (or community) from the point of view of sustainability. In our case, the powers necessary to make the decision don’t exist. Good. So what does the team leader do? It’s very difficult at this point to concede that they lack the ability to make the decision. Instead, the leader makes a decision within their competence. If it is not suitable, it will have to be justified, and defended, both to teammates and management colleagues. If talent for explanation exists, not exactly rare at this level of technical skill, we have already reached a situation of assumed imposture – the leader occupies a position for which they do not have the necessary skills and abilities. Further, it is necessary to ask ourselves what will be the quality of the delivery to the customer in the long term – sustainability for the company as a whole – considering the conditions under which the decision is made?
We have here a situation of imposture, induced by the client, and accepted by both the person concerned and the management of the organisation. At the end of the day, recruitment for a managerial position was carried out based on technical competence criteria.
Let’s now imagine the firm of an entrepreneur, one without education in the organisational field, but who has correctly found the right niche, and whose company is subject to market pressure – a highly accelerated rate of growth. Who will be trusted with decision-making positions? Experience says that trust will be placed in very close people – relatives and friends. There simply isn’t time to build the organisation on consistent, methodological foundations. Again, the decision process is a victim of chance if the transition to an appropriate organisational model for the type of business is not made in this phase.
In this case, recruitment for a managerial position was again based on obedience criteria, without considering skills.
In both the cases of imposture described, the decision-maker had to deal with the issue of trust.
From personal experience, the organisations which favour this scenario are the very big ones, either state or private.
In the case of state organisations, the performance criteria needed to evaluate the activity are almost absent. And where they are defined at all, they are not used. The reason is simple: there is no customer to evaluate the quality of the delivery. One exists – the citizen – but the citizen does not have the levers by which to exercise the decision to accept, or reject, the delivery.
In large private organisations, I have noticed a sickening tendency, perhaps due to convenience, to unify these criteria. And the only common attribute of performance indicators (otherwise specific to business areas) is the financial indicator. The error being that this can be manipulated in all sorts of ways to avoid specific performance criteria, the easiest of these being to manipulate through corruption.
Organisations evolve, of course, and the situation gets more complicated, it amplifies… It seems that the “Peter Principle” is a very good synthetic description of cases of imposture, regardless of how we have arrived at this point. With regards to how such a position can be maintained, and what it generates at the organisational level, another article will follow.
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