Congruence Analysis · Leading People & Organisations

The core idea

When strategy does not show up in results, friction is living between the five elements. Your job is not to produce a better plan — it is to find the pair that is out of alignment and adjust until the work, the people and the culture can actually deliver the plan you already have. — after Nadler & Tushman

The hero diagram

What to align.

Each vertex is an element. Each line is a relationship you can test for friction.

The method

Three steps. In order.

Step 01

Describe

Name the organisation or unit as it really is today — strategy, tasks, people, culture, PPS. Plain language. No wishful thinking.

Step 02

Analyse

Walk each pair and ask: are these two congruent? Where they are not, friction is producing your symptom.

Step 03

Adjust

Redesign the element that is causing the incongruence — not the element that is complaining. Then watch for second-order effects.

The eleven pairs

A question you can test.

Each pair is a diagnostic. Ask the question. If the answer is "no", you have your incongruence and the adjustment tells you where to start.

s–t

Given the strategy, are these the right tasks?

Redesign the work.

s–p

Do people know the strategy? Are they committed to it?

Share the strategy.

s–c

Does the culture support the strategy?

Adapt the culture to deliver the strategy.

s–pps

Does PPS help people execute the strategy?

Align the systems with the strategy.

t–p

Do people have the right skills and motivations for the tasks?

Place the right people.

t–c

Does culture support doing the work to a high standard?

Use culture to get work done.

c–p

Does the culture resonate with the people?

Get culture to resonate.

pps–t

Does PPS motivate task performance?

Redesign compensation to get the right results.

pps–t/p

Does PPS hire, promote and fire the right people doing the right things?

Ensure those who do the work get the rewards.

pps–p

Does PPS develop people appropriately?

Invest in development.

pps–c

Does PPS support the culture?

Reward the culturally-appropriate behaviours.

Frameworks in this module

Named ideas to remember.

Congruence Model · Nadler & Tushman

Strategy · Tasks · People · Culture · PPS

Friction lives in the pair, not the element. Adjust the element causing the miss — not the one complaining.

The Eleven Pairs · Nadler & Tushman

S–T · S–P · S–C · S–PPS · T–P · T–C · C–P · PPS–T · PPS–T/P · PPS–P · PPS–C

Walk every pair. The first "no" is where to start.

Kerr's Folly · Kerr · 1975 (reprinted 1995)

what you reward · what you actually want · the gap

You get what you measure — not what you asked for.

How to apply

The five steps you actually run.

Used as the Module 1 individual assignment. Also the shape of any real-world diagnosis.

Identify a persistent problem worth fixing. Significant enough to warrant the effort, recurring (not a one-off), and tied to a performance outcome — missed goals, low morale, poor collaboration, client dissatisfaction.
Describe the elements in play. Which two elements of the five are involved? State each as it actually is, not as you wish it were.
Name the incongruence. What specifically is misaligned between the two? Put it in one sentence.
Propose two possible adjustments. Different levers — not variations of the same lever. One might redesign the work; the other might change who is doing it.
Recommend one — and say why. Which is more likely to fix it? Which is cheaper to try first? What is the evidence?

Key reading · Kerr · AMJ 1975 (reprinted AME 1995)

On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B.

Steven Kerr's classic paper names the most common source of PPS–Strategy incongruence: we measure one thing and then act surprised when people optimise for what we measured instead of what we wanted. Three everyday examples:

Reward individual KPIs→expect team play
Reward hitting easy targets→expect stretch and innovation
Reward cost-cutting→expect quality and care

Watch what you measure — that is what you will get.