Ensuring delivery through organizational design

I will argue that the non‐delivery of our institutions is due to the way we see ‘organization’, the noun. We need to shift to a view where ‘organization’ is an active and never‐ending verb. In this view of ‘organization’ the focus is on creating stability amid chaos by creating stable transformation guides for the system. On the other hand, we need to create organizational forms that seek change, as opposed to order, in order to adapt and be change friendly. Such enterprises need a balance between aligning the parts with the interests of the whole, whilst ensuring sufficient autonomy in the parts to experiment and innovate in their own local interest, to an extent far in excess of what the traditional hierarchical organizational structure allows. This requires a different mode of governance for the enterprise, a mode where the very concept of management is counter‐productive. Such a governance style makes use of alignment around core ideas, coupled with empowerment to act on one's own initiative. In turn this requires, for most contemporary management (including the managed), a shift of mindset beyond that which most people can image. This finally means a fundamental development process in most, if not all, of our institutions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.