Image used with permission courtesy of Many Cornet, www.bonkersworld.net
At a conference last week in Oslo, I attended a session where we discussed the state of academic research on organization design. An interesting talk was delivered by Professor Lars Groth of the University of Oslo (pictured below).
 |
Prof. Groth had analyzed some purported “new organizational forms” described in recent journal articles, including:
|
Prof. Groth dissected these organizational forms and argued that they could all be explained by using the terminology and concepts in Mintzberg’s book on organization design from 1979. As an example, he claimed that the so-called C-form is basically another term for Mintzberg’s concept of the Adhocracy.
Prof. Groth was also interested in the connection between information technology and organizational design. He pointed out that people have been repeatedly wrong in predicting that new information technologies would change authority relations. The advent of computer networks was supposed to create non-hierarchical “network organizations”.
He argued that this belief was like thinking that the introduction of the telephone would remove the need for bosses in an organization. It didn’t; and organizations with computer networks are perhaps somewhat flatter than before but still hierarchical.
I agree with Prof Groth that there is a tendency to exaggerate “newness” and create buzzwords, rather than building on earlier established concepts. The effect is that we become unable to build cumulative knowledge about organization design as we keep on reinventing the same concepts.
I would like to take issue with him on a couple of points, though. First, I do think there are some organizational forms today that were not described in the older literature. As an example, Mintzberg’s description of the matrix form is not identical to the current concept of the multidimensional organization (something I discuss in some detail in my upcoming book).
More importantly, though, I think it is somewhat futile to look at “new organizational forms” separately from the purposes and functions that they serve. It’s a bit like an engineer taking apart an iPad and concluding – “Well, there’s nothing really new here, only a screen, chassis, microprocessor, and battery – we have seen all that before!”. Yes, we have, but innovation is not only about new forms, but about how you re-combine existing things to meet functional requirements that were previously seen as incompatible (in the case of the iPad, these functions could be excellent usability, affordable price, great visual design and connectivity, etc.).
So rather than looking at organizational forms in isolation, we should ask about functions: Are there organizations today that are able to create organizations that meet different functional demands that we have thought were difficult or impossible to achieve (in combination)?
As an example, Mintzberg (1979) was very critical of the prospect of democratic organizations where workers elect supervisors and/or participate in decision making. He pointed out that the available studies show that democratic governance in organizations lead to less efficiency and more rather than less centralization. The question we should ask today is whether there are organizations that are able to introduce democratic governance, while at the same time maintaining speed and efficiency. If so, that would be something new.
Creative organization designers are not the ones who invent new words for organizational forms but those that use already familiar building blocks (roles, processes, structures) in new combinations to achieve results that others thought were impossible.
Completely agree that <>
This is the question being researched at > http://shar.es/oGJyC
I mistyped my last name in my previous comment, it should read MOHR.
Last comment was …I completely agree that “The question we should ask today is whether there are organizations that are able to introduce democratic governance, while at the same time maintaining speed and efficiency. If so, that would be something new.”
Nicolay, Beautifully written, nice graphics, and you make an important point repeating MIntzberg’s insight that more participation in voting etc often leads to inefficiencies and ironically to greater centralization.
My perception is that the majority of participants at organization design conferences disparage hierarchy and advocate increased participative processes, dialogue, engagement – with the implied assumption that hierarchy is obsolete, bad and should disappear.
Another often forgotten insight is that of Elliott Jaques: That we should learn to identify and to fix dysfunctional and paranoia-genic hierarchies and work to build trust-building hierarchical organizations using his requisite organization concepts.
These concepts hold managers accountable for effective managerial leadership practices that include open dialogue, effective team work, matching capability and complexity of work level and encouraging individuals to use all of their capability. His system includes large scale meetings, 3-level meetings, and well designed and coordinated ad hoc task groups and processes.
I have found that many of the organization development processes I learned in my doctorate at UCLA in org behaviour were even more effective when done within requisitely designed organizations. Many of the methods are natural complements with requisite. Some of the methods can help to design requisite organizations and others can help requisite organizations do their work even better.
Requisite is one of the lightest, most flexible organization design and management systems yet invented for substantial professionalized organizations (that is 300 employees and up..although many of its principles are been used in organizations with as few as 50). With requisite practices in place a given amount of work can be done with fewer people, faster, more effectively and at lower cost than any other known systems. There is an absence of fear, bullying, dysfunctional management behaviour…and all of the features Jaques had identified in paranoia-genic organizations.
So “both and” both trust-building hierarchy and high engagement participatory processes.
Best wishes,
Ken
You may be interested to know that there is a call for papers from the journal ‘Organization’ http://org.sagepub.com/ that is asking for articles for their special issue on ‘Worker cooperatives as an organizational alternative:
Challenges, achievements and promise in organizational governance and ownership’.
Co-operatives are not often discussed in organization design work but there are some very good examples of them working well with speed and efficiency. Amul – an Indian dairy products organization is one. Clearly they are not new as an organizational type but the way they include both structure and participation is worth a second glance.
Different point: I completely agree with Nicolay’s comment that we should not be inventing new words for organization design work, but maybe organization designers should be open to the possibility that a new word is right. Sometimes it is an inevitability. Think of the new technology words that have entered mainstream in the last few years: blog, weblog, webinar, etc.