Question

Gareth Morgan uses the example of a spider plant as a metaphor (Morgan, 1997) for the following exercise.

1. Select an organisational unit such as a team, department, project or company.
2. Write down all the characteristics of a spider plant. For example, they grow new shoots when they are too big for their pots. As the plant reaches out to find new ground it gets nourishment from the mother plant. When the new plant has roots and can sustain itself, the linking shoot is not needed.
3. Identify which characteristics have parallels to the organisational unit you selected, and which don’t. For example, “Unlike a real spider plant, the only thing growing in this team happens in the original pot. The offshoots have nowhere to go.”
4. Consider how well the metaphor fits the organisational unit. Does it create any new insights? For example, “If the offshoots continue like this they will die. If the offshoots represent our team’s knowledge and skills, this could mean that other units in the company will be missing out on useful input from our team.”
5. Extend the metaphor of the spider plant to think about how your organisational unit could be. In other words, use the metaphor as the basis for a new organisational design. For example, “The offshoots need to be strong and healthy so that skills and knowledge can flow both ways. This will encourage more offshoots and help with cross-departmental initiatives.”
6. What are the differences between the newly-designed and the existing organisation? What new insights for shaping management processes emerge? For example, “We’ve been so focused on what’s in the pot that we’ve neglected the offshoots. We need to develop these offshoots and use them to benefit our team and others.”

Have a go at this exercise yourself and share any insights you gain with your group in the forum. You can use the spider plant too, or feel free to select another metaphor that you think fits better for you. This exercise may seem a little tricky at first but give it a go and you might be surprised with what you come up with.

Answer 1

Comparison of the Organizatoin with Spider Plant

The organization selected is a centralized organizational structure organization. Comparison with Spider Plant reveals these facts. Spider plant characteristics reveal that when this plant grows in the pot, new shoots emerge and find out new ground to get nourishment otherwise the mother plant may die. If this characteristic is compared with chosen organization, it is found that the decision making is centralized and no empowerment is offered to the employees to innovate or contribute their knowledge and skills gained without permission of top management. Thus, the growth that spider plant obtains is not achieved by the organization. The top management does not take initiatives to communicate relevant information to the employees and therefore, only top employees in the organization have access to information. Such information is needed to be shared among the employees to improve their independent decision-making ability. Spider plant another characteristic is when the new plant finds roots and can sustain itself the linking shoot of mother plant is not necessary as the new plants become healthy. While comparing this characteristic with organization, it is found that departmental heads are not able to take independent decisions and branches spread over the various locations need to report to main office to approve anything. Thus the offices do not function in a healthy way to contribute well to the organizational success. It demonstrates dependency of various branches of organization on the head office. This also creates much delay in decision making. Employees do not have liberty to make decision by themselves as they are not empowered. This creates much pressure on the core management team as well as high dependency on them halts many important decisions when they are not available to approve decisions of departmental heads or different offices. Generally senior management team focuses on strategic decisions but in the organization, the senior management team makes tactical and operational decisions as well. It also hinders the growth of the organization as many good opportunities are lost. Centralized structure of the organization practices one way communication from management people only and valuable insights that can be provided by employees to improve business performance are not obtained. The third characteristic of spider plant is when the new plants firmly develop its roots; they support mother plant as well. But the organization is practicing a centralized decision making structure where all important decisions are taken by the head office thus, the head office faces a lot of work burden and this hampers the productivity of senior managers of the organization.

Therefore, a new organizational design is required to improve the performance of the organization. A decentralized structure offering autonomy to employees to make decision, access to informational resources, and a flattened organizational structure to speed up the decision making process are required. It can ensure that branches are not dependent on the main office and the employees can take important decision by themselves. Their knowledge and skills can be used to improve the business performance as well. Senior employees can also be supported well and they can concentrate on strategic decisions. Thus comparing the organization with characteristics of spider plant reveals that it faces many issues and it must adopt a new organizational structure and design to strengthen its employees’ ability. These employees can make timely decision and contribute to business development with the new organizational design.