What the Organisation of Tomorrow Looks Like?

Principles from the Literature

Who am I?

Founder – Building the Organisation of the Future (BOOT) Forum

Consultant – Business Transformation Programs and PPM

Agenda

Methodology Principles from the literature review Ideas for further research

Methodology

Research across a number of dimensions in order to get the full picture

A comparative study to give context – traditional versus the organisation of the future

Explains

• Environment and Context

Sets

• Enterprise Logic

Frames

• Strategic Imperatives

Determines

• Key Capabilities

Enabled by

• Governance, Leadership and Social Practices

• Structure

Environment and Context

Traditional Organisation Organisation of the Future

A socio-economic era built on the technological breakthroughs of the industrial revolution

A socio-economic era built on the technological breakthroughs of the ICT revolution (and robotics and biotech)

The beginnings of globalisation, opening up of vast new markets for products and services

Unprecedented globalization and competition, dynamic and volatile markets, short product lifecycles

A world of unlimited resources to be exploited –the New World, Africa, India, China and the East

A world of limited resources to be conserved and sustained

Positivism as the dominant worldview

Constructivism as a challenge to the dominant positivist world view

Enterprise Logic

Traditional Organisation Organisation of the Future

A vehicle for achieving personal financial wealth and power

A vehicle for achieving social as well as financial value and meeting a broad range of objectives

A narrow set of shareholders – the capitalist project

A broad range of stakeholders – the social enterprise project

Strategic Imperatives

Traditional Organisation Organisation of the Future

Standardisation and repeatability – mass production

Differentiation and innovation – mass customisation

Size and stability Nimbleness, flexibility and responsiveness

A relentless focus on cost containment, reducing unit costs

A relentless focus on investment in new products and services

Economies of scale Economies of scope

“Sweating” value from tangible assets – property, plant and machinery

Creating value in intangible assets – knowledge and the social capital that underpins it

Key Capabilities

Traditional Organisation Organisation of the Future

Strategy formulation Strategy implementation

Operational management Project management

Development and application of specialist technical knowledge

The commoditisation of specialist technical knowledge and the need to dynamically reconfigure and apply collaborative knowledge resources – “dynamic capabilities” and “absorptive capacity”

Management Leadership

Governance, Leadership and Social Practices

Traditional Organisation Organisation of the Future

Application of command and control economics principles to internal organisation – central control of resources and planning

Application of market economics principles to internal organisation – devolving of power and decision making and free flow of resources

Managerialism – practices embedded with the strategic intent of command and control

Leadership – practices embedded with the strategic intent of empowerment and coordination

Based on rational legalistic principles – sine ira ac studio

Based on principles of community, and renewal practices required to manage sustainability and success

Centralised leadership Distributed leadership

Structure

Traditional Organisation Organisation of the Future

Bureaucracy, hierarchy Application of market economics principles to internal organisation – devolving of power and decision making and free flow of resources

Segregation of labour by discipline into functional silos

Leadership – practices embedded with the strategic intent of empowerment and coordination

Ideas for Further Research

Any of the themes reviewed 3 dangerous ideas

› OOTF as an emergent phenomenon› The signification of hierarchy with structure

– the “semi-structured organisation” › Ambidexterity and matrix organisation as

reactionary political expressions