Typically, corporate org charts are hierarchical, with each operating division isolated into “silos” showing job titles according to reporting chain of command and ultimate authority. The CEO and SVPs get the higher positions and bigger boxes; the little boxes represent the expendable worker “bees.”
The Disney org chart, on the other hand, is based on process, from the story idea through direction to the final release of the film. All of the staff positions are in the service of supporting this work flow. Perhaps the question now is what should the org chart of the future look like, given the global workforce, telecommuting personnel, virtual employees, outsourced jobs and contract workers who sometimes outnumber salaried staff? In an idea-based, rather than a manufacturing-based, economy, how should a business organize itself? via www.atissuejournal.com
That's the challenge isn't it?
How does an organization organize itself to hear the ideas of their stakeholders while at the same time bringing them efficiently to life, to the markets, to the other stakeholders they serve?
In a global economy, where new ideas move rapidly to commodity hell with the accompanying decline in prices, profits, cash-flows and the parallel rush into oblivion this is a key question. The structure, the means to hear everyone's ideas, then efficiently filter them into new products, services and business models to reach new markets and to replace those who have marched into oblivion, is the structure that brings employee engagement. Or doesn't.
These ideas are what separates companies. Those with them, grow. Those without them, die.
Said another way, those with engaged employees grow; those without them, die.
John Hagel talked about this in the great book he co-authored The Power of Pull: How Small Moves Smartly Made Can Set Big Things in Motion. ( I read this title and I hear leveraging your key resources: people, technology, cash-flows.)
How do your organize so that you can pull ideas and their resources to bring them to life on a JIT, just-in-time, basis? How do you organize yourself to pull in new ideas from newly converted stakeholders? Pulling them, their ideas, connects you to their world of more stakeholders with more ideas with more...desire for your organization.
Molly Anderson talked about this in The Corporate Lattice she co-authored with Cathy Benko. The old hierarchy, top-down, command and control, my idea and you execute it...no longer meets the needs of this global economy.
Gary Harpst, founder of Six Disciplinestalked about creating a culture of learning. Organizations must constantly learn new tools, new resources, new ideas, new models. Doing that, creating a culture of learning, is the key to creating a culture of leaders. Like Walt Disney.
Alvin Toffler wrote:
“The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”
How do you create an organization with an open-source learning environment where ideas and solutions are freely shared, while at the same time you are able to efficiently share them with all your stakeholders...and they with theirs?
I found this graphic online some time ago and LOVE it... I love both the old school design, and then the visual explanation of the operation.
While dates from the 1940s it would still work as a tool for corporations today!
Paul
Posted by: Paul (from Idea Sandbox) | June 07, 2011 at 08:08 AM