In this video, we're going to talk about organizational structure. We'll cover the
classic hierarchy, the team based organization, and finally the matrix. So,
let's unpack the details.
Hello again friends. Alex Lyon here. If this is the first
time you have ever tuned in to this channel, Communication Coach, we put out
weekly videos on professional communication, leadership, and
communication skills more generally. So I invite you to subscribe if you've never
done that. In this video, we're going to talk about organizational structure.
There are different types of organizational structures that you might
experience in your professional settings and I invite you to comment on which one
you think is your favorite in that section below the video. I would love to
read those comments. So first let's talk about the classic hierarchy. Usually when
people talk about organizational structure, this is what they mean. This is
where you have a top level person in a top position, maybe the CEO or chairman
of the board or president of the organization, and then you have different
levels going down. So, under that, you're going to have your vice presidents most
likely. And then you're going to have heads of units and directors, and
managers, supervisors, and finally all the employees at the bottom of the pyramid.
In different organizations you'll have different names for these positions. In
fact if you're working in restaurants like I used to I was a busser and then
above me is the server like the waiter or waitress and it feels like above that
person is the bartender. Now that might be not really official but that's the
way it feels. You can sense that there is generally a hierarchy in most
organizations where you figure out where you fit in. I'm wondering if you could
comment in the section below this video, what are the names of those different
positions in your industry and the places that you work? I would love to
hear the different vocabulary that everybody uses out there. Typically in an
organizational hierarchy, we borrow our vocabulary from the military. You might
notice that we call the people at the bottom, the employees, the frontline
employees, frontline supervisor. Just like in a military campaign. You have people
on the front lines, all the way up to the top level where we literally call them
officers in a professional setting. The Chief Executive Officer. Chief
Operations Officer, just like you have a commanding officer in the military. So,
that's the classic organizational structure of the hierarchy. Next, let's
talk about a somewhat new one, the team based organization. This is
where the organization is organized in teams. So you're still gonna have people
in authority above all the teams but instead of this hierarchy and division
of labor, you have lots of different people from different areas of an
organization mixed together working as a team. So you're going to have engineers
working alongside software developers working alongside accountants and
marketers. You might have a team of just a handful of people you might have quite
a big team that feels like an organization unto itself. And in the team
based organization, you're going to have all these people getting cross-trained and
learning a common vocabulary. And over time, let's say I'm a software developer,
I'm going to learn a bit about engineering because I'm listening to that
engineering person. I'm going to learn a little bit about marketing because I'm
listening to that marketing person. So over time we start to speak a common
language that brings the team together and helps us do extremely high-quality
work, services, and products. So there are some advantages to a team based
organization. It also involves a lot of cross-training and takes some work but
that's the way team based organization works. Now finally we have the matrix
style of organization. This is where you really combine a team with a hierarchy
and you up with a kind of grid. So you still have people above you that are
ultimately in charge of you in the hierarchy but also you have people that
you are laterally responsible to that are, in a way, in some authority over you.
So let's say two teams overlap a little bit in what they do. You might have Human
Resources for example. We also might have a whole different recruiting team that
has recruiters and people that are going out there in the professional space
looking for new employees to hire. There's a lot of commonality and so even
though they might both might report to a boss above them they also have
responsibilities to each other. And it's not just recruiting and HR you have a
lots of different overlaps and people will work together in this matrix style
grid. So this can be a little confusing at first because you might feel like you
have lots of different bosses and you kind of do have lots of different bosses.
You have a lot of responsibilities and you have to perform for a lot of
different groups in the organization. So those are the three main styles of
organizational structure the most common one that we're familiar with is he
hierarchy, and then the team, and of course the matrix or the grid and that
tends to be I think the newest one that I've seen in
my experience. So again, I ask you to comment in that section below question
of the day. Which one of these is your favorite which one of these do you think
would work best for your professional setting. I look forward to reading those
comments and if you have not yet subscribed to this channel I invite you
to do so for weekly videos on professional development like
communication and leadership skills. So thanks. God bless and I will see you in
the next video.