Networked, Scaled, and Agile: A Design Strategy for Complex Organizations

by Amy Kates, Greg Kesler, Michele DiMartino

While technology and geopolitical forces change the face of business today, the patterns and challenges of organizing humans to work together across organization, culture, language and time zone boundaries remain. To face these challenges, all organizations need to be agile, networked and scalable. Networked, Scaled, and Agile reveals how to shape organizations that will enable people to make faster and better decisions in a more complex world. By outlining the tension between the need for agility/differentiation and scale/integration, the book offers a new way to think about this debate using the models of the Tower (vertical integration) and the Square (horizontal integration). It addresses the role of the leadership team and how the organization design process can build C-suite leaders and successors. Each chapter concludes with a series of reflection questions for leaders as well as a summary of key concepts and tips.Including case studies from global organizations, Networked, Scaled, and Agile reveals how organization design can address three of the biggest business challenges organizations face how to build a new capability across the entire enterprise; how to make the entire organization more customer-centric; and how to allow for faster innovation.

Genres: Business, Management

200 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 3, 2021

Reviews

[Paul, · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book generative as I have been thinking about organizing a newly multi-national program. At times, Kates seemed to over-complicate simple things, at other times, she seemed too theoretical. But the questions that the book raises are good ones. I removed a star for the generally terrible illustrations, and the pages of explanation following.

[Tanisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this book for grad school. While I found one helpful resources and thought provoking concepts overall, the book is a high level over view of thinking outside the box in typical org design. It was way to broad and yet complex for me to understand and digest.

[Bülent Duagi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good reference for professionals working in org design & general management