Taskback to topThis task this assessment is primarily about ‘doing’ management work through structured online conversations. Your online conversations for this assessment involve critical thought

Topic 10 Elevator Pitch MGT501

Can we coordinate?

This task will not be assessed

It’s the weekly meeting of functional leaders in the corporate services division of a large human services agency in Australia. You are the Human Resources Director. The group meets in a boardroom on Level 17 of the headquarters building at 2pm each week.

The meeting is known as the Functional Leaders meeting, a curious and rather unimaginative title, but that’s how it is. The meeting is convened by the General Manager, Corporate Services and includes the Directors/Executive Directors of planning and strategy, finance, communications, information services, human resources and organisational development.

Recently, it emerged that the planning and strategy group are working on a new approach to strategy development that would be applying design thinking. [See the previous topic for information on this emerging piece of management practice.] Carla is the Executive Director of strategy and planning. She believes that this approach would lead to strategy outcomes that are much more ‘real, acceptable and innovative’.

Looking directly at you, Carla continues her explanation: “One of the biggest problems I see at this stage is being able to coordinate work and thought across our divisions and groups. We have such a risk-averse culture here, and people just don’t work together well across organisational boundaries inside the agency, and even externally, except for the stakeholders who are obviously within their ambit.”

There are several nods of agreement, with upturned lips; but no one is quick to offer any solution to this problem. The problem Carla is raising is partly about structure, which is probably why she is looking at you.

What would you say to Carla? It wouldn’t look very good if you just avoided the issue or obfuscated by explaining that it is about much more than structure (though this is probably correct). In 130 words, or about one minute of speaking, craft your response.