ORGANISATION STRUCTURE AND TEAM

WORK-“CAPCO”

Any operating organization should have its own structure in order to operate efficiently. For an organization, the organizational structure is a hierarchy of people and its functions.

The organizational structure of an organization tells you the character of an organization and the values it believes in. Therefore, when you do business with an organization or getting into a new job in an organization, it is always a great idea to get to know and understand their organizational structure.

Depending on the organizational values and the nature of the business, organizations tend to adopt one of the following structures for management purposes.

Although the organization follows a particular structure, there can be departments and teams following some other organizational structure in exceptional cases.

Sometimes, some organizations may follow a combination of the following organizational structures as well.

Organizational Structure Types

Following are the types of organizational structures that can be observed in the modern business organizations.

Bureaucratic Structures

Bureaucratic structures maintain strict hierarchies when it comes to people management. There are three types of bureaucratic structures:

1 - Pre-bureaucratic structures

This type of organizations lacks the standards. Usually this type of structure can be observed in small scale, start-up companies. Usually the structure is centralized and there is only one key decision maker.

The communication is done in one-on-one conversations. This type of structures is quite helpful for small organizations due to the fact that the founder has the full control over all the decisions and operations.

2 - Bureaucratic structures

These structures have a certain degree of standardization. When the organizations grow complex and large, bureaucratic structures are required for management. These structures are quite suitable for tall organizations.

3 - Post-bureaucratic Structures

The organizations that follow post-bureaucratic structures still inherit the strict hierarchies, but open to more modern ideas and methodologies. They follow techniques such as total quality management (TQM), culture management, etc.

Functional Structure

The organization is divided into segments based on the functions when managing. This allows the organization to enhance the efficiencies of these functional groups. As an example, take a software company.

Software engineers will only staff the entire software development department. This way, management of this functional group becomes easy and effective.

Functional structures appear to be successful in large organization that produces high volumes of products at low costs. The low cost can be achieved by such companies due to the efficiencies within functional groups.

In addition to such advantages, there can be disadvantage from an organizational perspective if the communication between the functional groups is not effective. In this case, organization may find it difficult to achieve some organizational objectives at the end.

Divisional Structure

These types of organizations divide the functional areas of the organization to divisions. Each division is equipped with its own resources in order to function independently. There can be many bases to define divisions.

Divisions can be defined based on the geographical basis, products/services basis, or any other measurement.

As an example, take a company such as General Electrics. It can have microwave division, turbine division, etc., and these divisions have their own marketing teams, finance teams, etc. In that sense, each division can be considered as a micro-company with the main organization.

Matrix Structure

When it comes to matrix structure, the organization places the employees based on the function and the product.

The matrix structure gives the best of the both worlds of functional and divisional structures.

In this type of an organization, the company uses teams to complete tasks. The teams are formed based on the functions they belong to (ex: software engineers) and product they are involved in (ex: Project A).

This way, there are many teams in this organization such as software engineers of project A, software engineers of project B, QA engineers of project A, etc.

CAPCO

Founded just 15 years ago, Capco is a leading international provider of consulting, managed services and technology solutions for the financial services industry. With 20 offices around the world Capco employs over 2,000 people. In 2013 Capco ranked 27th in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For list and is also featured as one of The Times Top 50 Employers for Women.

One of Capco’s key differentiators is that it is solely dedicated to the global financial services sector. The financial services sector includes banking, finance and investment. This sector faces many challenges, the main ones being:

increased customer expectation and demand new entrants to the market a need for innovation significant regulation following the recent global financial crisis.

Factors of Effective Team Performance

Understanding interpersonal dynamics in teams can help managers identify the optimal arrangement of individuals to ensure team success and high performance. This article identifies the seven factors that influence whether or not a team will demonstrate high performance and ultimately be successful.

Will the Team Work Well Together?

When individuals gather to achieve a common goal, many interpersonal dynamics play a role in whether or not the team will be successful. Sometimes a team can mesh well together and succeed at anything they attempt; however, other teams, regardless of available resources, seem to flounder in failure.

