‘Best Fit’ in the Design of Organizations

It is useful to distinguish, very broadly, three contrasting approaches to organizational design. The first of these argues, straightforwardly and persuasively, that to design for organizational efficiency, one must begin from a knowledge of the properties of the individual person. The assumption that lies behind the approach is that to the extent that the individuals who work in an organization are committed to its goals, so will they find ways to work effectively towards those goals. The problem for the designer is how to remove the obstacles that prevent commitment. Since, so the argument continues, individuals are similar with respect to the factors that blunt or sharpen their commitment, then it should be possible to produce a common design procedure for all organizations. I refer to this approach as the ‘human relations’ approach.