Organizations have structured themselves like pyramids for hundreds of years. The shape of a pyramid made for an appealing metaphor: one leader at the top giving everyone direction. This has been the dominant way of thinking about organizations for centuries.
More recently, the network has emerged as a new organizational metaphor. In networks, every component has the potential to communicate with every other component. This vibrant model was derived from the operations of living systems.
The icon of the hierarchical organization is the machine; the networked system, the living organism. Networked systems are highly social. Their hallmark is interaction. While the hierarchical model focused on centralized control and to reliably achieve replicable outcomes, the networked organization seeks flexibility and innovation. In the industrial age the physical strength of the workers powered the organization. In the post-modern economy, it is the creativity of the knowledge worker that creates value. These evolutionary changes have necessitated an evolution in our thinking about how workers are led in these evolving organizations.
The IRI Model (Identity, Relationships, Information) is our idea of how organizations function as systems. While the Model arises from ideas derived from science (post-Newtonian physics and modern biology), its principles are highly relevant to today’s networked organizations.
The IRI Model begins by thinking about the system as a whole. Every system has an identity, which provides answers to key questions about that system.
The answers to these questions define the system’s identity. The leader’s role, at whatever level of the organization involves articulating and disseminating a common identity throughout the organization.
Next, all organizational outcomes require relationships among system members: an individual within a system can never function in isolation. Organizational relationships raise two key questions: with whom must I interact to accomplish the organization’s mission?; and how I must interact with those people in order for the system to be functioning optimally?
Relationships are the key to the IRI model. Ultimately, because relationships center on trust, it is crucial for organizations to seek ways to establish and enhance trusting relationships. Modern leaders must be expert at establishing the organizational conditions that enable required relationships, keeping in mind that human relationships can only be facilitated, not mandated.
In organizations, relationships become formalized as processes. A robust system views its processes as opportunities for conversation about operational and strategic concerns. It then facilitates the kinds of relationships that will enable important conversations to take place.
Leaders need to model these concerns and lead these conversations, which they cannot do without listening well.
Finally, identity-focused action-relationships in networked organizations require quick, targeted sharing of information: what information has to flow within which relationships in order to fulfill the purpose of the system? Systems invariably find ways to transmit vital information, often in spite of formal processes. High performance systems create opportunities for people to talk together about their work and to listen accurately to what others have to say.
The IRI Model shows how systems achieve results through interdependent processes. High performance - improved effectiveness and efficiency - is a result of a system of maximized relationships. In maximized systems, required information flows with little resistance.
As such, real value creation takes place within relationships. The level of intimacy that key relationships attain (characterized by open, trusting conversation) ultimately determines how far any company is able to go.
We can help your organization define its identity, focus its relationships and more effectively communicate critical information.
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