So, how can leaders determine whether a team will demonstrate effective team performance? It can be done by observing and evaluating the following seven factors that collectively contribute to team success: cohesion, communication, groupthink, homogeny, role identity, stability, and team size.

1. Cohesiveness

The first factor to consider is how cohesive members are with one another. Once a team is highly cohesive, a member’s commitment and willingness to strive for excellence thrives. Team cohesion affects the extent to which members like one another, get along with each other, and trust and respect one another’s abilities and opinions. Although these characteristics are difficult to observe, managers can look for signs that team members are well-acquainted past superficial meet-and-greet topics. Managers can also determine whether team members equally participate in group discussions and activities rather than forming cliques or subgroups of cohesive units.

2. Communication

Efficient communication mechanisms are crucial to develop effective teams. In order to understand the scope of a goal and agree upon a path to reach that goal, teams must develop an effective method of communication. Indicators of effective team communication include: mellow conversation tones, willingness to consider all opinions, desire to enhance communication frequency, effective conflict resolution, and efficient decision-making processes. Furthermore, to foster team cohesion, employee satisfaction, and motivation, organizations should implement a formal conflict resolution process in cases where a team cannot effectively resolve conflict internally.

3. Groupthink

Groupthink is a tendency for decision-making teams to suppress opposing viewpoints in order to preserve group harmony. This phenomenon can occur because individual team members have an overwhelming desire to be accepted and teams want to minimize conflict. When determining the degree to which a team is experiencing groupthink, a manager can evaluate whether the team is exerting an excessive amount of dominating characteristics. Other signs of groupthink include individual conformity, apathy toward team goals and outcomes, peer-pressure exerted by leaders within the team, and discussions that tend to be one-sided.

4. Homogeneity

Homogeneity is the extent to which members are similar or different to one another. The difficulty for most project managers is finding the right balance between overly homogenous and overly heterogeneous teams. When evaluating team homogeneity, a manager can consider similarities and differences in personal characteristics, education, skills, abilities, generational backgrounds, cultural background, and income levels.

Teams that are homogenous tend to be highly cohesive and can easily develop effective communication methods that reduce conflict. However, too much homogeneity leads to greater instances of groupthink. Alternatively, teams that are highly heterogeneous have an advantage because members are highly diverse, which leads to more instances of creativity, ingenuity, and resourceful productivity. However, teams that are too diverse may limit the degree to which members can relate to one another and effectively communicate.

5. Role Identity

Role identity is the extent to which members are capable of assuming different roles throughout the team structure, thus diversifying efforts and developing subject matter experts. The diverse skills and knowledge that members bring to a team provide a large range of capabilities necessary to achieve a goal. Managers can observe the extent to which a team can recognize the individual potential in each member and identify the role best suited for that member. If not, a team cannot be expected to be highly functional and perform well.

6. Stability

The sixth factor that significantly influences team performance is the degree of stability among members and project leaders. Teams that have lower turnover rates experience higher levels of group cohesion, better communication methods, and more effective role identity. In addition to simply evaluating turnover rates, managers can evaluate the degree to which members are comfortably interdependent with one another, which comes with stable and trusting relationships.

7. Team Size

By evaluating a team’s size, managers are able to maximize productivity to ensure high levels of team performance. The greater number of members within a team the more resources available to achieve a goal. However, as team size increases, so does the number of conflicts resulting in decreased levels of cohesion and inefficient productivity. To evaluate whether a team is too large or small, managers must consider how effectively and harmoniously members work together and whether the required tasks are being efficiently accomplished by all members of the team.

Conclusion

Every organization needs a structure in order to operate systematically. The organizational structures can be used by any organization if the structure fits into the nature and the maturity of the organization.

In most cases, organizations evolve through structures when they progress through and enhance their processes and manpower. One company may start as a pre-bureaucratic company and may evolve up to a matrix organization.