As with most flawed ideas, there is an element of truth in the idea that "leanness" and absence of slack have benefits to companies over the long term. The hierarchical organizational forms that characterize most modern companies were developed in an era when we did not have our current communication capabilities. A large part of the function of traditional hierarchies was to manage information flow. Some of the changes that we have made to organizations have been inevitable adjustments to reflect the fact that we no longer need to devote as much effort to managing information flow because of the nature of new technologies.
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About The Author
Robert D. Austin is a Cutter Consortium Fellow and a member of Arthur D. Little's AMP open consulting network. He is a regular speaker at the annual Cutter Summit and often delivers Cutter Bootcamps. Dr. Austin served as a professor on the faculty at Harvard Business School for more than a decade, and then as Professor of Management of Innovation & Digital Transformation at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. He is currently Professor… Read More
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