Principle-Based Organizational Structure: A Handbook to Help You Engineer Entrepreneurial Thinking and Teamwork into Organizations of Any Size

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

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.