Organisational Logics
Learn to navigate your organisation to drive meaningful change.
If you work in or for a large organisation, have you ever felt like some of the people in other functions simply speak a different language, care about different things, and regard as obvious things that for you are not at all? Have you ever thought, “This makes zero sense! How is it possible that people around here are lacking some very basic common sense?”
It happened to me for the entire first six years of my career. As a young designer and consultant, I was getting into the belly of very large organisations, and nothing seemed to make sense. People's consideration of what makes sense and what doesn’t seemed very different from mine. Things moved incredibly slowly. People didn’t seem to align around any specific common outcome. No one ever admitted not knowing something. Everyone pretended to know and understand what was going on, in a perpetual farce of maintaining busyness and keeping moving.
I was supposed to bring design into that environment. Not a chance. I decided that probably the limitation was mine (and it was), so I decided to stop doing whatever corporate entertainment I had become accustomed to and start a PhD. I chose to do my PhD at a Business School to understand how organisations work and how I could possibly bring in design to instil some proper common sense! (Little arrogant young designer, what did I know!).
I was keen to understand two things:
What can we learn about organisations that help us understand why design keeps being spat out?
How can we use this knowledge to ensure service design becomes effective and useful rather than mere corporate entertainment?
It was no easy task. There are so many theoretical constructs that can help you understand an organisation, so many different ways to explain reality (aka ontology), so many different philosophies of knowledge (aka epistemology). I was lost in a sea of academic jargon until I found something that truly sparked my interest: Organisational Logics.
In simple terms, organisational logics look at how the invisible rules and shared understandings in different types of organisations (like businesses, governments, or schools) shape what people in those organisations think and do. It's like examining the 'unwritten rules' that guide behaviour in different social settings. This theory helps answer questions such as:
What is legitimate to do and think around here?
What’s the common set of values?
What’s the model of success?
What are we here to collectively do?
How does all of the above show in what people do in practice?
This theory helps us explain and understand organisations as social mechanisms to achieve collective ends. Through this lens, we can stop looking at strategic design in a vacuum and start looking at it within the context of the organisation where it operates.
Organisational logics are not static structures; rather, they can be changed by individuals’ actions. This perspective assumes change as being inevitable and empowers an understanding of transformation through the way different actors affect each other.
A way to start recognising logics in a given environment is to start observing specific “configurations of discourses” - What do people talk about? What language do they use? How do they legitimise what they decide to do? You can expect to find many different configurations of discourses inside an organisation at any given time. This offers the opportunity for people to exercise what in academia we call “projective agency” - meaning individuals or groups of people generate possible alternative future trajectories and by doing so influence the dominant discourse of their surroundings. They create a new definition of what is legitimate. By doing so, they offer the opportunity for organisational logics to change.
Let me give you an example from one of the case studies I ran.
Case Study
The organisation under analysis is Telenor, a large telecommunications company headquartered in Norway.
I have spent time observing how people interact in Telenor, observing the way they talk to each other, the rationale they bring for decision-making, and the way decisions are made. I also interviewed a large set of a diverse range of stakeholders. Very quickly it became clear that there were a series of logics operating at the same time in Telenor.
Recognising these logics was no easy task. It took several rounds of iteration. The reason being that people holding and representing different logics tend to use very similar language, loading the same words with wildly different meanings. Words such as 'service,' 'innovation,' 'digital,' 'journey,' and 'customer' took on profoundly different meanings depending on whom I was talking to.
For example, service designers loaded the word “service” with customer centricity. Interactions are conceptualised as happening over time, characterised by multichannel delivery. For the rest of the people I talked to (e.g., project or product managers) working across different divisions (e.g., mobile, TV, ehealth), a ‘service’ is a digital platform—an app or a website. A digital platform, for a service designer, represents a single touchpoint in a list of possible ways to interact with customers.
Another example can be found in the word ‘customer.’ In their work, service designers explore a whole variety of roles that human beings can perform—for example, users when they are interacting with the web platform; customers when they try to change their subscription plan; or consumers when they browse options among different providers and compare Telenor with other competitors. The rest of the group tended to refer to a customer as the person paying for the actual subscription, the contract holder.
Defining the logics at play requires rigour and questioning the real meaning behind language, activities, beliefs.I have eventually scientifically distilled three. Each physically held by a different group of people.
Traditional Telco Logic: Dominant logic. The focus is around economic profitability achieved through operational efficiency and a strong focus on products. Telenor under a telco logic is a transactional organisation that sells telco subscription products to customers. They do that by ensuring operational efficiency, capitalising on the infrastructure they have in place, aiming for maximum margins and minimum risk. The goal of Telenor under a telco logic—economic profitability—is intrinsic in the very nature of Telenor as a commercial for-profit organisation. A focus on economic profitability has enabled Telenor to grow over the years and to reach its current market position.
Digital Logic: Emerging logic. The digital logic represents a new model of competitiveness striving for existing and new market acquisition via delivering digital services to the market. The development is characterised by a great focus on speed, to reach the market as soon as possible. This focus demands a new development model that is recognised in the lean methodology.
Customer Logic: Emerging logic. It represents a third emerging model of competitiveness. The customer logic puts the customer at the centre. Under this lens, the organisation’s very reason for existence is to serve customers best, providing solutions to their real connectivity needs. Telenor here becomes a customer-centric service provider. The strategy to achieve this goal is investing in improved service experiences. End-to-end services designed around customers’ real needs. The object of delivery, therefore, is no longer a product but a human-centric service, where products result as important mechanisms of service provision.
The three logics coexist in Telenor. They exist at the same time, becoming apparent through the work, dialogues, and choices of different groups of people. The table below summarises the way the logics are composed.
Once it becomes clear what are the logics at play, you as a changemaker can start planning on how to become more effective in this environment. Knowledge is power. This view allows planning for a better practice, better leadership, and increasing opportunities to effectively exercise agency.
I will stop here for today. This is enough to chew on. Next week I’ll show you how to use this view to compare different logics at play and use it to strategise action.
What are the logics at play in your organisation? Can you start reflecting on your experience and observations of your surroundings? Can you start distilling what’s the combination of logics at play?
In my role, I collaborate with individual leaders and their teams to foster this kind of insight within their organisations. My focus is particularly on design leaders looking to effectively scale their practices in line with their organisational environment. If you're interested in exploring how this approach can benefit your unique situation, please feel free to contact me at x@marzia.studio.