Scenario A by ZHOU, Junze 53853876
A pyramid organizational structure is a
hierarchy with the executive level at the top and descending levels from middle
management to the lower levels of the organization. The idea behind the
structure is that each upper level is able to function because of support from
the lower portions of the pyramid.
Pyramid-like organizational structures are commonplace (La Porta,
Lopez-de-Silanes, and Shleifer, 1999; Claessens, Djankov, and Lang, 2000;
Khanna and Yafeh, 2007). On the apex of a pyramid sits a controlling owner who
controls a firm indirectly through layers of intermediate companies.
During the role play we found some interesting phenomenon. The
supervisor wanted to control the whole project to move forward as he decided.
Teammates only have rights to obey the order, though they could give ideas and
advice. The atmosphere in the meeting is depressive and some people even feel
hard to breathe. They are afraid to get blame from the supervisor.
After the role play we wanted to get more information about the
reasons for the phenomenon. At last we realized that centralization should be
the major reason which is the most dominant feature of this structure.
Centralization is the degree to which the tip of the
organizational pyramid is top-weighted. In highly centralized organizations,
decision making tends to be highly concentrated at the top of the structure,
leaving less autonomy for individual workers to make decisions. This often
works hand-in-hand with formalization, which is the degree to which the rules
about communication and decision making must be followed, and how complicated
they are. Highly centralized and formalized organizations tend to have very
rigid structures.
The higher a person is in this structure, the more authority he
has, but also more responsibilities.
Because of the feature centralization of pyramid organization
structure, the communication has some unique traits.
In this structure employees receive their policy directions and
day-to-day assignments from their direct manager, who interprets orders from
the top, and employees send information about their work as well as their ideas
up the hierarchical structure, reporting first to their direct manager.
This organization structure is like the structure of army, members
know to whom they report and who reports to them. This means that communication
gets channeled along defined and predictable paths, which allows those higher
in the organization to direct questions to the appropriate parties. It also
means that individuals tend to know who does and does not possess the authority
to assign or change tasks. A clear chain of command also generates clearly
defined sets of responsibilities. Military structures rely heavily on this
division and assignment of responsibility and authority to maintain discipline.
As hierarchical organizational structures tend to
channel communication vertically, interdepartmental or inter-agency
communication suffers. Departmental specialization can lead to communication
barriers when no shared jargon exists that allow members of different
departments to communicate on the same level. In worst-case scenarios,
departments purposefully withhold information from each other.
People are more likely to develop into cliques, which in turn
compete for power. You don't just see this kind of competition at the
departmental level. Managers might become territorial about their own
department, and they might more often approach organizational-level issues from
their own departmental perspective.
As we have mentioned before, the structure is rigid. Hierarchical
organizations inhibit timely transformations, which are essential if a business
is to survive in a rapidly changing environment. Organizations that cannot
adapt to new market demands or advancing technologies in pace with or ahead of
other organizations often end up marginalized.
Creative thinking refers to how people
approach problems and solutions-their capacity to put existing ideas together
in new combinations. The skill itself de-pends quite a bit on personality as
well as on how a person thinks and works (Teresa
M. Amabile. May 2009). Employees need flexibility to share ideas with you and with
others in the company.
They are the people who interact directly with suppliers and
customers. If you select a flexible structure, such as self-governing teams,
you provide more ways for employees to be innovative. The top-down
decision-making structure means that business units are unable to respond
rapidly to competitive threats. Make this choice with the realization that the
allocation of power is not the same; with teams, there is a democratic method
of dividing up work, but this comes with joint responsibility. Hierarchical
systems can stifle creativity and innovation.
Scenario B by Ling Beibei 53846559
Structure of the organization
In this
scenario, the organization was structured as a flat one. Although in this
scenario the team still has a supervisor, the power distance between he and his
subordinate was much less than it is in the scenario A. It is more like the
picture shows, there is a key person (the supervisor) in the team, but he is on
the same flat with the team members.
