Hierarchies, decision making and a real-life example

chris macrae wcbn007 at easynet.co.uk
Fri Apr 2 07:01:26 PST 2004


Wonder if anyone could help me with NOT reinventing the wheel on an
extended question about hierarchies (albeit not a pure open space
question)

I have decided I want to survey when is top-down organisational
hierarchy useful (and not useful) as
well as how can  hierarchy interact with useful and not useful impacts
on self-organisation, co-organisation, inter-organisation (as where 2 or
more organsiations truly partner each other)

Here are some 'guesses'. Has anyone seen more definitive research in one
or more of these areas:

1 Hierarchy has good impacts on human relationship systems when
-All know who & how biggest decisions are made
-Authority has respect for expert-decision status but doesn't cause
person bossing nor block bad/change news flowing up
-Top people care deeply about goodwill=how deeply caring organisation is
around its greatest human context. This identity proacts around core;
top people should cultivate a further out sense of vision & use that to
give people as much time as possible to prepare for relevant change
(competitive/environmental)

2 Teams have good impacts when:
Hierarchy does not get in way of social dynamics of team; eg
Often team performance is inhibited if personal performance measures or
timesheets drive company

Teams need various positive emotional intelligences:
Eg trust to share to the full; focused happiness to be energised and
learn to accomplish the full.

2.1 Teams also need to be classified by type which will detail extra
nuances:
Eg a 24 hour service team such as healthcare or an airline crew is
different from project teams, and other parameters include within
organisation or for external client, co-located real or with aspects of
virtual/global

 3 -The extra of social networks (SN) of individuals multiplies value of
an organisation's relationships:
in areas the internal organigram can't traditionally connect: it may be
happening outside the organisation, too tacitly  for explicit process to
be valuable, or emerge Next innovation skill we'll need
-particularly in the innovation situation- a knowledge audit should
discover who's best to multiply this fast however junior, possibly
giving them a boardroom sponsor as and when formal attention and
connection of the new skill will be needed across organisation

Vital SN applications include security of cities, venture capital
banking, scouting for sports superstars, R&D sectors where innovation
will need to link diverse competences which company can't own all of,
software when developed as a standard?

Chris Macrae, wcbn007 at easynet.co.uk
All above meant to be conversation not definitive answers! But
passionate line of inquiry for me just now




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