McKinsey’s innovative ‘helix model’ for management, explained by Cornerstone OnDemand

Pioneered by McKinsey, the ‘helix model’ seeks to resolve the challenges of management setups whereby an employee might be reporting into misaligned or conflicting authorities by way of ‘solid lines’ and ‘dotted lines’. The helix instead has two equal but distinct managers for an employee.

McKinsey describes it as: “Inspired by the distinctive, double-stranded shape of DNA that scientists discovered in the early 1950s, the helix, by contrast [to the matrix], decouples people-leadership tasks typically performed by one manager into two sets of tasks performed by two different managers, each of which is equally relevant...”

“Crucially, these managers are neither ‘primary’ nor ‘secondary,’ as is the case in the matrix. One boss provides and makes decisions about one set of things (such as hiring and firing, promotions, training, and capability building); the other boss makes decisions about another set of things (such as prioritisation of goals and work, daily supervision of task execution, and quality assurance).”

HR Leader attended the HR and L&D Innovation and Tech Festival on Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 November as a guest of Cornerstone OnDemand. Following a breakfast presentation, we spoke with Katie Ballantyne, Cornerstone OnDemand’s VP for product and customer experience.

Ms Ballantyne gave her insight into the helix concept that she described as a “separation of responsibility”, and she highlighted the challenge of equipping the different types of leaders with the knowledge they’d need to perform well in a helix model. Ms Ballantyne also talked about how it can benefit business.

“It’s really interesting to see, not only the setup in terms of, okay, how to skill people, there’s a lot of setup, absolutely. Just the logistics of how do I separate people out this way? How do I encourage communication? What’s the feedback loop that happens at the end of a project so that somebody knows, hey, here’s how this person performed on the project. How do you understand that differently? But then also, how do you open up tools within the business that allows people to find the projects that they want to work on and matches their skills to those projects so that they can basically go and bid to be part of a project team?

“Organisations find that it’s a great way to more effectively manage labour, because you’ve got less opportunity to overexert labour because you recognise that each project has to get funded.”

“It’s a more agile way to manage labour, and it also decreases the need for a lot of highly specific job titles as well. So, it creates quite flat organisations and [it’s] just a lot nimbler in terms of skills utilisation.”

The helix model may ease management stress due to fewer responsibilities.

“[The helix model] opens up more time for people to be able to specialise in the places that they excel. And because it just really recognises that the manager role [has] absolutely exploded, what we need from managers, and it just may not be as feasible in the future.”

Ms Ballantyne talked to HR Leader about an example of a Cornerstone OnDemand customer investing in coaching skills (a key attribute in the helix model).

“They saw that one of the biggest ways that they could invest in their people was by putting them through coaching programs, so they went through the International Coaching Federation. These are six-month courses. And what’s really cool for these managers as well, is you come out as an accredited coach, so you’re also gaining this incredible skill in a growing industry.”

“That is a powerful certification – when you think that there’s entire careers now for career coaches, and you think about what it then says in terms of that company culture, where the business cares so much for the people, and for their work experience, that they are going to make such a huge investment in managers. And then I think it’s also really cool for what it means for the employees to see that. Wow, like being a manager can mean this devotion to other people and helping to create these wonderful work experiences. I think it really says something about the culture.”

It’s no small thing to have happy employees. HR Leader notes that a study by the University of Oxford proved that productivity and happiness go hand in hand. The research revealed that “happy workers are 13 per cent more productive”.

Professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve commented on the findings: “We found that when workers are happier, they work faster by making more calls per hour worked and, importantly, convert more calls to sales.”

In conversation with HR Leader, Ms Ballantyne summed up today’s employee expectations.

“When we think about some of the things that employees are wanting their managers to be, like these hyper-personalised coaches, listening to them, you know, mental health support, full understanding of what they need in their role, and role design. What can a business do?”

“What can the employer do to create a framework, a system of tools, resources, and employee experiences that helps the employees get what they want and gives the managers more resources to be able to support the employees? And, so as a result of doing that, the employees feel happier, and they’re more likely to attribute a lot of that positivity to the manager as well.”

Note from the editor: Please note that HR Leader was invited to the HR and L&D Innovation and Tech Festival 2022 as a guest of Cornerstone OnDemand but has not been paid to promote the event. The above is provided for information purposes only.

Jack Campbell

Jack is the editor at HR Leader.