Organizational Structure Matrix is a conversational tool to explore the benefits and disadvantages of different organizing structures.
Overview
Social movement organizations come in all different forms and shapes. From small all-volunteer activist collectives over NGO’s filling an office with paid staff to labor unions that can fill several sport stadiums with their membership. And anything in between!
At the heart of all these organizations you find a shared mission or purpose and (hopefully) a strategy describing how to achieve goals that follow from that mission. What is equally important however, is the organizational structure that enables (or unfortunately sometimes hinders) the organization to collaborate and fulfill its mission.
This tool has been designed to invite an open conversation on advantages and disadvantages of different organizational structures.
The goal of the exercise is to develop a more nuanced view of the way in which the structure of any organization is helping or hindering it to succeed and to be able to hold conversations within groups that allow us to name, adapt and shape structures in ways that serve our goals and reflect our values.
How does this tool support leaderful movements?
When we join existing organizations, the structure might be the last thing we feel like we might have any impact on. Indeed, a structure can feel like it is set in stone and could never be questioned. Nevertheless, healthy groups will every once in a while, for instance when developing a new multi year strategy, take a look at the functioning of their structure:
- Does it still serve its purpose?
- Does everyone find their place?
- Does it support communication, accountability, decision making, implementation and meaningful participation?
When you are involved in the formation stage of a new group, you might also struggle with the question of how the structure should look like and how it should or shouldn’t evolve as the group will be growing. Our past experiences, as well as our beliefs or ideology, often shape our preferences around structures. Especially frustrating or even harmful experiences might trick us into falling into unhelpful binaries and dogmatism. In such cases one might believe that only either full horizontalism (as an antidote to the concentration and abuse of power) or rigid chains of command and control (to address the lack of follow-up or accountability) will help us to achieve the change we want.
Leaderful movements need helpful structures that support groups to deliver on their goals, as well as allowing those who contribute to the group to find belonging as they grow into the work.
In this way, this tool, addressing the challenge of shaping a suitable structure for your organization, helps groups to be intentional about creating structures that effectively support transformative collaboration. By engaging with this tool you can have meaningful conversations on leadership and even the meaning and value of leaderfulness, as well as address issues of power.
A thriving organization is an organization that finds a balance between the need for accountability and striking power on the one hand and a legitimate desire for meaningful participation and democracy on the other.
More detail
This exercise, in different variations, has been developed during a creative process of designing new leaderful organizing training formats. We knew we would get participants from very different backgrounds, some being more familiar with large, formal non-profit structures, others very much connected to horizontal and all-volunteer grassroots groups. Of course, in reality there is a spectrum, where many participants will have experience with both more horizontal and more vertical structures, as well as with organizations that have a more hybrid structure containing both horizontal and vertical characteristics.
In every variation of the exercise we use the same grid with four boxes combining the distinction between horizontal and vertical structures on the one hand and the contrast between pro’s (whenever this type of structure is helpful or beneficial for an organization) and contra’s (when it’s hindering the work or describing the pitfalls of a structure). In the exercise participants are encouraged to identify themselves what works well and what isn’t helpful for each structure.
At the end of the exercise the question is raised to which extent it’s possible to allow for more fluid and hybrid structures, embracing the positives of both types of structure, while trying to avoid their pitfalls.
We’ve used different variations of the basic exercise.
Variation 1
- Form small groups of more or less four participants. A hand-out of the grid is provided to each group.
- Each group has a conversation discussing their experiences with both more horizontal and vertical groups
- These experiences are used to fill information in the four boxes of the grid. Doing so experiences are collected on post-it’s
- The facilitators introduce a big version of the grid on flip chart paper and ask for examples for each box. They collect the post-it’s as a group shares their findings, while they check for similar stories or insight with the others groups
Variation 2
- Participants are divided in two groups: one group will represent the vertical camp and another “team horizontal”. You can either opt to divide participants randomly or to divide according to the structure that most (or least!) reflects the actual structure of a group of choice in which they have been involved for a while. If you choose for a division based on experience, you can use the format of a spectrum line and allow participants to have short conversations to assess who fits where in the line. As is implied above: you can invite participants to identify with the position they know best or alternatively you can encourage them to take the position that is least familiar to them.
- Round 1: the negatives each group is invited to write down as many negatives of the “other side”: what’s their problem? Why doesn’t it work? What problems are recurrent with their structure? You can encourage them to name the stereotypes.
- Exchange (a.k.a. “snow ball fight”): participants wrap their post-it’s into small “balls” and are then invited to throw them to the other side. The other groups collects the post-it’s thrown in their direction and start to unfold them. As they are being read out, a facilitator collects them in a big version of the grid on flip chart paper.
- Round 2: each group now shifts gears and turns to the positives of one of the structures. I’ve seen the exercise work both while sticking to look at the other group, and now admitting “despite all these negatives, there are actually also several helpful things about their structure!”, or alternatively remaining a bit longer in their role of “superiority” and now writing down what makes them as a group so effective. In the latter case, you might want to add a small practice to de-role at the end of the exercise, in order to ensure participants are supported to leave this binary thinking behind in order to realign and learn together.
- Exchange: as above, but now with the positives
- Draw conclusions in the big group and raise the question of a more fluid/hybrid structure, combining the strengths of both structures while being mindful of their shortcomings and pitfalls.
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