מנהיגים ברשת שולחן העבודה למנהלים בישראל
How to Structure Your Company
מאת: ד"ר יצחק אדיג'ס
תקציר מתורגם
כיצד לבנות את הארגון שלך? מנכ"ל אחד אינו מסוגל להצטיין בכל התחומים: חשיבה אסטרטגית, תוצאות לטווח ארוך, יכולת ארגון, תשומת לב לפרטים, ולתת דגש לתוצאות מידיות. לתפיסתו של אדיג'ס המבנה הארגוני צריך לענות על הצורך הזה. במאמר מציג אדיג'ס מספר דוגמאות הממחישות את החשיבות של הגיוון בין העובדים והתפקידים של מחלקות הארגון.
אדיג'ס טוען, כי חשוב לשמור כל הזמן לפחות על שתי נקודות התייחסות על ידי הפרדה של מחלקות בעלות אופי פעילות דומה. למשל הפרדה של השיווק מהמכירות, הייצור מהפיתוח וכו'. לטענתו, קיים קונפליקט מובנה בין הפונקציות הללו בעיקר סביב דגש על תוצאות, אשר יכולות להיות תוצאות לטווח קצר או ארוך. הפרדת הפונקציות הללו מאפשרת למנכ"ל לפחות שתי נקודות התייחסות לגבי המצב בפועל. אומנם כל אחד ממנהלי היחידות מציג מידע שונה אך על בסיסו המנכ"ל יכול להחליט טוב יותר כיצד על הארגון לפעול.
המבנה האופטימלי של ארגון כולל לתפיסתו לפחות שמונה יחידות שונות. אם יש צורך לאחד מספר יחידות ממליץ אדיג'ס לאחד כמתואר להלן סביב הגדרת תוצאות לטווח קצר והגדרת תוצאות לטווח ארוך ולא סביב דמיון בשם, זאת על מנת לאפשר מתח מפרה ותמונת מצב עסקית נכונה המבוססת על מספר מקורות;
- שיווק, תיכנון, פיתוח משאבי אנוש, מימון יהיו יחד תחת אותו סמנכ"ל – מחלקות לטווח ארוך.
- ייצור, מכירות, תפעול – מחלקות לטווח קצר.
- בקרה, משאבי אנוש, IT, משפטים – מחלקות אדמיניסטרציה ותמיכה.
לטענתו, אם ארגון בנוי בצורה נכונה, מבנים מורכבים בתוכו יכולים לשרוד, כיוון שנוצרים תהליכים טובים לקבלת החלטות המבוססים על כבוד הדדי ואמון. ארגון כזה יכול להתמודד עם הקונפליקטים המובנים בצורה נכונה ויעילה יותר מבחינה עסקית.
How to structure your organization? . By Ichak Adizes. PhD.
An organization needs a complementary team to be well managed (that is to be effective and efficient in the short and long run) because one person cannot simultaneously focus on all these priorities at the same time. In other words, the perfect textbook manager does not exist who can simultaneously be a strategic thinker, who can focus on long-term results, who can be a great organizer who pays attention to details and who can also focus on immediate results. This manager does not exist. An organization needs a complementary team.
Camels in Polar Bear Skins
A complementary team will not necessarily emerge by itself organically. Let me tell you a story that will illustrate this point. Many years ago, when my children were very young, I bought my son a globe. He came to me and said, "Daddy, why is the globe tilted." I wondered, if the globe did not have a horizontal and vertical tilt, what would we lose? We would lose the seasons! The whole world would have the weather of the North Pole year round. If this were actually the case, which animals would be the ones to survive? We know it would only be the polar bears. If by mistake a camel wandered to the North Pole, it would have several choices, 1. Die, 2. Get out if you can 3. Adapt to the environment. And this is what happens in many bureaucratic organizations– it looks like all are bureaucrats. But beware; some of them may be camels in polar bear skins. In other words, they learned to adapt to their environment. So the whole organization is behaving in a bureaucratic manner, although the components that comprise it, the people, are not necessarily bureaucratic.
Take, for example, Russia. During the communist regime the whole country looked bureaucratic because being an economic entrepreneur would be dangerous. But as soon as communism came down, there were a lot of business people around because the people are entrepreneurial, they just couldn't express it. So what do these examples illustrate? In order to have a complementary team, it is not enough to have complementary styles because those styles will adapt themselves to the environment in which they live.
