Get a head and fall behind
Why appointing a “Head of…” stops systemic change
“Any object around which an SEP field is applied will cease to be noticed, because any problems one may have understanding it, and therefore accepting its existence, become Somebody Else's Problem. An object becomes not so much invisible as unnoticed”. 1
Many years ago I did some advisory work for a marine coatings business.
They were having adhesion problems with the paints applied to the ballast tanks on massive ocean-going vessels such as container ships.
The problem of coating adhesion is a deeply systemic one.
It involves complex interdependencies between paint formulation, paint ingredients, paint manufacturing, the skill of the person applying the paint, the equipment they use to apply it, the preparation of the base before painting, the working environment where it’s applied, the ambient conditions during curing etc.
It’s hugely expensive — many millions of dollars — to have to take a ship out of service, rent a dry dock, empty the ballast tanks, clean them out, dry them out, prepare the surfaces, repaint them, and get the ship back in service.
Ship owners are not happy bunnies when this happens…
The CEO of the marine coatings business was so fed up with the problem that he appointed one of the senior directors “Head of Ballast Tank Coating Adhesion”.
The new Head of BTCA explained to me that his role had largely been created so the CEO had a single individual to shout at when a customer complained…
His fundamental problem was he had very little ability to influence the systemic, variable, interrelated factors affecting paint adhesion:
The coating recipe formulation was done in the firm’s northern European lab.
Ingredients were sourced from all over the world, based on availability and cost.
Production was at three different manufacturing sites — one in Europe, one in the US and one in Asia — using ingredients from different suppliers.
The Asian manufacturing plant had more modern plant and control systems than the other two, enabling much tighter control of the production process. 2
Surface preparation and coating application was sometimes done by the coatings manufacturer themselves, sometimes by ship builders, sometimes by contractors — during both original build and refurbishment.
Application conditions depended on various factors including local weather, which since most ship builders and dry docks are in South East Asia, vary significantly, both seasonally and day to day.
Unfortunately, like so many organisations, they lacked the appetite to tackle their systemic problem and were ultimately bought out by a competitor… 3
Organisations have an unfortunate habit of appointing individuals to “Head of X” when “X” requires systemic change.
Try entering the two words “Head of” into LinkedIn’s search box and you’ll get a whole bunch of hits, such as:
Head of Digital
Head of Innovation
Head of Agility
Head of Adaptiveness
Head of Diversity
Head of Equity
Head of Inclusion
Head of Happiness
Head of Wellbeing
Head of Resilience
Head of ESG
Head of Culture
Head of Transformation
Head of Recursion
OK, I made the last one up — but wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an organisation somewhere with someone whose job is Head of appointing new Heads of… 4
Unlike the hapless Head of Ballast Tank Coating Adhesion, most “Heads of…” aren’t appointed just so the CEO has someone to shout at.
But just like the Head of Ballast Tank Coating Adhesion, they are appointed to take responsibility for delivering an outcome that requires systemic organisational transformation.
Which is something they’re hardly ever able to achieve…
One obvious thing that prevents “Heads of…” achieving leverage for systemic change is when their role is positioned one or more levels below the top team.
Even when the role is at top team level, i.e. they’re a “CXO”, they’re up against other influential actors who may agree with the need for “X” in theory but whose mindsets, attitudes, and behaviours in practice anchor & animate the organisational immune system that stifles, smothers, and strangles systemic change... 5
On top of that, once a “Head of Complex Systemic Challenge X” has been appointed, it creates an SEP field, where everyone else sees everything to do with Challenge X as Somebody Else’s Problem — that somebody being, of course, the Head of X. 6
What typically happens next is the Head of X sees their valiant attempts to shift the needle stymied, subverted, and generally stuffed up by the organisational immune system.
After this has happened a few times they either quit, or focus on less ambitious outcomes.
The net result is that nothing meaningful is happening on the systemic challenge they were appointed to address, whilst at the same time no-one else feels responsible for addressing the gap. 7
Take, for example, when organisations appoint a Head of Innovation — something I’ve encountered many, many times in 35 years of helping organisations create future-fit cultures of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness.
Heads of Innovation often end up focusing far too much on the ‘fuzzy front-end’ — the process of generating new ideas, screening to separate the wheat from the chaff, and ranking to pick the winners.
It’s an obvious area of focus because without ideas there’s no innovation right?
And surely, if the ideas coming out of the fuzzy front-end process are good, the organisation will readily align itself around them, ensuring successful exploitation.
Unfortunately, that’s just about the opposite of what happens.
The more compellingly innovative, blockbusting, and disruptive the idea, the greater the threat to the status quo within the organisation. 8
Cherished practices will need to change.
The important roles of some currently influential people will become less important or cease to exist.
Some other roles, currently less important or non-existent, will become more important, disrupting existing power structures and relationships.
Some current key skills will no longer be key.
Some new skills will need to be cultivated or brought in from outside.
Some major customers may not feature so prominently in future, so the people who “own” those relationship won’t have as much clout.
Some currently unimportant or new customers will become important — and so will the people who “own” those relationships.
No wonder the corporate immune system kicks into overdrive.
And, as ever, there’s the Five Fatal Habits to contend with… 9
What to do instead?
In an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world, organisations need to create future-fit cultures of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness.
This requires the senior executives on the top team to collectively take responsibility for creating the conditions to unlock the organisational capacity for systemic change.
The crucial first step in this is senior executives must give up the long-standing misunderstanding that their main role is decision makers. 10
In a fast-paced and volatile world the main role of senior executives is not making decisions but creating conditions — in which good decisions get made and implemented on an ongoing, continuous basis.
This means sense making, decision making & action taking must become ever more tightly coupled, rapidly and repeatedly iterated, deeply embedded and widely distributed throughout the organisation.
The main responsibility of a senior executive team is to ensure these conditions for success are established and sustained in congruence and coherence with the ever-changing context.
Questions for reflection
Do you have a “Head of…” a complex, systemic transformational challenge who is set up to fail and hold the organisation back? Do you have more than one?
How are senior executives in your organisation ensuring that sense making, decision making and action taking become ever more tightly coupled, rapidly and repeatedly iterated, deeply embedded, and widely distributed throughout the organisation?
Are the deeper systemic issues of people, learning, leadership, and culture actively and adequately addressed as top priorities by the key influencers who systemically enable or impede progress? 11
Do the most senior HR professionals in your organisation coach, guide, and counsel senior executives and other key influencers in how to create a future-fit culture of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness?
Or is HR’s focus on compliance, recruitment, performance management, and shared services — whilst, at the same time, senior executives assume HR is fully on top of the deeply systemic and vitally important issues of people, learning, and future-fit culture?
Are your answers to the above compelling, convincing, and encouraging?
If not, what are you doing about it?
The SEP field first featured in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
This meant that a formulation that worked in the Asian plant often couldn’t be produced reliably at any other plant.
The buy out wasn’t only due the problem with paint adhesion but reflected a more general unwillingness amongst the ageing senior executives to revitalise the organisation.
Probably an HR role in a multinational… 😉
For more on organisational immune systems, see my previous post on the Boggy Back-End.
Ibid - the SEP field.
This is a similar pattern to when an organisation comes up with a list of “shared values”, after which no-one feels responsible for the culture anymore. For more on this see my earlier post on The toxic myth of culture as shared values.
Ibid - the Boggy Back-End.
Download my 22-page report on the Five Fatal Habits that have consistently stifled, smothered, and strangled the emergence of future-fit cultures of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness over the past 30 years.
For more on this see my previous post Senior executives must give up their decision rights
Note that the key influencers are not always in the most senior positions, as described in this 7 minute video.