"The Bronze Horseman is a monument to Peter the Great from Catherine the Great. It stands on Senate Square, facing the Neva River and surrounded by the Admiralty, St Isaac's Cathedral and the Senate and Synod buildings. The statue, created by the famous French sculptor Etienne Maurice Falconet, depicts Peter the Great as a Roman hero on horseback, pointing the way for Russia, while his horse steps on a snake, which represents the enemies of Peter and his reforms."

What interests me in this statue, and why it makes an appearance in this post, is it's remarkable structure.  It is balanced on three very small points - 2 rear hooves and tail.  And being made of bronze, it is a very heavy statue.  It was impossible for Falconet to balance it just on the two rear hooves.  He needed a 3rd point to make it stable, and tail was that 3rd point.

Organizational structures are not all that different.  Where bronze statues have the force of gravity constantly pulling them down and other forces of nature slowly eroding them over time, organizations face many forces, both internal and external, that threaten their sustainability.  And yet, as I wrote in a prior post, most organizations seem to be missing that 3rd point of stability.  There are many internal groups whose purview is Organizational Persistence - both from a customer and organization points of view.  But most organizations have them scattered around with little budgetary or true oversight authority.  The thought of a third organizational branch was intriguing enough to merit several responses, and the conversation is still going strong.

One of the interesting corollaries is where would the Organizational Persistence branch report.  Ultimately, the group that is responsible for long-term viability is the owners - whether it's individuals, private equity, or shareholders.  In a case of publicly owned company, this group is represented by the Board of Directors. And yet, the shortcomings of BoDs have been well documented, perhaps most bitingly as by Carl Icahn's United Shareholders of America project.  But from a good governance perspective, that is precisely where the OP teams should be aligned with.  This alignment could benefit both sides - it could give OP teams the necessary operating room, while providing the BoDs the level of visibility required for operational intelligence.

AAB