Reorganized for the 1990's: Organizational Structures Have Changed...What About the People?
Authors: Meyer JoAnn M. 
Published: December 2007

Over the last several years corporate managements have focused on revampingorganizational structures to provide environments conducive to greaterproductivity. These new organizations however, will be more productive only ifthe people involved are; hence, the people involved are; hence, the focus nowmust shift to the individual. Organizations must prepare individual employeesto function and succeed within the new structures, and employees must changesome old attitudes and work practices before realizing greaterproductivity.

Introduction

Major corporations in the oil and gas industry have spent hundreds ofmillions of dollars to create new organizational structures, with thejustification that productivity would increase. Presumably, these neworganizational structures promote faster responses to ever-changing economic, technical, and environmental conditions. In addition, the less hierarchical andless departmentalized organizations require fewer people and provide a haven inwhich cross-functional teams provide a haven in which cross-functional teamscan solve problems with greater flexibility, creativity, and innovation. As aresult, our industry is reorganized for the 1990's, but the organizations canprovide only the framework to encourage provide only the framework to encourageproductivity. Individuals and teams of productivity. Individuals and teams ofindividuals have the most significant impact on productivity. With all theattention focused on putting the framework in place, can we be certain thatindividuals, alter working in the hierarchies of the past, can thrive withinthe new, flatter structures? Is it valid to assume that the individual knowshow to work as a part of this new "team"? Schein suggests that as asociety, people in the U.S. are very familiar and people in the U.S. are veryfamiliar and comfortable working, playing, and living in hierarchical teams. They are so comfortable, in fact, that it may be quite difficult forindividuals thrust into flatter organizations, with their emphasis oninterdependent teamwork, to conceptualize how these systems will work. Scheinuses football to illustrate U.S. society's popular view of teamwork. One doesnot have to be a football fanatic to identify the hierarchy of head coach andall the assistant coaches and coordinators. The "team," individualplayers trying to score, is instructed by at least two layers of management onthe sidelines and by the quarterback on the field. For the leaner, flatterorganizations of the 1990's to prosper, it is essential that each individualunderstand how the new teams will work with less supervision and moreindividual responsibility. In addition, individuals suddenly made a part ofthese new organizations may need to develop new skills to maximum thecontribution each can make as a team member. The following is a discussion ofhow these new teams should function and who team members will be.

The New Team

Drucker predicts that future organizations will be information-based. Hesays that large companies will be structured to function more like hospitals, deemphasizing the "... command and control model that business took fromthe military 100 years ago. ... Typical business will be an organizationcomposed largely of specialists who direct and discipline their own performancethrough organized feedback from colleagues, customers, and headquarters. Tounderstand the hospital analogy better, consider the patient with a broken legwho finds himself in the local hospital's emergency room. The attendingphysician orders X-rays, which are taken by an X-ray technician. The necessaryinformation then may pass on to the patient's family physician or, pass on tothe patient's family physician or, depending on the severity of the break, toan orthopedic specialist. If blood work is required, the laboratory technicianwill be involved in the testing, and if surgery is needed, the anesthesiologistwill consult with the surgeon. later, as part of recovery, a physical therapistmay be called to aid with rehabilitation. Each of the various medical andparamedical specialties has its own knowledge, training, and even language. Thepatient is returned to health by the efforts of the team of specialists who hada common goal and worked together to reach that goal. Just as a medicalspecialist will treat more than one patient at a time, individuals in ourfuture organization will be required to function as members of many differentteams. The traditional departments (reservoir engineering, productionengineering, geology, financial, etc.) will not be where the real work is done. Instead, work will be done by a team made up of knowledgeable individuals fromvarious departments who will decide on a plan of action-and proceed with stepsto meet the goal. Just as in a hospital, once the team of specialists hasidentified the goal, input and approval from management on the action stepsneeded may do nothing but delay the process.

JPT

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