Organization Design

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Organization Design

The organization design, sometimes mistakenly identified as an organization's structure, is in fact the process of aligning an organization's structure with its mission (Mind Tools, 2010). By understanding connections between tasks, workflow, authority, and responsibility an organization design is developed that supports the company’s overall goals and objectives. Aspects or concepts of organization design are important tools used to bind the staff and the mission of the organization and as organizations grow or change we can readily identify the requirement for concepts to change as well. A bad organizational design regardless of having the best leaders, a great mission, and an outstanding staff will result in poor performance and under productivity of the company however a good design enhances productivity, encourages communication and innovation, and leads to accomplishment of the goals and objectives of the company.

Flat versus Tall Organization

The first of five aspects in an organization design are flat and tall organizations. Flat organization structures have a larger number of staff reporting to each manager. This structure does not allow for managers to closely supervise staff, allowing the staff greater freedom of action. Carpenter et al. (2009) suggests movement towards 'flatter' organizations that are more democratic and innovative seem to be a trend in business. Flat structures consist of only a few layers of management where tall structures have several layers of management between frontline employees and top executive levels. The number of employees reporting to each manager in a tall structure tends to be smaller, resulting in greater opportunities for managers to supervise and monitor...

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...allows staff to set and maintain their own standards. Open policies, active communication and true sense of belonging translate into a distinctive corporate structure that inspires good nature, teamwork and the bloodline of Googlers, INNOVATION. People love to work at Google, but not just because of flexible work time, bonuses, on site doctor, free lunches, yoga, wine tasting, meditation, etc… they love the challenge of trying to reach an impossible goal and have fun doing it.

In all of the above initiatives used by Google we see the positive aspects of good organization design. Trust, innovation, encouraging creativity, enhancing skills, pride and a sense of job satisfaction the list goes on and these pieces, concepts of organization design, bring Google’s organizational structure and its mission together in a positive way making this organization a success.

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