A powerful way of discovering how many homeless ideas or activities you have in your organisation is to simply ask the question, “Where is ‘home’ for this initiative?” People choose their loyalties and sense of belonging regardless of the organisation chart. Divided loyalties are good. Promote them. But for ideas or initiatives there must be a home somewhere.

Projects of any kind need a home, a place where they belong. This may sound trivial and just like another ‘obvious thing’. However, in the organisation there are often many things that seem to be homeless. They don’t really belong anywhere. And remember: belonging to many places is just a different way of not belonging anywhere.

People in organisations tend to determine their own loyalties. There are people happy to belong to a global enterprise and its global objectives, but more frequently you will find that people are happier to belong to a particular project or to the endeavours of a particular country.

Some global disciplines are notorious for creating a sense of belonging to a sort of old ‘guild. Information technology (IT) is one. People working in IT often say, “I am in IT” and only after that, “I work for X“. It is as if the discipline crosses the borders of companies and geographies. It may also be HR or another particular expertise. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, but you need to be very clear about where the sense of belonging is coming from in order to understand loyalty.

In large multinational companies there are often ‘global teams’ or ‘global functions/disciplines’. It is very common to see business cards with the word ‘Global’ on the front: Global HR, Global R&D, Global Marketing, etc. This is very often nothing more than a statement of power, since in many cases it is usually obvious what the remit and scope are. When all the functions in HQ need to have a business card with the world ‘Global’ on it, you may wonder why they need to state it all the time…

The globalisation of the organisational life may be a more or less inevitable sign of the times and part of the nature of the modern firm, but very often it does nothing for people’s sense of belonging to ideas, activities, objectives, etc. Globalisation by decree is not terribly smart if you are trying to embrace people who are really interested in the business of France or the business of brand A. Globalisation is often imposed by HQ as a controlling and unifying mechanism with the hope that management will become simpler. But globalisation on paper doesn’t necessarily mean than in reality hearts and minds are also global.

The smart approach to the building of ‘home effects’ would be to simply allow them. There may be one or more overlapping ‘homes’, but that doesn’t mean that they are in conflict. And they will be in less conflict if you allow multiple senses of belonging without declaring it wrong or inconsistent with some sort of ‘global vision’. In fact, you want those multiple homes! The disruptive part of this is that instead of wanting to homogenise things (‘there is only one single Global Team’) you will inject diversity.

The crucial points to remember about home effects are:

• Do I know what they are? Can I identify them in the people working with me/for me?
• Is there any conflict between those senses of belonging and what the company is aiming for? Are they compatible? Make them compatible!
• Suspending judgement and preconceived ideas, where are people’s hearts and minds? The company? The project? The discipline? Me Inc? Me Ltd? Can I accommodate for those and still be OK?
• Are there things lost in the ‘global space’? To appoint a global project leader does not necessarily solve the problem. Sometimes it only provides an illusion of control.
• At a very local level, could all ongoing activities be linked to a particular home? Is this an HR project or an IT project or a brand marketing project? Again, the right answer does not come from simply looking at the names of the leaders or at the department letterhead.

Identifying homeless ideas and projects is crucial to determine the right level of energy and commitment. To adjudicate homes beyond the obvious dictation of the organisation chart is a simple mechanism to ensure healthy structures and working processes. Asking the question, “Where is home for this?” is a simple way of discovering disconnects and initiatives that may have started ‘somewhere’, but that now seem to continue with a life of their own. Providing ‘the home effect’ is one of the finest tasks for leaders.

In large organisations, many projects and initiatives are truly multidisciplinary and cross-functional. For them to work, they often need a high level ‘sponsorship’ from members of the top leadership team. This is usually a good mechanism to ensure ‘home effects’ beyond the functions, the divisions or the geographies. If the sponsor manages to act as a magnetic field, attracting commitment, energy and focus, he is de facto providing a home that caters for parallel senses of belonging. Starting with some projects is often a good way to spread this concept in a viral way.

Provide immediate permanent shelter for homeless ideas floating around the organisation.

Ban the word ‘Global’ unless your business empire includes everything from Alaska to Andorra. The word is probably unnecessary and is extremely frustrating for the non-global people.

Everything must have a home, so check for accountabilities. Something that is shared by everybody (as in ‘collective, shared responsibilities’) is probably homeless.

Not only respect different loyalties, but promote them. Divided loyalties are good. Single loyalties (big, i.e. ‘global’ or small, i.e. ‘my brand’) come with tunnel vision.

People with only one single loyalty are under-qualified for the enterprise.

Copyright © - Leandro Herrero - 2008