Disaggregate the organization

“The challenge is to create large-scale organizations without losing human scale.”

To intercept opportunities that come and go at lightning speed, organizations must be able to quickly reconfigure capabilities, infrastructure, and resources. Unfortunately, in many organizations, rigid unit boundaries, functional silos, and political fiefdoms hamper the rapid realignment of skills and assets. Large organizational units that encompass hundreds or thousands of employees pose another danger, as they often lead to groupthink on a grand scale. To become more adaptable, companies must organize themselves into smaller units and create fluid, project-based structures.

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191 Stories
10 Barriers

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Innovation Democracy: W.L. Gore's Original Management Model

With Shirley Spence It’s hard to talk about management innovation without tipping your hat to W.L. Gore, the venerable maker of Gore-Tex and a host of other pioneering materials and products as... Read more

Story by Gary Hamel on December 29, 2010 10 Comments

Creating a Knowledge Ecology for Public Services

Staff working in the public sector (Government, Local Government and Agencies) –are – for the main part – working on very similar agendas. Ultimately to deliver more efficient, more effective and... Read more

Story by Stephen Dale on October 11, 2011 0 Comments

Fast Cycle Teamwork: revving up our communication, collaboration and coordination as a team

Agility requires us to rev up the frequency of our communication, collaboration and coordination as a team. As the world continues to rev up, we must rev up with it, to handle the dynamic... Read more

Barrier by Mike Richardson on November 2, 2010 15 Comments

Tongal: A 21st century business model for finding top talent and putting them to work on something they love

Tongal circumvents the traditional Madison Avenue system, by using the internet to bring together talent around the world, and the organizations who need them to create winning advertising. Tongal... Read more

Story by James DeJulio on October 18, 2010 7 Comments

Leadership Development- A Colour Cube Approach

Colour Cube focuses on creating small “diagonal” network groups across the organisations. People are selected from different parts of the organisation from different layers to form one Cube.... Read more

Hack by Albin Abraham on October 3, 2011 0 Comments

Don’t Just Flatten the Organization, Make Everyone Accountable for Flattening Time-Sucking Bureaucratic Systems

Life in a large organization can often feel like a few moments of inspiration and innovation surrounded by a lifetime of sitting on conference calls, filling out forms, and creating PowerPoint... Read more

Hack by Chris Grams on June 21, 2011 5 Comments

Combating disbelief and indifference in surfacing a basic innovation that harnesses technology to drive success

Fundamental infrastructure innovations must overcome a steeper than normal entry barrier. The market-place considers them an avoidable adventure regardless of need. Early adopters are rare. The... Read more

Story by Raj Kumar on November 12, 2010 11 Comments

How Microsoft Netherlands Reinvented the Way of Work (really)

This case study shows how Microsoft Netherlands (MS Netherlands) successfully implemented a radical and wide-ranging change to its management approach. Basically, they completely reinvented their way... Read more

Story by Michael HIRT on December 16, 2011 4 Comments

The "man" now works for me

Let’s turn employment on its head. Instead of employees working for the employer, let’s make the employer work for the employees. Actually, let’s just retire the concepts of employer and employee.... Read more

Hack by Adam Schorr on June 27, 2011 0 Comments

Equity Market 4.0: A 'Central Brain' to organise community innovation, collaboration, wisdom and effort to achieve a global capital market

If you could create a “Central Brain” in 5 days to focus the effort and wisdom of 2 Billion people, what problem would you solve? What social, industrial or political endeavour would you transform... Read more

Hack by Marcus Cake on July 18, 2011 4 Comments

Restoring Faith in the Institution: How Mission Shaped Communities Revitalized St Andrews

An Anglican parish launches a bold experiment with a radical model of how to “do church,” by replacing hierarchy with communities of passion, and unleashing the capabilities of its congregation... Read more

Story by Drew Williams on December 9, 2010 5 Comments

A Company Run By Self-Managed Teams

Inspired by Gary Hamel's "The Future of Management", I facilitated the transformation of one of my company's business units from a 20th century hierarchical management ... Read more

Story by Alyson Huntington-Jones on February 20, 2011 17 Comments