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the most important consideration should be this: the shift back and forth between the two types of organizations can and should be initiated to match the operational styles and aptitudes of the managers running the individual units.
For middle managers to succeed at this high-leverage task, two things are necessary. First, they must accept the inevitability of the hybrid organizational form if they are to serve its workings. Second, they must develop and master the practice through which a hybrid organization can be managed. This is dual reporting, the subject of our next chapter.
matrix management. This provided the means through which the work of various contractors could be coordinated and managed
the core idea was that a project manager, somebody outside any of the contractors involved, could wield as much influence on the work of units within a given company as could the company management itself.
it occurred to us that perhaps security personnel should report jointly to the corporate security manager and to the local plant manager. The first would specify how the job ought to be done, and the second would monitor how it was being performed day by day.
We want the immediacy and the operating priorities coming from the general manager as well as a technical supervisory relationship.
that supervision is being exercised by a peer group. The manufacturing managers report to two supervisors: to this group and to their respective general managers, as the figure opposite shows.
To make such a body work requires the voluntary surrender of individual decision-making to the group.
At work, surrendering individual decision-making depends on trusting the soundness of actions taken by your group of peers.
Trust in no way relates to an organizational principle but is instead an aspect of the corporate culture,
set of values and beliefs, as well as familiarity with the way things are done and should be done in a company.
strong and positive corporate culture is absolutely essential if dual reporting and decision-...
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To make hybrid organizations work, you need a way to coordinate the mission-oriented units and the functional groups so that the resources of the latter are allocated and delivered to meet the needs of the former.
The multi-plane organization enables me to serve as a foot soldier rather than as a general when appropriate and useful. This gives the organization important flexibility.
The key factor common to all is the use of cultural values as a mode of control,
our behavior in a work environment can be controlled by three invisible and pervasive means. These are:
free-market forces • contractual obligations • cultural values
there is always a most appropriate mode of control, which we as managers should find and use.
There are two variables here: first, the nature of a person’s motivation; and second, the nature of the environment in which he works.
So if two things limit high output, a manager has two ways to tackle the issue: through training and motivation.
motivation has to come from within somebody.
Accordingly, all a manager can do is create an environment in which motivated people can flourish.
Abraham Maslow’s theory of motivation,
motivation is closely tied to the idea of needs, which cause people to have drives, which in turn result in motivation.
Once someone’s source of motivation is self-actualization, his drive to perform has no limit.
competence-driven or achievement-driven.
former concerns itself with job or task mastery.
The same teenager may not sit still for ten minutes to do homework, but on a skateboard he is relentless, driven by the self-actualization need, a need to get better that has no limit.
The point is that both competence- and achievement-oriented people spontaneously try to test the outer limits of their abilities.
When the need to stretch is not spontaneous, management needs to create an environment to foster
for example, objectives should be set at a point high enough so that even if the individual (or organization) pushes himself hard, he wil...
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if we want to cultivate achievement-driven motivation, we need to create an environment that values and emphasizes output.
when one is self-actualized, money in itself is no longer a source of motivation but rather a measure of achievement.
The most important type of measure is feedback on his performance. For the self-actualized person driven to improve his competence, the feedback mechanism lies within that individual himself.
The most appropriate measures tie an employee’s performance to the workings of the organization.
The most important form of such task-relevant feedback is the performance review every subordinate should receive from his supervisor.
Given a specific task, fear of failure can spur a person on, but if it becomes a preoccupation, a person driven by a need to achieve will simply become conservative.
our role as managers is, first, to train the individuals (to move them along the horizontal axis shown in the illustration on this page), and, second, to bring them to the point where self-actualization motivates them,
That makes the cliché apply: if you can’t beat them, join them—endow work with the characteristics of competitive sports. And the best way to get that spirit into the workplace is to establish some rules of the game and ways for employees to measure themselves.
The role of the manager here is also clear: it is that of the coach.
The applicant should do 80 percent of the talking during the interview, and what he talks about should be your main concern.
An interview produces the most insight if you steer the discussion toward subjects familiar to both you and the candidate.
In short, make sure the words used mean the same thing to both of you.
A group of managers provided me with what they thought were the best questions.
First, you’re after an understanding of the candidate’s technical knowledge: not engineering or scientific knowledge, but what he knows about performing the job he wants—
Second, you’re trying to assess how this person performed in an earlier job using his skills and technical knowledge;
Third, you are after the reasons why there may be any discrepancy between what he knew and what he did, between his capabilities and his performance.
finally, you are trying to get a feel for his set of operational values, those that would guide him on the job.
The ultimate purpose of interviewing is to make a judgment about how the candidate would perform in your company’s environment.
A final point about references: when you are talking to them, you’re really after the same information that you tried to get directly from the candidate.
