Designing Your Organization

Organization consultants Amy Kates and Jay R. Galbraith have produced a big book – big in its scope and in its potential to influence management thinking in five key areas. Beginning with a primer on organizational design, the book focuses directly and insightfully on some of the major questions facing everyone from entrepreneurs in their garages to CEOs in their corner offices: How can companies best serve customers? How can firms effectively serve clients domestically and in foreign markets? How can you adopt what is best about a matrix structure without gumming up the works? How much centralization is too much, and how much decentralization is too little? How can companies, especially those that are already successful, promote innovation? In chapters packed full of considerations, suggestions and actionable ideas, Kates and Galbraith steer you through complexity. Unfortunately, by trying to integrate wide-ranging ideas with a reliance on their “Star Model,” they introduce a bit of complexity of their own: The Star Model clearly has value as a consulting tool, but in this text, it often seems present by default rather than by necessity, a condition that the authors would never tolerate in an organization. Nonetheless, getAbstract recommends this book as a guide for anyone who makes decisions or gives input on structuring an organization. This is one of those books to keep handy on the shelf and return to when approaching a big change or reacting to an emerging problem.