Vijay Govindarajan quote: “Organizations are not designed for innovation. Quite the contrary, they are designed for ongoing operations.”

“In today's volatile world, organizational design is an everyday, ongoing activity and challenge for every executive, whether managing a global enterprise or a small work team. Globalization, worldwide competition, deregulation, and ever-new technologies drive the ongoing reassessment of the organization. The executive response has been many new forms of organizational design: virtual, learning, modular, cellular, network, alliance, or spaghetti – to name a few. New organizational forms challenge old ways of organizing for efficiency and effectiveness. Yet fundamental design principles underlie any well-functioning organization. Organizations still require a formal design.”

Richard M. Burton (1939)

Richard M. Burton, ‎Børge Obel, ‎Gerardine DeSanctis (2011). Organizational Design: A Step-by-Step Approach. p. 3

“In today's volatile world, organizational design is an everyday, ongoing activity and challenge for every executive, whether managing a global enterprise or a small work team. Globalization, worldwide competition, deregulation, and ever-new technologies drive the ongoing reassessment of the organization. The executive response has been many new forms of organizational design: virtual, learning, modular, cellular, network, alliance, or spaghetti – to name a few. New organizational forms challenge old ways of organizing for efficiency and effectiveness. Yet fundamental design principles underlie any well-functioning organization. Organizations still require a formal design.”

Gerardine DeSanctis (1954–2005) American organizational theorist

Richard M. Burton ‎Børge Obel, ‎Gerardine DeSanctis (2011). Organizational Design: A Step-by-Step Approach. p. 3

“Designers should only innovate as a last resort.”

Charles Eames (1907–1978) American designer, half of duo the Eames

Source: Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century. 1998, p. 373: Attributed to Charles Eames

“Operative goals designate the ends sought through the actual operating policies of the organization; they tell us what the organization actually is trying to do, regardless of what the official goals say are the aims.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1960s, "The analysis of goals in complex organizations", 1961, p. 855

“There are four distinct bases on which a system-design book might be organized. First are the chronological phases through which the system-design effort passes, such as organization and preliminary design. Second are the logical steps such as analysis of the single thread (operation on a single input) and high traffic (methods of handling multiplex inputs). Third are the parts of the system, such as communications and displays. Fourth are the tools of system design, such as information theory and queueing theory.”

Robert E. Machol (1917–1998) American systems engineer

Source: System Engineering (1957), p. 8

“The organizational design is the responsibility of the CEO, and the designer's role is to act as midwife to aid in the rebirth of the organization.”

Kenneth D. Mackenzie (1937) American management consultant

Kenneth D. Mackenzie (1986), Organizational design: the organizational audit and analysis technology. p. 154

“In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers.”

Peter M. Senge (1947) American scientist

The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990)
Context: In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations where people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models – that is, they are responsible for learning.

“Management has a design and operation function, as does engineering. The design is usually done under the heading of organization. It should be noted first that the performance of a group of people is a strong function of the capabilities of the individuals and a rather weak function of the way they are organized. That is, good people do a fairly good job under almost any organization and a somewhat better one when the organization is good. Poor talent does a poor job with a bad organization, but it is still a poor job no matter what the organization. Repeated reorganizations are noted in groups of individuals poorly suited to their function, though no amount of good organization will give good performance. The best architectural design fails with poor bricks and mortar. But the payoff from good organization with good people is worthwhile.”

Robert E. Machol (1917–1998) American systems engineer

Source: System Engineering (1957), p. 514; As cited in: Joseph E. Kasser (2010) " Seven systems engineering myths and the corresponding realities http://www.synergio.nl/media/59286/7_myths_of_se.pdf"

“The clitoris is pure in purpose. It is the only organ in the body designed purely for pleasure.”

Eve Ensler book The Vagina Monologues

Source: The Vagina Monologues

“Any approach to the study of organizations is built on specific assumptions about the nature of organizations and how they are designed and function.”

Karl E. Weick (1936) Organisational psychologist

R.L. Daft, Karl E. Weick. "Toward a model of organizations as interpretation systems," Academy of management review, 1984.
1980s-1990s

“Organizations are not designed for innovation. Quite the contrary, they are designed for ongoing operations.”

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Vijay Govindarajan 7

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