Creating the right environment for

improvement
How to close the gap between what you have and what you need

Mark Eaton

rganizations are perfectly designed to get the results they get. Whether good or

Mark Eaton is Director of
Operations at Amnis Ltd,
Egham, UK.
O bad, the results that organizations deliver stem from the match between what they
are capable of delivering and what they have to deliver.
An organization may have to deliver very reliable products, but if its processes are not robust
enough to ‘‘build in’’ reliability it will not occur and the results will suffer. An organization may
have to deliver exceptional customer service, but its staff behaviors may not match the need
and therefore, again, the results will suffer.
Organizations develop competitive advantage through aligning their capabilities to the key
success factors they need to deliver in their market.

The importance of organizational environment

Why are some organizations able to create an environment where individuals are able to
communicate and collaborate and where their teams are motivated, while others cannot?
Why do like-for-like organizations – with access to people of the same skill levels, with the
same equipment, dealing with the same customers – get such widely differing results? Why
can one automotive manufacturer produce cars that sell well and others go to the wall? Why
do hospitals dealing with the same types of patients with the same types of staff and
equipment have different mortality rates? The difference in performance can often be put
down to the organizational environment.
In Figure 1 we see how the organizational environment manifests itself as ‘‘artifacts’’ in terms
of the physical performance and operating concepts of a team or organization.
These artifacts are built on the norms and behaviors in the organization, in terms of ways of
behaving that are tolerated (or authorized) and topics that are ‘‘taboo’’.
In turn, these norms and behaviors are influenced by the beliefs and assumptions of
individuals and teams in terms of the ways of thinking within the organization as well as the
explicit beliefs of individuals (such as ‘‘this is a bad organization to work in’’) and implicit
cultural assumptions (such as ‘‘managers make decisions, we just carry them out’’).
Creating the right environment (see Figure 2) is not something that can be done overnight
because you are dealing with beliefs and assumptions that may have been ingrained over
many years. Indeed, these beliefs are often reinforced daily through management behaviors
and actions.
Behaviors that reinforce the status quo can often been seen at the point an organization
wants to change. For example:
B An organization with a history of treating its staff as ‘‘numbers’’ had created an
q Mark Eaton 2009 environment with demotivated staff and poor levels of customer care. To rectify the

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Figure 1 The organizational environment

Artefacts

Norms & Behaviours

Beliefs & Assumptions

Figure 2 Building the organizational environment

Organisational
Environment
Major Sub-Division
Environment

Team Environment

Micro-Environments

problems with customer care, it launched a program to transform the way that employees
interacted with clients. A team was formed to tackle response times at a call center. The
team achieved impressive results and was feeding back to the chief executive when he
interrupted with the phrase: ‘‘That’s great, but when can I bank the cheque?’’
B A hospital had introduced a policy of ‘‘nothing worn below the elbow’’ to reduce the risk of
infection. A senior doctor came on to a ward wearing a shirt that went below the elbow. A
nurse asked the doctor to roll his sleeves up. The doctor replied: ‘‘Don’t be silly, I’m in a
hurry.’’ The nurse reported this to her matron and was told: ‘‘Don’t worry, just let it go.’’
The actions of the chief executive in the first instance and the matron in the second
reinforced previous beliefs and assumptions and prevented change in the organizational
environment.
In reality, environments tend to vary from team to team and division to division. The overall
organizational environment is the result of the combined micro-environments (the relationships
between individuals), team environments and major sub-division environments.
Within this complex organizational environment, leaders at every level can have a major
impact on their ‘‘local’’ environment. For example, an ineffective and abrasive divisional leader
will harm the performance of every part of his or her division, while an effective team leader of a
small front-line team within the division may help to create a local environment that makes the
incompetence of the divisional leader more bearable for the rest of the team, and vice versa.
The level of complexity in organizational environments affects how long it will take to change.
An environment that is fundamentally broken, and where teams do not work together to
deliver the results expected, cannot be fixed with a magic wand. ‘‘The seeds of effective
change must be planted by embedding procedural and behavioral changes in the
organization long before any improvement initiative is launched.’’[1].

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 What organizational environment do you want?
An effective environment is one that allows the organization to develop and sustain
competitive advantages in its market. There are four main types of organizational
environment, as shown in Table I.
Being clear about what you want from your organization will have a big impact on the things
you need to do to create an effective organizational environment. This clarity of purpose is
often hampered by the fact that: ‘‘Every enterprise is actually four organizations; the one
written down, the one most people believe exists, the one that people wish existed and the
one that the organization really needs’’[2].
The organizational environment you need to develop will depend on your organization’s
context, in terms of market drivers, competition and stakeholder ‘‘wants’’. Through analyzing
this context, it is possible to define what the gap is between the actual environment and the
one required for success.
Creating the right environment is about managing the gap between these two environments
(see Figure 3).

Mind the gap

There are some common steps that organizations will need to take to close the gap between
actual and required performance. They are shown in Table II.
Supporting these generic actions to create an effective environment are some specific dos
and don’ts. They are shown in Table III.
You need to be clear about the required performance and the timescales that teams need to
achieve it. The quote, ‘‘Some is not a number. Soon is not a time’’[3] is relevant to the thinking
on this point.

