249 General Discussion In an April 2024 interview with the current CEO, Ivo van Schaik, he described Sanquin’s new organizational structure: flattening of the prior organizational structure, and the merging of former divisions and departments into departments based on their mutual operational processes, with a single managerial figure overseeing each department (see Figure 1.1) He stated one reason for this structural change is to overcome the historical silos within Sanquin. While this is a very different structure than before, it can be conducive for implementing CLT, for example, in how the new managers could become the enabling leaders. However, to be an enabling leader does not require a certain position or title. Enabling leaders are those who have complexity thinking, engage in complexity dynamics and persevere within its pressures, and skillfully use networks to enable emergence.49 Enabling leaders create the spaces for conflicting and connecting and facilitate novel solutions into the operational system.72 “Enabling leaders know that the only way to build an adaptive organization that is sustainable over time is unleashing the capacity of many local agents to regularly see and enact adaptive responses. It involves an ongoing balance of knowing when to be highly visible to catalyze others and when to be invisible to enable others. Therefore, at times they need to act as the catalyst, standing up and challenging the organization to be bolder, and at other times they need to step away so that others can rise up” (Uhl-Bien and Arena, 2017, p. 18).49 Thus, enabling leadership should be encouraged and the skillset developed, as such actions can improve the organizational culture and improve organizational resilience. 7.3 Implications for research and practice Sanquin has undergone – and is still undergoing – significant organizational changes. As described in Chapter 6, what makes the context of Sanquin more complex was the parallel occurrence of several leadership changes and a re-organization that overlapped with the pandemic. These changes have led to employees’ feeling of insecurity and lostness, as documented in the 2021 annual report.43 In a complex setting, it is necessary that diverse groups work together, thus the following points are proposed for both practitioners and researchers to consider for encouraging synergistic collaborations:73,74 3.1 Understand the existing organizational culture, learning processes, historical barriers and communication flows. It is necessary to get a baseline understanding of Sanquin’s internal milieu by compiling historical documents, employee’s experiences and perspectives in one place.
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