Understanding Organizations… Finally!: Structuring in Sevens

When Henry Mintzberg says that he finally understands organizations and structure, he does so with decades of experience and accolades.  In Understanding Organizations… Finally!: Structuring in Sevens, he builds on his research on how organizations have been organized, should be organized, and naturally organize themselves.  In the book, he explains the structures that he’s been trying his whole career to understand.

What Is an Organization

Before we can explain patterns for organization, we need to first understand what an organization is – and why the way it is organized matters.  Organizations pursue collective action to the purpose of a common mission.  This is distinguishable from Richard Hackman’s work on teams, because there is no requirement for working together.  There needs only to be action that moves towards a common mission – which can be financial gain.  (For Hackman’s work, see Collaborative Intelligence.)  Outside of the narrow definition Hackman uses for a team, there’s still a need for relationships that allow people to act together in a coordinated or semi-coordinated way.

It’s patterns of relationships that allow people to work together.  These patterns have been discussed from different perspectives by Gareth Morgan in Images of Organization.  Jay Galbraith shares his view in Designing Dynamic Organizations, where he focuses on some of the factors that Mintzberg proposes here.  Works like The Culture Puzzle seek to assemble an organization that fits the pieces together like a puzzle where others focus on the role of leaders in shaping the organization’s relationships.  (See Leadership and Leadership for the Twenty-First Century for a start.)

The one clear consistency from all this work is the reality that “believing that there is one way to structure organizations is the worst way to manage them.”   Those people who believe that they know the one best way to do things are those who’ve not reached a level of mastery that allows them to see when to apply the patterns they know.  (See my reviews of Presentation Zen and Story Genius for more.)

Reorganization

On the one hand, our performance is a result of the way we organize and the people we have.  (See Organizational Chemistry for more.)  On the other hand, reconfiguring the organization takes resources with no guarantees of better performance.  All the while, we must combat Immunity to Change as the organization naturally resists the change.  In Work Redesign, Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham share their work and attempts to transform an organization while workers like Ralph, who had been beaten down by the old structure, resist the changes.  Management and the Worker explains how the efforts to improve efficiency by restructuring both succeeded and failed at the Westinghouse Hawthorne Works outside of Chicago.

While we must recognize the possibility that reorganization improves performance, there’s no guarantee – and there’s definite risk that it will be worse or result in no improvement, thus wasting the reorganization effort.

The Players

Mintzberg believes there are categories of players in an organization as follows:

• Operators – These people do the work of the organization.
• Support Staff – These people indirectly do the work of the organization by supporting the operators.
• Analysts – These people create plans and monitor their execution.
• Managers – Oversee the people to ensure they’re doing their role and that the various parts of the operation are communicating effectively.

The Culture

People are only one part of the equation of culture.  Culture is the result of both people and their environment – an environment they co-create.  Cultures come with rules, procedures, and policies.  They come with artifacts that are generated by the process that may – but often do not – generate value for the customers.  A culture is an operating environment that can be one of risk taking or risk avoidance.  It can be nimble or calcified.  The culture is a reflection of what the organization values – irrespective of the espoused values, mission statements, or pretty pictures it tries to send the market.

Mirages

The organization can be viewed as a chain, a hub, a web, a set, and many other different concepts.  Mintzberg’s point is similar to Gareth Morgan’s in Images of Organization: the metaphor that you use to see the organization changes what aspects are elevated and what aspects of the organization are obscured from view.

One of Mintzberg’s visualizations is a triangle of science, craft, and art.  It’s a way of evaluating how you view the work that you and the organization do.  None of these views are wrong – they’re just necessarily incomplete.

Four Fundamental Forms

Mintzberg proposes that there are four fundamental forms of organization that can be hybridized with other forms to create the uniqueness of the organization.  His graphic for these four forms is below.

The lines that connect the forms are the paths of hybridization.

Blame the Implementation

It’s quite normal in organizations for strategists – who sit in the upper echelons of the organization – to describe the failure of a strategy as a failure for the strategy to be implemented well.  However, as was discussed in Seeing Systems, the interfaces between the highest and lowest levels of the organization creates a great amount of stress and is rarely done well.  It’s naturally difficult to implement strategies.  It’s naturally difficult to create change in organizations – because they’re designed to resist it.

Too many strategies include “and then the magic happens.”  It’s the place where the barriers that have held the organization back are somewhat magically resolved.  We see this in The Advantage, The Pumpkin Plan, Grit, and Trust Me.  Each has an aspect of the things you can do that will reportedly allow for breakthrough success – but it doesn’t seem to happen to many.

Thirteen Games

Mintzberg believes that there are thirteen games that are played in organizations:

• Insurgency
• Counterinsurgency
• Sponsorship
• Alliance-building
• Empire-building
• Budgeting
• Expertise
• Lording
• Line versus staff
• Rival camps
• Strategic candidate
• Whistle blowing
• Subversion

Designers

Organizations can encounter two kinds of designers.  The first kind believes that they understand but do not.  They perhaps communicate well.  Their presentations receive accolades.  However, they truly do not understand and can lead the organization to peril.  Conversely, there are those designers who do understand and help shape organizations in directions of growth.  These designers often are quieter and more reserved.  They understand the limits of their knowledge and they do their best to expand it.  They’re the kind that develop the ability to create Understanding Organizations… Finally!.