The Coming Shape of Organization

R Meredith Belbin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781138156715
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136015533
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book from Meredith Belbin, the UK's leading expert on teams, takes the reader on a different and fascinating journey. His insightful analysis takes us from the faults of typical hierarchies to the new world of restructured, flatter organizations where new sets of problems are emerging. In the search for alternative systems, Belbin outlines ways in which continuous deployment and career development can result in more effective use of people's talents. He describes the world of the higher social insects where evolution has generated a common set of principles governing organizations at their most advanced. He then suggests that these integrated strengths could be combined effectively with the strategic abilities of humans. A model in the form of the helix, is foreseen in which individuals and teams move forward on the basis of excellence rather than function. Here information technology can assist in the evolution of human organizations to enable them to become both more complex and more viable in the future.

1 In search of the future

DOI: 10.4324/9780080502243-1

It is a feature of the world today that people who are widely separated in space may still find themselves caught up in the same time capsule. This raises the question of where we stand in relation to time and whether we are managing time or time is managing us.

For a number of years I travelled at regular intervals between England and Australia, two countries positioned at opposite sides of the world and even for a period in a political sense also. Yet what surprised me in Australia corresponded more or less exactly with what surprised Australians in England, which was the remarkable similarity of their domestic scenes. In spite of its election of a Labor Government and its widely canvassed campaign to repudiate its traditional allegiance to the Queen and to declare itself a Republic, Australia had readily adopted Thatcherism and all that it implied from Britain. Its economic strategy was based on monetarism and the privatization of many functions previously belonging to the public sector. A belief in tight money had led to a reduction in the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement and an increase in interest rates. Both countries then shared the same socio-economic experiences: a reduced rate of inflation and a stronger currency, accompanied by a fall in property prices, a steep rise in unemployment and an increase in the crime rate.

Policies and programmes are now being transmitted across the world, copied and introduced with remarkable speed in a way that is comparable with the flow of international trade. Countries both export and import ideas. So, in a reciprocal fashion, while Britain exported to many parts of the world what was called Thatcherism, it became receptive itself to other introductions. Over an extended period the employment services had been de-professionalized as an economy measure with less skilled staff taking over what was left; but, to compensate, self-help Job Clubs were introduced from the United States as a means of providing low-cost help to the unemployed.

Radical policy changes in the public sector can soon override long accumulated national experience. Sweden, which had at one time been a major world player and standard-setter in developing policies to combat unemployment, abandoned many of those policies in the face of rising public debt. Taking on programmes in line with those operating in other developed countries, Sweden experienced the severest upturn in unemployment, especially youth unemployment, in over half a century. Most remarkable of all these revolutions has been the U-turn in the employment and economic policies of Communist China. Setting aside its previous inward-looking isolation, China's market liberalism has surpassed that of many avowed capitalist countries.

That the past is merging with the future at an amazing rate is also becoming evident to the many people who travel the world as tourists and who are not in the least theoretically minded. Modernity establishes itself cheek by jowl with the primitive and the traditional in developing countries: the bullock cart stands outside the high-rise block with its fast-moving elevators; laptop computers will be on sale next to the shop where all calculations are assisted by abacus.

Yet the rapid movement of policies and material goods should not be taken as the most significant pointer of the direction in which the world is going. What matters even more is the ultimate outcome between competing schools of thought in the world on how the future should be regarded and therefore approached.

From the passive to the proactive

Throughout much of human history the basic assumptions about the future were founded on a universal belief in predestination. The signals about fate, over which mortals have no control, were implanted in the regularities of nature. There was a rational basis for taking heed of them. Astronomy served as a guide to the future by acting as a long- term weather forecast providing leads on when crops should be gathered, stored and sown. It is little wonder that astronomy, with its proven utility, should lead to its supernatural cousin, astrology, which was to have such a long-lasting influence on human affairs and still stirs up so much popular attention and interest today. Astrology was founded on a belief that the gods were in the heavens, residing in the stars themselves and exercising their arcane powers over mortals. Such a belief did not preclude the existence of other means of discovering the messages of destiny. Chiromancy, geomancy, divination through inspection of the entrails, the reading of tarot cards and of tea leaves all staked their claims to portend the future.

What binds together all these is an underlying attitude of passivity towards what lies ahead, where fate is the ultimate controller. What we are witnessing now is a movement in the opposite direction. In place of fatalism there is a swing to the belief that gifted humans can create and manage the future given the possession of the requisite powers. And because it has the mandate and is carrying the expectations of the electorate, government wants to be seen to lead in the exercise of this ambition.

