Business Organization

1 Pages 227 Words

The demands of the 21st century will require business organizations to become more customer and stakeholder focused, using employee talent to create, share, and utilize information as part of a broad﷓based competitive strategy. Another part of this transition will see organizations undergoing significant structural change, developing horizontal networks of task﷓focused teams leading to "delayered," flatter organizational structures. The horizontal organization will be (1) organized around processes rather than tasks, (2) driven by customer needs and inputs, and (3) dependent on team performance.1

As networks of teams replace traditional hierarchies, knowledge becomes the main organizational resource.2 As part of the rapid, often tumultuous, change in the global business world, organizations will, therefore, have to speed up their learning processes, learning how to adapt faster and faster to the world around them. Teams, as well as teams of teams, will need to learn how to develop such knowledge bases, in essence learning, how to learn together, effectively sharing, information and building, on each other's knowledge to create generative rather than simply adaptive learning patterns.3 Accordingly, open communication ﷓ creating shared meaning and understanding ﷓ among team members as well as among, teams will be one of the most critical skills for organizational members. The ability to facilitate such teams and create an organization that can effectively use them will also be an important management skill....