Organization design blog- June 2013

Yesterday, I was looking for Dave Urich's list of HR Competences (which I found) but in the process came across an article published this month in OD Practitioner, Vol 41, No. 4. Author, Gina Hinrichs in her article Organic Organization Design makes the point that traditional systems models and methods of organization design are based in industrial age concepts and thus are ill-suited for information or knowledge age concepts. This isn't a newly minted point but it does contribute to the adding stream of commentary on it. What I find interesting about it and similar articles is although there's a recognition that the information age ushers in a different paradigm the writing about it is still predominantly North American/western centric - maybe because the information age was ushered in by North American companies

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Looking around other people's blogs I find that those with a personal touch that tell a story seem, to me to be more inviting. So I've decided to experiment with that format for a month or so. (I know I need to take another look at the page layout but that is in hand).

So today began with reading the first part of Chapter 7 Dynamics in Organizational Culture, of the Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation. Mary Jo Hatch, the author of that chapter, is someone whose work I've been interested in for a while. She writes clearly and has ideas which are almost actionable in the corporate world - at any rate they spark off ideas that are. This time her argument is around the tension beween dynamic and stable organization culture. I didn't finish the whole chapter because my tolerance for academic writing, however good, has dwindled to the length of time it takes me to drink a (large) cup of tea. I'll continue reading it tomorrow morning.

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Within global/multinational companies the generally used language for communication is English. Thus in any meeting several mother tongues may be represented, but all are speaking (with more or less facility) English. This, as all the "Doing Business ... books" instruct, is often a recipe for mis-communication, misunderstanding, and general lack of success. The way organisational members manage the connections between languages, a diversity of perspectives, and the national cultures they represent are partly contributory both to an organisation's culture and its business success.

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All organizations have multiple external stakeholders: NGOs, the 'unvoiced' (think Amazon rainforest), customers, suppliers, governments, shareholders and so on. Rather that designing organizations from the perspective of the organization itself - how about designing it from the perspective of one of its stakeholder groups. What would an organization do differently or organize differently if it were thinking from a supplier perspective for example?

Shareholders are increasingly only one part of an organization's consideration. Financial value is important but so are other expressions of value. The "customer experience" is one, "care of the environment" is another. All organizations have the ability to create stakeholder value beyond financial. What stops them doing it?

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Designing business to work with governments is something that Richard Haass talks about in a McKinsey Quarterly interview. Haass is president of the US Council on Foreign Relations and has written several books on the connections between government and business, including The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: how to be effective in any unruly organization which is packed with ideas, references, and insights on getting things done in any organization where that seems an impossible dream.

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Organization designs or redesigns are usually initiated by a leader or manager. Few are 'grass roots' or 'bottom up' led. Lots of reasons account for this: lack of decision making authority is one, a focus on that part of the work flow rather than a sense of the whole organization as a system is another - although it's often easy to see where blocks and duplications occur in relation to a specific job.

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