Compliance &Ethics - Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics

Compliance & Ethics Professional May/June 2013Every symptom suggests the need foraction. The danger is that, unless we systematicallyand systemically develop “causal” data,we risk develop a string of serial actions thatare unconnected and will lack the impact weneed on the root problem.Systems Theory helps us understand andemploy our understanding of the interconnectednessof thevarious aspects oforganizations andthus the inherentinterrelatedness ofthe data we gatherabout those organizations.Systems Theoryspeaks to root causes.Diagnosis basedon a “systemic”understanding ofyour organization isjust as critical for youas it was for me to understand the connectionbetween oil pressure and valve wear. Systemicthinking allows us to understand the “why”behind the “what.” It shines a light on thecauses behind the symptoms.Perhaps the most powerful systems modelof organizational inter-relatedness was publishedin 1982, by David Nadler, 2 who referredto his Organization Performance Model (OPM)as a framework for organizational behavior.My first exposure to the OPM was as part of a45-person team of internal consultants formedin 1982 to help guide what was then knownas the Bell System through the largest organizationalrestructuring in modern history: thedismantling of the one-million employee BellSystem and the simultaneous creation of sevenBell Operating Companies, along with anindependent AT&T and Western Electric. Oneobserver of that day (January 1, 1984) characterizedit as the equivalent of disassembling afully loaded 747, in flight, and creating sevenDiagnosis provides data.Models… provide systemicconstructs that allow us toanalyze the inter-relatednesswithin and between the dataelements and understandwhat they mean.707s from the parts, with each and every passengerarriving at their designated destination,on time, with their luggage in hand.Nadler’s OPM suggested that the key toorganizational success was “congruence,” the“fit” within and between the various componentsof an organization and the contextwithin which the organization operates. Hetalked about environment,resources,history, strategy,mission, vision,values, the taskspeople performed,and the people performingthem. Allof this was donein the context ofboth the formal andinformal organizationalsystems.And it producedorganizational outcomes, group outcomes andindividual outcomes. Finally, the system wasinformed by feedback mechanisms within andbetween all of the above.Diagnosis provides data. Models, suchas the OPM, provide systemic constructsthat allow us to analyze the inter-relatednesswithin and between the data elements andunderstand what they mean. Absent such acoherent model, the data can be just an overwhelmingmass of information, lacking utility.ConclusionYou can solve only the problems you knowyou are facing. The most visible aspect of anyproblem is what medicine refers to as the “presenting”symptom(s). But symptoms are justthat—“…a departure from normal function orfeeling which is noticed by a patient, indicatingthe presence of disease or abnormality.A symptom is subjective, observed by thepatient, and cannot be measured directly.” 364 www.corporatecompliance.org +1 952 933 4977 or 888 277 4977