Table I Four main types of organizational environment

The clan A friendly place to work, with good relationships between staff and managers. Commitment is high and there is
significant investment in developing the potential of individuals. Teamwork, participation and consensus are
encouraged and success is defined by the team
Adhocracy A dynamic environment where leaders operate autonomously and flexibly. They encourage their teams to be
creative. Calculated risk taking is encouraged and teams form and re-form. Experimentation is the lifeblood of the
adhocracy-based organization and individual freedom and initiative are encouraged
The hierarchy The traditional approach, with a chain of command. This is still the basic structure of most organizations. Position
brings authority, while the role of junior leaders is normally limited to organizing activity, keeping an eye on the
smooth delivery of the objectives of their superiors. Stability, formal rules and procedures, security and dependable
delivery are the keys to success in this environment
Market focused Market focused organizations are externally focused, driven by results and often very competitive. Leaders within
the organization and hard drivers of performance, with reputations resting on the successful delivery of results

Source: Adapted from Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983)

Figure 3 Managing the gap

Required
Environment
Organisational
Context

Managing
the Gap

Actual
Environment

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Table II Closing the gap between the actual and desired organizational environment
Action to be taken Commentary

Link actions and improvements to what Making it clear why certain things need to be done and why the change needs to happen is
really matters
Remember that organizations are
perfectly designed to get the results
they get
Make quality and improvement
everybody’s responsibility
Be responsive and flexible
Celebrate and communicate
Adapt and evolve
essential to success. Be ‘‘future orientated’’ and provide leadership and vision for others
If you want to change the results you will have to change the systems, culture and processes
that deliver the results
Organizations exist to deliver results. Leaders have a duty to promote the required changes and
continue to support them throughout, but every individual needs to be involved in delivering
them
No single approach fixes all issues. Leaders need to be flexible and to avoid complication (and
jargon). They also need to set an appropriate pace of change that balances a need to continue
delivering services and products with the need to make the change swiftly
Do not get hung up on the small issues (Are patients customers? Is it quality or innovation we
have achieved?) Instead, focus on celebrating every success and encouraging the early
adopters who will help to sell change to the rest of the organization
As you make your changes, be aware that the world will continue to change. Some things will
work and others will not. The occasional problem should not stop the changes, but regular
problems with implementation will require you to evolve and adapt to keep moving forward

Note: This is a commentary on the points raised in Penn State University’s Innovation Insight, No. 22, 2009

Table III Some specific dos and don’ts

Dos Don’ts

Do be clear about what you want, the performance you expect and
how you want the organization to work
Do measure performance and keep the team up to date with
progress and next steps
Do remain close to the needs of your customers and the market
Do engage and educate leaders in how you want them to interact
with the workforce
Do publicly praise success
Don’t use improvement activities as a punishment
Don’t allow ‘‘tribal’’ thinking between departments to prevent
communication and improvement
Don’t let conflicts escalate into open warfare
Don’t focus purely on financial performance improvement
Don’t give up. Significant improvement is a long-term investment
and requires ongoing commitment

Source: Adapted from Mabrouk (2009)

Enabling it to work
While determining what type of environment will deliver the right result for your organization
is the first step, at some point words and analysis have to be turned into actions. Whether the
implementation is easy or complex will depend on two main factors, as shown in Figure 4.
Being clear about what is required and gaining consensus from the main stakeholders will
make the process a lot easier to implement.
Supporting this is the need to ensure that words and actions are aligned. Two examples
illustrate the point:
1. A manufacturer had a policy stating that people were the organization’s most valuable
asset, yet the experience of the staff at the front line was that they were just ‘‘numbers’’
and that the organizational leaders did not really care about them.
2. A chief executive claimed that the organization was family friendly and focused on the
needs of individuals, yet it continually organized meetings late in the evening.

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 Figure 4 Easy and complex implementation (Source: Adapted from Stacey, 1996)

High Low
Low

Degree of agreement about

what is needed
Complex

Easy
High
Degree of certainty about what is needed

Source: Adapted from Stacey, R.D., Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics,
Pitman (1996)

Keywords:
Organizational performance,
Performance management,
Change management
Summary
Organizations need to:
B look outward to find out what the context is that they operate in before they look inward
and identify what the required changes in their operating environments will be;
B take a long-term view of the changes required; and
B ensure that the messages put out through official channels (such as newsletters and
announcements) and unofficial channels (such as the behaviors of local leaders) are aligned.

Notes
1. Adapted from Roberto and Levesque (2005)
2. A quote from an unnamed National Health Service Chief Executive, in a report by the NHS Institute
for Innovation & Improvement.
3. Source unknown.

References
Mabrouk, K. (2009), A Culture for Continuous Improvement, Institute of Industrial Engineers, Norcross,
GA.
Quinn, R.E. and Rohrbaugh, J. (1983), ‘‘A spatial model of effectiveness criteria: towards a competing
values approach to organizational analysis’’, Management Science, March.

Roberto, M.A. and Levesque, L.C. (2005), ‘‘The art of making change initiative stick’’, Sloan
Management Review, Summer, pp. 53-60.
Stacey, R.D. (1996), Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics, Pitman, Boston, MA.

About the author

Mark Eaton can be contacted at: markeaton@amnis.uk.com

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