Modern Organization

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity; more than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

-- Charles Chaplin (speech from the Jewish barber in The Great Dictator)

I am not an HR person and I have never worked as one, however I have been leading smart creatives (engineers) while I was CTO, Technical Lead or as of now Head of Engineering who leads product, online sales, software engineers, data architects and so on. While I have been leading, I have made several mistakes that finally made me founding theLeader.io and strive for great leadership. As a student, I started to read about organizational learning and leadership, one of the best book I ever read on this topic is called: Reinventing Organizations. In this book organizational structures has been evaluated and segmented with color codes as I briefly explained in below.

  • Red Organizations. Constant exercise of power by chief to keep troops in line. Fear is the glue of the organization. Highly reactive, short-term focus. Thrives in chaotic environments. The current examples of red organizations are mafia, street gangs and tribal militias; such organizations achieved great breakthroughs as division of labor and command authority. Their guiding metaphor is wolf pack.
  • Amber Organizations. Highly formal roles within a hierarchical pyramid. Top-down command and control (what and how). Stability valued above all through rigorous processes. Future is repetition of the past. The current examples of amber organizations are catholic church, military, government agencies, and public schools. Amber achievements are formal roles and processes. Amber's guiding metaphor is army.
  • Orange Organizations. Goal is to beat competition; achieve profit and growth. Innovation is the key to staying ahead. Management is happening by objectives such as command and control on what, freedom on how, examples of such organizations are multinational companies and charter schools. Orange's breakthroughs are innovation, accountability and meritocracy. Machine is the guiding metaphor of orange's organizations.
  • Green Organizations. Within the classic pyramid structure, focus on culture and empowerment to achieve extraordinary employee motivation. Fortunately there are number of such organization which are culture driven such as Amazon, Google, Southwest airlines and etc. Green's main breakthroughs are empowerment, value-driven culture, and stakeholder model. Family is the guiding metaphor for green organizations. 
  • Teal Organizations. These organizations have great breakthroughs such as self-management (driven by peer relationships), wholeness (involving the whole person at work) and evolutionary purpose (let the organization adapt and grow, not being driven). To become a Teal organization, CEO must drive the change and CEO must be fully supported by board and members. 

What type of organization is your organization? http://poll.fm/5j1bq

According to all these studies and researches I did, I am thinking if a HR department request other departments to submit following strategies for their own departments it might help on transition.

  • Hiring, Recruiting, and Firing Strategies
  • Employee Retention Strategies
  • What type of organization model is suitable and what is the strategy to transform into it. This plan is one of the most important strategic decisions.
  • Employee Engagement Strategies 
  • Technology Strategies, what kind of technology is gonna be used in order to improve the productivity of team, also what technology will be used in order to execute other strategies efficiently 
  • Fostering Innovation Strategies, how each department is going to foster innovation in their organization