Question

Identify and describe a company with an ineffective organizational design. How would you organize for success and why?

Answer 1

Organizational structure is the layout of how the tasks and activities are allocated and coordinated in the organization which will help in the achievement of the organizational goals. The organizational design can make or break a company. Some of the major flaws seen around in the firms with ineffective organizational design are as follow:

• There is a steep hierarchy within the organization. The chain of command gets too long and can lead to miscommunication.
• In organizations with ineffective design, there are chances of occurrence of role ambiguity. There are chances that the same work has been done by two people or an important work gets neglected assuming that the other person had done this. This in effect can lead to the wastage of resources and cut down the profit.
• Confusions in the procedural guidelines are another issue seen with poor organizational design. Out-dated systems are not re-evaluated and replaced with new systems. This can drastically pull down the productivity.
• There will be a lack of coherence in the activities done by the employees in the organization. Due to the lack of alignment of personal values to the organizational values, the employees tend to do what they feel is right, which could possibly contradict the mission and vision of the organization.
• The innovation side will mostly be pulled down due to the poor organizational design. This is mostly because the idea might never reach the right source for development. Therefore people might keep their idea within themselves thinking that there is no need to take the effort to realize it or take them to a new employer.
• The departments in organizations with poor design will always find it difficult to coordinate with each other. They might not offer assistance to each other unless they are asked to do so by a superior, but put their focus only on their individual tasks.

To have a good and effective organizational design, the following methods can be adopted.

• A clear idea of the governance plan should be there. This can reduce the chances of ambiguity among the employees.
• Ground rules for operations must be clearly defined, helping to reduce confusion.
• There should be an open-door policy, where the employees can directly contact the high levels of management in cases of necessity. This is a very employee-friendly policy which also helps in increasing the effectiveness of the organizational structure.
• Delegation of the work should be done properly to avoid role conflict and ambiguity. Task forces and action committees can also be employed to carry out various activities.
• Communication is the key. There should be a proper and authentic channel for two way communication which isn’t restricted to any party in the organization.

It is imperative to have an effective organizational structure as it affects the following factors within the organization.

• Productivity of the employees
• Communication between different levels
• Innovation
• Helps in having a clear line of authority
• Easy grievance redressal
• Clarity on the work assignments

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