Destroying A Company One Step At A Time - The Theory Of Dwarfs - Aditya Yadav

1. *
“Running an Agile Fortune 500 Company”
Aditya Yadav, aditya.yadav@gmail.com
in.linkedin.com/in/adityayadav76

2. * A Typical Global Company
* Fortune 500/1000
* 200 Divisions
* 40 Countries
* 25000 Employees
*

3. *
@ Acme Inc.

4. * Original Question “Why is our Organization not
Innovating? Why do we have to Micro-Manage
everyone and whenever we don‟t and give
them freedom everything falls apart?”
* The Correct Question - “Lets create an
Organizational Talent Persona before we try to
answer that questions. Shall we?”
*

5. *
And The Philosophy Behind The Answer

6. * Everyone in the Organization hire someone inferior to him
below him.
* This enables a Senior to maintain Command and Control
* It is also related to concepts of Empire Building and Fiefdoms
in Organizations
* The problem is that when at every level of the Organization
everyone hires only people inferior to them below them
* If you look at the organization from a distance it becomes an
Organization of Dwarfs.
* This has far reaching consequences to the Future of the
Organization.
* Lets discuss some of them.
*

7. * Building an Organization of Dwarfs starts with the assumption of
being able to Command and Control from the Top…
* Which is exactly what it does…
* It enables Command & Control and makes sure that Emergent
Strategies become impossible.
* It also makes sure Bottom-Up Innovation and Decision making don‟t
happen
* The Organization then becomes a Managers Paradise and a Leaders
Nightmare…
* But not for too long…
* As the Organization scales and expands in size and locations Top
Managers (I refrain from using the Word Top „Leaders‟) are now
unable to Manage i.e. Command and Control this Geo Spread Huge
Organization of Dwarfs.
*

8. * The Organization of Dwarfs is also very prevalent in the world today
because of The Demand For „Hyper Specialization‟
* Organizations insist on Hiring Only specialists.
* A Senior Engineer has to be a bigger specialist than the Engineer
* A Manager has to be a Bigger Specialist than all Engineers below him
* And finally the VP has to be a world class Specialist with
International Repute who has been in that field for 20 years doing
exactly the same thing (Give and Take)
* Google‟s People Analytics concluded that the Managers don‟t need to
be Hyper Specialists to succeed in Google. They need to be Coaches
to their Teams.
* We have discussed that There Should Only Be Generalists At The Top.
And we have already discussed the need for Managers to be Coach‟s
and not Managers.
*

9. * Now the Question is if you want your organization to innovate and leaders
to succeed then you have to break the Pattern of Dwarfs.
* Now it‟s a known pattern in almost All / 99% of Organizations that Salaries
increase only as and when you move up the ladder.
* But that brings us to a serious problem “why would a superior person join
below an inferior person?” I mean you can actually trick him into it. But
he will find out and make an exit.
* So obviously the first conclusion from this is that we cannot Fix Salaries
According To Your Level In The Organizational Hierarchy.
* Your Salary has to be based on What Value You Bring To The Organization.
With that fixed there is another problem…
* Won‟t the Inferior Senior Kill The Superior Junior even if you manage to
hire him.
* Our Assertion is: If the Senior is a Generalist and a Coach and the Decision
Making is Bottom Up and Critical Thinking prevails in the organizational
Discussions and Decision Making. That would not happen
*

10. * You will be able to drive change
* Emergent Strategies will become possible
* Bottom Up Innovation is also possible (rather than
just Innovation by R&D Labs)
* With the problem of Money dealt with
* People will do the Roles they are Really Passionate
about.
* Motivation will be very high
* Satisfaction will be higher
* Attrition would be very low
*

11. Aditya!!!
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