McKinsey’s 7S Framework

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McKinsey’s 7S Framework

There may be a role for using ‘McKinsey’s 7S Framework’ in helping a unit structure the analysis. The constituent parts of the 7S Model are:
• Strategy: plan or course of action leading to the allocation of the unit’s finite resources to reach identified goals
• Structure: salient features of the unit’s organisational chart (e.g. degree of hierarchy, presence of internal market, extent of centralization/decentralization) and interconnections within the office
• Systems: procedures and routine processes, including how information moves around the unit and within UCC
• Staff: personnel categories within the unit and the use to which staff are put, skill base, etc.
• Style: characterization of how key managers behave in order to achieve the unit’s goals
• Shared values: the significant meanings or guiding concepts that the unit imbues on its members
• Skills: distinctive capabilities of key personnel and the unit as a whole The 7S model can be used in two ways:
• Considering the links between each of the Ss can identify strengths and weaknesses of an organisation. No S is strength or a weakness in its own right; it is only its degree of support, or otherwise, for the other Ss which is relevant. Any Ss that harmonise with all the other Ss can be thought of as strengths and weaknesses.
• The model highlights how a change made in any one of the Ss will have an impact on all the others. Thus if a planned change is to be effective, then changes in one S must be accompanied by complementary changes in the others.

A final thought. It may be interesting to note that back in the early 1980, using the 7S model, Peters and Waterman identified eight features common to excellent performance. How does the unit measure against these simple measures?

• A bias for action: a propensity to act, even in the light of incomplete information, rather than to engage in extensive discussion and analysis
• Close to the customer: listening to, learning from, and providing exemplary service for their customers
• Autonomy and entrepreneurship: fostering leaders and innovators throughout the organisation/department; encouraging practical risk taking and tolerating failure
• Productivity through people: respect for and validation of staff; recognition that staff are the source of quality and productivity gain
• Hands-on, value driven: led by executives that are ‘in touch’ with the essential aspects of the organisation; paying explicit attention to promulgating the organisations core values
• Stick to the knitting: operating primarily in fields of established expertise
• Simple form, lean staff: characterised by few administrative layers, and uncomplicated systems
• Simultaneous loose tight properties: a combination of centralisation and decentralisation; promoting


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Source of the article: http://www.ucc.ie/quality/INTERNET/PESTAnalysis.pdf


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