A new periodic feature. I wrote the following for another website. It describes the success that Glenn Mehltretter of PeopleFit has had in using Requiste Organization informed practices to create a better merger of two companies.
Mining Your Lower Ranks for Future Executives
Why is this such a new thought to people? One of the best places to find cheap high-potentials without all of the baggage of an MBA (CEOs who are MBA substantially underperform CEOs who rose through the ranks by a substantial margin) is under you nose. Well, actually it’s under you in the organisational chart. If I were a manager, …
Notes on W.L. Gore & Associates
Yes, there is a point to all of this. The key article is the business case study from Huizenga Business School at Nova Southeastern. Very handy. W.L. Gore & Associates is the fave of most postmodern organizational theorists, who see the company’s lack of official hierarchy as the true networked organization. I believe that Gore has a great culture, but …
Requisite Organization Lens On Software Development vs Maintenance
Some time ago, Gordon had an interesting comment about a couple of posts (see “Getting Work Done at the Right Level” and “Ready, Fire, Aim”: Intuition, Analysis and Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge). I wanted to finally get around to addressing some of his points. I’m reading this just after reading your “Ready, Fire, Aim…” post, and just wondering “how do …
Comics Editors and Requisite Organization and Software Development
Comics provides a great illustration of Jaques’s theories of work in clear practice.
“Getting Work Done at the Right Level”
“Getting Work Done at the Right Level: Why Hierarchy is Important” by Ken Shepard and Don Fowke. An introductory discussion of levels of organization. I’ve always wondered what Ken Shepard looks like.
What If You Were CEO? A Thought Experiment
A friend asked this question: “Well, if you were CEO, how would you do it?” Good question. This is a random thought experiment using the companies that I have experience with, mostly large multi-billion dollar companies, some based in the States and some in Europe, ranging from 15,000 (for a subdiary) to 100,000 employees, although the sites I was at …
Quiet Leadership
Jon pointed out “Managing Quietly” [Leader to Leader, 12 (Spring 1999): 24-30], one of the few articles by Henry Mintzberg available online. It talks about the fact that the loud, glossy CEOs who become darlings of the business press, do not in fact perform all that well. Quiet leaders, whom you never hear about, do much better. It’s worth a …
On Successfully Bringing Change to An Organization
Since I’m having a tough time with my case study, I’ll try putting down some things that I think are true about organization change in general. Forrest’s Postulates on Organizational Change
![Employees at Mid-Continent Refinery [ca. 1943 Tulsa, OK (LOC). By John Vachon]](https://i0.wp.com/www.manasclerk.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2179123915_75b400bf47_o-men-group-Employees-at-Mid-Continent-Refinery-c-1943-Tulsa-OK-LOC-Vachon-John-e1377964113665.jpeg?fit=862%2C519&ssl=1)
Communities of Practice Help Teams and Their Managers Perform Better
Robert McDermott has written an excellent (if aged) introduction for people who don’t yet understand Communities of Practice (CoP). He compares and contrasts them to teams, and describes how a community of practice can complement teams in team-based organizations in a way that the Matrix Organization (“does the Matrix have YOU?”) does not. Matrix organizations are almost always a bad …