“Can organizations be beautiful?”

Tim Brown, CEO of innovation and design firm IDEO and author of Design Thinking, asks this question in his most recent blog.    “Great design thinking results in functionally and emotionally satisfying solutions where the emotional value is generated through the creation of meaning.”  He goes on to express his frustration that “current organizational design practice…  seems to largely be about arranging boxes in an organizational chart.”  And, then he goes on to ask whether there’s room for design thinking in organizational design?

There’d better be!  How else can we support employees doing their best at work?

And yet with few exceptions and after two decades in OD, brand marketing and communications [where you'd think the expression of the organization would be compelling] I can come up with only three examples where I think the representations were “functional and emotionally satisfying solutions that had potential for creating meaning.”

The first was in Henry Mintzberg’s book ‘The structuring of organizations’.  It was a complete revelation for me when I first saw it.  Granted the boxes are there, but the overlay of loops to show the different functional emphasis for different types of organizations is quite beautiful and simple if not too emotional.  That said, it was a heart pounding experience for me when I first saw them.  I’d even go so far as to say career changing.

The second was work done by Russell Grossman and the team at BBC a few years ago where their interpretation of their new structure was depicted as a colourful flower.  Emotionally compelling. Perhaps not that functional though.  We’d have to ask Russell.

The third, strangely enough happened just last evening.  I was at the Canadian Centre for Architecture for a tour of Other Space Odyssey, their latest exhibit, and my second visit.  This time I noticed something I hadn’t before in the room devoted to Michael Maltzan’s latest designs for the American Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

There among various maquettes and interpretations of the building was a startling blue and green model of the building based on the functional and working relationships [organigram] of the people who will work there. It simply pops!  [check out the images of the exhibit and look for the blue and green jewel]

The architect’s objective was to have the building and it’s work spaces reflect the scale of the work these people do – in time [the outcome of the work they do today won’t be known for 10 years or more] and space [they are doing projects as far away as Saturn] and to breakdown hierarchy to better reflect the way that work is done.   The result is an organizational design that is definitely both functional and emotionally compelling.

Imagining and representing working relationships – as this is within the context of a physical working space or virtually – can be functional and compelling.  We have the technology today to express both formal and informal organizational relationships in beautiful and meaningful ways.  I think the implications from a communications point of view are pretty amazing.  What are we waiting for?

I’d love to hear what you think.  Do you have any other examples of organizational design that is heading in the right direction?

Tags: Creating meaning, Design thinking, Relationship, Work