Highlights
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An organization can be defined as collective action structured for the pursuit of a common mission.
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Believing there is one best way to structure organizations is the worst way to manage them.
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(Beyond this, we find cultures in occupations, such as medicine, in functions within an organization, say sales compared with marketing, and, of course, in nations, say German compared with Italian.)
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These days, the most popular depiction of the organization is as a chain, where work is seen to flow in a linear sequence.
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A hub is a coordinating center, a focal point of activity.
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Webs, or networks, are open-ended movement of people, information, and/or materials, with no fixed sequence or center.
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But a set: The parts are “loosely coupled,” barely connecting with each other.
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In a chain, the answer seems obvious. On top. On top of the horizontal chain of operations is built the vertical chain of command—a manager for each link and a manager for all managers.
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In a hub, however, a manager who is on top of it is out of it (in both senses of the term). The manager has to be in the center, where the action is.
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So where to find the manager in a web? Everywhere—along every line and at all the nodes.
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intended strategies that are realized can be called deliberate, and realized strategies that were not intended can be called emergent: the organization made its way to the strategy action by action.
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Apparently, then, few strategies are purely deliberate or purely emergent. Most combine the two. And why not? Organizations don’t just plan, they learn. They don’t just think to get strategy; they also do in order to see strategy. Strategy is about synthesis, and you don’t get synthesis from analysis. Analysis can help, but as an input, not the process.
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The planning model postulates that strategies are formulated as deliberate positions by senior management, with the support of staff planners, to be implemented by everyone else. The visioning model sees strategy as deliberate perspective, created in the mind of a visionary who has deep experience and creative insights. Within this vision, detailed strategic positions can emerge. The venturing model suggests that a thousand strategic positions bloom, so to speak, in the form of new ventures championed by all sorts of people and groups in the organization. These positions may be deliberate for them, but can be emergent—that is, unexpected—for the rest of the organization. The learning model is about doing first: strategic positions and perspective emerge through a process of trial-and-error learning, as active and informed individuals all over the organization reinforce each other’s successes.
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The overuse of science, especially in an obsessive reliance on measurement, has become the scourge of “modern” management.
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Using mutual adjustment, people coordinate directly, through conversation or otherwise, web-like.
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direct supervision comes from a manager who, at the center of a hub, can grasp the whole of a situation in his or her head, and thus coordinate the work of others by informing them what to do.
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Organizations that are rule-bound, with most of their operating work standardized, are known as bureaucracies.
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If the work itself cannot be standardized, sometimes the outputs or results of it can be.
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Standardized norms (or values) commit people to common beliefs that enable them to coordinate with each other.
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While many organizations favor one of the mechanisms of coordination, few can get by without using several, usually all.