Principle-based Organizational Structure: a handbook to help you engineer entrepreneurial thinking and teamwork into organizations of any size - Hardcover

N. Dean Meyer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1892606321 ISBN 13: 9781892606327

Publisher: NDMA Publishing, 2017

Synopsis

Look at any organization chart and know who's fighting with whom, who's not making objectives, and who has ulcers!

Organizational structure is not a matter of intuition, fads, or simplistic models. And it shouldn't be based on today's projects, or the personalities and careers of senior leaders. Structure is an engineering science, with firm principles and constructs.

This is the definitive book on that practical science of organizational structure, the culmination of over 30 years of study and practical experiences implementing restructurings in dozens of diverse organizations.

Far beyond the traditional HR literature, this book is based on the "business-within-a-business" paradigm, where every manager thinks and acts like an entrepreneur running a small business within large organizations. An organization designed around internal lines of business (not traditional roles and responsibilities) induces innovation, accountability, cost control, customer focus, and great teamwork.

The book describes clear principles for the design of organization charts, and it's chock full of stories and case studies that bring those principles to life.

It also explains how to build explicit, yet flexible, cross-boundary teamwork, the antidote to a "silo" mentality.

And it describes a step-by-step change-management process to implement structural change in an open, participative way.

This book is a rare combination of vision and practicality, solid science and pragmatic guidance.

This book contains:

• Case study: A CEO who successfully restructured a company for growth
• Over 30 case studies of structures designed to fail
• Seven essential principles of organizational structure
• The five lines of business that exist within any organization -- the "Building Blocks" of structure
• How to look at any organization chart and anticipate its problems
• How to design an optimal structure for your unique organization
• How to build high-performance teamwork into your organization
• Clear explanation of the fundamental trade-offs of decentralization and outsourcing
• How to build a shared-services organization, and deal with decentralization
• A step-by-step process for restructuring (including consolidations and acquisition integration)

List of Case Studies....

• A CEO Who Has Applied the Principles of Structure
• Combining Invention and Operations: Airline
• Combining Sales and Coordination: Higher Education
• Process Owners
• The CFO Who Mandates Others' Budgets
• Customer Service Held Accountable for Resolving Incidents
• Mandating "How" Instead of "What"
• Customer-centric Structure
• Vague Domains -- IT Infrastructure versus Enterprise Architecture
• Gaps -- Layers of Engineering
• The Evils of Roles and Responsibilities
• Structure by Clients' Business Processes
• The Governance and Client Liaison Group
• Combining Invention and Operations: IT
• Combining Invention and Operations: Corporate Acquisitions
• Benefits of Separating Purpose-specific Solutions from Components
• Process-centric Groups
• Safety Group that's Accountable for Safety
• Managers as Client Liaisons
• Decentralization: Manufacturing Plants
• Decentralization: Design Engineering
• Decentralization: IT
• Plan-Build-Run
• New Versus Old
• Quick Versus Slow (Bi-modal)
• The Pool
• Holacracy: Disempowerment of Management
• Good Reasons for the Wrong Basis for Substructure: Sales by Product Type
• The PMO that Manages Projects
• Chief Compliance Officer Accountable for Compliance
• What Not to Do to Improve Teamwork
• Silo Organization: Manufacturing Plants and Scheduling
• Transformational Benefits

About this title

About the Author

Dean Meyer has been studying organizational structure for over 30 years, and has implemented open, participative, principle-based restructuring processes in dozens of corporate, non-profit, and government organizations. His practical experience is clearly demonstrated in this book; it s clear guidelines and practical change-management processes are illustrated by 35 stories and case studies. Meyer s long background implementing the business within a business paradigm, where every manager thinks and acts like an entrepreneur running a small business, takes this book far beyond traditional HR literature. Meyer shows how an organizational structure designed around internal lines of business (not traditional roles and responsibilities) induces innovation, accountability, cost control, customer focus, and great teamwork. Meyer s work is a rare combination of vision and practicality, solid science and pragmatic guidance.

