Ensuring delivery through organizational design

I will argue that the non-delivery of our institutions is due to the way we see 'organization', the noun. We need to shift to a view where 'organizati on' is an active and never-ending verb. In this view of 'organization' the focus is on creating stability amid chaos by creating stable transformation guides for the system. On the other hand, we need to create organizational forms that seek change, as opposed to order, in order to adapt and be chan ge friendly. Such enterprises need a balance between aligning the parts wit h the interests of the whole, whilst ensuring sufficient autonomy in the pa rts to experiment and innovate in their own local interest, to an extent fa r in excess of what the traditional hierarchical organizational structure a llows. This requires a different mode of governance for the enterprise, a m ode where the very concept of management is counter-productive. Such a gove rnance style makes use of alignment around core ideas, coupled with empower ment to act on one's own initiative. In turn this requires, for most contem porary management (including the managed), a shift of mindset beyond that w hich most people can image. This finally means a fundamental development pr ocess in most, if not all, of our institutions. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wil ey & Sons, Ltd.