This post courtesy of The Conference Board’s Human Capital Exchange.

Systems models – you know the consultant honed graphic collections of boxes or circles, connected by arrows that provide star charts to explain the knowable organizational universe? Copyrighted heuristic claims to fame. Each model is unique, but yet offers similar explanations of how organizations can and should function. We talk so enthusiastically about these models. At least I always have.

Whether you prefer McKinsey, Galbraith, Hay, Hill, Weisbord or another, we all benefit from looking at organizations in a multi-dimensional dynamic state of play.  How the external environment’s inputs should forge or adjust strategy, and how strategy must then be related to leadership and talent, along with structure, systems and processes.  Then how this strategy influences, impacts, while also creates “culture.” The outputs are the desired results. Systems models provide us with an opportunity to talk with leaders about how and why things happen, and why and when they don’t.

Examples of operating in organizational isolation and of not engaging in systems thinking haunt me. Some of us are old enough to remember Quality Circles and early TQM “programs.” In reviewing many of these “change efforts” against a systems model, it is now embarrassingly easy to realize why the vines never rooted. I can look back on my own TQM efforts where I played an enthusiastic architecting and cheerleading role.  I didn’t wear a uniform, but I was armed with mapping and measurement tools.

Here’s what I remember. A number of our customers or suppliers were embracing one or another kind of productivity or improving methodology. So we jumped on the bandwagon.

Communication and training, always the first to ignite the cyclotron of change, were put into service. We told our employees that “now, quality was their responsibility,” and then we trained them in TQM techniques and measurement. We even used words like “the voice of the customer,” although the customer was nowhere in sight. There was also a race for recognition and publicity. Satisfy a series of standards and you could win national recognition: The Malcolm Baldridge Award for Quality.

The TQM training happened on a Thursday and Friday. These two days demonstrated strong management support. With this cascading of knowledge and even some skills, those of us involved felt that we were in the midst of a genuine corporate culture change.

Monday morning, we all arrived back at the office. As the week unfolded, it became pretty clear that not much had changed. From a systems perspective, we forgot to pay attention to all of the other key components. Communication and training alone was insufficient.

What’s surprising now was that we were surprised then. We kept the same leadership, working within the same organization design and with the same work processes – with only minor changes. Work had continued pretty much the same. What was rewarded and recognized prior to TQM, again not changed. Whether you view “culture” as an outcome or a deeply embedded contributor to everything else, we left it pretty much unchanged. And, of course, we never spent any time on the basic values shift that would have been necessary to make this really happen or create any lasting effects.

So why do we need yet another systems model? Okay, we don’t actually need one more model! What is needed is something much more simple and explicit. While the models are all instructive and helpful, there are two foundational areas missing or overshadowed.

1. Values:  I am not referring to a HR designed program rollout of organizational values.  But rather, the values that top leaders and leadership teams must first articulate and then demonstrate. Without paying sufficient attention to this at the very beginning, employees, customers and other stakeholders cannot suspend their disbelief and begin to trust their leaders. We need a core set of values, not just captured on a plaque or paperweight, but instead radiating from the collective hearts and minds of top leadership. No business or business change initiative in the world will succeed without the individual employee trust and confidence that comes from first knowing what “we stand for” and why, followed by a series of opportunities to embrace.

1. Clear and Concrete Executive Job Descriptions for each of the systems model boxes or circles. We have been providing only the color commentary, not the organizational play-by play. We have not sufficiently challenged top leaders and top leadership teams on their unique role and responsibility for each and every component box or circle.

Leadership at the very top is parked at a unique scenic organizational overlook. Leaders see directly below them and also far into the horizon. They decide on the big bets and find the resources needed to make things happen. Operating within this dualism of both the opportunity and challenge, leaders have the clearest view. The entire “system” is their responsibility.

Leaders are responsible for not just developing strategy, but ensuring that both the leadership and talent are engaged and aligned. The leadership strategy and approach must be intentional. Top leaders must become expert in what organization design structure and processes are present and then ensure that these mechanisms are working well.  Leaders are ultimately responsible for “the culture.” They can’t dictate the culture they want, but they are ultimately responsible for what it is.

As human capital or organization consultants, we need to engage with leaders in a much more direct and deeper conversation about what their role and responsibility can and should be in each area as well as in leading the dynamic interplay. The leadership strategy, the people/talent management strategy, the organization design structure, soft and hard, what gets rewarded, these and other key areas are ultimately their responsibility.

This is not about having a top team that micromanages or under-contributes, operating below the pay level that they have earned. It’s about operating as a team, focused on core values for both the organization and the people. Top leaders are the architects. So for me, it’s not just how to explain the boxes and circles to very smart people, but to strive to ensure that the leadership team manages, aligns and leverages each component, and that the top team is itself aligned to each other and to their values in exercising this responsibility.

By Steve Steckler, Principal and Senior Consultant with inTalent Consulting Group