Harvard Bus. Review, Work Today

Recently published, The Corporate Lattice, Harvard Business Review Press; August, 2010 defines an emerging model more suitable for today’s workforce. At the heart of the lattice organization is a customized workplace that provides agility and options for both employees and employers. Individuals have more than one way to get ahead — and even more than one way to define what get ahead means. For employers, these options create strategic flexibility and drive greater employee engagement, resulting in superior performance.  The book’s three key components or “lattice ways” involve:

1. How careers are built. Depicting career paths as multi directional with moves up and down, as well as diagonally and across. Success is defined and achieved in a multiplicity of ways.
2. How work gets done. Shifting from nine-to-five, in-the-office to results-driven work through a hybrid of remote and physical locations and communication methods.
3. How participation is fostered. Moving from top down to “all in,” as technology enables relationships, teamwork and collaboration that can no longer be constrained (or controlled) by the traditional rules of hierarchy.

The pace of change is faster. Organizational structures are flatter. Companies are much easier to see into. Careers zig and zag. Work is done whenever and wherever. Information flows in every which way. And performance and productivity are more dependent upon a highly educated workforce– much more diverse in every respect than ever before.

Together, these changes are forever altering the traditional assumptions on which the prevailing corporate ladder and the command-and-control, top-down management style that defines it were built. In the new book, Deloitte, Vice Chairman and Chief Talent Officer C. Benko and Deloitte Services, Director of Talent M. Anderson make a compelling case that it’s time to dismantle the metaphorical ladder.

The authors show that organizations are indeed making lattice investments — Web 2.0 technologies, career pathways, remote and virtual work sites, social networking, workplace flexibility, inclusion programs, etc.–but through the lens of corporate ladder thinking. These companies are responding with ad hoc, siloed and reactive efforts that fall short of the desired results by failing to also address the underlying “ladder” mindset and structures. By providing a framework to integrate these efforts, companies and individuals alike can visualize the shift and have greater clarity about the changes underway, thereby making both existing and future investments more productive. – PR Newswire.   Added to Fast Focus Careers Blog by Sunny Lurie

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2012 at 1:31 am and is filed under Blog, Career advice, Career coaching, Career options, career change, career counseling, career planning, choosing a career. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.