Because
Power distance is one element of Hofstede’s Cultural
Dimensions model (Hofstede,
Geert 1984), this model is used to analysis the culture differences, when the
elements changed we can equally take it as culture changed. That means the
organizational culture is changed.
Communication regulation
Based on
the McKINSEY 7-S Framework (Robert H. Waterman, Jr. and Tom Peters 1982), we
changed the communication regulations.
On the first stage, structure changed
which impact the “shared value” (culture) of the organization. In
order to maintain the alignment, we changed the communication regulation
(style) accordingly.
The new
communication regulation shows bellow:
1. Peers
can communicate with each other freely.
2. It is
not necessary to ask for an approval from supervisor unless for critical
factors, such final decision.
3. Team
members are encouraged to make mistakes.
Generally
speaking, team members are delegated more authority and have more freedom to
manage the creativity. A Peer Culture is applied
in this scenario-“the way people at all levels support one another. Everyone is
fully invested in helping everyone else turn out the best work. They really do
feel that it’s all for one and one for all. Nothing
exemplifies this more than our creative brain trust and our daily review
process.” (Ed Catmull, 2008)
Feeling analysis
Supervisor had to
explain the task to everyone very clearly and be sure that everyone was on the
same page of what to do and when to complete. This part took time, because
everyone held different perspectives and always tried to discuss instead of
listening.
After the kick off
meeting, supervisor had been released from the meaning less administration
tasks and good delegation practice made sure that everyone had his own
responsibility and know what to do.
During the
discussion, supervisor only did process checking twice to make sure every thing
would be completed on time and to see wether there were any challengers need
his support.
Team
members were more enthusiastic in this task. Because of the freedom of
communication with peers, the team members generate more ideas than it in the
scenario A.
What makes
them feel frustrated was that when there was a person who was to tough and
dominant， the discussion was very hard to continue. This dominant person
will automatically took the leader role. In this situation, team members had to
start a negotiation process. It also took time and very easy to drive the
discussion beside the point.
General comments of Scenario B
Generally
speaking the open culture is more effective and workable for creative tasks, since the knowledge transformation
process is a good approach to turning creative ideas into innovations in
organizations. Team members
can stimulate each other and help each other to generate more ideas.
The
premises of a good collaboration under this scenario are these as bellow:
1.
Supervisor gives a good instruction and guideline of what to achieve
2. Team members have good communication skills and build up trust
quickly. The ability to
quickly establish and build trust is becoming even more important in today,
where partnerships and strategic alliances are common practice.
3. Team
members share the team role(R Meredith Belbin 2010) efficiently.
There are different roles in a team, sometime one person takes one
role, but some time one person takes more than one role or more than one person
who take one roles. If there is a role conflict, the collaboration will be very
likely to fail.
4. The
risks are put ahead of the collaboration started.
Since the
team is more self-organized, the collaboration risks are put ahead of the
beginning of collaboration. Supervisor need to have a sense of team members
characters which will impact what kind of role they are going to take in the
team. And this kind of understanding will be very helpful in the group forming
stage(Gina Abudi, 2010 )
Reference
La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F., Shleifer, A., 1999. Corporate
Ownership around the World. The Journal of Finance 54, 471-518.
John Kotter. Hierarchy
and Network: Two Structures, One Organization. May 2011.Havard Business Review.
Teresa M. Amabile. How to kill
creativity. May 2009.Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions.
Hofstede, Geert. Culture's Consequences:
International Differences in Work-Related
Values (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills CA: SAGE
Publications.
Robert H. Waterman, Jr. and Tom Peters
(1982). In Search of Excellence.
Ed Catmull, hbr.org | September
2008 | Harvard Business Review 69
R Meredith Belbin, Team Roles at Work,
(Butterworth Heinemann, 2nd ed., 2010)
Gina Abudi The Five Stages of
Project Team Development, 2010
