Amoeba Effect
Have you ever watched little children play soccer? If so, you have had at least one flashback to high school science class.
While there is much strategy involved in to field position, defender/receiver placement and the like, little ones are oblivious to this. Instead, they all go wherever the ball goes. Rather than playing an assigned position, we see a clump of tiny humans moving as one to chase a round ball.
Make no mistake: those children are just as passionate about getting to the ball, scoring a goal, and winning the game as David Beckham and Pelé. But, they have not mastered the art of strategy. They simply do whatever it takes to get the “proper” end result – they know the ball has to go into the net, so they chase it.
I call this “The Amoeba Effect.”
The Amoeba Effect is at work in organizations throughout this country every day. Rather than having a strategy for getting its mission accomplished, organizations simply fill desks, assign phone numbers and chase the proverbial ball – clients, donors, or revenue. Thus, sitting in a staff meeting takes on the appearance of watching children play soccer.
This sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? “I want my organization to increase revenue by 47% in this fiscal year.” Great – how? “I want to double our current number of clients.” Fantastic – what’s your plan for accomplishing that? Or, “We need more staff to handle the workload in the office.” Um…why?
If you wish to discover whether your organization is suffering from the Amoeba Effect, look at the organizational chart – then compare it to the day-to-day business operations. If there is a great deal of lateral supervision, minimal accountability requirements for staff, or no clear person “in charge,” employees spend their days producing “stuff” – they don’t spend their days being productive.
If your organizational chart looks like a culture underneath the lens of a microscope, there is still hope. You can fend off the onslaught of the amoeba-culture, but it will require difficult decisions and an even more challenging restructuring process.
Step One: make a list of every single staff member that is on payroll. Beside each person, have their direct supervisor summarize their job function. (Note: if you discover that you will have to write all of these because everyone reports to you – you’ve been amoeba-ed.)
Step Two: Once you have the complete list, look for any overlapping functions. An office of twenty employees should not have six people doing the same job, even if they have different territories. Consolidate the work, consolidate the territories, or simply consolidate the office.
So far, everything you have done has been on paper. Now, onto Step Three: It’s time to spend some hours out in your office. Talk to your employees. Ask them what they do for your company. How do they contribute, every day, to the organization’s long-term success? What makes their job so invaluable to the company’s success?
This stage of the game may send up red flags to your employees. That’s alright – a little bit of concern makes it easier to weed out the non-producers. Listen for responses like the following:
- “Well, I’ve been here for a long time, so I know where everything is in the office.” This is irrelevant. Anyone can open a drawer or a closet and discover where you keep rubber bands and folders.
- “I do a lot in my current job, but I think I would benefit the company more if I was doing… [fill in the blank with a more prominent position].” This response tells you that they are biding their time, merely drawing their breath and their pay until a more lucrative, or more visible, position opens up.
- Or, my personal favorite, “Wow, I am so busy that it would take me a really long time to tell you all of the things that I do. I work so much every day, I don’t know where to start.” In the words of the Robot from Lost in Space, “Danger, Will Robinson!” This response means that an employee has no idea what they do every day to contribute to organizational effectiveness…but they are probably on level 37 of Minesweeper.
Step Four: Once you have talked with your employees, compare their responses to the job function information you received from Step One. If they don’t mesh, you have too many employees performing similar functions. Once again, you’ve been amoeba-ed.
Step Five: As a leader, you now have two options. You can either a) eliminate positions, thereby eliminating employees; or b) you create new positions for those employees who are valuable to the organization, but would serve more efficiently in another role. If you choose to retain the valuable services of a current amoeba employee, be sure that the new position fits well within the hierarchy.
Once these five steps have been completed, it is time to fully develop the organizational hierarchy. Yes, there are many who would argue that a “hierarchy” breeds competition among employees. They would be correct. If you want your organization to flourish, each member of the organization – from the CEO to the mail room clerk – must bring their A-Game every day or risk being out of a job.
The hierarchy must be succinct, easy to explain, and have clear reporting schedules. Every employee should be able to look at the diagram and know immediately who their immediate supervisor is, who are their colleagues, and where do departmental divisions arise. Without these three elements, everyone in the organization will be chasing the same round ball – and no one will be guarding the goal.
While the work of organizational efficiency is tedious, it is also critical to any future success. Lines of communication must be clear, lines of responsibility must not be dotted, and every employee must be accountable to someone.
Children are one of society’s greatest gifts. Their methods of madness, though, should be left on the soccer field, not brought into the board room.
Molly Rushing
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