Solving the Paradox of High Performance and Career-Life Fit is Focus of New Deloitte Book: THE CORPORATE LATTICE

Book Provides Lattice Framework to Help Companies Navigate Work Trends, Increase Productivity

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Aug 02, 2010, 09:00 ET

NEW YORK, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Work in the corporate America of the 21st century is radically different than any time in the past. The nine-to-five, hierarchical model that took hold in the industrial age has given way to a new landscape. Work is increasingly virtual, dispersed — often global and 24/7. Jobs are less structured and more collaborative. The pace of change is faster. Organizational structures are flatter. Companies are much easier to see into. Careers zig and zag. Work is done whenever and wherever. Information flows in every which way. And performance and productivity are more dependent upon a highly educated workforce — much more diverse in every respect than ever before.

Together, these changes are forever altering the traditional assumptions on which the prevailing corporate ladder and the command-and-control, top-down management style that defines it were built. In a new book, Deloitte LLP Vice Chairman and Chief Talent Officer Cathy Benko and Deloitte Services LP Director of Talent Molly Anderson make a compelling case that it's time to dismantle the metaphorical ladder.

Published today, The Corporate Lattice (Harvard Business Review Press; August, 2010; hardcover) defines an emerging model more suitable for the converging workforce and workplace changes at hand. At the heart of the lattice organization is a customized workplace that provides agility and options for both employees and employers. Individuals have more than one way to get ahead — and even more than one way to define what get ahead means. For employers, these options create strategic flexibility and drive greater employee engagement, resulting in superior performance.

The book's three key components or "lattice ways" involve:

How careers are built. Depicting career paths as multidirectional with moves up and down, as well as diagonally and across. Success is defined and achieved in a multiplicity of ways.
How work gets done. Shifting from nine-to-five, in-the-office to results-driven work through a hybrid of remote and physical locations and communication methods.
How participation is fostered. Moving from top down to "all in," as technology enables relationships, teamwork and collaboration that can no longer be constrained (or controlled) by the traditional rules of hierarchy.

Building on Benko's 2007 bestselling book, Mass Career Customization (co-authored with Anne Weisberg), this new book takes a broader approach, laying out a specific plan for creating lattice corporations. The authors show that organizations are indeed making lattice investments — Web 2.0 technologies, career pathways, remote and virtual work sites, social networking, workplace flexibility, inclusion programs, etc.—but through the lens of corporate ladder thinking. These companies are responding with ad hoc, siloed and reactive efforts that fall short of the desired results by failing to also address the underlying "ladder" mindset and structures. By providing a framework to integrate these efforts, companies and individuals alike can visualize the shift and have greater clarity about the changes underway, thereby making both existing and future investments more productive. The authors draw on case studies including Cisco, Deloitte, the U.S. Patent Office and Thrivent Financial that exemplify the lattice model in action.

Lattice organizations also widen their views of whose voices can make a difference and where good ideas can come from. Organizations are more transparent, and their leaders are more inclusive, more candid and increasingly interactive in their communication. They provide and value more options for what successful careers look like. And by leveraging new technologies, employees are becoming connectors of all the moving parts of the business as they never could before.

The corporate lattice model allows companies to create a scalable, cost-effective approach to work with many benefits — from lowering real estate costs, to attracting and engaging top talent, to maximizing technology investments and to mitigating risk. Along with solid advice and guidance, the book provides many examples of the lattice model in action.

The book also offers a guide for individuals. Lattice organizations offer more options — and with more choice come more personal responsibility, no matter where you sit in the organization.

"Companies are struggling to meet the challenges of the changing world of work," write Benko and Anderson. "Traditional assumptions about what it takes to achieve and sustain a high-performance workplace simply don't hold any longer. The ladder belief that high performance and sustainable career-life fit are opposing forces must now give way to a new reality: that they are mutually reinforcing and inextricably linked." The corporate lattice solves this paradox.

The Corporate Lattice is both primer and guidebook for new ways of working in the 21st century and beyond.

Additional information about and excerpts from the book can be found at http://www.corporatelattice.com/table_of_contents.html

What Others are Saying about The Corporate Lattice

Anne Mulcahy

Chairman, Xerox Corporation

"Cathy Benko and Molly Anderson have produced a landmark book that should be read and re-read by anyone who cares about improving corporate performance. It argues persuasively that the old corporate ladder metaphor is dead. What has emerged in its place is the corporate lattice which is flatter and more collaborative and in tune with the changing workplace and workforce. You will find yourself nodding in agreement with the analysis of this new world and taking notes on what to do about it. This is a book that will have a profound and positive impact. I recommend it highly."

Marshall Goldsmith

World-renowned executive coach and New York Times best-selling author

"The right model for the times. Lattice takes on outlived corporate ladder assumptions and convincingly argues that the workplace must adopt more nimble ways to engage its people. Lattice illuminates a much-needed path forward for organizations everywhere to tap into each individual's performance power to achieve exceptional bottom line results."

Shelly Lazarus

Chairman, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide

"The war for talent will never end. Victory will go to those organizations that solve the high performance and career/life quagmire. This book, a sequel to Mass Career Customization, moves beyond theory to everyday practice. It describes how this approach has been made to work in real companies with great success. Anyone responsible for driving results should read this book."

John Seely Brown

Former Chief Scientist, Xerox Corporation; co-author of The Social Life of Information and The Power of Pull

"Read this book immediately if you want to crack the code on how to build and sustain a truly engaged, diverse workforce. A fascinating read with stunning data and chock full of pragmatic ideas and evocative examples."

About the Authors

Cathy Benko, vice chairman and chief talent officer, Deloitte LLP, is responsible for driving Deloitte's strategy and execution to attract, develop and advance a highly skilled and diverse workforce. She is a foremost authority on talent strategies and transformational change to achieve exceptional results. She is co-author of the bestseller Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today's Nontraditional Workforce (Harvard Business School Press, 2007).

Molly Anderson, director of talent for Deloitte Services LP, specializes in innovative strategies to engage today's increasingly diverse, knowledge-based workforce. She designed and led the implementation of Mass Career Customization across Deloitte's 45,000-person organization, significantly increasing career-life satisfaction, retention, and engagement. Molly is an expert in organizational transformation and development.

About Deloitte

As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte LLP and Deloitte Services LP, separate subsidiaries of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries.