The versatile organisation: Achieving centuries of sustainable growth

The image of an organisation structure as a pyramid has dominated management thinking for the past century, providing an image of stability in troubled times. The resulting functional, hierarchical, line management structures are used both as the structure for governance of the organisation and as the operational model, although there is no inherent reason why both should be the same. They are also inflexible and unresponsive to change. This paper proposes that this view, rather than being the natural way to design organisations, is a nineteenth-century invention, reinforced during the twentieth century. By analysing four, old organisations, the paper proposes a different view of organisations, as a three-dimensional model of the operational process, which itself is not necessarily aligned with the structure for governance, and with different models for different products and services to different customers. It also proposes that an organisation should be viewed, from a clear philosophical perspective, as a democratic community, composed of a federation of independent units, bound by a common set of values, cooperating because it gives them competitive advantage, but operating the principle of subsidiarity. Finally, by considering the link between organisation and strategy, the paper proposes a model for the versatile organisation to provide competitive advantage.