Welcome to the Matrix

Welcome to the Matrix
By Ivan D. Butts
NAPS Executive Vice President

With the USPS moving to the matrix management style of serving America’s postal system, I thought I would take a closer look at it. Matrix management is an organizational structure in which some individuals report to more than one supervisor or leader; such relationships are described as solid-line or dotted-line reporting.

More broadly, the arrangement also may describe the management of cross-functional, cross-business groups and other work models that do not maintain strict vertical business units or “silos” grouped by function and geography. Matrix management was developed in U.S. aerospace in the ’50s and achieved wider adoption in the ’70s.

There are different types of matrix management styles, including strong, weak and balanced. I make a presumption here that your project goals will determine the type of matrix management style the USPS will employ.

According to a Gallup study, 17% of employees today have more than one boss (a formal matrix structure) and a further 67% regularly work on multiple teams (matrix working). In addition, 95% of the top 50 Fortune and Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) companies operate a matrix. It is the norm in organizations that operate internationally or with multiple business units.

Matrix management is not a problem-free solution for the USPS, which obviously believes its organizational structure up to this point has been a failure. This change in management philosophy has some inherent pitfalls and challenges that will require the agency to provide proper training, development and mentoring.

Some of the challenges that professionals in matrix-style management report, and that I feel apply to the USPS, include:

  • The potential for participants to be conflicted between various managers and priorities
  • Communication confusion between and across projects and functions
  • Loss of clarity regarding who is responsible for performance evaluation
  • No determination of responsibility for coaching and professional development
  • Individual capability reduction as participants become stretched across too many initiatives
  • Loss of organizational learning and team learning because individuals are involved for only a short duration
  • Understanding the context; not being clear of the need for a matrix and the advantages and disadvantages it brings
  • Creating clarity, managing ambiguity and competing goals, trade-offs and dilemmas
  • Simplifying collaboration and communication; enabling faster decision-making and fewer face-to-face and virtual meetings
  • Finding the right balance of control and empowerment
  • Taking accountability for results when you don’t have control over the resources needed to deliver them
  • Exercising influence without authority
  • Managing multiple bosses
  • Certainly, a couple of these challenges apply to currrent daily life in the USPS. There are alphas and deltas to every management structure. However, transforming this presumably failed USPS organizational structure to a matrix management structure will be a tall order.

There are some keys to success for employees recommended by industry professionals that, hopefully, the USPS is sharing through its training, developing and mentoring of this new organizational structure. I wholeheartedly agree with the professionals on this important key: Document everything.

Type an email memo to your manager(s) every day regarding complications and successes. This way, you have documentation of your performance and work throughout the project.

In solidarity…