Yet the real problem in adopting a more proactive approach to the future is the dearth of information and sound ideas upon which decisions can be made. Admittedly, there are people who can be consulted with advantage. A new generation of advisers has taken over from the old conveyors of mystique. The newcomers bear the title of futurologists and their tools of trade mainly comprise sophisticated methods for collecting data and examining trends. From an extrapolation of figures a picture can be drawn as to how the world might look in the years ahead. The rise of the world's population can be projected into the middle of the next century. The cutting down of the forests and jungles will have some long-term predictable consequences and its implications for mankind can be projected. Such an extrapolation of trends, if carried far enough forward, usually results in an alarming picture with many futurologists pointing their fingers towards a doomsday scenario.

Accurate forecasting is certainly elusive, for the future does not move forward in a straight line. Counterbalancing forces come into play. Explosions in the population of pests are met with a commensurate rise in predators; diseases give rise to antibodies and there are few cases of continuing unconstrained growth. The future retains an element of unpredictability because there are no single determining forces. Instead, the relative balance of factors and components are changing in a continuously evolving system.

To sum up, the predominant players who deal with the future fall into three main groups. There are the awe-inspired and the awe- seekers who believe that humans are at the mercy of predestination about which the signs can be read by the chosen few; there are the vigorous managers who believe that the future can be managed much like the forward plans of a company and all that is needed is an adequacy of resources and some decisiveness; and there are the technocrats who believe that aspects of the future can be forecast by the techniques of analytical dissection.

Yet there is another approach that should be considered by those who are in the business of long-term strategic planning.

Managing evolution

The one force that has moved the world forward, continuously and irrevocably, since life began on Earth has been evolution, with its mechanisms for creating diversity and selecting those organisms best fitted to survive. We should not have the arrogance - nor do we possess the power - to resist evolution. But if we understand its character we may recognize that a moment in history has at last arrived where we can help that process along in a favourable direction.

What creates this opportunity is that the focus of advantage as it affects humans has changed. Over a great span of time, size and stature, hands that could fashion tools and mouths and minds adapted to engaging in complex communication, all played their part in bringing about the dominance of our species. Now it seems this process of physical development has halted. Differences in biologically based fitness to survive as between individuals and races with different characteristics can be virtually ruled out under the softer conditions of the modern world. But another form of differential survival has long been with us and is still staking out its claims. It is the differential survival of social systems.

Throughout recorded history particular civilizations have risen only to fall. They have reached their zenith at one period and become subject to all-round decline at another. The history of civilization is the history of social systems as they grappled with the natural phenomena of the world around them and responded to the economic pressures and opportunities that interaction with other groups presented. Tribal groupings gave way to imperial kingdoms to be replaced by feudalism which in turn was overtaken by capitalism. Capitalism, in its purest form, has been under pressure for some decades to transform itself into some further condition that is at yet indistinct but will be explored later in this book. Each of these successive stages has recognizable features of social organization which set it apart from each preceding stage.

So, too, different producer systems have evolved as they have become more successful. Cottage industries have grown into small businesses, later overtaken by medium-sized businesses, large businesses and so on to multinationals and transnationals. These stages are commonly distinguished from one another in terms of size. But no less important is the difference in the underlying organizational principles by which they are run. So the question has to be posed: was it the growth in size that fostered the development of a new set of organizational principles, or did the discovery of a better organizational formula become the prime factor in bringing about this growth?

Evolution in the private sector

Whatever it is that drives change, and whether it is recognized or not, evolution takes on a particular pattern. Given free competition between different companies, those with the most effective organizations will be the survivors.

It is here that communications technology is vastly speeding up the process of the evolution of enterprises. Multinationals know no frontiers and few political complications restrict their freedom to set up systems and organizations with a particular character. What is adopted in one location may be taken up the next day in a distant continent in another hemisphere. A further force making for rapid change is the movement of personnel between companies. Managers who switch jobs take what they have learned with them and are often valued for what they can introduce.

In the business world the pressure to change and to evaluate effectiveness is greater than that operating on government programmes. The pressures arise because businesses are in a constant state of competition with other businesses both within a country and on an international scale. A competitive advantage will account for why one business succeeds and another fails, even if the reasons underlying any apparent success are imperfectly understood. Just as in Darwinian theory it is unnecessary for an organism to possess consciousness of its competitive advantage, for its mere possession is sufficient to overcome competitors, so also diversity in business practices leads to evolutionary progress.

