{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"The Matrix (English)","description":" \u201cThe Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.\u201c Morpheus, The Matrix   Matrix organizations are nothing but a compromise. That fact goes undisputed for decades. Thus it should be needless writing about the matrix after all. But truth is: the compromise has assumed a life of his own. By now the matrix has transcended the second dimension.  In order to describe the various reporting and information relations, solid and dotted lines do not suffice any longer. Colours are needed to visualize the design of the different interactions. Organization charts look like subway maps of metropolitan cities. In parallel, project organizations, taskforces and ad hoc initiatives sprawl amongst the actual organizations\u2019 roots.   Long live the matrix   The \u201eGlobal Head of Digital Customer Interaction\u201c is, amongst other things and at the same time, responsible for sales in Southern Europe as well as member of the \u201cI-Tribe\u201d that should drive innovation across functions and countries. In his capacity as \u201cGlobal Head\u201d, the \u201cRegional Heads\u201d of course report to him whilst he is somehow responsible vis-\u00e0-vis the \u201cChief Digital Officer\u201d as well as \u2013 somehow \u2013 the \u201cChief Marketing Officer\u201d, both \u201cglobal\u201d. In his capacity as regional sales officer, he directly reports to the local CEO but is indirectly also interfacing with the \u201cGlobal Sales Officer\u201d whilst the \u201cChief Sales Officers\u201d of the regions countries report into him, at least \u201cdotted line\u201d. The \u201cI-Tribe\u201d, finally, is self-organizing but on a monthly basis reports to a steering committee whose main constituents are the \u201cGlobal Chief Innovation Officer\u201d, the CEO himself, the \u201cChief Digital Officer\u201d and the COO (global). A group of local executives serves as a sounding board for the tribe\u2019s activities. The example can be extended on end. \u2013 And maybe get closer to reality this way. Even bigger the confusion gets on the levels below. True clarity seems to be only with the CEO who undoubtedly carries responsibility for the whole thing. Let\u2019s not ignore the advantages of such a setup. In addition to impressive job titles in social networks, it leads to comfortable dilution of responsibilities. How would you weigh the conceptual progress in the realm of \u201cDigital Customer Interaction\u201d against sales figures in Southern Europe? And isn\u2019t the contribution to cross country collaboration way more important in the long term? After all: Who assesses success and contribution to this success in the end? Failure doesn\u2019t occur in these constructs anyway. As a corollary from this dilution of responsibilities in the ocean of corporate structures we can directly conclude that form and results lose their balance. The \u201csuccessful\u201d steering committee presentation in the i-tribe is possibly more important for your career development than sustainable sales success in the region. No wonder that  the very consultants that prepare these presentations are continuously gaining influence. Another characteristic of the matrix is that she keeps you busy, preferably by making you attend meetings. Meetings follow another back-to-back, sometimes they even overlap. The number of free slots on the calendar is inversely proportional to its owner\u2019s importance. \u201cLunch is for loses\u201d. The higher the paygrade, the more suspicious spare time becomes. And yet it is exactly that time in which results are made, ideas developed, informal conversations are led or at least the next meeting gets prepared. The matrix\u2019s advocates argue that she would most naturally foster exchange and communication in an ever more complex world. An absurd point of view. Truth is that without extreme effort in communication matrix organizations would never ever work because conflicts lurk at every single node; -- stylizing that necessity for compensating a weakness into a strength though needs a supreme capacity for dialectics. In truth, the matrix makes everybody a \u201earmy of one\u201d. The more complex the matrix, the smaller the common denominator. Usually the overlap boils down to the dimension of one: the ego. All of this is hardly new. That the matrix\u2019s heyday is past should be clear since \u201cagile\u201d has emerged from obscure circles of software developers into the mainstream of management. Yet the matrix\u2019s persistence is one of the major reasons why agility still has such hard times.   In vain   Look at our \u201ci-tribe\u201c. Management\u2019s mandate was to manage that \u201ctribe\u201d by agile means. Anything else would have been compromising the term \u201ctribe\u201d after all. Yet this effort was doomed to fail from the start. The first and most important reason for this doom is that the \u201ctribe\u201d does not build anything at all. Well, \u201cnot anything at all\u201dis not correct. At least that tribe creates bi-weekly status report for its steering committee and in parallel an ever growing stack of slides hoew innovation could be fostered across countries and functions. \u2013 But this \u201cproduct\u201d will never be used by anyone.  Hardly less important weighs the fact that the tribe\u2019s members manage to meet once a month at best due to their multitude of other important tasks. And if they manage to meet after all, half of the team won\u2019t show up at all or participate via conference call. The cynic reasons that it is irrelevant who participates because the results are irrelevant anyway. The pragmatist puts the conferencing station on low volume and works his mailbox while listening whether his name is called. The matrix does not only dissolve responsibility, it actually dissolves action as such. Either the action is then surrendered to consultants or you simply don\u2019t care and move on \u2026 to the next meeting. ","author_name":"Mittelma\u00df und Wahnsinn","author_url":"http:\/\/gehacon.de\/mittelmass-und-wahnsinn-das-buch\/","html":"