Tilt the Globe
In order to have complementary teams, we must have a complementary structure (environments) where those styles can thrive. You have to tilt the globe to have different climates so you can have an organizational ecology. You have to establish a system whereby these different styles and different climates do not trap each other; they live in peace (a climate of mutual trust and respect,) to achieve the wholeness and diversity that the organization needs not in spite of their differences but because of their differences. How do you build a complementary structure?
In any organization, there must be a task or responsibility for producing results – the reason why the organization exists. This usually is the sales organization and the production and manufacturing organization. There must also be an entrepreneurial task or responsibility for producing change. This is usually the marketing task, new product development, engineering, and R&D tasks. Now beware how you structure these divisions. You should not have the entrepreneurial and production tasks mingled. We already discussed in the last newsletter that those roles are incompatible. If you mingle them under a single vice president, then one of those roles is in danger. For example, if you have a VP of sales and marketing, marketing is in danger. Usually marketing does not exist except in name only. In reality, it is usually only a sales support function where the department analyzes sales in terms of sales goals and how the customers reacted to a sales campaign. The marketing department does not induce change; it supports the sales activities.
The same is true with production and R&D. When they are together, engineering usually ends up in maintenance instead of changing the technology. By the same token, you should not have the audit (controlling) function and consulting (entrepreneurial) functions mixed. That was the fatal mistake that Arthur Andersen made. Consulting is trying to induce change, auditing needs to document and reveal the impact of those changes. Inherently there is a conflict of interest, especially since consulting makes a lot more money. Auditing is then threatened. Auditing will not provide the breaks, balance, or the controlling function for an organization to know where it is. Enron made the same mistake by giving the CFO the treasury function and the chief accounting function. This gives the CFO far too much power, and it also monopolizes all information into one department. Anyone who disagrees is a whistleblower. This makes the CEO practically a prisoner of the situation because he does not know what is going on. He only gets his information from one source that controls both functions.
The Sales and Marketing VP has all the information about what is happening in the markets so the CEO has to depend on that single individual for all of his information on clients and markets. The Manufacturing and R&D VP, if his responsibility also includes Engineering, has all of the information about what is happening on the inside of the organization. The CFO has a total monopoly on all financial matters. The CEO in this type of a structure will not know what is going on.
Maintain Two Points of Reference
We know from logic that if you want to know what is going on, you must always have two points of reference. Thus, a well-managed organization must separate marketing from sales, must separate production from R&D, and must separate accounting from finance. If you separate these functions, then the CEO will have two points of reference of the markets, of production and R&D, and two points of reference on the financial aspects. By the same token, I strongly recommend that the HR Development department and HR Administration department be split. By and large, when both departments are put into a single vice-president, the HR Development department is the endangered species; the name exists but the function, in reality, does not.
Marketing and Sales, Production and Engineering and R&D, and Finance and Accounting, have always been in conflict. This is a desirable conflict because when there is such a conflict, information surfaces. Thus, the CEO has better information and knowledge and can make better decisions balancing between the long (entrepreneurial) and short (production) orientations. By looking at both sides, he can optimize which way the company should act. When there is a unification of these two functions within a single vice-president, what you get is a silo effect, each one monopolizes a certain aspect of the organization, and the totality is not optimized, which is the role that the CEO has to perform.
As we see from above, there should be at least eight divisions reporting to the CEO. When there is a large company, then there are even more roles that report to the CEO because there are more functions such as safety, quality and reliability. If you need to unite a number of functions in order to decrease the span of control of one person, don't unite by function like sales and marketing together, or a Chief Financial Administrative Officer with HR, Finance, Accounting, and Information Technology. Unite by roles, the purpose of existence. Have marketing, engineering, HR development, and finance -under a Senior Vice President for long-run development. Have an Executive Vice President or COO in charge of short-run results that would encompass production, sales, and operations. Then have a Staff Vice President in charge of administration and support functions such as Controllers, Human resources Administration, IT, Legal etc.
If an organization is structured correctly, then complementary styles can survive. If there is a good process for decision-making, and it is taking place in an environment of mutual trust and respect, then the complementary styles can work together with constructive conflict, which is necessary for a well-managed company.
קישורים רלבנטים באתר:
מאמרים נוספים בנושא מבנה וטרנספורמציה ארגונית
|
מנהיגים ברשת |
|
© כל הזכויות שמורות ל"מנהיגים ברשת" ינואר 2003. החומר מותר לשימוש אישי בלבד. אין לעשות בחומר שימוש מסחרי/עסקי ו/או להפיצו בכל דרך שהיא (להוציא באמצעות יצירת קישור למאמר ספציפי ולעמוד הבית במקביל) מבלי לקבל רשות מפורשת בכתב מהנהלת האתר |