The share values of a company may fluctuate on the stock exchange as a direct response to its past performance. But those who wish to get ahead of the market and have eyes on the future will be looking for signs that portend well for a company or which can be taken as warning signals. Here aspects of Organization are increasingly gaining attention. At one time the market was mainly attracted to the great captains of industry or the most famous entrepreneurs. Over time it was found that the shares of their companies would tend to be oversubscribed or overvalued, culminating in the inevitable downfall. The lesson was duly learned. This is why for many years the shares in the publishing companies of the late Robert Maxwell could be bought for a lower price than might have been presumed from their price/earnings ratio. This discounting of the price was attributed to the “Maxwell Factor”. The volatility and unpredictability of charismatic individuals creates less confidence than the known solidity of a sound organization. Even admired individual entrepreneurs no longer gain the same confidence that they once did. The charismatic Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin empire, felt the need to buy back shares in his own companies on the grounds that they were undervalued by the market.

Over time there has been a movement in opinion away from backing an heroic leader towards supporting a balanced and effective management team. In effect what has evolved is a newer form of social organization now recognized as offering better long-term survival prospects.

Experimenting with the future

The character of any management system with its soft rather than hard features is difficult to define and more difficult still to communicate to third parties. Yet managers are often quick to recognize the distinctive features of the culture of the company or institution to which they belong, to recognize beneficial advantages of what they see elsewhere and to transfer any lessons they may have learned. Experience counts, yet fashions in management thinking also involve attitudes: they can appeal and vanish as rapidly as a new style in clothing.

The speed at which matters move was brought home to me just after I had finished writing Team Roles at Work but before its publication. The last chapter dealt with Organization at a time when I had just begun to formulate my ideas. A model I had postulated was Trapezium Organization. Trapezium in this context represents two-tier Organization, the top tier comprising strategic management and the lower operational management. The trapezium shape resulted from removing a slice at the apex of the triangle to make it flat

Such Organization would be less hierarchical at the top than lower down. I had explained the need for this on the grounds that higher management was often having to deal with highly complex issues. In such situations consultation, along with the pooling and exchange of ideas, tended to pay off well. At the operational level, however, a manager could afford to make more personal decisions, and while teamwork could still be important it was less critical.

I had been invited to give a number of lunchtime talks just before the book appeared and had therefore been in a position to discuss this organizational model. It was a matter of surprise to hear from the third occasion onwards the comment: “Our company has already introduced Trapezium Organization.” This seemed more than a coincidence, especially as several participants were unsure of the geometric properties of a trapezium!

Due to their abstract and often contentious nature, experiments with Organization are very difficult to get started. But once momentum has been established, ideas spread rapidly. The demand arises because managerial systems, being able to cross technological barriers, enjoy a certain universality in application.

The position is more complicated in the public sector. What constitutes progress is debatable. Objectives are multifaceted. There is no single bottom line. Ideas can seldom be examined in a dispassionate environment, for the issues touch on deeply held sentiments. Any prospect of departure from the familiar is almost certain to encounter opposition. Even so, in the long run the benefits of systems underlining progress made in the private sector eventually transfer to the public sector, as has been shown in recent years in the outsourcing of supply services. Nevertheless the shape of Organization in relation to the functions of the State involves consideration of a number of complex and specific issues. These will be addressed in a later chapter.

I have indicated some of the reasons why small-scale experiments can have far-reaching consequences. The future can now be approached proactively, whereas in the past it was treated passively. But before one can arrive at any conclusions or recommendations, it would be as well to examine where the problems lie.

2 The faltering organization

DOI: 10.4324/9780080502243-2

There was a time when leading corporations in the world received regular accolades from writers and teachers in management for the excellence of their management practices. After all, there was a certain logic in this. If a corporation is successful, it can presumed to be well managed.

Around the time of the second major post-war recession a number of the most famous corporations showed a sudden and remarkable downturn in their fortunes. Then the tone of the comment changed- Some pundits who had been caught out reached for their pens, or word processors, with a view to salvaging their professional reputations through the discovery of hindsights. For other observers of the scene, the episode opened a new debate in the mind which eventually transferred into the agenda of management thinking. Why was the corporation sinking? Could it be that the corporation was comparable with some elegant liner or ocean ferry possessing all the facilities that modernity can offer but nonetheless subject to a serious, and hitherto unnoticed, structural fault?

When a vessel sinks, those in key positions often hasten to disclaim responsibility. But that only increases the mystery. Something evidently is very wrong. But what is it? A lot of people began to wonder.

At a superficial level there is no mystery in the eyes of many members of the public or among those who entertain w...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Prologue
• Acknowledgements
• 1 In search of the future
• 2 The faltering organization
• 3 The problem with Mr Big
• 4 Lessons from a diminutive masterclass
• 5 Concurrent versus sequential decision-making
• 6 Replacing traditional hierarchy
• 7 An alternative way of arranging work
• 8 Teams communicate with teams
• 9 Employing the highly talented
• 10 The culture and the organization
• 11 Strategic leadership comes of age
• 12 The organization of public affairs
• 13 Forces making for change
• 14 The evolution of common shape
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Further reading
• Index