“It is probable that one day we shall begin to draw organization charts as a series of linked groups rather than as a hierarchical structure of individual "reporting" relationships.”

—  Douglas McGregor

Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 175

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is probable that one day we shall begin to draw organization charts as a series of linked groups rather than as a hi…" by Douglas McGregor?
Douglas McGregor photo
Douglas McGregor22
American professor 1906–1964

Related quotes

“Every company has two organizational structures: the formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday living relationship of the men and women in the organization.”

Harold Geneen (1910–1997) American businessman

Managing, Chapter Four (Two Organizational Structures), p. 64.

“A prominent manufacturer once said that although he could see some use for an organization chart for his factory, he had refused to chart the organization above the level of factory superintendent. His argument was that charts tend to make people overly conscious of being superiors or inferiors, tend to destroy team feeling, and give persons occupying a box on the chart too great a feeling of "ownership"? Another top executive once said that if an organization is left uncharted, it can be changed more easily and that the absence of a chart also encourages a competitive drive for higher executive positions on the part of the uncharted middle-management group.
These reasons for not charting organization structures are clearly unsound. Subordinate - superior relationships exist not because of charting but because of essential reporting relationships. As for a chart's creating a too comfortable feeling and causing a lack of drive on the part of those who have "arrived", these are matters of top leadership - of reorganizing whenever the enterprise environment demands, of developing a tradition of change, and of making subordinate managers continue to meet adequate and well-understood standards of performance.”

Harold Koontz (1909–1984)

Source: Principles of management, 1968, p. 379; About the advantages of organizational charts

“Organization charts are subject to important limitations. A chart shows only formal authority relationships and omits the many significant informal and informational relationships.”

Harold Koontz (1909–1984)

Harold Koontz and Heinz Weihrich (2006) Essentials Of Management. p. 198.

Robert K. Merton photo

“By social structure is meant that organized set of social relationships in which members of the society or group are variously implicated.”

Robert K. Merton book Social Theory and Social Structure

Source: Social Theory and Social Structure (1949), p. 162 (1957 edition)

“The structural viewpoint considers the roles people play, rather than the nature of the personalities in these roles. It deals with the structures in which roles are performed— the relationship of groups to each other, such as sales and production, and the degree of centralization or decentralization.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 2

“Every organization structure, even a poor one, can be charted, for a chart merely indicates how departments are tied together along the principal lines of authority. It is therefore somewhat surprising to find top managers occasionally taking pride in the fact that they do not have an organization chart or, if they do have one, feeling that the chart should be kept a secret.”

Harold Koontz (1909–1984)

Source: Principles of management, 1968, p. 379

“In some firms role relationships prescribed by the chart seemed to be of secondary importance to personal relationships between individuals.”

Joan Woodward (1916–1971) British sociologist

Source: Industrial Organization: Theory and practice, 1965, p. 24

Christopher Alexander photo

“One begins to think with that new building block, rather than with littler pieces. And finally, the things which seem like elements dissolve, and leave a fabric of relationships behind, which is the stuff that actually repeats itself, and gives the structure to a building or a town.”

Christopher Alexander book The Timeless Way of Building

Cited in: Peter Coad (1992, p. 152) About what happens when one finds a pattern?
The Timeless Way of Building (1979)

“Correspondingly, the work group became central rather than the individual jobholder.”

Eric Trist (1909–1993) British scientist

The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981)

William Foote Whyte photo

“As I later thought about the bowling contest, I became convinced I had discovered something important: the relationship between individual performance and group structure. I believed then (and still believe now) that this relationship can be observed in all manner of group activities.”

William Foote Whyte (1914–2000) American sociologist

Source: Participant observer, 1994, p. 84; As cited in: Ickis (2014)

Related topics