Search Results - organization

Blog Post: All About Human Resource Development: Human resource is one of the most essential resources for any organization and its development that is if the organization is self-motivated and growth oriented. Unlike the other essential…; Added by Rahil Desoza at 8:04am on February 6, 2016

Blog Post: TLS Continuum Part 27: 8 Strategies to remove fear from your organization: In last week’s blog I talked about being willing within the organization to…; Added by Daniel T. Bloom at 9:27am on November 20, 2015

Blog Post: TLS Continuum Part 21: You are the bane of my existence so be gone out my world: You make a phone call to your credit card company and you get caught in the virtual whirlpool as the VM system takes you through all the options. One of the continuing recordings says “in order to…; Added by Daniel T. Bloom at 11:40am on September 25, 2015

Blog Post: Who Really Matters in the Global Workplace?: The third installment in the TLS Continuum series is devoted to discovering…; Added by Daniel T. Bloom at 11:28am on January 9, 2015

Blog Post: Recruitment for Organizational Development Professionals

Organizational development is a…

Added by Josh Mangum at 9:03am on January 8, 2019

Blog Post: TLS Continuum Part 50: A few little steps can lead to greater steps: My blog post from last week stressed that we should not measure for the sake of measuring. The same concept goes for determining what projects to begin. I do not care whether you are an IBM or the…; Added by Daniel T. Bloom at 9:48pm on June 3, 2016

Blog Post: Turning Your Organization Upside Down: Turning Your Organization Upside Down- excellent blog post by Jim Clemmer about running a…; Added by Sue Orr at 3:39pm on April 13, 2015

Blog Post: Retain Your Employees: A Few Ideas

We’ve been considering the assessment year at a organization, when managers must fix employees’ “interpersonal” and “teamwork”…

Added by Joel Cheesman at 4:16pm on June 13, 2013

Blog Post: You can't see the picture if you are inside the frame: On the way to the Veterinarian’s for an emergency run, we passed a church whose billboard stated “You can’t see the picture, if you are inside the frame.” The statement clearly applies to both our…; Added by Daniel T. Bloom at 9:33pm on November 6, 2014

Topic: Hiearchical Versus Flat Organizations: Your Company is Likely Both: ation (flat, democratic), most organizations are moving toward the latter for a number of reasons, notably: * To become more organizational agile and adaptive. Flatter organizations typically make quicker decisions than tall ones. Bureaucratic organizations often lag in terms of decision-making because of the necessity for multiple sign-offs or reviews. * To increase organizational resiliency. Flatter organizations typically follow 'small-world phenomenon' and have short routes between nodes (people, teams, etc.) As such, they are resilient to network 'attacks' or disruptions, such as retirement, resignation, etc. When one path disappears, there are others to carry information. * The Knowledge Economy isn't geographically constrained, meaning the global nature of business today creates a significant multiplier effect to the lack of organizational agility, adaptability, and resiliency. And while the above factors create a pressing case to move toward a flat, matrix-style organization, we cannot ignore the concept of tensegrity. Tensegrity describes "tensional integrity", or a property of structures with an integrity based on tension and compression components. According to Buckminster Fuller, "Tensegrity provides the ability to yield increasingly without ultimately breaking or coming asunder." In other words, just as tensegrity is used in modern architecture (see the Needle Tower in the photograph), it also is a key component of what keeps organizations together. Tensegrity allows for a natural "push-and-pull" in which hierarchical structures co-exist with matrix structures within the same organization to form a sort of invisible equilibrium. When this equilibrium begins to lose way, tensegrity is lost and the entire structure collapses. As such, Andrew McAfee is correct when he states that, "In other words, do we agree that a social revolution is taking place in business today? That corporate hierarchies are being replaced by self-organizing and -governing networks? If they are, I haven’t seen it." Andrew is not going to see an all-out shift, or disruptive change that abandons formal hiearchy because it would completely compromise the organizational tensegrity, thereby collapsing the organization completely. Jon Ingham is also correct when he states that,"The social revolution doesn't necessarily require flat, democratic, collaborative, self-organization!" In fact, I'd suggest that a complete shift to this type of structure would also compromise tensegrity, thereby collapsing the organization entirely as well. In closing, let me suggest that your organization is likely both hierarchical and flat at the same time - it must be to maintain tensegrity and avoid collapse! Flat without Hierarchy is anarchy, while Hierarchy without Flat is austerity.…; Added by Joshua Letourneau at 10:18am on January 15, 2010