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Successful Mergers, Acquisitions and Strategic Alliances: How to Bridge Corporate Cultures
by In a minute or two of trawling around LinkedIn you will be amazed at the great men who all sing the praises of failure: from Churchill to Michael Jordan; from Kennedy to Henry Ford; from James Joyce to Abraham Lincoln. On the other hand, you won’t read much about Joe Dorn, a baker in Pocatello, […]
Read More about Rebound—or the Joys of FailureICM’s program “Survive in a Matrix Organization” is for all managers who want to improve their ability to operate in a complex organizational structure, interacting with different people who have different goals and objectives.
The program begins with some theory on the matrix context in order to ensure a balanced view and understanding of what a matrix is and moves quickly into a participative, action-learning mode to build required competence.
Pre-work: three mini-assessments
- Self-assessment questionnaire on conflict management skills
- “Matrix Checklist”: a short questionnaire on the benefits and challenges of a matrix organization
- Initial stakeholder analysis: participants are asked to fill in a short template on one of their key stakeholders, highlighting both common and divergent goals and objectives.
Context
The program begins with asking participants to define the term: what is a matrix organization? What is specific to working in a matrix? What are the challenges that you do not find in a traditional organizational structure. And also, what are the benefits of a matrix in the global business environment today.
Competence
Once participants have reached an agreement on the Context, the program will provide a series of tools that will allow them to meet the needs of this complex context successfully. This includes:
- Relationship assessment: who are the critical stakeholders with whom you need to interact? How well do you know and understand their drivers and priorities?
- Stakeholder assessment and force field analysis: Using these tools, participants are asked to take each of their critical stakeholders and position them with respect to their own goals and objectives? Are they supportive? Hostile?
- IOC: This tool, taken from the “Getting To yes” approach to negotiations, is useful to pinpoint converging, as well as divergent goals and objectives.
- Influencing and conflict resolution skills: conflict is inherent in a matrix and will be resolved through influence since hierarchical authority is not the relevant lever. So how do you influence your stakeholders to shift their position? Participants engage in role-playing around critical incidents in order to identify and develop the skills most needed here..