Bob Williams

Organizational learnings after a merger and acquisition

June 4th, 2010 | Leave a comment | Tags: ,

If you’ve ever been employed by an organization that has either bought another company or has been bought, then there’s a good chance you have witnessed organizational culture meshing. I think of it as the company culture melting pot.  In some cases a purchased company is left alone as an independent business unit and may function outside the boundaries of most of its owning parent.  However, there could still be culture shifts in either company related to best practices and cultural norms of the other.

I’ve worked in organizations that have acquired other companies and I’ve worked in an organization that was acquired by another company.  I’ve witnessed and lived …Continue reading >>

Bob Williams

Defining Organizational Entropy

January 18th, 2010 | 3 comments | Tags: ,

I’ve experienced different management styles, cultures, and organizational lay-outs during my professional career in large organizations. Over the years I’ve noticed several attributes of large groups that are present regardless of the organizational design.  One of these attributes is something I’ll call Organizational Entropy. I define this as a measure of disorder or randomness by which work is created within an organization.  In multi-matrixed organizations (found in large companies) this ultimately causes workers to be out of alignment.  This misalignment isn’t necessarily with organizational goals, rather it’s more so a timing alignment with other workers. The main thought is that there is a randomness to how work gets done when resources …Continue reading >>

Bob Williams

Knowledge Workers vs Process Workers

December 15th, 2009 | Leave a comment | Tags: , , , , ,

I’ve worked in various management structures during my professional career which has the benefit of seeing some of the ins-and-outs of each style. Management structure in this context is not necessarily the management style of your direct supervisor. It’s more directed at the enterprise level management culture that is setup by organizational and executive management designs. Most often, writers talk about centralized versus decentralized organizations.

Process of simple parts, but as a whole is a complicated system. How do we best manage the system?

At the highest level they are referring to where decisions are made. Are they made at the corporate office with C-Level executives and pushed down …Continue reading >>