Organizations are built, maintained and nurtured to meet the business purpose(s) visualized by promoters. This is true for those with or without profit motives. It is also true that the vision and mission of the organization keeps changing/evolving as and when new puzzle pieces are found and assembled.
Performance of an organization is attributed to its structure an ordered set of leaders, functions, responsibilities & accountabilities; a system of people organized by a characteristic pattern of relationships!
Incidentally, structure is an organic part of the system one that grows in complexity with growth of the Organization! But its identity is always internal. Design is always inside-out & people-centric!
End users/customers of the Organization generally do not give too much of prominence to this structure. They neither relate to nor appreciate any part of the organization that does not directly add value to their experiences. What matters to them is the brand, the promoter and of course the product/service the organization offers for which they pay!
That may be the reason why CEOs (or Promoters) are required to close the deal even though there are brightest possible sales heads/team; propose a winning solution though there are a lot of people working to make it happen; be awarded/rewarded for their visionary leadership, etc .
Their name comes before that of their Organization while all others have to put their organizations name & gifted business title, behind them to get identified!
But most of organizational politics stems around sticking to positions, titles, span of control etc.! This guarantees – stressed employees, customers and leaders through continuous clarification / claims of boundary, relative importance of the role, issues/escalations and meeeeetings! Purpose of enabling performance turns to that of disabling! What a paradox?
User Experience Centric Organization Structure, Leaders without titles and Self Healing Business Models will change the dynamics of how organizations are built, maintained and modified to meet ever changing needs of business performance! Hopefully this will clear some of the paradoxes too
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I completely endores your opinion. The current philosophy behind today’s structure is driven by the traditional manufacturing industry. If you recall, we tend to classify even people under the broad term of “Resources”. I had a basic objection to this idea when I first authored my Project Plan. Unfortunately we still tend to linearise the impact of human beings collaborating together. Flat organisation models which put the core sense of purpose of its existence tend to succeed more often than not. User centric designs/product creations are beginning to show its head in some organisations and hence paving the way for a more flexible structure.
Thanks, Srivatsha. Changing environments including technology & economy will surely force everyone to think differently – more on long terms sustainability. This has no other option than focusing on the real paying user!