Employee frustrations and conflicts about getting work done are often not the result of personal differences among the people in an organization, but rather the result of misaligned, undefined or incompatible relationships between the units of the organization and leaders who are not well suited for the teams they are leading. When designing an organization,… Read More
Organizational Design
Finish What You Start!
Mature organizations adopt a holistic approach to organization design by focusing on the entire interconnected system. This means aligning strategy with work processes. Strategy defines what will provide a competitive advantage for the organization; Organization Design/Alignment is aligning strategy, structure, work processes, information, culture, people, rewards, and metrics; Implementation is choosing where to utilize resources,… Read More
Trust but Verify
When working on an organization design project, the designer can approach the design intuitively or systematically. An intuitive approach means basing decisions entirely off of gut feelings or instincts. On the other hand, a systematic approach begins with studying the current state of the organization. Studying the current state of an organization includes gathering information,… Read More
Design Thinking
Solid design thinking leads to adaptable, flexible, and responsive organizations. So what does it mean to think like a designer? It includes having empathy for users, creating design models, prototyping, tolerating failure, and exhibiting thoughtful restraint. Empathy for users: uncovering what users want and need and providing insight into what user aspirations, concerns, desires, engagement,… Read More
Moving from Taylor to Liquid Organizations
In 1911 management expert Frederick W. Taylor (The Principals of Scientific Management) pioneered the idea of dividing an organization between thinking people (managers) and executing people (workers). As a business management model, Taylorism improved economic efficiency and productivity by establishing a paradigm in which the decision making was the province of the thinking people, and… Read More
The Parts Make It Whole
In the profession of music making there are no unimportant parts. Composers create compositions in which the parts for each instrument scored have a specific musical purpose; conductors make sure all of the parts fit together and that the composer’s intentions are properly executed; musicians are responsible for knowing how their individual part fits in… Read More