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Organizational Design PDF Print E-mail
When I tell people that I do organizational design, most times I get a quizzical look.

The web stuff, they can understand. The data management piece, even strategic consulting.

But organizational design is at the heart of getting all of that to work together.

Taking a manufacturing plant, for example, there are components of the plant that are physical, like the machinery, components that are information based, like manuals and CAD drawings, parts that are systems, how things get assembled, parts that are human, parts that are financial, parts that are information technology.

The opportunity, always, in looking at a whole system is getting to the real story.

Each element of the operation will defacto have a different picture of what is going on.

And depending on who is telling the story, or to whom the story is being told, the answers will be different.

Constructing and deconstructing the narrative, to get a richer story, to gain greater participation and hence value by people in the system is the key to success.

And that isn't so much about binderized plans or even workflow as it is about first recognizing the wholeness of individuals.

And, importantly, sitting in the thick of it with them.

In the case of an incredibly complex and passionately engaged organization like KDHX, the biggest challenge, having dwelt among them for a couple weeks, is coming up with an approach that appreciates the richness, values the reality of the culture while helping assimilate all of the different recommendations and workflows and previous engineering into a better design for the future story. The story that they want to tell.

Doing the ethnography, working on the constitution that their brilliant minds have already conceived, but don't have time to vacate to the mountain top to write.

While I love every client I work with, unhealthy as that can be at times, no other project has the weight of this engagement, especially since so much work has gone on before.