“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” — Peter Drucker
Centuries ago, oxcarts carved routes through the wilderness, choosing paths of least resistance. Over time, these trails solidified, compressing the earth beneath countless journeys, until they became the very roads we traverse today. These paths, laid down in the tenth century, were not formed by grand design but by necessity, ease, and habit, following a path of least resistance. This historical anecdote serves as a compelling metaphor for understanding the mechanisms of the human brain — how it learns, adapts, and how, eventually, it resists change.
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Much like the enduring tracks of oxcarts, the human brain forms pathways through the repeated firing of neurons. These connections, once established, are strengthened and myelinated (sealed) over time, becoming faster and more efficient with each use. But this efficiency comes with a downside: these pathways can become so entrenched that rewiring them becomes a monumental challenge.
Building upon this analogy, it’s essential to recognize the imperative of organizations to stay in what Jeff Bezos refers to as “Day One.” Day One represents a state of mind that remains open to adaptation (myelination) — not fully sealed and resistant to reinvention. It’s a clarion call to maintain the agility, curiosity, and openness that characterised an organisation’s early days, avoiding the bureaucracy, stagnation and complacency that sets like a jello of success.
Bezos’s concept of Day One emphasises the importance of permanent reinvention, fostering a culture that continuously embraces new ideas, challenges the status quo, and remains vigilant against the stagnation of “Day Two” — a state marked by irrelevance, decline and death. To stay in Day One means to persist in the entrepreneurial spirit, where the willingness to experiment, fail, and learn is paramount. It’s about creating an environment that not only adapts to change but anticipates and shapes it, ensuring that the organisation never loses its edge or its ability to navigate the turbulence of an ever-evolving landscape. This philosophy is crucial for organisations aiming to remain dynamic and competitive, constantly retrenching themselves to meet the demands of a changing environment.
In this week’s Thursday Thought, we consider Pitney Bowes’ retrenching of mindsets shared with me in a conversation with its former CEO and Chairman, Michael Critelli.
Pitney Bowes: At a Crossroads of Tradition and Transformation
“My predecessor, George Harvey, was a strong believer in self-contained, independently run business units. In fact, in 1990 he implemented this belief very aggressively by setting up four discrete lines of business, each headed by a group president with a great deal of freedom. In part, this was a succession-planning move. By giving these people latitude and holding them accountable, he hoped to see what they were made of. He also believed that business leaders with full accountability would move faster, have lower-cost businesses, and be more customer-focused. It was a workable strategy at the time because there was not as much overlap in the customer bases of our various businesses. However, because employees were more loyal to their divisions than to the overall company, the company inevitably became deeply siloed and conflict-ridden. Customers were able to see this conflict.” — Michael Critelli
For decades, Pitney Bowes navigated under a model inaugurated by its former chairman and CEO, George Harvey, during the 1990s. This blueprint segmented the organisation into autonomously operated business units, an architecture crafted to bolster agility and accountability through leaders endowed with local empowerment. This strategy, while initially fostering nimbleness and an ability to swiftly adapt to market shifts, gradually became a double-edged sword.
As Pitney Bowes matured, the structure once hailed for promoting empowerment started to forge barriers. The seeds of division, unwittingly planted during periods of expansion, sprouted into silos as the business environment evolved. These silos, initially minor rifts, emerged as formidable barriers to the unity and responsiveness imperative for sustaining customer satisfaction and organisational cohesion.
The saga of Pitney Bowes mirrors the intricacies of neural adaptation, highlighting an organisation’s journey towards recognising and overcoming the entrenched pathways of its operational framework. The strategic pivot from endorsing divisional independence to advocating a unified, collaborative spirit across the entire enterprise marked a significant paradigm shift. This transformation challenged 35-year-old conventional wisdom, necessitating a deliberate and concerted effort to “rewire” and retrench the organisational mindset and modus operandi.
Leadership, helmed by then-CEO Michael Critelli, recognised the imperative for this metamorphosis and embarked on a path to realign the organisation with its foundational business and customer imperatives. This realignment entailed a comprehensive resegmentation of operations and a consolidation of the reporting structure to bolster collaboration and streamline service delivery. Such measures aimed at dismantling the silos, championing a more integrated business approach.
Moreover, this shift heralded a cultural revolution, from a celebration of divisional autonomy to an embracement of enterprise-wide cooperation. It signified a departure from the erstwhile “vendor-neutral” posture towards a cohesive front that capitalised on the entirety of Pitney Bowes’ offerings. This transformation transcended structural adjustments to encompass cultural shifts, rendering isolationist operations politically incorrect.
The recalibration of Pitney Bowes, akin to the rewiring of ingrained neural pathways, highlights the complexity of change within organisations. It underscores the pivotal role of leadership in spearheading a new era, the necessity of a collective vision to steer transformation, and the criticality of a united effort in the voyage towards integration and growth.
In conclusion, the analogy of oxcarts and neural pathways serves as a poignant reminder of the enduring nature of established patterns — be they in the byways we traverse or the enterprises we sculpt. Yet, it also accentuates the potential for change, underscoring the capacity of both the human brain and corporate body to adapt, evolve, and chart new courses. When we change business models and evolve with the times, our organisational structures must also align.
Thank you for reading
Find that stellar episode Part 2 of 2 below and wherever you get your podcasts:
https://medium.com/media/462fbf0984f704eb8458c0ebfb94ec4a/href
Retrenching the Organisation:Aligning Structure with Strategy was originally published in The Thursday Thought on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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