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

by Frank Ostroff (Author) "Does this chart look familiar?..." (more)
Key Phrases: core process groups, supply management organization, lighting panel boards, United States, Barclays Bank, Ford's Customer Service Division (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The Horizontal Organization, by institutional-change specialist Frank Ostroff, is a blueprint for the future development of public and private infrastructures that have outgrown the vertical, or "top-down," hierarchy that has been standard in the business community since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. "It is increasingly apparent that the long-favored vertical model is, by itself, no longer capable of meeting all the different needs of business," Ostroff writes. "It has been rendered inadequate for today's demanding competitive, technological, and workforce environments by its inherent shortcomings." The time is therefore right, he continues, completely to overhaul this outdated corporate structure and prepare for the next 50 years as some major establishments--such as Ford Motor Company's Customer Service Division, Xerox, and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)--already have done. Through well-reasoned arguments and the help of these and other real-world examples, Ostroff convincingly shows how his concepts might be employed to eliminate bureaucracy, improve productivity, and solve common long-term organizational problems. And by presenting the entire picture where only small pieces have previously been revealed, he makes a compelling case for radical change in the corporate world as well as in the public sector and non-profit universe. --Howard Rothman

Review
"Gives compelling evidence that flattening hierarchies are a key to success in today's fast-paced world.... While a long-term endeavor, this book offers a good starting point for senior managers to understand the fundamentals of the underlying architecture of this emerging trend in business organization."--Electronic Business

"I know from first-hand experience that Frank Ostroff's ideas work. Indeed, many of them are in place and working throughout my company. Ostroff moves easily from theory to practice and gives us a strategic guide to successfully organizing corporations for the new millennium." --Paul A. Allaire, Chairman and CEO of Xerox

"Most businesses have been struggling to find an alternative to the traditional business organization with all the `stove pipe' problems that it produces. Frank Ostroff has done us an invaluable service in showing that a modern horizontal organization can be devised and put into effect."--Sir Peter Middleton, Acting Chief Executive, Barclays Bank

"Ostroff's book is refreshing because of front-line, firsthand employee accounts. Ostroff is also brutally candid about the difficulty of transitioning to a more horizontal structure." --Megan Santosus, CIO

"Recommended for graduate, research, and professional collections."--Choice

"The beauty of Ostroff's book is in how it clearly outlines the horizontal organization's core processes.... Douglass McGregor's Theory Y finds its home here, as does Drucker's MBO. The amount of energy and pride exhibited in the examples from major corporate and governmental horizontal organizations such as Motorola, GE, and OSHA is extraordinary."--At Work

"Ostroff champions the 'horizontal' structure-one that is organized across functions and around core processes. This type of structure removes the functional walls that exist in traditional organizations and streamlines value delivery. The book explains what the horizontal organization looks like, how it works, and presents a how-to process for building one."--Business Reader Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (February 4, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195121384
• ISBN-13: 978-0195121384
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #881,678 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightened Speculation, November 18, 2000

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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."

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nothing New Here, April 20, 2000

By	John E. Roesch (Canada) - See all my reviews

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A How-to manual for Change Managers, March 3, 2006

By	Louise McCauley (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

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.