We often “throw around" vague words like "successful, effective, and great” but what do these words really mean? When it comes to organizations what is “great”? Some have defined “great” as stock price over a period of years compared to other similar companies (e.g., Collins, 2001). While financial performance is an essential outcome to be great, by itself, is not a complete definition of truly sustainable excellence or great. Defining …
Organization Design – What is it and Why is it Important?
What is organization design? From our perspective organization design is the alignment of the stakeholders and their needs, with the strategy of the organization, the organization systems and processes, and a comprehensive scorecard. These four “cornerstones" are held together by the culture (values, symbols, rituals, and heroes) that support and bring the systems and strategy to “life." The rituals, symbols, and heroes of the organization make …
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Organization Design – Key Elements
Some people say organizations don’t actually exist because they’re not physical things, but rather concepts or collections of concepts. However, there are a lot of physical things or artifacts that communicate what an organization is and how it works. So if we think about an organization as information, then there are many artifacts that represent the design of the organization and the main ideas and concepts. Everything from understanding the …
Organization Design – Importance of Alignment
In this segment of The Everyday Innovator video podcast, Dr. Chad McAllister and I discuss the issue of growing up in silos and how alignment and integration is a key organization design concept. CHAD Designing the elements, like strategy, metrics, the things you mentioned, that make the organization the organization. I appreciate that you emphasize that the alignment between those, designing the alignment that is so important too. Just as a …
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Three Challenges
Systems Thinking The first challenge is developing a systems perspective and understanding of dynamic systems. We’ve been talking about this for over 50 years, and yet we still don’t teach it in most business schools. We train people in business schools in different disciplines. So much so that the professors, who are really good at their individual disciplines, often know the other people, researchers, and academics, in their discipline, around …
