One of the things I’m curious about is why you think there should be T-shaped organizations. None if the research I’ve done into effective organizations points at anything like this, at least not after the first few years when an organization is done finding it’s feet.
I think it’s a common view that orgs should have a particular focus, vision, or specialization; I think “core competency” is a more standard term for the ‘narrowly expert’ thing.
I think once an org is large enough that its departments are mini-orgs of their own, the combination of narrow expertise leads to a more well-rounded org, but I think it’ll still be the case that, in the competition between departments for resources / executive attention, some departments will be seen as being much more important for the org’s overall success.
Its not clear to me that this new language points at a useful distinction(at least not from what you’ve said so far). Valves t-shaped individuals are actually pointing at the opposite of what you’re pointing at—they don’t want individuals too specialized because of their unique corporate structure (ie, not having a corporate structure), so they need everyone to have the broad base.
And the long tail on specialization works because they can hire to fill out relevant other competencies. Whereas, it’s not always the case that it makes sense for a company with a core competency to outsource functions to other companies, there are Coasian dynamics at play to make that cost more than one would expect.
I would much more, through a process of pushing through constraints, expect a healthy company to look something like vshaped, with having a smooth gradient of competencies based on how central they are to throughput.
Indeed. A modern version of this is the “lean organization”, which is a particular methodology for doing the sort of thing you are pointing at here. Alas business terminology is rarely generalized away from implementation methods, so I don’t know of a general term to describe what you’re pointing at that isn’t tied up in implementation details, i.e is purely descriptive of all orgs having a shared property regardless of how it is achieved.
One of the things I’m curious about is why you think there should be T-shaped organizations. None if the research I’ve done into effective organizations points at anything like this, at least not after the first few years when an organization is done finding it’s feet.
I think it’s a common view that orgs should have a particular focus, vision, or specialization; I think “core competency” is a more standard term for the ‘narrowly expert’ thing.
I think once an org is large enough that its departments are mini-orgs of their own, the combination of narrow expertise leads to a more well-rounded org, but I think it’ll still be the case that, in the competition between departments for resources / executive attention, some departments will be seen as being much more important for the org’s overall success.
Its not clear to me that this new language points at a useful distinction(at least not from what you’ve said so far). Valves t-shaped individuals are actually pointing at the opposite of what you’re pointing at—they don’t want individuals too specialized because of their unique corporate structure (ie, not having a corporate structure), so they need everyone to have the broad base.
And the long tail on specialization works because they can hire to fill out relevant other competencies. Whereas, it’s not always the case that it makes sense for a company with a core competency to outsource functions to other companies, there are Coasian dynamics at play to make that cost more than one would expect.
I would much more, through a process of pushing through constraints, expect a healthy company to look something like vshaped, with having a smooth gradient of competencies based on how central they are to throughput.
Indeed. A modern version of this is the “lean organization”, which is a particular methodology for doing the sort of thing you are pointing at here. Alas business terminology is rarely generalized away from implementation methods, so I don’t know of a general term to describe what you’re pointing at that isn’t tied up in implementation details, i.e is purely descriptive of all orgs having a shared property regardless of how it is achieved.