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What is the importance of structure in an organisation
What is the importance of structure in an organisation
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Robert Fritz is the founder of a field called "structural consulting" and has worked extensively with Peter Senge, himself known for his theories on "the learning organization." Fritz is also the author of Corporate Tides (1996), in which he explained the "laws of organizational structure." He calls this new book an updated, redesigned, and rewritten next-generation version of Corporate Tides. He explains that organizational structure may impede organizational learning, that achievement in one part of an organization may not be replicated because of organizational barriers. Moreover, he shows that success in one department of an organization may actually lead to difficulties or problems in another; Fritz calls this phenomenon structural oscillation. He explains the key principles of structural tension and structural conflict. He also provides examples that demonstrate why best efforts do not always result in success and suggests ways to redesign organizations so that they can succeed. Robert Fritz's book is his emphasis on looking for patterns and trends present in every business. After reading Mr. Fritz's perspective on why organizations oscillate, it is understood why smart people do stupid things. Mr. Fritz suggests that quite often, the cause is simple; competing goals that rob each other of focus, resources and energy. Mr. Fritz's offers insights on how an organization can create real alignment and more importantly, involvement of the entire organization. This book is a very quick read. It doesn't use the usual format for business-oriented books. All effort is brought to bear in helping me, the reader, look at my situation or my client's situation in a different and clearer light. The quality of consulting can be vastly imp...
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...on and sanity; it is simple, but not simplistic.
The insights in this book, if applied, are destined to influence the organization because they follow the basics of a structure's influence on behavior. Change the structure and the organization will change...Change it intelligently and the organization will advance. Buy the book and step to the forefront of organizational leadership...but be forewarned: Bring a teachable spirit. Be willing to unlearn a few assumptions to make room for Fritz's simple and strategic insights. Managers wouldn't begin to think about change in an organization without answering the 11 Questions first (they're in the book). Finally, and for Pete's Sake, Peter Senge wrote the forward for his "friend and mentor" Robert Fritz.
Works Cited
Robert Fritz. The Path of Least Resistance for Managers: designing organizations to succeed.
"Give me a good theory over a strategic plan any day of the week," is the opening sentence of Michael Fullan's book “Six Secrets of Change”. The read is a guide for both business and education leaders who desire to make their organizations successful. The six secrets that are illustrated in this book are offered as a theory of action. Individually each secret may appear to be simple, yet Fullen layers them with intricate details that express its value to change. Although some of the secrets may be difficult to understand the author makes a conscience effort to provide real-life examples of these secrets through organizational practices. He discusses organizational attitudes and behaviors and provides example in which execution has been successful and other areas that have not been successful. By using these examples, Fullan provides a blueprint for organizational leaders that can be used to guide their action towards successful long lasting changes. Ultimately this will improve organizational culture and efficiency. Michael Fullan is a well-known, author of works devoted to leader...
A Few Keys to All Success by Jim Muncy, published in 2002 explains that there are 7 universal keys to success that we can relate to everyday life. Discernment, Optimism, Responsibility, Initiative, Perseverance, Purpose, Sacrifice. Each one represents how we grow and teaches us how to have a high quality of life. From reading this book I am confident because I know being normal means being average and what we do can change how we act significantly. Also we can’t let the world hold us back from greatness. There will be negativity, there will be those who lack enthusiasm but you can’t let them interfere in what you have in store. And these keys will help you get to that point in your life. Discernment; Judge the seed by the harvest. The first
An organization might have a structure in place for change but they must also look at the finances. An organization must have appropriate finances to handle the change and must keep the organization profitable (Nielsen and Abildgaard, 2013). Both finances and the social environment within in an organization are resources that can potentially limit an organization from
Leading Change was named the top management book of the year by Management General. There are three major sections in this book. The first section is ¡§the change of problem and its solution¡¨ ; which discusses why firms fail. The second one is ¡§the eight-stage process¡¨ that deals with methods of performing changes. Lastly, ¡§implications for the twenty-first century¡¨ is discussed as the conclusion. The eight stages of process are as followed: (1) Establishing a sense of urgency. (2) Creating the guiding coalition. (3) Developing a vision and a strategy. (4) Communicating the change of vision. (5) Empowering employees for broad-based action. (6) Generating short-term wins. (7) Consolidating gains and producing more changes. (8) Anchoring new approaches in the culture.
