Virtual Teamwork
15 years ago
Friday, September 19, 2008
My Understanding of Organizational Structure
Sometimes when we work in an organization, we dont even think about so many things that create the atmosphere we work in. Basically that environment is the structure of our organization. Things that are predefined for us to follow. I never thought that why cant I report to my team members instead of my manager or why my manager does not take orders from the janitor. Why accounting people dont share their numbers with software developers and why reporting people dont care what kind of equipment has been used for routing the network Traffic. The answer is that our organization already has a structure defined that explains how and in what heirarchy things are interconnected and what sequence we have to follow to maintains our organization's productivity and stability. Else we would be having a new way of escalating the problems everyday and that would create a great difficulty. To avoid the same, every organization works according to a structure that keeps the things in order so that the organization can actually work toward earning profits.
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3 comments:
I agree that some type of structure is necessary for the well functioning of an organization or even a group. Without structure, we would be driving without traffic signs and chaos would occur. However, the interesting for me is when is there too much structure where it does the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do, when it prevents people and organizations from functioning. How do people find the right balance?
I know I struggle with this concept a lot, even in my day to day work. How much information should I file, how many processes should I create and follow. Answers to these questions are never easy.
There are formal and informal structures in any organization. Although the formal structure may outline the chain of command and lines of communication, informal communication structures often ignore those rules. cathyblog08 notes that organizations can have too much structure or too many rigid rules about who may communicate with whom. These rules may prohibit the flow of information and along with it innovation and creativity, which can negatively affect the organization's bottom line.
I agree, most people don’t think much about organizational structure, or the part that is predefined for us to follow because it is already in place and it is something we have grown accustomed to. This “predefined” part has been established for a reason, and all of the interconnected parts that are already in place should contribute to the bottom line and should add to the productivity of the organization.
The chain-of-command is a perfect example of how information needs to flow. This formal process of communication provides direction and it makes sense. The information flows from the bottom to the top, and the top to the bottom in a systematic manner. One of the problems that I have with the chain-of-command is that it often takes a long time to get answers or responses to questions. I think there sometimes tends to be too much lag time.
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