Organizational design made feasible

books:


	• Competing by Design: The Power of Organizational Architecture David Nadler, Michael Tushman Oxford University Press, USA, 1997 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"The Lessons of Design."

"Today, more and more companies are coming to realize that they can't hope to compete successfully in the twenty-first century with organizations based on nineteenth-century design. Radically different organizational architectures are emerging in much the same fashion as new schools of physical architecture...In order to perform effectively, the new architectures require new collateral technologies. In particular, they demand new leadership skills, new methods for selecting and developing key people, new human resources approaches to assessment and reward, and new techniques for enhancing the organization's capacity for collective learning...In this book, we consider a number of leading companies in the United States and around the world that are developing their own versions of the new architecture.(pp.7-10)."

Throughout this study, David A. Nadler and Michael L. Tushman present a comprehensive, balanced approach to design that recognizes the technical requirements, human dynamics, and strategic demands of successful design in any organization or business unit.

Nadler and Tushman summarize the ten basic themes that capture the essence of this book :

1. Organizational capabilities represent the last truly sustainable source of competitive advantage.

2. Organizational architecture provides a conceptual framework for employing strategic design to develop organizational capabilities.

3. At every level of the organization, design constitutes one of the most powerful tools for shaping performance.

4. Regardless of its scope or scale, there are certain fundamental concepts that apply to design at every level.

5. There is a logical sequence of actions and decisions that applies to the design process at any level of the organization.

6. There are no perfect design; the design process requires the weighing of choices and the balancing of trade-offs.

7.The best designs draw upon the knowledge, experience, and expertise of people throughout the organization.

8. Even the best designs can be derailed by ill-planned, poorly executed implementation.

9. As continual redesign becomes a fact of life, successful organizations will learn to create flexible architectures that can accommodate constant change.

10. Flexible architectures and designs that leverage competitive strengths will themselves become the ultimate competitive weapons.

I highly recommend.

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Good Start

This is a very good start for Org Design consultants. The book correct addresses the key principles in designing an organization (Chap. 3) and explores the key issues that affect the key crucial design issues (Chap. 4). Don't wait for a "how to" book, this is much more a "what" one.

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Excellent overview

This is a good book for both practitioners and academics. Full coverage of many topics.

Organizational design made feasible

Competing by design is a great source for for anybody who thinks about organizational design. After having read it, you will never consider "cocktail-napkin" designs again, and you will recognize when you see a design created that way. The book doesn't only explain the basic elements of design, but also the do's and dont's of a design project. The structure of the book is very well-conceived, and the level of detail is just right: Focus on the important steps, best practices and lessons, with enough backup examples, and without boring repetitions or lenghthy explanations. I'm not sure you will sleep better after having read the book, as the size of the design project becomes clear, but you will certainly have the tools to make the process a successful one.

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If the defining goal of modern-day business can be isolated to just one item, it would be the search for competitive advantage. And, as everyone in business knows, it's a lot harder than it used to be. On the one hand, competition is more intense than ever--technological innovation, consumer expectations, government deregulation, all combine to create more opportunities for new competitors to change the basic rules of the game. On the other hand, most of the old reliable sources of competitive advantage are drying up: the hallowed strategies employed by GM, IBM, and AT&T to maintain their seemingly unassailable positions of dominance in the 1960s and 70s are as obsolete as the calvary charge. So in this volatile, unstable environment, where can competitive advantage be found?
As David Nadler and Michael Tushman show, the last remaining source of truly sustainable competitive advantage lies in "organizational capabilities": the unique ways each organization structures its work and motivates its people to achieve clearly articulated strategic objectives. For too long, too many managers have thought about "organization" merely in terms of rearranging the boxes and lines on an organizational chart--but as Competing by Design clearly illustrates, organizational strength is found far beyond one-dimensional diagrams. Managers must, argue Nadler and Tushman, understand the concepts and learn the skills involved in designing their organization to exploit their inherent strengths. All the reengineering, restructuring, and downsizing in the world will merely destabilize a company if the change doesn't address the fundamental patterns of performance--and if the change doesn't recognize the unique core competencies of that company. In this landmark volume, the authors draw upon specific cases to illustrate the design process in practice as they provide a set of powerful, yet simple tools, for using strategic organization design to gain competitive advantage. They present a design process, explore key decisions managers face, and list the guiding principles for incorporating the design function as a continuing and integral process in organizations that are looking to the future.
In 1918, Henry Ford's Dearborn assembly plant was the model of the new assembly-line technology. Today, the assembly plant is an aging relic, but, incredibly, the organizational architecture it spawned lives on in steep hierarchies, centralized bureaucracies, and narrowly defined jobs. As companies are coming to realize they can't compete successfully in the 21st century with organizations based on 19th century ideas, Competing by Design shows clearly and persuasively why--and, most importantly how--to harness the power of organizational architecture to unleash the competitive strengths embedded in each organization.

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