The Round Square – How to make your organization hybrid? by Pascal Van Loo
In this post I write my own opinion, not that of any organization.
I found only a Dutch version of this book, but the content seems important enough to share the general ideas of it.
Contents
Square & Round Organizations
The polarity between square and round organizations, with the round square in between, is highlighted from the author’s 27 years of practical experience. In the introduction, he starts from the fact that the world is VUCA, and that more and more, this world is evolving faster and faster. This is a reality that organisations must arm themselves against, tailored to themselves, their environment and their stakeholders, including their customers. Earlier, in his work on organizations, Laloux talked about an evolution of these adaptations. He was talking about ‘teal’ organisations. Pascal talks about round organizations, square organizations, and round squares. What’s all that? In other words, what did I remember about it?
Square Organizations
Square organizations are structures with a strict hierarchy, where procedures are central, and production must be achieved. Square organizations stand for security, peace, structure, limited freedom of movement in what you want to do, clear internal agreements that provide guidance, step-by-step plans. But all of this comes with a danger of too much of this, with over-regulation occurring and the worker choking on too little freedom.
Round Organizations
Round organizations, on the other hand, are the opposite extreme: chaotic, lacking structure, ‘teal’, relying on improvisation, the problem-solving ability of the employees and their desire to transcend challenges. It works on the basis of intuition, creativity and dynamism. Risks here are challenges that make you indecisive, and a lack of framework that can lead to the end of the organization. So that’s not “the” solution either.
The Solution: Hybrid
The solution is to become a hybrid organization, round where possible, square where necessary, or vice versa. What stuck with me from the book launch is that it is not wrong in itself to be square or round, as long as you can be both as an organization where your employees need it. Are people more likely to need a leader or a colleague? Then give them what they need: hierarchy or a coaching session.
The big disadvantage of squares as I read it is that they cage the employees. Pascal describes three cages and what they do to people: the golden cage, the iron cage and the bamboo cage.
The three forms were elaborated in the second chapter as follows:
| Four questions | Square | Round | Hybrid |
| What are the driving forces? | Fear or Harmony | Autonomy, energy or trust | Change and polar voltage |
| What is it? | Tight, command, control, compliance, compartmentalization | Lots and circularly | Hybrid hybrid form, a chaordic pendulum |
| What are the outputs and usefulness? | Rest, shrink or suffocate | Space or chaos | Movement – fight, flight, stiffen |
| What is the underlying worldview? | Manageable world | Living system | Yin & yang |
Three movements
A topic that will be discussed are three movements that are made:
- We round off what is square
- What is round we make more square
- Where possible, we hybridize.
These three approaches are illustrated on the basis of six more elaborate practical cases from Pascal’s experience. He ends this chapter in a fourth chapter: the eye test: do you mainly look round, square or hybrid?
Four questions
In Chapter 5 – Aha, now what? He answers 4 questions:
- WHAT do I do now?
- What do I DO now?
- What am I doing now?
- What do I do NOW?
Towards the end, he briefly discusses the characteristics of network leaders, which he encountered in his path as a change manager:
- They look through both-and-glasses. As a result, they can handle polarities.
- Complexity doesn’t deter them.
- They know that they don’t know everything themselves and that they have to constantly reinvent the organization.
- Trust in their employees and that everything will work out is their starting point.
You don’t become a network leader overnight. There are two options for this. Or you make a psychological click because of a drastic event in your life. Or they question their own role each time. “What do I do now?” “Why do I do what I do?” ‘How do my history, my childhood and the impressions of my parental home determine the way I live my life and how I fulfil my role in the organisation?’
Both ways of making the click seem to lead to broad-mindedness and confidence.
Title: Het Ronde Vierkant – Hoe organisaties veranderen, Author: Pascal Van Loo, Publisher: Lannoo Campus, ISBN: 9789401458856