Spector, B. (2013). Implementing organizational change: theory into practice. (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ
In today’s ever changing world people must adapt to change. If an organization wants to be successful or remain successful they must embrace change. This book helps us identify why people succeed and or fail at large scale change. A lot of companies have a problem with integrating change, The Heart of Change, outlines ways a company can integrate change. The text book Ivanceich’s Organizational Behavior and Kotter and Cohen’s The Heart of Change outlines how change can be a good thing within an organization. The Heart of Change introduces its readers to eight steps the authors feel are important in introducing a large scale organizational change. Today’s organizations have to deal with leadership change, change in the economy,
Wright and Pandey (2010) presented some important questions involving relationships such as the higher the level of top down authority, the lower the possibilities to practice behaviors conducting to transformation in the organization. Wright and Pandey (2010) also question if the lower the levels of horizontal and ascending communication in an organization lowered the possibilities for the practice of behaviors leading to business transformations. Also, Wright and Pandey (2010) question if calculations of performance were associated with substantial growth in transformational leadership behaviors. In addition, Wright and Pandey’s (2010) article questioned if the more formalization and human resources procurement the less th...
Organizations operate in a turbulent environment that forces them to change even against their will to do so. Every organization has a fair prediction of its future that is why they all spend time and resources to put in place strategic plans. More often they get challenged not to follow these plans because they fail to appreciate that change is a natural phenomenon which is intimately entwined with continuity and that change-continuity continuum is what defines organ...
Gibson, J.L., Ivancevich, J.M., Donnelly, J.H., & Konopaske, R. (2009). Organizations: Behaviors, structure, processes (13th ed.) New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Jones, G. R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change. 6th Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
Path-goal theory deals with the leader's style to motivate followers, to accomplish set goals (Northouse, 2010). The path-goal theory is simply the implication that a leader works with an individual to establish a goal. The leader does this by individual motivation to achieve the proposed goal, while working through obstacles that may hinder achieving that goal (Whitener, 2007). The basic assumption of path-goal theory is that the following motivates subordinates: the capability to perform the work, their efforts will result in a certain outcome, and the payoff will be worthwhile (Whitener, 2007). The path-goal theory is a pragmatic approach that the leader uses to motivate the followers to achieve the set goals.
Organizations must operate within structures that allow them to perform at their best within their given environments. According to theorists T. Burns and G.M Stalker (1961), organizations require structures that will allow them to adapt and react to changes in the environment (Mechanistic vs Organic Structures, 2009). Toyota Company’s corporate structure is spelt out as one where the management team and employees conduct operations and make decisions through a system of checks and balances.
At the core of every successful organization lies that specific organization’s application of the basic principles of organization development. In the book written by Carter (2004) entitled Best Practices in Leadership Development and Organization Change, the concept of organization development was defined as an organization-wide effort and conceptual initiative intended to increase an organization’s viability and effectiveness. In most cases, organization development is described as a change initiative and educational strategy aimed at changing the values, beliefs, attitudes, as well as the structure of an organization for the betterment and improvement of the overall firm’s performance. On the other hand, some organizational analysts argue that while organization development may include a long list of change efforts initiative and implemented by a firm, this does not necessarily mean that such changes in the organization may bring about positive impact or consequences on the firm’s performance (Carter, 2004).
One of the first scholars to describe the process of organizational change was Lewin (1974). He described change as a three-stage process that consists of unfreezing, moving and freezing stage. During the unfreezing stage the organizations become motivated to change by some event or objective. The moving stage is like implementation when the organization actually makes the necessary change. Furthermore the freezing stage is reached when the change becomes permanent. Organizational change has also...
... and incentives to implement strategy. The importance of structure persists even in the face of the growth of the internet, globalization, and changing demographics of the workforce.