From McKinsey 7S to a Simpler 5C Framework to Design Impact on Organizational Success
In today’s era of rapidly-advancing technology and continuous improvement, it’s only natural for us to embrace modern ideologies especially when it comes to organizational excellence. But the 7-S framework, originally made famous by McKinsey, was developed so well that it has stood the test of time and is still in widespread use today.
Introduced in the late 1970s, the 7-S model represented a shift in thinking on how organizational efficiency is achieved, moving from a foundation of structure to one of coordination. As businesses continue to grow in complexity and function, the 7-S model is still proving to be a powerful framework that influences the ability to change, adapt, and grow.
What is the 7-S Framework?
The 7-S framework is first and foremost an exercise in alignment. Using seven distinct factors that are interconnected with each other, companies can improve performance by ensuring each area is in harmony with the others.
Let’s look at these seven values in detail:
Shared Values
These are the core values of the organization and are the driving force behind the corporate culture. These values provide an anchor point for decision making to ensure alignment with company goals.
Structure
Structure refers to how your company is organized. This includes the organization of your departments, teams, and who reports to whom.
Systems
This is the methodology you use to complete daily tasks. It takes into account every procedure used by every staff member to fulfill organizational objectives.
Styles
Each company has its own unique style of leadership. Adopting the right style can be critical in ensuring organizational unity.
Staff
Each employee on your payroll is responsible for organizational success. Ensuring you have the right people in the right roles can help to move you forward.
Skills
The skills and capabilities of your staff will affect how much and how quickly you’re able to achieve your objectives. You may need to consider ongoing education and professional development opportunities to strengthen your 7-S framework.
Strategy
Your strategy is the bird’s eye view of how you plan to remain competitive in your market. Identifying verticals and customers, marketing, and leveraging talent are all part of your strategy.
When to Use the 7-S Framework
The 7-S framework can be used any time you need greater detail into how your organization functions as a whole. It helps to break down silos that could be stifling your growth and ensure that each area of your company is aligned with your short and long-term goals. It can also be useful in influencing change and ensuring your success for the future.
Applying the McKinsey 7-S Model
The seven components of the 7-S model identify as either “hard” or “soft.” Hard elements include strategy, systems, and structure, and refer to those that can be easily influenced by management. Soft elements are staff, skills, style, and shared values, and are more directly related to the organization’s culture.
Moving Towards 5-C Model
At Lumen Partners, we wanted to create a visual model, that helps our clients and partners to approach strategy with less complexity. Why? Because in today‘s VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world, organizations are facing too much complexity already. Such complexities can be found internally inside the organization, in their processes, programs, projects, IT, but also externally as the world is changing and business models are innovating at a fast pace.
To address the demands and required speed to innovate for businesses today, we:
a) wanted to have a simplified model which led us to 5 axioms
b) wanted a more visual model
c) wanted a more important, a more holistic model as items such as corporate culture have become organizations’ most important asset today („The only thing that differentiates us from our competition is our Corporate Culture“, Tony Zsieh, CEO of Zappos) and cannot been seen as hard facts (how work spaces and work processes are designed) nor as soft facts only.
Especially in the field of Corporate Culture, we see a major shift in the last few decades that places a limitation on the McKinsey’s model. At the same such items as strategy cannot been seen in a mono-dimensional light.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is a well known saying and is experienced today more than ever. That’s why we put an emphasis on the aspect of communication which also opens the model for a systematic and system-theory perspective. This enables the integration and future-orientation of the 5-C model as an open framework for business strategy. As communication is changing the way we operate and work and target and interact with our employees, partners and clients, we had to find a way to have an integrative model, comparable to the St. Galler Management Model — but at the same time not being too complex. It has to be practical for business use on a daily basis.
The 5-C model has been applied by Lumen Partners in various businesses, industries and situations. As the discourse about the purpose of businesses today is evolving, the application on various organizations with different origins and missions was key for us.
We applied the 5-C framework to Social Businesses, several industries and non-profit organizations. The results have clearly shown, that though being very different in their core business model, the 5-C model always helped to get a holistic view for everybody to design a business strategy, to create strategic initiatives and narratives, to address corporate culture and communications and the organization’s programs and processes.
Lumen Partners’ 5-C Concept is not a completely new approach to business strategy, but a redesign, and by that, a new visually guided approach to frame corporate strategy, corporate culture, corporate mindset and communication
If you would like to know more about it, please contact us or book a free 2-hour sessions with one of our partners.
At Lumen Partners, we work with organizations to leverage the 5-C model to create better alignment across the enterprise. Let us help you create impact through strategy and design.
Written by Klaus Motoki Tonn for Lumen Partners
