| Yasin Kürşat Bahadır |
When we hear company organization, most of us picture a hierarchical org chart. This is a pyramid structure with a General Manager, managers one level below and, below them, the staff reporting to them. The company's activities generally run through a superior-subordinate, chain-of-command structure.
This article describes a new, alternative organizational principle, based on today's growing flow of information and the impact of hierarchical structure on process management. It defines Wirearchy (network order), a new and evolving concept based on effective process management and dynamism.
What Is Wirearchy (Network Order)?
The word Wirearchy has no Turkish equivalent. In fact, it is not listed in the English dictionaries you might consult either. TDK (the Turkish Language Association) translated the word “hierarchy” as hiyerarşi and adopted it as “Sıra düzen” (rank order). With a parallel perspective, Hasan Bey (Hasan Baltalar, Family Business Consultant) rendered this term on his website as Ağ Düzen (network order). If we picture the flow of information and the interaction of activities between units as a network, we can see that this is an accurate term.
First put forward by Jon Husbond in 1999, this approach emphasizes that, with the development of technology, people now exchange information intensively, and that organizations managed hierarchically from the top, where power flows from top to bottom, need to take this into account and change their structures.
On his website, Husbon also describes Wirearchy as “a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, trust and credibility, created by interconnected people and technology.”
We know that the Internet and the Web have had a huge impact on our daily lives. We have seen the rise (and sometimes the fall) of ventures such as Napster, Amazon, eBay, Dell, Flickr and MySpace that moved the collection and distribution of information to the Web. Dozens of articles have been written about the erosion of command and control as a model for leading and managing organized activity in every area where people get things done and work together.
Organizational design principles are not a solution, a method or a best practice. A principle is something that is true in a system and is defined to address the essence of that system. It is what characterizes how the system is structured and how it works, and what gives rise to that system's rules. Principles are used to define and design the purpose, context and how things should be done. In short, it expresses the ability to exist and survive in a living system: it addresses and shapes the essence of the system, and creates activity models and the administrative power that governs them.
Wirearchy is a primary and emerging organizational principle that helps us better understand how to make activity tangible and set it in motion in a networked world.
The working definition of Wirearchy is “a dynamic, two-way flow of power and authority focused on results, information, trust and interconnected people, enabled by technology.”
Today, many companies are managed with hierarchically arranged (rank order) org charts. Unfortunately, this organizational structure is losing its effectiveness because it can no longer express the way companies do business today. Each level tends to wither under the limiting effect of the level above it, and this prevents new leaders from emerging. In a Wirearchy structure, the absence of restrictive boundaries strengthens individual skills and steers people toward leadership. This helps the organization produce new leaders and makes institutionalization easier.
If we look at the differences between the two types of organizational structure:
-In hierarchical organizations, an org chart can easily be created with a brief analysis, whereas a Wirearchy chart requires business processes to be defined, which can take months.
-In hierarchical organizations, the superior-subordinate or chain-of-command relationship can be observed, but the way work is done cannot be understood. In a Wirearchy structure, it is possible to understand all the information flow and how operations work within the company.
-In a hierarchical organization, units wait to be filled with work. Because Wirearchy structures are built on activities, there is no such thing as idle units. Every activity has an owner.
-Hierarchical charts are basically expressed as a pyramid. The most senior person is at the top. In a Wirearchy structure, this person can be anywhere on the chart. Their position is determined by their activities in the process.
-Hierarchical structures are static. In many places you will see org charts that are outdated or unusable. A Wirearchy chart is dynamic. Because it is tied to processes, it changes as the processes change.
Unfortunately, it is not easy for companies today to transform their traditional hierarchical structure into the new Wirearchy structure. This requires companies to absorb the concept of the “Social Network” and to embrace this culture of doing business. Social network expert Duperrin also states that organizations will adopt this approach sooner or later, but will approach it with fear at first.
PaperWork supports creating org charts for use in processes. It is possible to create hierarchical org charts as in the classic management model and to synchronize them with external systems. The Wirearchy structure is also supported. Multiple org charts can be created for different processes. Each process can have its own org chart, and each user activity can also have an org chart different from that of its process. This flexibility supports agile organizational structures.
References:
www.wirearchy.com (what is wirearchy?) by Jon Husbond
www.hasanbaltalar.com (Sıradüzenden Ağ düzene / From Hierarchy to Wirearchy) Hasan Baltalar
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