Customer Reviews

The Horizontal Organization : What the Organization of the Future Actually Looks Like and How it Delivers Value to Customers

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The subtitle promises that Ostroff will explain "what the organization of the future actually looks like and how it delivers value to customers." It is more accurate to say that Ostroff suggests what that organization will probably look like...and how it will probably deliver value to customers. Specifically, what he calls the Horizontal Organization "organizes around core process groups. All the people who work on a core process are brought together into a group that can easily coordinate its efforts and maximize the value of of what it delivers to customers." It differs from other models in that it is more comprehensive by incorporating "elements of some of the existing concepts, such as process reengineering, individual empowerment, and teams. But it goes beyond them by providing an overall framework for the organization that integrates and makes use of the best of these ideas in a new structure that has been proved in practice." So, Ostroff's intention is to help his reader understand what the Horizontal Organization is, how it works, how it can be developed, and how to decide where it can be effectively employed in any organization.

I rate this book so highly, not because it provides THE answers but because Ostroff asks what I consider to be the important questions as all of us proceed into an uncertain future. There are so many paradigm shifts occurring simultaneously. Words such as "organization" and "customer" seem to be redefined constantly, as are the concepts of "leader" and "manager" as well as "core business" and "competitive marketplace." Of course, despite what his book's subtitle suggests, Ostroff is well aware of all this. He thinks clearly, writes well, and in his concluding remarks indicates a proper respect for "buy in" throughout any organization., asserting that "the change effort itself and the new organization born from the old must have full top-down, bottom-up, cross-functional commitment. If done right, the integration of the fundamental principles of the horizontal organization will inspire the people in your organization, supercharge their performance, and create a winning value proposition that lifts your organization far above the competition."

The Horizontal Organization by Frank Ostroff is well written and an easy read. Its main draw back is that the author is claims that he is presenting something new when in fact it is not. The concept outlined in his book and the design principles for the horizontal organization are nothing but a "dumbed" down version of basic industrial engineering principles that has been espoused for years. The concept of organizing around business processes and with cross-functional teams has been discribed in various books by industrial engineers for years, espesially in the area of socio-technical systems design theory. The book is good in that it gives managers, with business major degrees, a good introduction to a sound organizational design theory. Any manager with an industrial or systems engineering degree will already be aware of these principles for organizational design to a far greater extent than the author.

The author sees the tradition vertical structure of business as an outdated structure from the industrial era. This book pushes the horizontal organization. The horizontal organization does not divide the company into departments. Instead, it groups people and work across core processes. These core processes all work together to create and deliver something of value to the customers.

This new structure is supposed to flatten hierarchies, integrate many tasks into a few processes, and focuses all employees on what the customer needs, not what their department needs. The author demonstrates this through the use of case studies that include companies such as Ford, and government agencies such as US Occupational Safety and Health Administration. These case studies coupled with a discussion of the new structure combine to form a how-to manual for change managers, showing how companies can design and implement the right structure.

The author offers twelve principles to achieve this goal:
1. Organize across cross-functional core processes
2. Install process owners
3. Make teams
4. Integrate with customers and suppliers
5. Decrease hierarchy by eliminating non value-added-work and by giving team members the authority to make decisions
6. Build a culture of openness, cooperation and collaboration.
7. Empower employees by giving them tools, skills, motivation, and the authority they need.
8. Use information technology to help people reach performance objectives and deliver the value proposition to the customer
9. Measure the results
10. Redesign as necessary
11. Emphasize multiple competencies and train people to handle problems in cross-functional areas
12. Promote multiple-skilling, the ability to think creatively and respond flexibly to challenges that arise in the work that teams do.

The horizontal organization is a more appropriate model for the knowledge age, according to author Frank Ostroff, who says companies increasingly find this structure more effective. He emphasizes the need to start with an understanding of your organization's core competencies and to develop a horizontal structure from there. Ostroff claims this is the first model of this approach, but it is not. In fact, his fairly academic book advances a trend that is already well documented. Horizontal organizations have been covered in numerous other books, which, like this one, promote more decentralized, downsized, team-oriented organizations with empowered workers. Despite a leaden, pedantic writing style, Ostroff distinguishes his theoretical discussion with several detailed examples of how the horizontal organization works and how you can apply it to your company. We ... recommend this book primarily to academics, who may enjoy its theoretical nature.

A good book that gives a solid introduction to the concept of process driven, team centered organizational functioning as an alternative or complement to vertical structures. I specialize in not-for-profit organizations and in that respect the books commercial examples do not transfer so well, but the concepts are very useful and applicable.

As Tom Brown (the editor of Management General-www.mgeneral.com) rightly writes "a lot of us still think it's normal: whoever has the highest rank in the company, division, department--whatever--calls the shots. Whoever's in command makes the decisions, tells everyone what to do, barks out their assigned tasks in fragmented, functional departments. Frank Ostroff was one of the first people to see that, in the long-term, such a tops-down, command-and-control, function-driven structure was ultimately doomed. So, he (Ostroff) developed The Horizontal Organization about the decade ago. Now, he says, the wold is definitely moving his way."

This exceptional study starts with a vital question: "what will the organization of the future look like?" Naturally, Ostroff's answer is "the Horizontal Organization".

With some real life examples of various types of horizontal organizations like: Ford Motor Company's Customer Service Division, the Xerox Corporation, the General Electric plant in Salisbury, North Carolina, the Supply Management Organization of Motorola's Space and System Technology Group, the Home Finance Division of Barclays Bank, and the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration, Ostroff says "my intention in this book is to help readers understand what the Horizontal Organization is, how it works, how it can be developed, and how to decide where it can be effectively employed in any organization."

This exceptional study is must reading for every business leader to understand the next millennium's organizational structure.

This is an excellent book with a forward-looking perspective. I found it useful to read RESPONSIBLE MANAGERS GET RESULTS, by Faust, el al, at the same time. The responsibility piece is important to the kind of horizontal organization Orstroff depicts in this book.

We are purchasing copies as gifts for our Customers and prospects!