McKinsey’s 7s model 17 / 19

McKinsey’s 7s model

Like the cultural web, the McKinsey’s 7s model is a useful way of looking at organisations facing organisational change.

The model represents the organisation as a set of interconnected and interdependent sub-systems, some of which are seen as:

  • hard' (quantifiable or easily defined)

  • 'soft' (more subjective and less easily defined.)

Although the model was designed to show how the various aspects of a business relate to one another, it can also illustrate how a change will affect both the organisation as a whole and individual people and functions within it.

The organisation's structure determines the division of tasks in the organisation and the hierarchy of authority from the most senior to junior.

  • Strategy is the way in which the organisation plans to outperform its competitors, or how it intends to achieve its objectives.

  • Systems include the technical systems of accounting, personnel, and management information.

  • Staff are the people in the organisation (who have their own complex concerns and priorities)

  • Skills are those things that the organisation does well.

  • Shared values are the guiding beliefs of people in the organisation about why it exists

  • Style includes the shared assumptions, ways of working and attitudes of management (especially senior management).