Moving Beyond the Slow, Hierarchical Organization

Turn breakthrough ideas into real results at the virtual HBR Innovation Summit this November with top CEOs and masterclasses on AI and growth. Register by September 30th and save 25%. Learn more at hbr.org slash innovation summit. I'm Adi Ignatius. I'm Alison Beard and this is the HBAER Ideacast.

Alison, there has been a lot of talk about whether our institutions are up to today's challenges. So I'm talking about schools, I'm talking about companies, I'm talking about other organizations that really continue to be run essentially as they were a hundred years ago when our economic and social needs were very, very different. I'm particularly interested in how companies are structured and whether they're set up to succeed in today's, you know, really fast moving business environment. Yeah, and I think this is a problem that we've been trying to solve for years, right?

Reorganizing to be more agile, more experimental, and more digital. Definitely happened. Our guest today, Jana Werner, argues that most companies still retain an organizational structure that, yeah, may have evolved, but is still too rigid to make it in this world. And the authors use a metaphor that the ideal modern organization should be like an octopus with tentacles that work separately but also together with distributed intelligence, sensory awareness, and adaptability. I like that.

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