Season 03 - Newsletter 04 --> Navigating the Maze: 3 Insider Tips for Succeeding in a Matrix Org
Hi Friends -
For this edition I wanted to continue to provide more tactical advice about how to get work done within large and complex organizations. To do so I drew a on my experience as well as that of select peers to understand how they’ve been able to successfully navigate (most of the time) very large and matrix’ed orgs. Their backgrounds are big tech and big bank which kinda is a nice summary of my life right now.
Q: I just joined a very large matrix organization, what would be some advice on not just navigating but being able to succeed ?
So that’s a great question that many in the field face. First let’s define what a matrix organization means. Put simply a matrix organization is where shared power structures and resources sharing exist.
A shared power structure, on a day to day basis translates to employees having both a functional manager, someone in charge of their discipline, and an initiative manager, someone in charge of the project or initiative they are on.
Resource sharing means things like employees and budgets are shared across functions and projects leading to a lot of negotiations and coordination.
While being in a matrix org is not in of itself a bad thing, a critical ingredient to making it all work is being unified and focused on a small number of key initiatives. This focus and unification provides the context necessary to align disparate teams and incentives to make work happen in an efficient and coordinated manner.
Ok so the question remains unanswered, so lets get to it.
Figure out who’s who - Somewhat counterintuitive but matrix organizations at the end of the day are run by people. As someone who needs to navigate the structures, it’s good to identify A/ who is in charge. Very much like SAAS sales, you’ll need to know who influences the decision vs who is the decision maker. B/ who is in the way, meaning who could be a blocker, or at least a serious downer on your initiative. C/ who your allies are going to be. No matter how dire the situation or toxic, there is always a set of folks who against all odds seemingly want to do the right thing for the right reasons. Or at the very least want to see you or your initiative succeed
Figure out what everyone wants - Understanding motivation in itself could be an entire book and many many newsletter editions. For our purposes, I will borrow from both Daniel Pink’s motivation framework in Drive and David McClelland Human Motivation framework. The unified model looks a like like: A/ mastery/achievement. These individuals have to constantly learn, improve, and master new skills and challenges. B/ Purpose/affiliation. These peers need to feel connected to the organizational mission and fellow employees. C/ Autonomy/power. These individuals want discretion and authority in order to gain influence, recognition and control. Remember sometimes delegating or enabling individuals to have control over a part of the project is good for all parts of the project.
Communicate, communicate, communicate - When you have figured out the players, allies, noise and blockers, their wants, it’s time to be deliberate about addressing their motivation and communicating / conversing early and often. On this last point, an area of opportunity I see, is someone that does 1 and 2 very well, but when it comes to communicating, prioritizes for scalability and efficiency. I would recommend, despite not being very scalable, making sure the format of the communication / conversation is not only meaningful to its intended recipients, but effective.
I hope you find these recommendations useful and are able to apply them tomorrow within your organization and on your project. Great work can come from both complex big orgs as well as tiny one-person operations.
Special thanks to all my peers who responded to my question and a shout out to Ben Burgett who really crystalized for me this 3 points.
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