Review

What people have said about the book:

"Structure is a science? Structure is more fundamental than processes? Than strategies? Than even people? Shared-services is not chargebacks? Every manager is an entrepreneur? Dotted lines/matrix/federated models -- all wrong? Wow, this book blew away the fads and 'common wisdom' (which turns out to be unwise), and opened my eyes to a completely new, refreshing, powerful, and pragmatic understanding of organizations. A great read. Great work."
-- Chris S. Romano, CIO, Legal Industry

"I've been part of the senior leadership of a variety of organizations -- start-ups to large, and medium- to high-growth companies -- and I never looked at organizational design as a science. This book makes tremendous sense to me. It's profound, and at the same time, practical."
-- Ulrich Pilz, Board Director, multiple companies

"Other books I've read on structure present lots of theories, but no clear guidance. This is breakthrough thinking, and yet Dean makes it so practical and accessible that is seems like common sense."
-- Pat Beach, Director, Corporate IT, SRC Inc.

"This is the first book I've read on organizational structure that makes sense in the real world, hangs together, and comes with an instruction manual on how to implement change."
-- Fred Dewey, CEO and Serial Entrepreneur

"In this era of dramatic change fueled by technology, enterprises large and small will inevitably restructure to add new roles and functions, and to create new levels of cross-functional collaboration. Dean Meyer brings a set of principles and practices for organizational structure that every executive, from the CEO down, can use to maximize organizational effectiveness. Every leader with responsibility for structuring any part of the enterprise will profit from the lessons Meyer lays out here."
-- Richard Hunter, VP and Distinguished Analyst, Gartner

"This book gives me a transformational approach to redesigning my organization. It's based upon solid engineering and business practices. It tells me how to build really effective enterprise teamwork. And the suggested implementation process ensures success through the engagement of my staff in the design process. As a bonus, it's well written and easily understood, with frequent summaries of key points."
-- Karan Powell, President, American Public University

"Market leadership depends on innovative growth strategies, translated into deployable growth initiatives, and an organization that can execute. Principle-based Organizational Structure lays out how to build that organization."
-- Michael Treacy, best-selling author, The Discipline of Market Leaders

"I've applied these principles to my entire company, and it has been an engine for our growth."
-- Sergio Paiz, CEO, PDC

--Additional reviews from the front of the book:

"As the CEO of a global leader in building automation, this book showed me how to better align regional organizations with the corporate strategy."
-- Lars vander Haegen, CEO, Belimo

"This book systematically transforms the mystique of organizational design into an open, rational engineering science. It explains how to mature an organization without losing its entrepreneurial spirit, a key ingredient of 'crossing the chasm.'"
-- Geoff Moore, best-selling author, Crossing the Chasm

"Our multinational chain of fashion and cosmetics retail stores is not a large company; but nonetheless, we had organizational issues. And I had difficulty sorting out individual performance problems from structural problems. Now, thanks to these Principles, my leaders have clear accountabilities; we understand how we team; and we can take on new brands and open new stores without having to make arbitrary assignments or rethink our structure."
-- Alejandro Arzu, President and CEO, Multinational Brand Management Group

"I've applied these principles in organizations as small as 20 people (as well as much bigger ones), and it's always produced powerful insights and practical and effective organization charts that drove real team behavior change."
-- Gary Rietz, CIO, Blommer Chocolate Company

"As a CIO, I've led organizations that ranged from hundreds of employees regionally to thousands globally. And in each case, I've implemented these principles of structure. This powerful, yet pragmatic, approach consistently leads to improved role clarity; better teamwork; customer focus; entrepreneurship; improved performance; and commitment. I use the principles as a forensic tool to give me insights about the structure I've inherited. And they provide a basis for a participative change process that allows my leadership team to contribute their knowledge and build an organization they truly understand and support. Frankly, after studying and applying these principles repeatedly, I can't imagine why other executives would depend on their intuitions, or repeat the mistakes others have made under the guise of 'best practices.' I encourage you to read this book before you make any decisions about organizational structure."
-- Preston T. Simons, CIO, Aurora Health Care and former CIO, Abbott Laboratories

"The book is a clean, crisp read, distilling more than 30 years of research about organizational design into straightforward recommendations. When I took my first management class, many years ago, I was told: 'The No. 1 problem in American business is lack of clear roles and responsibilities.' If you follow the principles in this book, that won't be a problem."
-- Mitch Betts, former executive editor of CIO and Computerworld magazines

--(Selection of reviews / quotations from the front of the book.)

Edition details

• Publisher: NDMA Publishing
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1892606321
• ISBN 13: 9781892606327
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448