What is the Adhocracy Organizational Model?
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- Äas pĹidĂĄn 22. 07. 2024
- When did bureaucracy become a dirty word? Almost certainly when the idea of adhocracy emerged.
The two are polar opposites: radically different ways to coordinate an organization. The one a set of rules and systems that overlay everything. The other, a fresh recreation for every new need.
But, while the concept of bureaucracy goes back to the nineteenth century; adhocracy is new. But maybe not as new as you think.
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The Nature of Organizations
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Course 1: The Nature of Organizations
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Other videos in this section include:
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đŹ Charles Handy's Gods of Management - ⢠What are Charles Handy...
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đŹ Charles Handy's Federal Organization Model - ⢠What is Charles Handy'...
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đŹ The Matrix Organization Model - ⢠What is the Matrix Org...
đŹ Peter Senge's Learning Organization - ⢠What is Peter Senge's ...
đŹ The Agile Organization - ⢠What is The Agile Orga...
đŹ Brian Robertson's Holacracy - ⢠What is Brian Robertso...
đŹ Virtual Organizations - ⢠What are Virtual Organ...
LESSON NOTES
Adhocracy is a temporary structure for running a project. Some organizations are trying to make this flexible approach a new norm. A kind of permanent impermanence. The idea is to replace a rigid bureaucratic structure with a fluid, informal set of relationships.
Investopediaâs description captures as much about why it is of value as it does about what it is.
âA form of business management which emphasizes individual initiative and self-organization in order to accomplish tasks.â
The Origin of Adhocracy
The term âadhocracyâ was coined by Warren Bennis. He predicted agile project teams within a loose structure. The idea was popularized by Alvin Toffler in his best-seller, âFuture Shockâ. He envisaged flat organizational structures, with rapidly forming and re-forming project teams. He called these organizations âkineticâ.
It was Henry Mintzberg who took the idea and gave it rigor. We first saw this term in our video on Mintzbergâs 4 Organizational Types - ⢠Henry Mintzberg's 4 pl...
Mintzberg understood that projects come together within a larger organization, adopt whatever structure they need, and morph as the project evolves. Thereâs often a high degree of self-direction among highly competent team members. Coordination comes not through the structure, but by effective communication between people.
In this sense, a good description of adhocracy is Robert Watermanâs, from his 1990 book, Adhocracy (geni.us/IwQPJ). In an adhocracy, the organizationâŚ
âcuts across normal bureaucratic lines to capture opportunities, solve problems and get results.â
Mintzberg saw two models:
- Operational Adhocracy, which works on behalf of its clients, like service businesses
- Administrative Adhocracy, which comes together to serve its parent organization.
Both models create adaptability and react to changes in circumstance, but are poor at strategy building. Members have little investment in the adhocracyâs long-term development.
It remains to be seen whether organizations can develop a new form of âpermanent adhocracyâ in which these evolving flexible units can together form the whole of a permanent organization. I suspect this may be possible - under the new term 'The Agile Organization' - ⢠What is The Agile Orga...
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Adhocracy is a temporary structure for running a project. But, some organizations are trying to make this flexible approach a new norm. A kind of permanent impermanence. Thank you for watching - please do like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell.
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This is the second presentation of yours I have watched. Very precise and informative. Thank you.
Awesome, thank you!
The great thing about Adhocracy is that we have a new concept we could use to free us from harbouring negative mindsets about bureaucracies that have a tendency to create impersonalised and violent societies.
There are many other frameworks and real life success stories that support this new, more positive and evolutionary way of thinking:
Geoffrey Moore's Zones, Amoeba Management, The Vanguard Method, Open Book Management, Corporate Rebels, Unboss, POOGI in the Theory of Constraints, Cynefin, Evolutionary Project Management, Cooperatives etc. Permanent should not be understood to mean static, or worse, dogmatic.
My last thought about Bureaucracy vs Adhocracy is that we often misunderstand the meanings of competitive and combative. Competitive is an inner drive to grow and excel influenced by a social context that leads to Competence. Combative is a need for superiority and is a dead/wrong end for Competitive.
Thank you for some interesting thoughts and examples- some of which are new to me.
Thanks for putting this summary together! I'm curious to know how adhocratic organizations build equitable and sustainable compensations models so employees working in an adhocracy don't feel exploited , especially if there are fewer (or non-existent) layers of management directing work. To me, the motivation to shape and reshape organizations and projects diminishes if there is a fixed salary determining the value of employees' contributions. I think there is something to Valve Corporation's peer-ranking method of "right-sizing" compensation in their adhocracy. Just haven't been able to find other examples or methods used out there. Do you know specific examples of companies using adhocracy today?
It's a good question, but you are making a number of assumptions. The biggest is that everyone gets paid the same and that people can't get paid more for contributing more or to a higher standard. Ad hocracy is just about the flexibility to change the team structures. But more valuable individuals can get paid more - and can take more responsibilities in the ad hoc teams.
Thankyou sir
Youâre welcome
G'day Sir! what a wonderful presentation. Thanks you tons. just a question though, how would you draw that structure on paper?
If you have watched a lot of my videos, you'll know I try to create illustrative diagrams wherever I possibly can. But the nature of adhocracy is a unique structure for a specific purpose. So, there is no universal representation. However, I guess the best I could do is represent the whole organization as an amorphous blob. Inside it would be a number of other structures - some square, some oval, some amorphous, and so on. And I'd probably add some arrows to try to portray evolution and change within the structures.
@@ManagementCourses . My thesis is due in less than two weeks. Thanks again for taking the time to reply. cheers