Organ­i­sa­tion­al design — devel­op the full poten­tial

If we assume that employ­ees nev­er behave ran­dom­ly in organ­i­sa­tions, but are guid­ed by the applic­a­ble frame­work con­di­tions, it becomes clear how impor­tant organ­i­sa­tion­al design is. Togeth­er with the cor­po­rate cul­ture, the organ­i­sa­tion­al design forms the way we work togeth­er, the way we inter­act with each oth­er, but also the deci­sion-mak­ing process and eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy.

Which organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture we choose depends on how we under­stand organ­i­sa­tions. If, for exam­ple, we think of organ­i­sa­tions as machines, the answer for organ­i­sa­tion­al design is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent than if we see organ­i­sa­tions as liv­ing organ­isms or vital sys­tems. How­ev­er, the ide­al organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture also depends on oth­er com­po­nents, such as his­to­ry, cul­ture (cor­po­rate cul­ture, nation­al cul­ture, etc.), the exter­nal envi­ron­ment, the type of com­pa­ny, sec­tor, num­ber of employ­ees, divi­sion of labour, own­er­ship struc­ture, etc.

In his book “Rein­vent­ing Orga­ni­za­tions”, Fred­er­ic Laloux says that see­ing organ­i­sa­tions as machines seems soul­less and restric­tive. “The lead­ers of evo­lu­tion­ary organ­i­sa­tions do not want to play the role of the indis­pens­able man­ag­er who pulls the levers at the top and there­by sets the employ­ees below in motion, like cogs in a machine.” Gary Hamel & Michele Zani­ni go even fur­ther in their com­ments: „Our orga­ni­za­tions were designed to be inhu­man. As Max Weber not­ed more than a cen­tu­ry ago, ‘Bureau­cra­cy devel­ops the more per­fect­ly the more it is ‘dehu­man­ized’’. They are iner­tial. This isn’t the fault of sup­pos­ed­ly change-pho­bic employ­ees, but of top-down deci­sion struc­tures that cre­ate long lags between sense and respond. They are incre­men­tal.  That’s hard­ly sur­pris­ing, since bureau­cra­cy has lit­tle room for the curios­ity, intu­ition, play­ful­ness and dar­ing that ani­mates human cre­ativ­i­ty.

And they lack nobil­i­ty. How often in our orga­ni­za­tions do we hear talk of love, beau­ty, truth, courage, free­dom, and jus­tice? Bureau­cra­cies are emo­tion­al dead zones.

As a result, our orga­ni­za­tions are less adapt­able, cre­ative and inspir­ing than we are.“

Hier­ar­chy in organ­i­sa­tions

Why is the call for few­er work­ing hours per week so loud?

Why is the dis­cus­sion about work­ing from home or back to the office so diverse?

Why do so many peo­ple work so hard just to go to the sea­side for a fort­night?

Why do few­er and few­er peo­ple want to become man­agers?

Why would many fathers like to work less?

Why is there so much on the pro­gramme for lead­er­ship devel­op­ment?

Why are many peo­ple just wait­ing to be able to take a longer break or make plans for retire­ment?

The rea­son is sim­ple and wor­ry­ing. Many of our work­places are demo­ti­vat­ing and joy­less places where peo­ple are told what to do. They are per­form­ers with lit­tle oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute their tal­ents. As a result, they focus more on their free time and live out their dreams as pho­tog­ra­phers, as organ­is­ers of neigh­bour­hood events, as club lead­ers, in the cook­ing group, in the gar­den, as inquis­i­tive tourists or in the run­ning team. That’s won­der­ful too. How­ev­er, it is a shame that they are obvi­ous­ly not trust­ed to take on respon­si­bil­i­ty in organ­i­sa­tions. The organ­i­sa­tion­al design is not set up for this. Put sim­ply, the hier­ar­chy ensures that a small num­ber of man­agers take over the think­ing, steer­ing and coor­di­na­tion. In the process, they all too often lose the joy them­selves and end up in the ham­ster wheel, which ini­tial­ly promised fame and hon­our as an entic­ing temp­ta­tion and turned out to be a vicious cir­cle of “ever more and more inten­sive”.

The perSens organ­i­sa­tion

Our perSens approach shows the evo­lu­tion­ary path from today’s sit­u­a­tion, regard­less of whether it is a start-up, tra­di­tion­al craft busi­ness or cor­po­ra­tion, to a vital open organ­i­sa­tion — from shared respon­si­bil­i­ty to shared lead­er­ship to joint suc­cess.       

The organ­i­sa­tion­al design in the perSens organ­i­sa­tion thrives on the shared respon­si­bil­i­ties in the teams. Instead of a sin­gle pow­er hold­er, roles and tasks are sys­tem­i­cal­ly divid­ed accord­ing to the com­pe­tences and pos­si­bil­i­ties in the man­age­able teams. The var­i­ous role hold­ers meet in plat­forms to learn togeth­er, guar­an­tee qual­i­ty, exchange ideas and ensure a com­mon direc­tion. Depend­ing on the frame­work set at the begin­ning, many pre­vi­ous­ly hier­ar­chi­cal func­tions grad­u­al­ly migrate to defined teams and plat­forms.

We are always fas­ci­nat­ed by what peo­ple are real­ly capa­ble of and what pos­si­bil­i­ties lie dor­mant with­in them. In the perSens organ­i­sa­tion, they have a per­son­al and entre­pre­neur­ial impact.  Deci­sions are made on the spot and yet pru­dent­ly. Respon­si­bil­i­ty is assumed by those who real­ly know their way around — and all of this in an eager­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive and invit­ing­ly relaxed atmos­phere. We see that deci­sions are not delayed, but are made more quick­ly and con­flicts are resolved more direct­ly.

In our view, long-term ori­en­tat­ed com­pa­nies must con­stant­ly and con­scious­ly realign them­selves. We see organ­i­sa­tions as liv­ing, pul­sat­ing organ­isms in which peo­ple play the main role.

🚀 Only the right organ­i­sa­tion­al design can unleash this (dor­mant) poten­tial — and per­haps we will then dis­cov­er that our employ­ees are not only com­pe­tent col­leagues, but also fan­tas­tic bak­ers, cre­ative artists and ambi­tious ath­letes whose tal­ents are brought to bear in the organ­i­sa­tions for the ben­e­fit of the com­mu­ni­ty.   🌟