Professional Documents
Culture Documents
the 7S framework
Chapter 10 : Business Policy and Strategic Management
by Dr. S. Senthilkumar and others
From the book The Art of Japanese Management ( a study of Matshushita and ITT
Corporations) by Prof. Richard Pascale (Stanford Univ) and Anthony Athos (Harvard Univ).
McKinsey 7- S Model
Premise: For an organization to perform well, seven elements need to be aligned for
mutual reinforcement. It identifies the areas needing realignment in order to improve
performance during change processes.
(Tom Peters & Robert Waterman, 1980)
structure
strategy
systems
shared
values
skills
styles
staff
McKinsey 7- S Model
Premise: For an organization to perform well, seven elements need to be aligned for
mutual reinforcement. It identifies the areas needing realignment in order to improve
performance during change processes.
(Tom Peters & Robert Waterman, 1980)
structure
Hard Ss
strategy
systems
shared
values
Soft Ss
skills
styles
staff
HARD Ss
SOFT Ss
Staff is inappropriate.
Structure Large component of outsourced activities. Many contractual employees.
Systems Focus on Staff acquisition and Training. Centralized decision making. Strong
ERP systems.
Strategy Focus on holding current market position.
1.
McKinsey 7- S as applied to
Aravind Eye Hospital
Strategy
Systems Structures
Shared Value
Skills
Staff
Styles
HARD Ss
HARD Ss
Structure is the skeleton, the form of shape, of organizations. It
dictates the way it operates and performs (Waterman et al., 1980).
Traditionally, businesses are structured with divisions, departments
and layers, in which the lower layers answer to upper layers. Today,
the flat structure, where the work is done in teams of specialists, are
more common. The idea is to make the organization more flexible
and devolve the power by empowering the employees and eliminate
the middle management layers (Boyle, 2007).
HARD Ss
Systems are routine processes and procedures followed within an
organization to implement the strategy and to run day-to-day affairs.
These processes are mainly designed to achieve maximum
effectiveness. Traditionally, the higher management makes the most
decisions. Increasingly, the organization are using innovation and
new technology to make decision-making process quicker
1.
2.
3.
4.
SOFT Ss
Staff are personnel categories within the organization, such as
engineers, sales persons, etc. Unlike traditional organizations, new
leading organizations put more emphasis on hiring the best staff and
and with rigorous training and monitoring support shape the basic
values. This forms the basis of these organizations strategy and
competitive advantage over their competitors (Purcell and Boxal,
2003).
1. What positions or specializations are represented within
the team?
2. What positions need to be filled?
3. How motivated are the employees towards the Strategic
directions?
4. Are there gaps in required competencies?
SOFT Ss
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
SOFT Ss
Style is the way in which key managers behave in achieving
organizational goals, that is the management style. It includes the
dominant values, beliefs and norms which develop over time and
become relatively enduring features of the organizational life.
Different from the traditional businesses in which strict adherence to
the upper management and procedures was expected from the lowerrank employees, the recent businesses have been more open,
innovative and friendly with fewer hierarchies and a smaller chain of
command.
1.
2.
3.
4.
SOFT Ss
Shared Value refers to the significant meanings or guiding concepts
that organizational members share (Peters and Waterman, 1982).
These values and common goals keep the employees working
towards a common destination as a coherent team. The
organizations with weak values and common goals often find their
employees following their own personal goals that may be conflicting
with others.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Questions