Companies are multiplying initiatives to evolve their organization and ways of working to cope with the new challenges of competitive advantage – including how to leverage the potential of digital technologies. These efforts go by various names – Lean and Agile are the most popular, but we also hear about holacracy, the polycratic organization and exponential organizations. Beyond the name tags and labels, the real issue is a revolution in the role of management. Without this revolution, the new technologies don’t deliver on their promise, the organization just gets more complicated when the Agile paraphernalia is added on top of the structure and processes -- and productivity keeps declining while people disengage. Drawing on his contribution to the development of organization theory and his consulting work with more than 500 organizations, Yves Morieux will discuss the practical role of managers, their duties and ways to add value for the new organization to create profitable growth.

1. LKCE’19 HAMBURG - NOVEMBER 6, 2019
Yves Morieux
Bringing Managers Back to Work
Creating value in an age of increased complexity

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Two trends led to this work
We analyzed the root causes of each trend and found a common driver — removing it results in
simultaneous increase in productivity and engagement
Source: Y. Morieux (2011), "Smart Rules: Six Ways to Get People to Solve Problems Without You", Harvard Business Review, volume 89, n°9, September: pp 78–86
The productivity crisis
despite technological
innovation, e.g. ICTs
The engagement crisis
despite "people initiatives"
across the board

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Common driver: organizations respond to the new business
complexity by becoming more complicated
Increasing
external complexity ....
• Multiple and often
contradictory performance
requirements to satisfy e.g.
speed and reliability
• Increasing amount of
regulations
• New competition
• Increasing customer
expectations
• New technologies
• Shorter product life cycles
• Traditional and new
globalization
... results in dramatic increase
of internal complicatedness
1955
35x
increase
1982 2010
Complexity index
Complicatedness index
6x
increase
... addressed to
maintain control ...
• Cumbersome structures
• Lengthy and unproductive
processes
• Overbearing KPIs
• Numerous coordination bodies
• Spreading bureaucracy
• Multiple systems
• …
Smart
simplicity
Real problem is not Complexity but Complicatedness: hinders agility, innovation and productivity while
disengaging people at work. Is there a smarter way to manage business complexity?
Source: Y. Morieux (2011), "Smart Rules: Six Ways to Get People to Solve Problems Without You", Harvard Business Review, volume 89, n°9, September: pp 78–86

4. Copyright©2018byTheBostonConsultingGroup,Inc.Allrightsreserved.
3
Competitive advantage:
Managing complexity
without getting
complicated
Beyond the skeleton (structure, org
chart, boxes…)
need
the right nervous system
(ways of working & behaviors)
Source: Y. Morieux (2011), ‘Management: a Sociological Perspective’. In: From Taylor to Today: The Multimedia
Encyclopedia of Organization Theory, Erhard Friedberg (coord.), Research & Organization
++
Cooperation
+
Engagement
+
+
Leadership
Managerial
value-added
Value -adding
execution
Each one’s behavior
increases the
effectiveness of others
Smart Simplicity

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4
The right way to
improve productivity
and performance
always increases
satisfaction work
Symmetrically…
The right way to
increase satisfaction
at work always
improves
productivity and
performance
Illustration of economic and organizational
effect
Over-consumption of resources
• Time (speed to market),
equipment, systems,
unrewarded product
complexity, inventories,
stock, working capital, rework,
teams, committees, extra
pressure on the individual …
Freeing resources for
value-adding activities
• Rather than using them to
compensate for deficient
cooperation
Source: Y. Morieux (2011), “Management: a Sociological Perspective.” In: From Taylor to Today: The Multimedia
Encyclopedia of Organization Theory, Erhard Friedberg (coord.), Research & Organization.
Resources
Cooperation

6. 5
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How to change?
Interventions on the context makes change faster, deeper, safer and sustainable
Source: Y. Morieux (2011), “Resistance to Change or Error in Change Strategy?” In: From Taylor to Today: The Multimedia Encyclopedia of Organization Theory, Erhard Friedberg
(coord.), Research & Organization
Typical, yet ineffective approach Effective approach
“To change what people do, change their mindsets, feelings
and values”
“Desired behaviors spontaneously happen when you
adequately change the context. Then mindsets, values and
culture will follow”
Mindsets,
feelings, values
Context
Behaviors
Levers
for
change
Context
Behaviors
Levers
for
change
Mindsets,
feelings, values

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6
The six principles provide
guidelines to tackle the root-
causes in order to create
the optimal context
• They are based on the state
of the art in social and
behavioral sciences
First three principles are
about enhancing autonomy,
next three are about making
sure autonomy is put in the
service of cooperation and
the common good of the
company (instead of one's
silo only)
The spirit of "Agile" is a
specific application of some
of these principles
• Daily stand-ups,
retrospectives: #1
• Product owner: #2
• Sprints, Prototype vs.
Waterfall: #4
• Co-located X-functional
teams: #5
Smart Rules to change the context
Managing complexity without getting complicated
Source: Y. Morieux, P. Tollman (2014), Six Simple Rules: How to Manage Complexity without Getting Complicated, Boston:
Harvard Business review Press
Understand what your people
really do
• Build true understanding of
their work
• Understand why people do
what they do
• Re-cognize work
Reinforce integrators
• Removing some rules
• Refusing escalation
• Delayering
Increase total quantity of
power
• Give all actors enough cards to
play a more collective game
• Create new power bases—a
positive-sum game, not a zero-
sum game
Expand the shadow of the
future
• Bring the future closer by
adjusting duration, frequency
of feedback loops, inversion
Increase reciprocity
• Set rich objectives: collective
output, individual input,
overlapping objective
• Remove the '2nd TVs', i.e. the
resources that fuel
dysfunctional self-sufficiency
• Eliminate internal monopolies
Reward those who cooperate
• Make those who don’t
cooperate bear the cost
• "Blame is not for failure – it is
for failing to help or ask for
help"

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TED Talks videos by Yves Morieux,
creator of Smart Simplicity®, director of
the BCG Institute for Organization
Select publications on Smart Simplicity
To know more about Smart Simplicity®
Battle-tested across industries and geographies (150+ BCG projects)
“As work gets more complex, six rules to simplify”
“How too many rules at work keep you from getting
things done”
• Top 10 TED talks 2014
• http://www.ted.com/talks/yves_morieux_as_work_gets
_more_complex_6_rules_to_simplify?
language=en
• https://www.ted.com/talks/yves_morieux_how_too_m
any_rules_at_work_keep_you_from_getting_things_done
5M+ views
Y. Morieux’s spotlight
article on Managing
Complexity “Smart Rules”
The Economist's interview
with Y. Morieux on the
new organization
Y. Morieux and P. Tollman’s
book on “Six Simple
Rules”, Harvard Business
Review Press