Top Down
From GTwM
Pundits have been forecasting the demise of the hierarchical corporation for decades. Denigrating those authoritarian structures as controlling, territorial, bureaucratic, and slow—and celebrating "alternatives" that are flatter, more democratic, and networked. But renowned organizational behavior expert Harold J. Leavitt argues that such alternative structures have not proven viable—or even desirable—and that despite its human failings, hierarchy remains the foundational shape of every large human organization. Why? Because it works.
Top Down neither defends nor attacks the much-maligned hierarchy. Rather, this counterintuitive book convincingly shows that even the "flattest" of today’s organizations are really just hierarchies in disguise—and, to improve the ways hierarchies function, we must first acknowledge their inevitability.
Exploring both the benefits and shortcomings of top-down structures, Leavitt shows how leaders can reshape hierarchies to incorporate the human values and motivations that enable employees to thrive. He then offers middle managers suggestions about how best to negotiate the way through those authoritarian mazes, while maintaining their personal integrity and even finding satisfaction in their work.
Systems, Participation and Hot Groups
Leavitt argues the history of academic thinking with regard to organsational structure can largely be see as a battle between those who believe in increasing systems within an organisation and those who believe the major issues is gaining full participation from employees. He then argues in the late 80's another type of organisational structure emerge, largely unnoticed by academia, which he calls Hot Groups, who were neither interested in "hard" sytemising nor "soft" participation approaches. If Ford represents the systemising camp and HP represents the Humans Relations camp, then Apple best represents the Hot Groups task oriented approach.
Criticism
- Leavitt largely ignores those such as Toyota that have attempted to reconcile the Systemising & Participation camps.
- Leavitt does not investigate whether there are any underlying links between organisational structure & environmental factors. Why have Hot Groups largely emerged in high tech industries, and why has the Systems approach being particularly popular in engineering environments
