Like the four nucleotides that comprise human DNA, there are four basic building blocks in any organization’s DNA—decision rights, information, motivators, and structure. These building blocks and the way they combine and recombine largely determine how an organization behaves, and whether it can achieve its mission.
Decision Rights
"We have to assemble ten senior leaders in a room to make routine decisions."
At some fundamental level, every individual in your organization is constantly making decisions and managing trade-offs, whether it’s how to price a contract, which public works projects to fund, or what e-mails to return first. How well and how efficiently they make these decisions largely determines the organization’s success in achieving its mission. Decision rights—the underlying mechanics of how decisions are really made—determine how well organizations work, how quickly actions are implemented, and how much is ultimately spent to get results. Therefore, decision rights should be the first building block that dysfunctional organizations address; it’s the cornerstone of effective organizational renovation.
Motivators
“How do you get ahead around here?”
Motivators include more than money; they also encompass all of the objectives, incentives, and career opportunities that prompt people to care and achieve. Rewards, both financial and non-financial, can encourage individuals to align their goals with that of the organization and pursue them in earnest…or they can, however inadvertently, stimulate counterproductive behaviors by driving a wedge between self-interest and the organization’s mission.
Information
“I don’t have the information I need to do my job.”
Poor information is the organizational equivalent of junk food. It clogs communication arteries, bloats the system with empty calories, and fools the body into thinking it’s nourished, when, in fact, it may well be on the verge of crisis. The effects of bad information on the other DNA building blocks—particularly decision rights and motivators—are powerful. Without accurate and available information, decision-makers cannot make quick, smart moves, and employees don’t receive the recognition—either positive or negative—that their actions merit.
Structure
“Here’s our org chart, but that’s not how things really work.”
Structure is the most visible and obvious of the four Mission DNA building blocks, and it’s where most organizational change programs start. Why? Because structure is visible; you can move lines and boxes around and easily demonstrate change. But restructuring is not the solution to most organizations’ problems; rather it is the logical outcome of the choices made regarding the other three building blocks. While important and potentially crippling if designed poorly, structure should be the capstone, not the cornerstone, of a reorganization program.
The right people—imbued with the right values, armed with the right information, and motivated by the right incentives—are the driving force behind a winning organization. The fundamental challenge most organizations face is aligning these four building blocks such that the self-interest of individual employees coincides with the organization’s agenda.
No building block stands alone; they are interdependent. Therefore, steps taken to modify any or all of the building blocks must be coherent, coordinated, and clear. Tinkering with any one element—say, structure—in isolation is likely to affect the other three in ways that are not intended, and may set the organization back rather than move it forward. Achieving organizational alignment takes different forms from one organization to the next. There is no right answer or universal prescription. The only imperative is that the four building blocks of Mission DNA work together rather than at cross-purposes to resolve organizational dysfunctions.
