What’s your Minimum Viable Organisation? Your ‘MVO’.
In the startup world they have a Minimum Viable Product, the MVP, which is the barest bones of a product, the smallest set of features and functionality, that does the job.
So what are the barest bones of your organisation that would ‘do the job’?
What could you take away and still fulfil the organisation’s purpose?
I’ll bet you can cut rather more than you think.
COVID has shown you can get rid of the office, so what else?
Reports that nobody reads. Meetings that no-one gets any value from. Emails that don’t help anyone other than the sender.
All those processes to check people do the right thing when you could, you know, trust them? They can go.
What about those central functions – HR, Finance, IT, Business Planning? What if they had to serve the front line units and not the other way around?
And do you need all those layers of management, all those approvers and gate-keepers? Why not a network of self-organising teams?
Impossible, you say? There are organisations who have already done them, and more.
So, are you thinking about what your MVO is?
Because if you’re not, you can be sure there’s someone out there who is.
And they’re coming to get you.
Sooner than you think.