Let's talk Transformation : The business leaders podcast #147 Constrained Independence : Square system transformation with Matthew Person
“Most organisations don’t fail through lack of strategy, but because the strategy never reaches the front line.”
How do we ensure that our organisational strategy truly reaches the front line of operations, preventing it from remaining solely at the board level?
Matt & I delve into this critical challenge facing leaders today. We uncover how to bridge this gap, ensuring your strategic vision translates into frontline execution and sustained growth.
The tension between “explore” (innovation) and “exploit” (business as usual) is a constant balancing act for organisations. and we need to inherently foster both. But how ?
The Square management system provides an architecture for leaders to scale their culture without stifling innovation, a critical balance for companies. Matt shares his journey, from transforming underperforming sports franchises to investment banking and corporate development, where he observed how different companies created or captured value. He realised the importance of intentional organisational design when asked how to maintain culture across multiple offices and states, leading to the development of his book and approach.
“square” does not imply a rigid, binary system but represents a dynamic space for culture. He defines good culture as the alignment between an individual’s perceptions, beliefs, and values and the company’s systems and procedures. The “square” changes in size and shape depending on the company’s needs. Discover the four "I"s—Identity, Instruction, Intercommunication, and Information Feedback—that form the foundation of an effective organizational design. We discuss how leaders can utilize this system not just as a culture tool, but as a comprehensive operating framework, especially vital during M&A integrations or major reorganizations.
How do you balance freedom for innovation with the need for operational consistency in your organization ?
The main insights you'll get from this episode are :
- Regardless of sector, there are commonalities in terms of workplace cultures and thriving, i.e. understanding where value lies and how to create or capture it - the square management system is an architecture for leaders to scale culture without suffocating innovation.
- The Culture of Alignment is a philosophical exercise around how to run a company, a model for operationalising strategies into tactics, as strategy often stays at the top, without penetrating the front line.
- Rather than copying what others have done, it offers a way to intentionally structure a high-performing organisation, with direct tools to provide for growth and scale - not a blueprint, but an invitation to create a bespoke model.
- The system factors in both alignment and flexibility by understanding what the culture is and intentionally designing for it: the culture is the square, but the size of the square and the walls can change.
- The square comprises: identity (do customers and staff know what we stand for), instruction (expectation for performance standard across the organisation), intercommunication (flow of information across the company), information feedback (data and information on the company and employees).
- The fifth i in the middle of the square is constrained independence (the known degree to which an employee can action their own ideas) = culture; a lack of constraint leads to mini squares = chaos.
- Most companies fall short in one area: identity deviation erodes trust; instruction deviation leads to a varying standard of performance; intercommunication deviation produces a disconnect between the publicised view and the reality of the culture; information feedback deviation sees companies failing to assess themselves.
- The system must offer space to pivot (e.g. startups) yet ensure constraint where necessary (e.g. hospitals, factories); when scaling intensifies, there must be adherence to the full system: intentionality, completeness and constitution.
- It also acts as an operating framework for diagnostic purposes, e.g. flagging employee churn as a sign of misalignment, and as a container for ‘business as usual’ and innovation (degree of innovation depends on the size of the square).
- The square allows for known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, but if these are not communicated by leaders, employees fall foul of them unwittingly; the system enables leaders to be in alignment with their employees.
Find out more about Matthew and his work here :