Organisational Collaboration in a Professional Services Firm

Abstract

Organisational collaboration facilitates team engagement, boosts innovation and enhances productivity. Collaboration, as much as it is a function of attitudes and personalities, is equally about the formal and informal structures that an organisation puts in place to operationalise its business. In this chapter, I will share my experience of the application of creative systems thinking and approaches to introduce an organisation structure to facilitate collaboration and more effective leadership practices in a professional service firm in India. At the very outset, it is to be noted that for this intervention, systems methodologies were not used in its purest form, but the systems paradigm was applied to inform the context under consideration to facilitate creativity, inclusiveness and holism in intent and in form. The intervention was undertaken in a Public Relations (PR) firm, Potential PR (pseudonym used for anonymity), keeping in mind productive collaboration within a set of geographically spread out teams to support the organisation’s fast-paced growth. I first published a case study of this intervention in 2011 to highlight key insights from systems thinking that were used in designing and leading the intervention, and key messages that surfaced during and at the end of the intervention (Chowdhury 2011). A range of methodologies in a mix-and-match manner was incorporated with a diverse set of management tools threaded by a system mindset. In this chapter, I will delve into the flexibility aspect of the intervention and discuss how the concept of Requisite Organisation applied in the intervention aligns with systems thinking. Further, I will take the reader through the new initiatives undertaken post the intervention is seeking to enable greater competitiveness of the firm.

Parts of this chapter have appeared previously in “Organizational Design and Firm-Wide Collaboration: Retrospective Appreciation of a Change-Led Consulting Intervention in India within a Systems Thinking Paradigm” authored by Rajneesh Chowdhury (2011). Systems Research and Behavioral Science; John Wiley & Sons; 29(4); pp. 402–419. Reprinted with permission from the publisher.